Timidity

Many actors I know are surprisingly timid. Myself included. In fact, I could be the poster child for acting timidity. It's funny how my study has actually inhibited my ability to be broad and make bold choices. It is easy to use your training as a crutch and an excuse to adhere to "the natural". Sometimes it is the wild, the strange, the super human choice that best suits the piece and, as a director, I would prefer to work with a more inexperienced actor in that situation.

When was the last time you climbed a tree or sat on top of a set of monkey bars? As a kid it was just a natural place to be. As an adult we have a concept of falling, looking stupid, of personal fragility. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The last time I tried to climb some monkey bars I couldn't stop imagining my inevitable fall and the crushing back pain that would surely result. I'm sad to say that I climbed down immediately. I fear pain and looking foolish. Conquering those fears are the requirement of acting. In some cases you must purposefully seek those experiences. You must look stupid. You must experience pain. You must face the difficult and the painful and others must watch you. It is a damn near impossible thing to ask.

And yet, we do.

Why?

Why is there a desire to feel and experience and watch that which we most fear?

Last summer I bought my son a copy of "The Great Glass Elevator" by Roald Dahl. I had never read it, but I love Dahl's twisted work and we must have read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" at least a dozen times so... I figured... As it turns out Charlie meets up with those rotten, vermicious knids. The scene as it is in the book is actually really suspenseful and creepy. It is set up for the reader to imagine a most torturous and awful death and then it slowly introduces the knids. It's marvelously written, but was too intense for my then four year old son and his friend who happened to join us for this disturbing bedtime story. We had to spend an extra hour coming down from the terror of the book- which had to be put down immediately. I felt terrible for having read it to him and worse for having read it to his friend. After they had finally gone to sleep I vowed to make it up to them the next day.

After breakfast had been served and we were getting ready to go I discovered the kids sitting on the bed together with the offending book. My son had the book in his lap and was flipping slowly through the pages, showing his friends (there were some additions to our crew that morning) the pictures and describing what had scared him the previous night. They huddled around the book and challenged my son to turn that final page to see the picture of the knid. There was rapt attention and a palpable sense of danger as if the knid would surely jump off the page and devour their heads- but they kept going. They all stared at the picture and talked about it while I hid in the background, swelling with pride at their ability to confront the danger with help from their friends. They pulled each other through. They confronted a fear. And what was so stunning about it is that it took no prompting from me or any other adult. They displayed great courage and great friendship as they tackled this psychological impedinment to their daily joy. I'm impressed by that.

I am impressed and inspired. Although I, as an adult, logically know that there was nothing to fear, I know how hard it was for those children to face something so frightening to them. I recognize the fact that I might not make that same choice in my adult life. After all, isn't being afraid of looking foolish or having hurt feelings at about the same level as fearing a knid?

If a four year old can do it...

Choosing the Struggle

For the last year I've been working under the assumption that life is messy and any attempt to gloss over the mess or clean it up and keep it clean will be doomed to failure. So the point is to learn how to embrace the struggle because, in the end, the struggle is all you've got. Right? Well, I am now going to ammend this viewpoint slightly.

This is only a theory at the moment, but I am testing it out. Yes, life will always have an element of struggle in it, but what if you could choose which struggle? What if you don't have to be blown by circumstance like a discarded plastic bag? For example, I now have the opportunity to re-write a script about which I am less than excited. Two years ago I was faced with this choice and I took it because I needed to work and I needed the money. I was worried that I would never have another opportunity to work. I was miserable during the whole process as I had to write things that made me feel less than proud. Now I think I am going to turn it down. Luckily, I have another writer I can recommend and then I can just move on.

I'm starting to wonder if I have to make the choice to be a teacher and a writer for hire. Couldn't I make a different choice? Just because the work falls into my lap doesn't mean I need to take it. Of course, a certain kind of work does tend to fall into my lap and my current struggle is not about getting work but about doing work. If I change my approach then I will struggle to get work which means I may sacrifice some pay days along the way. But I could still choose.

For the record, I didn't get tarred and feathered yesterday. The show went well and the parents were happy and the kids did a great job. But once again I wonder if I need to keep beating my head against the wall trying to fit this square peg into a round hole? Maybe I would be a better fit somewhere else? Ultimately, I think I need to be a company member and not a solo artist puching a boulder up a hill.

I need to choose the appropriate struggle instead of letting the struggle choose me.

Measure of Success

It can be very difficult to guage success or failure in any creative endeavor. In an ensemble effort, each person has their own definition and that can range anywhere from simply having done it all the way to having expertly executing some technical task. Others will only feel successful if the endeavor is validated by some outside eye.

So which measure is the "right'' measure? How does one achieve success?

I'm white knuckling it through today because my second graders are performing for the school and for their parents today. All of a sudden I feel the need to justify my choices as a teacher and as an artist. I'm proud of them. They've risked and have been honest and they have tried so hard. They've created their own work and I think it is beautiful. But I am afraid that the suburban parents will only see the "mess'. Let's face it, my aesthetic is somewhat sloppy and I'm a little more 'go with the flow' than other teachers may be. My goal is that the children enjoy expressing themselves- that they experience some freedom through form. It has become clear in the last week that others have very different goals. Now it is coming out that there is an expectation of 'professionalism' (which is some nebulous idea concocted by people who don't do this for a living) and 'presentation'. Unfortunately, that is not my goal at all. I want the kids to be who they are not pretend to be the adult the adults in their lives hope they will be.

I'm feeling the pressure of judgement. Up until this last 2 weeks I've gotten great feedback about my classes. Then came the sniffling because I did not require fancy costumes or fancy scenery to be built. I stripped everything away and made it about the kids as much as I could. Now I'm starting to see that the expectation was more Vegas Floor Show and less Kids Being Kids.

Who knows? Maybe the parents will like it and they won't tar and feather me and all my anxiety will be for nothing. Either way, I've been run out on a rail before in my life. I can live through it again...

Sigh.

Chronic Dissatisfaction

I suppose there is somethig about the inner nature of the artist that will always feel uncomfortable or dissastisfied. There is not an artist I know that enjoys inertia. We suffer through it because we're human and we've nothing else to do. However, I am experiencing a particular kind of malaise to which I am unaccustomed. To put it succinctly- it's freaking me out.

When I am in the middle of work, my nose is to the grindstone and I feel good. I feel put together and motivated. However, especially when it comes to the classroom environment, when I am having those conversations about discoveries that actors tend to have with one another I am bored out of my mind. Maybe because the discoveries and the concepts and the exercises are not new to me. I use these techniques as a teacher and I enjoy watching my students encounter the concept but as a student I am left bored, restless and irritated. At 32 years old should I still be forced to endure yet another conversation about "Wow! I found that if I have my 'center' in my head that I walked faster and I was so irritated. That's cool that a body can do that..." without being able to respond "I KNOW I KNOW! I'VE BEEN DOING THIS FOR 17 YEARS! OF COURSE YOUR BODY CAN DO THAT!".

It isn't even that I don't find the work useful. I do. I love the work. I'm just looking for a new discovery. A discovery that is deeper and fires my synapses in a way that is almost as painful as it is euphoric. Class used to be where those discoveries were made.

I recognize that by virtue of my age and my years of experience that the process will be changing for me. I just hope this does not signal a loss of passion for the work. It simply cannot mean that I've reached "the top" of my game. I refuse to beieve that. I know I still have a long, long way to go.

I'm just not being challenged.

Artist Teachers/ Teaching Artists

I'm learning that there is a big difference between an artist who is asked to teach and a teaching artist.

Currently I am in a class that brings in artists to teach. Frankly, I am finding it a disaster. I'm getting a lot of encouragement and patting on the back but not so much information. There's a lot of soft talk but not so much action. Artists enjoy the art of talking but their pretty talk does not bear much fruit. I'm finding it frustrating and more than a little condescending. How many hours of "You really need to value your writing time and take that time for yourself every day!" can a fellow artist take? Obviously I want to take it seriously or I wouldn't have plunked down the big bucks for the experience of sitting in a dark room with you! So! Make with the wisdom, would ya? Quit with the back slapping platitudes! Let's talk structure! Let's talk plot! Let's talk about improving dialogue! How about circumstances? I asked one writer about building circumstances and she looked at me blankly. Really? Do I have to explain to the "teacher" what circumstances are?

Some people really understand how to light the way for others. These are the people with whom you want to work. They are hard to find, these artists who can articulate what it is that they do and how they do it. It is a very special person who can assess where another artist is at and provide guidance for that artist without going too slow or too fast. I realize that I have no idea which I am. Am I an artist teacher or am I a teaching artist? Perish the thought!

The jury is still out for me whether or not I want to continue teaching at all. It is hard to say.

Last night I was watching an episode of The Simpsons where Lisa and Bart both went to military school. At one point Bart and Lisa snuck out after lights out so that Bart could help Lisa train to tackle a physical challenge called "the Eliminator". After falling Lisa laments her failure to Bart who says, "I thought you came here because you wanted a challenge!". To which Lisa replies, "Yeah! A challenge I could DO!". Oh Lisa! It is almost as if you and I are one!

So I wonder if I shy away from teaching because it is not right for me or if I shy away from it because I'm not perfect at it. It is a hell of a lot easier for me to criticize what others have been attempting to give me then it is for me to evaluate myself.

For the record, living with this constantly questioning intellect is, indeed, as big a pain in the ass as you might suspect.

Get Yer Godot On

For any of you who are considering it let me pass on a rather unique and dire warning: A drunken, cold read of "Waiting for Godot" is never a good idea.

Now you've been warned.

Last night a friend of mine with whom I've been doing casual play readings on Saturday nights and I decided that Godot would be an easy enough play for the two of us to read together. I don't think we were wrong. It is just that Godot requires specificity. Godot requires planning. Godot requires a certain level of comprehension that simply cannot be achieved after a 15 year absence from the text and a few beers accompanied by a dinner of spinach and poached eggs.

This discomfort of slogging through Godot caused my friend to muse about why Godot is held in such high esteem. I kept my mouth shut because I did not want to be one of those pretentious morons that have blind reverence for avant garde classics. I see her point. It does feel disjointed and unsettling. It is hard to find the thread- the thought in the text through a simple read. It requires much more of the artist and the viewer. It is demanding. This is probably why you don't see it done very often. It takes either a brave or a pompous soul to put up Godot and tackle not only its text, but its reputation, It is in this way that Godot has been stolen from us and placed firmly in the realm of academia. The more I think about it, the more this seems just wrong.

When I first encountered Godot it was through class work at an Arts High School. So you can imagine how intellectual "peacockery" (to coin a phrase) trumped the text. I saw and participated in scenes from Godot that were heavy with teenage symbolism, many of which were positively awful. Most memorable, though, was a group doing a scene with Estragon, Vladimir and Pozzo (if I am correct) where all the actors wore masks made from a newspaper photo of a kid who shot up his school and the song "Jeremy" playing throughout. Damn, Godot can mean anything!

Okay, maybe not.

But what Godot does have going for it is it's tremendous sweetness, sadness and absurdity. I don't think Samuel Beckett broke his arm patting himself on the back for his depth. I think he sincerely loved Estragon and Vladimir the way Estragon and Vladimir love (or at least cling) to one another. It seems that reverence for the material and the backlash against the reverence obscures the real text and renders it almost unproduceable. Which, I think, is somewhat sad.

As we were caught up in a discussion of the text, my friend and I could not break the cadence of the play's language.

I don't get it.

It's sad.

Is it?

It's sad.

Why hanging?

What else is there to do?

Seems stupid.

That's funny.

Is it?

This is the play, isn't it.

It is.

That, in itself, should prove as a testament to its power.

The Month of Living Dangerously

Since January I have been challenging my fear that the Earth would fall off its axis if I was to go back to work. I was afraid that if I wasn't within a 10 block radius of my son's school that something terrible would happen... I might be late picking him up.

Although I still have occasional visions of my child wandering off into the Brooklyn wilderness to find his negligent mother, I have, for the most part, discovered that there are a lot of people I can go to for help. Great. This lead to my next fear, and this was the fear that I didn't want to even admit existed. What if I suck at this?

While staring down the Inadequacy Demon I started to miss the good old days. It was much nicer to imagine that I was so good at being a mother that my son would suffer in my absence then it was to imagine that I would forever be an Ed Woodesque character desperately trying to force square old me into a round old world. I'm getting over that one, too.

I'm teaching some second graders the joys of performing. I'm directing a show. I've joined a Master Class. Every day I am doing what I love. The exciting thing is that I am finally getting to work at a level that feels good. My instincts about having a teacher were right. Everyone needs to have someone to push them, to inspire them and force them to stretch. It is a delight to be a student again. Most of all, it is a delight to work with generous people who are engaged and interested in pursuing an ensemble.

I had a thrilling moment in class on Sunday that reminded me why I love this artform in the first place. I was paired with a gentleman for a physical acting exercise. It was our first day of class and this man and I had maybe exchanged two or three short sentences during the day. The exercise was deceptively simple, we were to approach one another and meet in the center of the room maintaining eye contact. Once in the center of the room we were to circle one another (keeping eye contact) and then cross to the other side of the room. We were given this simple circumstance: Person A has somehow wronged Person B. In the center Person B must decide whether to forgive or not to forgive. Although this seems a simple exercise, deep eye contact is not a normal part of the everyday American existence and it is excruciatingly difficult for a person who suffers from any kind of social anxiety (such as myself). I was blessed with a very generous and open partner for the exercise. As we walked toward one another (I was the wronged Person B) I knew I was just going to eat this man alive. He was walking toward me so smug, so cocksure that I felt certain he deserved a good ass whooping. With every step I became more and more irritated. How dare he look at me like that! Then it happened. We were about four steps away from one another and I saw something else in his eyes. As I got closer I saw pain and regret and I melted. I was confused. I wanted to hold on to my anger, but what I saw in him was so compelling, so human that I had no choice but to forgive him. I felt terrible, almost as if my expectations for him had been impossibly high and I had neglected his humanity. I was still reeling from the "hurt" he had caused me (from our vague given circumstances) but I was also deeply moved by who he was and what he was feeling. I walked away from him reluctantly because my impulse then was to hold him and kiss his forehead to wipe away his indescretion.

All this from a brief walk across a room.

It is amazing what can happen when you are working with a generous and open partner. It is thrilling when a story just materializes in a moment. The rest of the day was good, but that 90 seconds or so of real human contact touched me so deeply and gave me such an enormous kick in the ass that that moment alone would justify the high tuition I'm paying for this class.

I am looking forward to more.

Artistic Disappointment

After a good few months of steady activity I have had to turn some work down due to some upcoming familial obligations. After swearing up, down and sideways that I wouldn't ever put myself in a situation where motherhood trumps my artistic needs (or vice versa) ever again, I have found myself turning down work and other opportunities in order to play caretaker again.

Rest assured, the complete immersion will be temporary but still quite complex. I have no illusions. The sacrifices of time are going to be mine. The financial sacrifices will belong to my husband. Each of us has spent some serious late night hours staring over our respective fences at much greener pastures.

The fear then creeps into my dreams. I turn into a "mommy monster", a woman consumed with children and all things pertaining to the little knee biters and resentment and bitterness take up residence in my soul. These are my selfish thoughts. Fears do tend to live in the land of the self, don't they? So I struggle to maintain that little piece of myself that I have fought for over the past 5 years. But I wonder where the line is. Where is the balance?

My single friends roll their eyes and tell me that I should be pissed off more often. I've been cheated by the little rugrats and their constant needs and I deserve to have this or that or do this or that because motherhood sounds like an awful bore. It has been suggested to me that, since I've missed my marketable age as an actor, that the hobby housewife route is really the best that I can hope for. My actor friends will shake their heads at me and pat me on the back as though I have missed out on something truly valuable.

On one hand, I easily buy into the 'poor me' routine and I am mad. I am mad that I've had to give up things to be a mother and I am mad that my lack of commercial marketablilty gives me sleepless nights. But I am also mad that a healthy, well reared child can count for so little in some circles. I'm mad that, as much as motherhood can deny my darkly artistic self an appropriate outlet, I am furious that those in my artistic circle rarely give my status as a mother any real weight or importance. These things should not be separate. They can't be separate if I am to remain whole.

My thought is that if I am going to be an artist worth my salt- an artist that observes, explores and exalts in life then I should live it. I should be a human being first and struggle to be the best human being I can be and that should inform my art. Fuck all else. My greatest work of art should be my very existence and the mark I leave should be the mark of love and caring on my child's heart, which I can only hope that he passes on to others. What better work of art could I create? Do I need to be credited and paid scale for that? I hope not because that would be selling myself too cheaply.

I do battle with these competing interests. I'm working on a way to make them work in tandem, but it is easy to get caught up in the expectations and disappointments of others.

As for me, I can only do that which seems most right under the circumstances and hope for the best outcome. The struggle is always present, but it is the will that makes all the difference.