EMU student Aaron Diehl offers up two reviews of BathHouse readings from this past semester:
CREATIVE WRITING FACULTY
On October 29th, I wandered down to Sponberg Theatre to catch the EMU faculty reading. The performers for the evening were Rob Halpern, Christine Hume, and Carla Harryman.
Christine Hume opened the night with selections from her book Shot. She did an interesting hybrid performance of sound and spoken word. The prerecorded material was played from her laptop, and included ambient noises and a double of her voice reading the piece. I thought it was very successful, as it added a bit of surprise and energy. It was also impeccably executed, as she kept her reading in time with the recording. I was impressed.
Carla Harryman was second, and was probably my favorite performance. She seemed extremely comfortable and confident on stage, and also appeared to be having a lot of fun. Her piece was about a baby, and it was very humorous and enlightening. It was basically a baby thinking way beyond his years. I liked it.
Rob Halpern was third, and read a few pieces, all of which were very sexually charged. Very dark and sometimes disturbing, they dealt with sex and violence. The first piece he read was about a soldier and it was very powerful. He had an odd presence on stage, moving his legs as if he was marching and staggering his speech in awkward increments. He was very successful in a disturbing sort of way.
JULIE PATTON
Julie Patton’s performance on November 9th was very interesting. I go into these reading not knowing what to expect, as they tend to be very diverse. This performance was certainly unique.Julie had an extremely loose demeanor on stage. She was aided by a guitarist, who added an ambient, melodic texture behind her powerful voice. She did not let her writings hold her back on stage, choosing to read what she wanted and riff off the top of her head when she thought necessary. She basically spoke free form, playing with language and sound flawlessly. She was like a combination of singer and poet, with a major focus on the sound of words.At the end of her performance, she pulled out a bunch of instruments and had several people from the audience come up front and just bang away. They made a considerable racket. She danced along and loved every minute of it.
Her performance was inspiring to witness because she was entirely genuine and heartfelt about what she was doing on stage. Very intelligent, interesting, and honest.