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

Ripley Grier Studios

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

The Torture Project

, 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,

I Was Tom Cruise

, and who is being utilized as a sort of

doppelganger

(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

mirror bit

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

Friend Kate

'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

The Torture Project

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

The Laramie Project

(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

2/27/07

) 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 (

'96

, I believe it was) when

Friend Younce

and I would trade creative assignments with one another every week or so.

It was not altogether successful. Laurie, our project leader, basically loves

performance art

(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' "

False Advertising

" 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

Joint Stock Theatre Alliance

. 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

POD

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.

This is What I was Afraid Of

More theatre in my life, less time and attention to ye olde 'blogge. Oh sweet 'blog, I want not for thee to be a mere band-aid for my theatrical ego. Whist! Whist! 'Zwounds! Other archaic exclamations! Be true to me, mine 'blog, and I shall carry thee onward like that guy in the sandy footprints poster!

In lieu of my own writing, I present you with some text I'm using as part of my "homework assignment" for

The Torture Project

, which renews its vow to become a real show someday--no strings attached--this evening. The following are terms and definitions harvested from the Grand Old

D.O.D.

I've already begun editing them for the piece I'm presenting tonight, so the "See also" portions at the end do not necessarily reflect the actual references on the website.

unaccounted for — An inclusive term (not a casualty status) applicable to personnel whose person or remains are not recovered or otherwise accounted for following hostile action. Commonly used when referring to personnel who are killed in action and whose bodies are not recovered. See also casualty status.

casualty status — A term used to classify a casualty for reporting purposes. There are seven casualty statuses: (1) deceased; (2) duty status - whereabouts unknown; (3) missing; (4) very seriously ill or injured; (5) seriously ill or injured; (6) incapacitating illness or injury; and (7) not seriously injured. See also casualty type.

casualty type — A term used to identify a casualty for reporting purposes as either a hostile casualty or a nonhostile casualty. See also prisoner of war.

prisoner of war — A detained person as defined in Articles 4 and 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of August 12, 1949. In particular, one who, while engaged in combat under orders of his or her government, is captured by the armed forces of the enemy. As such, he or she is entitled to the combatant’s privilege of immunity from the municipal law of the capturing state for warlike acts which do not amount to breaches of the law of armed conflict. For example, a prisoner of war may be, but is not limited to, any person belonging to one of the following categories who has fallen into the power of the enemy: a member of the armed forces, organized militia or volunteer corps; a person who accompanies the armed forces without actually being a member thereof; a member of a merchant marine or civilian aircraft crew not qualifying for more favorable treatment; or individuals who, on the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces. Also called POW or PW.See also hostage.

hostage — A person held as a pledge that certain terms or agreements will be kept. (The taking of hostages is forbidden under the Geneva Conventions, 1949.)See also missing/MIA.

missing — A casualty status for which the United States Code provides statutory guidance concerning missing members of the Military Services. Excluded are personnel who are in an absent without leave, deserter, or dropped-from-rolls status. A person declared missing is categorized as follows. a. beleaguered — The casualty is a member of an organized element that has been surrounded by a hostile force to prevent escape of its members. b. besieged — The casualty is a member of an organized element that has been surrounded by a hostile force, compelling it to surrender. c. captured — The casualty has been seized as the result of action of an unfriendly military or paramilitary force in a foreign country. d. detained — The casualty is prevented from proceeding or is restrained in custody for alleged violation of international law or other reason claimed by the government or group under which the person is being held. e. interned — The casualty is definitely known to have been taken into custody of a nonbelligerent foreign power as the result of and for reasons arising out of any armed conflict in which the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged. f. missing — The casualty is not present at his or her duty location due to apparent involuntary reasons and whose location is unknown. g. missing in action — The casualty is a hostile casualty, other than the victim of a terrorist activity, who is not present at his or her duty location due to apparent involuntary reasons and whose location is unknown. Also called MIA. See also duty status – whereabouts unknown.

duty status - whereabouts unknown — A transitory casualty status, applicable only to military personnel, that is used when the responsible commander suspects the member may be a casualty whose absence is involuntary, but does not feel sufficient evidence currently exists to make a definite determination of missing or deceased. Also called DUSTWUN. See also casualty status.

I wish to make it clear that, in spite of the themes of

The Torture Project

, I believe our military system is one of the best in the world. Any beaurocracy is going to have the silliness of acronyms and the categorization of terrible or ridiculous statuses. It's unavoidable. I admire the spirit of our country that creates such a furor over retrieving POWs and accounting for every MIA soldier; it's not like that everywhere.

I'm building something of a clown piece around this text (in, like, the next five hours) and though that may make it seem like I am taking lightly something horribly serious, I assure you that is not all that is going to happen. One of the fascinating things about red-nose clown, as I was trained in it, is that everything that happens must have personal resonance and be dire for the clown to function properly. To go even further with it, and brutally paraphrase much greater artists, what the audience responds to in the clown is the clown's plight, or even misery.

Because, whatever else, the clown keeps fighting.

The Art of the Quest

Yesterday I saw for the first time in person the great Redwood trees of

California

.

David and I had been busy all morning with the initial preparations for his mother’s service, and by the time it was mid-afternoon he had had enough, so off we went to

Big

Basin

national park.

I saw, photographed, smelled, touched and even stood inside what are—as far as we know—among the oldest living things in the entire world.

Apparently the great Sequoias are the oldest trees, a sheer 4,000 years as compared to the Redwoods’ paltry 1–3,000.

It was amazing just to be in such a forest, much less among that kind of ego-dwarfing natural occurrence.

These are the moments when I feel closest to divinity, and not even the mightiest spires of il duomi dell’Italia can compare to the architecture of Redwood.

God is, of course, on my mind a lot during this journey.There’s nothing for a reaffirmation of one’s faith in a higher power than being immersed in need for such guidance and support.I’m spending a lot of my time just trying to be ready for whatever David needs, and thus far it’s not much in the way of practical help, just someone to keep him in the moment and remind him he’s not alone.In fact, we’ve had some conversations about things like theatre and life in general the likes of which we haven’t known since the first year of working together, when we were just discovering how much we enjoyed one another’s company.It’s hard to say if that’s a direct result of recognizing how fleeting such moments can be, or just a side effect of spending a significant amount of time together again.It’s not all that important to me to come up with a reason, either.

Ann Zarko really was an amazing woman, by all accounts, and she and her son David are unusually deserving of one another.It’s easy to see where David gets his compassion, openness and love of life from.I wish I had known Ann.Everyone we speak to not only has their own important memories of her, but says the same thing eventually: They know that everyone will miss her, and she will be remembered by a lot of people.She was continually making new friends, and nothing about who she was faded, even in her final days.Tomorrow evening will be a viewing and rosary, and Thursday morning will bring mass and the burial.David’s being almost stubbornly strong.I hope he can find times to let himself go in the coming days.He loves his mother very much.

Possibly more magical even than BigBasin, yesterday David also gave me a walking tour of his life around my age…say 25 to 31.It happened rather spontaneously in the early evening, driving through Santa Cruz (where I now plan to retire once I’m Absurdly Wealthy & Famous) after the forest.I think David was a little embarrassed by his want to share those stories, but I couldn’t have been more excited to get that peek into the early years of Zarko.Santa Cruz is now very reminiscent to me of Austin.Well, maybe a blend of Austinwith Old Town Alexandria.It’s very funky and artsy, not just with college kids but a good proportion of twenty-somethings and young families.The Mall-like stores are definitely moved in, but I would say local businesses are still dominant.Apparently when David was there it was not even in a larval state of this resurgence, and his nostalgia is clearly tinged with a love for what was once run-down, as well as some envy of the success the town has known since.

He told me about opening his café there (stock Zarko lore) and I actually saw the building and bought coffee from a well-pierced prepubescent there.He told me about being young, and his friends at the time, and hanging out with Spalding Gray before he was Spalding Gray.Best of all, he explained to me why his theatre company at the time was named “Parcifel’s Players.”When he was young (and, I’d wager, on into this day) David loved this story of the knight, Parcifel (or Percival, or Pursifel, etc.).As we walked the darkening streets of Saint of the Cross, he told me the story as he had heard it, of a knight so foolish that he barely got by.His mentor ultimately instructed him, out of irritation for his inability to understand things innately, never to ask any questions of anyone who was his superior.

One day, Parcifel, quite by accident, bested the red knight who had been plaguing the court of King Arthur.As he walked into the castle in the knight’s armor, he was greeted with great enthusiasm. In order to complete his status as a knight of the round table, however, he of course had to go on a Grail quest.Parcifel does so, and finds a castle that promises the Grail.The duke of that castle promises him the Grail, they proceed through various ceremonies and celebrations.During this revelry, Parcifel has the impulse to ask three questions, but resists according to his mentor’s lesson.When he awakes in the morning, he discovers the castle long abandoned and dusty, the formerly lush surrounding lands barren, and an old woman who bears a striking resemblance to a young lady who had entertained him the night before informs him that if he had only asked his questions, the Grail would have been his.

So Parcifel, feeling the utmost failure and shame, pledges never again to return to Camelot until he rediscovers the Grail.He spends years and years traveling the countryside, deposing evil knights, saving the people from harm and spreading the good word of Arthur.Finally, in his late years, he encounters a knight and by custom challenges him.The challenges begin with insults, and as these insults progress it becomes clear that the two knights share the same father.They throw down their arms and armor and embrace, and suddenly the castle reappears to Parcifel, this time he asks the questions (which have changed) and achieves the Holy Grail.

This is a powerful insight to life, to the idea of always having to learn and relearn, to question and accept.It’s also a great peek at what it’s like to work on a show with David.His rehearsal is concerned with process, always process, and he understands that you may achieve brilliance quite by accident, and it will be impossible to return to that brilliance without time, effort and more time to understand something larger than yourself.It’s hard to accept that we don’t know.It’s hard to go on in good faith in the face of that.It’s worth it.That’s what I think.Maybe there is no grail at the end; it’s still worth it.Lao Tzu reminds us that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.The Redwoods grow huge one minimal ring at a time.And life may be brief, but it is full, full, full.

"Oh man. Oh dude. Oh no."

I've had a lot of occasions to contemplate the act of writing dialogue of late. Conversations with playwrights, readings, participating in

NYU

's First Look acting company and their film school, etc. It's kind of coming out of the walls, actually. Yesterday I was emailed two new scripts, one inviting me to participate in a reading (probably can't) and one asking for my feedback (see

Nat's 'blog

). A few days ago a friend made an unlikely request that I connect him with someone well-versed in screenwriting (Surprise! I know NONE, save my boss's husband [co-wrote a little movie called

Monster's Ball

] and that's just too weird.). I've done some play writing, to greater and lesser degrees of ill-advised notions (see tha' website for

one of my monodramas

...for two actors...sh'up!) and whereas when I was younger, short stories were the most natural milieu for me to narrate in, now I find myself inclined toward dialogue. Perhaps that's a result of surrounding myself with theatre. It's hard to say.

What's funny is that at times I get these snippets of dialogue bouncing around my brain that have no recognizable source. I'm a big fan of movie quotes, so my first inclination is to imagine that I'm randomly sampling some moment from some movie I've seen in the past twenty years. More often than not, however, when this Mad-Libs style of quote pops up (and lingers on) it is from nothing but my own noodle. It's a little like I'm quoting my own imagination . . . but I haven't even seen a teaser of what I'm imagining, much less the DVD with commentary. Which can be frustrating.

It's fine when it happens and the line or lines is/are rather poetic, or well-trenched in some context, but sad to say that is not the norm. The norm is akin to what you see in the title of this 'blog entry. Something on the level of stoner/slacker comedies from the nineties. In fact, the above is the quote of my day. I'm not dishing any money out for it, because it hails from my imagination and any money I paid you you'd have to pay right back to me in royalties. At some point not long ago, I realized I had been repeating this "line" over and over in my head today. Not just repeating the words, actually, but imagining myself acting them. Fiddling with the beats, the intonation, wondering about the person saying them and the scenario he's (it is a guy, that much I'm certain of) in. All of this is happening quite below the radar, as I go about my various activities, to the extent that I wasn't even fully aware of it until I started writing about it. And it's taking up some mental power. The rest of the stuff I'm doing is kind of getting the shaft. I mean, it's getting done, but not necessarily well, or quickly.

So:

Buttons

. I am rehearsing, entirely in my mind over and over again, a single line of dialogue, consisting of six words, which I made up from absolutely no criteria or context, and it's not even

good dialogue per se. (I like it, actually. I'm doing a lot with it, sort of hashing through the changes in perception the guy experiences as he progresses through the line, toying with how to communicate that he's really just at a loss for words, but still trying to find them, etc. ...) What. The hell. Is wrong. With this picture?

I really don't want to write another entry about how lame it is not to be working on a show.

So I won't. What I will write, is that I do verily dig the art of play writing. I can't claim to have insight into it, really, because it is an art and I do not approach it as such. It's a kind of miracle to write a conversation, and, while making it unobtrusive and believable, make it also rich, full of meaning and change. Because you start with nothing, and somehow get this self-contained world of experience and consequence that is vastly, intricately interwoven. Novels can achieve this, of course, but it's not the same. They often weave things like themes, or events. Plays (and to a lesser extent [lesser because it's a more purely visual medium, ergo less word-driven] film) weave together real-time moments, people instead of just "characters,"

lives

in the most encompassing sense of the word. It's amazing. McNally. Kushner. Churchill. Endless others, these people amaze me. Amaze me.

So I hesitate to call myself a playwright, sort like I hesitate to call myself a dancer, or like how I wish more people would hesitate before calling themselves actors. Because yes, I have written four full plays, had some of my work produced, etc., but I have too much respect for the people who really dedicate themselves to that craft to call myself in league with them as yet. It's not a self-deprecating pretense at all; rather a humble nod to fellow artists whom I respect. Shout -out to ma' homies o' the quill! What up, ninjas!

Now: "Oh man. Oh dude. Oh no." Write something incorporating this line. I dare you.