This guy had twelve hours of rehearsal. And it was wicked cold. And he feels as though he's coming down with something, which is perfect timing for his little twelve-hour rehearsal and presentation tomorrow.
Awesome. Awesome.
Strange Times bring Strange Tidings
Where have I been? Where have I been? I've been busy, okay? Do I have to report every little thing I do to you, huh? Huh? Do I? Do I? No. NO! I DON'T!
I'm sorry. Hey: I'm sorry. Really. I lost my temper and, um, I . . . I said some things I shouldn't have said there. I may have, you know, given you the impression that I felt smothered, and I don't. I do not. No, no, I'm just . . . stressed. I'm a little stressed right now, and I took it out on you and that wasn't fair and I'm sorry. Okay? Can I make you some pancakes? How about waffles?
And just where have I been? Oh, here and there. The glorious thing about my end-o-week is the astonishingly little time it has me strapped into a desk. The un-bloggerly thing about it, is the astonishingly little time it has me strapped into a desk. It's a trade-off. But it's Saturday morning, I'm doing laundry and watching old Paramount(TM) Superman(R) cartoons (first episode: "Japoteurs"!) and finally my much-neglected 'blog gets a tune-up.
When last we left our erstwhile hero, he was opining about the glacial pace of The Torture Project's development. He has since resuscitated after various activities in the intervening day-and-a-half to the extent that he is barely aware of writing about himself in the third person. >Ahem.< I did receive some unexpected support in my feeling of impatience over the TP, which helps me feel less psychotically insecure, so thank you, O eponymous anonymous contributor. In addition, we had circus night at the loft on a Thursday this week. We did not receive the promised jugglers, but we did have both Zoe(umlaut) and Dave of Paradizo Dance with us--a rare treat. I got to fly a thigh stand on Dave, which was like climbing a tree with roots to China, and based Zoe(u) in a high angel, which was a first for me. Friday brought another day teaching at Validus Preparatory Academy, but another "first." This time it was the first time both Alex and I were supervising the boys as they filmed themselves playing basketball, and it was fascinating. The guys were more responsive and invested in the project, and Alex learned a little bit about all the kind of work I had to do in her absence last semester. After that it was off to a photo shoot for A Lie of the Mind at Manhattan Theatre Source. I bought one of those circa-70s cowboy shirts (with the pearly snaps) for the occasion--a fantasy buy for me for some time now (whoa, slow down there, Tex) and the shoot was spent in pretty continual laughter over the antics of Todd d'Amour and Laura Schwenninger.
Tomorrow returns me to The Torture Project, but after such a varied series of hours I feel more equipped to be there. It's strange how that works. There is the usual inertia factor when it comes to personal energy, how one just generally feels capable of more when he or she is already active; there is also, however, a kind of recharge to acting that comes from just living a little more life. I wonder sometimes if it works the same in all things creative, or in all things in general. You have to be out there, having a life, to bring something back into whatever you're working on. Do other things one is working on count toward that? I venture a yea. It's worked for me this weekend.
I'm sorry. Hey: I'm sorry. Really. I lost my temper and, um, I . . . I said some things I shouldn't have said there. I may have, you know, given you the impression that I felt smothered, and I don't. I do not. No, no, I'm just . . . stressed. I'm a little stressed right now, and I took it out on you and that wasn't fair and I'm sorry. Okay? Can I make you some pancakes? How about waffles?
And just where have I been? Oh, here and there. The glorious thing about my end-o-week is the astonishingly little time it has me strapped into a desk. The un-bloggerly thing about it, is the astonishingly little time it has me strapped into a desk. It's a trade-off. But it's Saturday morning, I'm doing laundry and watching old Paramount(TM) Superman(R) cartoons (first episode: "Japoteurs"!) and finally my much-neglected 'blog gets a tune-up.
When last we left our erstwhile hero, he was opining about the glacial pace of The Torture Project's development. He has since resuscitated after various activities in the intervening day-and-a-half to the extent that he is barely aware of writing about himself in the third person. >Ahem.< I did receive some unexpected support in my feeling of impatience over the TP, which helps me feel less psychotically insecure, so thank you, O eponymous anonymous contributor. In addition, we had circus night at the loft on a Thursday this week. We did not receive the promised jugglers, but we did have both Zoe(umlaut) and Dave of Paradizo Dance with us--a rare treat. I got to fly a thigh stand on Dave, which was like climbing a tree with roots to China, and based Zoe(u) in a high angel, which was a first for me. Friday brought another day teaching at Validus Preparatory Academy, but another "first." This time it was the first time both Alex and I were supervising the boys as they filmed themselves playing basketball, and it was fascinating. The guys were more responsive and invested in the project, and Alex learned a little bit about all the kind of work I had to do in her absence last semester. After that it was off to a photo shoot for A Lie of the Mind at Manhattan Theatre Source. I bought one of those circa-70s cowboy shirts (with the pearly snaps) for the occasion--a fantasy buy for me for some time now (whoa, slow down there, Tex) and the shoot was spent in pretty continual laughter over the antics of Todd d'Amour and Laura Schwenninger.
Tomorrow returns me to The Torture Project, but after such a varied series of hours I feel more equipped to be there. It's strange how that works. There is the usual inertia factor when it comes to personal energy, how one just generally feels capable of more when he or she is already active; there is also, however, a kind of recharge to acting that comes from just living a little more life. I wonder sometimes if it works the same in all things creative, or in all things in general. You have to be out there, having a life, to bring something back into whatever you're working on. Do other things one is working on count toward that? I venture a yea. It's worked for me this weekend.
Needs Must, when the Coffee Drives
I was
so
groggy for rehearsal last night.
How
groggy
was
I? I was
so groggy
that I was actually angry with myself for not being more in-the-room because I was so groggy but too groggy to even allow that anger to focus into something useful to rehearsal, on account of all my grogginess. It doesn't help, of course, that
have the stuffiest little rooms on the Isle of Manhattan. It also didn't help that I opted last night--as I had the night before--to go in sans caffeination. That worked out two nights ago, when I was psyched (read: anxious) to jump back in to
, but last night the magic had fled. Indeed, at this very very moment,
The Torture Project
feels a bit like an old marriage. Sunday mornings, decaf in bed, the paper. "Honey, can you pass me the Ideological Ranting section? Thanks. Oo, let's remember to get out to the Home Depot today to buy some duct tape."
Actually, it's a bit more like the marriage in
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
, what with all the torture and lies. Could do with a bit more sex. Though last night, too, we had what I believe was only our second actual on-stage kiss. It was hot; personally damaging and inappropriate (scenically, that is), but hot. One participant in this kissage was a Mr. Joe Varca, best known for his appearance in last Fringe Festival's smash hit,
, and who is being utilized as a sort of
(Blogger, have not you an umlaut shortcut?) to my character in this show, owing to the
shocking similarity of appearance
we apparently share. For the first time, that damn
from the Marx Brothers would be interesting to watch. I've had to try and do that bit in at least three different shows. I'm sick of it. I'm afraid beginning to feel similarly toward this show we've all been working on for the past two years now.
It will change. When we have to present what we have again on Monday, I'll be anxious and excited and "psyched" as all get-out. But this is a development, this waning interest in open collaboration on the show, the which it's good for me to acknowledge. I'm growing impatient, which I don't believe to be a factor of time, but rather an indication that I'm beginning to feel as though we're spinning our wheels a bit. The director has talked a lot about taking more personal control and determining whose story this is, what voice(s) tells it and what kind of story it will be. I hope she makes these choices soon, right or wrong, because it influences a lot and gives (pun unintended) direction to the whole piece. Basic questions, like: Is it a memory play? Is it magical realism? Are we aiming to provide answers? Will we eventually make millions of dollars in royalties?
The work last night was also good, but with more off-the-cuff assignments divided (with all those deviser-actors) into shorter segments. One of the prepared pieces that we didn't get to two nights ago was brilliant--a series of six monologues from different residents of Bethel, Ohio (where our scene is set), including a sixty-year-old man and a twenty-three-year-old boy. And a caricature of our director. The performer was referencing
The Laramie Project
in this, but had no idea. She's never seen it. My impromptu assignments last night were to play Jake teaching his sister Nic the casualty terms that were a part of my piece last night, and to create a series of tableau of the supposed execution of my character with the actress who plays the "torturer" and our do-it-all designer. Kelly and I melded the quiz scene with a scene we already have of us in a car, quizzing her on flower meanings, as though it were a dream she's having, and ended it with, K-"Are you alive or dead?" J-"I don't know." That one worked well. The second we couldn't quite get the effect we wanted with what we had. Our idea was to show three poses from the video (Jake kneeling in front of a hole, Jake standing with his head turned slightly to the left and Jake shot on the ground) then give three progressively closer shots--as if they were expanded--of the left side of Jake's jaw, which is the only part of the supposed Maupin video that lends itself to personal identification. Tricky to do without proper lights and a soundboard.
To think: For the past five years, this time of year has always found me working hard on ecstatic comedy.
Tonight, instead of
TP
rehearsal (Laurie is off workshopping with Moises for three days [How's that for name-dropping?]) I have acrobalance at
's loft. Tonight with jugglers! It will be a welcome respite. Send in the clowns, you bastards. Send in the clowns...
Acting is Hard Enough
Being a creator/actor (somebody, please, provide me with a better term than this) is downright tricky.
The process for
has been an original one the entire way, owing mostly to relying so much upon the regular creative input and interpretation of it's entire cast and burgeoning crew. Similar to the development of
(and, indeed, the director/co-collaborator [we artists love our slashes][and parentheses] of
Laramie
, Moises Kaufman, is serving as a mentor on our show) this show was developed through improvisations and individually planned performance pieces inspired by real-life circumstances. Where we part company from Tectonic Theatre is that we have done more extrapolation, to create a piece of fiction rather than an accounting of an event. So my character is not named Keith "Matt" Maupin, rather Jake Larkin. Yes: The lines between can get confusing. Particularly during a brief stage when we used our own names during the improvisations.
So last night, the first rehearsal of our re-up, everyone brought in an assigned scene (/performance piece) he or she had prepared. Mine (see
) was a quasi-clown-style piece based upon definitions I finally found online for various categories of unaccounted-for people during war time. I was to show these definitions through various filters, essentially, on a kind of journey from sense, to nonsense, to chaos and back to sense again. I was to use light sources, architecture, possibly music, definitely audience involvement and various styles to communicate it all. In ten minutes. These assignments invariably remind me of a particular summer (
, I believe it was) when
and I would trade creative assignments with one another every week or so.
It was not altogether successful. Laurie, our project leader, basically loves
(though she may not know it) and is always very complimentary of my work. This was no exception, but I felt I failed to make it tight and timed in the way I liked, and toward the end I felt almost completely without control in the piece. Which, for simple acting, can sometimes be good. But for clown, or performance art, it's more like dance. I believe. Timing is more important than verisimilitude.
The piece began as a press briefing (with a direct light facing me), at which I told them to pay close attention and read seven or so terms and their definitions off of index cards, ending with, "Any questions?" Then we switched to a sort of military classroom (with that direct light behind me) and I played an over-the-top drill sergeant grilling them for definitions of the various terms. After leaving that scene in disgust, the direct light was traded for the room's overhead fluorescents, Sara Bakker played a Midwestern teacher and announced my next character to an elementary school class: Casualty Assistance Officer Clown. I entered in a clown nose and tried to teach them about the terms, but got flustered, eventually dropping my cards and getting them out of order, and one of the students stole some. Bright Eyes' "
" began to play and I searched for the missing cards, finding them nowhere and growing more and more upset until I collapsed on the floor and the lights were shut off. After a five count, the lights came back on, and I arose and removed my nose. Now I was a lost soldier, searching the ground for something but unable to find it. Not recognizing my surroundings, I weep and pound my chest until I find something. I slowly pulled out from my breast pocket a long ribbon of paper with the terms and definitions on it. As I pulled it out, I read the terms one by one. Then, as the music faded, I read this:
"The United States' Department of Defense (DOD) lists a military serviceman as MIA if 'he or she was not at their duty location due to apparent involuntary reasons as a result of hostile action and his/her location is not known' (Department of Defense 1996, p. 5). In addition, three criteria guide the accounting process for missing personnel by the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office: (1) the return of a live American; (2) the return of identifiable remains; and (3) provision of convincing evidence why the first two criteria are not possible."
End o' scene.
Don't get me wrong: I got my point(s) across. It just wasn't very satisfying in a dramatic or performance sense, I suppose. That may have had a lot to do with my feelings about the assignment from the get-go. Character exploration? Kick ass. Term definition? Um, does spelling count?
It was great to be back in rehearsal, however; especially with folks as talented and professional as them what comprise
. During the evening I helped out with three other scenes, two of which I had to improvise in. This is very, very difficult, even were the subject matter not as heavy as these scenes happened to be. Simply doing kitchen-sink improvisation is tough. It takes sensitivity to your character that I readily admit I have a ways to go on with good ol' Jake. The scenes themselves, however, added necrotic poison to the blow dart: the first was Jake telling his mother he had joined the Army (compliments Faith Catlin's assignment) and the second was an imagined scene, if Jake's girlfriend back home had had an abortion of the baby he had never known about, and then they fought about it as though he weren't missing. I hope I held my own. I fear I was too soft in the first, too hard in the second.
It's an interesting problem. We're showing the most private moments of people I've really never lived among, so I have yet to find a reliable character model to observe in person. Jake's a middle-class, pro-nationalism kid who worked at Sam's Club and grew up in the late nineties. Does he curse? (I'm playing it he does, but not around his family.) What music does he like? (I'm guessing post-grunge crud like
or . . . I don't even know; it's too depressing to think about.) What's important to him? (Really.) These are the questions one can glean from the text when rehearsing a script. In our world, we're baking from scratch.
Well, nearly scratch. There's this pre-mixed war and domestic situation that in most cases we just have to add water to.