Brando Experience

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.

Fly Over Paranoia

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.

Deceptively Difficult Skill

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.

"You Look Great!"

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.

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

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?

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.

Whole Lotta Nuthin'

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.

No Dignity in Needless Self-Torture

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.

Note to Actors: Be Human

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

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

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

And yet, we do.

Why?

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

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

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

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

If a four year old can do it...

Choosing the Struggle

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

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

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

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

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

Chronic Dissatisfaction

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

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

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

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

I'm just not being challenged.

Artistic Disappointment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Planet Alignment

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.

Finding Place

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

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.

Playing Emotion

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

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.

Challenge is a Gift

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?

Actors and Mommies

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.