James Thierrée

Don't get your fingers in a cramp from

Googling

and

Wikipediating

the name. He is Charlie Chaplin's grandson. He deserves to be regarded in his own right. He has been performing in circus since he was four years old. I have finally seen him perform with his company, in their show

Au Revoir Parapluie

(

Goodbye Umbrella

). The company performed at

BAM

's Harvey Theatre. The last time I was in this theatre was a few years ago, close to when it had just opened. I was stilting in the lobby with

Cirque Boom

as a sort of warm-up to their contribution to

The Lysistrata Project

, which was a national initiative begun to protest the war in Iraq. As I took my seat for

Au Revoir Parapluie

, along with Friends

Kate

,

Patrick

,

Dave & Zoe

, I considered how long it had been since I worked with them all, how long it had been since I performed in a circus show.

Then I watched the show, which made my lungs laugh, my heart burst and my spleen evaporate. Plus it tickled.

Oh guys, guys guys: I can't spend the whole entry raving, but I could. There was so much about the show that I found personally appealing that I actually didn't notice the lack of concrete narrative, which usually irritates me when I attend circus/theatre. It reminded me of good classical music, the way it transports me so that my free association and emotions provide me with my own story. Circus performed with seeming ease, pathos and humor allows one to relax in that just-right way, a way that makes an audience receivers more than interpreters. The older one gets, the more their critical faculty takes over their personality, because they have more and more comparisons available. Great art, in any medium, allows us to happily (gratefully) release that faculty.

So this isn't a critique of the show. I was too inspired by it to be objective, and anyway it's sold out this time around (as opposed to closed, which is what most shows are by the time I get around to my opinion of them). No, all I'm saying, party peoples, is that capital-a Art still exists, and the French probably have more of it than we do. (Stupid French [it's a

joke

, Sara].) Plus (see, you knew that wasn't

all

I was saying), I am very inspired to make my own pale, incomparable imitation-of-style piece based on the show.

There was just so much to it that I want to be doing in my own work, yet am not. I've always been a fan of direct-address that breaks the fourth wall in one way or another (though I remain ambivalent about the Brechtian convention of "breaking character" to speak with the audeince, when in fact you're still speaking lines someone else wrote).

Au Revoir Parapluie

did this with action and clown, but no actor-spoken dialogue. It was completely sincere, yet transported the audience with music and surreal imagery. The performers were all capable of circus feats, yet also strong clowns and actors, sensitive and expressive and subtle. There was nothing pretentious to the show, even when I was amazed by it. Joy without guilt, catharsis without lingering sorrow.

When I was a young man, fresh out of my first professional theatre experience, I was driving around the southern states with my girlfriend of the time (

Friend Rachel

this was, for those of you keeping score at home) and whilst we mused on our performance futures I fantasized about a company of actors trained in dance, and vice versa, who would create brilliantly sincere and physical debut shows. I was going to call it Sugarsweet Willpower, which proves, as though nothing else ever did, that there's a good reason a lot of our youthful ambitions never come to fruition. This was prior to my even contemplating the worlds of circus or commedia dell'arte, and obviously I wasn't well-versed in theatre companies already at work on similar goals. No, I felt this idea was unique and timely, as well as of course feeling fully qualified to found just such an institution.

Ah, me.

It may be a bit gauche at this point, starting my own theatre group. It's kind of what all my comrades do. "Oh, Jeff started a company now? Yeah. Neat. So . . . how 'bout them Mets?" It's not something I'm interested in doing, at least not from a practical standpoint. I've seen too much of the "Artistic Director" process to be fooled by the name, and anyway, where would I find a Producing Director I could work with? (Who are these people? What makes them sign up for all the sucky parts? It ain't the pay, I'll tell you that much.) No, no company-birthing for this persnickity mother. What I might do, given the right circumstances, is make a show.

I say "might," because of

these

three

entries

, from which not much has yet arisen. I'm chomping at the bit to express myself, but not tearing up the track, and I feel as though the gate has been open a long time now. I hope this show was the poke in the rump I apparently need. I'm keeping it alive in my mind, replaying moments and recording my own ideas. It's interesting to me that I have so many outlets for creative expression, yet feel somehow that there's something personal, important and specific I have yet to express in my work. I want

Zuppa

shows to hang from the ceiling. I want

Kirkos

to craft another comedy. I want

UnCommon Cause

to improvise in performance (more). The most direct answer to all of these wants is to just do it myself.

Just as soon as the holy daze is over . . .

Sense Nativity

Since returning to New York from building and performing

Prohibitive Standards

, the only theatre I've participated in has been--in one regard or another--through

NYU's First Look program

. First Look is the name of the acting company (of about 200 actors) NYU's graduate playwriting class has compiled through recommendation to work with on staged readings and in-class development. I was recommended to the program about three years ago by

Faith Catlin

, auditioned, and have been enjoying the experience ever since. Shortly before I left Pennsylvania I agreed to participate in

Friend Avi

's in-class reading, which reminded a director I had worked with previously (

Janice Goldberg

) of me. She asked me to audition for a staged reading, which I did and thereupon joined, and during that rehearsal process she asked me to audition for a performance of the ten-minute play of another student. All this week I have rehearsals for that play, which goes up with others for four nights next week. First Look can be a little bit like a microcosm of that strange, informal system of networking that goes on in the theatre world of New York. When you're everywhere, you're everywhere; when you're not . . . best of luck, pal.

Last week, once I had successfully cooked the turkey for my visiting family (What's that thumping between my shoulder blades? Oh, it seems to be my own palm.), I relaxed into my sister's papasan and promptly dropped into

The Dreaming

. Since then I've been having regular anxiety (see

11/2/07

for shock and awe) about identity and emotional sensitivity. Most of the time I find it interesting that I have so much trouble remembering my dreams upon waking. I find it frustrating as hell when something

clearly very important

occurred to me in a dream, and there's little hope outside of hypnosis for my recalling it. So this is the general state in which I began rehearsals in earnest for my latest First Look endeavor.

My fellow actors are named Matt and Foss (forgive me, guys, for the lack of last names--this will be over so quickly I guess contact sheets are not a priority), and both are very professional, sensitive actors. (Incidentally, also a great looking couple, which is great for the piece.) I'm having a good time working with them. Matt hails from UNC-CH, and is doing a sort of study-abroad thing in New York. He's a highly energetic, physical, receptive actor, who gets comedy seemingly naturally. He understands how staged jokes work almost to a fault, to the extent that in rehearsal he can miss some moments of truth or listening for the sake of timing and the beauty of a well-executed gag. This last not-necessarily-a-fault may be something of a projection. To be brief, he reminds me of me.

When I was his age.

I suppose knowing oneself at the present moment of one's life, really understanding yourself as an individual in the here and now, is a challenging prospect for anyone. Consider it. I would bet you find it a lot easier to explain yourself in retrospect--even over a matter of a few days--than you would at this very moment. Perhaps this is a more significant question for an actor than someone who doesn't spend time trying to occupy others' skins. Perhaps not. I do know that it's a lot more comfortable not to ask this sort of question of oneself, but I consider that dangerous. Balance in all things, of course--over-analyzation is as detrimental to mental health as anything--but questions are good, and assumptions about oneself are particularly powerful. So I'm wondering a lot lately: Just who in the hell do I think I am? And how is he different from the am I actually . . . am?

Last week, amidst tech rehearsals for the last First Look staged reading I performed in, I ran into Friend Brie (

Briana Sefarian, nee Trautman-Maier

), whom I had not seen in almost a year. It had been an eventful year. One 0f the things Brie did in that time was switch her focus from acting to producing. Thankfully she's still acting when called to it, because she's a joy on stage. We discussed life changes at some length, and she helped me clarify some of the feelings I have been having lately concerning a need to take greater control over my work. Is it that she could particularly help me because we were coming from different places after so long, or different times? They may be the same thing. All I know is that, be it coincidence or my own need, she seemed to understand my present better than I do. (My "currency," if you will [And, frankly, even if you won't.].)

So I continue to enjoy rehearsals, and search for the next opportunity to discover something with the most open mind possible. It's funny (ha ha), but I started the Aviary with a lot of personal objectives aside from the declared

mission statement

. In the general nature of this here entry, and, I suppose, the general nature of yours truly, I was more aware at the time of writing of some of these goals than others. One that occurred to me very clearly, however, a few days after I started my frumious 'blogination, was that the Aviary would stand as a good account of at least a year's worth of the part of my life spent pursuing acting as both career and art form. As I close on the year's anniversary of launching this 'blog, I find myself facing a lot of the same questions I had a year ago, but a lot more information recorded for consideration. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.

But more on that later. There's no question I love the pursuit on some level, the effort at understanding. I'm like the Little Engine over here. I think I am; I think I am; I think I am . . .

I Did It My Way . . . With a Little Help From My Friends

Lately I have been wondering where I am headed with this whole

Zuppa del Giorno

thing. That seems a fairly natural consideration at this point. I mean, I just turned thirty years of age. For the past five years I have given a significant portion of my career time to working in this milieu, and in that time we have achieved many of the seemingly impossible goals we set for ourselves, such as simply maintaining an improvisatory theatre troupe for so long, going to Italy to teach, learn and perform, and developing work that honors and (I believe) advances a tradition of theatre oft neglected this side of the Atlantic. Add to that the homecoming nature of

Prohibitive Standards

(with David as director again and returning to completely improvised dialogue) and there's very little reason to worry over a need for personal reflection.

Yet I worry. In spite of investing so much and believing even more in embracing the unknown, it is disturbing to feel a lack of drive in this work. Perhaps it's very simple: We still don't know what next year's mainstage show will be, thus I have nothing specific to keep ruminating on at odd moments during the year. I think, however, it has as much to do with that uncertainty as it does with a certain frustration on my part. This frustration may best be characterized by a metaphor concerning the actual action of performing improvisation.

To wit: In long-form improvisation, one needs a certain familiarity at least with one's stage partners. In commedia dell'arte, this is enhanced by established bits of business carried from show to show, called lazzi. It's necessary to have some things understood. However, it is equally necessary to have a sufficient balance of completely spontaneous, unrehearsed moments--to have them, recognize them and take advantage of them. That's what gives the form its life, its truth and the lion's share of its joy.

And here am I (in the larger picture [the one in a five-year frame]) feeling as though it's all planned out. The scenario has solidified to the point whereat it is almost calcified. And more significantly, I feel as though I don't have quite the same things to contribute to breaking it up as I used to. When I started this work, I was twenty-five years old, with most of my background in stylized comedy sampled from sitcoms and farces. I leaped in headfirst, heedless of danger, and accepted everything I was told. My energy was boundless and I was determined to do wild things with unrelenting abandon. So it seems to me now, at any rate. Over half a decade, I have changed, and the work has been through many changes itself. It's difficult to distinguish between the two, speaking quite frankly. What changed in a given circumstance? It or me?

I suppose that's just one of the mysteries of life. And these changes in direction can't always be controlled, even when they're perceived to be happening. The challenge is to change with them, and carry the momentum forward. Accept and build. "Yes, and...."

What fun is it, knowing exactly what to do next, anyway?