Actors are important?
Great post over here at
Isaac Butler's blog about the importance of actors and how training may have a place outside academia.
And it's not just great for his agreeing with me about the primacy of actors and audiences to the playmaking process.
It's part of a series of posts on
his blog that I'm still digesting, and I'll probably have something to say about it later. That is all.
Labels: acting, blogging, theatre
goals for 2008
I almost titled this post "well, kids, what have we learned?" but..., ugh.
So, looking forward. Stuff to do.
- I am moving the fuck out of Kew Gardens. Yes. I. Am.
- I really want to do a comic book/graphic novel/comic strip. I have awesome, ridiculous scripts filled chock-a-block with obscure, esoteric references, excessive verbiage, and ludicrous plotlines. Artists! Call me! Seriously!
- regardless if the pathetic plea of the previous bullet point gets a response, I will write another comic script.
- I will work with some new people in the theatre (not that I don't love my previous collaborators, but I want new blood!). Steps have been taken and results already achieved: watch this space for details.
- I will be more social. I fell off the world last year, mostly out of a sense of guilt. I like to think I've flagellated myself enough for one decade. So that's enough of that. I want to be amongst friends! I like people and I want them to know it!
- I will continue writing the hell out of my new blog/project
Four Every Day. I don't know what it means, but it feels significant. So I'ma gonna do it some more.
That's all. Are those resolutions? whatever. I'm also gonna look at things with "soft eyes" (stole that from The Wire). I'm choosing to use it to mean looking at things without trying to figure them out quite so much, without trying to see only what I want to see.
In some ways I lost a lot of ground last year, but I feel like I was really destroying the village to save it. I want to build things on a firm foundation, not just what I think I should be. I hurt a lot of people last year, too, and I hope to have learned from that to be honest in the first place, and not just when I've run out of options.
The theme last year was "I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me". I guess life is what happens after you think it's all over. I hope you have a wonderful year, full of love and happiness, and I really wish you well. God (in whatever flavor you happen to favor) bless.
Labels: 2008, comics, goals, moving, The Mountain Goats, theatre
Towards a Poor (and miserable) Theatre
On the recommendations of a friend I worked with at Cortland Repertory Theatre this summer, I bought a copy of Jerzy Grotowski’s
Towards a Poor Theatre, from which I realized I stole some, if not all of my ideas for my last post. I’ve been reading it with some interest.
So, not one to let close reading or analysis stand in the way of putting my foot in my mouth, here are some initial thoughts.
It sure seems dour. This is theatre of the hairshirt and the flail. He constantly speaks of a “holy theatre” that requires sacrifice and self-immolation (that phrase “self-immolation” may actually be a quote. Can’t be bothered to look it up right now). A digging into the psyche and laying bare of the roots of action and emotion. My God. How many more times do we have to go through this? Perhaps, as so often happens with gurus (and especially acting gurus) there is a slight disconnect between the technique and the practice, but it sure sounds like he is a patriarch daddy-type who practices psychology without a license, putting his actors through the wringer in an effort to wrest great performances out of them. I have had teachers like this and I find them reprehensible. If Grotowski is of that stripe, I have no use for this technique of his. Good DAY, sir!
Well, this may be my own daddy-complex (often wounded by imperfect men and women who have experimented on me in their well-intentioned attempts to “mould” me) complaining. He may have aught to teach me, so I will keep reading, but I read with a skepticism that I did not possess when I was younger.
I have read about the great British actors, Olivier, Gielgud, and Guinness for example, and they had no recourse to such techniques, no need to put themselves through such fresh hell with every performance. The texts were tough enough, the physical demands plenty to engage and leave them worn out and frazzled. Perhaps that is what Grotowski speaks of, that the great Brits did unconsciously. Perhaps what helps to make the greats great is an emptying out. An engagement with the audience, with their fellow actors, and with the material that exhausts the mind and body, leaving a certain purity to shine through.
Regardless, when I was a Christian (or rather, when I was religious-mad), I would have taken to Grotowski’s theories like a drowning man takes to water. I loved the idea of sacrificing myself. I was all about that, and especially for art, love, “God”, or whatever. Now, I look on theories like this one with a certain distaste.
One of the things I love about theatre is that it is fun. Not fun in the sense of “Ha-ha, ho-ho, hee-hee, aren’t we having a wonderful time.” Fun in the sense of play, a concentrated engagement with the subject at hand that allows one to push oneself to the fullest. The way children play. Not forced, not straining and painful and “intense” but fun! I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun.
Now, I know that, in many of the circles I run with, when I’m at work, I tend to be the less-fun guy. When everybody is getting goofy, starting to get slappy, I am the one saying “C’mon, guys, let’s just get through this!” Yeah, I’m that guy. Always have been. So when I say I’m having fun in theatre, to me that means doing the work as best I can, and being totally engaged and trying to become more than I am right now. Always striving. Even the failures and mistakes and wrong turns are part of the fun, for me. Everything else is just sorta distraction.
So perhaps there is something to the Grotowski fellow’s theories. I’ll keep reading and find out, but truthfully, what I’m looking for is something that treats the process, not as pain and suffering, but as play. It can be painful, of course, in much the same way that an athlete is in pain when he pushes himself in training, but pain is not the same as hurt, i.e. aches are not injuries, and hitting the wall and going on is not the same as vomiting up blood. Acting should not be an assault on the psyche of the actor. We’re not strip-mining. We’re panning. The river will bring us what we need.
Labels: acting, books, craft, criticism, depression, Grotowski, theatre
but is it art?
Based on a discussion I had with Patrick the other day, I thought I should post this. I’m not under any illusions that I’m widely read (unlike some of the folks that I’ll be discussing in this post), but I thought I’d put in my two cents.
I was perusing my list of theatre blogs on bloglines, and a thought struck me. Of the theatre blogs I read on a regular basis, there were none by actors. Directors, yes. Playwrights, yes. No actors.
Now this got me thinking yet further. The discussion on most of the blogs often revolves around what makes for good theatre. A recent discussion, for example, had folks from all over the New York scene weighing in on the relative merits of “production values” and what the term meant. It was an interesting discussion, to be sure, and one near and dear to my heart. A lot of times, people will be talking about theatre’s place in society, declining audiences, relevancy to other media, etc. And sometimes the question is as simple as: what is theatre, really?
Well, what is it? A friend of mine recently expressed interest in getting involved in the extensive performance poetry scene in New York, and asked me to sort of introduce him to some of the better venues and groups working in them. I’ve had some experience with these groups, and I knew some of the folks pretty well, so of course I agreed. The angle of the performance of poetry interested me pretty intensely for a while a few years back, but I found I didn’t cotton to it as much as I enjoyed traditional theatre. But if you really think about it, aside from the conventions (verse instead of “natural” speech (though not always!), physicality based on gesture rather than full expression with the body (again, not always!), roots in hip-hop and its culture) what’s performance poetry but a different kind of theatre? At its essence, it’s a person using their voice and body to tell a story.
Is anything else necessary? Not costumes, not lights, not microphones, not sets, not pre-written, naturalistic (or otherwise) texts, not directors, not props, not musicians, not really even a stage. Nothing but someone with an audience telling a story using their voice and body.
The voice distinguishes it from dance, the body distinguishes it from radio. Other than that, it’s fair game. Anything else is convention. That gives a lot of leeway. TV shows and movies could be considered a subset of theatre, since the story is told using broadcast images of people telling stories. Animation could (I suppose) also be considered a subset, since representations of bodies are used… though one would have to argue about the more surreal elements of, say, Looney Tunes, and I don’t intend to do that here.
Performance poetry, is, obviously under this definition, another subset. The text is verse, the gestures have their own conventions, but the story is still told (or even only evoked) by a person using their body and voice.
I love working with directors. I love to take direction and work in collaboration with people who have differing visions than I. But under the definition I’ve posited directors are definitely non-essential. Witness the phenomenon of the “actor-manager” in British (and, I’m presuming American) theatre up until very recently.
Playwrights (and, in fact plays as conventionally understood, as in: stage directions, so-and-so speaks, such-and-such also speaks, they are told to do things, all as words on a page) are also not essential. Which is not to say I don’t like reading plays. I LOVE reading plays. I’m just trying to peel things down to essentials, here, and by this definition, not so much.
So that begs the question. Why is theatre being defined online by people who are, as far as I can tell, non-essential to the matter? This is also not to say that they shouldn’t. On the contrary, everyone should come up with their own definitions, and I love a good debate over ideas, even ones I agree with. But why are they the face of theatre? Where my actors at?
Well, I talked to both Stephanie and Patrick about this matter, and they both pointed out the same thing. Most actors are not writers. That’s all. In fact, many actors I know could be considered by some definition to be functionally illiterate. And lazy.
When I count the number of plays I’ve heard and seen ruined by an actor who couldn’t be bothered to speak the words of the play as the author wrote them, or who blazed past the meaning of the lines by completely ignoring such elementary considerations as punctuation, I’ll admit to becoming a little steamed.
Well, I can write (somewhat), and I can read (a bit), and so I guess I’m gonna write a little about that.
Labels: acting, criticism, directors, playwrights, theatre
Giggity - Gig!
I know I promised a brief history of Plunge in my next installment, but I wanted to crow a bit. I booked a show for the summer! Huzzah!
I'll be performing at
Cortland Rep in their production of Ten Little Indians opening July 4Th. I'll be playing the part of Philip Lombard. After I'd told a few people about getting the job, I mentioned to Katie how no one seems particularly surprised. "Except you!" she replied.
It's always funny, talking about booking a gig. There's an urge to celebrate, and, at the same time, I often feel slightly subdued. I'm reminded of the story of the football coach who frowned on his players doing celebratory dances in the end zone after a touchdown. "Act like you've been there before," was all he said.
So, I say, awesome! I've got a gig! Apparently I am, once again, a working actor. And yes, I do occasionally feel some surprise at that.
Labels: summer, theatre, work
You oughta know...
Two things. Firstly, I wrote a song for my friends at
Stone Soup for their new show
The Maguffin. They're doing that show in conjunction with another, called
Stone, the next two weekends, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, at 8 pm. From their website:
Stone, a chilling fairy tale, explores the power and the risks of finding one's own place in the world as a young man is asked to deliver a seemingly ordinary stone to a mason's house. The puppet character elements in this production will be the first of such re-imagining for Stone, originally commissioned by England's Gay Sweatshop Theatre during the 1970’s.
featuring Seiko Carter, Caroline Reck, Ben Trawick-Smith and Chris Wild
The Maguffin by Adam Hunault and Stone Soup
This original farce speculates what happens when the gay marriage movement dies, creating a frenzied attempt by the Republican Party to preserve their mainstream identity. In order to perpetuate their struggle against the agenda of the liberal left, they attempt to revitalize the gay marriage platform. The Maguffin takes a decidedly modern look at how contemporary political issues are exploited by sound-bite politician's need for media control and re-election.
featuring Lauren Birriel, David Bryant, DR Hanson, Jacques Laurent, Marsha Martinez, Rachel Rhodes and Maria Schirmer
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I got to sit in on some of the rehearsals, as well as a reading, and this is a terrific show. Please do try and come out and see these excellent performers in two great shows for the price of one (plus, you can here one of my songs as performed by someone else). You can buy tickets
online here.
These guys asking me to write a song really meant a lot to me, and they sort of spurred a recent burst of creativity that has led to some really great breakthroughs. I'm very grateful to them, and I want to do my best to support. See this show.
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Also,
those crazy Nosedive kids are doing a show about the dark underbelly of Suburban complacency, the seething, poisoned heart of the American Dream, the violent, animalistic rage that lurks beneath every banal water-cooler conversation at the office. You know... a comedy. Come see their take on it... I saw it and it reminded me of Blue Velvet meets Kids in the Hall. It's kinda ridiculous. It's called Suburban Peepshow, and it's also playing the next two weekends. Check it out, mang. Buy tix
here.Labels: friends, music, theatre
