Tittering over the Taxing Toil

Dewds, oh my dewds: The taxes are done. Let there be much rejoicing.

That is to say, my taxes are finally done, and without the standard, combined period of days spent fretting over how they could possibly be so much, or how my computer could break down in the middle of them, or anything. Which makes me highly suspicious. Does this bode ill farther down the line? Can such ease of filing and abundance (HA!) of funds to pay city, state and country be merely indicative of some fatal error that will summon unto me the Gods of Audit some time in July? My suspicions, however, are at present overwhelmed by relief.

Not that the rest of the world has relaxed yet. In fact, there will be scattered days of panic, as though ripples through an otherwise still pool of fiscal calm, owing to the fact that the recent "nor'easter" has allowed for some (not all) an extension of time to file. This affects me, believe it or not, because my boss' clients (at il dayjobo) will have a few more days of manic question-asking. But I am done, and it is sweet.

We (I'm presuming a lot here [for a change] to include

absolutely every human being

) spend a lot of our time too busy to find comedy in life. I don't know if it's the relief of getting my taxes done (and laundry--simultaneously--

and for my next trick...

), the recent demise of Kurt Vonnegut ("Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.") or simply gearing up for more work with

Zuppa del Giorno

, but this seems like a really awful crime to inflict upon oneself, this refutation of laughter for the sake of efficiency or accomplishment.

And lo, in one fell swoop he simultaneously achieves hypocrisy, condescension and over stating the obvious! I am such the multi-tasker this week.

I mean it, nevertheless. Sometimes I get a little fed up with performing comedy, and begin to listen to those who claim (literally or suggestively) that comedy is fun, sure, but hardly important. Au contraire, you bastards. I argue it's one of the most necessary and noble of pursuits, both in terms of creating it and experiencing it. Further (you bastards), it's just as much a talent to be able to live in humor as it is to create it. I am blown away by people who can laugh at almost anything, and really feel it. I mean, given the wrong circumstances, sure: I want to eat their jugular vein without chewing; but more often than not such circumstances have more to do with my inability to laugh than with laughter really being inappropriate.

Because almost everything that is of a daily nature is funny. Historical events, geopolitical movements, cosmic uncertainties . . . not necessarily rich with chuckles, I'll admit. But even in these arenas there hides the secret giggle, and when it comes to just getting your key into the lock of your front door . . . well, you could spend days mining such comic richness. It's exciting to me, this limitless comedy, because I equate it with an interconnectedness (unleashing U.U. philosophy now...). "It's funny because it's true," comes of identification, and if we're open enough we can identify with just about any scenario or creature.

Not that comedy is easy to craft, by any stretch of the imagination. Good comedy is of a precise, yet instinctive nature, and how many can claim that? Whether it's

the latest block-busting Will Ferrell behemoth

, or Friend Adam working on his latest stand-up material, the comedy is difficult to build, and it takes someone rather obsessed with it to spend a good deal of time trying, someone prepared to fail just as much as he or she succeeds. Such a person also probably experiences on a visceral level an appetite for others' laughter, and to know that

and

accept defeat on a regular basis is no small task. Then again, there are also those who are funny in spite of themselves. The worst of these are those who never learned to embrace--in some fashion--their own lovable foolery. I long ago prescribed to a philosophy of defining life by my stumbles.

As with income, though, we face a trade-off between what we do and what we owe. Must we give to Caesar his due? Alas, we must. But we can do it smiling. No one can take that particular pleasure away from us.

A Love of the (Neo) Classics

After Easter they suffered a huge nor'easter.

I'm really digging the rain these past couple of days, actually. Sometimes one is simply in the mood to have their city look like something out of a noir flick, all sheeting greys and visible light beams. I'm prowling about in my grey trench coat . . . but with an umbrella. Which is not terribly noir, but I had to concede defeat years ago on the umbrella issue. In the right hands, umbrellas are a force for good, and for a lack of mildew-y smells.

The weekend was a strange blend of circumstance for yours truly, overlapping past and present, business and pleasure. My sister and her boyfriend Adam finally saw

A Lie of the Mind

Friday night, and it didn't scare Adam too badly, which I consider an accomplishment.

Chris Kipiniak

, of Torture Project and Spider-Man fame (see

3/8/07

) attended the same night, which was especially rewarding to me, having the respect I do for his work and knowing how busy he keeps his schedule. Saturday night

Friend Kira

made it all the way out from New Jersey, though she couldn't hang around afterwards owing to bus schedules. Perhaps the most surprising appearance, however, involved the return of Friend Christina and her fella' J.C. I reunited with Christina at Rachel's wedding (see

3/21/07

), and they both attended the opening weekend of

ALotM

. This weekend past they brought friends and family with them, and one other.

As I took my final bow Saturday night, I glimpsed a face in the crowd smiling with satisfaction, one that I recognized. I immediately, however, thought to myself, "Dang. I'm so Method. Frankie's delirium is bleeding over into the curtain call." Sure enough, though, when I had scrubbed my face and removed my bullet holes, I ventured out into the lobby and was ambushed by none other than Mrs. Rachel Lee herself. Which was

the weirdest thing that has happened to me in years

. She was up seeing friends, and Christina invited her along to see my show. A group of eight, we all went out afterwards, first to

La Lanterna

, then

Puck Faire

, and I had the opportunity to actually catch up with Rachel a bit, something that was impossible at the wedding and which in actuality we hadn't done in years. Mostly I was curious how things were for a person who came to the city with as ardent a passion as I for professional achievement, and who had since returned home and, shall we say, modified her own personal

The Third Life

(r). It sounds like she misses the more unique aspects of city living, but not the struggle to achieve. It sounds like she's very happy with her life now, which it was good to have confirmed. Most of all, it's wonderful to see in person that she's on her good path, and that I'm on mine. An unexpected fortune.

The next day I was up and out to attend the closing of

Friend Nat

's appearance in Moliere's

The Learned Ladies

, at

The Gallery Players

, just thirteen short blocks from my apartment. Acquaintance Alisha Spielmann was also in the production, whom I know from Nat's readings of

The Exiled

. Nat does quite a bit of classical work; I think I can say with some safety that it is his forte. He's tall, with a wiry, energetic frame and a deep voice, and he put it all to wonderful use in

TLL

. He played the villain of the piece, and I'm here to tell you: Nat does a delicious villain, especially when its one that can be as flamboyant as Trissotin. I met him on a show in which he was playing an undercover demon. His enthusiasm for mischief would make the role of Trissotin type cast, were it not that Nat is genuinely intelligent where Trissotin is merely conniving.

This is the second production of Moliere I've seen in the past few months (see

12/25/06

), and the prior experience was in a theatre of very similar dimensions and budget (apart from paying Manhattan rent, that is). I took issue with certain of the aspects of The Gallery Players production, the which may be a result of too close a comparison with the show I saw in the winter. There were little choices (among them, the decision to incorporate contemporary clothing into relatively period costumes to varying degrees--the young hero [played admirable by Marc Halsey] wore a belt on his jeans whose buckle distracted) that I can be free of with a little time to forget, but my biggest gripe was how the actors seemed to have, at certain points, been instructed to make choices of delivery that emphasized the rhyme scheme. It's hard to say if such a thing is the fault of a director, or a failing of certain actors, but in my opinion it is a big no-no. Moliere wrote specific ending couplets when he wanted the rhyme to take precedence, and his commedia dell'arte inspired characters deserve to spew their dialogue with more ease. In balance, and to the credit of Neal J. Freeman and actress Candice Goodman, her Martine--the only consistent servant character in this particular show--spoke with a great candor befitting her character and an amusing translation of her dialogue.

My overall favorite moment of the show, however, was a very naughty one, theatrically speaking. It should serve to take my criticism down a peg or two. At one point in the show, Trissotin and Henriette (played by Alisha) are left to their own devices whilst the other characters in scene wax poetic about Trissotin's, er, poetics. For this sequence, the two characters actually took seats at opposite corners of the stage (I have to imagine that in most productions this time is used to further illustrate Trissotin's intentions toward Henriette), she utterly bored and he arrogantly unlistening to his own praise. What ensued was a kind of ridiculous silent war of entertaining gesture. Nat had developed some business involving inspecting his teeth and snorting snuff, and Alisha was reaching new heights of boredom which led her to sprawling against the wall and vacantly inflating spit bubbles, all the while the three scholarly women energetically stroked one another's egos, oblivious to the unspoken commentary. It was hysterical, if possibly gratuitous. But in my world, what gets the laugh stays in the comedy.

I've written here before about the effects of past lives on the present, and it's a theme in my theatrical work. I seem to constantly be finding myself in memory plays, and

Zuppa del Giorno

is itself a tradition of finding the ancient roots of contemporary entertainment. Our next show,

Prohibitive Standards

(the which I also set up

the collaboration 'blog

for this weekend), is to be set in prohibition-era Scranton, and is likely to be influenced by characters from that era and centuries earlier. Perhaps it's a theme in theatre in general, as classic characters like Richard III or Trissotin continue to inform us about choices we're making on a daily basis. Part of the key to living and creating effectively is in learning from the past, honoring it as it deserves, but also being realistic about it and recognizing it is, indeed, passed. Similar to being alive in the moment on stage, one can't always base his or her decisions on what he or she has done (or regretted doing) before.

Sometimes the only answer is to improvise.

Kinesis

Last Saturday evening I attended a dance concert:

Right Before You Fell

. I just fit it in, thanks to the repeated calls from my friends who made it a priority to check in with me and make sure I didn't forget about it in the miasma of my current schedule. I went directly from rehearsal to dinner at a friend's restaurant, to this concert, and then even made it to a late party. The party was to bid adieu to the loft that was home to

Kirkos

for years. The concert, that was a culmination of a friend(and fellow Kirkos member)'s very hard, very disciplined, and as it turned out, very

fun

work.

Kinesis Project Dance Theatre

, headed up by dancer/choreographer Melissa Riker, had its full evening of performance last Saturday. My ties to Mel are multiple. I met her, as I did many good friends, performing in a show called

Significant Circus

,

in 2001. She,

Kate Magram

,

Patrick Lacey

and I formed a sort of creative support group not too long after that--The Exploding Yurts (

please

don't ask)--and Kirkos came into being shortly after that. In the six years that I've known her, I've had the pleasure of watching Mel work and grow through that work. Saturday evening was a surprisingly emotional experience for me. I should have expected it, but I was surprised to experience just how much hope and excitement I was giving off during the concert. I was seeing my friend's work fully realized. I know how difficult that is to achieve, and something about just how much that means to her.

Me and modern dance, we don't hang out much . . . in spite of having had long-term relationships with two professional dancers in my time. I have a great appreciation for what the dancers can do, how expressive and dynamic their bodies and movements are. I envy that, in truth. I also respect it. So much so, in fact, that I refuse to be categorized as a dancer. This occasionally brings much frustration to the likes of Friends Melissa and Patrick, who are hell-bent on convincing me that I am worthy of at least the adjective, "dancer," if not the title. I resist. It's related to how I feel about Joe Nobody doing

Guys & Dolls

in his community theatre and then going around calling himself an actor. I mean, sure, he is. (Mad props to ma' boy Joe.) But he hasn't received any training, he hasn't gotten up at dawn to stand in a line for an open call, he hasn't haggled over a summer stock contract or sold worldly belongings in order to take said contract.

But I transtate a bit.

So we don't hang, me and the modern. I have just enough experience and appreciation to say about a concert, "I liked it because of THIS. THIS seemed a little weak, but that may have been in support of achieving THAT." I've been to concerts with dancers before, and often we appreciate the opposite aspects. When a number leans toward narrative a bit, I get excited. When it is seemingly solely about the beauty of the movement, I begin to tune out. Don't get me wrong: It's beautiful. Wow. Pretty. But so is a photograph of a sunset, and somebody needs to tell me why I should care. That's me. I'm an actor. Because of this bias (and I've done what I can think of to separate my appreciation for theatre from my appreciation for dance), some dance concerts I've seen have made me want to claw out my eyes and throw them underfoot.

And it's not the ones that are all about the beauty. No. If I can figure that out from an early moment--that priority--I can sit back and relax, let them dance me where they may. Rather, it's the ones that have something to say,

but don't seem to give a damn if you understand it.

Or that say something

whether you like it or not, sucka!

These really get to me, because the people involved--though I'm sure they went in with the best intentions...in some cases--inevitably chalk my lack of understanding up to me, not their efforts or ability to communicate with me. I suppose you could say that I value communication in my art. Intentional communication, be it about ideas, emotions or something else entirely.

To this end,

Right Before You Fell

was sort of the perfect show for yours truly. I must confess that, right up front. This critic is biased. The concert utilized set pieces, spoken dialogue, live music, character, scenario . . . it was very theatrical. People were constantly doing things, not just fulfilling choreography, and acknowledging and responding to one another. Imagine that.

Read about the inspiration for the show

here, March 15

. Some would have hated it. If I had gone looking for pin-point-perfect technique, or classical movement, or really anything conventional at all, I would have been disappointed. Instead I was uplifted by vignettes about trying to get along with and without people. Between dances, open doorways and closed doors were moved about on rollers by dancers dressed like nuevo gypsies, as they held a kind of movement dialogue with one another. Each had what seemed to be their own character, informing their choices and scenarios. Melissa's acrobalance experience shone through at certain points, particularly to a number choreographed to Tom Waits' "

The Piano Has Been Drinking

," a piece I was lucky enough to get a preview of at the

Kinesis

benefit in December (see

12/25/06

for a photo). That section, too, is a good example of one of the best aspects of

Right Before You Fell

: its sense of humor. I've known Melissa for a while now, so her brand of humor is about as familiar to me as anyone's.

RBYF

was a great manifestation of unbounded joy for living, and unabashed moments of the surreal.

I could critique some aspects of the show, of course. It irritated me not to have a schedule and titles of the different dances in the program, and I felt as though the end of the evening needed a more significant punctuation, or perhaps clearer imagery of having come full circle (or home, if the notion of taking a walk is to be followed through). But these things may become clear to me after our inevitable Yurtian debriefing. Kate, Patrick, Melissa and I will all gather and surmise, and I'll get the inside skinny on what her specific intentions were. Even without this knowledge, I walked away from the concert feeling fulfilled, and even a little happier about the little unhappinesses in my life at present.

Melissa has extended me an informal invitation to join

Kinesis

in some performances this summer. (She couches it in the term "movement actor" in deference to my sensitivity about artistic categories.) I hesitate, uncertain about what I can contribute and what I hope to get out of it, but seeing her concert shows me more possibilities for an exciting, empathetic collaboration. It might even be funny.

Hey! We could do excerpts from

Guys and Dolls

!