ITALIA: June 22, 2007

Here’s where we went wrong, yesterday: When in Italy, you need to have desires, or goals. It is a land of great passion, desire and appetite. HOWEVER, no desire should ever, EVER take greater priority over your next cup of coffee.

Which is to say, listen to yourself and go with it. Don’t make yourself dopey by foregoing a good meal in order to get in the car to Florence quicker. You’ll only end up settling for roadside food and a caffeine insufficiency too late to really turn things around for you. Today we took this lesson to heart. First of all, our adventures of the previous day and the lateness of the hour of our return permitted us to sleep in quite a bit. I myself slept until 12:30, a normally unheard-of feat. When we were all up, the priority was a good meal. We knew we had the show in Pitigliano to attend later this night, so felt justified in moving at a simple pace and structuring things around when we accomplished them. This is why Italians are always late, and rarely frustrated.

So we had a nice lunch, and planned to visit our favorite little store in Orvieto for groceries and a visit with its proprietor, Vera. Doing this with no particular rush, we found we had plenty of time to eat, David swam and I exercised and acro’d on the lawn a bit (at one point looking up to find one of our neighbors on her porch watching with an expression that suggested a combination of fear and confusion), and we drove off to Orvieto feeling pretty fine. Once within its walls, Dvaid did some errands whilst Heather and I had cappuncini, used up our internet café cards and bought a plant for Vera. (The woman continually, unrelentingly takes lots of time to happily speak with us, not to mention gives us free bottles of wine and soda, when we visit her; we’ll never catch up on the gift front; she’s too good.) After a while we wound our way to Vera’s and had a lovely visit, incapable of escaping without having the wine we were trying to BUY from her hoisted upon us for no charge.

This entry—most of these later ones—grow more and more about a vacation than acting, theatre or The Third Life™. That’s one of the reasons we came here, I admit. As artists, we really don’t get “vacation time.” As Todd noted while he was here, so long as we get to do our work we generally don’t feel a need for vacation. What a lot of people outside of the effort of a Third Life® have trouble understanding is that we do work when we go out of town for a show, or take time for a tech week. The fact that we’re generally happier and better adjusted when we return just makes some people assume it was more like what sets them right, namely a couple of weeks out of the year to lie on a beach and sip margaritas, or some similar activity. As actors (and a director) our “vacations” coincide with our work, in part because that work is of necessity a third thing in our lives. It thrives most in these times we aren’t working to support our livelihood or focusing on a personal life. In other words, when we make time for it.

Not that I’m not grateful to be typing this on a sunny, vine-laced terrace in Europe, and not that it’s not luxurious and relaxing. I just wanted to express that observation to clear a little air.

So after dinner we headed to Pitigliano to see their production of Othello, or (as we shall henceforth refer to it):

La Strage del Teatro.

We had our warnings. Looking back, we had numerous cautions. And, I suppose, the worst of all possible outcomes would have been a show that sort of awkwardly straddled the fence between decent and sucky. Finally, to paraphrase Bernard in Black Books: “Enjoy. It’s dreadful, but it’s quite short.”

First of all, stupido Americani that we are, we arrived a half an hour before the time listed on the poster to have a gelato and take in that glorious Pitigliano sunset again. In so doing we witnessed the lead actor arrive, and one of the other, more punctual actors greet him at the door already in costume, said costume comprised of a lot of black gauze and satin. The doors didn’t open until the hour posted on the poster, and the show (if such a thing it may be called) didn’t begin until 10:00. Ah, we thought, let us remember this timing for when we plan a performance in Italy.

Imagine every parody, every farce, every pretentious off-off Broadway show, movie or skit you’ve seen, the subject of which is theatre or theatre life, roll them into one and make everyone speak Italian. You’ll approach what we witnessed. I have often thought it interesting, though etymologically difficult, how similar the words “tragedy” and “travesty” are. The idea has been made flesh. And black satin.

I’ve just conferred with my comrades, and there’s just no way to encapsulate all that was wrong with this show. Think of an aspect of theatre, and make it horribly, horribly wrong. David seemed to think that the director was someone who had seen a style of theatre in Rome or elsewhere Italian and decided that’s what he wanted to do, regardless of the show involved. I credit the director with less direction and more pretense and personal indulgence. Every character was dressed in black, gauze and satin, against a black backdrop. There was music during every interlude, of which there were dozens, and there was interpretive dance by non-dancers. Plus the acting was bad to the point of a approximating a slide show on what not to do on stage.

Redeeming qualities? Well, it was interesting to note—by way of this production and conversations with Andrea—that apparently not much Shakespeare is done in Italy. The language doesn’t translate well, and given the physical background of Italy’s theatre tradition, a language- or poetry-based theatre must seem fairly inaccessible to the general public. So what’s popular where Shakespeare is concerned (and he must be very concerned indeed), and was what we saw yester night, is to take the story and not the text itself. This is very interesting to me for two reasons. The first is that we would pretty much never think of doing this in the English-speaking countries unless the play was mere inspiration for an entirely different setting or conflict (West Side Story, for instance). The language is a major purpose of the plays for us, in other words. Secondly, transliterating Shakespeare strikes me as very similar—or perhaps a reverse-engineering—of what Shakespeare did to the commedia dell’arte plays he may have witnessed as a youth; plays such as may influenced A Comedy of Errors or All’s Well That Ends Well. Finally, for all the pretension of the director, the actors themselves were very earnest and modest in their efforts. This reminded us of Michael Green’s Coarse Acting plays, but it also reinforced for us that what we experienced was overall a positive experience, more full of good intention than an actual; disregard of or disrespect of us as an audience.

We drove home happily counting the Shakespearean clichés and regaling one another with our reinterpretations of favorite foibles. If the mark of a successful play is the continued effect it has on its audience, then this production of Othello was indeed successful.

Too successful, in its way.

ITALIA: June 18, 2007

This morning we awoke early to take Todd to the train into Rome, where he would catch the subway to the airport, where he would fly to Perugia, where he would then fly on to America. He had about three hours of sleep the night before, so hopefully he is able to sleep on the longer leg of his flight. We have a similar timing for our flight out next week, and I’m not looking forward to it. To depart at 2:00 in the afternoon, spend eight hours in the air and arrive at 5:00 in the afternoon is not only weird, it’s exhausting. They’d best not expect much from Todd at work tomorrow, or me next week.

It’s sad to have him go. Everything is a lot quieter, and we’re all adjusting gradually to the energy shift. We truly do adjust in his absence. Heather and I become more outspoken, and David takes more (albeit calmer) prerogative, but it’s never as adventurous or—frankly speaking—dangerous when Todd is absent, and as students of theatre we miss that when it’s gone. We’ll try to promise him not to have too much fun without him, but it will be a challenge. We are in Italy.

The rest of the morning was spent in Orvieto, dropping off laundry (YAY!) and visiting the farmacia and an internet café. I was supposed to have posted last week’s entries today, in fact, but changed bags and neglected to bring my wireless card. Hence the entry bearing this same date, yet containing nothing but an apology. When I finally do post these entries (under one entry, methinks) I’ll have to attach pretty much all of the existing labels, and maybe a few more.

Lunch was at our old favorite for it last year (mainly “favorite” because they made a deal with the language school that included free wine), Antica Cantina. The owner didn’t seem to recognize us, but he’s something of a craggy sort and may have just been under-whelmed to see us again. Afterward we picked up our laundry and arrived at Piazza Cahen to meet Andrea somewhat early, so we had a walk around a park attached to the piazza that overlooks what I believe is the south end of Orvieto. It was gorgeous. I’ve never seen it before. We quickly found Andrea and headed back to Teatro Boni to try on his props-acting workshop for size.

So much happened, it’s hard to encapsulate it all. (Sorry Todd—we really tried not to have anything worth noting happen after you had to leave.) We took our time warming up, which Andrea left to us, wanting to experience our style again, and we moved into partner stretching with him. This may have been pushing it a bit. The last, wherein you lift you partner, back-to-back, proved to be a bit much for him as a base. He didn’t seem seriously hurt, fortunately. We rapidly moved on to his workshop. He laid out a variety of props, both mundane and somewhat constructed to his purposes, and instructed us to take our time choosing one, then exploring it in our own isolation. He had several helpful (not to mention original) suggestions on how to approach this discovery, including to find all the sounds it can make and to consider the materials it is constructed of and where they come from. He went off to do some business for the theatre, which ended up taking longer than expected. That was fine with us. The music he put on ran out while we never did find an end to the exploration of our respective objects. It was the kind of work you never really find time for in a rehearsal process…but probably should.

When Andrea did return to break us from our trance, we discovered we were joined in the audience by the director of their current show (a Plautus play), Cesare, and a secretary of the theatre, Hanna. I swear, none of we three had any idea they had come in. I still wonder how long they watched us “exploring.” Andrea’s next assignment was to demonstrate three alternative uses for the objects we had chosen. David’s whisk and pot top became a wine bottle and tray, a mirror and comb, and a paintbrush and palette. Heather’s thermal blanket became a superhero cape, a cobra, jiffy pop and a balloon. My round wicker basket became (I couldn’t resist over committing) a helmet, ear horn, parachute, canoe and combination back hump and/or knap sack. Then Andrea, in what seems to be his inimitable style, requested we improvise a monologue incorporating our respective prop(s). I lucked out and got to go last on this, giving me the most time to think, and constructed a story (of a football player surviving a plane crash in the Himalayas) that I ended up actually feeling fairly satisfied with. It was a good day; good to see we could keep moving forward with Andrea in spite of losing our Alpha Communicator, and the workshop ended happily on all sides.

Actually, we had another surprise, as Andrea requested we present something of our work for Cesare and Hanna at the end of the workshop. Heather and I were quite taken aback. We couldn’t see doing the Valentino excerpt without Todd, and our other piece, the one that only involves we two (Death + a Maiden) is prop heavy, and timed in large part by a soundtrack. In the spirit of the workshop (and, I suppose, Italy) however, we attempted it. Heather used a milk crate for a chair, a sort of slender boa for a hair bow and a toilet scrubber for a mirror. I used the thermal blanket for a cloak, a collapsible Chinese long sword for a scythe and a spaghetti spatula for flowers. Sans music, which was a first for us, and sans rehearsal (read: fight call) of the acrobalance and momentum moves involved. It went great, all things considered, was well-received and full of discovery for us both. Plus we got another piece of "Zuppa in Italia" ("Italia della Zuppa"?) on film, impromptu though it may have been.

The adventure did not end with our day’s “rehearsal.” Afterward we five, plus another friend of the theatre, joined up for drinks at a local bar (“bar” in Italy is what we’d think of in America as a café) and getting-to-know-you. Then the subject of an amphitheater in town came up. It was being restored, and they hoped we could see it, though they joked it might mean “breaking in.” Well, we drove across town, and the place was indeed locked up. To my surprise, we actually did break in. At the encouragement of the others, Andrea, Heather, David and I climbed over an eight-foot wall and walked about the amphitheatre. It was heavily under (re)construction, with a giant, net-covered scaffolding in front of the yawning proscenium arch, but you could see how wonderful it would be. On the way back to Orvieto, after goodbyes to our new friends, we fantasized about Aquapendente’s first annual Shakespeare festival opening with our clown production of Romeo & Juliet, or Measure for Measure.

The day ended quietly, with we three opting to make a dinner of leftovers back at home base after dropping Andrea off. Night settles on slowly now, for a change, and with utterly allergic sinuses but completely fulfilled heart and stomach, I’m off to read Coarse Acting until I fall into increasingly vivid dreams.

ITALIA: June 16, 2007

We’ve had a couple of amazing days working and playing here, but I’m also losing a lot of endurance for the unfamiliarity and somewhat self-imposed isolation. It’s very difficult for me to feel I’m contributing anything when I’m so terrible with the language. I didn’t fully appreciate all the contact I had with our American studenti last year, and the way that made me feel more valuable to the experience as a whole. It’s going to be particularly difficult once Todd flies back this Monday. I don’t speak the language, Heather is much better with it but lacks confidence and David often has trouble hearing what people say. What exactly we’re going to do, I don’t know. I have to confess that I have contemplated trading my ticket with Todd if he were willing to do (capable of doing) what is necessary to stay.

The lesson for next time is to really work on my Italian. That’s the primary difficulty. Though my shyness is moderate, in Italy the desire to connect is much stronger, and if I can break past the language barrier my enthusiasm will undoubtedly carry me through any timidity I might otherwise have in new social situations in my native land.

Thursday began with a business proposition from our friend Piero, head of marketing at LinguaSi. He had a very strong proposition to essentially host Zuppa del Giorno through LinguaSi, establishing a separate association and including courses through the school that we would teach in a sort of high school, period structure, for LinguaSi’s students from all over the world. It was all very appealing—in some ways exactly what we’ve been hoping for—but there remain a great many considerations to be made and discussions with our other Italian contacts to be had.

Later we met with Andrea at Teatro Communale Porano to show each other what we do. As is by now to be expected, from the first moment there we were blown away by the environment. The theatre itself was not nearly as impressively beautiful as Teatro Boni; in fact it fairly closely resembled a little regional theatre in America. Then Andrea pulled back the curtain that ran along the back of the stage, and there was a fresco covering the entire wall up to the roof. It turns out the theatre was formerly a church. All that was left exposed were the wooden roof beams, a huge entrance door and that marvelously surprising fresco.

We presented the Valentino excerpt from Silent Lives, sans rehearsal. It went fine, all things considered. Andrea responded very well, but it has also been agreed since then that our timing and listening were strange after so long away. Not bad, per se—maybe just quirky. One of the benefits of performing this piece again was that—finally—thanks to my investment in my shiny red camera we have a little video of what we do. The quality is far from great, but it’s great to be able to watch what we’ve done to represent our work of the past three years. Afterward, Andrea presented a portion of a solo piece he’s performed for years: an encapsulation of the movie The Ten Commandments. It was absolutely charming, and afterward there was much discussion of how to bring Silent Lives over next year, and Andrea to The Northeast Theatre.

Thereafter it was off to il lago di Bolsena for the first time since our arrival (a favorite spot of repose last year). A gorgeous, huge volcanic lake, it was cold. Last year we had been there just a week later and the water was wonderfully temperate. In spite of the chill, David, Todd and I plunged in (well, I waded). It was great, once my body numbed itself a bit. A short drive later we had an amazing meal at a chance restaurant in nearby Montefiascone, and for surprisingly little Euro. I drove home as my friends dozed, enjoying the freedom of a little car on long, hilly Italian roads.

Friday was our day in Rome, to meet Sebastiano (a.k.a. “Romano”), another actor and a friend of Piero’s. He met us at Termini, the train station in Rome, which was a bit like meeting us on our doorstep for breakfast, as we all slept on the train. He is, in many ways, what I might have expected of a Roman actor. We all went to lunch at a place of his choosing (where they were accustomed to tourists, which is at once relieving and entertaining for me—they say things like “would you like water with gas?”—definitely a far better gaffe than some of the ones I’ve made in their language) and while we were there, a man on moped crashed right outside the door trying to avoid a young girl. American girl, of course. Everyone was fine, but it was startling. It perhaps also set the tone for the meeting. There was a lot of kvetching about how hard it is to be an actor in the big city. It’s nice to know some difficulties are not exclusively American.

We spent the rest of the day until our 20:00 train back to Orvieto sight-seeing. Sebastiano joined us for Dumo de San Petro (where Michelangelo’s Moses and the chains that bound Saint Peter are to be found) then departed for an appointment. The rest of our tourism was something of a disappointment. It was muggy, and some of us tired pretty quickly. We tried to see a commedia dell’arte puppet theatre Todd had discovered last trip, but it looked as though it were being torn down, and I did get to see my favorite place in Rome—Piazza Navona—but only as we charged through it to make our train. Todd remained in Rome overnight, of course (pazzo lupo that he is) and there’s yet another reason for learning Italian better. But the rest of us did have a good little meal at a pizza place where Orvieto’s furniculare lets off, and Heather and I stayed up a bit talking and watching the recording of our Valentino sketch.

Finally (I know you’ve been holding your breath [wait, are you still there?][hello?]), this morning we rose and Heather and I ran off to Orvieto to buy groceries and meet Todd’s train. It seems he ended up going to Sebastiano’s apartment and staying there, where he got a much more detailed (and increasingly positive) impression of the guy. We finally got more toilet paper (YAY!) and all settled in to a meal at a trattoria at the base of the winding dirt road from our agriturismo to the main road, which was splendid and cheap (yet again: YAY!). Andrea met us there and we ran over to Teatro Boni again to receive one of his workshops.

He brought his masks—amazing masks—and we spent three hours working our way into and learning how to effectively use them. We began by walking the space, getting into the feeling of our feet (a marvelous way to begin) and then imagining a specific environment of our choice to walk through. Mine became a vast, shallow, rocky river lined with trees. Once that was well-established, he asked us to choose an animal nature to occupy our environment. We lived a long time in that nature (mine, a beaver) before he asked us to bring it to our feet and interact. At this point we were almost our characters, and he set out the masks for us to discover in character. We all chose (I ended up with a Brighella mask—not entirely inappropriate for a beaver) and a tiny play of interaction developed. After a break, he assigned us masks, and we improvised a scene. Then we performed monologues as the various characters before calling the end of a working day. All in all, it was a lot of work, and very rewarding. We had planned on working in Andrea’s style with prop work as well, but there simply wasn’t enough time. Always our time is borrowed, always we steal some more.

The rest of the evening was pretty amazing too. First we drove to San Angelo to try and track down David’s friend, Mauro. He wasn’t around, and we had many interactions with locals to determine this. We spent a total of about twenty minutes walking around the town. We passed the house of a woman David had told us about last year. She had been the local priest’s mistress for years. When he died, the town chose to ignore her connection, and refused her any of his property. In response, she “went crazy” and began collecting all the wild cats to her apartment. When we were walking, we turned one corner and suddenly we were surrounded by all different manner of cats, and we knew where we were. Also in that time, a local man approached us and tried to give us the keys to Mauro’s apartment, assuming after word got around we were American tourists he had rented it to. Finally, upon leaving the town, we were approached by another man, who explained without prompting that Mauro and his wife had left town at around 2:30 to buy some meat. Google’s got nothing on a small Italian town.

Unsuccessful in our attempt to contact Mauro, we headed to nearby Rocolvecchi, the town that was the inspiration for our first show as Zuppa del Giorno, Noble Aspirations. It was meant to just be a quick nostalgia trip, but on our way by the local church we heard amazing music. We stepped inside and received a free, hour-long choral concert that was just amazing. I believe it was some sort of arrangement of medieval music, and it was thrillingly beautiful. Thereafter we were off to Civita di Bagnoregio, where we had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, overlooking the ancient city on a hill, before ascending to walk the city late at night. That’s a whole new kind of stillness, right there. We rather disturbed it for a little while, as Todd and I gave in to some fantasies and climbed a thing or two we really weren’t meant to climb. It was worth it. Risk is always worth it.

ITALIA: June 13, 2007

If ever I worried about how we were going to spend our time in Italy this time around (and, I did) it was a waste of time. Fortunately I’ll be gaining back six hours on the return trip. (Which will of course go directly into the jetlag 401(k) that I am gradually adding hours to.) When we weren’t preparing food, eating it or working today, we were planning more meals and times to work in the coming days. There is a temptation to make this entire Italy section of the log about the meals we ate while here, but that would be fairly out of keeping with the purpose of my ‘blog.

Breakfast was a nice meal of fried polenta con spinichi e carne, after which much of our time was spent shopping and preparing for the lunch we had planned to host for Andrea, his wife, and our friend, Lucianna. Actually, David and Todd went off to buy groceries, and after Heather and I had finished the breakfast dishes we worked on our handstands in the sunny yard overlooking a lush valley and a castle in the distance. What can I say? It’s a harsh, unforgiving environment out here.

Lunch was wonderful, but way too involved. It may be difficult for you to imagine why a meal begun at 1:00 wouldn’t resolve itself until 4:00, but only if you’ve never been here before. Nevertheless, afterward we ventured off to Acquapendente and the Teatro Boni to introduce our style of theatre to Andrea, and vice versa.

We were nervous to begin. Sometimes the basic building blocks of what we do seem so basic it’s difficult to conceive of a fellow professional actor appreciating them. We were all probably distracted from this nervousness, however, upon entrance into the theatre. It is small, but not remotely modest, a classical theatre with gilded balconies and a chandelier, and a beautifully maintained, hardwood raked stage that we didn’t think twice about working barefoot on. Once we had ooed and ahed enough over the space, we started with a warm-up. I suggested we collaborate around a circle, each contributing a warm-up activity, and we were off.

The warm-up evolved quite naturally into exercises in characterization and comic timing (tempo comico). Before long, there was very little of us demonstrating our training techniques (which is how Andrea preferred we begin together) and quite a lot of back-and-forth of sharing ideas. We capped off the encounter with a showing of photographs from our previous shows and a promise to demonstrate finished works live tomorrow, the idea seeming to be that unless we are intimidated by the prospect of what we’re doing the next day, we’re not doing enough. We’ll present our excerpt from Silent Lives that we used to fulfill our performance obligations last year, but not before running through it once or twice in the morning.

Thereafter, it was off to Lingua Si, the language school we were affiliated with last trip, to finally (I know we’ve only been here two-and-half-days, but it seems amazing we only did this by now) meet up with our friend, Piero. Once we had gathered him and some of his current studenti up, it was off to our friend Lorella’s agriturismo for dinner. I was very excited when I discovered this was the plan, not having understood this was in fact the plan. I chalked this up to my complete and utter failure to comprehend the Italian language, and just savored the memories of that beautiful place (and the anticipation of their unbelievable vino rosso). The evening progressed, and after we sat down to begin another extensive meal, our favorite Italian teacher from last year, Antonella, and her husband Toni arrived. It seemed so fortuitous. I am a moron.

At the dessert course, out went the lights, and out came a little chocolate and pistachio ice cream cake with a candle affixed to a plastic “30”. Ah, thought I. I hope they don’t expect me to make a speech.

They both expected and demanded.

“Grazie tanti, grazie mille. Mi piace Italia, si, ma mi amore tutti.”

Not even remotely correct. But hopefully I got my point across.

ITALIA: June 12, 2007

We have arrived in Italy. Actually, we arrived almost two days ago now, but owing to jetlag I am only this moment become self-aware again. It is just as we’ve left it (although, okay: with more construction on the highway) and it feels like home. Today we took our first visit to Orvieto, home of last year’s extravaganza, and it really was wonderful to revisit. Prior to that, when heading to the car rental place attached to da Vinci airport, each of us purported to feel as though we had never left…we just took a year to get lost before finding where we were supposed to be again.

Our occasion to visit Orvieto, as though we needed any excuse, was to meet David’s friend, Andrea Brugnera, and plumb the prospects of collaboration. The meeting, it was agreed, went very well. This was not merely because Andrea fed us coffee and ice cream, nor because the ice cream was topped with rum, nor because his rooftop porch faced onto the duomo. No, the meeting went well because we discovered that our interests were quite similar and we established times to work (read: play) together during the week that Todd is still here in order to discover one another as actors, improvisers and general old people. Tomorrow we’ll host lunch here at the agriturismo, then we’ll head to a gorgeous little theatre nearby to run through the patented Zuppa del Giorno™ technique. Later in the week we’ll get a taste of what Andrea’s been up to, and we’ll all discuss possible future collaboration. The important agreement between us all is valuing commedia dell’arte as a living tradition. We’ll see if the specifics enforce or betray this commonality.

One other very interesting thing Andrea showed us was a DVD of a Spanish program done on a fellow actor of his, Adolfo, who has been doing traditional commedia for years. It was fascinating, and in no small part due to the fact that what he does is so similar to what we do! Working in somewhat of cultural isolation as we regularly are it has been easy to imagine we were getting off track with our updating and transposing of the commedia tradition into contemporary (relatively) forms. It turns out we seem to be more in keeping with what the modern traditional commedia performer values than we could have hoped. There were moments in the DVD when his workshop looked exactly like one we would run. Basically the only difference is that we don’t adhere strictly to the stock characters, but venture to use them as inspiration for more complex or contemporary types.

There’s a lot to be done, a lot to explore. We ended our time out today by driving around the area we’re staying, trying to find a road to a castle you can see from our front porch. We made it to the nearest town and had a look around, never quite getting to the castle proper this day. But we got a hell of a view of it. Tomorrow, maybe, we’ll walk its walls.