Another birthday come and gone.
A child is five and a half months old.
She is eating breast milk and rice.
Rice?
Rice cereal.
It’s a single grain cereal.
One child is eating rice.
Another child is boxing.
And again, I’m father of the year.
Keep hearing stories,
“Be careful with your dog!”
“Dog and new babies don’t mix!”
“Like oil and vinegar!”
“Or, cats and paper
Continue reading she’s on her play-mat
Elan Zafir’s personal ‘The Unaccompanied Minor’ is a top pick this week at the Fringe Festival
Elan Zafir’s autobiographical solo “The Unaccompanied Minor” is a high point in the ongoing Capital Fringe Festival in Southwest D.C., says Roger Catlin, who also checks out the Parkland-based school-shooting drama “14,” while Celia Wren reviews DanceArtTheater’s “Through the Wall.”
“The Unaccompanied Minor” sounds like the Fringe show that will address border separations.
Rather, it is Elan Zafir’s explosive depiction of his own personal heartbreak — seeing his son just four times a year by going through the maddening airport process of transferring unaccompanied youth between divorced couples as if they were prisoner exchanges. Even with the bureaucratic hoops of airport pickup complete, it’s only the beginning of the struggle, as father and son relearn how to relate to each other every time.
Zafir’s impassioned portrayal, intensified within the intimate confines of the walls of a paneled Christ United Methodist Church meeting room, takes him through his own childhood of broken connections, disappointments and a jolting move from Canada to Florida, embodying a dozen characters along the way in whip-smart, breakneck fashion.
The athletic Zafir, who appeared most recently in Mosaic Theater’s “The Vagrant Trilogy,” has devised a show with layers of theatricality that crackle from its use of quick flashbacks, rising tension and even the appearance of Rambo. It culminates in the brilliant juxtaposition of a custody hearing with a high school gang fight.
More than a great Fringe offering,”The Unaccompanied Minor” is a cathartic attempt to vault the myriad walls that can divide father and child.
Roger Catlin — The Washington Post
mosaic
sometimes i have these waking dreams.
someone is always doing something mundane
cleaning out papers
marking up a script
they all take place in rehearsal though.
that is the binding fact.
someone will be speaking on a subject
usually it’s not to me
and as they are beginning to make their point
they’ll refer to their notes and break eye contact with their audience
and in that moment of “is this right?”
“Am I where I need to be”
“Can I support this argument”
Is when I know I’ve been here before.
Now skeptics will say
It is the essence
Continue reading mosaic
You
12:AM 8 February 2018
You cry a lot.
You smile a your mother.
You have a strong neck.
You (kinda) enjoy playtime on pack-n-play.
You have blue eyes.
I have given you the bottle, while your mother goes on a run.
That only took five weeks.
All in all…
I’m smitten.
Do bad reviews bother actors?
The short answer—most professional actors don’t care.
Having said that…
Look at all actor websites in the world (mine included),
You will see [in bold]
Positive highlights of said reviews.
Personally, I loooove reading a bad review.
Especially when they say something bad about an actor I know really well.
I know the actor is great.
I’ve probably
Continue reading Do bad reviews bother actors?
New York Times
From left, Katrina (Erica Dorfler), Rene (Kristine Nielsen) and Reg (Elan Zafir)
Way of the World by Theresa Rebeck
Costume by Linda Cho
Set by Alexander Dodge
This is the first time I have been in the New York Times.
My father is proud;
It took forty-one years.
Character Monologue: REG
Way of the World by Theresa Rebeck
Costumes by Linda Cho
Set by Alexander Dodge.
(Left to Right: Luigi Sottile, Elan Zafir, Brandon Espinoza)
Photo by Teresa Wood.
Two men at a table in a restaurant.
Henry, I want to talk to you.
Sure what’s up, Reg?
I’m not going be around much longer.
Golfing in Hawaii?
No.
Gambling in Vegas?
No.
Shrooms in Bangkok?
Henry, I got Stage IV Cancer.
Pause.
That’s hysterical.
Not sure why that’s funny.
Oh, you are awesome!
It’s all over my pancreas, Henry. All in my seamen. I had sex with a prostitute yesterday morning. I haven’t done that in ten days. I wanted to do so much. I wanted to
Continue reading Character Monologue: REG
