SO . . . MUCH . . .. BRAIN . . . 'ASPLODING . . .!

Hi. Hi. Hi.

That's kind of the rhythm of my life this week.

Hi. Hi. Hi. Very precise, slightly manic in pace. It would be mostly the good kind of stress (what "good" kind, you ask -- the kind that comes of having too much to do

as a result of

lots of stuff one loves

...an important caveat) except that nobody's personal life takes a holiday without extreme measures, and I've had several reminders over the past ten days or so from said personal life as to how trivial some of my stress is. Which compounds it with a sense of guilt. Which is about par for the course for yours truly.

There was this week, back in

college

, when I essentially disappeared for several weekdays in a row. I think it was during my Junior year, and it was highly uncharacteristic of me, at least in one sense. That sense being about how I was Super Student in college. I dove into my work with untempered zeal, and didn't really start to surface until some time mid-Senior-year. In another sense, it was utterly characteristic of me, because what prompted my dive into working solitude (relative solitude) was a certain powerful emotional response to events in my personal life. So Junior year, having no increased work to dive into, I took a time out. It was quite unintentional, and I look back and marvel at how easily I did it . . . and how, even once I recognized I was doing it, the recognition didn't prompt concern for my own well-being. I finally came out of my room, and just went about my business as I always had before.

That's the kind of "extreme measure" I refer to, and it is not an adult option. Sure, everyone needs some time off once in a while, from work, from friends, etc., but short of entering an institution for the treatment of nervous breakdown there is no healthy way to rest from who one is, or one's current responsibilities. And really, I don't want to. I want to achieve, and change, and all that good stuff. Good stuff, nonetheless, can at times be overwhelming.

Another thing I did in college, a healthier and more repeated thing, was to make a B.F.L. in times of many goals, such as when finals rolled around. "B.F.L." is a reference to the PC game

DOOM

, which I'm not proud of, but thought I ought to own up to. It stands for "Big F'n List," and was essentially just that, comprised of everything I had to get done before a given period of time was out.

Now, for certain pragmatic reasons, I can't list all the to-dos here so, in the spirit of

As Far As We Know

's launching notice, I present the short list:

• Work enough hours at day job to cover lack of pay at upcoming gig
• Do laundry
• Clean apartment
• Pack for two months away
• Forward mail to working address
• Interview folks
• Brush-up rehearsals for As Far As We Know
• Two performances to "close" As Far As We Know
• Write "closing-night" cards for As Far As We Know
• Arrange dates to breach upcoming contract in order to perform in potential re-up of As Far As We Know
• Figure out and arrange transportation for Pennsylvania-New York commute for re-ups
• Plan curriculum for workshops launching Prohibitive Standards rehearsal period
• Continue research for Prohibitive Standards
• Contribute to Prohibitive Standards collaboration forum
• Maintain exercise regimen, sleep schedule and sanity

I'm not trying to impress you. Okay, well, yes: I crave sympathy. But I have friends with a lot more on their plates--in school, for (a big) one--and I'm aware that all this comes from good tidings, not to mention said reminders of late about how trivial such concerns are in the face of issues such as life, death and family. So, more to the point, I list my pre-Sunday to-dos in order to set them down, make them seem more manageable and share a slice of my life when it's in this mode.

The keen-eyed amongst you may have noticed that I rather slipped in there the possibility of a re-up of As Far As We Know. (It being a mere possibility at this stage is yet another in a long line of inadvertent puns on our title.) I don't want to jinx anything, but the sentiment from our side of things is that when a show gets such press as ours has, it's a good idea to use that momentum whilst it is most momentous. This has long been the goal of our esteemed production team (read: Laurie and Kelly): to get the show supported or otherwise picked-up by a more major theatre. There's a very interesting double-motivation here--one for success in our creation, and one for success in spreading the story and awareness of the Maupin's struggle. That, I suppose, is the balance to all the hassles of creating one's own work: that you will really, personally care about getting it out there.

Which leads us to my present conflict--eager for resolution, but utterly lacking in information to resolve. Both shows are very personally important to me, and both rather rely on my presence. The Zuppa del Giorno shows have been my greatest priority, and my most evolved work, for close to five years. I love them: They are me as an actor, in so many ways. This project is far and away our most ambitious and exciting to date, with a cast of five plus student actors, and performing in two venues. As Far As We Know has been in collaboration for over two years, I've been with it since nearly the beginning, and it's also a creator/actor piece. Now it has the hope of reaching a larger audience than any of my work has to date, and I'm loathe to let go of it, even for a few performances. The two don't absolutely conflict, but decisions are on the horizon. Here's hoping the fates are pleased.

Why, you may ask, in the midst of this would he take time from his day to write here? It would actually be worse if I didn't. Somehow staying connected on the Aviary helps to keep me connected to myself, if just a bit more. Doing less has never given me more sense of peace. Doing more of what I love inevitably does.

So there's much to do before I leave. I appreciate my friends' understanding of that. Hopefully I can make it up to them before "Hi. Hi. Hi." becomes "Bye. Bye. Bye."

And not in that nice *NSYNC way, either.

Oh, get over yourself. You were right there with me.

Crisis of Faith

In college, I read Stanislavski. For those of us who slept through (or never even considered taking) Theatre History 101,

Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski

was an actor, director and teacher in 19th century Russia who made a big impact on the acting world by recording his process and "method" in a series of books, amongst various other associations and theatrical victories. To put the tale overly simply, he grew up in an aesthetic that instructed acting by way of imitation, but he came to value an approach of creating a character "from the inside out," meaning to find an association or familiarity with a character within one's own emotional landscape before mucking about with the specifics of gesture and voice. This was revolutionary, and we've been rather obsessed with it ever since (even though Stan went on to study truth through physical gesture as well). I laughed out loud (and I'm still trying to figure out if that was the desired effect) at one point in his book

An Actor Prepares

. He's telling the story of trying to get a handle on playing Othello, when he sees a chocolate cake on a table. He impulsively plunges his face into the frosting, and returns to his mirror to continue working on whatever monologue had his attention at that time. When I was 19 or so, I thought this was the most ridiculous thing I had ever read about acting.

This morning, while waiting to cross a street, I noticed a puddle full of oil, or gasoline, and barely thinking about it stepped

into

the puddle to stand and wait for the light to change. You see, for the past few days I have been wearing the sneakers my character wears in the show. They're white, and need to look like they're well used in fields and garages, my character being a soldier and a mechanic. So, for the past few days, I have been reprogramming my instinct (hopefully only temporarily) to step IN every nasty spot in the park and city that I can find. Waiting to cross the street I spotted the rainbow sworls below and thought (Tin-Man like) as I stepped, "Oil!" It's rather ridiculous what a sense of victory I experienced from this.

Yesterday one of the actors in

As Far As We Know

quit. Actually, that's only true insofar as I've heard it. I was not there (it happened in a morning phone call between the actor and the director) and have only heard the details third-hand, so to the actor it may have seemed more like a firing, or at least an inevitability. We open tomorrow.

This generally doesn't happen. The night before it happened, as a way of pardoning all the up-to-the-curtain changes a group-developed work may involve, Laurie told a story of making

I Am My Own Wife

, in which the playwright came into the last rehearsal and told the only actor in the show, in sum of substance: "I have good news and bad. The good is I've solved the ending. The bad is that it means you have to come up with 13 new, distinctively different characterizations." And when I developed the first show of

Zuppa del Giorno

,

Noble Aspirations

, we spent nine months building a story, and ended up scrapping it entirely and starting fresh during tech week. So I am accustomed to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune where the theatre is concerned.

This particular plot twist, however, is surprising in a number of ways. First and foremost, actors don't quit a show two days before it opens. They occasionally get fired in such a time, but they don't quit. I've been trying to imagine circumstances under which I would do such a thing, and there are a few, none of which could apply here. So it is flummoxing. Secondly, and most baffling, most of us have been working on this show--off and on--for over two years. This is what's kept me in the game during those times when I began to question my own resolve to see it through. How could I leave off before we saw some kind of semi-glossed presentation? I don't think any one of us can claim

not

to have been profoundly affected by this work at some point. And maybe that's it. Maybe the actor just couldn't agree with the show we ended up making, or something. It's pointless for me to speculate in this.

You know that inevitable scene in the Rocky movies in which the match is not going well, and the chips are down, and Rocky's looking like he's going to vomit and fall in it any moment now, and we're all just waiting for him to rear up and triumph against all odds? Pepper that feeling with--to borrow a term--a little shock and awe, and you'll have the mood of rehearsal last night. We already had a new actor in, and they were doing their very best to catch up. The adrenaline of it all helped to wash away some of the sense of loss and incompleteness, but every so often you'd catch a fellow actor's eye and see it all in there. In the final stages of creating a play about a family's inexplicable loss of one of its own, we lost, rather inexplicably (to the cast, anyway), a member of our family. I really, really miss this actor. It sucks.

But...Rocky's going to get up off the floor. We will take arms against a sea of troubles. The show will go on. That's what we do. It may not be perfect, it may not even be pretty, but it will be, and we will have made it. Come to think of it, many people have contributed to what we've made who are not here now. From actors to writers to actual participants in the events that are the source of our inspiration, there are all kinds of missing people, and part of what we're learning through this is how we live through that. One thing I've learned is to find small joys during it all, to be sure not to miss them when they cross your path. That, and a little faith doesn't hurt, either.

New Hampshire Log: Day One—God & Country

The actor’s life is filled with trials and tribulations (to quote the Bible, by way of Andrew Lloyd Weber).He or she is often put in a situation in which his or her schedule, personal freedom and overall individuality is somehow removed, or at least de-prioritized, by the process of creating a show.Actors are whisked away to remote locations, deprived of sufficient sleep and a million little things they are accustomed to having choices about, and all for the sake of a show that may or may not have significant resonance in their careers and memories.It could be over when it’s over, simply a drop in the bucket of New York theatre and their own resumes.

That’s why, when at all possible, such sacrifices for art should be made in country as beautiful as the bulk of New England is.

On Saturday I climbed into a rental car bearing New Hampshire plates with three of my fellow performers and drove the lot of us up to Lyme, New Hampshire, so we could begin our rehearsals for the New York Fringe Festival the next Sunday.It was gorgeous day and, apart from not being able to get my iTrip to work with the rental car (dang you, antiquated peripheral device), it was a simple, direct drive up.Upon depositing actors to various houses (everyone is being put up by volunteers from around the area) Faith Catlin, Kelly van Zile and I reclined for just a moment with drinks before I walked two doors over to my digs.It was nice.Faith and Kelly were my introduction to Vermont/New Hampshire some four years ago, when Faith cast me in her production of Summertree.

We’re rehearsing in Signal & Noise Productions’ acquired space—a barn off of Loche Lyme.Smells of guano permeate the area, but it’s an impressive amount of space with fascinating levels, and when we step outside we’re a hop and skip (minus the jump) away from the lake.This means swimming and sunning during lunch, which means bring on the bat poop!The barn is part of a property that also doubles as a cabined vacation getaway, and they have food service and wireless internet.So we’re pretty well-off, all things considered.(Which is really good, since the other show in my life—Prohibitive Standards—is in full development swing and needs as much internet attention as I can spare.)

This phase of rehearsals for As Far As We Know began with a table reading of the new script by faithful resident playwright Christina Gorman.The new script has acts and arcs and everything, so this is very exciting.It also has whole unwritten scenes (which we the actors will be first devising/improvising, upon which Christina will write more), unconnected older scenes that may not function anymore (the which will either be cut or moved or transmogrified) and clocks in at 120 pages.So we have our work cut out for us.As Laurie Sales, our esteemed director said, “We are basically trying to squeeze three weeks’ worth of rehearsal into one.”That consideration having been made, I was worried about our pace as of the end of Sunday’s rehearsal.After the read-through, we managed to stage about seven pages of material.This with a staged-reading presentation for the residents of Lyme on Friday night, and a single tech rehearsal in New York two days after those rehearsals begin and four before our opening there.

But to hell with that worry!A) It’s not my job, andB) the work was so good.We began with Laurie’s new co-director, Tracey (I’m gonna get her last name I swear), taking us through some very helpful movement exercises, akin to what Zuppa del Giorno does in training its actors.She’s planning to have us practice movement as three distinct types we may all be portraying in the course of the play: principal character, soldier and townsperson.Sunday was for our principals, and all of it works toward ensemble building.We began by “walking the space,” wherein the group tries to always be moving but keep the stage balanced, without clumps of people forming.Then she had us find our common step, without looking, so that our steps were falling altogether simultaneously.From there we moved to paces, that which we already established being level 1, and moving up to 4 (as fast as possible), remaining apace.Zero was a freeze, then -1 through -4 below a normal pace.It was very challenging to keep together, especially when it came to changing paces on a clap, making an unspoken group decision as to what pace we’d switch to, and doing so without pausing.

Then it got really interesting.Basing it off this work, we found character physicality from 1 to 10 (so Zuppa, that).I discovered some helpful character notions very fluidly from this, pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to just be an actor for that time.I hope it’s a trend that keeps up during this process.What I found was that Jake’s training lived in his torso, between his shoulders where the contraction is for standing at attention (chest out and, coincidentally, where my chronic soreness is from preparatory push-ups), but his character is in his arms.He’s a mechanic, an athlete, and his arms bring him everything he values.He is unselfconscious about them, but they swing with some weight at his sides.In finding this, and most likely as a result of allowing my chest to open up, I felt rather suddenly emotional, near tears.It’s not uncommon to feel that kind of release in this work, but its reasonable quality doesn’t make it any less valuable, so I’m keeping that feeling in mind.

What was most exciting (possibly more to me as a teacher than as an actor) were the final exercises, in which we tried many variations on connecting with our fellow actors.Tracey variously asked us to keep one, then two and three actors in our peripheral vision at all times, then imagine a string we had to keep taut between our character’s physical center and another’s, then practice at keeping an equilateral triangle between ourselves and two other characters.This produced fascinating movement and shapes, real, direct connections between us on stage and provided great illustration of how connected we could all be, as actors and characters, with one another in each scene or tableau.

There scenes we worked thereafter were very much in keeping with the Joint Stock Theatre Alliance/UnCommon Cause style. (Incidentally, Friend Patrick got me Simon Callow’s On Being an Actor for my birthday, and I’m just reading about his interactions with the original Joint Stock in England.)We were given assignments to modify scenes; specifically to encapsulate Major Ainsley’s phone call within a movement piece inspired by a church service, and to interrupt a memory scene of Jake with phone messages from friends and neighbors concerned for the family after hearing of his disappearance.These went well, but what was most encouraging was the sense, as Laurie shaped them, of making choices that would survive, on the whole, into a performance.

Last night after we adjourned I went to Laurie’s digs to watch what footage she had of Matt Maupin’s first video, the one the insurgents sent back to prove he was in their captivity.She only had short, silent clips included in the local news coverage of the vigil his hometown held, but they were powerful.After the viewing a great many of us adjourned to conversation on the porch, but my mind stayed with the imagination of that situation.We may film a kind of re-enactment of that tape, with me in Matt’s stead, and we may not even use it if we do.Still, the weight of that responsibility is a unique consideration in my work in this show.

I'm Brian Dennehy, Dammit

I had a curious experience last week. My Dad has a birthday coming up, and his choice of celebration was to spend it with us seeing a show in New York. Which, you know, makes it kind of like

our

birthdays as opposed to his, but he hasn't figured that out yet and we are loathe to draw notice to it. His choice of show was

Inherit the Wind

, but sadly it closed before his actual birthday. Not one to stand on custom, dear Dad bought tickets for a performance the Friday of the show's closing weekend. It was a great show, thought I, and my parents said they enjoyed it much more than the film, which they of course rented in preparation for their theatrical experience (neither of them attempted to tackle the book). Even my sister and her fella' (Friend Adam) enjoyed it, and they had been dreading the experience for months once they researched what the show was actually about.

A couple of days later, on something of a whim, I had another entertainment experience of a somewhat different variety. Sucker that I am for cartoons of any sort, I found myself sitting in a movie theatre packed to the projector with minors, watching a story about the struggles of a young rat who eschews convention to become a connoisseur of all things edible.

Ratatouille

is the latest Pixar flick, and I have to confess that my feelings about it were about as ambivalent as my sister's and Adam's were about

Inherit the Wind

, prior to the experience. I was, in part, coaxed into it by a review I read that heaped praises upon the animators for their close study of the movement of classic physical comedians. Which is to say, I was drawn by the strange mix of excitement for new possibilities and dread that they are gradually rendering me obsolete.

And just what in the holy hinterlands do these two things have to do with one another? Well, Google it out a bit, and I'm sure you'll put it together.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

Hint: The clue is in the title. Of this post. That underlined thing at the top.

You got it! It's Teh

Dennehy

. He's the voice of a fatherly rat, Django, in the aforementioned Pixar flick, and in

Inherit the Wind

he played the side of creationism in the form of "

Matthew Harrison Brady

". The essence of my experience was in watching

Ratatouille

and thinking, over and over, "Where have I heard that voice recently...?" (It appears as though my inability to recognize celebrities on the street extends to recognizing their voices out of context.) Eventually I put it together, and spent a lot of the rest of the movie marvelling at the eccentricities my and Teh Dennehy's (barely comparable) careers share. Odds are that when he was working on the rat thing, he probably hadn't even been offered

Inherit the Wind

yet, and yet they neatly overlapped in execution, allowing me as audience member to indelibly associate them. And perhaps they were more related than was at first apparent. The Disney money Dennehy made from playing a disapproving father (rat) may have allowed him to take what we have to assume was a lower-paying gig on stage.

The tradition of stacking "prestige" projects with crowd-pleasers is ages old, and not limited to film actors. It's an interesting aspect of a career that includes a degree of choice. Which is to say, a career with enough success that others

offer you

roles, instead of you constantly offering yourself like a dessert menu during the post-dinner lull at a restaurant. I believe, however, that the variation in choice of roles is based on a common ethic, regardless of degree of success or intention for calculated results. Said ethic:

Ya' never know.

(I am reminded here of an imitation of a random woman Todd, Heather and I met whilst working on

Silent Lives

. The show was performed in [and, in part, based on] the

Hotel Jermyn

in Scranton, a building that had been converted mostly to housing for senior citizens and one that now serves as home to The Northeast Theatre. In various silent-film-era costumes we'd bounce from the abandoned ballroom on the second floor to the common area on the first for the bathroom, and there would always be a circle of octogenarians there blithely minding their groceries and gossip until we'd suddenly show up, a flash from their youths. Anyway, the snatches of conversation we'd pick up from them [once they accepted we weren't there to mock their youth {well, not exactly, anyway}] have stayed with us still. The woman we quote most had two gems I remember. The first: "Always cook with

fennel

. I get real bad gas, and fennel clears that right up. Ya' gotta cook with fennel." This with a strange, nasal sort of dialect blend that I associate with 1940s Poconos somehow--midway between a Jersey and a Pittsburgh. And the other jewel, chanted at least three times without pauses: )

Ya' never know.

It ain't exactly hope. It's a more cynical admission of just how unpredictable the business is, and how mysterious the forces of fortune can intervene in an actor's life. It's a mantra supported as much by great missed chances as it is by ones somehow caught. To mine a previous example, imagine kicking yourself for scoffing at that show you were cast in for which they wanted you to sing and dance with a Muppet-style puppet, said kicking because the show moved to Broadway and won a Tony. Or, imagine yourself as Nikki Blonsky, the brand-spanking new starlet of the brand-spanking new Hairspray movie practically plucked from the halls of her high school.

Those who subscribe to the "Ya' never know" school of thought do know one thing, however. That is, whatever you are giving a chance, when you walk into the first audition, the first rehearsal, the first performance, you give the "never know" chant a rest long enough to give yourself this little chirp:

I'm [

insert name here

], dammit.

Poetics (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Downtown Theatre Scene)

The very first show I did here in New York was one I auditioned for within my first two weeks of moving here. I wasn't even going to audition. I felt like it was a bit quick for me, and I barely had a day job yet. But, considering it was why I moved there in the first place and that my then-girlfriend was auditioning as well, I screwed my courage to the sticking place and auditioned and got a part (girlfriend, not so much). The show was called

13th Avenue

(this would be the 2000 production, not the

2003

I just found out about), and it was an experience. I learned a lot about doing theatre in New York (especially original scripts) in a very short amount of time. I won't go into details about the show (you can thank me later), but I will say that it was an interesting experience in meta-theatre, being a show entirely about "below 14th Street" characters and performing it at the

Gene Frankel Theatre

, just south of Astor Place.

Not too long after (say, two or three shows later) I wrote a play (no, you can't read it [looking back, it's pretty terribly done]) called

Tangled Up in You

that addressed two subjects I had trouble getting my head around: the nature of love/obsession, and the downtown New York theatre scene. I was very much influenced by every experience I had had thus far in terms of the shows I had been involved with in the city, and my perspective hasn't changed that much in the years (SO MANY YEARS) since. In spite of it being the only sort of theatre I've done in the city thus far, I'm not a big fan. I wonder at a lot of aspects of it. Who are these people who choose to experience this extremely varied, often distressing genre of theatre? What do they want, or expect from it? Why does the more-adamant downtown theatre scene so often seem driven to

avoid

entertaining or providing catharsis? What drives so many of my fellow "creactors" and sundry to invest so much in shows I find so often incomprehensible, or unnecessary?

Get not me wrong. I'm a part of this movement. I have worn the Bauhaus costume. I have pretended my hair was on fire. It's just that, at heart, I'm a really basic guy . . . at least in terms of my appreciation of theatre. Just look at my sense of humor, and the work I've done the most of:

Zuppa del Giorno

. I like the classics; I like fart jokes; I like stories that surprise us, but accomplish a sense of ending. Call me simple. It's how I roll. I'm a fan of the unities. For those of you who managed to avoid Theatre History class (and this would include a great many theatre majors I know personally), "the unities" is a colloquialism used to refer to a parameter for tragedy described by Aristotle in his treatise on the subject:

Poetics

. Namely, a set of conditions that helps define, or rather contour, the shape of a tragedy. For instance, a play having a beginning, middle and end, and themes and actions complimenting each other. Aristotle mentions the word "unity" a lot in this document. Twelve times, actually. Eleven, if you're not including headings.

Last night my plan for the evening was very basic. I figured I needed rest, given my travels behind and ahead, and I knew I needed to do laundry and pack before a brief visit to my hometown this weekend. So the plan was only complicated slightly by needing to see my sister later that night, but it was a singular, welcome complication. Enter the complication master, stage left . . .

Todd d'Amour

, ladies and gentlemen! Let's give him a big hand!

Actually: do. At about 2:00 yesterday Mr. d'Amour calls me at my office, completely freaking me out by leaving this voicemail, "Non esisto. Forse." ("I don't exist. Perhaps.") It doesn't take me too much longer to figure out who it is, and soon after I'm hearing the master plan. It seems Todd is inviting me and fellow Zuppianna Heather out to see a show with him at The Kitchen, one which features a favorite (downtown) "creactor" of his, David Greenspan. Oh, man. Now I have to change my sedate plans. Have to, you see, because when Todd calls it's always a good time. When Todd calls in relation to theatre, it's a good time with the potential to be life-changing, with reduced risk of hangover. So I anted up, and was in and rolling.

But I had my doubts. The show(s) was(were)

The Argument & Dinner Party

, based respectively upon Aristotle's

Poetics

and Plato's

Symposium

. The theatre was at Nineteenth Street, but way over between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, which somehow makes it in every respect way more downtown. And the guy taking me to this extravaganza is part of the team responsible for

Stanley

[2006]

, which, though I loved it entirely, is exactly the kind of "downtown theatre" that perplexes me under different circumstances. We were only on the wait list for the show, this decision to attend being rather last-minute, and as we sat in

Trailer Park

awaiting the time of reckoning on that point I found myself perhaps not minding so much if we didn't make it in.

Of course we did. Only six folks did, but we four were first on the list, thanks to Todd's enthusiasm to get our names there early. The space was cavernous, and immediately made me wish we were seeing some kind of circus show. Sadly, I knew the first act was simply a man talking. I sat and waited for the entrance I had read about in reviews all day--said man simply walking on and beginning to talk, sans cell-phone warnings or lights dimming. And then it happened. He came in, and started talking, and the first thing I noticed was that he had a slight sibilant lisp. "Oh man," I thought. "How rough is this going to be?"

That's the trouble with expectation. It's the dumbest human capacity ever.

The Argument

was the best thing I've seen on a New York stage in years. I'm still mulling over what exactly it was about it that made it so engaging for me. It's possible that it was owing largely to the performer's charisma. Mr. Greenspan has a remarkable talent (skill?) for making himself inviting on stage, not just taking it by force, but literally giving you the option and making you feel as though it is continually your choice to pay attention to him. It's also possible that my interest in the subject matter--that is, the construction and mechanics of an effective living story--dominated my insecurities vis-a-vis the downtown scene. My fellow gaming geeks will no doubt agree that the construction of a good story is a topic of conversation that can inspire endless debate. Finally, there's the possibility that it was sheer empathy on my part. I've had to create my own work and hold a stage alone before (though rarely have the two conditions coincided [thus far]) and I am impressed on quite a personal level when I have the opportunity to witness someone achieving both.

But I hesitantly contend that there was a fourth factor to my renewed opinion of the scene. When I was doing

13th Avenue

, the writer/director said something about going to school for years to learn all the rules and, with that production, intentionally breaking every one. I have since heard this sentiment expressed variously and in various contexts, and it invariably makes me hitch my shoulders in an effort not to throw a piece of furniture into something(-one) breakable. As I've said, I'm something of a classicist, but I feel I have good reason. Like an actor who (to pick a personal foible) makes a choice that gratifies his performance more than the story, people today are eager for an excuse to "break the rules." So eager, in fact, that this act is more often

excused

than it is actually

motivated

. I don't trust most people to understand the rule they're breaking well enough to understand what they stand to achieve by breaking it.

Watching Greenspan willfully but sensitively break some of "the rules" in his performance and creation of

The Argument

and, better yet, making it work in light of those rules was thrilling. I believed he understood each choice, and trusted the reasons behind them even when the literal purpose eluded me. Best of all, he was quoting these thousands-years-old "rules" to us as part of the performance. I can't even say for sure if it was theatre in the technical sense (

Friend Geoff

and I have a running discussion over the merits [or lack thereof] of the dreaded monodrama), but then again I suspect that's how the Greeks felt when Thespis (so it's rumored) stepped out of the chorus and began orating all by his lonesome. I can understand why the appeal of being such an originator might draw some artists to some unfortunate conclusions. Just remember, you lot: Picasso could really draw.

Sadly,

Dinner Party

did not thrill as

The Argument

did, and didn't even really entertain me until Mr. Greenspan actually entered the stage at the last. It debated the nature of love, and so should have held me pretty good (love being the only subject more likely to inspire discussion in me than "poetics"), but alas it succumbed--in my humble opinion--to my fears for the evening. Some people really loved it, methinks.

That may be the real lesson in all this: Downtown theatre is a gamble, and some of us are addicts.