Whine with your Cheese?

One of the ways in which I'm assured I belong in my quest to create theatre full-time is that, after a certain period of no long-term work ("long-term" in an acting context being about the span of a month) I begin to exhibit symptoms of depression and desperation. I crave the stage, or at least a studio, a script, or at least a scenario and a scene partner, or at least a director. To put a finer point on it, I suffer from withdrawal. (This of course is also how I know that I'm meant to drink and smoke. My logic is an impenetrable fortress. Or will be, until I die of heart, lung and/or kidney disease.) And guess what, my fine, feathered friends? Today I have the shakes.

Of course, I always have "the shakes" to some degree or another. As those of you who know me (I mean,

really know me

) are aware, I have a mysterious condition that causes my hands to tremor at times. It ain't

Parkinson's

, it ain't

MS

. Frankly, the doctors are stumped, and in being thusly stump'ed (that's with an accent on the "ed" for best scansion) they have theorized that I suffer from

Essential Tremors

, or E.T. The humor of

this acronym

doesn't fail to escape me. Neither does the humor of our medical science's tendency to name a condition when they can recognize it, yet have little idea about what causes it.

What I am referring to, however, has naught to do with my ability to hold a glass of water in a relaxed manner. No, rather, I refer to that incomparable feeling I get when it's been a while since I've tread the boards. It's glorious. Appetite, insecurity and aggressive temper all rolled into one glorious experience. I love it almost as much as I love my day job.

Almost

.

Perhaps I've seemed busy. I have been, but with all manner of things ancillary to playing a role on stage or film. I've been teaching workshops. I've been traveling. I've been teaching high-schoolers. I've been helping people get

divorced

. I've been designing brochures. I've been networking with other actors and the occasional producer. I've been participating in readings, discussions and revisions, website consultations and typing in this here 'blog. None of it really feeds the urge. It just stems it a very little bit.

Notice I did not say, "I've been auditioning." Dagger, thy pointe is for me. No. I haven't. I tried last Friday (for

The Irish Repertory Theatre

) but one thing led to another and I had to choose a little in-flow of money over it. And, I'm terrible at cold auditions. It's a sad fact. Those supposed E.T.s are linked to nervous energy, and nothing makes me more nervous than standard audition procedure, so the two compound one another. (I'm nervous about auditioning, my hands shake, I'm nervous about my hands shaking, etc.) I don't have stage fright, but I have audition fright.

Jeez, Louise.

But really, what could they have done to make a cold audition more terrifying? Anything at all, short of hanging eviscerated cadavers from the ceiling and jumping from a corner shouting "Boo!" when you walk in? You get up at Stupid O'clock in the morning in order to stand in a line of your fellow aspirant actors for at least an hour in order to get the audition slot you need to fit the thing into your day. Then you're either called to wait in line again (This time: sitting!) or go away and come back in time for your slot. As you wait, you get to watch

carbon copies of yourself

, only with better (Choose three [3]: hair / bone structure / physique / voice / height / experience / charisma) prepare and go through The Room. You shuffle your stuff from seat to seat as you move down the line, calculating where you'll put it all while you're in there, and trying to make sure you don't go up on at least the first line of your monologue. Finally it's down to you, and two minutes stretches into a lifetime....

Then the door to The Room opens. You pause to calculate that indeterminate amount of time they need to breathe between applicants, hoping you didn't rush them but aren't wasting their time, either. In you go, and The Room is always 1) small, 2) stuffy, 3) lit with fluorescents, 4) white. (Ever had a friend run you through that verbal "psychological" test that always ends with you providing three words about how you would feel in a windowless, doorless white room with a giant white armadillo in the center? That's The Room.) There are 1 to 10 people waiting for you inside (yes, 10--it's happened to me) at the far end, seated behind a table. You introduce yourself, your piece, and go. You have at most a minute-and-a-half to blow them away.

Then it's over. You're outside The Room again, a flush of heat rising to your face as you relax from all the adrenaline. At some point, there was a "thank you" that ushered you from The Room, but that doesn't matter now. What matters is that you've just realized that the person behind the desk was about 20 years old. Which means s/he was a casting assistant. Which means they have no authority or respect. Which means you didn't actually audition for the theatre, but helped fulfill their "audition process" required by

Actors' Equity Association

. So you go to work, and for two days try to convince yourself that you're not hoping to hear from them again.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. I also know there are plenty of people who don't feel this way, and who weather these things regularly just fine. Have I only myself to blame for my lack of work recently? Possibly. All right: Probably. The two regional theatres I work for regularly (

The Northeast Theatre

and

Signal & Noise Productions

), for different sorts of compounded reasons, haven't hired me this season. My crutches fell. My suppliers ran dry. The corner bodega is out of

Newcastle

and

American Spirits

. So I must rally, and walk a few harrowing blocks to the bodega that doesn't know me by name. So be it!

But does somebody want to hold my trembling hand?

Laughing in the Face of [BLANK]

So I have this theory. Well, I can't actually claim the theory for myself. Neither can I cite it specifically. I think I either read it in college or heard somebody espouse it on The Actor's Studio. Or I made it up, but I doubt that. So I

subscribe

to this theory, and "this theory" is thus:

Laughter--and its shy cousin, smiling--comes from a sublimated fear reaction. In the process of our intellectual development, an aspect of our fight-or-flight instinct evolved into an instrument that responds not only to immediate environmental threats, but to words and ideas, and in which we have learned to take pleasure.

The theory kind of hinges on the idea that most, if not all, of what we regard as "emotions" evolved from survival instincts. Ergo, the theory relies on you, dear reader, not being an adamant Creationist. So all adamant Creationists, please leave the room now. Go ahead; go. It's okay. We're not excluding you, we're just being considerate of your feelings and your God(s). We'll call you in again when we're back to discussing Kinko's and comic book characters.

...Are they gone? Thank God. Now we can start throwing feces at each other again.

I believe there's something to evolution. You got me there. I recognize it still as being a theory, yes, but it's a sound one in my opinion, and getting sounder all the time (like Radiohead). Me, I think if God is responsible for Creation, s/he/it is a pretty smart cookie and wanted to watch some changes over time. Like Sea Monkeys. And anyway, that's the beauty of a "theory" by the scientific definition. It's useful until it's contradicted by something better.

So: Laughter. Most studies into it, behaviorally speaking, find a strong connection between the response and being in a "play" environment. That goes for man and ape. For apes, "laughter" is more like a kind of involuntary heavy, rapid breathing. Tracing laughter through other animals is more speculative, because, well...they're other animals. Rats, for example, exhibit a behavior that might be laughter: a kind of high-pitched, rapid squeaking. But it might be that all rats share a predilection for singing Prince { O(+> } songs at karaoke. Hard to say. Hyenas are well-documented as laughers, but it doesn't accompany their play. Rather, it accompanies the threat of a food source being taken away from them, so many argue that this isn't laughter per se.

Au contraire, say I, in my snootiest French accent. I consider the definition of laughter, as science would have it, as being a bit too narrow. (That's the way it is with science--one day your friend, the next your nemesis.) Combine it with the feature of the smile (which seems a pretty acceptable association to me) and you've got more to consider as to its origins and relationship to our environment. Specifically, when else do we bare our teeth? When we are threatened.

Apes do this as well. Just about any animal that is willing to bite its way out of a problem will bare its teeth in a social interaction in which violence is imminent. In just such situations, the pulse quickens and the breathing becomes quicker and deeper. Tension mounts, and in an instant is released in one of two directions: fight, or flight. Moreover, there is one overriding fear that dictates this response. It comes with an awareness of the possibility of death.

We have to laugh in the face of death. It is the ultimate ungovernable aspect of our lives, and what else can we do with it? Religion provides answers to our minds, and hopefully our hearts, yet our bodies are still somehow aware of death's finality. And we don't get to face death in absolute scenarios anymore. Even our soldiers tend to be fighting amidst chaos and invisible forces of annihilation, such as falling bombs and super-sonic bullets. Without the possibility of high-stake, fight-or-flight scenarios, a peculiar catharsis is missing from our lives. It's provided for by comedy.

I'm losing some of you, I realize. Sure, there's plenty that we laugh at that has nothing to do with the threat of death. Puns, for example. (Though some are truly deadly.) Also, funny faces, or cartoons.

There will I ask you to hold the phone. Please: hold this phone. Thank you.

Perhaps you can understand the connection between a fear of death and watching a Buster Keaton pratfall. We vicariously experience the possibility of finality when Keaton falls two stories.Maybe it’s only subconsciously.Maybe the pratfall is just a trip.The point is that it introduces a moment of uncertainty into our assumptions, and the mother of all uncertainties, or unknowns, is The Great Beyond.Cartoons continue in this tradition, making the stakes two-dimensional (in most cases) but the threat astronomical.But what of someone making a funny face?Still the unknown, I argue.The more unidentifiable or unexpected the face is, the better the laugh.Because for a moment, we don’t understand.There’s that taste of death, the “little death” of French fame.

I have no explanation for puns.

We don’t laugh only because of fear, but I’m certain it plays a larger role than is immediately apparent.Certainly accessing this fear is the most direct way to make people laugh. The laughter that arises from tickling, or from just enjoying being with someone, that might have other explanations.Then again, tickling takes control of our body away from us; a singularly unnerving experience, that requires one to acknowledge that he or she isn’t absolute.And good friends?Avoiding shock humor, or pratfalls, and still yucking it up?It’s play.It’s why we play games, intentionally and unintentionally.Games simulate the need to make decisions.The tiny or grand oscillations we make toward and away from people, even with people we have no conscious desire to ever be apart from, are tests of our connection: to others, to ourselves, to the world at large.The stakes are there.We are playing with death.

There you have it.Jeff explains it all.No applause, please; just throw money.And hey, disagree with me!I’d love to argue this out.Though I should warn you:

I may just laugh it off.

I Am a Banana!

Dewds: Oh my dewds: What a day have had I.

Today was the suspect

KCACTF

workshop, and I must say I am SO glad I didn't bail (for fear of not being on their program:

12/15/07

). Patrick and I drove up bright and early, and spent some hours strolling the seemingly desolate

campus

, pinning up fliers for

In Bocca al Lupo

. Scavenging push-pins was fun . . . especially when we were done, landed in the check-in area just in time to hear one of the student volunteers walk in a demand to know why she couldn't find any unused push-pins on any bulletin boards. I worried (I'm a worrier) that there would be no students, for we saw so few on our lengthy back-and-forth over the campus. So many attempts at promotion have ended in disappointment for the theatre in the past, I've learned to brace myself for the worst possible outcome.

I needn't have worried.

We had nearly 50 students for the class.

I thank God:

1. They gave us a plenty-big room.
2. Patrick was there.
3. No one fell on his or her head.

Seriously: It was a liability nightmare. I suppose I should have kicked some people out, but I was just so surprised that I went straight into problem-solving mode. Five minutes before we were supposed to begin, Patrick and I quickly conferred amidst all the quasi-nervous college actors and agreed the best way to proceed would be to have them break into groups of three, see if there was enough space, then proceed in the hope that the spotters (those assigned to catch anyone who might fall) took to their jobs with grim determination.

We had them make a circle, shoulder-to-shoulder, and they essentially filled the 40x50 dance studio. To warm up, I had them count of one-two-one-two, and the twos step forward. Now we had two concentric circles, and we warmed up for about a half an hour. They were very responsive to my (cheesy, gratuitous) humor, and it wasn't too long before we were all warm in body and buzzing on the joy of being together and active. Great energy. And we did it all. In two hours, we learned the acrobalance poses of

Angel

(Superman) and

Front Thigh Stand

, worked on the dollar-bill exercise (teaching threes, separate and specific beats, listening) twice, and even covered some ground regarding building

commedia characters

from their appetites. And it ended with them almost unanimously hungry for more, which was great for

In Bocca al Lupo

. Hopefully students for that will come from this, but honestly, right now I'm just thrilled with how well it went.

That's about it, folks. I close the day, safely returned to my Brooklyn apartment now, gratefully exhausted from travel and

real

work. It was the kind of day to remember, when your work proved valuable and you feel useful and eager for more. There's a wonderful series of cartoons called "

Rejected

," by Don Hertzfeldt, that springs to my mind whenever I get in a situation that's potentially awkward or disappointing. It's a way of lightening my own mood and getting my mind off of worry. ("

My SPOON is too BIG

.") Some days, those same sheltering chants become

victory shouts

.

Three-Ring Surreality

Ask me how bad-ass

Circus Oz

is. Go ahead. Ask me.

The answer to that lies at the end of this entry...

Last night was another opportunity to shed the strictures of mundanity, this time in celebration of my friend Kate Magram(founder of

Kirkos

)'s birthday. Now, Kate is already having a party tonight, at her loft apartment in Williamsburg (the uber-trendy one, not the colonial re-enactment), so last night was kind of a prequel bonus, if you will. She very much wanted the Yurts to accompany her to see what I believe is her favorite circus troupe ever. Sadly, Animal Yurt (Patrick) was already out of NYC for the holy daze, so that left Giggly Yurt and Dour Yurt (Melissa and myself) to attend with Studious Yurt. Yet another venture to get in the way of holiday preparation and paying a scant amount of attention to my acting career. Yet again was I pleased as punch that I made the excursion.

(As another interesting twist in my day yesterday concerning Kate:

Almost a year ago now, as a sort of contemporary coping method, I put up a singles profile on The Onion AV Club. It helped to sort of sort through where I was and where I thought I wanted to head, inter-personally speaking. An unexpected bonus of this is that I now get weekly emails from the site, informing me of ten women who have recently signed up and with whom my stars align, or some such nonsense. These emails contain pictures and excerpts from their profiles, and I can scroll down and compare/contrast physical attraction with intellectual attraction [if only insofar as such can be judged by a single photograph and a few lines of personal description]. I enjoy it. It's like flirting, but without the potential for emotional scarring. Well, just guess who showed up in my inbox yesterday? I suppose I owe a little something to the Gods of Romantic Comedy Cliches for my earlier jabs at them.

:and now, back to our original entry, already in progress.)

...so I says to him, I says, "Napoleon, I understand how much you enjoy the pillaging and all, but shouldn't someone of your stature set his sights a little higher? You know,

achieve

something historically significant?" Well. You know how the rest turned out, I'm sure.

But where was I?

OH YES. The land of Oz. Circus Oz originates in Australia, has a company of performers from all over the world, and they are just as talented and trained as any

Cirque du Soleil

chumps. (It's really not fair to compare the two; they have utterly separate objectives and aesthetics. But they both represent nuevo circus in the public eye, sew...) Oz : Soleil :: Nirvana : My Chemical Romance. (Hey: I like MCR, okay? It's just that for my money Nirvana says more with less, and you don't end up feeling like, well, a chump for rocking out to them.)

The real brilliance of the show I saw, "Laughing at Gravity," was an act at the end of the first Act. It wasn't all that skill-heavy, and was predominantly very clownish. It involved most all of the performers participating in a small orchestra, with the actual musical director dressed up in clown and conducting them. It combined a wonderful assortment of classical excerpts (that 2001 song, Flight of the Bumblebee, Flight of the Valkyrie, etc.) with the action onstage. The unity between the action and the particular song (and, indeed, the style in which that song was played) was impressive. Clearly the musical director had put in just as much work as an acrobat training for a difficult maneuver. What really grabbed me, though, was one of the final moments. There was an upright bass onstage, and the conductor and it were hooked into a flying harness and lifted into the air, whereupon he pretended to play the instrument. (Heaven help me, but I can't be sure of the song...possibly Flight of the Valkyrie.) This was well and good, and the rig spun them like a pendulum around the stage, maybe twenty feet up. Then, however, he lost his hold on the instrument, and they separated, still circling. He spots it behind him, and begins running (still in the air, mind you) and it is exactly as though the bass is chasing him.

Then

he notices he's still holding the bow, turns to face his tormentor, and begins to sword-fight with it.

It was brilliant. Well, I'm a sucker for the transmogrification of props, but I'd still bet others less-inclined toward such things would still find it brilliant. (For another poignant example of the human characteristics of an upright bass, catch a production of the formerly-Broadway-based revue,

Swing

.) There's something about the surreal, when it's at least somewhat rooted in the "mundane" that delights as few other things can. I consider

Magritte

a wonderful example of this. Though in that context, I suppose I must acknowledge that the surreal, no matter how based in the mundane (and perhaps as a result of which), can also create a feeling of dread like few other things can. In that sense, my mind springs to Japanese horror films. These are uniquely horrifying (to jaded Westerners, at any rate) because not only is something threatening happening, it's happening

in a way that can not make sense

. Someone appearing out of nowhere, dripping wet when it isn't raining, or a hand appearing from out a potted plant. Put that way, I wonder if the results of delight and dread aren't just matters of context.

So I've figured a little something out about why I enjoy circus, seeing it and performing it. It gives me access to the places I'm afraid to go, and the possibility of little victories in that arena.

From Circus Oz's program:

"When we perform, we show ourselves, our mob, our place, our culture, the inherent danger of living, the thrill of surviving, and YOUR ability to laugh in the face of adversity, chaos, crisis and gravity."

A: All-encompassingly.