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Lynn Manning is an award winning poet, playwright, actor,
and former Blind Judo Champion of The world.
He accomplished all of this after being shot and
blinded in a bar fight at age twenty-three.
Lynn has written several critically recognized plays,
including, WEIGHTS, SHOOT, UP FROM THE DOWNS,
PRIVATE BATTLE, THE LAST OUTPOST, and
central ave. chalk circle.
Lynn's
original one act play, SHOOT, is included in the
ground breaking 2007 TCG anthology, BEYOND VICTIMS AND
VILLAINS (CONTEMPORARY PLAYS BY DISABLED PLAYWRIGHTS). Lynn
both wrote and starred in the short film adaptation of
SHOOT, by the same title.
It premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, and
is currently distributed by HBO.
Lynn is an active member of The Playwrights/Directors
Unit of The Actors Studio West Coast.
(more)
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FREE PERFORMANCE COMING TO WASHINGTON, D.C.
MARCH 5, 2008
Written and performed by
LYNN MANNING
Directed by
ROBERT EGAN
WEDNESDAY,
MARCH 5, 2008 @ 7 PM
The George Washington University
Dorothy Betts Marvin Center Theater
800 21st Street NW, Washington, DC
For the first time in Washington,
DC, Lynn Manning will present an uncut, uncensored,
performance of his acclaimed autobiographical one man show, Weights,
at The Dorothy Betts Marvin Center
Theater, on the George Washington University campus.
This
free and open to the public production is for one night
only, March 5, 2008 at 7:00 P.M.
Weights is a dramatic, literary hybrid of engaging
narrative and poignant poetry.
Funny and thoughtful, Manning’s charismatic
demeanor, in strutting glory, with his cerebral insights,
keeps his audience convulsing with laughter, and thinking,
too. At the
performance’s start, Manning transports his audience to a
gritty L.A. bar in 1978, the site where his routine of
clowning and carousing halted suddenly, as he stared into
the steely gaze of a gun’s barrel, blinking, only to find
himself, a half second later, struggling on the floor, in
swirling pain and confusion, shot in the face, blinded.
How Manning handles everyday situations, with
admirable energy, after this harrowing incident, is at least
as interesting and entertaining as his description and
performance of it. He
relates, with comedic charm, the pleasures of his first
sightless sexual experience, his amazement at the new,
amoebic shapes of his dreams; but above all he emphasizes
that the activities he takes on, the needs and desires he
has, as a blind man, are much the same as those when he
could see, his load just becomes a little heavier.
But for Manning, in life, as in lifting weights, the
load getting heavier, a few more obstacles to deal with, is
all a matter of course.
A gunshot to the face, in light of the abject poverty
and neglect he grew up in, actually doesn’t seem to be the
worst he’s encountered.
If we’re lifting the same amount forever, we become
complacent, mechanical, we don’t get stronger.
“’I couldn’t be so strong
if it happened to me,’ she said.”
“’You have to lift
weights,’ I quipped.”
Jay Reiner of Hollywood Reporter
writes, “If Manning has lived the sort of life a poet can
tell best, it’s ironic that he had to become blind Homer
to tell it. But where Homer gave us the wine-dark sea, wandering Odysseus
and the topless towers of Ilium, Manning gives us the mean
streets of L.A., a childhood straight out of hell and
liberation entirely of his own making.”
F. Kathleen Foley of the Los Angeles Times describes Manning
amid today’s “hucksters, hype and 15-minute
celebrities” as “that rarest of valuable commodities.
Manning is an artist.
Not in the cheapened modern sense of the
word…Manning is the real thing, a writer of clarity,
finesse and overriding humanity.”
Jeremy Malies of The Scotsman raved,
"The piece has all that
could be required of autobiographical drama, a charismatic
performer, a compelling life story, and rare descriptive
gifts."
This
event is the third in the lecture and performance series
Disability, Social Justice, and the Body, sponsored by
Disability Support Services, the Columbian College of Arts
and Sciences, Student and Academic Support Services,
Multicultural Student Services Center, English, Sociology,
University Writing, American Studies, and Women’s Studies
Robert
McRuer
Associate Professor
Department of English
George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
rmcruer@gwu.edu
office: (202) 994-0497
fax: (202) 994-7915
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