Reading Loud and Clear

Hey! I've got work for you, Jeff!

Awesome! I love work! When are auditions?

You don't even have to audition!

I don't? That's unusual, but far be it from me to complain. I mean, I have been at this professionally for over a decade, and there's a few places for people to see my existing work. Plus, maybe a decade in New York solidifies your reputation with enough people who matter that you can be taken on recommendation. Sweet. What does it pay?

It doesn't pay.

Oh. Erm. It doesn't?

No. Are you so rude as to demand payment?

No! I mean: No. I'm not "so rude." It's a pretty reasonable question, I think, where my time is involved.

But it'll be fun.

I'm sure it will, yes. But, you see, I can have fun for myself. I don't need other's help for that, necessarily. And if I do, I have friends that fit the bill nicely and generally want to do -- if not exactly -- approximately the same things I want to do. So, you see, I'm doing okay on "fun."

Are you working on anything right now, acting-wise?

Well ... that's a complex question. I mean, I have auditions coming up. And I need to get my headshots to a new agency I'm freelancing with. And I've got a sort of film outline I'm in the process of writing for myself. And I help develop plays over at NYU, working with student playwrights and professional directors and actors. And I read plays. All the time. Plays, plays plays, nothin' but . . . okay. I have no show.

Well, we provide meals.

Oh! It's a film. Great; you should have said. I badly need reel material. That'll be worth it.

It's not a film.

Oh.

But there'll be very little time commitment.

Okay...

And it's local.

It's work here? In New York? Something people who make a difference to my future work could conceivably see?

Sure.

Well okay. That sounds ... doable.

Great. We'll see you at 7:00 on Tuesday.

Seven o'clock Tuesday? Don't I even read it first?

Read what?

The thing! The thing we're doing, whatever it is!

Oh. Well, you can, but there might not be much point.

Not much point? What is this?

I just mean it's subject to drastic change, the play.

The play I'd be working on might change drastically while I'm working on it?

Yes. Potentially overnight.

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Non-paying local work I don't have to audition for, with a short rehearsal time, that's not a film, that's subject to change in its entirety the night before we perform, and you're offering me food as payment? This ... this is a staged reading, isn't it?

How did you know?

*&^$! (_*&

(%^$#

, ^%$#

*%^#

! A staged reading! Always with the staged readings! I swear to God, if I never stand behind another school-band music stand or sit on another backless stool again, it would be too soon! I love it! Do tell: Will it be just us, and the playwright, all at a table or in the basement or both, somewhere, poring over each line while the playwright moans at our delivery? Or will it be for a large audience of everyone else's peers, where I will be the only stranger, and all the bits everyone finds funny I have no idea about because I don't hang out at the same water cooler? Or, OR, will it be for a

Producer

, a backing audition, and, well,

I'm

not really right for the part, owing to some minor detail like being twice the age of the character, but just maybe the

Producer

will be

producing

some other project and see me and think, "Eureka!" Oo! Can I actually

hold

my script while I act, allowing me to

turn

toward the person I'm speaking and

move

my body as I like, or will that break "the style," so I should leave that script ON that music stand, not even daring to lift it when I turn pages? Tell me, do: Will I be supplying my own costume? Will I be paying for the privilege of traveling to the rehearsal(s) and "performance"? Should I get a haircut for this one night? Or is it taking place in the middle of the day, and I should get my fingers and toes shined, too?

So, you don't want to do it?

Of course I don't.

We're serving wine.

I'll see you Tuesday.

Give Me My Props

Oh. Oh-ho. Oh-ho-ho.

Yeah. I'm going to do it. Why? Same reason as I like to route (root? rewt?) for the team that has the least chance of winning. I love the downtrodden.

In my last entry, I admitted it would be tantamount to readership suicide to post an entry on prop comedy. Since then, I haven't stopped thinking about doing just that. I also, in that entry, said murderous clowns are an entry unto themselves, but I thought we could all use a break from my current clown obsession.

I have a friend whose email address used to begin with "killgallagher@". (Hi Dave [Youmans].) I always thought this was a bit excessive, though memorable enough. (I can hardly throw stones; for years and year my email was "sukeu@", and for years and years people pronounced it as various forms of "sucky" [it's soo-kay-yoo {I digress}].) Yet there I found myself, Gallagher-bashing with righteous vehemence in my last entry. It reminded me of Friend Kate's feelings about trade-marking. She finds it unjust that anyone can claim a name, and that it inevitably infringes and goes on to claim ownership of the idea behind the name, at least in people's minds. I resent, abhor and resent some more this so-called "Gallagher" because he's taken a perfectly legitimate -- nay, occasionally sublime -- form of theatre and made himself and his simple, gratuitous form of it synonamous.

Same goes for Carrot Top.

My feeling is that, putting it very generally, prop comedy these days suffers from a pursuit of the punchline. Take, for example, coitus. Or, in the common parlance, "bumpin' uglies." Oh sure, you can simply chase the payoff. It's a short trip with an obvious reward, and somehow sometimes seems more guaranteed, if such a thing can be in life. But is it really what it's all about? Haven't we all had better experiences when we take our time, appreciate the moments and -- dare we say it -- the relationship involved? Even in a single night's adventure, there is a relationship. Ignore it at your own peril.

I admit: The comparison is a little unnecessary. I'm just a sucker for a good simile. My point is, prop comedy suffers from short attention span (of the performer as much as the audience) and a lack of development. A prop may occasionally be good for a one-liner sort of joke, and in this instance we term it a "sight gag" mor eoften than not. But real, good prop comedy, to my taste, is best explored in terms of relationships.

  • The straight man. In many instances, this is the default for prop comedy. After all, as much as you may get upset, the hairbrush will remain vigilantly a hairbrush. The funny thing is that, like a good straight man, a prop says more to the audience the less it does. It's key that the performer adhere to one of the most basic rules of good scenework: to make the scene partner look good. It's just that in this case, the scene partner is a supposedly inanimate object.
  •  
  • The first love. There's a lot of mileage to be gotten out of approaching a prop as though it were something you've never, ever seen before. The stages of exploration tend to mirror a person's first notice of the opposite (or rather, the sexually attractive) sex. A whole range of emotions become involved here. While it may not be explicitly "falling in love," neither are a lot of love stories. Hate the thing, but hate it with curiosity, or inescapability. A common gag from this scenario is to use an object whose use is obvious to the audience, and determine another use for it altogether.
  •  
  • The His-Girl-Friday. One object becomes useful in a variety of ways, conventional and unconventional. The trick here is to maintain a relationship with the prop. It's not enough to use a turkey baster to funnel oil, beat a gong and baste a turkey; this has to inspire gratitude or amazement or something changing in the performer. Otherwise, it quickly degenerates into Gallagherism. This relationship has the benefit of incoporating higher and higher stakes, as it is founded on need or necessity.
  •  
  • The family member. Sometimes an object is so much a part of you that it pains you to be apart from it, much less see it suffer in any way. You may get frustrated with it, call it no good, etc., but the moment anyone else does you're there to say, "Hey! You can't talk to her like that!" This is a very familiar prop, usually worn on the person in some way. You know it like no one else does. Establish this relationship firmly enough, and you have one of the greatest toppers of your prop-comedy career: giving your prop away.
  •  
  • The nemesis. For those more inclined toward positive relationships, this can also manifest as a sort of the worthy adversary, or even the buddy-cop, so long as there's plenty of head-butting. The relationship here is one of enmity, of occasional hatred and much strategy. The prop is against you at every turn, it's doing it on purpose, yet it is somehow allowed to continue to exist. Often times, this interplay requires a lot of technical trickery on the performer's part, engineering ways to be "attacked" by the object. However, it can be very simple, too. Refusing to move can be a confounding adversarial technique.
  •  
  • The boss. It may at first be difficult to imagine an inanimate object as having higher status than a performer, but in all of these relationships status should be shifting as events unfold. A prop can be "the boss" if it's extremely valuable or a symbol of authority, like a crown, or simply if the performer recognizes that this prop has wants that must be fulfilled. In this relationship, the prop has the ability to punish or praise the performer, these actions being a matter of interpretation on the performer's part.
  •  
  • The servant. Not quite as rich a terrain here, as objects are generally considered to be servants to us all anyway. There are, however, interesting facets of relationship to be explored when one considers the "clever servant" archetype, or the ways in which one tries to master people, as opposed to props.

And, of course, relationships change over time. These are not categories to singly adhere to, but forms to specify something more organic and unpredictable.

It may seem silly to some to create these sorts of relationships with objects. It occasionally seems that way to me, too, until I observe that these relationships already exist off-stage. Have you never seen a coworker assault his or her unruly stapler, or an older gentleman who caresses his cane as he sits? Theatre, in the all-encompassing sense, comes down to people coming together to have a good natter, and other people coming to watch it happen. Good prop comedy is not an exagerration of our relationships with objects, but an exploration of our relationship to our environment. Good prop comedy is funny, true, and by different turns often frightening or melancholy. It should be fascinating.

And we shouldn't have to explode a watermellon to do it.

BE MORE FUNNY, CLOWN!

Friend Grey

has a great story about a teacher she had at Dell'Arte. The students there had to present an original, solo clown piece at least every week, and this teacher had a habit of viewing these pieces with a bucket of tennis balls by his side. If, in his opinion, the scene was not playing up to snuff, he would begin to peg these tennis balls at the performer, all the while shouting, "NOT...FUNNY...!" This became something of an inside joke as we worked on various

Zuppa del Giorno

shows. That, and our favorite, gentle way of telling someone their idea sucked: "Hm. That might be a great idea for

next year's

show...."

Friend Adam

(if I haven't completely alienated him with my response [and if my atrocious XBox playing hasn't alienated him, how could a caustic response to his opinions?]) posted a comment on my last entry regarding clowning (see

1/28/08

) that suggested that clowns are not funny, and that the reason for this is that they overwhelm, and turn a cathartic fear response into more of a Godzilla!-Run-for-your-meager-lives! response. I guess my entry didn't clear up any of Adam's feelings in this matter. Or, at least, I failed to extricate the word "clown" from the American stigma for it. To me, you see, "clown" is not a fair word to use to describe the circus or birthday clown. Hell: I don't even like "circus clown," because the word "circus" means a whole lot of different things, too, once you step outside the three rings of Barnum & Bailey.

So before I continue, let me break some things down. I see the stereotypical western clown as a kind of collage of comic traditions. (Note: THIS IS NOT A SCHOLARLY TEXT. For heaven's sakes, don't cite me as any kind of authority. It's been a decade since I took any kind of history class, and I didn't start taking an interest in clowning until about five years ago.) As I stated so elegantly, and ineffectively, on the 28th, the "birthday clown" has become a kind of grotesque take on some time-worn and valid comic traditions:

  • The clothing. We know the score (scare?). Baggy pants. Enormous shoes. Funny hat. Usually layered clothing (vests, jackets, skirts, etc.), and usually brightly colored. Obnoxious, some would say, but put the same shapes--perhaps slightly muted--into tweeds and patches, and you're looking at "charming." At least, that's how most people described the likes of Keaton, Chaplin and Arbuckle. You've also got a low-status character, someone who's poor, who carries all he or she owns around with him or her. Take it back to 16th century Italy, and you're looking at one of the most beloved characters in comedy: Arlecchino (see shamelessly uncredited photo above). He was famous for being one of the funniest clever-servant characters, easily identified by his costume made almost completely of patches. That costume, once the character caught on in England, became represented by a body suit decorated in numerous diamond-shaped, multi-colored patches.
  • The props. For our sworn enemy, the arsenal is awfully typical: horn, bludgeon, balloons, magic paraphenalia, etc. Prop comedy, too, has been much maligned of late, mostly owing to its not translating into a stand-up-comedy milieu very well. (Damn you, Gallagher! Damn you straight to hell!) I could write a whole entry on prop comedy alone -- and wouldn't my readership just spike over that? -- but for now suffice it to say that props, too, have suffered from senseless exaggeration. The term "slapstick" actually refers to a special bludgeon used in commedia (and probably dating back to the Romans) made of two flatish sticks banded together that, when properly struck, made an amped-up whacking noise. Such a device required a sense of musical timing for proper use, and had a transformative effect. Comedy's great for transformations, and not just of a balloon into a poodle.
  • The violence. In our birthday clown, this is harmless stuff, mostly. Cream pies and inflated clubs. In this case, I witness mistake in toning down the consequences. It may seem odd to say, but birthday clowns glorify violence more than more traditional clowns do, in that the violence more often than not has virtually no effect. Therefore, they are free to gleefully enact it, and with complete disregard to the effects. It's not a great leap to imagine such a clown, then, accidentally committing horrible violence on one of us and doing it smilingly. Whereas, in most other forms, violence is regarded -- if also occasionally valued -- as something consequential. Cut Shylock, and not only will he bleed, he'll probably try to harvest your organs in revenge.
  • The not-speaking. Boy, this one bugs people. It seems to make them feel -- now-a-days, anyway -- that the performer is an even more alien, pretentious thing. I can relate to this feeling, especially when the silence is being peddled to me by some well-intentioned, poorly (or not-at-all) trained moron. It's fun to mock a mime. They can't argue back. (I myself am guilty of making a mime joke part of a recent show, Prohibitive Standards, but it was a sure-fire punchline and under such circumstances I have no scruples.) But I have a theory about obnoxious silence. Silent performance irritates us when the performer is still shouting throughout, "Look at me! Look at me!" It's a fine distinction, but someone performing in silence with a more inviting subtext, regardless of how much they may want you to look at them, is really complimentary to an audience. It's fascinating, and feels special. You're included in the silence, and it's nice there.
  • The mask. What mask? Oh, there's a mask, dudes. Isn't that the most terrifying aspect of a birthday clown? The grotesquely exaggerated features, done in colorful contours on a death-white face? I admit: I get shivers at the thought. People these days don'ta like-a the mask. What are they hiding? Who are they, really? WHY CAN'T THEY JUST LOOK NORMAL? Well, as Friend Patrick will attest, the traditions of masks are too numerous, wide-spread and intricate to address . . . in any one place, really. As to the horrid birthday-clown make-up, it is derived a great deal from commedia dell'arte, as well as other places. Time was, when anyone was going to tell a story with power, they'd use some kind of disguise. Masks were common-place in parties and festivals and ceremonies. Theatre just used that, and it has changed throughout the years. The birthday clown adopted Pierrot's white face, Dottore or a zanni's bulbous nose (originally red from drink) and merged it with the color scheme of an American circus of the 1800s. The effect is admittedly garish and disturbing. The mask, be it a commedia one, face paint or just a strap-on red nose, used to serve to free the performer to go to greater lengths to entertain his or her audience. The red nose is often referred to as "the mask that reveals," serving as it does to let it all hang out and expose a person in the most entertaining fashion. Birthday clowns, once again, seem to use it simply to advertise.
  • The murders. In traditional clowning, the . . .. Wait. WHAT?! Murders? What kind of performance philosophy is this? I write "The murders" because, in researching this topic, I got sucked into a little reading about John Wayne Gacy, Jr., and that man was a scary S.O.B. He was, in addition to being a serial killer, a birthday clown: Pogo the Clown. This is not the fault of clowndom in general of course, any more than George W. Bush is the fault of Texans, or diseased howler monkeys. Still and all, the concept of a criminal clown predates Gacy. This summer, The Dark Knight will relaunch the iconic figure of the Joker, Batman's nemesis, and I suspect that this time his aberrant behavior will not be quite as disarming as Nicholson portrayed it. Terrifying, most likely it will be, even without the unthinkable recent demise of Mr. Ledger. I wish I could say that the figure of a murderous clown doesn't go back very far, but I'm afraid it does. The Punch & Judy puppetry of England has its roots in Italian commedia dell'arte, and the stories of P&J consist mainly of Punch offing a variety of other puppets. This is clearly a subject under its own heading. What more can I say than: Not all clowns are killers, just as not all killers are clowns.

The past week has for me been very clowny. I continue to read my Buster book. I've had two auditions (auditions themselves being very similar to the torment a clown experiences moment-to-moment [at least, my clown does]), and one of them required an original movement piece. To top it all off, I had a conference with the Exploding Yurts -- my little creative-encouragement group with a strange name -- regarding the draft of a screenplay for a clown film I'm writing. (Because struggling to become a renowned theatre actor just isn't frustrating enough.) I don't know why I'm turning to the clown in me so much these days. I suppose it could have something to do with working on that whole "what kind of work is MY kind of work" question I began asking somemonthsback.

And it seems I'm getting an answer. Or three.

This is the Way we go to Work

A "work ethic" is an interesting instinct. In point of fact, I'm not sure it is a pure instinct. I'm more inclined to believe that the so-called work ethic is as-much-or-more a product of environment than personality. I can't deny that some people just seem more energetic and driven from the moment they spring from their mother's womb--briefcase in hand and tearing the wrist watch from off their delivering doctor--but I also feel that everyone has within them the power, with a little discipline and determination, to say screw that and spend eight straight hours watching a

Mythbusters

marathon on Bravo.

Not that I speak from personal experience here.

My work ethic has been on my mind a lot lately, what with making curious headway in my professional life as an actor even whilst

being dropped from a show

and

losing my primary source of income

. Actors typically, I believe, work some very long and hard hours. They're just hours of constantly changing gears, so it often seems we're not concentrated, or disciplined. It's a little bit like we're each and every one of us a working mother, at least at this particular level. We work our "day job," and while we're at our day job our child (who, by now we hope, is a little more capable of taking care of itself) is in constant contact. We make phone calls on its behalf, we take lunch breaks to visit, or facilitate later time spent with the kid. There are no weekends, no evenings. There are games, and homework, and constant surprises. We feel guilty for not devoting ourselves enough at "work"; we feel guilty for not spending enough time with the boy/girl/meaning-of-our-life.

Take, for example, the pride I take in the post previous to this being my 200th. I feel pride over quantity, which is really nothing more than my work ethic at work. In addition, I feel some guilt. What? Guilt, you say? You mean over the hours you've spent 'blogging that could have been spent ending starvation, or resolving the myriad religious conflicts currently tearing our culture apart at the seams? No. No, I mean I feel guilty over not writing more here. Out of nearly 400 days I could have entries for, I have merely half.

Neil Gaiman

would shake his tangled locks at me in sheer disappointment.

No: I did not intend to pun there. (Go back. Look. It's there.) I'd rather it were a promised fart joke, but what can I say? There's no escaping genetics.

I'm reading a fantastically enjoyable

book about Buster Keaton

right now. I can only guess at its accuracy; it seems to have been compiled mostly from interviews of Keaton by the author, and I don't get the sense that said author was in the habit of cross-checking Buster's memory. Still and all, it makes for a great read. Buster Keaton started out just as early as he could get away with in vaudeville, with his family, and by the time he got to films he already had a tremendous amount of skill and experience behind him. From struggling as part of an ambituous family act, to being aprosperous and famous act, to breaking into film and becoming a star, Buster worked like a dog. The only thing that slowed him down was succumbing to alcohol in his middle life, and even through that he was all about the work.

It's hard to make money, do good work and get what you want from life. Maybe even particularly hard for someone living that ol'

The Third Life

(r). But it's no Depression-Era struggle, or walking away from a broken neck (yeah: he did), so getting down about it can seem pretty silly in perspective.