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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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"As
terrified as I'm feeling, I'm beginning to regret my
decision to do this. Have I lost my mind as well as my
sight?"
Click
below to read Lynn Manning's entertaining essay published to
the web by VSA Art.
THE
GENTLE WAY
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Lynn Manning
brings WEIGHTS to Adelaide Fringe!
Lynn
Manning, blind actor poet, and
playwright, will be performing his award
winning solo tour de force at The
Adelaide Fringe, 20-2-2010 through
14-3-2010, except Mondays. The Venue is
HIGHER GROUND. The performance space is
ART BASE. The time is 6:30 p.m.
For
location information and ticket
availability, please visit the official
web site of The Adelaide Fringe. http://www.adelaidefringe.com
At the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe,
WEIGHTS received a Teapot Award for
excellence in theatre from Fringe
Review.com Below is the text of the
certificate and the review. For more
reviews of this powerful solo play,
visit http://www.lynnmanning.com.
This is to certify that "Weights"
has
been awarded a FringeReview Theatre
Award for
outstanding theatre At the Edinburgh
Festival Fringe 2008, Assembly @ George
Street, Edinburgh, Scotland
The Review Something
I have noticed in recent years at the
Fringe is that productions that have any
kind of life-affirming qualities or
ultimately positive messages, tend to
hit a glass ceiling of four stars, no
matter how truly outstanding they are.
It is in fashion to be slightly
disapproving of life-affirmation as art.
Lynn Manning's one-man tour-de-force,
"Weights" has achieved several
four-star ratings at the Edinburgh
Fringe 2008, and I believe it is time at
least one reviewer who isn't afraid of
applauding both positivity AND
outstanding theatre to present this
production with a well deserved five
star rating for a play in which the
"universal oneness of all
things" is shared and made
practically evident. This is a piece of
theatre that isn't afraid to chart the
darkest hours of a person's biography,
yet equally to celebrate, and even offer
up to an audience, a happier outcome,
and a message that the lowest places we
sometimes find ourselves in are the
places from which the steps can only
rise upward.
Lynn Manning, actor, writer, commentator
on life, and occasional comedian of the
stage, has a rich vibrant voice, which
tells a tale so evocative and resonant,
it received regular whoops, sighs and
spontaneous rounds of applause from
audience members. Manning shares his own
personal story, creating the voices and
gestures, so well observed, of over a
dozen characters, in a journey that
takes us through his childhood, the
sixties, the seventies and toward the
now.
The violent act that led to his
blindness is re-charted and played out
with superb pacing, observation, poetry
and not a small amount of
hindsight-humour. This is fine writing
realised on the stage through direct
story-acting. We find ourselves in L.A,
on Hollywood's famous Vine Street. We
stare down the barrel of a gun with
Manning, and we stare with him down the
tunnel of years that represents his
past, present and a future without sight
yet brimming with insight. I stopped
taking notes after ten minutes, the
reviewer's notebook and pen dropped, and
I had to just watch and listen.
As a performer, his authenticity and
directness is refreshing. This is a man
on a "free ride to wasted",
who takes us beyond the darker years and
into a place where he is realising
himself through the creative opportunity
that blindness has brought him. Manning
performs with an economy of movement, a
large but graceful soul, his delivery is
so on top of his material that it feels
as if he is telling the story for the
first time. The ability to do that
confirms this as outstanding work.
A story of loss of sight, of growing up,
and of learning to experience the inner
light of creativity, so well described
by writers such as Jacques Lusseryan,
Manning has succeeded in bring a
life-affirming story to the stage that
never descends into sentimentality and
firmly confronts the harsh realities of
life. A story of loss of sight, perhaps;
but Manning has helpedthe rest of us to
see a little more clearly with this
fabulous play.
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Read some of Lynn Manning's glowing
reviews from WEIGHTS in Edinburgh
The
List – 4 stars
A
see and eye shotgun tale
Poet,
playwright, actor and former judo champion Lynn Manning knows
all about loss. Raised in penury in California, Manning lost
his parents to the bottle and his siblings to the foster care
system. Then in 1978, aged 23, Manning lost his sight in a
shooting incident in a Hollywood bar full of 'tourists, punks,
junkies and juicers'.
Having
spent 20-odd years creating Weights, Manning performs
catharsis by monologue on these events and those that
followed. Alone on a minimally furnished stage, Manning
freeform scats his way through what he has called his
'interminable memoir'. Funk and jazz guides him through the
memories, from 'days of sour plums and pixie straws', before
his parents 'climbed inside a wine bottle' to that fateful
night and beyond. Taking his lead from the first person
autobiographical narratives of Richard Wright, Maya Angelou,
Gil Scott Heron, Ray Shell and Claude Brown Jr among others,
this is moving, witty and all too raw, Manning laying out a
powerful mandate of self-reliance and hope. It's a captivating
journey, one that you will not forget in a hurry.
Edinburgh
Guide – 4 stars
Weights
Review
Written
by Chloe Edworthy
Lynn
Manning was shot and blinded in an L.A. bar at the age of 23.
This is his story. The monologue is both written and performed
by Manning who delivers a meandering tale of abject poverty,
abuse and ultimately prevailing optimism. However do not be
misled by this grandiose description – this is a one man
play without pretension and a narrative of true drama.
The
script dives in and out of different stages of Manning’s
biography detailing the incident in which he lost his sight
and subsequent aftermath and reminiscences of his largely
bleak experiences of growing up in 1960s L.A. This could have
been an opportunity for sentimentalism or self-pity to creep
into the script but Manning avoids both and here even the most
appalling of stories are narrated with a remarkably rounded
perspective.
Whether
it was blindness that spawned Manning’s appreciation of
language or if it was a talent given at birth is a question
which only really he can answer, but what is undeniable is
that this author and performer boasts a fine grasp of poetry.
It is not only in his use of poignantly knowable imagery but
also in his obvious appreciation of the phonetic resonance of
words that one can recognise the potency of this natural
lyricist. The script is confident and informed both
linguistically and emotionally.
Manning
the performer is animated; he successfully manages to
incorporate the voices of many different characters and the
poetic interjections which occasionally interrupt the flow of
the narrative. Although the pace was initially a little hasty
it didn’t take long for Manning to settle into his
surroundings and relax into a more measured delivery which was
flawlessly engaging.
For
an education in both poetry and optimism Weights is surely one
of the best bets at the Fringe.
One4review.com
– 5 stars
Weights
Doing
my usual, ok where am I next, I frequently arrive at a venue
knowing only the name of the production I am about to see and
in this case that it is part of the Theatre Tours
International &
Guy Masterson Productions, the show 'Weights'. Not much of a
clue in that, ok sit back and enjoy as you know you are about
to witness a superb performance.
On
stage we meet Lynn Manning a six-foot plus vision of a
good-looking man with a superb physique, this Afro Caribbean
gentleman proceeds to tell the story of his life but there is
something about his face. At first I can't put my finger on
what it is but as the show progresses I realise, through his
performance it is true he is blind.
This
autobiographical play only reaches from childhood to his mid
20's when he was shot in the face and slightly beyond to show
his determination to become a writer. The admiration I have
developed for this man is not through sympathy but my respect
for what he has been through, the goals he has achieved and
this performance itself.
He concludes the show by reciting one of his own poems
which is absolutely beautiful.
This
cleverly written and excellently performed piece is an
absolute must for fans of the one person show, those of
quality theatre and anyone wanting to get excellent value for
money. Lynn portrays the characters in his life extremely
well. Robert Egan's directorial job would appear to have been
a reasonably easy one.
My
only regret is that I did not see 'Weights' during its Fringe
debut in 2007!
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*******************************
To watch Lynn Manning's June 14, 2003 Millinneum
Stage performance of Weights at The John Kennedy
Center For The Performing Arts, click
here.
Weights
at the Kennedy Center
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