When I finished reading Infinite Jest I have to admit I was disappointed.
Are you kidding? I invested myself into a 1000 pages for that to be the ending?
I remember distinctly feeling the urge to go back to the beginning,
To start again, and read the whole thing,
To see if I could figure it out.
Then I stopped myself.
My rational brain took over.
1000 pages is long enough to read a book, that is over the appropriate length as is.
You shouldn't reread it,
The point must be you'll never figure it out.
He must be saying life is cruelly nonsensical in how it ends.
He killed himself eventually.
It makes sense.
A few months later (now) I am working on a show about writers
And one of the characters admits to writing a couple thousand pages
All on this one novel he's been working on.
All on one novel. A double David Foster Wallace.
Indeed he is treated like a genius.
So on a break in the green room,
I get to talking with the actor playing the DDFW
And mention this fact
(Sort of a tricky assistant director way to give a non-note,
To express passion about a fact that may not have come to light quite the same way before,
In hopes of inspiring the sense you wish was there with what you see--)
Anyway,
He starts to talk about Infinite Jest, which he's also read,
And mentions how after HE finished reading the book he ALSO was let down,
And went online.
I went online, too, but half-heartedly. Like, it felt like cheating,
To read what other people thought.
I wanted to keep my experience with it to myself.
I think I was a little afraid I was too dumb to have really read it.
Well, so, but apparently I am a little dumb
Because I should've followed my instincts.
The last scene of IJ isn't the end at all--
It seems DFW wanted you to go back to the beginning
Where cleverly hid within the first few chapters
was the so called "final" scene
Where Hal and Gately dig the antidote "entertainment" out from Hal's dad's skull
A very Hamletian image
Which, when you first read,
& that's made reference, you don't remember
Because you didn't know what you were reading.
So the sick joke is that Infinite Jest IS a kind of infinite jest,
You're supposed to read it start to finish to start to finish,
And perhaps do so infinitely--
But no one ever will, because the book is famous for being given up on
Too difficult, too dense, too complex, too sick, too silly, too giving-legitimacy-to-the-inner-turmoil-of-the-privileged--
I remember randomly bumping into a friend at the airport
Waiting to fly home to California for Christmas
And we got to talking,
And I mentioned I was reading the book,
Sort of surreptitiously showing off to him about how smart & intellectual & hipster & cool I was,
To read such a difficult literary book,
And I remember him being like "Aw man, I hate that book,
I hate how it coolifies that way of thinking, you know?
It makes depressive and sad thoughts really cool,
When they're not, you know?
I feel like it's no wonder he killed himself.
The book was just too unnecessarily complicated, I stopped after about halfway."
And I know I felt the same way at times,
Though I also know I felt rewarded for taking on the challenge,
Like, he wanted to test readers, to see if they'd follow even if they didn't quite understand,
Or read even when they were sort of being pushed NOT to read,
DFW said in an interview that he felt like he set out to write a really sad novel,
And was surprised everyone thought it was so funny.
A hyper-aware hyper-aware guy.
Someone who wants to control how he is seen.
Someone who plays a part.
An actor.
There's a part in Infinite Jest where Hal postulates
that Hamlet is only pretending to pretend he's mad--
That he uses the excuse of performance to really let himself be crazy
He (David, Hal, Hamlet, my airport friend, my actor friend, myself)
Doth protest too much, methinks--
Monday, March 11, 2013
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Sometimes you need a mirror
Stand in front of an audience.
There's a full length mirror standing among them.
Maybe a few.
Maybe for you.
There are times when
I am really fucking angry.
Is that what it means to be a man?
REVENGE THIS FOUL
AND MOST UNNATURAL
MURDER
I know it's not acceptable for men to show any emotion
At least that's what I've understood to be the case
Growing up
Even for my father
Who's by no means a meathead or testostertank
or war hero or anything like that
Even for an accomplished doctor
An intellectual
A goofy nerdy musician
To feel is to fail
So don't "do" it
Don't perform it
Keep it inside
You keep it to yourself
You stay strong for the ones who are relying on you
No one wants to see their leader overwhelmed
No one wants to watch tears fall, snot clot,
pain tourniquet out of your chest
But
I'd like to suggest
Or
Rather
I believe it is the case
That one emotion men are culturally forgiven for displaying
Openly and in front of other men
and women particularly
Is rage
TOO HOT, TOO HOT
Take any king, take any leader, any tyrant, anyone in charge
Yelling, commanding, swelling chest and pulsing veins
This
Gets
Things
DONE
Isn't impotent rage like the standard for men?
It's what we have access to
The "I'm not gonna take this shit anymore"
The "I've had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!"
The "This. IS. SPARTAAAA!!!!"
"FREEDOM!!!"
"YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!"
In the fantasies we watch these men then get shit done.
"GET THEE TO A NUNNERY!!!!!!"
Battle cries.
Rebel yells.
Exhale all the breath you've got, batter it against your vocal cords,
Send the enemy running
Because you are full of might and terror
And you must be obeyed.
To be a man do you need to be obeyed?
What happens when you're not?
What happens when you don't get what you want?
When no one will listen?
When no one understands?
When you're a cypher, even to yourself?
When your uncle's killed your dad in the most shameful, underhanded way,
And is fucking your mom, married your mom, and wants you to play nice?
To stop being sad? To stop FEELING?
To feel is to fail.
What do you do? What do you do?
What if you don't know what to do?
When you yell at your audience
Aren't you really watching yourself?
SEEing yourself be powerful
Be mighty
Be strong
Be a man
Performing
Does anger allow us to DO something
Does anger allow us to see
our fragmented reflection in the faces of those who fear us
That we are perceivable?
That we are seen?
That we could be understood?
And how often does that really work?
That we really feel understood?
How often does yelling and anger and rage lead to destruction and pain and no going back
That is of course a simple question.
Sure, the rest is silence,
But the conversation ends.
Everybody, men and women, of course, we all need to get mad sometimes
Hawks and handsaws
We all need to act out, to wave our arms, raise our voices, feel ourselves being seen, being heard
We need to let the feelings out we can't express
Because sometimes we can't express the horrible things we never thought we'd feel
Until they need to just express themselves
Sometimes we can't know what we think until we see what we say,
to borrow an expression that's not mine.
But.
But.
But.
Hold on there, cowboys.
If we were able to express even battered shards of how we feel as we go
To people outside ourselves
If we felt we were heard more regularly
If men were allowed, expected, even, to be intelligible outside of themselves
Would we really need to kill everyone and end the play
Only the last to fall?
To feel is to fail,
But since when is failure worse than death?
Does Hamlet really speak to anyone but himself?
Is he not perhaps holding that mirror up, not to nature, but only to himself?
There's a full length mirror standing among them.
Maybe a few.
Maybe for you.
There are times when
I am really fucking angry.
Is that what it means to be a man?
REVENGE THIS FOUL
AND MOST UNNATURAL
MURDER
I know it's not acceptable for men to show any emotion
At least that's what I've understood to be the case
Growing up
Even for my father
Who's by no means a meathead or testostertank
or war hero or anything like that
Even for an accomplished doctor
An intellectual
A goofy nerdy musician
To feel is to fail
So don't "do" it
Don't perform it
Keep it inside
You keep it to yourself
You stay strong for the ones who are relying on you
No one wants to see their leader overwhelmed
No one wants to watch tears fall, snot clot,
pain tourniquet out of your chest
But
I'd like to suggest
Or
Rather
I believe it is the case
That one emotion men are culturally forgiven for displaying
Openly and in front of other men
and women particularly
Is rage
TOO HOT, TOO HOT
Take any king, take any leader, any tyrant, anyone in charge
Yelling, commanding, swelling chest and pulsing veins
This
Gets
Things
DONE
Isn't impotent rage like the standard for men?
It's what we have access to
The "I'm not gonna take this shit anymore"
The "I've had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!"
The "This. IS. SPARTAAAA!!!!"
"FREEDOM!!!"
"YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!"
In the fantasies we watch these men then get shit done.
"GET THEE TO A NUNNERY!!!!!!"
Battle cries.
Rebel yells.
Exhale all the breath you've got, batter it against your vocal cords,
Send the enemy running
Because you are full of might and terror
And you must be obeyed.
To be a man do you need to be obeyed?
What happens when you're not?
What happens when you don't get what you want?
When no one will listen?
When no one understands?
When you're a cypher, even to yourself?
When your uncle's killed your dad in the most shameful, underhanded way,
And is fucking your mom, married your mom, and wants you to play nice?
To stop being sad? To stop FEELING?
To feel is to fail.
What do you do? What do you do?
What if you don't know what to do?
When you yell at your audience
Aren't you really watching yourself?
SEEing yourself be powerful
Be mighty
Be strong
Be a man
Performing
Does anger allow us to DO something
Does anger allow us to see
our fragmented reflection in the faces of those who fear us
That we are perceivable?
That we are seen?
That we could be understood?
And how often does that really work?
That we really feel understood?
How often does yelling and anger and rage lead to destruction and pain and no going back
That is of course a simple question.
Sure, the rest is silence,
But the conversation ends.
Everybody, men and women, of course, we all need to get mad sometimes
Hawks and handsaws
We all need to act out, to wave our arms, raise our voices, feel ourselves being seen, being heard
We need to let the feelings out we can't express
Because sometimes we can't express the horrible things we never thought we'd feel
Until they need to just express themselves
Sometimes we can't know what we think until we see what we say,
to borrow an expression that's not mine.
But.
But.
But.
Hold on there, cowboys.
If we were able to express even battered shards of how we feel as we go
To people outside ourselves
If we felt we were heard more regularly
If men were allowed, expected, even, to be intelligible outside of themselves
Would we really need to kill everyone and end the play
Only the last to fall?
To feel is to fail,
But since when is failure worse than death?
Does Hamlet really speak to anyone but himself?
Is he not perhaps holding that mirror up, not to nature, but only to himself?
Friday, February 22, 2013
Play, meet audience
I've been scurrying from teaching and telemarketing to PTC these past few days, working as a literary assistant and general helper for the PTC@Play new works festival. We're about halfway through.
Being a "literary assistant" for this means basically being the stage directions reader for the readings you've been assigned to, as well as the person who picks up out of town artists, gets them their W9s and their checks, and generally helps out with whatever needs to get done, ushering, table lifting, etc. It's the kind of role I know well, especially having worked with Play Penn as an artistic intern a few summers ago and as an Arden Apprentice back in the 2009-2010 season.
Being able to be a literary assistant now is a huge gift. I can actually read stage directions with clarity and breath now. I have confidence I didn't have. I know what to worry about and what not to. I worked on Bruce Graham's reading of Stello & Lou, the opening for the festival, and I just had a blast. It was easy! Since when is anything in the theatre easy??! But Bruce really had done all the work.
I don't think we knew quite how special the reading would be until we were up there in front of the audience. The actors of course turned up the juice. And the first joke gets thrown, and boom! The audience just erupts in laughter. ERUPTS. And that energy just kept perpetuating itself.
It was like the play and the audience were on a first date, and everything was just CRACKLING. It was hot, it was easy, it was fast, it was incredibly fun. What a great night.
It's one of those plays that's just a coupla guys and a lady talkin', but you can't help but be drawn into their rich emotional worlds hidden just beneath the acerbic one-liners and South Philly parables. You laugh and cry, each almost as easily. I certainly did up there on stage.
It was damned fun to read, and all I was doing was helping along. Stage directions are just there to help the audience imagine the visual action. They're there to make the process easy, and there to keep the energy afloat in between dialogue.
And you could FEEL that energy rushing back and forth between actors & audience, easily, again and again, the build up to the next joke, the next observation, the next argument in someone's logic, and then there'd be the release, the laugh, the sigh, the knowing snicker. It was incredible to be up there, sitting right beside these actors as they do their thing, and to feel so acutely the audience responding. And I'd just cut in every now and then to help the story along.
It felt good to feel so good about something like this, actually. Because I think this play and this audience knew what mattered. It was all about connections, between the characters, between us.
In a way, it became a great way for me to have a brief audience of myself. Seeing how far I'd come since I first started assisting in staged readings, etc. Seeing my confidence and ease, my focus on what I feel matters, it was a nice date with myself, too.
I'm glad I get to be along for the ride.
More on more with regards to this soon, I'm sure.
Being a "literary assistant" for this means basically being the stage directions reader for the readings you've been assigned to, as well as the person who picks up out of town artists, gets them their W9s and their checks, and generally helps out with whatever needs to get done, ushering, table lifting, etc. It's the kind of role I know well, especially having worked with Play Penn as an artistic intern a few summers ago and as an Arden Apprentice back in the 2009-2010 season.
Being able to be a literary assistant now is a huge gift. I can actually read stage directions with clarity and breath now. I have confidence I didn't have. I know what to worry about and what not to. I worked on Bruce Graham's reading of Stello & Lou, the opening for the festival, and I just had a blast. It was easy! Since when is anything in the theatre easy??! But Bruce really had done all the work.
I don't think we knew quite how special the reading would be until we were up there in front of the audience. The actors of course turned up the juice. And the first joke gets thrown, and boom! The audience just erupts in laughter. ERUPTS. And that energy just kept perpetuating itself.
It was like the play and the audience were on a first date, and everything was just CRACKLING. It was hot, it was easy, it was fast, it was incredibly fun. What a great night.
It's one of those plays that's just a coupla guys and a lady talkin', but you can't help but be drawn into their rich emotional worlds hidden just beneath the acerbic one-liners and South Philly parables. You laugh and cry, each almost as easily. I certainly did up there on stage.
It was damned fun to read, and all I was doing was helping along. Stage directions are just there to help the audience imagine the visual action. They're there to make the process easy, and there to keep the energy afloat in between dialogue.
And you could FEEL that energy rushing back and forth between actors & audience, easily, again and again, the build up to the next joke, the next observation, the next argument in someone's logic, and then there'd be the release, the laugh, the sigh, the knowing snicker. It was incredible to be up there, sitting right beside these actors as they do their thing, and to feel so acutely the audience responding. And I'd just cut in every now and then to help the story along.
It felt good to feel so good about something like this, actually. Because I think this play and this audience knew what mattered. It was all about connections, between the characters, between us.
In a way, it became a great way for me to have a brief audience of myself. Seeing how far I'd come since I first started assisting in staged readings, etc. Seeing my confidence and ease, my focus on what I feel matters, it was a nice date with myself, too.
I'm glad I get to be along for the ride.
More on more with regards to this soon, I'm sure.
Decisions, decisions (1/?)
Why do we decide to do the things we do?
How do we arrive at those decisions?
God do I agonize over that all the time.
As a director (and artist, really), decisions are kind of everything. From the moment you commit yourself to a project, you're making countless decisions. Who to work with. How to frame the production. What you care about. What you can afford to care about. What you can't afford not to.
Sometimes these decisions aren't really decisions. Like, not actively. You don't debate back and forth between separate & distinct options and come to a rational conclusion about which option is best. A lot of a production, or a life, really, can feel inevitable. There wasn't a choice between apples and oranges. There were only, always pears. I feel that way about love, too. A lot of times you say yes before you even know why. And always you are forced to defend decisions you never even knew you made.
I've been thinking a bit about making firm decisions as a culturally-masculine trait. It's at least something that I feel expected of as a man. Being a Decider. Being confident in my decisions. Sticking by what you do, not wallowing in possibilities, being firm and strong and, well, decisive.
Hiding in there is the notion that I have to make rational decisions, too. Men & emotions aren't really supposed to coexist, in this Culture of Masculinity World, except in the case of anger and frustration as a natural result of testing a man. So feeling bad about decisions, being unsure, feeling lost, feeling afraid, these don't really mesh with an understanding of men as mountains. Mountains don't feel. They stand.
Now the work I like to do can function quite against making decisions this way, sort of unilaterally, in a top-down hierarchical fashion. Knowing in advance sort of defeats the purpose of experimental theatre -- then where's the experiment? Even the most traditional play I start by trying to locate the places where I don't know how to solve the problems it presents. Decide as I may in advance, it's really the process of doing the thing that unlocks what these potentially infinite moments are.
Certainly setting framework and limits on creativity fosters clarity, fosters specificity, and can foster quite a lot of creative growth. You have to kill the notion of ALL ideas to find which of THE ideas your piece is actually working with.
The actual has to kill the potential. Sad, I know, but true.
So, to kill a few potentials.
I am moving to New York City this summer.
It's a decision I made over several months, not knowing what would happen with grad school, not knowing what will happen with the other opportunities I've applied for, nor really knowing if I was ready to go when I decided.
I made the decision as emotionally and intuitively as I did rationally. The woman I love is moving there, and I want to be closer than a 2 hour 2 train ($33 roundtrip) ride away. I want to start building my life with her. We both want that.
And I think there's a lot of stigma and cynicism against that? Like, it's sort of a role reversal, in a way, for a man to move for a woman & her career. I mean, it's not to say I'm not also moving for my career, which is at such an indeterminate state at the moment it really could go anywhere.
So, I'm moving because of that state of indeterminacy.
I'm moving for the new jungle gym.
I am moving to be challenged by the sheer size and scale of New York.
I'm moving to be challenged by the competitiveness,
the cutthroatness, the danger, the madness, the stress.
I'm moving for the opportunity and moving for the change.
I'm moving for the move, in a way.
Which I think is okay.
Which isn't to say I'll be leaving Philly behind.
Cue that half-measured indeterminacy.
I'll still be back.
Particularly for opportunities that keep pushing me forward.
I think that's okay, too.
In all ways, I'd prefer to define my own limits.
I recognize fully that I've very little control over a lot of things.
So, rather than jump to the anger and frustration mode when I am being tested,
I'd like to sit
In this state of not-knowing
And feel along the walls for what I can.
I'm going to write a lot more about decision-making and masculinity and moving and art and everything, but I definitely want to put something up on this blog as it's been far too long since I last decided to post. If there's a firmness to my decision-making I want to bring out for the future, it's in getting out from under my covers and keeping writing.
A daily decision-making challenge.
How do we arrive at those decisions?
God do I agonize over that all the time.
As a director (and artist, really), decisions are kind of everything. From the moment you commit yourself to a project, you're making countless decisions. Who to work with. How to frame the production. What you care about. What you can afford to care about. What you can't afford not to.
Sometimes these decisions aren't really decisions. Like, not actively. You don't debate back and forth between separate & distinct options and come to a rational conclusion about which option is best. A lot of a production, or a life, really, can feel inevitable. There wasn't a choice between apples and oranges. There were only, always pears. I feel that way about love, too. A lot of times you say yes before you even know why. And always you are forced to defend decisions you never even knew you made.
I've been thinking a bit about making firm decisions as a culturally-masculine trait. It's at least something that I feel expected of as a man. Being a Decider. Being confident in my decisions. Sticking by what you do, not wallowing in possibilities, being firm and strong and, well, decisive.
Hiding in there is the notion that I have to make rational decisions, too. Men & emotions aren't really supposed to coexist, in this Culture of Masculinity World, except in the case of anger and frustration as a natural result of testing a man. So feeling bad about decisions, being unsure, feeling lost, feeling afraid, these don't really mesh with an understanding of men as mountains. Mountains don't feel. They stand.
Now the work I like to do can function quite against making decisions this way, sort of unilaterally, in a top-down hierarchical fashion. Knowing in advance sort of defeats the purpose of experimental theatre -- then where's the experiment? Even the most traditional play I start by trying to locate the places where I don't know how to solve the problems it presents. Decide as I may in advance, it's really the process of doing the thing that unlocks what these potentially infinite moments are.
Certainly setting framework and limits on creativity fosters clarity, fosters specificity, and can foster quite a lot of creative growth. You have to kill the notion of ALL ideas to find which of THE ideas your piece is actually working with.
The actual has to kill the potential. Sad, I know, but true.
So, to kill a few potentials.
I am moving to New York City this summer.
It's a decision I made over several months, not knowing what would happen with grad school, not knowing what will happen with the other opportunities I've applied for, nor really knowing if I was ready to go when I decided.
I made the decision as emotionally and intuitively as I did rationally. The woman I love is moving there, and I want to be closer than a 2 hour 2 train ($33 roundtrip) ride away. I want to start building my life with her. We both want that.
And I think there's a lot of stigma and cynicism against that? Like, it's sort of a role reversal, in a way, for a man to move for a woman & her career. I mean, it's not to say I'm not also moving for my career, which is at such an indeterminate state at the moment it really could go anywhere.
So, I'm moving because of that state of indeterminacy.
I'm moving for the new jungle gym.
I am moving to be challenged by the sheer size and scale of New York.
I'm moving to be challenged by the competitiveness,
the cutthroatness, the danger, the madness, the stress.
I'm moving for the opportunity and moving for the change.
I'm moving for the move, in a way.
Which I think is okay.
Which isn't to say I'll be leaving Philly behind.
Cue that half-measured indeterminacy.
I'll still be back.
Particularly for opportunities that keep pushing me forward.
I think that's okay, too.
In all ways, I'd prefer to define my own limits.
I recognize fully that I've very little control over a lot of things.
So, rather than jump to the anger and frustration mode when I am being tested,
I'd like to sit
In this state of not-knowing
And feel along the walls for what I can.
I'm going to write a lot more about decision-making and masculinity and moving and art and everything, but I definitely want to put something up on this blog as it's been far too long since I last decided to post. If there's a firmness to my decision-making I want to bring out for the future, it's in getting out from under my covers and keeping writing.
A daily decision-making challenge.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
I'll follow you (2/2)
So I taught class again today, which I usually post all kinds of positive shit about on Facebook because I'm so enthralled after class with how well these kids are taking to all the stuff I love: Viewpoints, Shakespearean text, improvisational skills, etc. Some of these kids are really mature enough to handle the stuff in Winter's Tale, which is exciting. I feel like I hit a bit of a wall today, though. My education director said that week 5 is a tricky one, especially with these kids. I'll take her word for it.
What I love about this class though is that even when it's not great, it's still pretty good. After warmups we focused on spatial relationships, getting them to awaken to being aware of an audience while they improvise and consider what was interesting to look at on stage. They took to that really well, though lost a lot of it when we switched to actually improvising things.
I always start this class with at least 20 minutes just playing catch in a circle. It's a good focus warm up, and as they've gotten better at it we've added more balls. Totally stole this from my undergrad advanced acting prof -- I'm sure others have done the same thing.
What I love about the exercise is it really activates all the skills you really need to be present in performance and in improvisation. You've got to have a soft focus, taking all your partners in, because one of them could send a ball your way any second. You've got to be loose, to accept balls and transfer their energy from the catch into your next throw. You've got to trust your other ensemble members, and release the ball maybe a second or two before you're really ready to. You've got to be ready for anything and work hard to make sure your partners succeed -- the goal is not to trick anyone or pelt the ball at someone's face. And these kids are taking well to it.
Once we went into improv mode, based on some monologues they wrote responding to Leontes' "Too hot, too hot" speech about jealousy, though, things got a lot tougher. I think it was hard for a lot of them to express what it truly felt to be jealous or angry. We got some interesting moments toward the end, and I started them on reading through the final scene, where Leontes is forgiven. Rereading the scene struck me with what may be the key word for the play, for me, which was a fun discovery, even if it was kinda just for me and not for the kids, who were focused more on just understanding what was being said.
So Leontes & co. are staring at the Hermione statue, (Hermione being Leontes' wife he orders to banish after he perceived her maybe cheating on him with his bro Polixenes, not Harry Potter's totally platonic ladyfriend badass witch, which causes her "death") and Paulina, Hermione's loyal friend, says she can make the totally-not-real statue move, on one proviso: Leontes will have to re-"awake his faith."
This struck me, maybe because I was in a Viewpointy mood and thinking about how important it is to trust everyone in the room to work together toward telling a story-in-becoming, that very much what Leontes does not have up until this statue test is faith, and in a way, asking him to believe Paulina has magic to reawaken his dead wife mirrors Shakespeare asking the audience to believe a) Leontes really did freak out that jealously to begin with & b) he believes this somehow-age-appropriately carved and almost-life-seeming statue is actually a statue, and not the living Hermione who'd been hiding out with Paulina for 16 years and is now finally being able to be reconciled to her husband and to meet her daughter, who Leontes had also cast out 16 years ago, thinking she was illegitimate.
Faith.
It's a hard word for us, nowadays, with its religious (and by religious I mean more political/church, not spiritual) connotations, and in a world that since 9/11 has seemed to be almost entirely out of control, at risk of ending at ANY MOMENT, so CLUTCH everything you love and HOLD ON; it's easy to see why our digitally-&-immediately-gratified-culture wouldn't put much stock in "faith," a word that has as antiquated a taste as "honour." I think a lot of us are afraid to be destroyed. We're afraid to be hurt. We're afraid. And having faith in someone else, especially those who you're vulnerable to, is an impossible task to achieve without getting hurt. Because people are people, and they fail.
I think it's a mistake when productions don't show us an actually flirty Hermione at the beginning, which feels like it totally belongs in the text. Hermione is not simply a victimized martyr, innocent as a wafting lily, who gets to come back at the end and forgive everyone. In fact, it's telling that in the statue scene, she focuses her energy on her child first when she "comes to life." I think she's a whole person, and whole people flirt, even if they aren't going to do anything about it. Maybe Hermione wanted to bone Polixenes, you know, maybe there was temptation there.
I think it's dangerous to put all the onus on Leontes & his perceptive skills, which really makes him seem to freak out FOR NO REASON, because it implies that if Hermione DID do any flirting, his reaction would be acceptable. And the only reason that his jealous rage is unacceptable is that she OBVIOUSLY didn't remotely approach doing anything wrong. If she did, it'd be fair game for him to ruin everyone's lives. His jealous rage is not acceptable, regardless of the circumstances. He seeks revenge, too, much like Hamlet & Richard III, but much more like Othello, he does it for reasons that don't add up.
There is no ocular proof, there is no surety. We do live a life of Viewpointsy vaguery and ambiguity. It makes for hard lessons in class, especially with kids who are just now understanding that people fail sometimes, and that's actually part of being human. But I don't think we are dumb, as a species, men or women. We perceive what we perceive.
In the case with Othello & Leontes, though, what they were perceiving was not the actions of a whore, but that of a woman being a living person, not a statue, not an anesthetized holy goddess floating above in her halo, but a woman living and carrying on her own conversations with men. Othello & Leontes freak out, they blame the women, not for actually cheating, but really for it just being a possibility, a potential hurt, a potential failure. They are not secure enough with themselves to know that what's transpiring is harmless. They not only do not have faith in their spouses, but, more to the point, they do not have faith in themselves.
I think you have to know you're worth being in a relationship with for that relationship to last. I'm just starting down that road myself, for the first time honestly, and I don't think I could've gotten to thinking like this without royally fucking up a lot about thinking about what it takes to love someone.
But at the end of the day, the only person living and breathing and making decisions and deciding to be with one person, one whole unique fallible person, is you, and you have to trust you're worth sticking with, just as you have to trust the person who's sticking with you to do the sticking.
Faith involves failure. In catch, there are always dropped balls. We misjudge the distances we need to send balls, we overshoot, we throw to people who aren't ready, we have weird sudden spasms and send our balls rocketing askew, out of anyone's reach. We fuck up.
But everyone breathing together, listening to each other, and not giving up when the balls occasionally land? There's a kind of holy focus there, and the more we all relax, the more catches are successful, the longer the dance of catch and release lasts, and that's where real creation can happen.
So basically I should just play catch with Othello & Leontes for a little while, and save Desdemona & Hermione a lot of trouble. If only I'd been around.
What I love about this class though is that even when it's not great, it's still pretty good. After warmups we focused on spatial relationships, getting them to awaken to being aware of an audience while they improvise and consider what was interesting to look at on stage. They took to that really well, though lost a lot of it when we switched to actually improvising things.
I always start this class with at least 20 minutes just playing catch in a circle. It's a good focus warm up, and as they've gotten better at it we've added more balls. Totally stole this from my undergrad advanced acting prof -- I'm sure others have done the same thing.
What I love about the exercise is it really activates all the skills you really need to be present in performance and in improvisation. You've got to have a soft focus, taking all your partners in, because one of them could send a ball your way any second. You've got to be loose, to accept balls and transfer their energy from the catch into your next throw. You've got to trust your other ensemble members, and release the ball maybe a second or two before you're really ready to. You've got to be ready for anything and work hard to make sure your partners succeed -- the goal is not to trick anyone or pelt the ball at someone's face. And these kids are taking well to it.
Once we went into improv mode, based on some monologues they wrote responding to Leontes' "Too hot, too hot" speech about jealousy, though, things got a lot tougher. I think it was hard for a lot of them to express what it truly felt to be jealous or angry. We got some interesting moments toward the end, and I started them on reading through the final scene, where Leontes is forgiven. Rereading the scene struck me with what may be the key word for the play, for me, which was a fun discovery, even if it was kinda just for me and not for the kids, who were focused more on just understanding what was being said.
So Leontes & co. are staring at the Hermione statue, (Hermione being Leontes' wife he orders to banish after he perceived her maybe cheating on him with his bro Polixenes, not Harry Potter's totally platonic ladyfriend badass witch, which causes her "death") and Paulina, Hermione's loyal friend, says she can make the totally-not-real statue move, on one proviso: Leontes will have to re-"awake his faith."
This struck me, maybe because I was in a Viewpointy mood and thinking about how important it is to trust everyone in the room to work together toward telling a story-in-becoming, that very much what Leontes does not have up until this statue test is faith, and in a way, asking him to believe Paulina has magic to reawaken his dead wife mirrors Shakespeare asking the audience to believe a) Leontes really did freak out that jealously to begin with & b) he believes this somehow-age-appropriately carved and almost-life-seeming statue is actually a statue, and not the living Hermione who'd been hiding out with Paulina for 16 years and is now finally being able to be reconciled to her husband and to meet her daughter, who Leontes had also cast out 16 years ago, thinking she was illegitimate.
Faith.
It's a hard word for us, nowadays, with its religious (and by religious I mean more political/church, not spiritual) connotations, and in a world that since 9/11 has seemed to be almost entirely out of control, at risk of ending at ANY MOMENT, so CLUTCH everything you love and HOLD ON; it's easy to see why our digitally-&-immediately-gratified-culture wouldn't put much stock in "faith," a word that has as antiquated a taste as "honour." I think a lot of us are afraid to be destroyed. We're afraid to be hurt. We're afraid. And having faith in someone else, especially those who you're vulnerable to, is an impossible task to achieve without getting hurt. Because people are people, and they fail.
I think it's a mistake when productions don't show us an actually flirty Hermione at the beginning, which feels like it totally belongs in the text. Hermione is not simply a victimized martyr, innocent as a wafting lily, who gets to come back at the end and forgive everyone. In fact, it's telling that in the statue scene, she focuses her energy on her child first when she "comes to life." I think she's a whole person, and whole people flirt, even if they aren't going to do anything about it. Maybe Hermione wanted to bone Polixenes, you know, maybe there was temptation there.
I think it's dangerous to put all the onus on Leontes & his perceptive skills, which really makes him seem to freak out FOR NO REASON, because it implies that if Hermione DID do any flirting, his reaction would be acceptable. And the only reason that his jealous rage is unacceptable is that she OBVIOUSLY didn't remotely approach doing anything wrong. If she did, it'd be fair game for him to ruin everyone's lives. His jealous rage is not acceptable, regardless of the circumstances. He seeks revenge, too, much like Hamlet & Richard III, but much more like Othello, he does it for reasons that don't add up.
There is no ocular proof, there is no surety. We do live a life of Viewpointsy vaguery and ambiguity. It makes for hard lessons in class, especially with kids who are just now understanding that people fail sometimes, and that's actually part of being human. But I don't think we are dumb, as a species, men or women. We perceive what we perceive.
In the case with Othello & Leontes, though, what they were perceiving was not the actions of a whore, but that of a woman being a living person, not a statue, not an anesthetized holy goddess floating above in her halo, but a woman living and carrying on her own conversations with men. Othello & Leontes freak out, they blame the women, not for actually cheating, but really for it just being a possibility, a potential hurt, a potential failure. They are not secure enough with themselves to know that what's transpiring is harmless. They not only do not have faith in their spouses, but, more to the point, they do not have faith in themselves.
I think you have to know you're worth being in a relationship with for that relationship to last. I'm just starting down that road myself, for the first time honestly, and I don't think I could've gotten to thinking like this without royally fucking up a lot about thinking about what it takes to love someone.
But at the end of the day, the only person living and breathing and making decisions and deciding to be with one person, one whole unique fallible person, is you, and you have to trust you're worth sticking with, just as you have to trust the person who's sticking with you to do the sticking.
Faith involves failure. In catch, there are always dropped balls. We misjudge the distances we need to send balls, we overshoot, we throw to people who aren't ready, we have weird sudden spasms and send our balls rocketing askew, out of anyone's reach. We fuck up.
But everyone breathing together, listening to each other, and not giving up when the balls occasionally land? There's a kind of holy focus there, and the more we all relax, the more catches are successful, the longer the dance of catch and release lasts, and that's where real creation can happen.
So basically I should just play catch with Othello & Leontes for a little while, and save Desdemona & Hermione a lot of trouble. If only I'd been around.
You know when you know
It struck me, the moment in the heart of Manhattan where I was double-parking a gigantic Suburban and running into a Park Avenue building to collect luggage that had returned to the States from a touring experimental theatre production, that my iPhone had died and I was going to be without Google Maps for the whole drive back.
I'd been eying my battery life the whole way there, but for some reason I just refused to believe I would put myself in the position to have to drive through a labyrinthine, and heavily-trafficked, city without my magic map, my third eye, my godlike knowledge of what was to come.
I had quickly checked it upon parking the car to look at the route back, and about half-way through scrolling along the step-by-step list, my phone blacked out. And I was now entirely alone. I had a good three, three and a half hours with traffic, to go, and then another 45 mins of loading out and returning the rental car to go. All without the tool I daily rely on to get information to get me places.
At first, I was pretty freaked out. I beat myself up for forgetting my car charger at home, for not taking a detour to get it after picking up the rental, for not just sucking it up and buying a charger from a rest stop store along the way.
For some reason, though, after grabbing the luggage and making my way back through Manhattan, I kept having the hunch that I actually knew where to go. So I just kept following that hunch. All the way home.
The pre-smartphone me is scoffing right now, that this feels like a triumph, driving through Manhattan and home to Philadelphia without the use of a smartphone. It was sort of a self-reliance moment, trusting both that I knew the way and that if I got lost, I could find my way out of it. And even though there were a few close calls of missing turns or taking wrong exits, I managed to make my way sans smartphone. It felt even better than finally putting a piece of Ikea furniture together. And when I do that I feel like a god.
This past fall I went on a week-long road trip, driving from Philadelphia to New Haven, Providence, Boston, Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo, then back down to Philly. I used it as an opportunity to look at grad schools, visit family, and start seeking inspiration for this Hamlet project I've been harping on. I wanted this year to be about artistic growth and development, so I knew I wanted to take some significant time post-Fringe away from other responsibilities to just be with myself and do something. A roadtrip, an adventure, sounded right.
What I noticed about that roadtrip, which holds rich metaphoric weight in my mind, is that I actually tend to be pretty good at decision making on the go. I may get lost, I may have to make hard choices about where to go and what time to spend, but in general, I was pretty happy with the results of how I conducting myself. I got the most frustrated when I made little stupid mistakes, which were mostly the result of driving long stretches, pushing myself perhaps too far. I think I tried to take on too much on the trip. But I did get it all done.
And isn't it powerful, to feel decisive? To feel self-reliant, like you can tackle problems even when you don't have all the best tools at hand? You know when you know.
I guess maybe because a lot of my work (sales, education) sort of involves incredibly unknown quantities, like I never know if I'm going to make any sales, if I'm going to reach the kids I teach & have a successful class, there are always a ton of variables that don't quite have the same road map as well, a roadtrip might have.
But I've noticed I do better and feel more myself when I'm under pressure, when there's a challenge. Unknown quantities are apiled ahead, but I'm glad I'm moving. This year has transformed from the year of artistic growth to the year of huge life changes, and believe it or not, I think I'll find my way just fine.
I'd been eying my battery life the whole way there, but for some reason I just refused to believe I would put myself in the position to have to drive through a labyrinthine, and heavily-trafficked, city without my magic map, my third eye, my godlike knowledge of what was to come.
I had quickly checked it upon parking the car to look at the route back, and about half-way through scrolling along the step-by-step list, my phone blacked out. And I was now entirely alone. I had a good three, three and a half hours with traffic, to go, and then another 45 mins of loading out and returning the rental car to go. All without the tool I daily rely on to get information to get me places.
At first, I was pretty freaked out. I beat myself up for forgetting my car charger at home, for not taking a detour to get it after picking up the rental, for not just sucking it up and buying a charger from a rest stop store along the way.
For some reason, though, after grabbing the luggage and making my way back through Manhattan, I kept having the hunch that I actually knew where to go. So I just kept following that hunch. All the way home.
The pre-smartphone me is scoffing right now, that this feels like a triumph, driving through Manhattan and home to Philadelphia without the use of a smartphone. It was sort of a self-reliance moment, trusting both that I knew the way and that if I got lost, I could find my way out of it. And even though there were a few close calls of missing turns or taking wrong exits, I managed to make my way sans smartphone. It felt even better than finally putting a piece of Ikea furniture together. And when I do that I feel like a god.
This past fall I went on a week-long road trip, driving from Philadelphia to New Haven, Providence, Boston, Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo, then back down to Philly. I used it as an opportunity to look at grad schools, visit family, and start seeking inspiration for this Hamlet project I've been harping on. I wanted this year to be about artistic growth and development, so I knew I wanted to take some significant time post-Fringe away from other responsibilities to just be with myself and do something. A roadtrip, an adventure, sounded right.
What I noticed about that roadtrip, which holds rich metaphoric weight in my mind, is that I actually tend to be pretty good at decision making on the go. I may get lost, I may have to make hard choices about where to go and what time to spend, but in general, I was pretty happy with the results of how I conducting myself. I got the most frustrated when I made little stupid mistakes, which were mostly the result of driving long stretches, pushing myself perhaps too far. I think I tried to take on too much on the trip. But I did get it all done.
And isn't it powerful, to feel decisive? To feel self-reliant, like you can tackle problems even when you don't have all the best tools at hand? You know when you know.
I guess maybe because a lot of my work (sales, education) sort of involves incredibly unknown quantities, like I never know if I'm going to make any sales, if I'm going to reach the kids I teach & have a successful class, there are always a ton of variables that don't quite have the same road map as well, a roadtrip might have.
But I've noticed I do better and feel more myself when I'm under pressure, when there's a challenge. Unknown quantities are apiled ahead, but I'm glad I'm moving. This year has transformed from the year of artistic growth to the year of huge life changes, and believe it or not, I think I'll find my way just fine.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
a funny little moment
Quick one this evening.
Thought I was being brought in during my break at work today to get reprimanded,
The darkest part of my brain even thought fired.
Don't know how I got so skittish,
My mind jumped straight to the worst possible conclusion
to the scene answering the harrowing question
"can I see you for a minute on your break?"
There's that authority ghost again
Hamlet Sr. floating around
Revenge, he whispers.
Don't disappoint me.
Turns out she wanted advice in play producing
As a friend of hers was trying to get a play produced
Beyond a reading.
She had questions about corporate funding, the best kind of fundraising, etc. etc.
I was actually there as a friend, to give her advice.
It's such a strange transition
To be awaiting reprimand for
whatever, checking my phone during work,
Or not putting in enough evening hours
even though we agreed I needed a flexible schedule
And instead,
the Boss wasn't punishing me
But seeking council
On matters she didn't know as much as I did about.
I am sometimes surprised by how much I do know about this thing that I do.
It was a funny turn of confidence.
I left the evening feeling like an expert
In something I love
I'm glad to finally be back on doing more of it.
I don't know that this post is anything, but it struck me, and here it is.
Thought I was being brought in during my break at work today to get reprimanded,
The darkest part of my brain even thought fired.
Don't know how I got so skittish,
My mind jumped straight to the worst possible conclusion
to the scene answering the harrowing question
"can I see you for a minute on your break?"
There's that authority ghost again
Hamlet Sr. floating around
Revenge, he whispers.
Don't disappoint me.
Turns out she wanted advice in play producing
As a friend of hers was trying to get a play produced
Beyond a reading.
She had questions about corporate funding, the best kind of fundraising, etc. etc.
I was actually there as a friend, to give her advice.
It's such a strange transition
To be awaiting reprimand for
whatever, checking my phone during work,
Or not putting in enough evening hours
even though we agreed I needed a flexible schedule
And instead,
the Boss wasn't punishing me
But seeking council
On matters she didn't know as much as I did about.
I am sometimes surprised by how much I do know about this thing that I do.
It was a funny turn of confidence.
I left the evening feeling like an expert
In something I love
I'm glad to finally be back on doing more of it.
I don't know that this post is anything, but it struck me, and here it is.
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