I recently interviewed folk-singer-cum-playwright Jonatha Brooke after a spectacular performance of her latest creation My Mother Has Four Noses, and it was the first time I was able to check out what a changing room really looked like (er, what I'd associate closely to a "green room" since I've been there before).
The room wasn't as impressive as I'd imagined: four walls pasted together with a large mirror and soft white light bulbs to border it (much like a movie depiction).
And maybe, I thought, it was the talent inside that I was most obviously enamored with (and not just because I'm a fellow folkie).
It wasn't the room, which was so small and basic, it was that it could harbor and contain such a huge talent.
And thankfully, a photo-story that ran through New York Magazine on April 21 really captured something of similar essence, in which these massive stars (i.e. James Franco now performing in Of Mice and Men, Daniel Radcliffe in The Cripple of Inishmaan and so on) were contained (and possibliy limited) to these boorish, 4-cornered rooms of no particular value.
Thus, these pictures (thanks for Andreas Laszlo Konrath and Vulture) are pretty endearing and seem to capture a humble side of the art (except Neil Patrick Harris and his latest crass moment from stage to an audience member during a performance of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, what's up with that?).
Perhaps talent can be tamed and caged, even if it is voluntary.
