Friday, May 29, 2009

'800 Words' Hyped in Minnesota Star Tribune


Interesting article here, about playwright Victoria Stewart's 80o Words: The Transmigration of Philip K Dick, a play about the writer's 'mystical experiences.' Steward says, ""I was interested in how that religious experience made his life branch off into a new direction."

My favorite quote from the article is Stewart's who gives me hope. She's asked, "Is this crazy stuff?" (note to reporter Graydon Royce: the probity of your question is only surpassed by your specificity!). To which, she responds, "I wouldn't be surprised if in 50-plus years, we don't find that he wasn't so crazy. His understanding of quantum physics and being in someone else's dream, someone else's mind, may not be so far-fetched. So I'm slowly becoming convinced of his theories as I play the part."

The play is playing this weekend in Minneapolis. If you're a reader and live in the area, how about checking the play out, and then telling us what you thought?

More info here.

Pictured below the cast from 800 Words.

8 comments:

Michael Kingsley said...

I saw it on opening night (Thursday, May 28th) and thought it was awesome, especially the first half of the play before the intermission. Hard pressed to say which was my favorite character, though ... PKD, or Sasha (his cat).

tuffy777 said...

wish I could see the play
-- sounds interesting
~~ Tessa
~~~

C.A. Chicoine said...

Yes! I hope they make this available on DVD.

pete said...

Hey, Total Dickhead, I got a request.

Since you're pen pals with that "Motherless Brooklyn" writin', PKD collection editin' Jonathan Lethem character, tell him we the people of the united states of PKD want him to edit a Best of the PKD short stories book. Because A) I trust his taste and B) PKD wrote way, way too many short stories for me to just tuck into the whole lot of them. AND I don't trust the handful of corporate movie tie-in volumes out there. One 500 page best of the best volume from a reputable source doesn't seem too much to ask.

Long live PKD! Long live the Total Dickhead! Long live that, uhm, Lethem dude, Lathem, Luthem, or whoever his name was! (Whose new novel "Chronic City" sounds pretty good on its own right, gotta say.) (A dern site better than that "Phillis P Dank" malarky, whatsever it was called, hurts my teeth to think about it, that you told us about month or so ago, see I've blocked the name, endeavored to erase it from my positronic brain, like visions from the rubbish world, gubble gubble....)

(All sass aside, I appreciate each and every post....)

W. Owen Powell said...

Pete - actually I just got a copy of Selected Stories of PKD on eBay, which is edited by Lethem and possibly pretty close to what you're describing.

It's 476 pages and all the essential ones are there, anyway.

pete said...

Wow! Thanks W. Owen Powell!

I had no idea. I'll check it out right away. You said ebay, so maybe it's not in print any more? I wonder if there's a copy on Amazon.

W. Owen Powell said...

I'm pretty sure I've seen it listed on Amazon too. A search for "philip dick lethem" ought to bring it up.

Just found a copy of Machover's VALIS opera over at eBay too, and I sure hope the dealer doesn't flake out on getting that one to me. I've been looking to score that one for about 15 years now.

Anonymous said...

I saw it on closing night, after having seen a snippet at Minicon this April. Very good play. It portrayed PKD's last days very similarly to the way his books read. Fascinating and fun. It became hard to tell the difference between 'real' and 'not real', which was exactly what I was looking for.

KC