Quiet! Work in Progress

Mary Stuart

2009-04-17T23:12:00.005-04:00

In 1587, Mary Stuart (more popularly known as Mary, Queen of Scots) lost her head. In 1800, Friedrich Schiller dramatized the events leading up to her death focusing on her relationship with her jailor, Queen Elizabeth I who also happened to be her cousin. Over 200 years later, a London production of the aforementioned play crossed the Big Pond to appeal to American audiences on Broadway.

Now that I have the exposition firmly in hand we can get down to the nitty gritty.

This production opens with an awkward flurry of activity as men in three piece suits enter a barren room, pull out a wooden trunk and hack at it with an ax. Objects are pulled from the trunk to the verbose objections of Hanna, the title character's nurse. Sadly, this is the first of only three major physical activities employed during the course of this production. Mary Stuart is a chatty play, to which I have no specific objection except that there is a danger in letting actors simply talk. In most instances, an actor allowed to talk without some grounding physical activity can make for some boring, masturbatory theater. Luckily, Mary Stuart features some fine performers who can, and do, imbue their speeches with depth and meaning without being self-indulgent.

Janet McTeer's Mary is a fiery queen; passionate, dignified and commanding despite her low position as one imprisoned for suspected crimes against England and Queen Elizabeth I. Harriet Walker's stately Elizabeth is at once a contrast to Mary's fiery, engaging personality while also playing a mirror image of desperation as she struggles to hang on to the power of her crown. Both women give this text their all, highlighting the all too human insecurities of these two queens without wallowing in them. These two women navigate in masculine waters, using their sex to their advantage. The men in the play are then forced to respond with almost feminine machinations to achieve their personal aims. Most notably, the Earl of Leicester (played coquettishly by John Benjamin Hickey) who toys with both queens' emotions at first to save Mary and finally to save himself.

The play between male and female is of great modern interest in this play, which makes me curious to know what changes to the original Schiller text were made by Peter Oswald, the writer credited in the playbill for this "new version". Both the direction and the design seem fixated on making a statement about the balance of power between the sexes that strikes me as somewhat dated. It feels like a feminist piece of theater from 20-30 years ago- almost relevant to today, but not quite.

First I will address the costume design. At first, I found myself confused by the choice to dress the male characters in grey three piece suits while the queens were dressed in period attire. Queen Elizabeth sported a period hairstyle while Mary Stuart had short, modern locks- until her death scene, that is. I had assumed that these were choices made to accommodate a budget of some kind. My instincts were confirmed as I read about the choice in the playbill: "To have the men in suits reminds the audience that this is a modern phenomenon too, one in which the women are usually the weaker partners." This would satisfy me in a small, black box production. However, I was sitting in the Broadhurst Theatre on 44th Street and this holdover from a shoestring-budget, West End production rang a bit false. Especially after it rained in the second act. Literally rained with wet water and everything! In general, any style choice you have to explain in a playbill is not a good, clear choice.

While I will concede there is still sexism in the world, this production seems to be a response to sexism as it was- not as it is. What's worse is that the text seems to be saying something slightly different than the production. Once again, I wonder how much of the original Schiller text was altered to support the views of this production. Queen Elizabeth I was (according to this production) swayed by the counsel of her male court, but they still feared her. She still had ultimate power, whether they wore suits or not. To beat a dead horse, the suits are trying to make a statement about a "modern phenomenon" which is not supported by the text and the world of the play. Perhaps in relation to Mary, the suits work. However, she was not imprisoned for being a woman. She was imprisoned for allegedly plotting to kill Elizabeth. This has very little to do with either of them being female. Or maybe it does... now THAT would be modern!

Some other directorial choices confused and grated on me. Much of the first act was delivered straight to the audience with all the formality of the drama portion of a high school speech meet. It was jarring and impersonal. Once again, the lack of any grounding physical activity seemed to have the actors "warming up" on stage. In addition, the direction to obey certain laws of courtly respect detracted from the interpersonal interaction on stage. Also, I saw a lot of back which made the staging feel somewhat petulant and immature. It reminded me of the conceptual "statements" that were made in certain arts school directing classes- fine in class, but not suited to the Broadway stage.

In general, I found this play enjoyable. The acting is quite good and it is always a pleasure for me to be in the theatre. However, I must admit to walking away wondering... why? Why THIS play? Why now? Why Broadway? When we are in the midst of some fairly large international and financial crises, why is THIS play important? What does it tell us? What do we walk away with? As a pure history play, I am afraid it leaves something to be desired as the pivotal moment in the text never actually happened in real life. As entertainment it is fine, but it ends in a beheading so you can't really call it the "feel good sensation of the year". If it is about the death penalty, it hardly provides us with any new insight beyond "wow, beheading is a bad way to go!". If it is about religious/ sexual persecution, then its message was completely lost on me. The long and short of it is, I don't know what this play, what this production, is ABOUT. It is a good production with a solid cast but it just doesn't feel good enough.

The Basics

2009-02-09T16:53:00.005-05:00

Before I get into the nuts and bolts of scoring, we will need to talk about objectives and beats in general. I apologize if this is Acting 101 for some of you, but I have run across a stunning number of actors who have a surprisingly vague understanding of these terms. Since the words beat and objective get hurled around a lot I think it is important everyone is on the same page when discussing them.

Let us begin with beats. I like to think of beats as separate thoughts. Each line of text should have its own thought behind it. For example, the text I am using begins with these words: You're all flops. I am the Earth Mother and you are all flops. One could make the choice to have that contained in one beat- one thought. Of course, that would make for a fairly flat and lazy line reading. The stage directions indicate that Martha is saying this more or less to herself. This is a clue to her need and her thought process.You're all flops. One thought. I am the Earth Mother... I would say that this is one thought and the end of the sentence... and you are all flops... is yet another thought. The circumstance here of extreme drunkenness gives me the freedom to let thoughts clang around noisily in my mind. She isn't thinking too clearly. Here is how I would begin scoring this text- by separating it into beats like this:

You're all flops./ I am the Earth Mother/ and you are all flops./

Looking at that now, I question my need to separate that sentence into two beats. Let's leave it for now and see where the exploration takes us. We can always change it later. My own personal habit is to over-intellectualize this process. I must caution the academic actors out there against obsessing about scoring. If you spend too much time with the text and a pencil and not as much time putting it into your body, you will find yourself disconnected. Kinesthetic performers, however, will benefit from sitting down and understanding the text this way- it will help during those performances when you are not "feeling it". But, I get WAY ahead of myself.

Now that we understand beats, to a certain extent, let's look at objectives. I use the word "objective". Other directors or actors may use terms like "need" or "motivation" or "intention". For all intents and purposes these terms are interchangeable. They all refer to the same thing. I've grown fond of the word "objective", so that is what I use.

Objectives help the actor to understand the interior life of the character. There are two "types" of objectives I will explore in this post, the first is the Super Objective which I define as the driving need behind every action the character takes within the play. The second type is the Beat Objective which refers to the actions/thoughts that happen from moment to moment within the text. All Beat Objectives should be in line with/ reinforce the Super Objective and vice versa. If you find your Beat Objectives contradicting your Super Objective, that should be a red flag for you to explore changing one or both of them. You may just be barking up the wrong tree, so to speak. I can get into that in a bit more detail later. For now we should begin with the Super Objective.

As I said earlier, the Super Objective identifies your character's greatest need within the context of the play. Objectives are framed in the form of a statement of purpose, usually something like this:

I want/ need to...

For example, one could say their character wants to survive, to win, to destroy, to rescue...etc. Objectives should never, never, never be verbs of being. Verbs of being do not give the actor anything to PLAY. Tell me, how can you "be funny" or "be famous" or "be a great lover"? "Be" implies something one just "is" by accident of birth. Using a verb of being will lead to hollow indications and will not inspire you to fill your role. Action verbs (the more colorful the better) will help you to live in your character and will give you direction. Take those same "be" objectives I just cautioned about and turn them into more active verbs. "Be funny" could become "to entertain" or "to fling myself into my performance" or even "to abandon self-consciousness". "Be famous" could become "to claw my way to the top" or "to devour competition" or "to plead for validation/ love/ acceptance". "Be a great lover" could become "to seduce" or "to pleasure" or "to surround myself with love and comfort". See how each active verb gives a completely different picture of a character? Seeking objectives, both beat and super, gives the actor the opportunity to be a writer and the tools with which to practice specificity.

Here's how far we've gotten: One beat = 1 thought. Each beat has its own objective. Each beat objective must, in some way, lead toward the Super Objective which is the character's need throughout the entire play. In my next post I plan to tackle scoring my chosen monologue and discuss the benefits and dangers of scoring. (Okay, dangers is a bit dramatic, but what kind of language do you expect from an actor?) I'd love to write more on this topic, but I have a baby who desperately needs to eat blueberries.

To devour, to consume, to stuff his face with, to celebrate, to enjoy blueberries.

Martha

2009-01-28T10:03:00.002-05:00

I've been avoiding Martha.

I was taught that reluctance to tackle a particular task/role can be very telling and that you should always challenge yourself to explore that which you would rather avoid. I've been timidly dipping my toes into a cold Lake Martha only to discover that I am frightened of empathizing with her too much. I've made judgments about her and am most reluctant to discover how those judgments might apply to me.

I find this somewhat curious since I've played murderers, whores, liars- a host of sinners- and had no trouble feeling for them. Martha sets me off. I want to shake her. She is like Godzilla, mindlessly stomping on other lives because she is unhappy in her own. As eager as I am to approach her from an intellectual standpoint, I am unwilling to admit to explore my own Godzilla tendencies. I've certainly done it. Repeatedly. Exploring Martha will give me the opportunity to forgive myself for past transgressions. Or not. It's the "or not" that frightens me.

This is how I know I am on the right track. Fear is my friend.

So, in wading into these waters I'd like to start at the shallow end- a way to bring Martha closer to me without scaring either of us off. Martha is an educated woman who is resigned to playing "wifey" to a college professor. I imagine some of her restlessness stems from this circumstance. With no concrete, consistent outlet for her intellect she engages in "pointless infidelities". But it isn't just restlessness. It's deeper. She clearly needs attention from her father and, being a woman and housewife, gets substantially less than required. She intended to bask in the reflected glory of her professor husband, but she is disappointed by what she perceives as his professional failings. George's failures are her failures. She pushes, pulls, cajoles, and nags to fight for her rightful place but all for naught. What she CAN do, however, is attract men. With each conquest she is simultaneously validated and destroyed. She is torn between her impulses and her deepest needs and unable to discern from moment to moment the actions necessary to reach a healthy, life affirming goal.

That is something I can reach within myself. I know about being an intelligent, capable woman trapped in the "wifey" role. I have certainly toyed with men in my life and then hated myself for it. I also know about pushing others to fulfill MY visions with out any regard to their own goals and definitions of success. What I need to do if discover my own threshold. What "as if" do I need to use to help me understand ACTING on these impulses? I've never cheated on anyone. My own sense of empathy forbids it. I need to understand how to make that decision... and make it repeatedly. I need to understand the depth of need in Martha that would cause her to lash out the way she does.

It is time for me to work on scoring text and making physical choices.

Feeling Sick

2009-01-19T22:15:00.002-05:00

Not sick like flu sick, sick like "whoa... I did something BAD" sick.

I do a little blog editing for a friend of mine who is a restauranteur and just about the sweetest guy you'll ever meet. I can't imagine thinking ill of him. I might shake my head at him from time to time, but I'm so damn arrogant I do that with just about everyone. It really is best to ignore me. But I digress... In addition to this side-blogging I have also put the word out for an actor I've worked with before about his new foray into private classes. I've meant no one any harm and believe that both of these people want to be positive forces in the world. Whether they succeed in that endeavor... well, I have no control over that. Today I have just been bombarded with negative online comments about these people and some of these comments are from people who have preferred to remain anonymous. Now I feel like a kicked puppy.

In one of these cases (I won't get too specific) I happened to be privy to some information that these anonymous angry people clearly did not have. Jerk that I am, I attempted to explain what I felt I could divulge publicly and I got a smack down again. Now I remember why I disabled comments on a previously abandoned blog. People are jerks and they think they can bawl you out just because they have a keyboard, too. Even people that you know think they can jerk you around in a comment section. Holy bananas... all I did was pass along some information! Don't kill the messenger.

The horrible thing is, I feel bad. I feel personally responsible, although I didn't DO anything. However, I feel sick to my stomach about the whole mess. Maybe, if you feel you've been screwed by someone you should take it up with that person instead of taking out your anger on a blog's comment section. The truth is, spewing online is about getting revenge for a perceived wrong and it doesn't really give the "offending party" the opportunity to redeem themselves. It's a jackass thing to do.

Identifying the Circumstances

2009-01-16T08:44:00.002-05:00

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee

It is late, well after midnight, when George and Martha return to there home from a faculty party at the small New England college at which George is a history professor. They have been drinking heavily and are already slightly befuddled when Martha announces that she has invited a new couple over for a post-party get together. The new couple happens to be the new, young, hot shot biology teacher and his "slim-hipped" wife.

Martha is 52 "looking somewhat younger. Ample but not fleshy".

George is 46 "thin, hair going grey."

Honey is 26 "a petite blond girl, rather plain"

Nick is 30 "well put together, good looking"

Martha is the daughter of the college President. George was once the new stud on campus and Martha (and presumably her father?) intended to groom him for the presidency, but George (for one reason or another) was not up to snuff. George and Martha are a well educated couple. To them, words are a blood sport. They are witty, brash and highly literate. George speaks Latin and both George and Martha know at least enough French and Spanish to verbally assault one another.

George and Martha are steeped in the academic world. They read. They lead academic lives, although I suspect Martha is left rather unsatisfied by simply playing wifey to a college professor. She is intelligent in her own right, but seems to have little outlet for her energies beyond berating her all-too-patient husband, her many daliences with an odd assortment of men, and the fictional life that she and George seem to have written together. This is the central puzzle of the play. Why have they created a fictional son? Why reveal it now? Why do they expose themselves in this way to this particular couple? Why toy with Nick and Honey? What the hell is this play about, anyway?

Both couples are childless and this might be the 800 lb gorilla copulating with the proverbial elephant in the room. Martha seems to be unable to conceive (as an actor that will be my choice) and Honey seems unwilling. Nick is a reluctant husband. George suffers abuse from Martha. Nick's true feelings for Honey are questionable and Honey seems along for the ride. Martha and George are deeply devoted to one another, but Martha is obliged to punish him. In Act 3 she says:

...whom I will not forgive for having come to rest; for having seen me and having said; yes, this will do; who has made the hideous, the hurting , the insulting mistake of loving me and must be punished for it. George and Martha: sad, sad, sad... who tolerates, which is intolerable; who is kind, which is cruel; who understands, which is beyond comprehension...

Martha barrels through the text as a monstrous, destructive animal. She is willing to destroy herself, her husband, her reputation, her marriage, Nick and Honey's marriage... she has the air of a caged animal ready to go berserk. She uses sex as a tool of destruction. Meanwhile, George, though just as caustic and destructive, seems to be attempting to hold his world and his wife together. He berates Nick and seems disgusted by Honey but he attempts to share his wisdom and life experience with them. He warns them repeatedly, though it is difficult to heed the warnings couched in insults and condescension.

In the end, George seeks to destroy that which has previously held his life and his marriage together- his fictional son. It is as if total annihilation is the path to salvation. Perhaps it is? Albee leaves this for the audience to consider.

As with all good drama, there are dozens more circumstances to pull apart and piece back together again. Everyone's relationship to Martha's father, the college president, looms rather ominously throughout the text. George and Martha's rather sketchy relationship to "truth" is another. While these (and other) circumstances are integral to the play, this is a good place to start. Now is the time for me to begin to bring myself closer to the text by exploring what I know about these circumstances. By placing myself "inside" the text (as opposed to an academic analysis from the "outside") I will start to identify with Martha. After all, that is my job.

As I look at Martha, my first job is to relate to her- to empathize with her. I do not have a set "outside-in" or "inside-out" methodology. I like to let the role dictate which tools I should use. In this instance I feel I should work on Martha physically first. Martha is animalistic, she is comfortable with her body and she uses it to advance her objectives. I...do not. Since this will be a huge hurdle for me (feeling rather terrible about my post-baby, post-tragic H&M shopping excursion body!) I think this will be a good place for me to begin. If I don't unlock the keys to Martha's physicality early, I will be lost when it comes to making those words come out of my mouth in a believable fashion. I will begin by memorizing a chunk of text and using it in a series of physical exercises which I will detail here as best I can.

Uh oh. Baby awake...

Notes on Martha

2009-01-07T10:55:00.002-05:00

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is destined to be one of those scripts I will need to wallow in.

Through my readings I have come to my usual position of Armchair Psychologist. My gut instinct is to "diagnose" Martha with Borderline Personality Disorder. Now, I would hesitate to make such a statement about a real, living person, but for the sake of pursuing a character I will make this judgement. Martha displays some classic characteristics of BPD. For the sake of expediency I will send you to this excellent post that validated my theory.

In addition to my multiple readings of the text, I have been searching for connections and others' ideas about this play. In the absence of a cast and table discussions I find reading others' opinions to be highly stimulating. Sometimes it is exciting to agree. In this particular case, I find myself in violent disagreement with some of the character studies I have found. Specifically, in regard to George. Most have found him to be weak-willed and spineless... in essence, the opinions I have read have validated Martha's worst opinions of George. On the contrary, I have found him to be principled (although not in the more traditional vein), calm and exceptionally compassionate. Granted, his compassion manifests itself in some fairly sick ways, but he does try to help everyone in the play. He tries to warn Nick, he feels true pity for Honey and he fights tooth and nail with Martha because he loves her. Love does not always have a healthy shine to it. In my various readings I keep thinking George is not unlike the Hollywood cliche of the boy who raises an orphaned animal and through an unfortunate set of circumstances finds himself deep in the forest chucking rocks at his beloved friend to force it to return to the wild- where it belongs. George lobs compassionate rocks at everyone in this tale. On the outside, this ineffectual cuckold is really a courageous lover.

Ah, but that is my tendency toward co-dependency speaking! Of course I relate to George! Of course I like him! Of course I skew toward seeing him as noble and kind! That's MY personal sickness speaking. As for Martha... she is going to be a huge challenge for me. I can get at the loud and vulgar part of her- that is well within my range. It is her extreme cruelty, her vindictiveness... see? It is the ultimate challenge for me to frame this behavior in the "actor positive", meaning that I need to put this behavior into non-judgmental language. If I am judging her behavior I will have difficulty justifying it for myself. After all, everything she does feels necessary to her survival. She needs to lash out, to bray, to punish, in order to save herself in some way.

A plan of attack is beginning to form and the specific text that I will use for my explorations is starting to rise to the surface.

The Work Begins

2008-12-26T12:10:00.002-05:00

I am in the process of reading Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf again and again and again. It is through these reads that I begin to form a plan of attack for the text. This is generally how the reads progress:

First Read: I get a general impression of elements within the text- themes, character, relationship, setting, etc. I try to tune in to the story and remain open to see what, if anything strikes me.

Second Read: This is a slightly more "conscious"- though still general- reading of the text. Through this reading I begin to identify what elements ring little bells of truth within me. What do I relate to? What is completely foreign to me? What do I resist? What gets me excited about the text?

Third Read: This is when I begin to read the text as an actor (or as a director, should that be my role in any particular production- but that is an entirely different process). I take careful note of things that are said by and about my character. Words stand out as clues to physical actions, habits, and/or personality traits. For example, in Virginia Woolf, Martha is said to bray... this one word will provide a valuable starting point for my use of body and voice. I make a note of this word (and other words and phrases) which I will return to when I am ready to begin my physical explorations.

Fourth Read: This is where I attempt to read through the eyes of my own character. I will often read things out loud in order to play with the language and begin to identify the thoughts that propel the words in the text.

Fifth Read: This is where I begin to part from any set formula. Some characters I get and I feel I am ready to get on my feet and play. With others I feel the need to steep myself in the play and let myself stew a little longer. Then there are plays that require a more academic approach- it is with these plays that I "score" the text. I will do some element of scoring with Virginia Woolf , partially for the exercise of scoring and partially because some of Martha's thought processes still elude me. I will do an entire post on scoring, when the time comes.

There is no set way to approach a text and every actor is different. Some actors prefer to feel their way through a text while still others need to sit down and analyze each word, each rhythm and syllable. I do a mixture of both. For this, particular project, I will not have the benefit of multiple table reads with other actors. So my process will be a little different than a process I would employ during rehearsals with a full cast- mostly because I will need to be more disciplined than if I had an ensemble around to keep me honest! I will need to use this blog to keep me accountable for my explorations. I am hoping to find a way to film some of my explorations and share them on this blog so that I may analyze my own process...warts and all. I will do my best to keep my vanity in check and illustrate my dismal failures as well as my successes!

My next posting will cover, specifically, the information I have gleaned from my readings of the text. Wish me luck!

Drum Roll Please

2008-12-13T18:14:00.002-05:00

Finally- I have a stolen second to talk about my little project...

I have decided to work on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. The process of choosing a project to work on is as important as the process involved in creating the project itself. Here are my reasons for choosing this piece.

1. This text has survived over 15 years of bookshelf purges. It is time I figured out how and why it has survived.
2. This play has a 'kitchen sink' evolution that I favor in theater pieces. The setting is simple, the circumstances complex.
3. The circumstances are complex.
4. Martha is 20 years my senior as a character, which I could look at as a bad choice but I prefer to think of it as a challenge to my belief in the power of empathy for an actor. That, in and of itself, could prove or disprove some of my acting theories.
5. Martha is full of anger and resentment. In my experience I have found it beneficial to explore issues through character that I have difficulty expressing in my personal life. It may help me break through some personal barriers.
6. There is a great possibility that I could fail in my execution of this process. This will not be an easy text for me to tackle and I need to exercise my right to fail- knowing that it is the difficult task that is most worth the effort.
7. The characters spend the entire play in various stages of drunkenness. This provides me with an opportunity to do some sensory work.
8. Martha has a very confident sexuality, something I feel I've lost over the years.
9. The struggle for love in this play is weighted down in the circumstances. It is always a challenge to discover a relationship to joy in such a murky atmosphere, but that is what makes a compelling piece of theatre. It will be hard to keep my Martha from wallowing (something I find myself doing far too often) but her fight, and the feistiness of the other characters in the play, will be a sharp jab every time I venture into self-pity.
10. Its a good play.

So. There. I've made my decision. My next post will be an overview of themes and motivations in the play. I expect to be able to put that together sometime during or directly after the holiday.

Wish me... wish me something fun.

Having Fun...

2008-11-24T10:28:00.002-05:00

All right. I've narrowed my decision down to two texts. I'm not ready for the big reveal yet... I'd like to finish re-reading them before I get started on the nitty-gritty. With the holidays and all, I don't have too much time to spare. In fact, I've been trying to get a couple of hours to myself for the last 4 days and have been wildly unsuccessful.

Rest assured. I will make good on my promise. After Turkey Day I will announce the text I will be working with and start with the good stuff.

Let's Have Some Fun

2008-11-18T10:02:00.004-05:00

To quote one of my favorite Kids in the Hall sketches, "I'm in a rut deep enough to hang up posters."

I am. I knew this was coming the day I peed on the stick. I knew that the first year of favored son #2's life would be marked by two things that make me supremely miserable, 1) lack of personal time 2) a monotonous routine of much dreaded, mind-numbing tasks. So I have decided to keep up both my spirits and my chops by taking up a dense script and difficult character to study in my "spare time". I will use this blog to work out some of my thoughts on text and character step by step. It'll be fun!

Now, all that remains is for me to choose a text and a character. I could play with Macbeth- that's always a favorite of mine. It's dark, sexy and it challenges the actor to create humans from monsters. That's a favorite theme for me. I'd do Richard III, but Pacino already covered that and I don't think I could add much more. There's always Tennessee Williams. (God, I'm old enough to play Blanche! Yikes!) Or maybe I could get into some Lorca. I've been meaning to pick up Yerma for a while, perhaps now is as good a time as any? Then there's The House of Bernarda Alba, which would give me the rare opportunity to look at multiple female characters. Chekhov is always a good exercise in building given circumstances. Maybe I should look at Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Martha would be a big challenge for me.

I'm going to sit on it for a day and then commit myself to studying the play I choose and preparing some text for myself to work on its feet. I will detail my process step by step. I've never tried to document my process before. Perhaps I will find some gaping holes in my methodology. Maybe I will find a way to communicate the process in a personal and definitive way. One thing is certain... I will be making time to fit something very important into my crazy, boring days.

Holy bananas. I am really looking forward to this!

Dear Obama,

2008-11-05T11:32:00.003-05:00

Last night was amazing. It has been a long time since I have felt so good, and you... you said all the right things. I think I got carried away in the moment. We both did. We said a lot of things to one another in the heat of the moment. I don't regret them. Not at all. However, now that the sobriety of daylight hours is upon us I feel shy and a bit distant.

What you need to understand about me (as cliche as it sounds) is that I am just coming out of a very difficult relationship. He was charming and had a manly swagger that made him seem so different from the rest. I threw caution to the wind and became embroiled in an 8 year nightmare. He lied to me and chipped away at my self-esteem by trying to tell me that shopping would make everything better. He dismissed all of my concerns and, in the end, I forgot that I had rights of my own. He had convinced me that I should abdicate my rights and my responsibilities because he was stronger and he would take care of me. But when I needed him, he wasn't there. I lost my home. I lost my job... I don't mean to go on and on about it. My only point is to tell you why I am so leery of a new relationship right now.

I will admit that it is hard not falling in love with you. You're intelligent, accomplished and so confident. I've been burned by confidence before. I'm taking this slow because I don't want to put all of my faith in you only to have you betray me. I can handle it if you make an honest mistake, but I don't think I can take it if you deliberately hurt me. My therapist says that I need to rebuild my faith in myself so if you mess up it need not be a reflection on me. I'm trying.

I guess what I am saying, what I need to say out loud as many times as it takes until I believe it, is that you cannot save me. Only I can save me. I need to assert my own, personal power and solve the problems I need to solve. You can support me but I cannot place all of my hopes and my burdens on you because the only one who can truly heal me is me. If you prove to be a good support, I will cherish our relationship. If you don't, well, Gloria Gaynor said it best. I will survive.

I have voted for you. You talk a great game. If you are truly good for me you won't ever let me forget that the true power rests with me. You are not my savior but my servant. That is the relationship I want. It is the relationship I deserve. I hope you really meant it when you said, "Yes we can" because I did.

Love,

The United States of America

W.

2008-10-24T13:51:00.002-04:00

Meh.

It's an Oliver Stone film.

Before going to see it I had assumed that all the good press for this film was due to widespread surprise that Stone didn't string ol' Georgie up by his nut sack and piss on him. All the interviews I saw with Mr. Stone were marked by words like "even handed" and "fair" regarding the film's portrayal of our current President. Admittedly, if I hadn't expected such an "even handed", nay even sympathetic, picture- I might have been more pleasantly surprised by my matinee viewing.

But I wasn't.

Indeed, W. is a sympathetic portrait of a man in over his head. However, Stone's film carries all the hallmarks of a muck raker's restraint as he struggles to make a monster into a man. W. is rife with pity and cheap, armchair psychology. There is little insight in the script beyond a high schooler's interpretation of a Wikipedia page on Oedipal complex. We all know W. was the wayward Bush and it is not difficult to imagine how hard it must be to live in a powerful man's shadow. I didn't need 2 hours and 11 minutes to be told what I already understand.

Josh Brolin does give a fine performance and the supporting cast was quite good at what they were asked to do. Clearly, they were asked to walk and talk like the people we see on the news everyday. They did just that, but no more was asked of them. The cast, as a whole, was uncanny in their likeness to the real-life characters. Excellent speech and physical work was done by all- but there was no room in the script for them to be anything other than props to enliven the reality of the title character's experience. There was no examination of their motivations or relationships with one another or with W himself. With one notable exception. Ellen Burstyn was somewhat out of place in her few scenes because it seemed she was trying to squeeze a little bit more out of the script and character than her cohorts. In fact, her physicality was defiantly unBarbara Bush, but her emotional choices were quite clear.

I have to say, I was shocked to find myself uncomfortable with the scenes depicting George and Laura as a normal couple who occasionally find themselves having important discussions in their underwear. One particular scene features W chatting with Laura on the toilet. I think the intent was to humanize W even more, but as an issue of taste I feel it was gratuitous and somewhat disrespectful. I am no fan of this President or his administration but I have no desire to watch our President take a dump.

Bio-pics are always a bit dicey. When one decides to fictionalize a real person's life they are apt to play fast and loose with history to achieve dramatic ends. As one who values truth and history, I have to say that I see this as a dangerous practice. There is a scene where Richard Dreyfus's Cheney gives a speech about controlling oil so "...no one will fuck with us again...". This scene was placed there for expediency- to clue us in to the filmmaker's view of the administration and not necessarily the historical character's view. I fear all too few viewers will make that distinction and Stone's widely and easily consumed version of history will become fact. In my humble opinion, that is a disservice to history and truth.

But, it's an Oliver Stone film.

Meh.

The Struggles of Year Number 1

2008-10-11T08:55:00.002-04:00

There is definitely a reason why I waited for nearly 7 years to have another kid.

I am an incredibly selfish person. I like having a few minutes to myself. I like being able to day dream- to be in my own little world staring into the reflecting pool of my soul and contemplating my place in the universe. I like to watch movies with swearing. I don't particularly care for mundane tasks. I do not romanticize motherhood- even though I adore my children and delight in their progress as human beings. But, I miss participating in my art. It makes me cranky and decidedly "unfun" to be torn away from my creative outlets.

When my eldest was a toddler, I had a conversation with another mother in the park who was complaining about her husband. He had come home from work and then made some snotty comment to the effect of "Gee, I wish I could spend all day in the park hanging out with my friends, drinking coffee and playing with my kids...". Her response? "Yeah, it's great. It's only sucking the soul right out of my body."

I'll let that comment stand.

It is the most bizarre and complicated ball of emotions. On one hand there is pride, love, joy, excitement and all the warm fuzzies a person could want. On the other, there is resentment, frustration, isolation, sadness, and guilt. A lot of guilt. These are the things I warn my girlfriends about as I watch them consider single parenthood as an option. (SAVE YOURSELVES! DON'T DO IT! Life with a partner to share the workload is hard enough!) Perhaps if I had taken more time to work on my career before I had kids, maybe then I would be able to afford some help so that I could go out and pursue my art. Maybe that is the cause of the negativity. Regardless, I am in the situation I am in and I just need to be more creative. I can do that, but the first year of life is so tiring and I also have to be realistic about my limitations.

It's not all bad. It really isn't. I just happen to get exhausted after having had to lug 14 pounds of human being everywhere for 24 hours straight (and I do mean everywhere!) and not having a minute to collect myself. On top of that physical drain is the emotional battle with a 7 year old who wishes he was a baby again. He weighs a lot more than 14 pounds! A person can only be loving and understanding for so long without reciprocity! After that, you just need to hide in the bathroom for 20 minutes.

Or vent on a blog.

God, that's embarrassing.

What is Tom Skerritt's Lifestyle?

2008-08-22T23:44:00.003-04:00

I used to be obsessed with Tom Skerritt. It wasn't that I liked him or his movies or even that I hated him or his movies. I was just fascinated that an actor could work so much and still avoid the spotlight. Most people don't even know who the hell he is- until they see a picture and then they say "OOOOHH! THAT guy!"

The guy has been working for decades and yet he is never talked about. He's worked in every medium. He's won awards. He's worked with big stars in big movies and yet who among us can say we've heard a lot (or any) buzz about Tom Skerritt? Who is out there eagerly awaiting the next Tom Skerritt project? (Which happens to be Whiteout- due out next year...) Either he is intensely private and really, really good at guarding that privacy or he just doesn't do anything too crazy or no one really cares. I just can't wrap my mind around his career. How does an actor work that much without the benefit of press? It isn't that he is such a chameleon that you would never know it was him- he's had that mustache and suave haircut since time began. He is distinctively Tom Skerritt. He must be an absolute joy to work with... no one who isn't an A-List actor could pull off a career like that and be a total jackass.

I really can't stop thinking about it. What kind of house does he live in? What are his kids like? What is a day in the life of Tom Skerritt like? Who does he hang out with? Information about the highest paid actors and their lifestyles is easy to come by and we've all been waited on by actors on the lowest end of the scale, but what is it like to be Tom Skerritt?

These are the thoughts that keep me up at night.

Brando Experience

2008-07-20T12:29:00.004-04:00

As a young actor immersed in study I loved Brando. Nearly every method trained actor does- excepting those with a chip on their shoulder and something to prove (we'll discuss THAT in a future post, I suppose) - because to look at Brando's fiery work in his younger days is to look upon some of the most complex acting creations in American performing history. Not to mention that Brando's young physique is one of the most beautiful specimens of manhood ever to walk the planet. I could watch Brando over and over again, from A Streetcar Named Desire to Last Tango in Parisand I never found him anything but bold and honest. That scene in Last Tango in Paris where he talks to his dead wife is so brutal, especially knowing what we know about Brando's personal life. It was impossible to understand, as a student, why such a brilliant actor would turn on his craft and call it all bullshit. It offended me to my core that someone with such talent would dismiss what he had worked so hard to become.

Of course, the older I get and the more immersed I become in day to day living the more I understand about Brando's disdain for the craft. When the first organic thoughts of "that's bullshit" entered my mind I almost keeled over from shock. The further my family life took me from the dirty rehearsal studios, cramped dressing rooms and masturbatory post-show drinking sessions the more I could see how deeply actors wade in their own self-important excrement. I began to despise the whole thing. I hated actors, I hated plays, writers irritated me, autuers made me want to pull out my hair in bloody clumps and set myself on fire. It all seemed so obnoxiously elitist and arrogant and I did not want to encourage that part of myself. Oh and it is a large part of me. It causes me great shame. I started to see what Brando had been getting at- I think...

When you are a young actor facing some daunting statistics regarding your future employment (or lack thereof) your mentors will mostly say things like, "We are lucky to get to do what we do. You have to be exceptionally strong to follow your passion against such odds". They paint a highly romantic picture about suffering for truth and art and how important it is. Everything loses perspective and suddenly everything in life is seen through an almost adolescent prism of art and that which is personal suddenly becomes public display. It is your duty to "use" yourself, your experience, for the cause of truth! What they neglect to mention is that it is just a job. It is a rewarding and fun job that requires great skill and commitment, but it is just a job.

One never hears lawyers, doctors, financial analysts or teachers discussing their work with such religious ferocity. Well, perhaps teachers, but teachers are passionate about teaching to lift up their pupils- not themselves. In acting the actor himself becomes the subject of his own religious fervor. He is his own deity. Frankly, that is a little difficult to live with. (My apologies to my husband!) Not only is it difficult for those who love the actor, but it becomes a burden to the actor him/herself. Look at what happened to Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. Without proper perspective regarding the place of entertainment within the scope of the Universe an actor can and will implode. We are not built to withstand such self-scrutiny!

I am not saying that we should avoid introspection or examination of our past experiences. I believe there is a level at which the craft is therapeutic. But I've met actors who, even when low on the fame totem pole, have fallen victim to the pressures the craft can exert on a person. There is something wrong about selling your life, your essence for the amusement of others. Which brings me back to that scene in Last Tango in Paris that is just so brutal. Knowing what we know about Brando's tragic family life, this scene begins to topple. It is by turns both beautifully honest and a horrible prostitution of pain. I can't look away. I feel something. It is naked and real, but a human's nakedness (both figurative and literal) can be a celebration or it can be a degradation. It is so difficult to figure out which is which and so often so many of us are degraded and what is worse is that we DO IT TO OURSELVES! Is it worth it? What we give- do we get back? Not just in little gold- plated statuettes, but in reception. Does the audience open up and understand? Do we achieve any kind of acceptance on any real level? Does the world change? Is it really worth the price we pay?

Then again, do we really have to pay that price? Can we act, be honest and personal but still maintain some privacy? Can we maintain the dignity of the form without plumping up our egos with the cheap currency of celebrity?

I'm not willing to give up on the form. I still love the process. I still love taking a great script, pulling it apart and putting it back together again. I love what I learn in rehearsals. I just need to figure out why it ever needs to be performed and how to do so without selling myself or my castmates too cheaply. Then I watch this scene and I feel so... human.

I like feeling human.

Satire School

2008-07-15T10:17:00.006-04:00

Frankly, enough has been said about the political implications of this cover in the last 24 hours to last the rest of the campaign. I'm not interested in the political fallout here. (Well, I am- just not within the context of this blog.) However, this does give me the opportunity to talk about the joys and the dangers of satire.

It is not clear who or what this cartoon is attempting to skewer. Apparently, the artist was trying to communicate the ridiculousness of the rumors surrounding the Obamas. The editor has defended the cover saying that it was so over-the-top that no one could possibly see it as anything other than humor. Unfortunately, since people really DO believe these things about the Obamas the cover would not seem that far-fetched to 12% of the population- according to a poll conducted by The Pew Research Center. If this were not the case, The New Yorker would have no reason to even run the cartoon on the last page. Funnier still is that those are the people least likely to read The New Yorker so they could learn more about the cover story. But they will see the cover at the news stand.

Where the New Yorker went wrong, in my humble opinion, is not in the subject matter but in the designation of the subject. Since the artwork does not depict the type of person who believes such untruths the message is that the New Yorker and its readers endorse these beliefs- thereby legitimizing those rumors as fact. An easy way to solve the problem is to use the cliche thought bubble- attributing the beliefs to someone other than The New Yorker itself. Of course, the problem with that is how do you portray such a population without coming off as elitist and judgmental? How would that message be received if the cover had portrayed a slack jawed yokel (clinging to his gun and Bible, perhaps?) watching FOX News and imagining the Obamas as such? Then the focus would not be on the rumors about the Obamas (although they would be reinforced just by having that image out there) but on the unflattering image of rural America and the prejudice of elitist, urban liberals who work at the New Yorker.

Perhaps we SHOULD focus for a moment on the prejudices of elitist, urban liberals. You see, no matter what cartoon was chosen to be on the cover to convey that particular cultural disconnect the joke is, at its heart, an elitist one. It is a private and angry chuckle for the intellectuals who read the New Yorker which allows them to feel superior over the ignorant masses. Perhaps a more effective cartoon would be to have three thought bubbles. The first depicting a latte liberal imagining the slack jawed yokel imagining the Obamas. The best satire sheds light on whole and uncomfortable truths- not just selective ones. We all shoulder some responsibility for the divide in this country- even the "enlightened" and self-satisfied urban liberal. Over simplifying the fears of 12% of the population does nothing to dispel them. In fact- it adds to the further entrenchment of the belief.

That is the sin of The New Yorker. It does not step back far enough to see what this anxiety is truly about and therefor cannot possibly make a sharp or witty observation about it. It simply strokes itself for being smart enough to "get it". Unfortunately, it seems that only The New Yorker staff got the joke. The rest of us can only stand back and stammer at its stupidity.

Anyway, the biggest truth of all is that New Yorker cartoons have never really been that funny- but that was already addressed on an episode of Seinfeld.

Fly Over Paranoia

2008-05-16T08:59:00.004-04:00

It is no secret that the vast majority of the United States harbors an ugly resentment against "the Coasts". Namely New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. When loose tongues are wagging you'll hear people say terrible things about the Jews in New York, the Gays in San Francisco and the money grubbing demons of immorality who run the entertainment industry in LA. To a certain extent, our fly over brethren are not necessarily wrong to be so bent out of shape- after all the majority of popular entertainment tends to narcissistically focus its energies on New York and LA for its characters and story lines and largely ignores what is going on in the rest of the country.

What fly over states may not know is that a lot of New Yorkers (in particular) are terrified of the rest of the country. New Yorkers are comfortable with their junkies, but the tweakers really scare them. New Yorkers can function (admittedly, it can be begrudgingly...) with Hasidim, Muslim, Catholic, Buddhist and Atheist populations living and working together- but the Evangelicals are enough to make the average New Yorker want to duck into a Satanist S & M parlor for safe harbor. We have religion here, but most New Yorkers would feel uncomfortable being confronted by a highway sign telling them to repent- regardless of their religious affiliation.

We fear.

That's the bottom line. Anything that is unfamiliar causes anxiety and anxiety can cause any human to jump to irrational and illogical conclusions.

Yesterday I was watching some interviews on YouTube with West Virginians about the recent primary. I'll admit that listening to these opinions made my heart race and I began to perspire. Just listening to these different perceptions caused my body to have a mild stress reaction. I wanted to scream and shake them. One woman insisted that Obama was Muslim and she didn't like that. When the interviewer corrected her and told her that he is NOT a Muslim she just closed her eyes, shook her head and said, "I don't agree with that" as if the facts were somehow able to rearrange themselves by the force of her opinion. I was angry and I wanted to reach into the screen and throttle her. Her resistance to the facts that have been available for years (the man has published two very personal books detailing his upbringing and influences for crying out loud!) made me angry and scared. I then commented to my husband that Obama probably made the right choice to concede West Virginia and not make a glut of personal appearances there because they might have shot him on the spot.

Of course- that was MY FEAR talking.

Not everyone who thinks a certain way is a gun toting radical with an itchy trigger finger. Upon closer inspection, I probably would have found this woman to be someone who was shaken by the horror of 9/11 (who wasn't?) and who has probably never met or even seen a Muslim in person before. I'm sure that the culture of racial division that is still common in some parts of the country- West Virginia reportedly being one of those places- made it difficult for this woman to see in Obama what some other people see in him. It is so much safer to take in only the information that conforms with your world view and act on that. I've done that with her. It conforms with my world view to think that she is an idiot redneck. Whereas, she may be a woman who has found herself faced with a myriad of economic and social challenges that are now foreign to her. In the last decade, the world has become a much scarier place. Can I blame her for trying to protect herself from perceived threats? Isn't that what we all do? Isn't that why I will not be considering West Virginia as a vacation spot anytime in the near future?

My point in discussing this is not to deal with the election, necessarily. Rather it is to bring up empathy. Empathy is a powerful thing - not just in personal relations or politics but in storytelling. Storytelling, as you may have noticed, is one of my chief concerns. Recently, I read a screenplay about domestic violence. (Sadly, I read a lot of scripts about domestic violence and more than a few of them fit this particular description...) I found it cliche and since it lacked any real insight into the characters' behavior I wondered why anyone would want to watch such a thing. The screenwriter had written the script based on memories of incidents that happened to his neighbors and his parents' friends as he was growing up. He had already formed an opinion of these people and he wrote the script to pass judgement on them. That was clear from the first scene. Since he lacked any empathy for the characters he was able to write this orgy of violence and insult that bordered on the pornographic. He had become so obsessed with the imagery of violence that he neglected to motivate it in any understandable way. It was kinky in its lack of compassion for the characters and their plight and worse yet- it tried to pass off its judgement of the characters as some sort of moral high ground. The voice of the writer was smug and superior. So I asked him- if you don't struggle to understand and feel for these people, then why should I? And if you don't want your audience to care for these people, what do you expect your audience to walk away with? What will they learn about the characters? What will they learn about themselves? If they walk away with a feeling of superiority over these characters haven't you just given your audience permission to ignore what you profess to shine a light on?

To his credit, this screenwriter heard me out and went back to re-writes. It takes a bold writer to do that. It takes a brave person to stretch themselves to try to understand the incomprehensible. That is what a writer needs to do. That is what an actor needs to do. Circumstance can conspire to make monsters of us all and if we want to fight that- if we really want to become better people we need stories that challenge us to empathize. I'm not pimping any kind of moral relativism here- as some have accused me in the past. There is a difference between understanding and condoning. But if you understand what you are up against you will understand how to put up a resistance. Especially if the monster that emerges surprises you by emerging from within.

Economy of Words- Dashiell Hammett

2008-05-12T10:16:00.003-04:00

There is something so impressive to me about a writer who has the confidence to write economically. Currently I am combing through the pages of Dashiell Hammett's romantic mystery/ comedy The Thin Man. I am struck by his amazing ability to convey mood, character, subtext, plot and relationship in such short, fast chapters with so few words.

Hammett is direct without being clinical or dull. There are no words wasted for the sake of adornment or ego. It is easy to see why The Thin Man translated so well to film because Hammett's gift is for dialogue. Hammett lets the reader get to know the relationship of Nick and Nora Charles through quick exchanges that leave no question about their trust and love for one another:

We found a table. Nora said: "She's pretty."
"If you like them like that."
She grinned at me. "You got types?"
"Only you, darling- lanky brunettes with wicked jaws."
"And how about the red-head you wandered off with at the Quinns' last night?"
"That's silly," I said. "She just wanted to show me some French etchings."

Their dialogue is snappy, never sappy and always with a wink and a nod. It is a liberated relationship that exists in a masculine and drunken Utopia where feelings don't need to be discussed. Nick is a sardonic wit and Nora is his unquestioned equal. She fascinates me. For all her swagger, Nora is also distinctly feminine. I find it interesting that characters such as Nora are not more common in our post-feminist culture. In a modern writer's hands Nora would come off as loud, wild and perhaps somewhat flighty and naive. She'd be played by an underwear clad Cameron Diaz, flipping her hair and making angry squinty eyes at her drunken husband. However, in Hammett's hands Nora is sophisticated, intelligent, alluring, tough, and extraordinarily compassionate. It isn't that she is the patient, enabling wife of a drunkard who silently endures. She drinks as well as he does, but occasionally protests his constant need for liquor. She trusts him and, oddly enough, he is worthy of her trust. Nick and Nora Charles love each other- messily and admirably.

Nick tries to keep himself from becoming embroiled in the murder mystery that unfolds. He is a reluctant detective, although Nora pokes and prods him to get involved. However, her interest is not of the excitable Nancy Drew variety. Rather it is her kindness that feeds her curiosity. She genuinely cares about those involved even though she admits she may not even like the players in the drama.

The pace of each chapter is quick- but it never feels rushed. There is very little expository language and I marvel at the confidence Hammett has both in his writing style and in his audience's ability to catch the subtext. He does not feel the need to explain himself or his characters. Their actions speak for themselves. It is a novel written with immediacy in mind and does not indulge in nostalgia or in wistful pondering. It is stripped down, direct, sophisticated and, well, kind of sexy.

I'm learning a lot from Mr. Hammett. I don't think I could emulate his style, nor do I think that I necessarily should, but I am appreciative of the unapologetic directness and economy in his writing. There is something I would like to make my own.

The Seven Year Rule - Writer's Edition

2008-05-02T10:06:00.006-04:00

Ah yes, more of the seven year rule. I can't seem to get enough of that rule these days.

All of my thinking about the seven year rule has become jumbled. I am very clear on the rule as an actor. As I've stated in previous posts, I have found the seven year rule to be useful when working on a role. Distance from a particular emotional trauma helps me to have control over my choices- it allows me physical freedom and emotional objectivity as I piece a character's life together. However, things get a little murky when I consider the seven year rule as it pertains to my writing.

Should the seven year rule apply to my writing as well? Granted, writing is a private activity and I can prune and edit for as long as I wish (usually not very long at all- I'm not the most patient writer.) and it is okay if I hit a sore spot and cry myself drier than the Mojave. I can always come back to it and no one would be any the wiser. Or would they?

One of my biggest concerns is self-indulgence. Self-indulgence can color an artist's ability to effectively communicate ideas. When a story becomes more about eliciting an emotional response than it is about challenging assumptions and asking hard questions then the story itself becomes a masturbatory exercise. Emotional responses do not make great stories. How many people have you ever seen choke up at the mention of Sophie's Choice only to admit that it was "just okay"? The manipulation of circumstances brings about an overwhelming amount of emotion, but if there are no insights, no questions, no challenges, we learn nothing from the experience beyond "wow, that made me sad". So, is it possible to challenge yourself as a writer to write something immediate to your experience without drowning in it? Or is that simply journaling for the public?

There is something quite valuable in journals. I just wonder if they should be for public consumption. Distance and time do allow for humor to develop, and within that humor comes palatable insight. By that, I mean that humor is one of the most effective ways to communicate difficult ideas. Humor disarms the reader/ viewer and difficult messages can often sneak in and burrow themselves into the audience member's subconscious- allowing them to take in something that may have been too offensive or too painful were it delivered in a more "serious" fashion. My favorite example of this is that Huckleberry Finn was written in Connecticut. Time and distance allow us to see what is universal and what is idiosyncratic about the characters, the time, and the place about which we are writing. This is the beginning of insight, meaning and purpose.

But what about immediacy? What about chronicling the experience in real time? Can there be insight in that? Or should the insight be allowed to deepen and mellow in complexity like a fine wine? How can we tell the difference? How do we know when is the right time to write what?

A friend of mine recently suggested that I write about pregnancy. He had complimented my "glow" and I brushed off the compliment with a cynical remark about how the "glow" was simply a by-product of my body's elevated blood levels and nothing to get too excited about as if it were a reflection of my good taste and fine upbringing. He laughed and told me that other people would find my thoughts on pregnancy entertaining. To be honest, I have been thinking about writing about pregnancy and motherhood for years. Although the perspective I would want to explore would be more about how my parents' influences, their generation, my mother's illness, and my life experiences have made me into the wife/mother/daughter that I am- or more specifically- think that I am. I have a lot of questions about the patterns I've avoided and the patterns I've continued in my life and I believe there is a fictional counterpart to me that could make a compelling character. But when will my writing about that be most effective? Now when I'm in the thick of the experience? Or later when I won't be so invested in taking myself so seriously? Or- would it just be a good exercise for me to write with the intent of keeping my eyes open to my own absurdity?

I have known writers who can do that, and do that quite effectively. Most notably, my good friend Joseph Scrimshaw has made a career of writing in the immediate. His work is riddled with questions about his current struggles in life and art. He just happens to be extraordinarily witty- so you might miss the deeper questions he asks of himself while your beer comes out your nose. (Oh, and there IS beer. There is ALWAYS beer...) That's okay. I think those questions then burrow into your brain like a horrible parasite and then resurface later. I'd be satisfied with that, but I don't quite trust myself to be able to pull that off.

While I am confident in my knowledge and understanding of the application of the seven year rule as an actor- I am not so sure about how to use it as a writer. The only way for me to really tell is to test it.

Over and over and over again.

Logic of the Dreamscape

2008-04-15T10:33:00.002-04:00

There are types of dreams that we all have in common. Anxiety can sneak into our dreams in a number of ways- all of them fairly obvious. Who hasn't had the dream about finding yourself naked in a public place? Dreams of being in a driverless automobile are also fairly common. Slightly less common (or perhaps people just don't like to admit to it) are dreams of having to relieve certain pressing intestinal situations without having a private space to do so. Among actors the so called "Actor's Nightmare" where you find yourself onstage unrehearsed and unprepared is so common that Christopher Durang wrote a play about it. It is also normal for a pregnant woman to dream about giving birth to strange creatures (cats, monsters, giant talking pies...) thereby playing out the anxiety of waiting in her sleep. We all experience anxiety. What I find fascinating, however, is that the ways in which certain anxieties present themselves in sleep can be so similar in structure from person to person and yet still maintain the idiosyncrasies of the dreamer.

For example, a rather conservative friend of mine once confessed to me that in her public nudity dream she always finds herself in a formal setting amongst people she wishes to impress in her waking life. Others find themselves ready to give a speech back in their high school class. One woman I know who prides herself on her appearance and public presentation is mortified to find herself naked in a room with all the men she has ever met. As for me personally, the anxiety producing situation is less about where I find myself or in who's company but more about the fact that I am naked in public and no one seems to be paying any attention! Hello! I'm naked over here! Why aren't you looking at me?

Last night I had a curious combination of anxieties mingle into one dream. I was producing and directing a tribute to Carol Burnett in a packed Broadway house. At the last moment the two stars of my show ran out to get hamburgers at a restaurant with a notoriously slow wait staff. (As a side note, the two actors in the dream are friends of mine with whom I had brief producing partnerships before they succumbed to the lure of film and television in LA.) The curtain was about ready to go up and I did not have the two people that I was counting on to deliver the show. I found myself stepping onto the stage and winging it. I covered fairly well, trying to play two roles at once when I was faced with a major dilemma. I had sensed that the audience would love a good pratfall. If I timed it right the laugh would be enormous. However, I worried that I might harm my baby (Yes, I am even pregnant in my dreams). The action slowed down while I weighed my options and decided to go for it by signaling my brilliant stage manager in the wings who anticipated my needs and was ready with a crash box. I dove into the wings, the crash box went off and the crowd went crazy. I staggered back onstage to greedily accept my applause and went blank. I had nothing else. I should have graciously exited but I couldn't think of anything. So I sat down and meaningfully stared into the lights. The crowd turned on me. All the good will I had worked for was slowly ebbing away and all I could do was sit and hope that I would get a black out and fast. Well, it didn't happen. I was left hanging in the light and I could hear the crowd mumbling, "That's not funny", "What is she doing?", "That's stupid!", "Boo!". Finally the lights came down and Carol Burnett herself was kind enough to come onstage and start singing "I'm Shy" from Once Upon a Mattress. I took the opportunity to go to the burger joint to drag back my two actors for the second half. As I was leaving the theater I saw the audience breaking out tissues because they were laughing so hard they were sobbing. I immediately thought of a brilliant way to close the show and started composing in my mind a speech about the meaning of laughter. On the way I saw my sister and her husband peering into the window of a suburban kitchen to admire the bizarre turkey carving technique of a Jamaican woman. Rather than having the bird on a platter she had placed the turkey in a Baby Bjorn and was carving it toward herself. My sister and her husband were fascinated. With classic boldness my sister tapped on the window to request a demonstration. I wanted to warn them about the dangers of carving with a blade facing in the direction of your own neck but I was suddenly confused by the fact that I was standing on a warm beach and strange creatures were emerging from the sand after just being hatched. They mistook me for their mother and I had to lead them down to the ocean or they would die on the hot sands. When I finally reached the burger place, one of my actors had choked on his hamburger and the other refused to leave until her fries arrived.

That is when my alarm went off and I found myself wondering how it was all going to turn out. I hit the snooze, hoping to return to the dream and force it to some kind of resolution, but to no avail. I was unable to see if I could pull off the big closing tribute speech or if I could save my actor's life with the Hiemlich. Even so, I am pleased to say that even though the dream contained a startling number of pressing anxieties- it also gave me the opportunity to produce and direct (and act, I suppose) for a packed Broadway house! Normally my anxiety dreams place me in tiny black boxes where no one is paying much attention. At least this gave me a change of pace and a bigger sense of scale.

However, I don't recommend carving a turkey in a Baby Bjorn. That just seems dangerous.

The Seven Year Rule Revisted

2008-04-12T08:39:00.002-04:00

The Seven Year Rule is complicated.

As I've stated in my previous post, there is some definite method to the madness. By violating the rule an actor risks losing control of her choices becoming a slave to her own emotions and disregarding the given circumstances of the text. We've all seen it happen in black boxes across the country. I once saw a perplexing production of Country Girl in which an actor completely disappeared into himself while staring at his own outstretched hand and slowly sinking to the floor while the action continued around him. It was terribly distracting for me as an audience member because I just could not comprehend the relevance of his choice to the play. His "moment" was so all consuming for him that he created a black hole on the stage and I missed a good 10 minutes of the play because of it. His company members were obliged to bring him back from the brink so that he could say his next line. They did it with great difficulty.

I have no idea what that actor was "using" in that moment and I can only speculate that he was violating the Rule. However, the nature of his distraction was not unfamiliar to me. Self-indulgence and self-fascination are telltale signs of an actor using something "hot" as an emotional propellant. Although one can never quite tell if it is the violation of the Rule or just a selfish actor.

The Rule, however, does not preclude us from using immediate emotional stimulus. On the contrary. One should never suppress what is bubbling up from your daily interactions. For example, during a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in which I was playing Helena, I found myself laboring under intense, self-inflicted pressure. I believed that the director thought I was a moron. My mother was coming out to see the production and she had not seen me perform in almost 10 years. I felt woefully inadequate and unlovable. I spent most of my time backstage crying my eyes out but once I hit the stage I did my best to cover up my shame and perceived sense of immediate rejection. My cast mates were always waiting in the wings with quizzical looks on their faces. Why aren't you just letting it go? You are so Helena right now. Get on that stage and use Shakespeare to express your self-pity! It wasn't until the dreaded performance in front of my mother was over that I let myself experience onstage what I was experiencing behind the scenes. My work took off and Helena and I were finally one. I did not spend the performance weeping- the tears I had shed were merely a manifestation of blocked energy from a denial of key circumstances in the text. When I let myself feel what I was experiencing in the moment and gave myself over to it I found Helena's humanity- and my own.

The Immediate must never be ignored but your system's ability to handle past traumas should always be respected. This profession can be emotionally treacherous and one must be careful not to prostitute themselves through their art. Some things are private and should remain so in order for the actor to do his work safely.

The Seven Year Rule

2008-04-04T12:52:00.002-04:00

In school there were certain teachers who would drill it into our heads never to "use" anything emotionally touchy from our lives that occurred LESS than seven years ago. The theory was that anything that happened during that time frame would be too emotionally "hot", and rather than using "it", "IT" would control you.

It takes seven years for every cell in your body to be replaced by new cells. The argument is that once seven years has passed and all the cells that had experience the event first hand have been replaced you will have enough physical and psychological distance to be able to use the event without falling apart.

I wonder if the Strasbergs ever told Marilyn Monroe about the seven year rule?

In school, I had just decided it was safer to follow the rule. I didn't buy into the rule 100%, but I wasn't about to dismiss the wisdom of an octagenarian who could see through my soul even when I thought she had been napping during my performance. (Seriously, that woman had some scary insights!) As I passed through my classes, however, I began to collect all kinds of fascinating information about how, why and where my body stores information. The seven year rule didn't seem to look so silly after a while.

Through repetition our bodies develop a memory of their own- something not involving the conscious mind. This is how we can train ourselves to perform marvelous physical feats without having to consciously plan every physical step. Let's say you are learning a dance routine. Each portion of the routine requires intense mental concentration. My foot goes back, my hand counters the weight over hear, my center of gravity shifts... but with repetition you can eventually perform a complex system of movements simply by allowing yourself to feel the rhythm of the chosen music. Your body has recorded this kinesthetic memory at the cellular level. The theory says that when an original cell dies the one that replaces it carries a copy of that memory so the body can call upon that particular routine later. The more repetition, the better the copy in subsequent cells. I don't know how correct that is from the standpoint of biology, but I DO know that I can still perform my pompom squad audition routine from 1988.

I began to experiment with my body's memory in my second year of school. It was after a particularly disturbing session of body work just before we had left for holiday break that I realized the power of my own body to protect my brain and my emotional state. I was in no way consciously aware of the amount of stress I had been under. I had felt pretty confident that I was holding things together even though there were all kinds of money issues, relationship issues, and particularly stressful family developments all happening at the same time. When our instructor suggested that we do body work as a pre-holiday treat I was ready to roll up my sleeves and physically manipulate a fellow classmate into the land of bliss and relaxation. We were an odd number that day and so the teacher opted to use me as his example body for the day. I could not have expected what happened next.

Once I was on the mat he began to demonstrate how to work the shoulders. Things were fine at first but once he found a tight knot and started to work it I was assaulted by all of these feelings that I had been sweeping under the rug for what must have been weeks. I tried not to cry, but the more he worked it, the more I felt the injustice of the situation I had been in and the more I couldn't stop replaying an incident in my head. It was as if the knot was a playback button on a recording device. My instructor could see that I was in a bit of trouble. He sent the rest of the class off to work and then whispered to me that he was going to work on me for the entire hour. He instructed me to let it get ugly. I'm nothing if not a good student so it got ugly. It got very ugly.

He found spots all over my body that triggered very emotional and immediate responses. There was a warehouse of emotional baggage stuck in my body. My boyfriend in my fingertips, my father in my shoulders, my dog in my lower back... on and on and on it went. I couldn't stop the rush of anxiety and sadness and I began to wail like an emergency siren. The sound flew out of my body without my will. I simply HAD to. The pressure building up inside was too great, I was unable to maintain any kind of composure. My teacher reassured me with great kindness that I needed to let it go and he prompted me to be sloppy every time I attempted to stop crying or drooling or stop my nose from running all over the place. He just brought me some kleenex and continued to work me until I couldn't make any more sound.

When class was over I was exhausted but feeling much better. My face was a snotty, puffy mess and I was a little ashamed to meet my classmates' eyes. However, as is the case with good ensembles, I was met without judgement or revulsion but with quiet hugs and non-verbal gestures of support. I went about the rest of my day trying to figure out what had happened to me.

After this incident I began to notice how my body stores stress, grief, happiness, and desire. I can recognize it before it builds to such a pitch and I have found ways to release it. I even attempted to access these parts of my body- the parts with this immediate store of emotion- in my work but I found it to be overwhelming. It overwhelmed my technique and destroyed my sense of textual circumstances. I was no longer crafting performance, but letting self-indulgent emotional display take over. This was not good for my work. It was not good for any kind of storytelling. It was therapy.

Art may have therapeutic properties, but GOOD art is NOT THERAPY. We should always avoid this kind of selfishness and emotional public masturbation. Above all, everything an actor does needs to be a choice.

That is where the seven year rule fits for an actor. It is about experiencing the freedom to make choices and not being walled in by one experience or another. If you need to fall apart, falling apart should be your choice. If you need to slip but still try to hold it together, your emotional life should be constructed to allow you to do so. You should not be ruled by the emotion or obligatory emotional reactions. Circumstances need to be crafted, rehearsed, repeated, memorized and then forgotten so that you may live in the circumstances and be in control of your choices.

Writer's Block

2008-03-28T11:41:00.003-04:00

I used to brag that I never got writer's block.

The truth is, I have always kept myself busy with so many other types of projects that I was never forced to write when I didn't feel like it. For example, I would line up a writing project followed by a directing project coinciding with a building/ craft project. That way if the writing wasn't working I was always involved in something else and I would never notice the block. Now that I am trying to focus on one thing at a time I realize that writer's block is a deadly predator that needs to feast on my creative brain several times a day.

I've never freaked out about it before. As busy as I've been, I've never missed a deadline- self imposed or otherwise. However, this is the first time I am experiencing writer's block with down time. I'm like a shark. I need to keep moving or I drown. So sitting on the couch watching episode after episode of MythBusters doesn't feel all that productive. It feels like oxygen deprivation.

However, I am determined to go through this one. I am going to experience the stewing. It will pass. I don't believe for one second that I've exhausted all of my creative reserves. I'm just percolating. Consciously, slowly, painfully percolating without the benefits of caffeine, nicotine and/or psycho-sexual drama.

Basically, I'm just sitting on the couch watching CNN until a new episode of MythBusters is on and learning to be okay with it. Sometimes carpe diem means "sitting on your ass and liking it".

You Can USE That...

2008-03-24T09:13:00.003-04:00

Young actors can say some pretty stupid things sometimes.

That is to be expected, of course, many of them just having drank the Kool-Aid of whatever methodology they've chosen to study. I can't knock it, really, it is part of the process and I firmly believe in the Kool-Aid myself. It is in the application of the methodology- the Kool-Aid, if you will- that can trip up the young and studious actor. I know, I was there myself.

When I was pregnant with my first child all my actor friends congratulated me by saying something along the lines of, "Wow! Just think how you'll be able to use that." I remember resenting that. For the first time in my life, something was actually more exciting to me than acting and I bristled at the suggestion that I would be called upon to bring this sacred part of my life into my work. I had no specific objections to "using" my experience as a new mother in my craft. I still don't. I must admit that being a mother has, indeed, shaped my approach as an actor and as a director, but I couldn't shake the feeling that a few of these actors were referring specifically to labor and delivery. One of them actually confirmed this suspicion by saying to me, "Just think what the pain of childbirth will do for you!".

Well. That's just stupid.

When will I be called upon to use that particular sensation? When I'm starring in some MOV or playing a bit part in ER where I will be asked to sweat through some phony birth hysterics? It doesn't relate to my birth experience. Maybe it's the pain- specifically- which I should be using. But that pain of birth is not torture, it is not death, it is not linked to anything but anticipation and a most wonderful and terrifying joy. Perhaps it would be useful in portraying some religious ecstasy? Well, I already have my substitution for that.

Here is where I must pause and talk about substitutions for a bit. I worry about "substitutions", as they are called, because I feel they are sometimes over-used, or rather, used too far into the process. In terms of getting to a place of personal understanding of the circumstances I think substitutions from your own life are quite valuable. A substitution should serve only to build a bridge between your own experience and that of the character. After that you must internalize that understanding and replace the substitution with the actual circumstances of the text. The substitution should then be replaced by something less intrusive. Let's call that something an "as if". If the substitution is the bridge, the bridge should span from you on one side with your chosen substitution and the character on the other accompanied by the "as if". You have to cross the bridge. You cannot stay stuck on your own side of the bridge playing your substitution or you will be self-indulgent and outside the circumstances of the text.

Which brings us back to the whole child birth scenario. Even if you haven't given birth you can play a scene in a labor and delivery ward without having given birth yourself. It is about being specific. Clinically specific. This would require some study, but it does NOT require you getting pregnant and giving birth in order to play. As with any text, a good actor will strip down the circumstances and craft each one without glossing over or making assumptions. Walk around in your body. Add each circumstance one by one and see how your body responds. You are 30 pounds heavier. Where do you feel it? What have you eaten? When did you eat it? Your stomach is higher up and the sphincters that normally keep your stomach acid contained are strained and they relax in response. Inside your uterus is 6-8 pounds of bone and muscle with a mind of its own. How does it feel? The same muscles that engage during a bowel movement (we all know where those are) are the ones that contract during labor. Allow yourself to feel the 3-dimensional space inside your abdomen. Get a picture of your pelvic floor and how it cradles your infant. See how those muscles respond to a contraction. Etc. Etc. Then you add the circumstances of your partner, the place of birth, is it early, is it late, etc. It is something anyone who is willing to challenge their assumptions about birth and use their imaginations can do and do well. It doesn't mean you HAVE to start screaming and threatening all men in the delivery room. That is just a cliche. And even if the script calls for you to do so- there are a million different ways to do it. You can look every man in the eye and tell them how much you hate them with cool clarity. You don't have to flail and be helpless about it. Of course, it all depends on the circumstances.

When I was in acting school we had a seminar with Harvey Keitel. The moment I remember the most clearly is when Mr. Keitel got into an exchange with a fellow student of mine. I don't remember the exact exchange, but I DO remember his response. After the student had asked her question, Mr. Keitel stood straight and tall and bellowed, "WHO TOLD YOU NOT TO USE YOUR IMAGINATION?!". This was amusing enough, but since it was, you know, Harvey Keitel, it was also kind of frightening. It seemed as if he was going to find out which one of our teachers had perpetrated this crime and he would "take care of it". Which in turn made it that much more funny. I think about that a lot as I construct circumstances as an actor and as a writer. Imaginary does not necessarily mean "untrue".

I know I've mentioned this before, but it illustrates my point nicely so I will bring it up again. While working on Lady MacBeth (the Sleepwalking scene, of course) I discovered that part of her torturous dream included murdering her own little boy. At the time, I had no son. I had not given birth. I had never committed infanticide. (Umm, for the record, I still have no experience with infanticide!) However, I could construct this beautiful, pudgy little blonde boy with creamy white cheeks, fat little fingers and the smell of graham crackers lingering on his breath. I could see how he walked- being only 16 months old he would awkwardly stomp his way toward me. I could feel his trusting little arms struggling to reach around my neck as I bent down and cradled his little head in my hands. I reached my hand around the back of his head around to his soft, smooth little chin. I yanked. I felt his neck snap and his body go limp. I felt the finality of my actions. I felt my heart split as I also felt my resolve. It was purely imaginary, but it brings tears to my eyes as I think about it now. A well of horror and self loathing bubbles in my heart. I feel shaky. None of this is real. I used no substitutions. I simply constructed the moment as fully as I could and allowed myself to be connected to them physically (this being the most important step, in my opinion) and Lady M's nightmare is suddenly a reality to me. It is suddenly my reality and I feel I am a bloody monster that needs to die.

Yeah. Who told you not to use your imagination? It comes in handy and can often be a lot more direct than using substitutions. Although, substitutions come in handy when you have to kiss someone you don't find attractive or you have to construct the character's logic when it doesn't seem like any kind of logic to you. That said, you can't leave it at finding the substitution. Substitutions should never be played. They need to be swallowed, digested and the unnecessary parts excreted so that you keep what is essential to the circumstances and stay within the text- never separate from it.

For Actors

2008-03-20T10:00:00.001-04:00

I do not often make class announcements on this blog, however, it has come to my attention that Charles Goforth- actor/ director/ teacher and LAByrinth Theater Company Member- is going to be offering a 6 week, 10 session class this spring at Center Stage in NYC. I had the pleasure of working with Charles in LAB's Master Class this past spring and I can't resist the opportunity to encourage him in this endeavor.

Here is Charles in his own words:

"Inspiration for this class came first at auditions. For years I auditioned to "get the job," and often my concentration would sputter. As a director I've seen many actors audition, work hard and be mostly unexceptional. I felt the struggle from both sides of the table. But I saw the problem, at least for me: The reality of my audition was more compelling than the reality my character was trying to live through.

It was about the integrity of technique. So auditions became more of an internal test. They became less "did I get it?" and more "did I get down to choices that really - no, really - capture me?" I stopped "auditioning" and started doing my work while casting people happened to be watching.

I started to get hired. And as a teacher I was inspired to give other actors a chance to breathe and to focus on questions of ownership and joy: How do we begin for real? Can we sit down, and with text analysis that's personal and true, find our own "whys" in the words? Can we build actions that are fun, that pin our concentration and compel us into each arriving moment? Do we have a discipline that unleashes original acting? Can we depend on it, and can we use it to build a character different from us? In short, do we own the work?"

Classes begin March 29 and run to May 13 running 6 Saturdays and 4 Tuesday Evenings- culminating in an evening of scenes and monologues. If you are interested in more information about Charles and his classes you can email him at goforth.centerstage@gmail.com.

John Adams

2008-03-18T11:12:00.003-04:00

It has been a long time since we've seen a historical mini-series on television. It has been even longer since a historical mini-series has had the mainstream push that HBO's miniseries event John Adams has had. The buzz before the show has caused even non-geek excitement about this decidedly unsexy historical figure.

Yes. I said unsexy. John Adams did not exactly cut the most dashing of colonial figures but David McCullough strives to give him, and his extraordinary wife, their due in this mini-series. So far.

I'll admit. I'm leery of bio-pics in general and even more concerned about drama that features such prominent historical figures. So often writers tend to weigh heavily on hyperbole, reverence and/or revulsion when it comes to such subjects. The person(s) in question are usually either overly praised or mercilessly "exposed" for their shortcomings as suits the writer's whim and rarely do I walk away with a sense of the real human. Rather, I tend to walk away with a better understanding of the writer's opinion of the person and the circumstances involved. Drama is not meant to "report", but rather to "retell" and there is a lot of wiggle room in retelling and that can lead to critical distortions of the truth.

Luckily, the first two episodes of this series seem to side-step these land mines. So far the text has yet to exalt or defile the man, but has sought to explore his dilemmas as if they were urgent- not foregone conclusions. We are allowed to empathize with Adams and that empathy is strikingly tempered by the input of his intelligent and insightful wife- Abigail.

Historically speaking, their relationship was an extraordinary partnership of intellectual equals and proves itself more than worthy of exploration by our modern culture awash with all kinds of gender role confusion and conflict. Here is where Giamatti and Linney have earned their salt. Not only have they deftly handled the circumstances of time and place, but they have shattered the expectations and preconceived notions of that time and place. In their hands, John and Abigail are loving and playful with one another in a way that brings the audience beyond the formality of colonial culture and language. Their rapport is deeply personal and the shadows of resentment that flicker through Abigail's eyes as she watches her ambitious beloved leave her to tend to the children and the farm again and again I can only describe as deeply resonant.

I do wonder, however, how much "speechifyin'" from the ornery and loquacious Adams the series can support. At the moment the speeches and the rants are fascinatingly juxtaposed with Adam's insecurity, but can that theme progress from here on out? I do hope that it can, but that is a piece of dramatic gymnastics considering the man's choices as he passes through his life. We will just have to wait and see.

The series is, on the whole, very well cast and well shot by Tak Fujimoto- with the exception of some tiresome hand-held footage during the Boston Massacre, but that can be forgiven. I understand that choice. However, I must make note of an actor who tickles my fancy somewhat these days and that is Tom Wilkinson as the cantankerous Benjamin Franklin. He blows onto the small screen with a wittily dismissive air and overshadows Adams with ease. I am eager to watch this historical relationship and all of its complexity unfold. The small taste I've had has been a delight.

If you haven't seen the first two episodes yet, find a way to catch up. You won't be sorry.

The Pleasure of Silence

2008-03-09T22:01:00.002-04:00

There are certain films I turn to when I want to remember what drives my love for acting. Some of them I watch on purpose. Others I stumble across on TCM and swear I'll only watch this next scene but find I am unable to turn away. These films range in style and subject matter, but the thing that all of these films share is moments of silence.

Not overly dramatic silences. Sometimes the silence is shared between two characters who have just come to an understanding of the circumstances while others babble on about them. Sometimes the silence is merely a beat. Sometimes it is an entire film. That is the case with the 1928 silent classic The Passion of Joan of Arc. With the camera focused on tight close ups of the character's faces throughout you can't help but be pulled in to the very real human drama of a young girl on trial for her life. This film is naked, raw, breathtaking and heartbreaking. Each dilation of the eye, twitch of the cheek and push of the brow cuts to the very center of human emotion. The saint falls away, and we are left with a young girl marked for a painful and tragic death. Haunting.

The Passion of Joan of Arc is an exciting and difficult film. But one does not need to be tortured to experience the pleasures of silence. Last night I watched one of my favorite films, The Apartment with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. This film benefits greatly from one of my favorite directors, Billy Wilder, who understands the power of the unspoken. The script patiently doles out information to the characters and lets them realize what we, the audience, have known all along. Watching Mr. Baxter and Miss Kubilick make their discoveries about one another in the shot gun blasts of silence that riddle this picture is the very definition of sublime. A classic example of Wilder, this film is funny, dark, and touchingly human. When Miss Kubilick blithely hands her broken compact mirror to Mr. Baxter so he can take a look at himself in his new hat he recognizes it as the compact belonging to the woman who has been having an affair with his boss. An affair he had been helping to facilitate by letting his boss use his apartment. The heartbreak falls quickly from his eyebrows to his feet. "Your mirror's broken" he says. "I like it that way. It makes me look the way I feel. " She replies. There's a beat. Neither character fully understands the circumstances of their relationship, but he has just learned something new. In a split second we see his hopes for the future fall apart. She, however, does not realize his affection for her or understand that he has just learned something about her. In that moment you can't help but feel deeply for these two people.

In To Kill a Mockingbird you'll find my all time favorite moment of silence. At the end of the film when we finally see the mysterious and previously frightening Boo Radley behind the bedroom door we get to watch Scout grow years older in a brief moment. A flame of comprehension ignites in her eyes. The world is suddenly a very different place for her and all she says is, "Hey Boo." I get teary just thinking about it.

Casablanca is overflowing with great silent moments. No one does brooding silences like Bogey. Although I think some of my favorite Bogey silences are in a lesser known film with Bogart and Gloria Graham called In a Lonely Place. Bogart plays a charming writer who falls for a beautiful neighbor. Unfortunately, he is suspected of murder. Graham believes Bogey. How could she not? He's so charming and kind, but as professional circumstances and the pressures of the investigation begin to weigh on him, his notorious temper begins to plant the seeds of fear in her mind. In a glorious and horrible twist (which I will not reveal in hopes you will search out this wonderful film!) we find Bogey and Graham staring at one another from across the room and in this silence we know exactly what will happen next even though we never see it. I love that.

Silence can be done badly, however. I find that the silences in The Darjeeling Limited are heavy handed. The scene where the brothers sit in silence with their mother and stare intently at one another is a horrible flashback to acting classes. They are powerful in the context of the classroom, but not in the context of the story. To give Wes Anderson some credit, however, I have to say the suicide sequence in The Royal Tannenbaums is moving and delightful.

Of course, I can't quite end my cataloguing of silences without bringing up that tiny little moment in Harold and Maude when Harold spots the tattooed number on Maude's arm. Neither character ever says a word about it. No one goes into therapy over it. It is a new piece of information that simply becomes a part of the dance between lovers. Isn't that lovely?

It is. It IS lovely, because the fact of the matter is that life is lived so much less in words and expressions than it is in silence. We share moments of silences with loved ones, acquaintances and complete strangers every day. When we are open to them they can be just as liberating, powerful, touching and haunting as they are in the movies. More so. Because at the end of the day- those moments are ours.

Is the Theatre Really Dead?

2008-02-28T11:03:00.002-05:00

Simon and Garfunkel sang that question a few decades ago. I remember the first time I heard that question in my mid-teens I was indignant. The theatre could never actually DIE. It is too much a part of the human soul!

Yeah. Little did I know that the theatre was dead, is dead and has been dead for a long time. What's worse is that I've done my fair share to kill it.

I don't go.

It's that simple. I just don't go.

That doesn't mean that I don't miss it or that I don't want to go. I have plenty of excuses. It is too expensive. I don't really care to see a musical rehashing of some film that I found mildly amusing sometime in the 1980's. Anything that is challenging seems almost too challenging. Let's face it. I'm tired. I don't go out much at all anymore. It is too exhausting and the idea that I would have to get tickets in advance, organize a babysitter and commit to NOT being in my pajamas at 8:00 PM just seems too much to bear. Although I've already said it, it bears repeating... it is just too expensive. At an average of a $50.00- $60.00 ticket for nosebleeds and $12-$15/ hour for a sitter it is just too cost prohibitive. And forget about going out for dinner beforehand. That would break the bank for a couple who is trying to live on a budget, save for "retirement" and pull themselves out of debt. As much as I love the theatre I've got bigger fish to fry.

Part of the reason I've produced theatre is so I could actually SEE some theatre. I do have opportunities to get cheap tickets to the odd show now and again, but for some reason I can't quite work up the emotional fortitude to go. Usually it works out that I would have to go see the show alone. Which is fine, except that I like to talk about the show afterward. There's nothing worse than having to scan the audience for another lone theatre goer and then trying to devise a way to get them to discuss the show with you without coming off like a freak. I usually save my commitment energy for seeing artists I know doing small shows. I like to lend my support when I can. Of course, this has its drawbacks. As a producer of "small shows" myself, I can tell you that "small shows" are often just that. Small. In which case going becomes an exercise for my directorial eye and not so much about the joy of seeing a show. I can't remember the last show I went to that I just sat down and watched. I miss doing that. Terribly.

I often sit and think about what would be a good enough deal to get me out the door to go see a show. What would it take? Well, it would take a good show, I suppose. But what does THAT mean? I've become so cynical that I find myself dismissing concepts because they seem too, well, conceptual. I'm a fan of the kitchen sink. I love simple drama done well. I suppose I would get off my ass to see a group of unknowns tackle something impossible like A Streetcar Named Desire. I don't care to see any celebrities do it. That's too much expectation- most of it bad. I don't want to go to the theatre just to cross my arms and wear a "prove it to me" scowl. That's no fun. And I don't want to go just because there's a really good light show or expensive costumes and sets. I want to see people. Real people. Not cardboard robots programmed to emote. The theatre I've seen in the past few years has just been too overwrought with self-indulgent emotional outbursts. What's even worse than that is watching someone with technical skill go to that hyper emotional place. When that hysteria reaches a peak and yet every word is clearly spoken and fully supported by breath and technically perfect... I want to vomit.

Either tone down the hysteria or tone down the technique. Together they read as rehearsed.

I know I ask for the impossible. Maybe that is so I will have the excuse to stay home. But I recognize that this also means that the audiences I want to reach are fighting to sit on their couches in their pajamas as well. Once I figure out how to reach ME I might be able to figure out how to reach THEM.

The Artist Battles with the Parent

2008-02-13T10:42:00.002-05:00

Internally there is a constant battle.

You'd think that one could be both and artist and a parent without having the two clash. It seems that they would be loving, compatible pursuits. Yeah. Not so much.

In the past week my first grader went on a field trip with his class to see a play that takes place in France in 1942. Yes. You can see where this is going. The play is about two young girls who develop a friendship -one Catholic and one Jewish- under the threat of the Nazi regime. The play was based on a children's book and was produced by a company here in New York for which I have a lot of respect. I'll admit that I was worried about the subject matter and my son's developmental readiness. However, I have also seen this particular company's work both in the classroom and on the stage for the last 3 years and I have a lot of faith in their mission and their sensitivity. I white knuckled it, signed the permission slip, paid the admission price and let him go.

Now, let it be said that there were notices coming home about the subject matter of the book they would be studying through this artist residency. There was open time during an evening family workshop to ask questions and raise concerns about the upcoming performance. Then there was the permission slip and admission fee... my point being there were plenty of times that the parents were alerted to the sensitive nature of the material. If there were concerns or misgivings, the parents had ample time (in my opinion) to talk to teachers, the principal and/or the representatives from the program. However, the majority of the parents didn't say a peep until the "damage was done" and the children had already seen the performance.

Early this week the parents' Yahoo group was ablaze with controversy- railing about developmental appropriateness and pointing fingers at the principal for allowing such a thing to be in the lower grades at all. I was stymied. After all- I took issue with it as well but I recognize that I made a conscious decision to allow my child to participate and if there was any blame to be laid it must be laid on me- as the parent. The following was part of my post in that group:

"I do think the subject matter was pushing the envelope a little for these guys. I was not going to bring it up for several more years because my son just doesn't have the context for it. He doesn't understand war or that there are perceived differences between people and other cultures. Frankly, I barely understand it as an adult. It is hard for me to wrap my more experienced mind around it so I can't imagine how the pieces fit together for him. I chose to let him have this experience, however. I elected for him to have it by signing the permission slip and handing over my money. I can't really say that I regret it. It will be slowly dissected in our home for months to come at my son's speed. I would not have chosen this time to address it, but that is more because I don't like dealing with the fact that we live in an unpleasant world where people choose to do horrible things. We live in a world where genocide is not the distant past but our present and, sadly our future as well. I'd rather not have my 6 year old know about that because he's perfect the way he is and I admit that I am rather selfish about protecting that. But the realities of the world have a weird way of imposing themselves on our children no matter what we do and I
don't think he was destroyed by the knowledge he has received. What I know is that he will tuck it away and deal with it in small increments as he acquires new bits of knowledge about history and human behavior. What he experienced at that performance and through that book will become an important part of his identification with history as he grows up. Just as my childhood experiences tromping through Civil War battlegrounds and seeing my Dad's collection of Civil War paintings depicting the carnage of those same battles has shaped me as I began to develop my sense of compassion. It isn't pleasant. It isn't the timing I would have chosen. But I have no regrets. Our cruelest natures are revealed when we are most afraid. That is how war, genocide, and brutality happen- not because of strength, but because of fear. We cannot confront fear by ignoring it. So here we are, the O'Connor Family whistling in the dark."

Well. I was then pounced upon by other parents who insisted that their children did not "get it" and that now they are suffering because of widespread developmental insensitivity on the part of the school. On one hand, I understand their anger. After all, I once gave a friend of mine a lecture for taking his seven year old to Ground Zero and showing him pictures of people jumping out of the building. I guess I justify that rant because he just sprung it on his poor kid and did it to keep his kid from goofing off while he was there. I thought he was needlessly frightening his child to get more "appropriate" behavior and not providing context from which the child could learn. But who am I to talk? I willingly subjected MY child to the Holocaust- regardless of how sensitively it was portrayed. Aren't I a monster for doing that?

Other parents were angry because there was a character who was a Hitler Youth. The point was to show the Nazis as humans too and to show how easily one can fall prey to propaganda even when it is against our better nature. And, yes, it was a musical. Nazis got to sing and dance, but it was no "Springtime for Hitler". Not in my opinion. Other parents thought it was a glorification of anti-Semitism. There are some things you just aren't allowed to explore in any context. Maybe a show aimed at families is not the place for such complexities- but I really, really WANT it to be. The artist inside me really NEEDS it to be. However, the mother inside me desperately wants to protect her child. The difficulty is, if I really want what I say I want for my child I have to expose him to unpleasant things and I need to challenge his critical thinking in ways I might not get to control.

The artist in me is angry. The fact that I live in a place where "developmentally appropriate" is even a serious discussion makes me feel pampered and spoiled. Do parents around the world have that luxury? I'm sure there are some Sudanese parents who would love to have that discussion, but with family, neighbors and friends being slaughtered they just need to survive. Yes. I have some bleeding heart, liberal guilt that my child gets the "benefits" of this debate while others are subjected to atrocities and for the most arbitrary reason of all- simple geography. My son was born somewhere that doesn't have that problem.

So, shouldn't I, as a parent, take advantage of that stroke of luck? Shouldn't I protect him from inappropriate reading material? Shouldn't I shelter him from harsh realities until he is "old enough" to be able to "process" them? I probably should. But that means that I should shield him from fairy tales and fables, myths and even the Bible. I should keep him away from Harry Potter, pirates, and Star Wars. Darth Vadar destroys an entire planet, for Pete's sake! If I did that, then I would keep from myself my most valuable teaching tool- story.

In our house the story is king. Stories mean absolutely everything. We process our feelings through other characters. We broaden our outlook through tales of another's experience. When something is too difficult to work through directly- we break out a book or a movie and filter our own confusion through a character's lens. Stories help us to understand and to be more compassionate. A story about the Holocaust is just as real to my six year old as the story of Luke Skywalker. Villains exist in story because they exist in life. We have to deal with them somehow.

I sat down with my son to gauge how the performance and the book were affecting him. After all, I had overheard him and his friends playing "Nazi" on the playground. Of course this disturbed my liberal sensibilities, especially since my son volunteered to be the Nazi. Then I remembered that he always plays the bad guys- and he is about as evil as a newborn kitten. He is six so he processes things that frighten or confuse him through play. But it still warranted a discussion.

What I learned from our discussion was that he understood that the Nazis in the play were not "real" but actors. He had empathized with the girls in the play but he had focused not on the terror but on the uplifting ending- friendship endured and a life was saved. "Playing bad guys is fun, Mom. But I'm not a bad guy in real life. In real life, I'm a funny guy." When I told him that I had considered keeping him home from the performance that day I saw a fire in his eyes that nearly knocked me off my seat.

"I'm not too young, Mom. I can handle it and I'd be angry if you ever tried to keep me from something like that."

Funny, but I think I made the right decision- against my better judgement. I have a kid whose intellect that I can trust and deserves my respect. In my own family, at least, I need to allow for that complexity and that difficulty because the apple don't fall too far from the tree.

There's Nothing For Me to Watch!

2008-02-04T11:29:00.000-05:00

In my present emotionally and hormonally vulnerable condition I have found that an afternoon at the movies is fraught with peril. There is very little that the multiplex can offer me that will not cause me to spend the remainder of the evening huddling in a corner trying to think of happy thoughts to erase the visions of terror and gore from my mind. The few options that are left are dreary in their mindlessness and their paint-by-numbers approach to entertainment.

I'd like to see Sweeney Todd or There Will Be Blood. I might even venture into the land of the Cohen brothers for No Country for Old Men, but I am all to familiar with the torturous hijinx and nihilistic coolness of which the Cohen brothers are capable. I've been warned away from these films by good friends who don't want to receive an angry and disgusted phone call from me after my viewing these pictures. Don't see it while you are vulnerable like this. It won't be pleasant. But it isn't just my pregnancy that keeps me from these films- although it does make me a bit more reactive than usual. I still haven't seen Boys Don't Cry, and that is because I can't. You see, I get it. I get it that causing others pain is bad. I understand that murder is morally reprehensible. I don't need to see gory war scenes, because I already get it. I wonder if there isn't any other subject matter under the sun? Or are we just reliving those lazy glory days in the stands at the Colliseum?

I want to see films that challenge me and even challenge my moral compass, but I want to be able to sit through them without vomiting. There are some who would argue that the gore helps to emphasize the immorality of certain actions and how far we have slipped as a culture. I say that is an over simplified justification for making blood and death somewhat sexy. How many times does the guy in the trunk have to come back to life only to be horribly beaten to death? Haven't we seen that gag already? And it is a gag. Don't kid yourself. We know the dilemma. There is a moment in which the character can redeem himself by choosing to face the consequences of his actions and perhaps try to save this person's life. But that is never an option, is it? We always know there's a tire iron. It is never a surprise when the victim takes way too long to die, but we'll have to sit through it to justify having just spent $11.75 for the honor of seeing this picture.

There are more creative and less sensational ways of depicting violence that actually highlight the moral dilemma as opposed to the blood and guts. How many times have I watched Fail Safe and been appropriately horrified? The action is that film is simply people talking, and I am riveted. If you think blood is necessary for suspense, how about All the President's Men? I even know what happens in that film step by step before I see it, but there is a looming sense of danger throughout. It can be done, but blood lust is ruling our entertainment at the moment.

I keep thinking about that Mike Judge movie Idiocracy where the number one film is a movie called Ass. That's all it is. For 90 minutes is an ass farting. It was up for several Oscars that year. That's the joke in the film. However, I don't think Mike Judge's assessment of the future is too far off from the now. My options for film viewing today are "Blood and Guts", "Fart Jokes", or "Tepid, Sentimental Chick Flick". God help me! Have we run out of things to discuss? Have we run out of things to care about?

Oh, I know. We've had some political thrillers and the occasional Grisham novel made celluloid, but even those films are dry and lacking in discourse. They are agendas on screen. All answers without any questions. No one cares to discover anymore. They just titillate and agitate. I am far from impressed.

The movies I mentioned above, might be good movies. But I'll never know, because my stomach and my nerves can't afford to sit through them. There's nothing for me to watch.

We Love You Miss Hannigan!

2008-01-16T22:28:00.001-05:00

If there is anything you could blame for my involvement in the theater it would have to be "Annie". Every redheaded actress I know has her "Annie" story. Every one of us outgoing reds figured we WERE Annie. We were all spirited, charming and resourceful! Clearly it was a role made for only me (us!). The stories only take two tracks, either it was her crowning achievement or the role that got away. For me, it was the role that got away.

I was too old to play Annie when the opportunity finally came to my small midwestern town. I auditioned anyway and I did not get a part, but I was offered a chance to create fairy tales from improvised structures with other too-old-for-Annie theater geeks for the summer. That was clearly that. It was a way for me to write out loud and get immediate satisfaction as opposed to the hours I had previously spent plunking away on my mother's electric typewriter working on short stories that only my best friend would read.

I was never really the musical theater type. I can sing but I'm not showy. As a general rule, musicals aren't what floats my boat. With that being said, I can't help but find it fascinating that of the top three theatrical events that have most influenced me, two of them were musicals. The first being "Annie" and the second being a musical about the lynching of 4 black men in Duluth, MN called "The Last Minstrel Show". I've been raving about that show for over 15 years. It completely changed the way I looked at the theater.

"The Last Minstrel Show" was produced at Penumbra Theater in St. Paul, MN. I spent the entire performance with my jaw dragging on the floor beneath my seat. The black cast performed in black face for a white, liberal Minnesota crowd. They made you comfortable with racist humor, let you laugh at it and then pulled the rug out from underneath you and showed you what you just did. It was eye opening. It made me see that I did not understand as much about the world as I thought I did. This is a huge feat to pull off with a cocky teenager, but I left the theater with that heady feeling of having learned a little too much about myself and the world I lived in. Damn that was good.

Every once in a while I think about auditioning for a musical. For laughs, I guess. Of course, now that I am older I keep thinking that the only musical role for me would be Miss Hannigan. "Little Girls" is a song that I began to truly understand as I spent two years as a stay at home mother. Boy, little brats can just burrow under your skin! Every time I see Carol Burnett do it in the film version I can't help but get a little twitchy wishing I could have a crack at it. Of course, I've only seen auditions for that role twice in the last few years. Both times I've been visibly pregnant. Damn. That just won't do! It seems that "Annie" will be forever out of my reach and I have no hopes of ever being in "The Last Minstrel Show". That would just be wrong.

Of course, there is a musical in the works with Playful Substance- believe it or not. It won't be as fluffy as "Annie" and I doubt it will be as confrontational as "The Last Minstrel Show" and I probably won't be IN it. This is all just as well, I suppose. Every time I tell someone I will be working on a musical I laugh involuntarily. I just can't believe it. It doesn't seem to fit somehow- which, I suppose, is precisely the reason to do it.

Why A Happily Married Woman Should Not Listen to Sticky Fingers

2008-01-13T22:15:00.000-05:00

I'm guessing that any woman over the age of let's say 28 has received a mixed tape (CD for the young 'uns) at some point in their dating careers. I'm willing to bet that at least one of those gifts has contained a track from The Rolling Stones "Sticky Fingers". After all, what teenage boy can resist wooing his love with "Wild Horses"? And he shouldn't resist. It works. Well, it worked on me. Some of the time.

There are quite a few recordings that I find are dangerously soaked with the memories of other men. Even men I didn't particularly fancy, but as I grow older and slightly wider I now fancy the memory of being fancied. I have never said I wasn't vain.

The musicians in my danger zone such as Simon and Garfunkel, The Allman Brothers, Alice Cooper, The Cure, Jefferson Airplane's "Surrealistic Pillow" in particular, betray that I was clearly a midwestern gal escaping the sticky horrors of early 90's pop by tuning in to classic rock stations on my crappy car stereo. When your tape deck doesn't work the classic rock station can be your only friend, until you get that cigarette lighter adapter for your crappy CD player. The first time I heard Tom Waits' "Blue Valentines" I was in a car. Thank god I wasn't the one driving or I would have had a seriously embarrassing accident - "Wrong Side of the Road" is still the HOTTEST song ever recorded as far as my pants are concerned. I still don't listen to that in the car. The explanation for the resulting injuries would be too humiliating to endure.

I don't drive much anymore. Living in Brooklyn means that driving is not really necessary. However, I do crave the joys of late night drives to distant destinations with a lover drifting off to sleep in the passenger seat. Which brings me back to "Sticky Fingers". I cannot listen to "Moonlight Mile" without feeling the hum of the engine, the lazy warmth of a stray hand on my thigh and the taste and smell of a cigarette dangling from my mouth as the lines on the highway slide beneath the car in time with the swell of strings. There is always the possibility of paradise at the next off ramp. Road weary bliss chilling in an ice bucket at the Econo Lodge with the smell of chlorine, damp siding and him.

Do you see what I mean? A happily married woman should not listen to "Sticky Fingers".

Why Some People Aren't Anywhere

2008-01-10T08:57:00.000-05:00

I know perfectly well why I am not rich and famous. My priorities are all wrong. I have never had enough hunger, drive (or self-esteem) to go out and hunt down opportunities, agents, press, etc. It has taken me a long time to come to terms with that. As an actor I should crave these things and search them out like a crazed, half-starved animal. I never have. I never will. I am quite content to do my little projects and hope that people will come and enjoy themselves. I know I won't get far with this method. I've spent a lot of time feeling inadequate about it, but my world view has expanded enough to allow me to appreciate small contributions to life. It's the little things, right?

One thing I do feel good about is that I am dependable. Sometimes a little too dependable, but regardless, my word is my bond. I am professional. It amazes me how many people in this business aren't. A lot of these people are the crazed, half-starved animals that I am not. I don't see how they can afford to be so flaky and so driven at the same time. Maybe this is why we are all still toiling away in the trenches of off-off (off!) Broadway venues.

I've been working as a producer on this one night event and I am floored to have people back out 3 days before the show. Why? Well, I've gotten plenty of excuses. Some of them seeming somewhat reasonable until you begin to ask "Why couldn't you have backed out three weeks ago?" or "There are 7 people in your project, why can't someone else pick up the slack?". I can only assume that is because the work has not been done.

I've fielded freak out phone calls about dates when people haven't even consulted their calendars. I've had people ask me to just pick up and move the entire project to another night 2 weeks in the future- forget the fact that space is hard enough to come by in this city and that all of the publicity has already gone out and we are on a budget of exactly $0.00. Yeah, you don't have enough time. Welcome to the theatre, my friends. You will always be strapped for time. The show will never be fully written. Your show will never feel "good enough". Yet, my experience is that you just have to put your head down and DO IT. No matter the outcome, you'll always be glad you did. And if circumstances prohibit you from participating- show good form and keep others abreast of the situation so you can exit graciously.

It isn't just this particular project. I've been experiencing this lack of professionalism and courtesy in so many other areas of my life as well. Recently I had someone who hired me for a project caution my enthusiasm by saying, "Don't go overboard. I don't want this to get TOO successful". What? Who says that? I've witnessed people using intimidation and passive aggressive guilt tactics to goad their employees and contractors into taking over projects so they don't have to take responsibility for a particular task. It blows me away that I could live in such a competitive environment and still find people who behave this way. Although, to be truthful, when I've been in less competitive environments I've experienced more professionalism.

I am by no means perfect. After all, I'm clearly ticked about recent developments and am venting on a blog. That is, admittedly, a sad state of affairs. I wonder if I kicked things up a notch and was at a defferent level if I would find more of the same? Or would people behave differently? It seems an awfully weird time in my life to be considering any kind of advancement. Someone once told me that genius rarely surrounds itself with inferiors. People who are true successes work to surround themselves with people who not only match their abilities but exceed them. It gives them a challenge.

Perhaps I underestimate myself and I need to surround myself with people who are much smarter than I. Maybe that is what my hunger should be for- not to validate myself with the trappings of "success" or "fame" or "fortune", but to challenge my abilities and to grow.

Of course, the person who told me that genius thing... she was a total crack pot.

Freedom to Fascism

2008-01-04T09:53:00.000-05:00

Due to Michael Moore's success and the rise of the documentary as popular entertainment, I have learned to approach new documentaries with some serious trepidation. Unfortunately, "Freedom to Fascism" validated every last one of my nuveau doc fears.

I am a very critical viewer of entertainment. Over the years I've also become a skeptical consumer of "investigative reporting". I know enough about narrative construction to be able to see when I'm being manipulated and I don't appreciate it.

Let's get this straight. Michael Moore is the only Michael Moore we have. I've stated my views on his work before. It is not documentary- it is cinematic essay. His style is unique, as is his personality. I find him entertaining. I find his reporting to be challenging but not without its rather significant deficeincies. His work should be viewed with a critical eye, but it is always skillfully and humorously assembled. Aaron Russo's "Freedom to Fascism" tries to follow the angry fat man model, but he has neither the cinematic skill nor the humor of Michael Moore.

First off, Russo spends the first half of the film trying to shoot down the 16th Amendment to the Constitution claiming that it was never fully ratified and therefore should be null and void. He also makes the argument that even if said amendment were legal that the Constitutional definition of the word "income" is suspect and that it would not and should not apply to personal wages. Through all of this, Russo throws many quotes and comments in text upon the screen to support his points. Not once does he ever show us the 16th Amendment. Wouldn't you think that would be important to share with your audience? Especially since Russo presumes his audience needs to be schooled on so many other aspects of the law, wouldn't the 16th Amendment be something he should explore in depth? At the very least using a reading of the amendment to provide us with some context? The brief claim he makes about the amendment's apparent lack of ratification by the states is not explored. It is simply stated as fact. I'm sorry, Mr. Russo, but I need to know how it became the 16th Amendment without being ratified. I'm not saying you're lying. I'm saying that a critical point in your story is missing.

Throughout the film, Russo and his interview subjects keep repeating the phrase, "Show us the law.". This refers to the federal law that would require us to pay tax on our personal income. I do, indeed, find this intriguing, especially since no one in the documentary is ever shown a law. I do think this is, legitimately, something for us to demand as a nation. However, Russo's interviews never feel complete. It seems as if Russo becomes impatient with the length of the interviews (perhaps owing to his less than engaging interviewing style) and rather that playing them out he simply freezes the frame and narrates as he pleases over the frozen image. Russo talks a lot in this film and his tone is alarmist.

The editing in the film is sloppy. Which surprises this viewer as Russo spends a lot of time building his own credibility by referring to himself a few times as "...an award winning filmmaker". I am certain he is. Just not for this film. The music is heavy handed and the end of the film consists of an angry diatribe written by Russo that the audience simply reads off the screen. Seems a little lazy and preachy to me. This is not documentary. This is an ineloquent Op-Ed piece written by an angry man.

I have nothing against Russo's anger- except for the fact that it makes for a poor documentary. I get quite frustrated with artists who complain out of one side of their mouths that the Bush Administration is fear mongering and using propaganda to sell the American people a bill of goods and then they go right out and use the same tactics to sell their own point of view. That kind of "reporting" shows absolutely no respect for the intelligence of its audience. Couldn't a more traditional documentary about the process of ratifying the 16th Amendment stir an audience to question? Couldn't an investigative examination of how the Fed really works give us an appropriate wake up call? Many of us don't know how it works and I am sure we would be shocked to discover the facts in black and white. If you agree with Russo that a more sensationalist approach is required to get the peoples' attention, then I have to sadly shake my head. That would only mean that we accept that assessment of our collectively low intelligence. Personally, I think we can do better. I think we could have more coherent arguments to the cause. Instead we are left with what feels like a slapdash fifth grade book report assembled the night before it was due.

I was not given enough actual information in this film. I was yelled at, spoken down to, preached at, and then given a website to visit. Presumably so I could take further abuse. While I agree that we need to demand, as a nation, some serious reform and the return of our individual liberties and rights to privacy, I do not believe this film was an effective tool in that fight. This tool was a piece of crap designed to herd sheep.

I'm no sheep. Give me some credible reporting.

Deceptively Difficult Skill

2007-12-22T22:03:00.000-05:00

I've always believed myself to be a good and responsive listener, both in my personal life and in my art. I learned long ago that listening is, by far, the most important skill for an actor to develop. Nothing can happen when actors only hear cue lines and fall in love with the sound of their well trained voices and dramatic pauses filled with tension. (That tension usually being caused by an actor consciously or unconsciously holding his breath in an attempt to sustain a prefabricated moment.) I wanted to be spontaneous and emotionally nimble on stage. I studied people. Body language, breath, intonation... any clue I could use to feed into my system I devoured with great passion. When I choose to pay attention, I can be quite astute at reading others on several different levels. I can read my immediate reactions to what the other person is giving me and consciously choose a response. I can pick apart potential motivations and circumstances behind the other person's words and actions and it helps keep me from flying off the handle- which is an old habit of mine. I am capable of performing a number of highly useful social tricks to keep myself out of trouble while occassionally being able to diffuse situations. In short, my training rocks.

Of course, the operative word here is "choose". I need to choose to use my training. I find I can use it with strangers, acquaintences. co-workers, business associates and friends- but I stink on ice when I'm with my family.

I don't mean to be a jerk at home and there ARE times when I can use those skills as a wife and a mother. But if I am really honest with myself I would have to admit I don't use those skills at home as often as I should. Perhaps it is because active listening is a lot of hard work. It requires a lot of effort from the system to take in all the information, arrange it. analyze it and react with sensitivity. Maybe I am just too tired to work that hard after 6:00PM. Maybe it is because I let my guard down at home and feel, somewhat selfishly, that those who love me most should put forth that kind of effort for me and coddle me while I am at home. Or perhaps I just fall into the role of being human when I am with my family and humans don't often put listening as their number one priority. Keeping tabs on others' emotions and your own 24 hours a day is beyond a full time job- especially when you're a hormonal wreck like me these days!

I guess every time I feel that I have really mastered something I need to take a step back, look at the whole of the situation and be prepared to eat a little humble pie. No one, but no one masters being a human being and we are all bound to have blind spots. I can fully admit to this, but it is a bit easier not to know where those blind spots are and wander through life feeling somewhat self-righteous! Having to admit to shortcomings- especially when they are shortcomings which you have already spent so much time trying to correct- is very difficult. However, this is what keeps me in my craft. There is always something more to work on. There is always some way to be better. Most of all, these lessons are applicable in my daily existence.

I'm slowly getting used to the taste of humble pie. If I can, I try to have it a la mode.

T-Shirts

2007-12-09T22:10:00.000-05:00

Some months ago I began noticing some brilliant t-shirts. Some were political, some were just funny. I have a list of some of my favorites. This is in no particular order.

My friend Ben has a gorgeous t-shirt featuring a clown vomitting a rainbow into a toilet. I saw a black man sporting a shirt that read, "Hey Lady, I don't want your purse". Then there was the skinny guy in Alphabet City wearing a shirt with a big sandwich on it. Underneath the sandwich it said "SILF". I've had to explain that one to a surprising number of people. Which makes me a little embarrassed to have found it so funny. But I did. I found it very funny.

As I was watching my usual Sunday morning political talk shows I couldn't help but think about yet another brilliant t-shirt that I saw on the back of a man that looked an awful lot like Jerry Garcia. His shirt read, "I Never Thought I'd Miss Nixon".

Me either. But W can sure make you nostalgic for the good ol' days. I just can't fathom, for the life of me, how Richard Nixon could get nailed so completely due to runaway paranoia while this guy gets away with such amazing incompetence! A few years ago, Nixon was the demon who slipped a ruphie in America's Pepsi and stole our collective innocence. Watergate traumatized us. Now that we've got Bush, Nixon seems like that goofy uncle that drank too much at weddings and annoyed everyone but once his liver failed and he was gone forever the family started to miss his antics. I miss the days when politicians simply lied to us about break-ins and blow jobs.

I know. I can't idealize Nixon. What he did was wrong, and crazy. But the big difference here is that Nixon got called on it. Bush is going to ride out his term like a petulant debutant with "senioritis". How is that humanly possible? Is it all because of Cheney? Are we that much more frightened of Cheney? Gulp.

On the back of a Spiderman comic that I bought for my 6 year old son is an ad for some mail-order t-shirts. One of the designs features a vampiric George W. Bush going for Lady Liberty's jugular. I gave an involuntary laugh when I saw it. My son said, "Mom? Who's that guy and why is he sucking on Lady Liverby?". Sigh. How do you explain to a six year old that the president the adults in his country elected is a guy who would sanction torture, keep sick kids from receiving health care, attack the wrong country, spy on his constituency, leave American citizens stranded in putrid water and squalid conditions with no relief, and trample on the Constitution... among other things? And most of all, how do I explain all that without infecting his mind with the liberal bullshit that is so prevelant in my neck of the woods?

"Son, that's George W. Bush. He's the President of the United States and some people don't like him."

"So, they make t-shirts like this. Is he a real vampire?"

"No. Some people think that he is not living up to the promise of America and this is the way someone chose to express that. In some countries an artist might go to jail for drawing a picture like that."

"Did the guy who drew that picture go to jail?"

Pause.

"Is he in jail, Mom?"

"Probably not."

"Do you like the President?"

"I don't like the way he is being President. No."

"But do you like him?"

"I can't say whether I'd like him as a person, sweetie. He might be an okay guy to chat with at a barbeque."

"If he wanted to be friends, would you be friends with him?"

"I wish I could say that I would, but I probably wouldn't."

"Why?"

"He doesn't seem to be very sensitive to other people's problems so I can't imagine he would be that good of a friend. I want to have good friends in my life."

"Do you hate him?"

"No. I try not to hate anyone."

"Even when they hurt you?"

From my kitchen fire escape I can see the hole in the sky where two towers used to stand. I can look across my courtyard and see people who lost loved ones. People who saw unimaginable horrors. People who had to stay inside, pull their shades and lock their doors in fear of vigilante reprisals for something that they took no part in. My son is six. He has no knowledge, no reference point for these things. I know that some day he will need to understand the events that have shaped our nation over the first years of his life. I want him to understand, not to parrot his mother's position. But it is abundantly clear, with each scandal, each self-important press conference, each defiant sneer that this arrogant, condescending, cocksure jackass is America's number one security threat sitting in the White House. His refusal to listen to facts or draw rational conclusions from those facts makes me want to rip my hair out. But I've heard neighborhood children repeat the political views of their parents and even though I might agree with some views I find their inclusion in the discussion as distasteful as watching the young'uns in the Fred Phelps clan spewing their parents' hateful views.

"Even when they hurt you. Sometimes you have to work a little harder, but hate hurts no one more than the person who does the hating. Best to avoid it, son. Best to avoid it. Do those t-shirts come in extra large?"

Theater Mama

2007-12-06T09:54:00.000-05:00

I guess it is time to come clean.

I've been absent for a while and I've let things go to seed a bit. The truth is, my husband and I are expecting another child. Which is an overly polite way to say that I'm pregnant again. For some odd reason, I find it somewhat distasteful to say that I'm pregnant. It feels somehow vulgar and I notice that people avoid saying it directly. The word is getting around and people approach me and say things like, "I've heard a rumor..." and "I hear you're expecting!", but no one says the word "pregnant". The word feels a bit like a punch in the neck. Sort of, well, shameful. I actually feel less dirty announcing "Hey everybody! I went and got myself knocked up!" than I do saying, "I'm pregnant." (In fact, that's exactly how I announced it to my fellow Playful Substance company members. It seemed an appropriate audience for that kind of announcement.) It is more than a little surprising to me that I should have such a negative reaction to a word that means something quite lovely.

On the flip side, though, I have no trouble discussing the physical and emotional experiences that go along with my tender little euphamism. Which makes my aversion to the actual word all the stanger.

I'm on the verge of entering the second trimester and the nausea and extreme fatigue have moved out of the way to make room for heartburn and psychotic mood swings. With my last...pregnancy... (shudder)... I went into a social and professional coma and did not emerge for nearly 2 years. I am acutely aware that depriving myself of these outlets lead to a doozy of a depression and I am determined to keep that from happening again. The challenge is (and there is ALWAYS a challenge) that I need to strike a rather precarious balance between my usual breakneck pace and paying attention to what my body needs. Normally, being extrememly busy makes me happy. It makes me feel vital, useful and needed. But it is also very easy to sink into the comfort of bed and a plate of spinach stuffed potatoes in a pair of yoga pants and fool myself into thinking that is exactly what my body needs. The fatigue is so convincing and energy so hard to come by. Pants don't fit. Shoes with heels are hard to manage and wouldn't it be nice to hide in a nice warm cave until I could come out pretty again?

Ah. Vanity thy name is woman. Damn straight it is.

Then there is something called "pregnant brain". Words get lost. Organizing thoughts becomes increasingly difficult and communication blunders abound. Last time I definitely had a sense that I was gestating more than a child, but also my creative ability. I couldn't write. I couldn't paint. I couldn't plan. Once my son was born, however, it all came pouring out but I had not nurtured the outlets for it. So the outlets disappeared and I was left with an overwhelming need to express, no means to express it and no audience to receive it. I am struggling with that now. I am producing a couple of shorts along with "Adventures in Mating" (see link on the right) and it is a monster battle to keep myself on task. I'd prefer sleep. I'd prefer a documentary on the Big Bang or String Theory. I'd prefer any passive bit of entertainment because I wear out so quickly these days. Of course, I know from experience that over-indulging in such things will leave me with a huge deficeit once the baby is here in the world. I may want to stop working for the time being, but it will ruin me if I do.

So. Here we go. Going through the motions so my body doesn't forget and so I don't lose myself in the process.

But the occassional spinach stuffed potato isn't so bad either.

Stories, Stories Everywhere

2007-11-14T11:12:00.001-05:00

There is a certain joy in my morning routines. One of them is the delightful ritual of dropping my son off at his neighborhood school. Every morning I pass neighbors and nod hello. I hand out a few warm smiles and receive a few as well. My son gets high fived. We meet up with classmates on their own walks to school. The weather is crisp and pleasant and the neighbors are welcoming. Once the children line up and head in to their classes it is time for the PTA parents to make thier rounds outside, catching other parents to chat or to work out details for this bake sale and that fundraiser. All in all, it is a lovely way to spend a few minutes of my morning.

This morning, however, my deeply disturbed mind came up with a rather titilating question. If any two parents here were going to have a scandalous affair, who would be the most likely? Now, I don't suspect anyone. Let's make that clear. But, WHAT IF? Would it be the older mother whose husband works a lot and she stays at home volunteering hours and hours to various causes? Would she fall for the short, awkward but very attentive father with the indistinguishable accent? Would it be the single father with the rowdy child who woos a mother going back to school despite her husband's obvious disapproval? How about the hyper organized, Puerto Rican mom and the over protective father who has any number of reflective patches applied to his childrens' winter coats? Who could it be and, more importantly, how might that go? What would happen when word got out on the playground? Would the other parents pretend it wasn't happening? Or would they rip them to shreds? Or would that depend, entirely, upon the two parties involved? Oh how I wonder...

Appropriate Forum

2007-11-02T09:43:00.000-04:00

Navigating my way through this new and rather restrictive view of my life in art has become tiresome and old. This occurred to me as I was trying to make my way past a pregnant woman who was slowly and unpredictably zig zagging on the sidewalk in front of me. At first, the fact that she was dressed in a huge parka and flip flops amused me. Then the crusty foam at the corners of her mouth disturbed me. The straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was represented by the handful of scratch off lottery tickets that distracted her from her surroundings and made her impossible to get around. I was impatient with myself for being impatient with her. After all, this is a woman who is clearly in some kind of trouble. However, I am not without my own concerns and I could do very little for her in a brief roadside interaction. Especially when she was completely oblivious to me and my many parcels to begin with.

Once I had finally mounted the steps to my apartment building I caught myself dissecting this woman, her situation and my responsibility to her. In my wildest super compassionate fantasies what could I do for her? Oh, and what lessons could she teach me? (God I am such an after school special.) I then forced myself to think a bit more abstractly. The absolute frustration I felt while trying to get around her is not like the daily frustration I am experiencing with my creative endeavors. It is as if I have placed a big, odd, meandering, clueless pregnant woman in front of me wherever I go!

A few months ago a fairly prominant New York playwright sampled some of my work. Well, not the kind of work I usually like to show off- he read my chicken scratchings for a scene between two characters from a play I've been kicking around that had previously not had a scene together. I wrote the scene not to have the scene in the play, but to help illuminate for me what kind of relationship was between them. I needed to explore some subtext and discover whether or not their interaction was the missing piece in this play. Clearly, he didn't quite understand why I had written it and what I had written it for. I suppose that it is possible that not everyone organizes information and creates in quite the same manner as I do. His response to me was this:

"I think you might be too young to write a family play."

Well, he's a successful writer so he must be right. Regardless of the fact that he has not seen one word of the play itself and that I didn't quite articulate to him what it was I was doing with the scene, he must know better. I've put the play away.

I've tried to take it out and work on it, but I keep judging my work as I go. This is too close to something in my real family. That is too self-indulgent. This is funny but too private. It goes on and on and on like that. In my heart I know that he was wrong. (I know for a fact that he thinks I'm a lot younger than I actually am.) I know that this play is exactly where I am at in my creative life. But the meandering pregnant lady has a sign on her back that says, "Is this really the appropriate forum?"

I am heading into a part of art and expression that is personally dangerous. I've become entangled. In a simpler times my private life was MY private life. I could do with it as I pleased. I could drink a lot, make an ass of myself, say and do whatever I felt. It didn't matter. It was just me. But now my private life isn't just my private life. Now my private life belongs to so many others whose right to privacy is just as valid as mine.

So I feel stuck behind this woman, frustrated at my observations of her but too tongue tied to make the real, honest observations from which real art grows.

I've placed a lot of restrictions on myself and those restrictions are deadening my work. But I fear lifting them. As much as what I want to express is about love I know from experience that honesty can often be mistaken for malice. In short, I haven't given myself permission to say what I want to say. To be more accurate, I should say that I haven't given myself permission to feel what I need to feel. I'm letting this woman get in my way. I don't need to knock her down or make passive aggressive sighs of discontent.

I could just get her attention and say, "excuse me".

Blog Neglected

2007-10-18T09:18:00.000-04:00

I've been absent.

There's no two ways about it.

I'm stretched a little thin these days. Between starting a new job, trying to keep a show afloat and some personal life events I've found myself unable to comment. Not publicly anyway. What is there to say?

I'm very concerned about being self-indulgent. As a result I tend to censor myself. I don't ever want to be that person who breaks out their ten trays of vacation slides at the merest mention of "how was your vacation?". I struggle with my self-image. I would like to see myself as interesting, but mostly I see myself as an opinionated, big mouthed bore. Then my writing suffers. What do I have to write about if I don't write about myself?

Cynacism and I are involved in a battle royale. I see how self-involved people are around me and I know that must be reflected in my own behavior. I also see how absolutely everything is for sale. There is a line in "The Princess Bride" that keeps coming back to me.

"Life is pain. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something."

And that is exactly where I am at the moment. This rather dark view of clouds my normally sweet, perky demeanor. I'd be a leatherface, chain smoking, whiskey drinking, dragon lady with long acryllic nails growling at the patrons in the bowling alley bar if it weren't for the fact that I like being sober and, at 32, I still wear ponytails at the top of my skull. It's hard to be grizzled and surly when you have a ponytail flopping around on the top of your head. That's just a fact.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I've been neglecting my writing because two sides of my personality are doing battle and I don't know which one of them is going to take over. It is hard to channel my thoughts into anything coherent. So. You can start your bets now as to which one is going to win. Will it be Happy Go Lucky or the Dragon Lady?

I'm not sure which one I would like to win.

Gratuitous

2007-10-09T09:04:00.000-04:00

Maybe it is the state of mind I'm in lately. Perhaps it is somewhat hormonal. It could even be that I am getting older and stodgier. Or maybe it is just the fact that I'm now a mother. Whatever the reason, the fact is that I find myself more and more impatient with cinematic violence.

This weekend my husband was all fired up to watch Deliverance. He had been glued to his film documentaries in his spare time all last week and I suppose it put a bug in his ear. He wasn't going to be satisfied until he watched it. God bless him, he wanted to share that experience with his darling wife. I had no desire at all to see this movie. I'd heard enough and was nervous that I would find its execution unsettling to my stomach. But that man is just so adorable, I couldn't say no.

I will admit, I have a weak constitution when it comes to these things. After many difficult years of finding excuses to chit chat with my friend's parents in the kitchen during slumber party screenings of D Grade horror flicks, I've come to think of my squeemishness as a badge of my ultimate humanity. When I watch people being murdered I can't help but imagine their last moments. It doesn't thrill me. It hurts. It actually hurts a lot.

Before the feature presentation we watched an overly reverent "making of". The 10 minute promotional film touted the author as an absolute genius, a robust Hemingway-type who laments human footprints on the majesty of nature. It made the film sound as if it was one of those "Nature Tests Man" stories that will make the viewer more appreciate the majesty of all that surrounds us. In my eyes, Deliverance did for eco-tourism what 9/11 did for air travel. The promo film was a lie. Deliverance does nothing to spur the viewer toward environmental protection. Instead it seems to make the argument that people who live an isolated life in the mountains NEED to be "civilized". Let's hurry up and build roads and Wal-Marts and get them cable so they don't go around raping tourists!

And THEN! AND THEN we need to be subjected to men making bad decision after bad decision just to give us that sick feeling of our stomachs dropping through our shoes. The text does not stop to examine their moral dilemma for longer than a cinematic nanosecond. It just plunges from one bad decision to the next. It isn't really the actions I have a particular distaste for- it's the world view I despise. This film could only be written by some macho intellectual who has gleened from his years as a university professor that humans are inherently evil and self-serving. If that is true, then why should I even care enough to pay attention to your story? If people are hard wired to make immoral choices in the absense of a governing authority then what can I learn from any story at all? The whole attitude just ticks me off.

I do not advocate that all stories must have a moral high road. But I do question why I should sit through something that offers no hope of redemption. Why should I watch something that is only going to make me sick? What good does it do to perpetuate the idea that people just plain, out and out suck?

A friend of mine recently recommended that I go to see Eastern Promises. However, she warned me that the violence is too much to take in only one... well two... maybe three parts of the film. Okay, maybe I might want to spend a good third of the film in the bathroom just to be safe because even the SOUND is horribly violent. I think I will pass. I suffer from no illusions. I know that war is hell, murder is wrong, and rape is terrifying. I don't need it spelled out for me in graphic detail. I don't think those that do need the visual representations are getting the point from the current wave of blood and guts on screen. Don't lie to me and tell me that this sensationalism is to reach some higher moral objective because it isn't working. Empathy does not seem to be on the rise in this country- but the output of blood and guts does. And really, all that does is make me sad.

The Art of the Pick Up

2007-10-03T21:45:00.000-04:00

Anyone who has been within 10 feet of me for the last couple of months has heard me talk about it. As I type this I can hear a collective groan from the city of New York as my friends and loved ones wonder when the hell I am going to get over it.

Yeah. I was hooked on The Pick Up Artist on VH-1.

At first, I started watching because I just couldn't believe it. I'll admit, I went in with my high school feminist principles and my arms crossed and ready to be offended. But the nerdy guys were so sweet and I was hoping one of them would get laid because I wouldn't wish a sexless life on anyone.

Now, to catch you up in case you don't have cable or have more scruples than I have, the concept behind The Pick Up Artist is to take 8 guys who cannot talk to women and turn them into ladies' men. More or less. The guru on this show is a guy named Mystery who, apparently, decided to put his considerable brainpower to the task of getting laid instead of toward mastering World of Warcraft. As a result you have this tall, lanky guy who dresses more like an ex-member of The Jellyfish than your average barfly and has broken down the rules of attraction so that anyone can apply themselves and learn how to pick up women.

Of course I was skeptical. We women are complex, thinking, feeling beings and it is easy to resent the idea that some guy has created a method of getting into my pants. But, on the other hand, teaching some social skills to a few diamonds in the rough can't be all THAT bad, can it?

Well, I was hooked after the first episode. Unlike other reality shows, these guys weren't the scum of the universe. They weren't all backstabbing opportunists, but all in all, a bunch of really nice guys. With the possible exception of Pradeep who I just thought was a clueless moron at best, and a flaming asshole at worst. Yeah, it still gets my back up that he avoided elimination for so long. But I digress. The truth is, these guys just needed a little support to feel comfortable with themselves and to show the world (women) who they really are. It became an exercise in sweetness to watch every week, except for the weekly Field Tests.

In the Field Tests the fellas were taken out into the world to test their newly learned skills on real, live women. They had challenges and goals to accomplish, things like "Opening sets", "Number closing", "Bouncing", and "Kiss closing". One night they had to try to pick up a stripper. Most of these things just required a little tweaking in their social manner like being able to read body language and being able to just talk to people. These are not bad things to learn. The games were cheezy and the "Demonstrations of Higher Value" I found particularly irksome, but whatever. Those things would never work on me so have at it boys.

Then it happened.

I was in line at a coffee shop when a man behind me said, "Wow. You have such beautiful hair. That has to be your natural color." Now, this doesn't sound like a great pick up line because he could be either gay or just searching desperately for some reason to approach me. But then he added, "I'm a colorist, so I know." Okay. Still a little gay, but it was friendly and not sexually threatening (Something Mystery advocates is to keep sex out of the equation- you want nothing from her so she'll be more inclined to give freely). So I talked to him while we waited for our coffees. Here was the amazing thing, he kept the entire conversation about me. He asked me all kinds of questions and seemed genuinely interested in the answers. It is at this point that I became suspicious. I was very comfortable, but I KNEW I was getting played. That suspicion was validated when he "negged" me.

Negging is a playful way to put someone down to demonstrate your higher social value. When I heard about this concept I thought it was mean and nasty and I was sure that it would be an immediate turn off. (Although, now I realize that I do it ALL THE TIME to others!) But then I got negged.

When I told him I was a writer, actor and director he said, "I had you pegged for a director. You seem so sure of yourself and actresses in this town seem so twitchy and nervous, and scrawny. But you! You seem so self possessed and you certainly don't look like you're starving."

Do you want to know the sick thing? I liked it. I'll admit it. I liked it. He had said all of these other positive things first and he was talking to me for well over 5 minutes so I knew he found me attractive. It did make me stop for a second, because I couldn't believe he had said it and before I could consciouly choose my words I had found myself falling into his trap. I started to defend myself a bit, putting myself into a weaker position. I knew I'd been had, but I actually enjoyed the game.

At the end of our little exchange he said, "So, are you going to give me your phone number or not?". I did. It was a fake number, but I felt he deserved a momentary victory for his performance. If it wasn't for the fact that I am happily married I would have given him my real phone number. I think.

I was not happy with the guy who won The Pick Up Artist. It's not that I didn't like him at all. I just thought his attitude kind of stunk. The last challenge for the final two contestants was for each of them to take a guy in need of some help and teach him all that they had learned with Mystery in 8 hours. Then they had to coach these guys while they were 'in the field'. The guy who won, Kosmo, was all stressed out and he put a lot of pressure on his pupil. Brady, the runner up, he took pride in his pupil and wanted him to do well in the field because he honestly wanted to share what he had learned. Kosmo just wanted to win. Yeah. I didn't find that particularly attractive. Oh well. Perhaps I do find it attractive, I just won't admit it to myself.

I'm learning that I can have my high fallutin ideals about men and women, but what I actually like in a man is a lot different than what I THINK I like in a man. It is for this reason I believe every woman should Tango with a good dancer. I've been to a couple of milongas and danced with some really nice guys who refused to lead. The result was, "meh". But I will never forget dancing with that man who could not have been less attractive to me from across the room. He was in his mid-forties, paunchy, wearing pleated dockers and his shirt tucked in. He invited me to dance and... I have to catch my breath just thinking about it. I told him that I had only taken a few lessons and didn't know too many steps. He gestured for me not to talk and proceeded to take me about the room. My body had no choice but to follow his and I did steps that I had never done before. It was as if he saw possibility in me and then proceeded to show me what he had seen. It was hot. So hot, in fact, that I considered becoming Catholic again just so I could confess. He gave me one dance and then left me weak in the knees and panting. I'm sure he knew.

Good for him.

Not so bad for me, either.

"You Look Great!"

2007-09-21T08:48:00.000-04:00

Leave it to me to turn a compliment into an insult.

Lately, I've been running into a lot of people that I haven't seen in a few years. They've all said the same thing, "You look great!". Gee. Thanks. Don't sound so surprised.

In my twisted mind I hear the unspoken, "Cuz, man, the last time I saw you, you looked like crap! It's good to see you all cleaned up..." I know that isn't exactly what they are thinking, but I find it hard for my brain not to go to that negative space. I have a habit of being defeated even before I leave the gate.

I'm not alone in that. We are mired in negativity. It appears that our nation actually runs on negativity. You're damned if you do, so why try?

I'll tell you what, I really like Dennis Kucinich. That little guy has got to have some big ones to get in front of the American people and say that his gentle principles need not be comprimised just because he is running for President. To me, he's the bravest candidate running because he is positive that he can achieve his goals by keeping his eyes on the prize. I have a sneaking suspicion that he actually has a vision for what that prize actually is. All the other candidates are "playing the obstacle", to use one of my favorite phrases. There are a lot of "ifs", "buts", and "thens" in their vocabularies. They play to the negativity of the situation, the problems, the drama. "Oh! It's so HARD! But I've got the solution, if you'll let me do it and if... and but...and then..."

Kucinich doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell, but I like him. I'd like to be a little bit more like Dennis Kucinich myself.

Seeing the positive, the possibility of a situation is an exciting frame of mind. Not to mention that it is also a very creative state of mind. I'll use one of my favorite examples of making a positive choice from an acting standpoint. I'll tell this story to illustrate that positive isn't always what you think it means.

Years ago I had a revelatory moment in an acting class when my teacher declared, "Stanley Kowalski is the most patient man in the world." It was then that I GOT it. Of course, Stanley Kowalski is not the quality of "animal" or "masculine", he is a human being. From his perspective he is putting up with a lot from his sister-in-law, and he thinks that all of his actions are justified and right. An actor playing Stanley must put aside all of his ideas of what Stanley should look like, talk like, and even feel like until he has empathized with Stanley's point of view. The actor cannot, and should not, wallow in Stanley's predicament, but should use each beat, each moment, to work toward a resolution using the tools he has available.

Another example is any character about to commit suicide. Suicide is not the obstacle to the character's "happiness", it is the solution. I've seen (and sadly, been one myself) actors play suicide moments as tortured, heavy moments full of pain and doubt. The sad truth is, to that character, suicide is a release and once the decision has been made they get a little lighter. If you talk to people who have been close to anyone who has committed suicide most of them will tell you that they never saw it coming. Things seemed to be getting so much better. In reality, that person seemed better because they had just removed the last obstacle and they felt relieved.

Don't write to me and tell me that I am advocating suicide. I'm not. This is where the actor's craft gets dicey and dangerous because people tend to misinterpret the actor's empathy. I think, perhaps, our electronic age is encouraging us to ignore our capacity for empathy. We spew a lot of negativity through our various electronic boxes. We gossip, we hide our identities through screen names and say things we wouldn't say if we had to look that person in the eye. There is an entire series on cable devoted to different disasters that could annihilate the human species. Morning talk shows are filled with mealy mouthed hosts that smile vapidly as they go through their partially scripted 2 minute conversations that are really just filler to get to the real purpose of the show...to get you to watch commercials. It is hard to motivate yourself to do anything in this kind of environment. Other than to wallow in the negativity. That's a viable option.

Really, positive action isn't good or bad. Positive action is anything the moves a situation, a person, forward into the next phase and the next decision. We now have a culture that encourages stagnation. We are easier to control when we are busy chasing our tails. We can be herded to the slaughter. My urge to go to a negative place after being given a compliment is my urge to go backward to an uncomfortable place of self-loathing. It keeps me stagnant. It keeps me focused on my own personal obstacle- I don't think I'm pretty enough. If I could accept the compliment and let it make me feel good I could move on to the next thing in my life instead of obsessing about how I had let myself go for so long.

So, yeah. I actually DO look great. Thanks.

Real Make-Believe

2007-09-18T08:42:00.000-04:00

There have been many times in my life in which I have found myself in conflict with the actor's craft. My faith in the craft that has given me so much is sometimes shaken by what I see on movie screens, in rehearsal rooms, onstage and on TV. Red carpets both attract and repulse me. Talk shows where actors make a few slick jokes and wink at the camera in an attempt to lure my film dollar make me immediately (and many times, unfairly) skeptical. I am both weary and leary of my opinions and my loyalties being bought and sold for the sake of flashy crap starring a bunch of short, skinny, pretty people in designer clothes.

Sometimes I feel my career, my artform is useless tripe.

When Will Smith was plugging "The Pursuit of Happyness" on Oprah, he told a story about a meeting he had with Nelson Mandela. He (Will Smith) was in awe of Mr. Mandela (rightfully so) and had told him that he felt his profession wasn't as worthwhile, expecially in comparison to Mandela's. According to Mr. Smith's story, Nelson Mandela told him that what he does is powerful and important.

That story should make me feel good, validated and empowered. But it doesn't. Because the context in which the tale was told leaves me cold and disgusted. It was told in the context of making a sale. It was told to make me see that this movie is as important as Nelson Mandela's struggle against Apartheid.

Well, it's not.

It just isn't. While I hold tightly to the belief that art can change the way people see the world and can spur them into action, I also know that we must keep our influence in perspective. Few people exhibit the level of strength and courage that inspire others to greatness. We can't expect a handful of mealy-mouthed celebutants to be the ones who change the world. Real society changing stuff doesn't happen in a sequinned gown on a red carpet. Social equality will never be reached in the back seat of a stretch limo even if that limo runs on bio-diesel. Real change happens on street corners, prison cells, living rooms, bars and coffee shops.

But there is no reason for me to believe that I cannot, by virtue of my chosen profession, play an integral part in change. I do not have to participate or encourage the artificiality that is celebrated in our culture. What I need to keep in mind is that there IS something true and rare about what I do.

Here is something interesting, when a person watches a compelling performance the viewer's brain kicks into overdrive- as if the events on stage or on screen are actually happening to the viewer. The experience of the viewer is in synch with the performer. Both the performer and the viewer's brains act as if the event depicted in the film or play or whatever is actually happening to them. Even though we can walk away from a performance and understand that those events did not "actually" happen, our systems feel as if it did. Our systems interpret the experience on that level of truth. In essense, this means that our make-believe experiences are real to our bodies. This is where my artform is uniquely necessary.

Acting can inspire empathy. Empathy- with proper direction- can be inspired to action.

While that calling is not as grand or as self sacrificing as that of a political dissident, it still has unlimited potential for changing the hearts and minds of others. But potential can be squandered by the celebration of the messanger and not the message.

What I am saying here is- Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back.

Bree O'Connor in "Show Business" or "Streamline Your Operation"

2007-09-16T08:51:00.001-04:00

That title only sounds good in my head if the narrator from Rocky and Bullwinkle says it. Of course, I have no talent for puns, so I guess even that guy couldn't make it sound very good.

Sigh.

Regardless of how bad my post title is, it does shed a little light on my state of mind. My new working theory is that I should merge my personal goals with my professional goals. I cannot and I should not pursue two separate goals because I will reach neither one.

For example, I can't be both a Happy Heloise Becky Homecky Wife and Mother while also putting 100% of my energies into being an actor, director and producer. Frankly, just one of those paths is too much for any normal human to navigate. I cannot be all things to all people, nor can I be all things to myself! So I need to find a way to make my life's goals manageable. Streamlined. I need to shift my super objective away from seeking validation or needing to win toward something a little more self-fulfilling. All of my energy should be focused on being a better person for myself and for my family and for my art. This is different than having something to prove to the world outside yourself.

Here's the funny thing about life and art. You are free to choose the stakes. You can choose what is important to you and you do not need to be at the mercy of other's ideas of success. Split life goals means someone you love is going to miss out.

When my father retired I went to the festivities. I heard the speeches and listened to my father's colleagues share their memories of my father's rather distinguished career. The phrase that kept popping up in my mind is "The cobbler's kids have no shoes". My father was innovative, insightful, intelligent and forward thinking in his career. He was tired, distant and grouchy in his family. One goal had to be a priority because family and career success were not compatable goals. Family was not something a man needed to focus on in my father's generation. My father's colleagues know a much different man than the father I know. I know my father was happier at work than he was with his family. You can't run a family like you run a business or vice versa.

Or can you?

Maybe it is a different kind of family and a different kind of business, but maybe there is a way to do what you love and have your family be a part of it as well. Maybe there is a way to turn personal and professional goals inward and use those challenges to become the person you want to be as opposed to the person you feel expected to be. But maybe that would require removing preconceived notions of success and approval out of the equation. That is actually a lot scarier than it sounds. Getting others' approval is actually a lot easier than getting your own.

As I work to assemble this new philosophy I have to ask myself what I want from my family life and what I want from my working life. If I dig deep enough, I find that I want the same thing from both. I want to grow as a human being. They are simply two limbs on the same tree growing in different directions but meant to provide for the nourishment of the whole. There is no logical reason why I need to separate my career from my family or see my family as an impediment to my career.

In America, it is easy to see the obstacle. We are encouraged to "play the obstacle", which is diplomatic director speak for "crappy acting". If you play the obstacle you've given up. No one wants to watch a character that isn't actively struggling. It is boring and it makes you want to punch that guy in the neck. If it makes an audience feel that way to watch a character wallow in the face of an obstacle, imagine what it feels like in your personal life to be treated like that obstacle! I don't want that for my family.

So. A philosophy is great. It is a good start. But how do I put it into practice? I've got my company. I've got my life partner. I've got my business partner. I'm building personal and professional support networks. I've got a great show. I don't have a great audience...yet. I've got a great kid. I don't have great child care. I want another kid. I still don't have great child care. I've got a lot of know-how. I don't have a lot of capital. Okay. I don't have any capital. I could continue teaching and doing other odd (and I do mean ODD) jobs to try to support my family and my theater habit, which is what I've always done. OR I could put my head down, plow through a very rough financial time and work to make this company a success.

However, that I cannot do without the support of my family. I'm lucky though, because I think they actually like me.

Black?

2007-09-09T08:24:00.000-04:00

On Friday night Bill Maher had Mos Def and Cornel West on his show. Mos Def was funny. Cornel West was his warm, loquascious self. Bill held his own, but he displayed some symptoms- side effects, if you will, of a brush with blackness.

Now, I don't say this to be critical. There are just some uncomfortable truths about how white people behave around anyone who is behaving "Black". This is where things get sticky for me to describe. Even my hackles raise when someone describes something as "black" because I know that "black" is a cultural generalization that falls apart whenever you start looking at the individual. But for the sake of expediency I am going to use this inaccuracy to throw some light on another inaccuracy..."white".

Mos Def brought the black with him. Cornel West luxuriated in it. Bill Maher, as I said, held his own and did not turn into a Zelig. Even so, his language got a shade blacker and there was at least one instance of awkward "white" defensiveness. I don't bring this up to dissect Bill Maher's ability to mix with other cultures or anything else related specifically to those involved with Friday's show. I only bring it up because it started me thinking about how race affects my behavior.

I am decidedly more lame than Bill Maher. Like a good liberal I am afraid of discussing race. In a ridiculous turn of Stephen Colbert-like behavior I have a tendancy to avoid even mentioning race as if I don't even see it. This summer my son had a park playdate with one of his friends who just happens to be black. I was watching both of them in a very large and busy playground when she disappeared into the crowd. I started calling for her and when she didn't come my heart started to pound and I was running all over the park to find her. Another parent asked me who I was looking for. I struggled to describe her without saying the word "black". Finally, I realized that was a stupid thing to do and while I was finally able to spit it out I felt an innocent tapping on my back and there she was, smiling at me.

Why was it so uncomfortable for me to admit to a stranger that another human being is black? I encountered a similar feeling when I tried to point out to another parent a little girl that my son had a crush on who just happens to be Asian. The one over there, with the pink backpack and black hair. No the other pink backpack. She has stragiht black hair! Oh! Why won't you just get what I am saying? Like a good liberal I sought a culturally diverse school for my son. I am so happy that my little Irishman's best friends are Arab, Hispanic, Black and Asian and that he hardly notices anything beyond "John always looks like he has a tan...". But I feel myself, somehow, unworthy to acknowledge race in any way. What if "black" is the wrong word? What if I'm a jerk for even noticing? And, ultimately, if I acknowledge race than I would have to admit to my own race and my own race is not as sexy.

I have a lot of Puerto Rican neighbors. My Spanish is terrible, but I can pick up the gist of what they're gossiping about on the stoop while we let our kids play on the sidewalk before dinnertime. I usually keep my mouth shut, not because I can't relate to them and not even because I don't understand them. To be honest, I listen to their bawdy jokes and wish I felt that comfortable. White, middle class, mommies only talk about sex in hushed tones over glasses of wine after the children are in bed. In addition to concerns about my cultural lameness I feel the unspoken accusation that my gleaming white appearance on the block is going to raise their rents next year. Regardless of my friendly intentions, my presence is part of a larger trend that shakes them at their financial foundations.

Of course, those that are homeowners on the block welcome me with open arms.

I try to be easy going. A black man that I used to work with had this t-shirt that read, "Lady, I don't want your purse". I think that is hysterical and it made me super conscious of how I treat black strangers on the street and on the train. Most of the time, I over do it. I now have this horrible, Pavlovian response to young black men. They make me yawn. If I was observing a pack of dogs I would say that the yawning dog was displaying submissiveness. Maybe the yawning dog is trying to overcompensate for the sins of the rest of the pack. How arrogant and self-important is that?

A girl I went to high school with once gave me a serious verbal bitch slapping. She said to me, "There is nothing more insulting to me than white guilt. White guilt comes from pity and let me tell you, I don't need your fucking pity." That stopped me absolutely cold. But I still don't know what to do with that. Down deep, I know that no one is asking me to DO anything except relax and be human. But I'm not really sure how to do that. I feel the constant need to try to identify myself as "one of the good guys". When it comes down to it, I think that is the heart of white lameness.

It's like those movies in the 80's about the civil rights movement. Those films were always told from the "good" white perspective. Black characters were relegated to secondary importance while some fair minded white person fought for truth, justice and the American way. This kind of liberalism is horrible, insulting and it diminishes those it pretends to lift up. It is a part of my indoctrination and I struggle to slough it off. In the crusade for equality the best I can do is be supportive and work to meet everyone somewhere in the middle. The revolution is not going to be led by this face.

Damn. This shit is hard.

Suspension of Disbelief

2007-09-03T08:06:00.000-04:00

The more I think about it, celebrity is not a good thing.

At least not for the artform.

Or perhaps I should rephrase that... there's a certain type of celebrity that is bad for the form. Not because fame can be troubling to people who aren't prepared for it. Not because they sometimes set a bad example for our children. Not even because I, personally, tire of hearing about the troubles of the rich and famous. For me celebrity makes it harder to suspend disbelief. In fact, I often find myself going to movies because I can't help but roll my eyes and say, "Celebrity X is playing what now? Surely you jest!". Going to a film to watch a pretty person fall on their face (and hope that you might be pleasantly surprised instead) is quite a different beast from going to see just a plain, old good movie.

There's a generational gap that allows me to thouroughly enjoy just about everything on Turner Classic Movies. Sure, I now know a lot about the personal lives of Montgomery Clift, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford etc, etc, but since I'm not currently bombarded by their lives I can suspend my disblief when I see them on film. To me, James Cagney IS a real tough guy. Peter Lorre IS an opportunistic slime ball. Katherine Hepburn IS a icy cold socialite, or a queen, or a missionary, or whatever the hell she tells me she is. I believe them. I have trouble believing the actors of today.

Now, I realize that is a general statement and you can't take that to be true in every case. I believe Steve Carrell. Granted, I didn't much care for Produce Pete on The Daily Show, but I believed he could be a 40 year old virgin. I also believed he was a suicidal Proust scholar. I might even believe that he is Maxwell Smart- but the jury is still out on that one. I know Leonardo DiCaprio has beefed up quite a bit but I have trouble buying him as a guy with any kind of back bone. He still has the soft tenor voice of a high school sophmore and I can't get past his legendary cuteness. Same with Brad Pitt. I can't even watch Thelma and Louise anymore without thinking 'Hey, that's pretty, pretty Brad Pitt who cheated on his wife with a woman with bigger lips and tits." When I'm doing that I'm not watching the film, I'm dissecting a live human being and trying to pull pieces of information about their personal lives out of their performance. I'm watching something else entirely and I will tell you this- to me it is not nearly as interesting as watching a good movie.

So. Do we blame the writers? Do we blame the directors? How about the celebrities or ourselves? We could blame the news media for stooping to our level and lifting these sordid stories up from the muck of gossip and granting them official status as "news". I know it seems like a bit of a stretch to some people, but to me our overwhelming cynacism and willingness to both celebrate and destroy those we celebrate seems symptomatic of a broken culture. We numb ourselves with trans fats, high fructose corn syrup and celebrity.

Maybe I could fiddle while Rome burns, but I hate to see the stories go.

Whole Lotta Nuthin'

2007-08-23T08:30:00.000-04:00

There is nothing like a good creative stretch when work just comes spilling out. It feels so productive and energizing and when I'm in the middle of one of these periods it can be easy to forget that I had ever concerned myself with mundane details like food and laundry. I can become quite frustrated with having to deal with everyday activities when I'm on a roll. Then it gets worse when the creative river dries up and all that I am left with is a pile of laundry and a refrigerator in desperate need of being refilled. Not to mention a husband and child who are in need of some attention as well.

I am starting to think of these lulls as a necessary part of my creative cycle. This is helping with my level of resentment once my pen runs dry. Incubation periods are necessary. If it weren't for these periods with ideas and observations clanking around in my head the creative times would not happen at all. It can be hard to be thankful for these frustratingly slow periods when I'm in the middle of them, but I need to learn to appreciate them.

Of course what makes these lulls so frustrating is the fear that I'm finished. What if my magnum opus was that dance piece I did in school with the 6'6" dancing female reproductive system with maracas for ovaries? What if that's all I've got in me? Ever? Intellectually I know that those fears are just a sign that I need to take a break. I need to relax and pick some blackberries with some good friends on a mountainside in Vermont.

So that is exactly what I am going to do.

Spiderman or Marvelling at Marvel

2007-08-12T22:49:00.000-04:00

After an eye opening trip to the comic book store down the street and two evenings of watching Spiderman movies with my son (both of which I have seen a few times before) I am starting to have a new appreciation for super heroes and what they mean to young (and much older) boys. Certainly I have spent some time in the comic book and super hero trenches in order to win the affections of various sinewy limbed young lads with uncombed hair and untucked shirts, but I never really understood the attraction. Of course I could make the intellectual arguments about how these stories adhere to the 'hero's journey' tradition in folklore and appreciate how each villian and each hero has very personal motivations and yadda yadda yadda. I loved how there was always a tiny thread that separated the villian from the hero and the conflicts were always epic in scope. Just like the great myths I was taught to admire.

What I didn't get and am only begining to understand is the instructive quality in the hero's journey. This is something, as a woman that is saddled with much different cultural expectations, that I am excited to learn.

Now, I must preface this by pointing out where most current educational wisdom stands on this issue. I'm sure just about anyone who grew up in America understands the general attitude toward comic books. They're like candy. The assumption is that they have little literary substance and that they are just a step above watching television. You will find that preschools that cater to upwardly mobile, college educated families have policies that specifically restrict super hero play. The reasoning behind this is that the establishment considers super hero play to be "limiting" and that it does not allow the child to stretch their imaginations. When I had my brief stint running a preschool curriculum I swallowed this hook line and sinker. I am now starting to re-think my position as it seems to me this wisdom comes from a very "feminine" position, and it may not necessarily be right for boys. It certainly wouldn't be right for my boy.

First let me attack the idea that the play is too "limiting" because there are certain ideas about who the characters are from the get go and that, educators assume, leaves little room for the children to create on their own. If this is true, then how has the Commedia d'el Arte survived? In the commedia there are a certain number of archetypes and there is a definite form to them. Do acting schools touch on the commedia only to give their students a taste of theatrical history? Surely that must be a part of it, but another part is that there is great freedom within the form. Once there is an understanding of the archetype there are an infinte number of ways to play with that character and students of the art have found great joy and freedom while exploring these archetypes within themselves. It isn't the character that is limiting. Rather than ban the character we should seek to challenge assumptions about the character and about good and evil, responsibility and power because that is what a good comic book does. That is what a superhero that lasts does. The super hero looks to express and explore what it means to be a man and is often a cautionary tale for how easy it is for a man to go astray.

Since I have Spiderman on the brain, let's deal with him, shall we?

Peter Parker (and most of the major classic super heroes) operates from a distinctly male fear- if I share what I am it will endanger those I love most. While this fear manifests itself literally in the story lines (the villians always use the girlfriend as leverage) this emotional spectre has always been lurking somewhere on the horizon for most of the males I've known. He loves deeply, but for the safety of those he loves he must wall off a part of himself. The super hero has great power, but he is ultimately doomed to lonely life, constantly on guard against super villains and the demons within.

While Peter Parker has a distinct moral center the way forward for him is shadowy at best. His sense of responsibility is often at odds with his personal needs and desires and yet his sense of duty always wins out but not without a great inner struggle. Spiderman has great agility and strength, but the stronger he is the more he has to defend. The tragedy of the story is that his incredible ability isolates him and makes him, and those he loves, more vulnerable

So what is my son learning from Spiderman? Well, the circumstances are quite complex. I like the fact that no one is just plain evil. Every villian has suffered some loss or humiliation- there is always a defining moment that tells us where the human broke and crossed the line. He is also learning that being "good" is not easy and that even the strong and the brave can be tempted but that we always have choices. He already (at the age of 5) relates to the fear that I have mentioned- the fear of caring and being vulnerable is very real for him. Although Spiderman does not always make the best of choices in his personal life, we see him struggle to understand himself. I'd say that struggle is worth something.

Women say they want their men to be more open with their feelings but don't we secretly swoon when we watch Spiderman silently whisking Mary Jane away from danger? I'll admit it, I will take a quiet and firm arm around my waist over a love poem any day. One just means more than another. Super heroes understand that and maybe it isn't a bad thing for our boys to explore that, too. After all, I believe it is through stories that most of us learn about ourselves and the world around us. It is through stories that we can step outside of ourselves and look at circumstances, actions and consequences. Our boys need heroes through which they can understand themselves. It is our job, as parents and educators, to realize that our children have their own wisdom. They choose to focus on stories and characters that speak to them in a way we can't. We need not to ban super heroes but to put the heroes through their paces and allow discovery to happen. Dig deep into the characters and find out what it is that has captured the child's attention and then go a little deeper.

That is where the stories live.

Giving Direction/ Needing Direction

2007-08-08T22:28:00.000-04:00

I had always hoped that I would have ended up being some flamboyant genius director. I wanted to be one of those revolutionary directors that could leave a welt on the text. I wanted to be visionary, loud and odd.

I'm not. The more I work as a director the more I feel I should just get out of the way. I'm starting to see my job as a director more akin to a goalie than a master artist. My job is to define the boundaries of the text and when an actor or designer gets too close to the edge my job is to kick 'em back into play.

I suppose it is more than that. Beyond defending the outer edges of the given circumstances I am also a good host. Rehearsals should be loose and enjoyable and I get to plan the working party. I suppose I also play cheerleader and mascot from time to time but other than that I don't do much. That used to bother me. I used to complain that I wasn't DOING anything and wasn't serving any useful purpose other than being a really good pre-audience laughter guage. I am a healthy laugher. But now I am seeing the subtle and quiet value of my fly on the wall style. Occassionally I give a ripping good note and I can be fairly insightful, but mostly I just watch. And when I am not watching I am pretty good at pinpointing the reasons why I am not watching. Those reasons are often the same reasons that will cause a general audience to go astray. So, I make note of it and decide how to relay that information to the actor in question. That's it. There really isn't much else to my job.

Except for my aesthetic sense, which I suppose is important. Just not day to day.

But I am learning that I cannot and should not direct myself. I freeze on myself all the time and I don't make choices. I don't know how anyone else does it. It is most definitely a skill I do not possess. You can't imagine how it pains me to say so! But, in the immortal words of Popeye, "I am what I am and that's all that I am".

Well, good. I'm glad I know that much. It keeps my head from getting too big.

Tomorrow night I will be stepping on stage in a role I would not be comfortable with if I had a million rehearsals. As it turns out, I've only had two. Due to a bizarre set of circumstances I find myself covering for an actor in the show I've been directing (see notice on the right) and I wish I had someone standing guard on the edges of the text to kick me back into play. In the two rehearsals that I've had I have paced over the same well-worn path and I am terrified of deviation. What if I get lost and there's no one to bring me back? What if, what if, what if? Sometimes, it's nice to know someone is looking out for you so you don't have to look out for yourself.

Thank God, though, that I've got some stellar actors that I know have my back.

Maybe I'll feel better about it next week.

No Dignity in Needless Self-Torture

2007-08-06T07:56:00.000-04:00

I once saw an interview with John Partick Shanley in which he bassically said that if a project isn't working and you feel miserable you should quit. This makes some sense and, for most people, would not have stood out as anything to remember. For me, however, it was revolutionary. I felt a pathway literally fire through my brain like a hot knife through butter. What do you mean, quit? Stop doing it? What?

The idea was foreign to me and I had to sit down and really think about what it means to be a woman of my word. I think many of us "dependable people" look at the world and see how others can be, well, less dependable. It makes us double our efforts, it makes us think that our dependablity makes us special. So, for me that means I will stick with a bad job or a bad project to the point of torturing myself. I am learning that part of having personal integrity is knowing when to say, 'there is a better person for this job than me'. It is okay to learn that you have limitations and it is okay to discover that you've made a wrong turn and you need to get back to the main road- fast. Sometimes it is okay to quit.

I recently had a pleasant conversation with someone who was overwhelmed by a certain responsibility. He felt he wasn't up to the task, but also felt that he was between a rock and a hard place because he assumed no one else could do the job. I heard the struggle inside him. I know he wanted to be shot of it. The job was just too big for him, bigger and harder than he could have imagined when he said yes to the job. The job made him feel miserable. The misery spilled out into his work. His work was not up to par. Everyone suffers in the group when one person is not up to the job. He quit. He felt guilty but much lighter once it was all over.

No, it is not okay to just quit because you're feeling diva and are bored. But if the job isn't right and if you aren't right for it, there is no shame in admitting it. There is great wisdom in knowing and understanding what it right for you. Now that I consider this lessson ( which I imagine I will be practicing for years to come) I feel a sense of freedom. I don't have to be chained to things that make me miserable simply because I want to be seen as dependable. I am not doing anyone any favors by sticking it out when there is probably someone who is just right for that job right around the corner.

The Universe wants us to be free. So choose it.

Love to the MSP

2007-08-02T09:27:00.000-04:00

I am devastated by the bridge collapse in Minneapolis last night. I am lucky, however, as my family and friends seem to have made it through the crisis unscathed. There are still a few unreturned phone calls, but the phone lines were jammed up last night and I am refusing to panic about it. The news this morning is that 20 people are reported missing and the odds of those being MY people, I hope, are slim. Even so, I can't help but feel violated.

Minnesota is supposed to be a safe place. I didn't realize how much I had counted on that until last night. I know that I, personally, have chosen to live one ring out from the Manhattan bullseye and I have come to terms with that. But I always figured that the fastidious Finns, Norewegians and Swedes would be able to keep my homestate safe from tragedy. What could ever happen in a state where they never run out of baked goods (ever), Target is always well stocked and you can always find antifreeze, lock de-icer and a customer service person who actually gives a damn about their job? Prince has famously said that he stays in Minnesota because "...the cold keeps bad people away".

Intellectually, I know our species is on borrowed time. I know that no place on earth is completely safe. But I always felt that, no matter what happens to me personally, that the people I love in Minnesota would be protected by their geography and their pleasantness. It shakes me to my core to see that is not necessarily so.

And then comes the exploitative news coverage.

They always have to push it over the edge, don't they? Like emotional vultures waiting on the scene for the river to cough up leftovers for them to devour. Reporting is one thing. Using this tragedy to speculate and spread fear about all the nation's bridges while they have their graphics department working overtime on bigger and better visuals to play on viewers' anxiety is nothing short of sick. I'm not saying that the integrity of our nation's infrastructure isn't worthy of reporting. What I am saying is that the way it is approached is tasteless and exploitative. It would be nice if reporters went out and found some news and reported it instead of waiting around for something that gets ratings and then mining the story until it is played out. What would have happened if reporters who were just out covering a beat had discovered that our infrastructure was in trouble and then told the public about it when NTSB had that assessment? What would have happened if reporters were covering something else besides Paris Hilton's jail time? What if our news media found something more important about its work than making a profit? What if the news media decided to take control and let its reporters report news instead of trying to follow the whims of a fickle and insecure public?

Am I blaming the news media for the bridge collapse? No. I doubt any newspaper article would have been able to call attention to the problem in the first place. It would be nice, though, if the media could be proactive instead of reactive. If it could be full of information instead of sensation. It would be nice if the public would demand more from the news media and turn off the crap news that just doesn't matter.

My brother was among the many phone calls I made last night. He's a lovable crumudgeon. I'll paraphrase a bit in his voice (because it's more fun for me that way) but he said, " Well you'll see what happens next. Politicians will be making laws against bridge collapses and blaming each other and wasting the tax payers time legislating on shit that doesn't need to be legislated. You see, I've always been against bridge collapses! I signed the anti-bridge collapsing bill but my opponent is clearly pro-bridge collapse. Check the record, he voted no on the anti-bridge collapsing bill! And my opponent hates puppies..." He's got a point. We have such a negative, reactionary and exploitative culture and what gets lost in the shuffle and the bluster and the self-importance are people. At least 20 people are missing in the river. 20 people from my home. I don't feel that the news media or politicians or the public at large give that the proper weight.

In fact, human life carries very little weight at all. Be it American, Sudanese, or Iraqi all life is in service of entertainment. Just wait until you see the next DATELINE: Survivor Stories and you hear the familiar cadence of the Chris Hanson voice over detailing the dramatic story of someone special who survived the collapse. They don't see the survivor. They see the survivor story- and that is different. Stories are important. I love them. I believe in them. I need them. But it is disconcerting when so many true stories are forced into the same cookie cutter format and sold prepackaged to a ravenous public that consumes so blindly and so completely. They're like army ants. They leave nothing but the bone.

My heart goes out to the MSP. There is nothing I can say that can calm the shock or take away the grief. No matter how far I roam Minnesota is where I am from.

Messiness and Spectacular Saves

2007-07-27T22:01:00.000-04:00

Ah! The lure of live theatre is just as much about the possibility of spectacular crashes as your average NASCAR event. It is just that the crashes in live theatre tend to be less fiery and more humiliating.

I've spent many a drunken evening lifting my glass to the glory of crashing. I've extolled the virtues of a messy theatre - a survivalist theatre, if you will- to anyone who would sit and listen. Well, if my company's production of "Adventures in Mating" has taught me anything it has taught me that anyone can talk. When it comes down to it, messiness is terrifying.

When you are involved in a show that has 60 different scene combinations and a rotating cast running one night a week messiness is no longer some passionate, adolescent artistic fantasy. It is a fact of life. Sitting in the back of the theatre watching these performers that I love and trust face the Goliath of a script and an audience every week is nerve wracking. It feels like I've thrown my baby to the lions armed with a Swiss army knife and some hugs. If the lion gets too close, son, give him a big hug and hope he melts. If he doesn't, well, I hope you can jam that knife into his jugular before it's too late. If that doesn't work out, well, it was nice knowing you. Bye. Mommy loves you!

It is sick to enjoy this feeling of dread every week. We're still tinkering with the formula, but I have faith that we will be a well oiled machine in a couple of months.

Of course, when that happens we will be required to up the ante and make it just a little more dangerous.

I only hope I'll get to see Ben's fully comitted, utterly dorky air kick again. That was a thing of beauty.

In the Beginning...

2007-07-22T23:17:00.000-04:00

If Harry Potter has taught me anything it is that selling the premise is the most important thing in storytelling.

No, you won't find any spoilers about the Deathly Hallows in here so it is safe to read on.

A multitude of literary sins can be forgiven if you can do two things. The first is to believably construct the premise of the story. The second is to avoid betraying that construct. That's it. The key is not in gags, one-liners or even artfully turned phrases. It is the framework and adherence to that framework that matters. As my teachers used to say, "Within form there is freedom!". That, my friends, is the ultimate truth.

We cannot create in chaos. We crave order, outline and form. Pathways are important. They need not always be linear, but they do need to exist. Creation is the process of order- putting details in their proper places for a purpose. The purpose is usually to entertain, but if you go just slightly deeper than that you will find the desire to place the Universe in a context that can be understood. Ah, but if I go any further I will start sounding like that jackass Aristotle. (I'm joking Aristotle! I'm joking! Don't get your toga in a knot!)

So, if I am to look at literary creation from a constructive, as opposed to deconstructive, perspective I would need to consider the world in which my journey would take place. Now, here's the question, how does one construct the literary framework that will provide enough structure to sell the premise of the story without over constructing it so as to squelch all creative discovery? How do you give yourself enough room to surprise yourself and learn something new while still giving form and shape to the general premise? How do you know when you have it just right?

I was trying ot explain to my husband some of the finer points of the seventh Harry Potter book (which I know he will never read so I am free to spoil things all I want) and found myself flitting from book to book to make some of the things from the seventh book make sense to him. I can't help but marvel at the framework that Rowling has created even if I have found her phrasing to be tiresome and repetitive at times. That repetition is forgivable, in my estimation, because the structure of the tale is so well done and she never betrays her characters or her boundaries. Truth be told, she could have written complete crap and I'd never know it because I've become so invested in the series, the characters and the outcome of the circumstances. I've bought the premise and she could pull me to the ends of the earth and I would go willingly because she has earned my trust.

As a reader I am like a skittish little squirrel (I can't imagine I'm the only one!) and I can be scared off by formless storytelling. Betray the characters for the convenience of the story and I will rail against you like a New York City pigeon at the old lady who has just run out of bread crumbs. So I am beginning to think that my focus in my own work should be on the framework. On the beginning. I've got to sell the premise.

And I maybe should stay away from metaphors for a while...

MacGyver It

2007-07-12T21:16:00.000-04:00

I'm bored with smoke and mirrors. I tire of things blowing up and gratuitous CGI. It annoys me to see a film or theater performance where the art direction dictates and overwhelms the story as opposed to enhancing it. I prefer the aesthetics of limitation.

Limitation does not mean everything must be stripped down to a black box with a couple of apple boxes. On the contrary. It is the creative problem solving while laboring under a tight budget that results the most sumptious and luscious visuals. Cheap and creative really gets my juices flowing. I once saw some friends solve a narrative problem in their film by projecting a film of things that were on the character's mind on the hood of the character's car while he was doing a driving shot. It looked great and it quickly solved a visual and narrative dilemma. The 1971 "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" is another of my favorite examples. That was a visually creative film without the gigantic budget films we see today. The visuals support the story, they don't drive the story. That creepy sequence in the boat is terrifying (at least, it was pretty damn intense when I was a kid) and that was done with lights and projection. Oh, and the endless office...what movie was that? Was that in "The Apartment"? That huge, never ending office mostrosity was simply a trick of mirrors.

I worry that the answer to so many creative dilemmas is just "throw some money at it". This does not mean that I do not enjoy or respect the artistry of computer animation or brilliant pyrotechnics or great stunt work. I do! However any tool needs to be used with understanding of each tool's strengths and weaknesses. No tool can make up for a lack of story or character development. Not for me, anyway. To me the endless parade of nonsensical light shows, whizzes and bangs is the equivelent of watching those videos made to entertain your cat when you're away for an extended period of time.

I advocate slapdash, spit and polish productions that make things work in spite of their lack of funds. It is fun to see a show that can whisk you away on the merits of the story, I certainly wish I could see more.

Letting Be

2007-07-10T09:08:00.000-04:00

I sometimes wonder if I have "style". My favorite artists leave a mark on their work that is so distinct, not because they have a rubber stamp of their personality that they routinely use to hold down loose ends, but because they can't help it. The way they see the world and themselves in it is so individual that it seeps into their work regardless of the medium of genre. Arthur Miller has a very distinct and curious view of the world. Billy Wilder made wildly different films and yet, as different as they are, they all have an unmistakable wit to them that crosses over from noir to comedy because of Wilder and his ever-present collaborator I.A.L Diamond. Hal Ashby's films have a bizarre and uniquely masculine sensitivity. I could watch Katherine Hepburn all day long and never tire of seeing how she transforms her "Yankee sensibility" to fit her roles. The list goes on.

How I long to emulate them. Their style, their grace and, above all, their great wit and insight. But I also know that I cannot force myself to be anyone or anything other than what I am. If I am to have a style at all it can only be defined by who and what I am. I can pay hommage to the performers/ writers/ directors I love, but I cannot be them. I have to be honest with myself.

In a way that, well, that sucks. There is no short cut to self discovery and it is hard to just be who and what you truly are. There are roles we play. I often catch myself speaking in my sisters' voices. I sound like Kristen when I tell a joke. I sound like Pam when I flirt. Sometimes I will adopt the cadence of my friends' speech. I sound like Britt when I tell a wry or dirty anecdote. When I'm with Aaron I have to force myself not to conform to his London sound. I'm a verbal Zelig, changing my speech to suit my message and my audience. Then I go home and beat myself soundly for acting such a fool. Why can't you just be yourself? You look like such an idiot! Everybody knows you're a fake and a fraud! Stupid actor! Stupid stupid actor!

Clearly, that will not help me in my quest. But it is so much easier to be angry and self- destructive than it is to be responsible for change and growth. Anger and self-hatred is easy. Acceptance is hard.

A while back a friend of mine read a script I wrote. His first comment was, "Well, it's got your fingerprints all over it". I took that as a great compliment. Then I noticed that he didn't say anything about that being a good thing. My dilemma was how to take that comment. Do I worry about what a dork I am? Or do I realize that this guy is my friend for a reason and maybe my "fingerprints" might not be among the world's greatest, but if they are uniquely mine then I guess I've accomplished something.

I've expressed my self.

The End of the World

2007-07-06T09:18:00.000-04:00

Leave it to me to find some reason to fret about my art while I sit under a dark cloud threatening to rain armaggeddon.

I was on the train yesterday reading Aristotle's Poetics. Now, I don't normally flaunt highly intellectual reading material on the subway but since I had just finished re-reading the last two Harry Potter books (in giddy anticipation of the upcoming movie and book release) and I hadn't had time to get to the book store to pick up a new summer read I decided to chew on some literary vegetables for a while. It has been on my shelf forever and I have never read it. I have trouble reading things everyone says I "should" read. I'm a contrary pig that way. At any rate, I skipped the introduction (which is, incidentally, longer than Aristotle's actual work) and started reading.

I found myself arguing a bit with dear Aristotle. You see, I bristle at any distinction between "high" and "low" art. His first mention of comedy seemed snobby and his critical disdain for satire and parody got my back up a bit. Then there was this little nugget: "Objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate when reproduced with minute fidelity: such as the forms of the most ignoble animals and of dead bodies. The cause of this again is that to learn gives the liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers but to men in general; whose capacity, however, of learning is more limited." And so it has always been this way. Intellectuals tout their superiority over the masses and those who enjoy popular entertainment are irritated by the intellectuals' sense of self importance. So the chasm between the two grows and popular entertainment becomes raunchier and more grotesque while more "intellectual" entertainment becomes so lofty- to borrow a phrase from the character of Mozart in Peter Shaffer's "Amadeus"- they become so lofty it is as if they "shit marble".

The previews before Michael Moore's movie "Sicko" were full of this self- important, self- congratulatory air. It was so noticable that it caused my husband to quip, "Even the company logos are pretenscious." Oh look how clever and how visually stunning we are! Meanwhile the important things, I truly believe, the important messages are being delivered in comedy clubs and improv venues across the country. Subversives love these funny little hidey holes and they say whatever they want there. I'm willing to bet you that the best prophets throughout the centuries were funny. I bet Jesus had a raging sense of humor that we never hear about. How else could he command such a following? Think about it. People were no more nor less intellectual in Jesus' time. Certainly the best church experiences I ever had were while listening to priests who could set you up with a good joke and then reach through the humor with an insight that would knock you off your kneeler. So I think the "low" when done with great intelligence can be much more sublime than the "high" done with great sincerity, and ultimately it is more effective. And fun.

Intellectuals give off the reeking stench of seriousness, as if fun was beneath them. No wonder "men in general" show no interest in that kind of "learning". It is the word "capacity" with which I take issue, Aristotle (or possibly your careless translator) because I believe every human has an infinite capacity for learning. It is the desire that may or may not be lacking. Regardless, I find this schism to be dangerous in today's social and political climate.

Art and critical thinking can be great mobilizing forces in times of strife. But, if art and thought are not communicated in ways that reach people they are completely useless. As I look at where things are headed in this country I consider my own skill set and wonder what these skills are for. I am a talker. If I remain mute when I could have inspired a conversation or a debate then I have not been true to myself and my natural inclinations. If I talk, but only speak to please myself and indulge my own ego then I have not been true to my calling and I will have failed to reach anyone else. If I want my work to have meaning and to function in this society then I need to ask questions and craft my thoughts clearly and set my ego and my personal need for validation aside. I don't have to be the smartest. I have to be the bravest and most honest I can be in order for my work to be relevant. I have to get out of my own way and focus only on communicating with my audience.

And if Aristotle wants to classify my work as "low" I would wear it as a badge of honor.

On Michael Moore

2007-07-04T22:43:00.000-04:00

I can't, in good conscience, call Michael Moore a documentarian. He is nothing of the sort. He is not a proper journalist either. He shows no interest in objectivity or even handed reporting. He has a very clear objective- he wants to win the audience over to his point of view. If I were to look at him as a documentary film maker I would be irritated. I would be pissed as hell as his films, entertaining though they are, are not documentaries. Regardless of the fact that my own personal politics are somewhat in line with Mr. Moore's, I do criticize his films' catagorization as documentary. They simply are not.

So it is a good thing that I can see him for what he really is... a writer (an essayist to be precise) who discovered that he could make a convincing argument on film that more people would see than would ever read anything he ever wrote. If I look at him as such, then I can sit back and enjoy his films with a third less guilt and pissiness.

I recently saw Moore's most recent film, "Sicko", which has been applauded by some of his most vociferous detractors. I was curious. None of the information was necessarily new to me, but Moore has a talent for putting things in a context that can get under your skin. He also has a talent for putting just the right, vomit inducing clips of W and Cheney in just the right place to make you want to pull all your flesh off and chew it until the urge to repeatedly pummel them (Dick and W, that is) in the face subsides. His use of music is more than a little heavy handed at times and he dismisses the idea that there might be issues with socialized medicine. I know why he dismisses it and I even agree with his overall assessment, but I think the omission weakens his argument to a certain degree.

However, I thought the film was affecting and more powerful than "Farenheit 9/11". I left the theater tired and red in the face from crying- as did a good portion of the audience who saw it with me including the solid looking, middle aged white guy in a suit who sat across the aisle from me. I felt for the people who appeared in the film and their stories touched me deeply. However, I am left with little to do now that the lights are up and the film is over. I feel empty and helpless. He made some veiled suggestion that we take to the streets, that we organize and vote... but organize for what? Vote for whom? You have my attention. You have my will.

Now tell me what I can do.

Ever Get the Feeling You've Been Cheated?

2007-06-23T21:58:00.000-04:00

This quote pops into my mind so frequently it is somewhat disturbing.

For those of you unfamiliar with the quote, allow me to brush past a little piece of punk history. During a concert in 1977 or 78' John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, of the Sex Pistols mused the above mentioned line to the audience. If you watch the footage you'll see a somewhat crestfallen Lydon staring into the sea of onlookers looking befuddled and disappointed. If I remember correctly (and I might not) the song preceeding this moment was "No Fun". Indeed.

What intrigues me about this moment is how honest it is. The bluster falls away for minute and all that is left is a young man disenchanted with his fame. I've seen interviews where he asserts that this moment was for the band and that, "...the easiest thing in the world to do is to stop. If you don't want to be a pop star anymore, just stop...". I am fascinated by that. I am fascinated by what that means and am fascinated by how he didn't "just stop" and I wonder if it is humanly possible to maintain any kind of integrity in the face of money/ fame. He walked away. Sometimes we just have to eat. Sometimes we just have something to say. Sometimes we just need to be stroked.

Most artists- performers in particular- are hard wired to seek a certain amount of attention. How do we steer clear of arrogance and self indulgence when the business, the public and sometimes even the art itself encourages us to dive in? Even on the smallest of scales there is temptation to serve yourself over anything or anyone else. There have been times which I, as an audience member, have been eternally grateful for the artist's instinct to amuse him/herself. After all, half the reasons to watch something like "The Carol Burnett Show" are to watch these actors crack each other up. Tim Conway was terribly self indulgent that way- picking on poor Harvey Korman like that. And yet I love it. There is joy in it. Conversely, however, I tire of watching Robin Williams desperately try to keep people laughing at his manic state because I feel the real Robin is somehow hidden. Worse yet is watching Jim Carrey mug for love and affection with his elastic face or Chris Farley degrade himself in a very desperate and self destructive plea for attention. This is not to say that I haven't found some things funny or even entertaining about these performers, but sometimes it is more than too much and I am left feeling more sad than I feel entertained.

I digress more than a bit here because Lydon's comment is more about the emptiness left behind. Being a product, a commodity, is so often much more than people bargain for and the halls of many rehab facilities can attest to this simple fact. Being a product can't be good for a person. And yet, that is what the industry demands.

Then I think about Dave Chappelle. He did not walk away from his experience unscathed, I'm sure, but he seems to have managed himself from a very true place- a very self aware and honest place. How many of us can do that? I've sold myself for so much less than was offered him. Once again, sometimes we have to eat.

Where is the line? For sure, each of us has a different line. Some won't do "under fives", some won't do extra work, others won't work for a penny less that $20 million. All we really have to rely on is our gut instincts, but what if our gut instincts are the instincts which keep us quiet and our work stuffed in dark, seldom opened dresser drawers?

I have a middle aged friend who only hints at having ever been involved in the theatre. I know him as a dedicated father and lover of film. He has never let on to me his ambitions, however, I discovered today that he has a vast body of unproduced work just waiting. It seemed a cautionary tale to me that one could reach an age where they have never spoken of their life's work and therefor their life's work is never spoken of. How close does one hold the cards? How do you choose what to do with your work? How do you decide what to do with yourself?

As for me, I fear my own self-indulgence (after all, I did once convince a 6'6" classmate to dress up like a female reproductive system complete with maracas for ovaries just to amuse myself...) and my suceptibility to flattery. I worry about my arrogance and my ego becoming so inflated that it pops. I worry about being stolen from, bought and sold. I worry about the entertainment that is out there today and how it is made by committee and focus group instead of by artist and ensemble. I worry about honest questioning and different viewpoints disappearing in a world of pre-fabricated, die cut, corporate thinking. I worry about finding myself empty one night, staring at an audience of my own making while I have nothing left to give them but an already uttered query.

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

Ensemble

2007-06-20T17:35:00.000-04:00

There is nothing better or more satisfying than finding people with whom you enjoy working. Personal chemistry is, indeed, an elusive thing but a good working relationship is not that hard if you know how to get off on the right foot.

The best way to promote the creation of a good ensemble is to be a good ensemble member yourself. Then surround yourself with people who are also good ensemble members. People who love the work in themselves more than themselves in the work are a joy to work with. If you love working with these people you will be more open to them and they will, in turn, be more open to you. The magic of an ensemble is in the openness, the trust that is created between cast and crew which leads to great explorations and incredible personal risks. A company should be about lifting each player- and by player I mean performer, administrator, box office staff, stage manager, prop master, etc- up toward their personal best and beyond. If you can find that in yourself you are more likely to find and join or create a brilliant ensemble.

If you can't, you'll be doing something else entirely.

As always, the choice is yours.

The Theatre I Want

2007-06-08T21:37:00.000-04:00

The classics and I don't get along. And that isn't because I don't love them. It isn't because I no longer find them vital. It isn't even because they are so frequently done poorly. It is because I am an American. Specifically, I am an American who was taught to revere classical work as one would admire the craftsmanship of a Ming vase or an Egyptian artifact. They are old. They are delicate. They are needed and desired and therefor must only be observed from behind glass in order to guarantee their preservation. Playing with them is verboeten.

I suppose this is a variation on my Godot lament, but I'd like to take it a step further and explore what I really want from a theatre. From MY theatre! I want classics that can withstand my artistic teething and I want new works that are as strong as those classics. I want a rough and messy theatre with mistakes and passion. I want a theatre that does not follow another model simply because that is "just the way it is done" in American theatre. I want to reject the notion that bigger is better. I want an almost libertarian theatre. I want to bring back the kitchen sink and open wide its cabinets to peer at the dusty cleaning products, sloppy looking trash can and the refuse that has fallen behind it. I want magical forests made entirely out of gobos, blue lights and maybe discarded soup cans. I want music and silence, sex and virginity, decorum and depravity.

I can't remember what play it was that I saw with Judi Densch but I do remember her saying something to the effect of 'If you don't like the theatre then by all means, stop going.'. Yes! Absolutely! I've no interest in forcing people to love or understand the theatre. MY theatre. I will not be a whining Democrat begging disenfranchised soccer moms to rejoin the flock. I want a theatre that is what it is. I want to run it as if I am independently wealthy and it doesn't matter if people see it or like it. I want a theatre with big brass balls that clang like cathedral bells. I want to be afraid and I want to do it anyway. I want to be right and I want to be proven wrong. I want my theatre to be a witty, ribald, respectful, thoughtful, open sore. I want an audience that can't stop themselves from picking at it.

How's that for a mission statement?

Note to Actors: Be Human

2007-06-04T09:34:00.000-04:00

Actors can be very frustrating creatures.

Last week I met a fellow at a bar and we struck up a conversation out of boredom. After about 5 minutes I realized that this guy was just going to keep talking and that he was not going to take enough interest in me to even ask my name. He was treating me as a test audience for some poorly written monologue he had bouncing around in his head. After about 10 minutes it became clear that it did not matter who or what I was, he was, literally, just talking to hear himself talk. After 15 minutes or so I was finally able to get a word in edgewise and I asked him...

"Are you an actor?"

He looked at me with great surprise. Since we had been discussing a local building development he could not fathom how I would have known his calling.

"Yes. How'd you know?"

I am too polite to say, 'Because you are clearly a self-absorbed ass and way too interested in your own feelings and observations about the world to actually include another human being in your conversation', but that was what I was thinking.

Now, the truth is, the best actors I know aren't like that. The best actors that I know use the skills they need in their professional life in their personal interactions. The best actors I know are not trying to 'create a scene' with the people in their lives being unwitting players in their self-constructed little dramas (with themselves as the stars!) but are listening and reacting to people in honest ways. Nothing is more obnoxious that having a long conversation with another person who is so self-involved that they don't even think of asking, 'Hey- how are you doing?'.

I was in the position to be working in a group with a particular actor who clearly took no notice of me, even though we had to work together. He just didn't find me interesting enough at first glance. That was crystal clear. He likes women who are taller, thinner and hair flippier. Perhaps I was too polite or even too quiet (I can be quiet sometimes, believe it or not) for him to take an interest in the lady in the countless black knit outfits. After some careful observation I decided to make a wager with myself. I gave myself five minutes on our last day of assigned interaction to get his attention and then see if I could keep that attention for the remainder of the project. I did. It was embarrassingly easy.

All I had to do was make three dirty references, casting myself as the naughty librarian type and BAM he was mine for the evening. After the first joke, he was a bit shocked. Just shocked enough to start directing his little monologue about his professional discoveries in my direction. After the second joke, he started to smile at me and then began to engage me in his discussion and asking my opinion. After the third joke he began laughing a little too loudly at everything I said and finally, after a few weeks of working in the same group and being largely ignored by him, he began to ask questions about me. But if you see what I did there and analyze what happened you might need to take a shower.

It wasn't until there was a hint of sex and the promise some imaginary titilation (and when there's imaginary titilation, then maybe a real sexual encounter could follow- couldn't it?) that I could get even the smallest bit of this actor's attention. It wasn't until the idea was placed in his mind that I could be of some service (real or imagined) to him in some way that I could get him to value my input as an artist. Sadly, a lot of actors (male AND female) operate this way. I am probably guilty of it myself. I hope not to this extent, but I'm sure I've made snap judgements like this before.

Now, I'm sure these two fellows are good to their friends and have nice points about them, but to me they came off as complete asses. Their behavior illustrates to me that if I am as self absorbed as they are that I could really miss out on opportunities to grow and to understand other human beings. After all, I know what I can bring to the table and I know these two gentlemen were missing it and were missing it because of their snap judgments about me and their own, inflexible personal conversational agendas. I'm making an effort to let other people in and allow myself to be changed by them.

It was pretty mean of me to manipulate that guy, but in a way I'm impressed with myself for having called it. I'm also disappointed in the knowledge that I used to bring out the sexual references on instinct. It is a cheap way to get someone's attention, but it works with the self-involved regardless of their sexual orientation. It is a tactic that gets results. Obviously I have filed that one away into my bag of tricks, but to be honest, I feel pretty gross about it.

I shouldn't have to display myself in that way in order for my ideas to get any respect.

But then again...Mae West is one of my heroes...

What's a girl to do?

Timidity

2007-05-31T11:17:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-26T08:05:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-25T07:09:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-21T07:23:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-17T22:02:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-13T07:28:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-09T21:19:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-01T00:23:00.000-04:00

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.

Planet Alignment

2007-04-25T22:07:00.000-04:00

Monday was an unbelievably gorgeous day in NYC. I whistled and practically skipped to rehearsals on Monday afternoon. I was pleased with myself, and not just because it was lovely outside, but because I realized that I was about to embark on a six week period of my life in which every single day would be filled with things I actually want to do. I'm not exaggerating. Every. Single. Day. How often does that happen? I've been blessed.

I am teaching and being taught, experimenting, writing and directing and making room in my life for some things that are very, very new. I'm getting a glimpse of what my life could be like if I could only take advantage of the opportunities offered. Of course, I would also have to learn how to recognize those opportunities when they bite me in the ass, but that is another topic all together.

Already I feel as though I've been hit by a bus (a nice, happy bus, but a bus nonetheless) as I dive into a six day work week. I know that I can't conceivably keep up this pace for very long, but a few weeks seems doable as I know I will be forced to take the summer "off". But that, too, is another story.

After several years of self-mistrust I am slowly learning how to roll with it and trust that I am not the only responsible adult in the world. I am learning how to delegate and prioritize in a way I never have before. I am also learning to accept the fact that things are going to fall through the cracks. My house is going to be a disaster (possibly now through the end of time) and I am going to have those sleepless nights when my To Do List keeps me wide awake. The main difference between now and a couple of years ago, and even two weeks ago, is that I see this flurry of activity is, in and of itself, a success. If I fail at one project or another it doesn't matter as much as it would have at another time in my life. I've never been this busy before. The fact that I am busy means that I have reached a level of success that I had not reached before.

There are a bunch of boys in one of the classes I am teaching who really give me a run for my money. They have smart mouths, they have a hard time focusing, they challenge me and everything I say. They have to be prodded to do the work and they seriously resist being lead more than an inch out of their comfort zones. These boys frustrate me terribly, and yet they are also my most affectionate students. They are the first to embrace me when I walk in the door and they grumble with one another about who gets to sit next to me when we work on the classroom floor. They greedily inhale anything that sounds remotely like praise from me and absorb it into their blood streams. They challenge me and poke me and try my patience, but they also care the most. Their difficult behavior is their method of engagement with me and I need to take it as such. I can't interpret it as an indictment of me and my methods, but as a strange sign of respect.

I spent the majority of my formative years seeking and enjoying friendships with males. I learned that teasing and both literal and figurative head butting are signs of affection and validation. Maybe life's challenges are much the same. I am going to be tackling some pretty big things in the next year or so and I feel excited and somewhat intimidated. However, I have to look at it this way- Since life (God, Goddess, the Universe, what have you) has seen fit to give me these challenges and poke me from time to time, I should take it as a sign of love and respect.

That's a much more pleasant outlook than sitting around thinking that I've been screwed.

Imus Kafuffle

2007-04-18T06:54:00.000-04:00

I have very little to say about Don Imus specifically. I have never paid him much attention and I certainly do not care to start now. However, his recent ill- conceived comments are only the latest drop in a seemingly unending stream of gaffes by public figures. As much as the content of these messages concerns me as a human being, their censure concerns me as an artist and it raises so many questions for me about how our culture deals with communication and personal responsibility.

In my lifetime I have seen personal accountability reach a new, all time low. Whether it is the 24 hour news cycle or actual stupidity that is to blame here seems to matter little. To me it seems that the real issue is how easy it is to distance ourselves from our true thoughts and feelings- however ugly they may be. It seems that once the unfortunate comment is uttered it is a little too easy to claim that it was meant satirically, make the apology to Al Sharpton and then check into rehab.
Now, if someone has real emotional problems or needs help with substance abuse then they should be able to access that help. It can provide an explanation for bad behavior, but it shouldn't EXCUSE it. A person still needs to be accountable for what they put out into the world. A person should be able to stand up and say what they think (popular or not) but they should also be aware of the effect on their intended audience and accept the natural consequences for their actions. Unfortunately in the era of the "Whoopsie Daisy" no one seems to really stand up and claim their true thoughts and feelings on anything. We live in a time when everyone must be pleased and no one should be offended.

That's a nice idea, but it isn't very realistic.

Very little actual discource has been had in this country about the gulf which divides us. Although we understand what is supposed to be the accepted behavior in our culture (we understand it enough that any breech necessitates an apology) we understand very little about what causes someone to feel that way in the first place. This is something we are not really allowed to discuss outside of over-simplified terms. As difficult as it is to hear how someone might have reached these conclusions about one group of people or another, I think it is vitally necessary to hear it if we are to change hearts and minds. We have all heard about the affects of this kind of speech from its targets and we should continue to hear it. But we also can't assume where and how bigotry is born. We can't assume that it is communicable and passed from ear to ear, bigot to bigot. After all, if someone tells you the sky is maroon and you have any spine at all you will dismiss it as an erroneous statement because your previous experience tells you otherwise. When it comes to racist thought and action there is something else at play here and it is a moral imperitive that we understand it so that we will know how to kill it.

Sweeping ugliness under the rug only makes the rug dirty underneath. Stopping the chatter only makes the chatter more dangerous. Removing your listening support undermines the credibility of the message. I've always had this little fantasy about getting a huge group to attend a Klan rally only to turn our backs, put our fingers in our ears and sing "La la la! I'm not listening! La la la!".

Now that would be fun.

Easter Adventures

2007-04-11T21:08:00.000-04:00

This Easter I agreed to lend my skills to an Easter service at St. Bartholomew's in Manhattan. The whole idea was to take the congregation's children on a walk through the Easter story. At several areas in and around the church there would be scenes that the children would encounter depicting the events surrounding the Resurrection.

Now, my own personal religious/ spiritual beliefs aside, I thought it would be a fun way to spend an Easter Sunday. It was fun. Which, in retrospect, makes me think I am probably a very sick person to have found this fun.

First off were the people I was working with. Some were old friends from my days at Circle in the Square and others were new faces. Such a nice group of people to work with! That definitely added to my enjoyment. Second was the sheer awesomeness of St. Bartholomew's itself. It is a sprawling and gorgeous piece of archetecture complete with tall columns, stained glass windows, mosaics, and weird nooks and crannies that satisfy the romantic little girl in me. The baptismal font itself is worth the trip. None of these things seem odd or out of the ordinary to enjoy. It is the third thing that makes me wonder.

I spent the entire day crying.

You see, I was to play Mary Magdelene (which I am quite certain that most of the parishoners confused me for the OTHER famous Mary) at the moment she discovered Jesus missing from the tomb. It was suggested to me that it would be powerful if Mary were really crying instead of indicating her loss. So, I went whole hog. I didn't go to the ugly cry place because that would have terrified the children, but I did sit and contemplate loss for an entire day. After all, at that moment the injustice of the whole situation must have been crippling for Mary. Not only has she lost her teacher and friend, but she has lost the means through which she could begin to cope with her grief. She has lost her hope for the future. The ritual of anointing the body would have been painful and yet would have helped her to move through her grief in a last gesture of love and caring. The loss of that moment, of that chance to say good bye must have been devastating to her.

We did three "shows" and each time I felt compelled to shake things up a bit and release some sadness and frustration of my own. I've heard many tales of dead dog personalizations and whatnot and I am certainly familiar with my own bag of tricks. However, I decided to focus on mass murders/ suicides and genocides to bring up the required sense of loss.

In a particularly morbid display I found myself thinking about Jonestown when the sound of a reluctant young parishoner reached my ears. He was chanting, "I don't WANT to go! I don't WANT to go!". This was somewhat serendipitous as, at that particular moment I was having difficulty connecting to my circumstances. But that child's protests added to my Jonestown scenario as I imagined a child who did not want to drink the Kool Aid struggling against his own mother. I needed no more for the rest of the day.

This is where my self loathing kicks in, because it feels so exploitative and wrong to attempt ot make art about real peoples' lives. And yet, what else have we got? What is more compelling that real life? What is more important than real life? But my ability and my need to bounce back from these emotional episodes and even share them and find them darkly funny disturbs me more than a little.

I know that I have developed a defense mechanism that helps me separate my acting reality from my actual reality and part of that mechanism requires me to look at my process this way. I need to be able to step back and analyze how I used this or that in order to survive the work I do and to understand my world. But sometimes I wonder if that is a good thing for my soul not just to use such things in my work, but to walk away having somewhat enjoyed the experience.

When I was pregnant my actor friends invariably said two things when they found out. Number one was congratulations. Number two was some variation of "Wow! Just think of everything you'll be able to USE from this experience!". This made me want to slap them because some things should be sacred, shouldn't they?

But as I creep up on that magic seven years after the birth of my son, I am begining to see how it would be useful and I shudder to think how it will creep into my work whether I like it or not. But then I think about how my work is sacred to me and it only makes sense that I would use that which is most holy to me in my creation. I wonder how the subjects of my silent homages would feel if they knew.

As for me, I'd be flattered. But then again, I'm a narcissist.

Applied Lessons

2007-03-31T00:39:00.000-04:00

Gathering and cataloguing knowledge is a relatively easy thing to do. We do it daily. We notice the people who are always at the bus stop at 8 AM and we've observed enough about them to feel we know who they are. We notice that the copy machine always seems to jam on the 4th and 5th copies if the paper drawer is too full. We take in all kinds of information, moment by moment. But how often do we act on that knowledge? How often do we apply the lessons learned to the next moment, the next challenge?

Our behavior patterns are so deeply ingrained in us that we hardly notice them. If we do notice the pattern, our efforts to change that pattern are often thwarted by our subconscious mind that tricks us back into our comfortable groove. For example, my need to be polite and liked by strangers is so strong that I once apologized to a man on the phone who called my place of business to request sexual services. I'm sorry, sir, we don't do that here. Any other New Yorker would have read this guy the riot act. Not me. After being mercilessly teased by my co-workers I vowed to be more assertive. Only a week later did a woman enter the store mumbling "gotta get a fix, gotta get a fix" and I kindly escorted her to the door while she, unsuccessfully, tried to pick my pocket.

The problem with applied knowledge is identifying the particular lesson. Were those lessons teaching me that people are scum that only want to take what they can get from me? Or was it about recognizing inappropriate and dangerous behavior? Probably the latter, but one could easily see how someone else would interpret the lesson as the former. Depending on the circumstances, of course. The all important circumstances.

In this profession, circumstances are everything. Circumstances hold the key to behavior and behavior is the key to the way the mind interprets information. Knowing a character means understanding how stimulus is interpreted through the character's filter of given circumstances. It is a mind numbing puzzle and the better written the character, the more daunting and tantalizing the actor's task. Bernarda Alba, in Lorca's play of the same name, could interpret her daughter's suicide as a sign that something is wrong in this house full of desperate women. However, the circumstances of her community, her religion and her upbringing will lead her to deny the dangers in her own home. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. To make Bernarda real is to take the textual clues to work backward and reconstruct her circumstances.

I once had a director who insisted on discussing each actor's choices regarding the given circumstances of the play. He called us in for half hour discussions about our characters. I found this unorthodox and slightly intrusive, but since I wanted to be polite I agreed. This was a big mistake. During the conversation he violently disagreed with me about a particular choice I made regarding a particular line of text. The line was "...and me, the near virgin!". I had constructed for myself a scenario that contributed to the character's confusion, however the director felt that I was not being historically accurate in my choice. Now, this choice did not show up anywhere else in the text or in the show. I can understand the director objecting to an actor who wanted to ride a Ferrari in a chariot race, but this was my private choice. Just something between the character and myself. It was a bridge that connected the two of us, and in one fell swoop this director and my own politeness burned that bridge. We argued because I felt he was being far too literal and general and that the choice I had made reflected my own experience and helped me to understand where she was coming from. I tried it his way, but it didn't make sense to my system. That is when I learned that some choices are private and should stay that way.

This, of course, makes teaching and learning acting extraordinarily difficult. After all, how many times in a career can an actor hear "Have the thought ON the line, not BEFORE it!", "Don't play the emotion!", or "Take two steps and THEN say the line." and be able to turn that into usable tools? I'm hungry for the personal play by play but I also recognize that it does not always serve the actor to share those things. You can make fun of the dead dog personalizations, but if they work who the hell is anyone to say boo about it?

It all boils down to confidence in your own experience. This is the circumstance one must cultivate in their real lives to make their stage lives full and truthful. However you go about that, my friends, is your own, private business.

Finding Place

2007-03-23T11:07:00.000-04:00

I am quickly discovering that comfort does not equal happiness. Comfort is akin to inertia. A person can keep ambling along, doing whatever they are doing and they can be comfortable but they can also be unhappy.

A couple of years ago I was very comfortable. I was home with my son. I had enough money to continue with my daily cappucino and seven layer cookie addiciton. I was even writing for a little extra cash. On the surface, things seemed very good, except for the fact that I couldn't stop fantasizing about jumping in front of a bus or drowning myself in the bath tub. I was very comfortable and I thought that was what I wanted. However, once I found myself in the seemingly enviable position of the stay at home, artsy, mommy I felt as if I was staring into an endless void of kiddie songs and caffeine fueled crying jags over my cell phone in the park.

I don't think I was made to coast through life in that way. My comfort made me doubt myself. It made me doubt my own strength and ability to perservere. It made me twitchy and unable to cope with the slightest inconvenience. I became addicted to my own inertia feeling that I would fall apart if something really serious ever happened. I was afraid to go back to "real work" in case I wasn't good enough or up to the challenges that people over the age of three tend to provide. I hated myself for being so weak while the world around me kept doing crazy things in which I took no part. I missed the world but I didn't feel that the world had missed me.

At the moment I am extremely uncomfortable. I don't know from day to day how I will cover the gaps in my son's busy schedule. I don't know how I am going to make dinner or wash the sheets or make the necessary arrangements for my volunteer work at school or finish my lesson plans for one of my many teaching gigs. I just don't know how I am going to squeeze it all in while I plot out my career moves and figure out how to be a part of the world again. I'm insanely busy. I have thoughts constantly whirling around in my brain and I frequently forget to eat lunch, but I'm happy damn it. I'm almost there.

I need to be knocked off balance and still find myself standing at the end of the day. The pot shots that I've been getting lately make me feel proud and defiant. I feel more energetic and more loving. I don't feel as strong as I would like to feel, but I think that is something that will happen in time. Challenge is a potent thing and I am finding it necessary to my survival.

Comfort is not as good as it sounds.

Leading a Horse to Water

2007-03-17T09:26:00.000-04:00

I keep finding myself in these teaching situations where I have to coax the young'uns into working. I have to throw some kind of carrot in front of them to get them to do what they walked in the door to do. It's an extra curricular drama class. No one forced them to come in the room. They came of their own free will. And yet, no one wants to be the first person to commit. No one wants to put in any effort because effort is not cool. As the teacher, they expect me to bring it all to their doorstep. Just push it through the mail slot, Teach. I'll pick it up when I am damn good and ready.

This is foreign to my experience. I was a nerd and only too eager to grab on to the lifeline that was thrown to me. Of course, my living situation was not as stressful as what some of these kids are going through. I trusted my lifeline. They don't have much trust at all, not even in themselves. Saying yes and stepping forward to claim an opportunity is much more difficult than entertaining a painful status quo.

Everytime I get frustrated I set myself down and remind myself of all the lifelines I have refused in the past six years. I have even refused the invitations to teach because I felt that I had very little to offer. So you tell me that all I need to do is give of myself and I will reach success? Well, what if my "self" is worthless? What if I am not enough? Failing will be painful. And yet teaching jobs kept coming to me and I could no longer push them away. I found myself faced with an opportunity I could no longer refuse, although I desperately wanted to. I still want to. I lay awake nights thinking about how I have failed these kids because I haven't gotten through. I keep searching for an end point- a place where I can feel some accomplishment. But the work never ends and that boulder just gets heavier and heavier while the hill seems much steeper than the last go round.

Yesterday I had a moment on the train with a couple of teenage boys. They were displaying their obnoxious rebellion in technicolor, swearing, laughing too loud and just being way too Eddie Haskell. At one point, one of them turns to the other and says, "You know what's cool? Smoking on the train!". The other boy agrees and they both pull out their packs and their lighters. I couldn't help myself.

"Oh, come on guys. Don't do it." They froze, surprised that I was not too intimidated to address them, "You aren't the only two people in here. Show some respect."

That is when the black woman behind them and the older gentleman on the other side got into the act. I sat back and watched the two of them talk to these boys. The woman was a nurse and the older man was a retired teacher. These two boys fell into a "yes, ma'am", "no, sir" posture that I didn't think existed anymore. They were kind, but firm and then they kicked a little ass. Of course, those boys got off the train in a snowstorm to smoke, but they didn't smoke on the train. I was on the train for two more stops and listened to the man tell his war stories from NYC high schools .

"There's a reason I quit teaching, you know." He said with a sigh, "In the 80's, I saw nine year olds smoking crack." He shook his head.

"Believe me, I know." said the nurse.

That is when I realized that I still see myself as a teenager. What teenager would value information from another teenager? I'm not having defiance or danger in my classroom, just sketpticism. What do I need to stretch for, Miss? I don't want to play no bad guy, Miss! Miss, this scene is boring. It takes too long. I empathize with them. I can see why five minutes of stretching makes them feel self-conscious about their bodies. I can see why someone would feel sensitive about having to play "the bad guy". I can also see why working on a scene that requires an actor to stretch their daily level of compassion to its limit would be "boring". Anything that you refuse to invest yourself in would be boring.

I'm struggling to find my voice as a teacher. I know that there are populations that respond more readily to me than others. I'm trying to learn, to adjust my style and my curriculum to better reach other kids while still not sacrificing the material. What I really have to learn is how to get them to meet me half way. I can't seem to convince these horses that they are thirsty. I need to temper my desire to reach them with the knowledge that not everyone is ready to be reached.

As much as I want to, I can't make them drink.

Outside the Box

2007-03-05T12:02:00.000-05:00

I've been reading Lisa Mulcahy's book, "Building the Successful Theater Company". It is a good read and it has been instrumental in helping me dissect all the reasons why my previous attempts at building a company have crashed and burned. As I hang my toes over the precipice of a new theatrical endeavor, it is good to reflect on where I've gone wrong and also what I've done right in the past. But I do feel a nagging voice in the back of my head screaming to challenge the assumption of what the word "successful" means.

Does "successful" need to mean "large"? Does it need to mean 2000 seat venues and multi-million dollar operating budgets? Or can a small theater that has invested itself in its community like any other local business be successful, too? Why must everything American grow to be so gargantuan in order to be deemed a success? Why must an American business multiply and dilute?

I am noticing that growth means dilution to a certain extent. I'm sure that the original McDonald's restaurant probably had palatable food. It doesn't anymore. I've been informed that Doc Martens are now being made in China to cope with the new demand (this is what a friend who recently purchased some new Docs told me) and apparently there is a difference- and not necessarily a good difference. More may not mean better. After all, I've seen some amazing and moving performances in 30 seat venues and I've seen crap in 1500 seat venues. I am confused at what "success" means.

I've got a lot to think about these days. The decisions I make in the next few months are going to set me on a path artistically and philosophically. My sister always tells me that "the gut is good, always listen to the gut", but my gut has a lot more balls than I do. Catching up is going to be a challenge.

Wish me luck.

On Cool

2007-02-21T09:09:00.000-05:00

I was working with some kids who think I am completely full of it a couple of weeks ago. They desperately needed some relaxation because they were twitchy as hell and passing their twitchiness to one another, making it impossible to concentrate. So I took them through some stretches and repetitive motion and a little chair relaxation. These particular kids have trouble with any activity that asks them to look inside themselves which means acting is a pretty tough choice for them. During the relaxation one of the boys got snarky. "I'll bet Tom Cruise doesn't have to do this."

Involuntarily, I laughed and said, "He should. His forehead could use a break." Oh boy. They all turned on me. Did our teacher just dis Tom Cruise? For real? Yup. I guess I kinda did. But it brought up a real discussion about what professional actors do. Most kids get into acting because of a hero in the movies. Girls pattern themselves after beautiful women who are either spunky tough or extremely elegant. Boys idolize men that move a lot and seem to have a lot of grit and there is a fine line in attitude. There's a big difference between Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. Guys would like to hang out with Jackie Chan (as would I, he seems a fun fellow) but would like to BE Bruce Lee. A lot of kids get into acting to escape themselves. Oh, they are in for a terrible shock. Especially if you end up working with me.

I hate cool. Cool is the antithesis of the actor's job. Cool means detatched, unaffected, impervious to influence by the outside world. An actor- especially a "cool" actor- must be the exact opposite. They must be receptive and responsive. If they are not, there's no story, no conflict and no need. No one is that self reliant. Nor should they be.

We love the idea of a "Super Person" who can live by his/her own wits and relies on no one else. We all wish we could be this person and that others could point to us as examples of greatness. But this is a fallacy. Even in myth humans have hardwired weaknesses into gods and goddesses and fears into superheroes. These are things that we, as humans, cannot escape. So our art must not try to escape them either.

With the younger kids I often play a game making up a character as a group exercise. Each character has a name, age, important person(s), a wish and a fear. Kids always resist the fear. "He's not afraid of anything!". Oh yes he is. Superman is afraid of losing Lois Lane and he is afraid of Kryptonite. Spiderman is afraid of being exposed and of endangering the people he loves. Everyone is afraid of something, even if that something is "nothing" as in "I am afraid of everything disappearing and then there will be a horrible, horrible nothing." Nothing is a very powerful concept and, on some level, I'd say we were all afraid of nothing. Once the kid accepts that every character has a fear thing soar. They have fun laughing at fears. Once a kid created a character that was afraid of food. When I looked her in the eye and said, "Wow. That must make dinnertime and birthday parties and trips to the grocery store very interesting." Her eyes flew open and she immediately set to work solving problems for this character whose mother had to sneak her vitamins while she slept. She had a good time playing with this character and placing her in circumstantial mine fields. It also opened a window for this little girl, her teachers and her parents into her own behavior. The first step in dealing with a fear is by looking it dead in the eye.

Fears get more complex the longer we try to deny them. This is how fear hides from us. Sometimes fear is so convuluted that we don't even recognize it as fear. We mistake it for anger or sadness. We clothe it in self righteousness and even bigotry. Fear is not going anywhere and we would do well to acknowledge it or else it grows in the dark corners of our collective psyche like poisonous mushrooms. There is no courage in the absence of fear. Fear is a necessary componant of our growth as humans and everyone has it to some degree or another. The key to greatness is not the denial of fear, but the acceptance of it and the strength to move through it.

So. What are you afraid of?

Playing Emotion

2007-02-12T20:20:00.000-05:00

For all the political flap jaw we've had in the past 5 1/2 years about freedom I am surprised to fall upon a preponderance of evidence that mankind is not hardwired to seek freedom. Nor is man hardwired to seek peace, whether it be personal or international. I know this only because I have witnessed scores of people, both in the public sphere and in my private life, consistently choose the opposite.

I would have to include myself in that grouping as I have noticed that I tend to make choices that will lead me down the path of maximum inner trumoil. Others, I've witnessed, make choices that will manifest conflict outside themselves. Both tendancies serve the same purpose- they allow us to avoid taking immediate and decisive action that may bring us fulfillment in some area of our lives. We often make plenty of excuses and justifications for why we are not where we think we ought to be in life when, in reality, if we have decided upon a moral/ethical code and remain consistent life should be pretty darn simple. Not easy, just simple. And yet...

After mulling this over with several friends and colleagues I was surprised to hear a the same basic idea echoed back to me from people who are vastly different from one another in their approaches to life. The idea was this: conflict creates strong emotional responses and if we are not aware of our feelings we do not feel alive. There are many of us who fear numbness over pain and crave feeling above all else.

In acting it is absolutely, painfully dull to watch an actor "play the emotion" or "play the quality" instead of the action indicated in the play. For example, if we watch an actor playing our favorite, evil, hunchback, Richard III, concentrate only on the quality of "being evil" his portrayal will be hollow and showy at best. We would not be able to peek through the language and see a man so wounded and angry that he would destroy anyone and everyone in his need to compensate and dominate. We would just see an actor mustering all the "evil" conventions and cliches available to him and we would, most likely, fall asleep before the winter of our discontent could be made glorious summer by this sun of York. But if we could see an actor stay on track and actually pursue an objective and letting the emotions come without trying to manipulate them we would be in for a treat. We might even learn something about ourselves by watching. As an actor, this is one of the first things that I have learned and have struggled to realize in my work. However, as a human I tend to wallow in the feeling- to play the feeling, if you will- rather than do what my training demands that I do. My habit is to play the emotion and not to pursue my objective. That is why I often find myself feeling stagnant and stuck in life. Bad habits do die hard.

Playing the emotion is self-indulgent in an actor. It is no less so in an everyday human being. This, I believe, is at the heart of why we tend to choose conflict and voluntary bondage over peace and personal freedom. We're addicted to the emotion and we do not trust that the emotion will be there for us if we concetrate on our objective(s). We hang on to feeling as if it were life itself. It is not. Letting go often provides the richest emotional life available, but it requires faith and self confidence. After all, anxiety is nothing but the inherent belief that if something went wrong we would not know how to handle it. Focusing on emotion as a result instead of a by-product of life can stop us from achieving our goals. It can stop us from living our lives to the fullest. Emotion can be so addictive that we can spend lifetimes seeking vague concepts like "Happiness" and "Security" over concrete goals like a savings account or a career in our chosen field.

States of being are unattainable because being is ever changing. Chasing a state of mind is like trying to catch smoke and this frustration can cause us much distress and chip away at our self esteem. As I see it, in life as in acting it is the action that matters. Everything else will fall into place once the action is clearly defined. Then you will be unstoppable.

Guidance

2007-01-30T10:54:00.000-05:00

Everyone needs a teacher.

For some people that means a therapist. For others that means a mother, a father, a good friend, a mentor, a boss, or even a good book. Regardless of what form that teacher takes, everyone needs one.

I'm finding that I can be a good compass for others but I often have difficulty finding my own bearings. All the static from everyone else's life tends to intrude and I need the assistance of someone else to tone down the noise and figure out what is really true for me. I've lost touch with my teachers and now is the time for me to return.

Some friends have recommended therapists to me lately. Therapy is fine, but I think what I truly need is good scene work. I don't take personal direction well. When someone says to me "You need to take care of yourself" or "Wow, you're really hard on yourself" I get defensive and block off the message. I don't know how to fix those things. But if I can talk to someone about Martirio's soul eating rage or Blanche's desperate need for affection I can map out strategies. I can discover parallels between myself and the character and recognize behaviors that cause me discomfort. I can see and dissect how these characters make their choices from moment to moment and I can learn to spot those choices in my daily life.

It is much like when you are a kid and your parents get a new car. After that new car purchase you see that same make and model in every parking lot and on every street. It seems as if your parents have started a new car craze, but the reality is much simpler. In reality your eyes have been trained to look for that car, to search for its familiarity. Suddenly, you notice something that has probably been going on for a long time and your awareness shifts. It is much the same with this craft. Once you recognize and identify Hamlet's foibles you begin to see them in yourself. Your awareness opens and when that happens you can begin to make conscious choices.

However, you will need the guidance of a good teacher to recognize these things. I miss my teachers. For the benefit of my own teaching I need to get reaquainted with my teachers. I need to be able to place my trust in someone else for a while so that I may stumble and make the mistakes I need to make in order to grow.

I used to think that a good teacher prepared you to live without them. To a certain extent, I definitely still believe that, but I am beginning to see the necessity of a constant voice of wisdom throughout my journey as an artist and as a person. I've always been a bit of a bootstraps kind of gal, but I am beginning to see the folly in that viewpoint. Seeking guidance is not weakness or a sign of incompetence. It is just the opposite. As we have seen in the Iraq war, "going it alone" is not so much a sign of strength as it is a sign of stubborn stupidity.

Of course, one should always be wary of "gurus". A teacher should never feed off the student. A true teacher calmly watches like a well adjusted parent, setting the environment to let you fall without getting irreparably damaged. At some point the good teacher becomes a trusted friend that is happy to see you ride off into the sunset and pleased when you return with tales of your adventures and honored when you solicit their honest opinions. A teacher should never drain you of your energy. If he/ she does, you know this is not the right teacher for you. A good teacher invests him/herself in you but never lets you know how much because the teaching isn't about the teacher. It is about the student.

And this is why teachers need teachers. A teacher cannot give so much without having a place to refuel. This is why everyone needs guidence.

Everyone needs a teacher.

Why Theatre?

2007-01-24T11:35:00.000-05:00

What are we doing?

I can't help but wonder why I am involved in this pursuit at all. There are these corny answers floating about in my head about expression, the cultural importance of storytelling, and the magic of strangers sharing an experience together, but that doesn't really give me any satisfaction. In fact, there is a nagging feeling that this whole exercise is about validation and that bothers me. As much as I put the whole of myself into anything that I create, I don't want this to be masturbatory and yet, that is almost impossible to avoid. Yes. Validation is a major reason to do what I do and I am sadly conflicted about it. I would like to think that there is a larger and more important reason for me to act beyond the fact that I get attention for doing it.

I've got this Kurt Weil song stuck in my head. It is very theatrical and has that characteristic Weil fingerprint that is dark, cynical and clanky. My brain plays it over and over and over trying to dissect the notes and the words that crawl into my body and rearrange the way my heart feels inside my chest. It is both uncomfortable and thrilling and therein lies a piece of the puzzle, I think. It frightens me. The way I can listen to that song and imagine the darker part of myself- the fact that there even IS a darker part of myself- coming forward and claiming its place in me is terrifying in its appeal. As I listen to this song, I recognize how this musical moment somehow encapsulates what I am reaching for in my theatre work. It is a "safe" way to explore that which frightens me about myself and the world I live in. For me, theatre is about fear, challenging it and searching for ways to conquor it. Sometimes when I step into the fear I find myself in a state of complete surrender that is nothing short of a revelation. Those moments are few and far between, but once it has been experienced it becomes a lifelong search to find and maintain such moments. It is even better when those moments are shared with an audience. They get a taste for what you are experiencing and for a moment, a brief moment, they lose themselves as well. Through this we all have the opportunity to stretch ourselves, to expand ourselves beyond our own self imposed limits and we learn something.

A friend sent me a quote which I will have to paraphrase because I no longer have it handy, but the idea is basically this: Entertainment is that which you receive without effort. Art takes an investment of self but in return you receive much more that what you have put in.

That's why. Because I want more. More life, more experience, more understanding, more compassion...I want more of what the world has to offer and this is the best way I have found to get it. I've no choice. It is my compulsion.

A Fool and His Money...

2007-01-16T10:35:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite Tom Waits' lyrics is "There's a sucker born every minute/ You just happened to be comin' along at the right time". It makes me maliciously delighted each time I hear it. Alas, we all have our moments of playing the fool. Sometimes for better reasons than others.

Producing a tiny show in NYC is the ultimate act of foolishness. The odds are against you and the audience for small shows is so much smaller than you could possibly imagine. It is like pulling teeth to even get your friends to cough up $10 to support you while you get your sea legs. To be fair, your friends know that most things produced on this scale are usually so esoteric they want to shoot themselves or in such bad taste they want to shoot you. They're just too polite to tell you that. Well, I am lucky because our show is actually good. But no one will really believe that until they see a third party review. Rumor has it, we'll be getting one soon and if we do it will mean a longer life for our little show.

Small is not always bad. I do lean toward a poor theatre as my personal aesthetic, mostly for practical reasons but also because I do truly think that the theatre needs to separate itself from the slam bang spectacles of over stimulation that we've become accustomed to in this culture. No one is coming to the theatre- but people are out there searching in these troubled times. They are searching for solace and looking to religion and spirituality to make sense of their world and there is no reason that the theatre can't play a part in that sacred dance. In fact, I think it is vitally necessary that we strip away all pretense and acknowledge what the theatre truly is. The theatre is NOT film. It should stop pretending to be so. I never understood the idea of bringing movies to the stage (regardless of the fact that I have participated in one of these efforts- much to my own personal shame). It makes sense to make movies out of plays. To do so is to take a piece of material to a wider audience. To bring film to the stage is to limit the scope of a cinematic story and bring it to a much smaller, niche audience. This does not compute. Plus it just speaks to the producers' inability to take risks or say anything of any immediate relevence.

Theatre has the ability to be nimble. It has the ability to be immediate if we don't bog it down with unnecessary pyrotechnics and splashy numbers designed to compete with the cinema or television. Plus those flashy things raise the cost of a production so high that it becomes cost prohibitive for the general public to see it. If a regular citizen, such as myself, wants to go see a Broadway (or increasingly even an Off-Broadway) show they would have to save up to see one. Maybe they could see one once or twice a year. That doesn't seem quite right to me. The flash and need for profit have made a commercial theatre that is flaccid and without any real social or political weight. I would argue that social and political relevance is preciesly the role of theatre. Or it should be. Theatre should be about something. Anyone (and I say this both with excitement and trepidation) can put up a show in 4-6 weeks. There should be more theatre about NOW. But there won't be until producers grow some balls.

Now, I also have a problem with not-for-profit theatre. Not as a concept, because for a long time I thought that was definitely the way to go in order to have a viable company. Now I am not so sure. There are a lot of fingers in that not-for-profit pie and an awful lot of opinion about what is being said or done. This also seems to be a severely limiting force in the theatre. With these forces in place, it certainly seems that the theatre going public is being offered an awful lot of nothing.

Don't write me and complain that I am over simplifying because I know that I am. I know I am being general and that there is good work going on all over the place. The only problem is, I can't afford to go see it and I know there are plenty of others in my position. So, I have offered a really good show and a good price and it is still like pulling teeth to get an audience. Everything is a bit of an uphill battle, isn't it?

Of course there is no courage without fear, no profit without loss and no victory without challenge. I am not so jaded as to believe that the struggle is not worth the effort. In fact I believe the struggle is all we've got and we had better get a taste for it because it isn't going away any time soon.

And I wouldn't want it to.

Challenge is a Gift

2007-01-13T21:53:00.000-05:00

I say that on rather wobbly legs at the moment. As it turns out, the show itself is not the hurdle. It is getting the show to a place where it can grow on its own. But like any seed, the likelihood that it should flower and survive the growing season is remote. It is not doomed because of any flaw inherent in the makeup of the seed, but environmental hardships play a big role in whether or not the plant should grow large enough to survive and to procreate.

Enough of the plant analogy.

Committing to producing ANYTHING, anything at all is a monsterous undertaking. Regardless of the cost of the production, it is hard to stay alive without making some kind of sacrifice. A few external circmustances have made my involvement in this current project a bit more challenging than I had anticipated. Now is the time that I find out what I am really made of. Can I stick it out? Can I fight the good fight like some cheesey doctor in a 3rd rate soap opera centered around an emergency room screaming "Live, damn you! Live!"

I suppose I could.

At the moment it is not just me making the sacrifices. My family has to be on this ride with me. This is no small thing to ask. But people keep telling me that I am different, that I seem happier and look better since I've been back into the full swing of a production. I do feel better. I don't feel as helpless as I had before, but this means I must require more from my family. I can't take care of everything on the home front anymore. It is funny how having it all somehow means you have more of less. I miss my kid. I miss my husband. I miss having money.

Not that I'd have any more money if I wasn't doing this show, but I certainly wouldn't have less.

It isn't the back stabbing, clawing, grasping rat race to the top that will tear you apart in New York City. It's the small things that get you. It's the laundry, getting the dishes done, stepping outside your door without having to dig through your sofa cushions for the $4.00 to go to work and come back home. It is the nickle and diming you to death thing that this city does and the fact that everyone else you know has the time/ money to go out and have a beer so why can't you? Everyone else has seen the new MoMA, so why haven't you? It's the $10 movies and the $120 theatre tickets and the slice of quiche with a side salad of mixed greens that should only cost you $6.95 but somehow ends up setting you back $20 that drives you absolutely batty.

This afternoon I took my son with me to a used bookstore to undersell some books for some quick cash. He did not understand this exercise. I told him that I needed a little extra pocket money to make ends meet this week. On the way back home we ran into one of the local homeless ladies. She's the one with the disturbing hole in her forehead who begs people for hamburgers and bus fare. My boy asked me why that lady was standing in the middle of the street screaming for money. I tried my best to explain to him what that was all about. He then asked me why I didn't do that because I needed the money, too.

Good question my boy. Good question.

Mostly, because I don't think it would work. A big challenge for me in 2007 is to understand my worth. A bigger challenge is for me to demand my piece from the Universe and then collect. These are things, admittedly, I do not know how to do. I can make a nice looking turkey dinner out of styrofoam and cheesecloth and yet I cannot accept wealth. Which is why I am facing this personal financial challenge. I guess this is the year I pass the exam.

Right?

The Unexpected Rigors of a Choose Your Own Adventure Show

2007-01-11T21:57:00.000-05:00

I've never had difficulty memorizing text. I'm not the world's best or wittiest improvisor, but I can do it in a pinch. I do love doing it, regardless of my shortcomings at it. But "Adventures in Mating" by Joseph Scrimshaw (see the plug to the right) has provided some interesting challenges for me.

Adventures in Mating (as it is currently being performed- there is an extended version debuting next month in Minneapolis) has over 30 different scene combinations. I can handle the flow. I understand how all the scenes work individually and can make the appropriate justifications to make them fit together. However, I am finding it challenging to justify individual moments with what has come previously because, on any given night we may have run a few different scene combinations before the actual show just to stay sharp. Sometimes it is hard remembering which scenes we've done in front of the audience! I caught myself on Monday night responding to a choice that had been made in an earlier scene during rehearsals that afternoon instead of to the choice that had been made during the actual show. The audience didn't seem to notice and I had corrected myself as much as possible without denying the reality I had just created but it was a cautionary moment for me. I must be well rested to do this show! I need to have extra brain cells firing!

This show is different from any other show. In a regular play you simply fall back on the often linear text and if you derail you and your fellow cast members usually find your way back to the text as it should be. In improv you are not beholden to any text so you do what you can to get yourself out of a jam and move on. Here you are still required to be faithful to the text but if you aren't paying attention you will end up doing an entirely different scene. On Tuesday night I found myself wondering if I was doing the right ending. Luckily I was, but for a good minute or two I had my doubts. Not that the audience would have been any the wiser and I certainly trust Ben and Steve to catch me if I fall (excellent chaps to work with, no doubt) but that was a heady couple of minutes. I'm sickened to say that it was thrilling and that I can't wait to wonder if I'm screwing up again. What sick, sick fun!

I will have to wait until Monday for the pleasure, but until then I will pour over my script and prepare for that horrible day when one of my ex-teachers shows up to show their support. Nothing can mess you up more than trying to prove to a teacher that you still remember all that they taught you. I suppose it is best not to prove anything at all.

On the Eve of an Opening

2007-01-08T00:12:00.000-05:00

Preparing for a show as a producer is a lot like planning a big party. It could be any party. It could be a bratty sweet 16, a retirement party, a wedding or a funeral. The anxiety is always the same. Do I rate high enough to get people to show up? You hope. You hand out postcards, hang up flyers, send emails and cross your fingers. Screw the critics, unless they come. It doesn't matter what they write as long as they write about you.

The night before a show I have been known to stay awake all night worrying about things that I should have done. As an actor, these concerns are rather paltry as it is so much easier to feel like you've done your part if you show up and tell your friends that they should come. As a producer you have to have magic powers to do the impossible- get strangers out of their homes and ask them to give you money. It is at this point that I start to wonder if I've given my audience their money's worth. Then I fret about all the mistakes I've made along the way.

Let's not kid ourselves. When Ben and I decided to tackle this project we said we wanted to do it for fun. It's a great script and it suits us to a T. But now that we are less than 24 hours from opening it is easy to come down with a little blood lust. Give me some attention! Give me accolades, kudos and free drinks! Or just come see the show because, damn it, it's a good show.

Tomorrow night we open "Adventures in Mating" by Joseph Scrimshaw at the #43 Stage @ Jimmy's at 8PM. Check out our website which you will find linked on your right. I feel really good about this one. I'm sure you will, too.

Actors and Mommies

2006-12-26T18:44:00.000-05:00

Nobody likes actors. Only children and other mommies like mommies.

I know these are blanket statements, but in my experience there is truth to both statements. Actors and mommies have a certain behavior in common. Often they are obsessed with only one thing and can talk about little else.

I should amend those statements to refer to young actors and mommies of babies and toddlers. Young actors are often taking classes and hitting the pavement to build a career. It is so all encompassing that every waking moment of the day is about networking, auditioning, working and wanting. They spend their time talking business, dropping names and looking for a good photographer and an agent. Mommies that stay at home with their babies are often isolated and consumed with the care of this new human being. They spend their time looking for fellowship with other mommies and are often distracted from other pursuits by the demanding and monotonous schedule of feedings and naps.

I have been both of these things. When I was a young actor, I didn't think much about mommies except that they were my bread and butter as a Gymboree Instructor and babysitter. As the mommy of a small child I hated actors because I tired rather quickly of their name dropping discussions and their fair weather friendships. Since I had dropped out of the game as a producer and as a working actor, I was no longer of any interest or use to other actors. I couldn't give them any leads or bring them in on any projects because I wasn't out there myself. When you switch from one to the other, you learn who your real friends are pretty damn quick.

In rehearsals Ben and I were discussing my character's 28 cats. He tentatively suggested that my character's strange adoration for her cats was not unlike the early days of my mommydom when I couldn't talk of anything else except my son. At first, I was horribly insulted. Mostly because I knew it was true. Then I realized that one of the things I need to learn in life is how to expand my world. I may be an actor. I may be a mommy. But those need not be the only things I am.

I feel I've become a better artist as since I've expanded my emotional world to include a small one. I've become a better mommy that I'm no longer pushing my artistic needs aside. As much as high school was a painfully huge bore, it was also an incredibly expansive time in my life. I was forced to consider other things. Life narrows considerably after you leave school. You can get soft, wimpy and dull.

I'm coming to the conclusion that this is not good for art. I look around and see complacency as the order of the day. The search for comfort has eclipsed the grander search for meaning and connection. What is comfort but simply getting by? Is that really how we want to lead our lives? Or do we blow Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs to hell? Obsession is just another way to hide from life, to hide from self. The business of acting, the business of mothering or whatever you may be into needs to be put into a perspective that allows the artist to move into the larger sphere of the world. By all means, use your base of knowledge and passion as a means to understand the world but go out and actually try to understand the world- not just your one tiny part of it.

I'm worried about the constant act of separating one's self from the world. We try to stand out, to be special by being separate when what is most special about us just might be that which connects us to the world. We would be remiss in our duties as humans, as artists to ignore the gifts that communicate our togetherness. Especially with the world as it is today. We should have a whole that is greater than the sum of our parts.

I am looking to expand my world in ways that are somewhat uncomfortable. I am looking to do things that frighten me just a little bit. I am going to learn many things this year.

Welcome to 2007.

Repertoire

2006-12-21T09:52:00.000-05:00

Many rep companies around the country beg for money this time of year. They have to in order to sustain their season. So, they focus their energies on subscriptions, soliciting tax deductible donations and producing holiday classics like, "A Christmas Carol" or "The Nutcracker". These traditions allow families to go to the theatre and many children cut their theatrical teeth on these Christmas tales. People go year after year because it gets them in the mood for the holiday season. It just doesn't feel like Christmas unless I see Sugar Plum Fairies or the ghost of Jacob Marley. Other companies run satirical or campy holiday material for the Scrooges who've seen one too many Rankin/Bass animated Christmas specials on the Family Channel. For anyone who acknowledges the Christmas season's existence, there are any number of options for your entertainment dollar.

But where are you the rest of the year?

I have nothing against "A Christmas Carol" or "The Nutcracker" or any production of "The Santaland Diaries". I think they are all worthy of their status in our culture. But, having never been a performer or director in any kind of company that lasted longer than one season, I often wonder if the company members tire of the material year after year? Does anyone grumble that they would rather be doing "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" or "Barefoot in the Park"? Or anything else?

In my humble estimation there are about 2 optimum weekends per year for producing a new show. Everything else is bad timing. Gee, I'd love to do "Mother Courage" but we have to start gearing up for our holiday show. Can't interfere with that, it's our moneymaker for the year. In January and February it's too cold so we have to put on something that is warm and crowd pleasing to get people to come out to the theatre. Besides, there's our annual Valentine's Day promotion we need to consider. March, April and May it is starting to get warmer but we'll have Spring Break to contend with. June, July and August are just too hot and, even though we are air conditioned all those bodies do make for a very hot time. Psychologically, people really don't like to sit for long during the summer months. September we have people going back to school and we loose audiencees then. October and November we have to compete with Halloween and fall festivals and Thanksgiving and then we have to get right back to Christmas.

I've always wanted to have my own company as I figured it would allow me some freedom and control. It really doesn't because you always have to chase down your operating budget. I dream of having my own space to play with as I please. I have dreamed of it for decades, but it would only force me to make concessions as an artist that I am really not prepared to make. I guess it is best for me to function as a singular artist, producing willy nilly and on a shoestring.

You know, I think having available funds creates only the illusion of freedom. Those funds always come with strings attached to desires attached to moral sensibilities attached to judgments which are not necessarily your own. Those funds decide what you produce and how you produce it. But if you do it as a pauper, it's all yours and your guts are in it. Because, when you have no funding, what else can you put into a production but your guts? You've got nothing else, baby. Your guts will have to do. God, isn't that exciting? I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about it.

I'm afraid that when money becomes a major factor in art that it sucks out all the passion. We are losing our ability to scream. We become complacent. We lose sight of what those three ghosts mean to Ebeneezer. We lose their message. If we lose their message, then there is no real or vital reason to keep telling the story.

Unless it is only to make a few extra bucks.

Adventures in Mating by Joseph Scrimshaw

2006-12-19T00:09:00.000-05:00

We're begining the countdown to January 8th when we open Adventures in Mating (by Joseph Scrimshaw) at No. 43 Stage at Jimmy's in the East Village. Promoting this show has been more strenuous than any other promotion I've ever done. The best part is, unlike any other promotion I've ever done, this one has been fun. Stressful, but that fun kind of stressful when you feel like you've been drinking all night long but really you're just exhausted and stupid from lack of sleep.

I love that.

I guess what I've enjoyed most is that the individuals and groups we have approached for partnerships have been really supportive and excited. This makes me feel a lot less nervous and awful about asking for help and it also boosts my confidence about our ability to pull this off.

There will be more information in the days and weeks to come, but my focus has to be with the show right now. I'd flood this blog with other contributors, however most everyone is heading for their holiday vacations and are not particularly interested in starting things up until after the New Year. So, I suppose you'll have to deal with my silence. Sorry. But if you're in NYC in January you can find out all about the thing that has been stealing all of my time and attention. Things are looking pretty good for this show. I'm pleased.

Now, if I could just memorize my lines.

Necessity of Down Time

2006-12-14T20:36:00.000-05:00

It is easily recognizeable in the dark circles under the eyes and the snippy attitude. Weariness hangs around the stretched out waistline of those permanent press pants and in the shoulders so tense they look like they sprouted out the side of your head. People are not made to run 16-20 hours a day. They just aren't. If you're like me, you notice this about everyone but yourself. Oh, poor Bob! He needs a nap. He needs to have a decent meal and some time to care for his mental health! Poor Sally, she's been working so hard she hasn't even had time to wash her hair! What? You need someone to do what? I'll make time. That other thing will be in by 2:30 at the latest. Don't worry, I'll be up until 1:00 am with my insomnia anyway, I may as well get some work done.

It is amazing how kind and forgiving we can be with others, but when it comes to ourselves enough is never quite enough. I've been handing out advice like Halloween candy these days. Ha! Physician, heal thyself!

One of my biggest faults as a human being is my overwhelming arrogance. I believe everyone else is human. Me? I'm a machine. You wouldn't believe the things I can get done in a day! I remember my boss at my first job telling me "Remember, there is ALWAYS something that needs doing. You should never have any reason to NOT be working." Yes sir! I was a great employee. Sixteen years later I've swallowed that lesson whole and since I work from home I am never off duty.

I should really find a way to get an office so I don't have to bring my work home with me. It looms over my life a cloud- or maybe that's the water damaged ceiling in my bedroom that is threatening to fall? Either way, I've got a lot on my plate and I not only deserve a little down time, I require it. If it weren't my birthday tomorrow I know I would be able to justify putting my needs on the back burner until sometime in February when I am usually depressed anyway.

Since tomorrow IS my birthday, I feel entitled to a little party. I'm going to get a facial and a Shirodara. Delightful. I'm going to take the whole day off- with the exception of movie night with my son. The work that I have to do will wait until I get some sit down time on Saturday. The promo work will still need to be organized. My lesson plans for January will need to be considered. Lines will still need to be memorized, props will need to be gathered, but I've worked my butt off and I can afford to take this day off.

I keep waiting for someone to tell me to sit down and take a break. I say it enough to others mostly because I truly believe they need it, but also because I would like the validation of hearing it back. However, I never do. I once got upset with a teacher because he was always stroking other students' egos with phrases like "You have so much talent..." and " You have no reason to doubt your capacity..." while he would always talk to me like I knew better. One day after I had worked on a scene that I felt lacked the appropriate amount of rehearsal time he told me, "I think it's a testament to your talent that you even got this far...". I thanked him and he said, "I didn't mean it as a complement." That's when I laid into him about how he always reassured others about their ability and that this is the first time he had ever mentioned the word "talent" in reference to me and that- regardless of the context- I was going to latch on to the idea that my talent was even acknowledged. He just blinked at me and said, "I never thought for a second that you needed to hear that."

In honor of an over achiever's birthday, tell someone who you think is invincible to sit down and take a break. Tell someone who you think has all the confidence in the world that they are doing a good job at something. They need to hear it, too.

A Finger In Every Pie

2006-12-12T00:20:00.000-05:00

Seriously, divas are not cute. They're not funny and they shouldn't be tolerated.

There has been some talk amongst my circle of friends about how directors are wanting to copyright stage directions. How desperate for attention and validation is that? You can't go upstage left on that line without paying me two dollars! I WROTE upstage left! Oh please.

It isn't to say that directors do not make an important contribution to any production, they do. I'd like to think I've come up with some nice things as a director. But when is enough enough? I've had work stolen from me. I know how much it stings and how unfair it is that someone else should profit from your hard labor. Of course, I also know that my work was stolen because it was good. I also know that if Samuel French prints those stage directions chances are that the only people who are going to actually use them will be high schools and community theatres. Any professional director would make another choice and if they are unable or unwilling to make another choice, then maybe they need all the help they can get.

There's nothing new under the sun. I'm tiring of the paranoia. It's getting old sitting around thinking of ways to talk up a show or a script or whatever I've been working on without actually giving any of the concept away for fear I may be scooped or outright robbed. Doing just about anything in this business is hard enough without everyone needing to have a cut of this or a piece of that. I hate the thought that I might be living and working among vultures desperate to pick away at my creative carcass even though I still have some life in me. This is an ensemble artform and for ensembles to work there needs to be an element of trust and generosity. All the grubbing makes me nauseous.

Of course I realize that people need to be properly compensated for their efforts and appropriately recognized for their contributions. I just feel sick and disgusted that we live in a day and age where it is NECESSARY to plan the appropriate kudos in advance. Alas, people scramble to protect their intellectual property because in this day and age it is the only property a person can afford to own. I just lament the fact that the days of "Hey guys! I got an idea! Let's put on a show!" are long gone. Instead we have to worry about directors who want to interfere with the writer's ability to publish. Then there are actors who believe their face and figure are such a valuable commodity that they will bog down a project with heavy paychecks and ludicrous perks. Or how about producers who bristle at any touch of controversy and steamroll the artists they pretend to champion all to line their pockets with a few more dollars? When everyone is out for themselves there is no ensemble. I'm afraid the ensemble is dead. When the ensemble dies, I'm afraid the stories die with them.

Art should be given with an open heart. Perhaps I'm naive. I know that if I continue in my career with that as a guiding principle that people will take advantage of me over and over again. But you cannot steal from me that which I willingly give. I wish I was brave enough to invoke the concept of karma in my artistic pursuits. I wouldn't screw you intentionally, so don't screw me or you'll pay Universal consequences! I think I might be happier if I let this stuff go, but since everyone else has to work within this letigious framework then so do I. Right? Or is it that I am just too chicken to throw myself to the wolves?

I have some time to consider my options, but I'd rather just make my art.

Agendas

2006-12-08T22:44:00.000-05:00

Nothing in this world makes me want to hurl a string of profanity like the issue of social agendas in art. It's such a sticky situation and, if truth be told, it isn't the existence of the agenda that bothers me. It's the blatant lack of depth and skill that seems to so frequently accompany the agenda. Then the agenda becomes married to the piece of art making it impossible to criticize. Who is going to say "Schindler's List" has narrative problems or forced dialogue? What makes "Schinder's List" powerful is not the depth of the storytelling but the depth of human history. We cannot hold Spielberg responsible for the circumstances of history. So we need not make him a hero for them, either.

I'm not critiquing "Schindler's List". I actually have no substantial problems with the film, except that I found it less than extraordinary. Nor am I making any statements on the Holocaust. What is on my mind is the idea of perspective and intent. To continue with this lamentable example, "Schindler's List" was not made to explain how the Holocaust happened. It was not made to challenge any self righteous assumptions from its audience. It is fairly safe. You can walk away from "Schindler's List" with your ego intact. Yes, that was a horrible thing that happened and I am sad but I can feel content with myself that I would not fold so easily. I would do the right thing. I would risk my life and hide Anne Frank and her family. I would save as many people as I could. This film has great value in its ability to inspire empathy, but will it stop future genocides? Well, count how many are happening in the world today. I'll wait.

Finished counting? Or just feeling too sad to continue the exercise?

I don't just mean to pick on "Schindler's List". There are a myriad of other works that have no real informative or inspirational purpose just agendas. From "The Contender" to "Passion of the Christ" there are certain things that simply ellicit reactions from the human machine. Just give me five minutes. I can inspire you to feel sad. I can create an atmosphere to inspire love, moral outrage, hatred, you name it. That doesn't mean that I have achieved anything approaching greatness. It just means that I have pushed the right buttons to manipulate a response from you. Look! Puppies! Oh no! One of those puppies is in trouble! His mama is going to save him! Yay Mama! Watch out for that bear, Mama! NOOOOOOO!!!

Okay. Now I'm being flip, but there are tricks being used that are so pedestrian that it makes me angry. I cry every time and I cry on cue but I feel pissed for being used. I feel pissed and cheated because I know that feeling in my brain when I see something honest, skillful and undeniably true. I know that orgasmic feeling when a new or hardly ever used synapse fires, blazing a new pathway through my brain. I crave it. I hunger to share that firing with others. It isn't just emotional, it's intellectual, it's physical and it propels me to action. I know that pure emotion can do that for people, too. But I want more, because it forces me to see the world from outside myself. The more perspectives I have, the fuller, brighter and more present my world becomes. If I languish in pure emotion I am stuck only inside myself and have no hope of growing beyond my three feet of personal space.

I suppose it is long overdue that I give examples of agendas in art done well. The first that comes to mind is a dark and sad film starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable called, "Strange Cargo". In this film a "tainted woman" and a group of convicts on an island prison escape with the help of a mysterious fellow inmate who does not seem to fit in with such a crowd. The answer of who this man really is stares you in the face from his very first frame. Like the characters in the film, you deny his presence and his great kindness. When Clark Gable finally discovers who this stranger is the moment is simultaneously liberating, terrifying, extatic and soul crushing. Although the film is heavily littered with Christian mythology it does not overplay its hand. The film trusts that you will understand its meaning and then silently fades from the screen. The ideas presented in the film were not new to me, having been raised Catholic. But the ideas were made PRESENT to me in a way that allowed me to remember why people choose to practice any religion. It made me more understanding. It made me aware. It made me consider going back to church, to be honest.

Another film that changed the way I veiwed myself and humanity in general is "Bridge on the River Kwai". I fell in love with Alec Guinness and cheered for him until the last 5 or 10 minutes of the film in which I ( just as passionately as I had loved him) wished for him to die. Humans are fickle and circumstances are everything. Although "Bridge on the River Kwai" was not really an agenda film, it caused me to reevaluate myself and how I could love and adore someone and still, cold heartedly, pray for their demise. That is some mad skill as a storyteller, my friend.

There is something fascinating about art that challenges the darker impulses present in all of us. Now, there's a distinct difference between challenging the darkness and wallowing in it. There is also something delusional about wallowing in the light. Children's films are full of this kind of crap.

What the hell was "Happy Feet" about? Every penguin has a 'heart song'? How corny is that? And I'm supposed to believe that the uplifting heart song of one penguin would be the super-horny "Kiss"? And when one baby penguin busts out "Don't push me cuz' I'm close to the edge, I'm tryin' not to lose my head..." I was just trying not to lose my lunch. This film was full of so many agendas it couldn't even focus on just one. First it had some ' be true to yourself' thing happening, then it had some message about humans' environmental impact, and then something about tolerance and then...I can't even go on it ticked me off so much.

Instead, I suggest watching "The Dark Crystal" which blew my little 8 year old mind. That was the first time I remember encountering the idea that light and dark are present in each one of us and that we must embrace both in order to be whole. Talk about not talking down to anyone. That's a deep concept for adults to grasp and yet, here it is with muppets. I know that sounds flip, but I actually mean that as a very high bit of praise. The journey Jen and Kira take to fulfill the prophey and heal their world is filled with the best of mythological tradition and without any hint of cendescension. Sure, some of the dialogue is corny and hyper dramatic, but that does not negate from the complex spiritual concepts presented here.

Clearly, at this point I am rambling, but I am deeply concerned about how stories are presented. I feel we are getting lazy and falling for gimmicks when we could be exploring ourselves and our world in a much deeper way. I fear that this trend is not the result of lack of talent, but the result of lack of will to ask questions without already having the answers prepared. Life should surprise us. If it doesn't, we're not doing it right.

The Numbers Game

2006-12-07T09:41:00.000-05:00

There are plenty of numbers in my life. This time of year the numbers seem to have more importance as this is the time of year which they change.

November marked the 13th anniversaty of my first date with my husband. In December I will celebrate my 32nd birthday. Yes- do the math and you'll see I was just shy of 19 when my husband and I got together. Make of that what you will, but we're still together.

I have two good friends living in the city that I've known since my idiot years. One I've known for 22 years, another I've known for 16. We're still close.

I've lived in New York for 8 years. My son is 5. I've not been on stage in anything in 5 1/2 years. In the last 5 years I've finished 3 screenplays and 1 stage play with another one in the works. I've produced 4 stage productions in New York and 1 film. I directed 2 of those stage productions and am about to appear as an actor in another. I've had 2 blogs. I've worked with, literally, hundreds of children ages birth to 12. I drink an average of 4 cups of coffee a day and 1 alcoholic beverage a day. My goal is to do at least 20 minutes of stretching/ yoga a day and I average about 5 minutes.

It feels like my life is a giant word problem and I have yet to find the correct value for all the variables.

The number that gives me most pause is the number 32. It's not old in the grand scheme of things, but when 40 year old actors are having "comebacks" then it feels like I am already too late. I've missed the bus. I keep reminding myself that Mae West did not get into film until she was 40 and that boosts my spirits. But she had been a perfomer since she was a small child. She also had a show on Broadway in her 30's that was shut down for obscenity. People were arrested. When was the last time THAT happened at a Broadway show? Oh Mae, you're my hero.

But I digress. In my early 20's I got into a huge argument in a Meisner class with an actress in her late 20's. She was worried about her days in the business being numbered and I flat out told her that she was full of shit. I haven't seen her since then. Maybe she was right. Or maybe she couldn't stomach the business. I can understand that. Or maybe the numbers mean something for women who think the only thing they have to offer the business is their beauty and their craft (Sometimes just their beauty). I may grow unattractive, but I still have my brains, my ability to write, my understanding of how to put together a good show, my directorial skills, and I am a fairly compelling figure- regardless of my weight, wrinkles or potential grey hairs. At least, that is what I need to believe in order to continue. If I lose faith in that I may as well quit and blame it on the shallowness of this business. The business is only as shallow as its participants will allow it to be. People will watch whatever is available to them. If we give them shallow crap- they'll watch it because it's there. If we raise the bar...

I have this argument with people all the time. They say that people don't want to be challenged. Maybe they don't. They've been out of practice for so long. Compare some films from the year 1939 with this past year. In 1939 we had Dark Victory, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Women, Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men. and Gone with the Wind. The studios weren't any less interested in making money then than they are today. Not to mention that they were making films for general audiences that had, by and large, less formal education than American audiences have today. And yet look what they made! You can't tell me that people won't go for it. If it is out there and it is entertaining people will go.

I have to believe that 32 doesn't matter and proceed accordingly. It's still very young. I feel very young, just not AS young as I once was. I shouldn't be penalized for that. I shouldn't LET anyone penalize me for that. I've always said that people play in active part in their own oppression. If you believe what everyone says about you then you are beholden to their world view. If you believe only in what you know in your heart to be true regardless of what "they" have to say, then there is nothing to hold you back.

Burning the Candle at Both Ends- and in the Middle

2006-12-05T21:33:00.000-05:00

I've heard a lot of young women ask older actresses about the balance between career and family. They want to know if it can be done. Can you live a life in art and have children? Sure you can. Can you do both and succeed at both? Sure, I guess. All the time?

No. No you can't. No one can keep that up without cracking severely.

That doesn't mean that it isn't worth trying. People have kids in all kinds of bizarre situations. Some do very well. Some do not. It's kind of a crap shoot no matter what your situation is and I don't see how living a life in art is any different than any other circumstance that presents a specific set of challenges. You know, like being a single parent, having an ongoing illness, having a demanding work schedule... any of these things can make having a family that much harder but they don't stop people. Maybe they should, but they don't. And a lot of the time these kids make it to their 20's, 30's and 40's and ask the same life questions we do. There are no easy answers.

As a woman who will humbly admit to a certain proficiency in many areas of artistic interest and who also has a five year old I am inclined to encourage younger women to wait. I had my son too young for this business and by "too young" I mean in my mid 20's. Years that could have been about hitting the pavement or about producing/writing/performing show after show after show were spent just trying to do the math. Holy crap kids are expensive! This planted a bumper crop of bitterness and resentment that could have been avoided if I had waited.

Regardless, I wouldn't take back the last 5 years for anything. I've grown and been seriously humbled by the experience of motherhood. I adore my son. But this is hard. Let's take the last few days as an example of the pace I keep. I've kept a schedule that looks something like this:

7:00 AM- shower, pack lunch, throw in load of laundry, make breakfast, take meds
7:40 AM- get the boy up, dressed, fed, teeth brushed, try to maintain good humor while dealing with daily traumas like
a lost toy or a missing homework assignment
8:20 AM- walk the boy to school
8:30 AM- get cup of coffee and go home
8:40 AM- eat while looking over script, answering emails, planning 'to do' list
9:00 AM- leave to catch train
10:00 AM- 2:00 PM- rehearsals
3:00 PM- home, phone calls, finish laundry, pick up house, plan dinner, get groceries if necessary, run errands, deal with the
exterminator (full time job in and of itself these days), bake banana bread (can't throw those bananas away!), spend
time on the script
5:45 PM- Pick up the boy at After School, fix dinner, do homework, play games, read, try not to explode over whining or
criticism of cooking, dodge constant requests for new toys and endless hours of watching TV, teeth brushed,
pajamas on
7:30 PM- Read stories
8:00 PM- bedtime- grin through the 80 drinks of water and 100 trips to the bathroom while making props, working on
promo material, doing research, crunching numbers, fielding phone calls, shop online for Christmas presents,
wonder how the hell you're going to pay for those Christmas presents, look into volunteer opportunities for the
family because the boy really needs to broaden his view of the world and get some perspective about life, call
all babysitters to try to cover the performance evenings in case husband needs to work late, wonder how the
hell you're going to pay for the sitter, look at upcoming schedule and try to carve out some time to be with
husband, wonder how the hell you're going to pay for the sitter so you can spend time with husband, plan
the next sleepover by writing emails, stare at numbers for show again until you think it might make a profit
11:00 PM- Watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report and have a beer or a glass of wine
12:00 AM- There is something you missed. Look over the work you did on the computer today. What the hell did you miss?
Plan expenses for the week. Count the money in your wallet. Do you have clean underwear? Do you have pants that
are comfortable for rehearsal tomorrow? Do they need to be ironed? Does the boy have any clean "soft pants" as he
refuses to wear jeans or khakis. Oh crap. You didn't do yoga today. Oh well, maybe tomorrow...
1:00 AM- finally go to sleep.

7:00 AM- Do it all over again.

I've been doing this for a few weeks. Of course, my weekend schedule is slightly different since the boy is home from school and he doesn't go to After School every day...

Sometimes the show stuff is replaced by writing stuff. Sometimes there is a horrible, horrible lull and I spend my time crocheting top hats and king sized comforters to keep myself going. The thing that is the hardest is that whenever I feel good about being involved in some project or other I wind up being criticized by my 5 year old for not being as attentive as I am when I don't have a pressing project. He has become the nagging voice in my head that screams at me for not doing or being enough. That's not his intention. He's not evil. He's just used to having all of mom all the time and now that I am getting my life back he is feeling neglected and left behind. It's just growing pains and he is moving on to his own things just as I am moving on to mine. It's a hard adjustment and I imagine it will take years for us to get it right.

I'm glad he's in kindergarten and really enjoying school and friends. I'm glad he's gained enough independence to do things for himself. It has been a huge load off my mind. Of course, I can't help but think that I'd like another one... which means I have to add thinking about THAT to my 'to do' list. When could I get pregnant and what kind of project could I pursue while gestating? How will I get back into shape since I still have 15 pounds to lose from my last kid? How am I going to maintain my creative space with a new baby? How in the hell would we pay for a new baby?

If you're a young actor wondering about family, don't rule it out. Anything is possible. Just know what you're getting into. It's a mess. But if you don't lose sight of yourself and stay present in the moment it can be a joyous mess.

Besides, what else have you got to do that's so important?

Apology/ Insecurity

2006-12-01T09:28:00.000-05:00

I'm a classic, Nordic midwesterner.

Don't ask for too much. On that note- don't ask for ANYTHING. Never put anyone out. Don't ask for help. For God's sake, don't take the last of anything on a buffet plate...

I went out for dinner with a couple of fellow midwesterners last weekend. We went to a Tex-Mex place and muched on the obligatory basket of tortilla chips while we waited almost 45 minutes for our food. We were starving. But we all let that last tortilla chip sit in the basket and taunt us. No one dared touch it. My craving for salt and some kind of sustenance nearly drove me mad so I started to eat the crumbs in the bottom of the basket leaving the last chip untouched. When our food still refused to arrive and the crumbs had been long gone I broke the chip in half. The remaining piece of chip remained in the basket until the waiter finally took pity on us and brought us another basket of chips.

I figure my chip rudeness was made possible by the fact that I've lived in New York for 8 years. Yeah, I'm badass. I'll eat HALF of that last chip! You can't stop me! I'm breakin' the law!

Yesterday I had to go door to door to some area businesses and pitch a promotion that Ben and I want to do for our show. I kept wanting to apologize for taking up their time and asking them to join in. I felt like I was asking so much of them when, in reality, I was really offering them a hell of a deal. For just letting me put up one flyer in their establishment for 6 weeks they would be getting new foot traffic, a thank you on our program and a thank you on our website plus a link to their website if they have one. Their commitment is easy. Ben and I do all the work. I'm not asking for much and I am giving a lot. But my midwestern mind can't get around the fact that I am accosting them in their place of business and making them read a piece of paper. How rude.

I'm not cut out for aggressive sales. I'm not good at promoting myself but I had better GET good. I can't escape my current belief that I am a huge burden on the world and that my contributions are miniscule. I imagine people disliking me and talking behind my back about what a loser I am and how I've really let myself go over the last few years. She used to have talent, I wonder what happened?

Well, I can't apologize for my insecurity. It is where I am at and I just need to be there until I am not there anymore. Pretending is not in my nature and, contrary to popular perception, acting is not pretending. Acting is about being honest with yourself and with those around you. I know how to be confident. I have been so in other circumstances and I believe I will be again. But for now I have to be honest with myself about where I am truly at. Luckily, this is all fine because my character is not exactly feeling so secure or confident either. It really is funny how roles come right when you are working on something in your personal life that applies to the character's struggle. I guess that is how you know that you're doing something right.

I Don't Have to Freak Out

2006-11-29T11:28:00.000-05:00

Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

There IS time.

Just because the roller coaster is slowly ticking to the top of the hill does not mean that the drop needs to be so horrifying. You got on this ride for a reason. You wanted to experience that free fall. You wanted the wind screaming in your ears and the jostling, twisting and turning. You are strapped into the safety harness. Yes, when you take that loop your butt will leave the seat and your shoulders will strain against the padded metal harness, but the odds are with you. You will not be featured on some Jon Stossel report about the dangers of roller coasters. You will be okay. You stood in line for this ride for too long to back out now. You wanted to be on this ride. So quit yer bitchin'.

Week two of rehearsals has begun to turn my hair white. Not because anything is wrong, but because that old sense of inferiority has begun to creep in. Who the hell are you to ask people to come see your show? Hmmm? Why would anyone help you? No one has any faith in you at all! You are a worthless loser! A no talent hack and the very worst kind of no talent hack- the kind that fancies she's got some artistic integrity! What a laugh!

Maybe I should make a Voodoo doll of that voice in my head. Do you think that would work? I've tried just about everything else. If I could just get a physical representation of that damn thing, maybe I could beat it into submission, rip it apart, destroy it. What use is it to me? Even if I DO suck (which, in all honesty, I don't think I do) it wouldn't stop me anyway. It just makes me sick and miserable. Stupid voice!

No. I don't have to freak out because I am not required to be perfect. In fact, my job demands the exact opposite. My job requires me to be messy, ugly, fat, insecure, and uncertain. The fact that I already have all of these things inside me should be a plus! There's no reason to hide them. I'm a nuerotic mess playing a nuerotic mess! I need to let the rest of it go because it is just useless baggage weighing me down.

At today's rehearsal I am going to be desperate and messy because that's how I feel. Then I am going to feel good about it. Then I am going to spend an evening with my son and I am going to slow things down.

I don't have to freak out.