Tying Up the Air

(Wonky title, eh what?  Refer to 9/24/10 for context.)


I'm revisiting my first aerial silks piece because this weekend Wife Megan and I will be participating in Streb's Valentine's Day benefit, 2Good 2B Bad.  The above is the video I had to submit to get into the Halloween show, the below is the final product.  For the next show, I'm raising the stakes a little bit by trying for a more serious piece.  Humor's great, but it makes excuses for lack of form, too.

Not that it was the only reason I had for this piece, and choosing to make it clown-like.  I thought of the choice more as playing to my strengths, and it rather does.  Although I must admit that maintaining a sense of your audience's response from thirty feet up (and upside down) is something of a skill that requires experience.  Nevertheless, I ended up feeling pretty good about this product.  It wasn't as frenetic - or flashy really - as the initial draft, but it couldn't be - one of the trickiest bits of circus is pulling it off with control, making it look easy such that it puts the audience's mind at ease.  That is, until you want to startle or amaze them.

It's interesting to me that I'm not aiming to startle or amaze my audiences with the act I've devised for this weekend.  Maybe it's just all the effort I've put into making it more formal, less frenetic, but I'm content to let it be what it is.  What it is, is, I hope, a more lyrical piece that hints at a character's story rather than basing it in his immediate struggle for a concrete goal.  This too is a departure for me.  Even in the circus-theatre shows I've developed and performed in, I've always been the one pushing for an accessible story, something that meets the audience halfway in their task of interpreting the presentation.

I suppose it's my study of silks these past couple of years that has changed my perspective on this somewhat, and made me see the personal possibilities in creating a performance for which the audience fills in their own meaning(s).  Audiences do this to some degree anyway, but often with plays and the like it's not as invited as in more "abstract" mediums such as music or dance.  These usually don't make a lot of effort to spell out plot details, much less provide them in a chronological or otherwise linear-structured format, even when they are based on a story of some kind.

I'm not exactly comfortable with that.  Just like I'm not exactly comfortable with trying to perform a piece that's purely skill-based physical without aiming for laughs.  Undertaking this personal challenge is probably a most telling moment about me, and the fact that I am in at least some small part just a frustrated dancer.  So I have no training in that field, I get apocalyptically frustrated with dance choreography, and I can't point my toes worth a damn, but . . . here we go, any dang way.

I Can Not Stress Enough...

There's a little voice in my head that moonlights as an escape artist.  It must be, because no gag or act of psychic bondage will shut the little son-of-ma'-brain up.  It is in essence a control valve for my ambition, and it goes a little something like this:

"Jeff.  Jeff.  Jeff.  Jeff.  Jeff.  Hey Jeff.  Jeff.  Jeff.  Hey Jeff.  Hey.  Remember that thing you have to do.  You know: the thing.  Not the one thing, but that other thing.  But do the other other thing first.  And then remember to come back to the first thing I mentioned, and then do that one thing.  If you can't remember any one of these things, well, you're probably going to screw it all up.  Actually, you will.  Screw it all up.  It's already screwed up, by merit of you being the one who has to do it.  It's all going to turn out very, very badly - even worse than using an adverb in an ambiguous context.  Which you just did.  Worse yet, the aforementioned screwing up will occur as a result of a spiral of failure starting with some small thing and eventually taking the entire endeavor known as YOUR LIFE down like the Titanic.  Because that's what happens to big, ignorant things.  Hey Jeff.  Hey Jeff.  If you don't stop sucking soon, it may already be too late..."

He's an extremely helpful little guy.  Especially when one is dealing with multiple deadlines.

Recently I added to my roster of responsibilities some work for a company that sends actors in to corporate environments to facilitate lessons in communication between managers and their team members.  I was wary of this sort of work at first, because

Wife Megan

worked for one such institution when she first moved to NYC, and they sounded horrible.  Very touchy-feely, metaphoric and therapeutic in their approach, which I personally find inappropriate for a work environment.  (Yes, even in theatre work - a debate best left for another post.)  Fortunately, the place I'm working for now has a more pragmatic view of communication in the work place, and it's one I thus far agree with.

So I'm trying to apply their philosophy to a conversation with my extremely helpful little guy (henceforth "EHLG").  It might go a little something like this:

Me: Hey EHLG. How are you?

EHLG: Hey Jeff. Hey Jeff.

Me: Um - hey.

EHLG: You know what?

Me: What's that?

EHLG: You suck. At living.

Me: Okay, see-

EHLG: Living is something you're very bad at.

Me: EHLG.

EHLG: Hm?

Me: Do you see what you just did there?

EHLG: You mean the way I spoke truth to power?

Me: Well from my perspective, you tried to tear down power.

EHLG: Word up.

Me: But see, EHLG, I don't have much of any power over you.

EHLG: Word up.

Me: And if you tear me down, it only hurts both of us.

EHLG: Word...huh.

Me: What is it you're hoping to get out of this?

EHLG: You know, you're not very good at this feedback stuff.

Me: Okay.

EHLG: You fake it pretty good, but that can only take you so far and pretty soon you're going to fail and suffer.

Me: I'm suffering now.

EHLG: Not as much as you will if you keep going.

Me: Is that a threat?

EHLG: You know, you're not very good at perceiving threats.

And let's take a little break here.  This is a weird post, I'll admit it, but also pretty interesting to me, I must admit as well.  The first practice session I had with the feedback-training company got confusing quickly, because we were all trainees and we ran sessions with one another.  That meant that in addition to trying to learn the techniques the company used in role-playing, we were at times role-playing being a facilitator who was role-playing being an employee of a manager/student who was, him or herself, a role-player; all the while improvising a scenario with specific given circumstances.  (WE HAVE TO GO DEEEPER [

BRAAAAHHHHHMMMMM...

].)

The big mistake I made in that practice session was not when I was playing the manager, but the actor/facilitator.  I got confused, and came on too strong with the obstacle that "manager" was being asked to deal with.  Ideally, one wants to adjust to his or her level of intercommunication and nudge it towards something more, and I just barreled on through with my characterization instead.  Call it my learned imperative response as an actor.  I've gotten better at it.  One key element is to insert a pause in the role-play for analysis and discussion.  It allows the manager to reflect and feel permitted to try a fresh angle.

EHLG: You suck.

Me: Thanks EHLG; I appreciate your feedback and will try to consider it in future endeavors.

EHLG: You're welcome.

Me: I wanted to talk to you today about your feedback, actually. Have you found it to be getting you the results you want?

EHLG: Mostly. I have to keep repeating myself, which is pretty irritating, but that's the way it goes when you're talking to someone sucky.

Me: Have you thought about trying a different approach?

EHLG: Oh, I'm always changing gears: you suck, you blow, you aren't good at anything ever, you are justly hated and/or despised, your failure is compounded by your ugly face and funny clothes, etc.

Me: You do spend a lot of time coming up with that feedback

EHLG: Thank you.

Me: Let me tell you, though, that what I see is that your negativity is working against you, making your job harder on yourself.

EHLG: You're not very good at perceiving reality.

Me: Thanks, EHLG, for phrasing that in that way.

EHLG: What way?

Me: "Not very good."  You did that earlier, and I really appreciate when you show that consideration for me. It makes me feel better about listening to you.

EHLG: Your feelings are unimportant and stupid.

Me: You're welcome to have that opinion, but can I just point out that by assuaging my feelings, you make your job more efficient? In addition, by ignoring them, you imperil your position in this personality.

EHLG: I do?

Me: Of course, I wouldn't want to lose you if I can help it, EHLG.  You are always working, always keeping an eye on your well-being, and I appreciate the vigilance.  It's just that your negativity threatens to bring down everything you touch, and I of course can't have that happening. By being so aggressive in your input, you're alienating essential coworkers, like passion and inspiration.  Do you understand what I mean?

EHLG: Yeah.

Me: What do you think about that?

EHLG: It's stupid.

Me: Well, let's agree to check in again next week, at which time we can review your progress and make some decisions about what will help us work together better.

EHLG: That's stupid and sucky and you're stupid and sucky and I hate you.

Sometimes, you just have to be proud of how well you can handle a situation, and hope to get better results next time.  Having a little understanding for yourself can help with stress, too.

The Southampton Writers Conference

I had no idea this thing existed until I was invited by

The Ensemble Studio Theatre

(thanks entirely to

Tom Rowan

) to participate as an actor this year. But that's what a lot of my acting career is like, so it's tough for me to judge whether or not I

should

have heard of it.

Imagine you're at a party where you don't really know anybody. You're supposed to be there, and yet no one would miss you for a moment if you slipped out the door. People are buzzing about, trying to connect with very specific intentions, and tremendous drama and change is unfolding all around you. You, meanwhile, are just sort of holding your arms out, hoping someone will pick up on your invitation to a hug. That, my friends, is an apt metaphor for my experience as a career actor, my general attitude toward parties, and frankly the beginning of my experience here at

The Southampton Writers Conference

.

It was cool, I don't mind telling you. I am a huge writing nerd, and love excuses to hear writers talk about their work and processes. I've been to another writers' conference twice before, the

CVWC

in upstate, both times as something of a tourist. I was just a shade closer to being an actual participant this time, working there as an actor for their playwrights, which means I get to attend readings and rub elbows with Emily Mann and - yes - spend a little time cloistered away in my room working on my own playwriting. Pretty sweet, and those strange party feelings always fade eventually (but must they always appear in the first place, galdurnitall?). More on that in a future post, I think.

To sum it all up (because Blogger ate a good three paragraphs that it told me it had saved yesterday [Blogger, you jerk][just kidding love you mean it never change]): social difficulties were surmounted, the quality of work was astounding, and the level of talent of my fellow actors was simply inspiring. I'm not just blowing positive-attitude smoke here. Without dropping names, the actors I got to work with were - across the board - professional, talented and fun. Most all of them were working, many you'd probably recognize, and just about all of them (with the exception of me and I think two others) had some previous association with EST. So in some small way, I checked off a personal goal in getting to work with that theatre (see

11/17/08

). I hope, of course, to work with them again someday.

The work itself involved reading two plays twice - Tom's

Burning

Leaves

and

Ben Rosenthal

's

Neptune Kelly

- in a cycle in which the first reading gave the playwrights material with which to revise, and the second came after two days' revisions and a brief rehearsal period, and was presented to whomever from the conference wished to attend. It was a good structure, and left us with time to sit in and do readings for Emily Mann's playwriting workshops, and on Saturday night her attendees presented some of their work to the rest of the conference in the form of our performing readings of about five minutes of each playwright's in-class creations. Any time I had spare from this schedule was generally spent in my room mulling over and revising my own much-neglected play-in-progress

Hereafter

.

(PS and also: Dear Reader, I'm certain that if the occasion arises in which I announce I'm going to once again write a bunch of interconnected scenes and see if after-the-fact they can be melded into a cohesive whole, you will of course come to my apartment, knock on my door and, when I open it, shout "NOT AGAIN," and punch me square in the nose. Hard. Because you love me. Anyway: I'd appreciate it if you could.)

It was interesting to be working on

Burning Leaves

again, particularly because I felt it was already a rather finished product the last time I performed it in

November of 2008

. Tom, fortunately, is a much smarter playwright than I, and had already made some significant cuts to the play before I read it again for the conference. In particular, he cut a monologue for my character in which he explains what traumatic series of events led to his fleeing New York. He had gotten feedback suggesting that this was one of the more irresponsible and less admirable things the guy does, sharing the burden of such personal history with his student. I missed it of course - it was a heart-breaking story to tell - but a great edit. In the course of the week Tom did more to streamline the play and adjust the balance of ethics and plot logic between characters, and I felt good about the final reading. I always want to do better, but I felt good. Again: my fellow actors were

amazing

; just committed and specific and true as all git-out.

Neptune Kelly

is a cracker of a script. I had zero experience with this one before they sent it to me, and I have to admit that on first read I flinched a bit from it. It has a combination of earmarks of the kind of material I'm usually not too keen on: highly stylized, allegorical, verbose. Normally this makes for the sort of trying-too-hard off-off-Broadway showcase that's out there to MAKE a STATEMENT. As soon as we got in the room, though, I knew I had let prejudice in on my initial judgment, because the play

rocks

. It's not as allegorical as it first may seem - for one, it doesn't wrap anything up neatly - and the beauty of its verbose style is that it stems from committed, crisis-filled characters. It's funny, bold and poetic in the least pretentious way, and we had a ball with it. I had only one scene in

Neptune Kelly

(once again playing a teacher, somehow) but it sort of made up for my lost monologue in

Burning Leaves

, being an explanatory story for why my character committed and extreme and self-destructive act. I got to make this vaulting little journey from resolution to profound regret over a couple of pages, and in so doing propel another character into direct action, and that's just the kind of smarts and specificity that Ben's working with which allows him to create such a weird-but-true world.

Finally, the presentation of Ms. Mann's students' work was great fun, and surprisingly fulfilling. I've always been a fan of short-form presentations of theatrical work and the way its informality can invite more audience involvement and great spontaneity in the actors' performances, but you often have to take a certain lackluster quality into account for such undertakings. Timing may be off, words may be stumbled over, etc. Such was the quality of the writing and the acting of this little presentation that it lacked no luster. I laughed, I cried, it was better than lots and lots of the fully produced shows I've seen in my life. I was lucky to be a part of it (particularly, extremely lucky, actually, because my scene partner is an amazingly good actor). We had fully-formed, five-minute segments of passion, manipulation, Alzheimer's, shuddering regret and even loving cannibalism. Egad I love theatre.

Perhaps the most uplifting thing to come out of the whole experience for me is that I was asked to return this Friday, to participate in a staged reading of one of the attendee's plays,

Wild Animals You Should Know

. Thomas Higgins penned the script, and I'm a big fan of it. (Very odd: Thom had

a script in The SFOOBSPF

, in which

I just participated

.) It has a lot to do with the Boy Scouts of America, so that's a like a little visit into my childhood, and it is working with some of the same themes as

Burning Leaves

does. And, somehow, the reading is being directed by

Joe Mantello

.

So, you know, um: WOW.

Purpose & Identity

Maybe some of you read here for honest, emotional exploration, for that strangely isolated intimacy and voyeurism you can experience from reading 'blogs. Maybe some others of you read here more for those posts in which I do something unconventional and, for some people, humorous, like, say, have

a conversation with mine own testicles

. I'm sure there are as many motivations to read as there are readers (AN DOZEN), but today the two groups I've named are in especial luck for, today, I'll be dividing the entry into two formats. Those seeking warm, cozy emotional voyeurism (and no balls), read

(A)

. Those seeking a more humorous eschewment (is SO a word) of convention, read

(B)

(no promises about my balls [ever]). And, far be it from me to tell you what to do, it's your life, be your own person, but maybe,

JUST MAYBE

, you

could

mix it up. You know, if you're into that kind of thing. Now I'll begin as I often do, with a mini-narrative that may not immediately seem to apply to the title of the entry, yet will most likely contain the thematic twisty-tie that lets me sum up our little walk together. And so:

A1 - As we were growing up, my sister and I occasionally got into "why" conversations with my parents (Why is the sky blue? Why don't we go to church? Why is that man wearing a dress?) and, to their great credit, my parents always tried to carry through the conversation with something more than a "Because." Probably because of this, my sister and I knew from a very early age onward that a lot of my parents' decisions before and after we came along were based on a priority for having children and being good parents. This was their direction, their purpose in life -- all roads were charted to that course, from their choice of careers to the little every-day decisions. "Having children," was the answer to a lot of our Whys.

B1 - You know that feeling you had when you were barely sitting there in the movie theatre, full of enthusiasm, as the first half hour or so of

The Matrix Reloaded

rolled on by? OF COURSE YOU DO. It was just so exciting, so rife with possibilities. One thing was certain about this movie -- it was going to in some way be gratifyingly unconventional. I mean, the first one gave us a messianic hero-story action movie with philosophy in-jokes and a permeable sense of reality. What

couldn't

the second be amazing about? I clung to this as I sat there, picking it apart with a growing sense of dread, and just as the movie approached its most orgiastic CGI-enhanced puffery in the so-called "burly brawl," I thought I spotted a hopeful light of philosophical promise. Smith begins to discuss purpose. Ah ha! Here is an interesting point of contention! I wonder how the movie will play this out?

A2 - I envy my parents their dedication, their seemingly unquestioned priority. I'm sure they questioned it along the way, and perhaps especially after the fact, but they seem pretty happy with it and I have to say that -- some bias understood here -- they made a good choice and did an amazing job of it. Perhaps because of this lesson, I can't help but define myself by my sense of purpose. This probably isn't the only way to having a sense of identity. You could, I suppose, base it upon heritage, or beliefs, or simply a decision. Yet I can best perceive and understand myself as someone who has a specific goal. That's what makes me productive and decisive and true. (And neurotic and insecure and overwrought, but that's for another time.)

B2 - Of course, we now know how

The Matrix Reloaded

worked out for us (for an illustration of this workout, please view

Speed Racer

) and even what sweat

The Matrix Revolutions

drew from us. That wonderfully promising set-up for exploring a sense of identity and purpose fizzled into a lot of Thomas Anderson waffling about (no doubt drawing quite a bit on

his Winnipeg experiences

there) until getting whipped into shape by his oracle. I guess I have a habit of rather

retcon-ing disappointing movies

, and whenever TNT offers up that first scene between Smith and Neo I wonder a little over the direction the next 3+ hours of Hollywood magic might've taken. Imagine, for example, that the movies drove these questions through every character so that by the end the struggle is not about war, but the existential side of things. Such a movie would never bust blocks, but it would be unique and unpredictable if, for example, Neo and Smith fight themselves to exhaustion with no clear winner and then echo their lines from the first film, "You're empty." "So are you." Their sense of purpose lost. Now

that

would scare an audience.

A3 - Purpose is a terribly abstract notion, but one with tremendous influence on action, and I suppose I like to define myself by my actions (and, it must be confessed, my imagination). Purpose and identity are for me inextricable from one another. As I've been writing a bit about of late (see

5/5/10

) I'm at something of a point of contention regarding my purposes, which means I don't have the most solid sense of identity. Some might think this is pretty normal for an actor, and it is, but I've always valued the ability to distinguish between myself and a character and that requires a strong personal baseline. So I'm

bothered

. What it comes down to, really, is letting go of the definition of myself as an actor. Not refuting that I'm an actor, but learning to define myself by other means, since I want more things now. Including: having (a) kid(s) and being a good parent.

B3 - If wishes were horses, they couldn't let me into movie theatres (because of all the horses). I may as well have hoped for Keanu to suddenly transform into a vulnerable, emotive actor when he was pulled from the matrix. (Wow - how many minds would have been blown by that? [A: At least one.]) Hope, though, is an important part of a sense of purpose. And an important part of Hollywood movies. They come from a tradition of fomenting hope in their audiences, and pure, blockbuster escapism is founded on the promise that all that is good will vanquish all that is evil. I just wish the

Matrix

films had pursued a different identity, and had challenged the programmed, automatic hope that is engendered by the tropes of movies. C'est la vie -- that wasn't their purpose, after all.

A4 - Maybe the solution to the current dilemma lies in

not

defining my identity by my purpose. That is as much as to say, by becoming a little more assured in myself as myself, whatever that may mean from moment to moment, I'll have a more rooted sense of identity. Clown, husband, writer, compulsive organizer, athlete (ha-ha) and maybe someday a father. I'm a big one for questioning everything, so the quest for securing a thing or two, being content with an answer, even for a little while, is a strange one for me. Not unwelcome, however. The world doesn't get any simpler or worth any less by way of decision. Maybe the only answer to all our questions is "because," but that doesn't mean I have to limit myself to being my cause.

B4 - Before I get myself into another unintentional writing assignment, I'll just say that I'm not holding my breath for Hollywood to change its sense of purpose. It's just that neither will I soon let go of that sense of hope when it comes to big, spangly action movies, any more than I will for my own perilously un-Hollywood journeys. Hope is a pretty great lifeline when all other directions and definitions lose their meaning and, moreover, every so often, the hope pays out. And sometimes, it even does so with freaking bad-ass kung fu sequences.

A Walk to Memorize

The other day I took a walk through my general area of Queens, seeking out nice light and places I hadn't seen. The peppered photos are from this little journey (as inspired by some of Friend Patrick's recent posts). I didn't start on my walk with the specific purpose of taking photos -- just thought of it as I was headed out the door. Rather, I wanted to grab a little leg stretching while there was still light out on a beautiful day that I had otherwise spent largely indoors and seated.

I don't know why I don't take walks more often, but I'm going to try from now on. I was recently reminded while listening to the Totally Laime podcast that it used to be a habit of mine. I would take walks with my mom or friends or love interests along the twisting asphalt paths that twined through the forests of my hometown neighborhoods, and these walks invariably made for interesting conversation and at least a little bit of relaxation. They were nice, so of course I took them for granted. Maybe when I moved to the city I convinced myself that there was nothing to see like the flora and fauna of Burke, or maybe I was too concerned with my safety initially, or found my days too full or time returning home too late to contemplate walking as recreation. Heck-n-shoot: We walk everywhere in New York. Maybe I've missed the distinction between that kind of walking and the leisure activity.

Whatever the reason for the pause, I'm returning to it. This walk through Queens was tremendous and refreshing (refreshendous?) and really set me in a state of mind I could definitely do with more of. Somehow the decision to "go for a walk" freed me up to sort of declare that I was going to have an experience and not aim to get anything done for a little while. I was active, and continuously so, but also receptive and generally contemplative. Instead of going somewhere or being somewhere, I was neither.

The next day I saw a talk that resonated with me. Linda Stone was stating observations that I have been making for years now, and putting them into a context I could understand and appreciate. She was turning information into knowledge, perhaps. Whatever it was, it reminded me of the state of being I returned to on my little walk. Some steps from her walk:

• Noise becomes data when it has a cognitive pattern.
• Data becomes information when assembled into a coherent whole which can be related to other information.
• Information becomes knowledge when integrated with other information in a form useful for making decisions and determining actions.
• Knowledge becomes understanding when related to other knowledge in a manner useful in anticipating, judging and acting.
• Understanding becomes wisdom when informed by purpose, ethics, principles, memory and projection.