Rabbits from Hats

Hwaet:

Zuppa del Giorno

is returning to Italy. Some are flying out as early as the 6th, but I don't depart until the evening of the 8th. We all come flocking home the 21st. In between, we are scheduled to perform at several theatre festivals, thereby offering up our very first solicited original work abroad. It's an incredibly exciting opportunity, and one on which a lot relies. We will get more exposure than ever before, and exposure specifically to theatre artists we want to involve in

In Bocca al Lupo

, and collaborate with on other projects. People will judge us by what we do, and their opinions will dramatically affect our ability to move forward with an international program, be it educational or performing, or both.

And we have no show to perform.

You might suppose that a troupe specializing in improvisatory theatre would relish this situation but, if so, you'd be wrong. Call us nancies, but when this kind of thing is on the line, we generally like to have something pretty tight put together. Then, should circumstances flatter it, we might depart from our show to enjoy a good tangent or two. How do we find ourselves in this particularly awkward position? Well, these trips always seem to pull together at the last of all possible moments, and commitments can be tough to come by. Our intention had always been to somehow resurrect (read: restructure)

Silent Lives

for performance in Italy. Not only do we not have the time nor resources to accomplish that, but one of our numbers has a conflict and can not join the trip. That leaves me and

Friend Heather

to conceive, build and perform an hour-long, wholly original show.

Friend Heather moved to Scranton about a year ago. Which kind of makes me want to smack her right now. (But Heather's always kind of fun to smack, anyways.)

So we've met a total of three times -- repetitions of three being

inherently

funny -- for about four-hours-a-go to develop a show we can perform between the two of us; a show that is not verbally language-based, that is easily transportable and, one hopes, entertaining as all hell. No pressure. Prior to these rehearsals, we collaborated over email a bit, as we are wont to do, unless we actually set up a

blog

or

two

to coordinate multiple input sources (read: folks). I wrote out a strenuously over-involved, quasi-scenario (for three; this was when we thought we still had three with which to work), and Heather wrote back with her version of the same (including such useful responses as, "I'm not sure about the sock puppets..."). After all this, we met in New York to "rehearse," and, as though I hadn't enough to thank her for by now, Heather took the onus of the travel upon her martyred self.

I'll skip to the end a bit here, to say that what we now have is a largely silent clown piece that -- we hope -- should take about 45 minutes to play out, about a couple growing up and old together. How we got there was a good deal different from creative processes Zuppa del Giorno has heretofore engaged in, driven as we were in a unique way by necessity. Heather and I actually have a couple of ideas for independent collaborations together that we discuss whenever we're frustrated with whatever we're supposed to be working on, but none of these ideas could be squoze (is SO a word) into the framework of our festivals. Given our limited time to develop the show, we elected to mine previous material as much as possible. Which, oddly enough, is a very traditional commedia dell'arte thing to do. After four years of working together, we have several lazzi that can be dropped in to whatever we do.

Our first thought was simply to compile all the couples we had played in Zuppa shows (Heather and I are the Burns & Allen of northeastern Pennsylvania) into a kind of review. The trouble with this idea was that most of our couples spoke as part of their characterization, and it didn't provide us with a simple through-line, which is something we knew we'd need. You can pfutz about with conventional narrative, sure, but we have enough problems confronting a language barrier. Eventually, we recognized that the characters we had played could be pretty handily slotted into different stages of life, which reminded us of our conceit of three people growing up together in

Silent Lives

. So when we met, Heather and I immediately started playing with old-couple characters. It was the least-explored aspect of a life-cycle for us thus far. She had recently played an older woman in

Time, Timing, Timeless

, and I had a farcical old man in

Legal Snarls

, but never together and neither with any romantic or quibbling overtones. So a matter of days ago, we met in an aerial acrobatic rehearsal space in Williamsburg and explored.

More to come on this piece as it progresses, but David (Zarko) has already had to title it for submission:

L'amore e' mazzo, ma buona

(

Love is Crazy, But Good

).

Ta-Da

It hath been a most manic week.

This week promises to be still more so.

Last Monday and Tuesday,

Friend Heather

came into town from luxurious Scranton and for two evenings we attempted to cobble together a show to take to festivals in Italy. Just the two of us. (Yet without using that song, in spite of it being stuck in my head for weeks now.)

Wednesday and Thursday evenings were my only times to pack for my move this week.

Friday I worked for

NYU's school of film

, acting in short scenes for their student directors as a part of a "blocking exercise." That was the first part of the day, and then I travelled to Queens to secure storage space, and then I and

Fiancee Megan

were off to Virginia for what turned out to be a seven-hour bus ride.

Virginia was a welcome break from running about arranging moving logistics and rehearsal times, but not so much a "break" entirely. (Though I

did see Friend Davey and his lovely SigOth

, which was rad.) There was much to prepare for The Big Show. I'm taking to calling the wedding "The Big Show." I rationalized to Fiancee Megan that calling it such would justify my writing off travel and such as business expenses, and she gave me one of those wry looks that says, "You're so funny I can just restrain myself from kicking you shin-wardly."

Monday's bus ride was thankfully much briefer; largely I was thankful because Friend Heather was making yet another trip into the city that evening to develop our Italian show (working title:

The Really-Awfully-Good-Show Show

[

The "RAGS" Show

]). We met up in Central Park, unable to find rehearsal space in time, and headed directly to Sheep Meadow to make public foolery in the name of Art. Whilst crossing the meadow, someone called my name and we connected with Friends Austin and Sara from

Corporate Carnival

, enjoying their holiday as well any red-blooded American should. We could not dally, however, and rehearsed acro and clown bits 'til the sun went down. While we were doing so, a gentleman by the name of

Oz Sultan

filmed us, interjecting direction, quite without our invitation. Ah, New York! (To his great credit, he did give me his card so I could get a copy.)

Heather's also in town because this week we're performing our clown duet,

Death + A Maiden

, as a part of

Emerging Artists Theatre

's comedy festival,

Laugh Out Loud

. That's Wednesday. Tuesday I'm performing in the same festival, solo, with a stage adaptation of my party piece featuring my silent-film-esque character, Lloyd Schlemiel (last featured at

Friend Melissa

's

benefit for her company

,

Kinesis Project Dance Theatre

). I've had not a moment to work on this piece, and am terrified for tonight.

Then Thursday is my only evening to move, after work. Friday brings more rehearsal.

It's crazy to love this.

Baby Elephant Walk

Last Sunday I participated in a reading of

The Elephant Song

, by Nicolas Billon, at

The Workshop Theatre Company

. It was a one-day affair, in which we had four hours to rehearse, and performed it for a public audience only once, shortly thereafter.

Daryl Boling

, with whom I have worked severally as both director and actor (

A Lie of the Mind

,

Good

,

Center of Gravity

) directed the reading, and I was joined on stage by two actors with whom I had never before worked:

David Ian Lee

and

Letty Ferrer

. The reading went well, I think. The work was very different from anything I have done recently.

The Elephant Song

is a taut, quite literally psychological drama, sort of a mix of

Equus

and

Doubt

. The main action involves the director of several sanitariums (Lee) interviewing a patient in one of them in order to ascertain the whereabouts of one of his doctors. A nurse who is more familiar with the patient (Ferrer) intervenes regularly to make certain everything's progressing smoothly. And the patient, naturally, is an incredibly intelligent, incredibly disturbed little boy of 23 (bless Daryl's heart -- he's always seen me as a "young seeming" sort). Throughout this short piece -- we ran it in 90 uninterrupted minutes -- the patient makes the doctor jump through hoops as he ultimately gets what he wants, which naturally turns out to be something no one else had been able to guess.

So after months of not working, then more months of doing comedy and physical theatre, I dropped suddenly into performing an intense all-text drama, the likes of which I had not attempted since

A Lie of the Mind

(see just about the entire month of

April 2007

for my feelings on how I did in that play). Like many men, I worried about my ability to perform -- my ability to worry being my strongest, most at-hand ability. The script was daunting. The character could so easily vacillate between overwrought pain and irritating manipulation; in another word, extremes. I also tend to balk at characters who experience extremes of emotion. I know that must seem odd for an actor, but I mean to say that there are those who can summon great, sincere emotion from the ether, but I am not among them. I generally need a fully developed character, and to explore that character at some length, otherwise I feel fake. Usually.

I believe I was pretty successful at this reading, however. I owe a great deal of any success to Daryl's sensitivity and communication skills, and the receptiveness of my fellow actors, and all mistakes were my own, naturally. As I often experience, the second run (sans audience) was much better than the final product for me. I felt most connected to the moment then, and didn't have to push in any scenes. There is a prolonged section of monologue for the character in which he talks about where his obsession comes from, then a short time after tells the story of his mother's death. It's intense; a real chance to go too far or accidentally not put enough of yourself in. I wish our audience could have seen the pitch I hit in rehearsal. I was fine in performance, I think. But it could have been amazing.

I love acting in drama, and I don't have as many ready opportunities for it. I don't suppose anyone does exactly, now-a-days, what with what shows are more easily marketed and sell more tickets. But in particular, I don't because I can get typed pretty obviously as "crazy physical-theatre dude" or "clown-loving goof." With good reason, and I love those aspects of my performance opportunities. Still, I yearn for drama -- even tragedy -- for its complex simplicity, its sincerity and particular catharsis. Working on

The Elephant Song

, even for such a short while, scratched that itch a bit.

Which is good. Because I've got nothing but clown headed my way for the next two months.

The Vasty Deep

I grew up around Washington, D.C., so the first time I went to a museum in New York and was asked for $15 "suggested" admission, I did a double take. I wondered if I had wandered into some incredibly large Imax movie theatre instead of the MoMA. The students around the D.C. area are quite accustomed to all their field trips taking them to some place in or around the Smithsonian Institute. We hear of touring factories or a post office on such trips, and think, "Why would you go somewhere like that, when you could have dinosaurs instead?" I took it for granted. I also took it for granted that, at some point, at least one field trip per year would terrify me beyond my endurance.

I had many powerful, irrational fears when I was young. I feared standing near tall buildings, or under high ceilings, homeless people, alternately cats and dogs, etc. I've gotten past all of those, even going as far with most of them as to learn to love them, in their various ways. I retain, however, my fear of large sea creatures. Even fictional ones. It makes me pretty jumpy even to think of them enough to write the words. Suffice it to say, when you see me having to act fearful on stage, I may just be resorting to a little sense-memory indulgence.

As one enters the

National Museum of Natural History

, you are immediately confronted by an impressive rotunda and a stuffed elephant smack dab in the middle. That was all well and good, once I got over my fear of being under high ceilings, but to one's left upon entering was a room in which I'm still not entirely comfortable. It contains a giant model of a Blue Whale suspended from the ceiling in such a way as to greet you upon your entrance with its face. The lighting, too, is especially dim and moves in lazy waves, simulating the effect of being deep underwater. If I'm remembering correctly, they even have whale-song playing in there. Relaxing, no?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! [Man runs screaming from own memories...]

I don't know quite why this manner of thing is frightening to me. The model Blue Whale in the New York museum doesn't scare me quite so badly. It's suspended in a much larger room, with generally brighter lighting. But if I go to the far left corner, to see the diorama of a fight between a Giant Squid and a whale, I get panicky again. That's a much darker scene, and I'm reminded of Natalie Wood's fear of "dark water." I think the dark-water part is key in my anxiety, but certainly there are plenty of creatures to augment anxiety into outright dread.

Case in point: Not only are there Giant Squid out there, menacing the depths, but apparently now there are also

Colossal Squid

. It's like the giants of the sea are victims of an escalating Japanese advertising campaign. I next expect to hear about the Super-Amazing-Healthiest-Truly-Enormous Squid. Not only is the Colossal Squid scary in its bigness, its suckers have rotating claws within, it has the largest eyes of anything we know of ever, and a freaking "conveyor-belt-like tongue," with teeth jutting from it. If there is a more literal killing machine, would it please step forward now and politely go extinct immediately?

Finally, and in the spirit of full disclosure, I fear fictional animals of the deep. It's true. The supposed Loch Ness creature scares the bejeezus out of me. All I have to do is imagine seeing such a thing in the water, and I am immediately fearful for my life. Do I feel this way when I see a tiger, or someone I think is a gang member? No. Imagine a

plesiosaur

surprising me from out of a lake, though, and I lose all feeling in my knees.

Why? What does it all mean? Who can ultimately say? I don't really buy into past-life explanations. Reincarnation be what it may, I find it romantic to a fault to presume that "memories" from past lives could exert a strong influence on the present. Repressed memories are another somewhat romantic explanation, in my opinion (though certainly more arguable than centuries-old personal habits). I'm more inclined to explain these things in two ways: in evolutionary terms and psychological theory. From my point of view, most emotions can be pretty directly linked to instinct, particularly survival instinct. Self-awareness brought us to a more detailed evaluation of our inner experiences, and so words like anger and irritation came to replace "that feeling of badly needing to kill something," and the word "hunger" took on multiple duties, applied to all sorts of things unrelated to food. From this perspective, it's natural for me to fear large, unpredictable forces in a dark environment; an environment in which, incidentally, I am not overly capable. Rather a weak swimmer here, actually. But that's a chicken/egg/chicken thing if ever there were one. Am I a'feared of deep water because I don't swim well, or do I not swim well because I'm so a'feared of deep water?

Ultimately, from the more psychological perspective, the connections are pretty explicit. I'm a meticulous sort at heart, someone who needs to understand everything he can and savors spontaneity only so long as it doesn't surprise him

too

much. Is there anything more surprising than discovering an alien creature right next to you, where one never was before? That's the effect of dark water -- nothing can be seen coming until it's already close, and it can come from literally any direction. The Y axis enters the picture in a big way underwater. Of course, what's most interesting to me about this fear is that the terror is not contained in the creature, be it whale, squid or

Dread Cthulhu

. The creature involved only actualizes the terror, forcing me to acknowledge it. No, the persistent, inescapable fear, the real psychological consideration, is me, in that deep, dark water, waiting. And given that environment, that solitude, who's to say what I even am to myself? Who am I, that alone? Identity is lost so completely, even crying out may do no good to remind me that I am still there.

These waters deep enough for you? Watch out for the Colossal Squid.

The COMPLEAT VICTROLA SESSIONS - Part 1

Yesterday I had my first of two days' filming on

The Compleat Victrola Sessions

, a really, really cool project that I'm feeling very lucky to be involved with (albeit in an unpaid, catch-as-catch-can sort of involvement). The project is to create a silent film, which will be accompanied in performance by the musician who is also starring in it, one

Ms. Rebecca Cherry

. It's directed by

Winsome Brown

, and the directory of photography is

Jennifer Reeves

, who is filming the whole thing in 16mm. Yes: 16mm. As in, film. The black-and-white, silent kind, on which you can only get 44 seconds of shot-time at a go. The only way it could be more authentic is if it were a hand-cranked camera. (Here's a taste of what the cinematography may look like:

The Unfolding Opium Poppy

.) Needless to say (unless, of course, this is your first time on ma' 'blog [in which case: Hi! You should know I can't get enough silent film. Wait. Where are you going...?]) I could hardly be more psyched to sit in on this process, much less act a (very) little in it.

I arrived horribly bloody late at yesterday's shoot location: a quite run-down

loft-cum-performance space

in Brooklyn off the JMZ. In a slight panic, I dashed up the stairs -- which are probably not exactly compliant with housing standards, but I was afraid I was already fired from my non-paying job -- and burst into a large room in which several people were . . . milling about. Looking quasi-purposeful. A couple were women in 1920s' dress, and they had the same expression of expectancy that I would be wearing for about the next hour thereafter. Here we are. What do we do?

Eventually all was made clear, but not before I went through a good period of feeling oddly awkward and guilty, standing there, in suspenders and vest (AND pants, you ruffians), reading my NYPL-loaned play, wondering if I had dressed up enough, if I should be doing something, if I was creeping people out by not making nervous conversation with anyone. Eventually, the room was set up to resemble a "speakeasy" (I so wanted to tell them it was more a "blind pig," but for promising myself not to geek out too much through the day) and the director finished working in another room and found her way to clear a few things up for we wandering extras. Between her needs and our costumes, she allotted us roles and, owing largely to my shirt sleeves and vest I'm sure, I was cast as the bartender.

It ended up being a great day, when all was said and done. It was intimidating at first because A) I didn't know a single person there, and B) the general atmosphere of the building could not be helped but to remind one of a disused crack den. I soon discovered, however, that everyone there was not only excited to be there but generally interesting and friendly. The leads were even psyched to have extras there, I think, for having new folks to talk to. It is true for film in general, I believe, that a lot of the time spent "working" is, for the actors, time spent waiting. Particularly true for a silent film that can only be shot for seconds at a time, with one camera. As a background player, the most taxing thing I had to do all day was to stand for a prolonged period of time. Which, as

Friend Patrick

has attested, ain't exactly easy. So it's good to converse with your fellow man as much as possible. Most professional movie actors have perfected the art of taking interest in what you have to say, I'd wager.

As to the film itself, it's hard to get a whole picture of it (so to speak) from my perspective as a relative hanger-on. I'll tell you one thing: It ain't a comedy. Our heroine gets addicted to . . . opium, for one thing (heroin not yet being in vogue), and for another, it would be a real SOB to film a comedy in this format. The which presents some interesting considerations for Yours Truly, and I wish I had more hats to take off to all the silent comedians of days gone by. At any rate, be it

16 or 24 fps

, I was of course a little disappointed not to find a pratfall anywhere in the room. I had even brought a pair of Lloyd-like glasses with me in case a little visual homage were in order, but it was clear from the start that such was not the objective of this particular moving picture. So I wiped the bar down, and I made chit-chat with actors when their mark was nearby. A pleasant day. And hey: Free Thai food!

I return to shoot in a couple of different settings this Wednesday. One of these settings is a concert hall, and occasioned the purchase of a gray top hat. Why do you need a gray top hat? I don't. Not really. BUT NOW I HAVE ONE! Ahh. It really is the little things in life. There is also something of a possibility that more of my individual talents may be brought into play. When I originally sent my information to Winsome, expressing interest in the project, I highlighted my movement experience, which of course includes some stage combat. Apparently there is to be a scrap filmed on Wednesday, and she suggested I may be useful for that. I don't know if that means I'd be involved on film, or advising about movement, or what. We shall see. Whatever the outcome, it's exciting just knowing that I get to return to that world.

I'm in a silent film. God, I love my job.