Class Act

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You've probably been 'blogging for too long when you start to feel, with every post title, "I must have used THIS pun before...."

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I have a lot of semi-traumatic memories of school. I say semi-traumatic because, in spite of how very very real they were to me at the time, in light of some more adult tragedies it seems inapt to apply the same word. Still and all -- without that perspective and with the fiery, passionate, all-or-nothing stakes of youth -- some of these events were rather defining for me. I was thinking of one of the less traumatic (possibly even redemptive of...something...) ones this morning as I hurriedly recorded my lines for tomorrow's film gig in the hopes of absorbing them through audio osmosis. In a history class in what I recall as being my junior year of high school, I gave a presentation on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and afterward a guy who had given me a hard time in the past rather announced to the class, "Hey, you were acting. That was just like when you act." Somehow I had the presence of mind not to feel injured by this call-out (it was definitely an effort to draw negative attention to me) and I calmly responded, "Yeah, I was. I can do that." And sat down. And the class continued, my would-be persecutor left scratching his head a bit at why acting was allowed in class.

Yesterday I returned to Hunter College to teach

an Intro. to Theatre class

about the (living) history of commedia dell'arte. I've taught similar classes at Hunter before, though always a shorter class with more students, and to date always with my commedia partner-in-crime,

Heather Stuart

. This was, in other words, something of a new experience for me. Oh, and in addition to these circumstances, it was my first time really teaching solo for a class of desk-bound students -- generally non-actors who hadn't any expressed interest in getting out of the seats to try the work on for size. I was made a little nervous by it. (Ironically, I got three potential

In Bocca al Lupo

-ers out of them, but I couldn't have known that was a possibility ahead of time.) As far as I was concerned, I was there to lecture. In my own, inimitable style.

Said "inimitable style" involves quite a bit of amateurish waffling and tangential thinking.

The class went well, actually, I think. The teacher, Sascha Just, was complimentary afterward. Most of the people seemed to be engaged most of the time, and I certainly never ran out of things to talk about. There were gaffs, and the lesson plan needs more work for certain, but in balance I'd say it was a success. I was pleasantly surprised by some techniques I implemented that were half-planned, half-spun-out-on-the-spot; rather like working from a scenario. I asked the students periodically to imagine themselves in the shoes of a commedia dell'arte troupe of the 1500s; not in a "picture-this" way, but more actively, using modern equivalents and inviting them to draw images without requiring that they do so. This worked to wake them from note-taking stupors, and also helped us find a common ground when I got cyclical or tangential in whatever aspect I was covering at a given moment. "Where was I? Back to the piazza...." I also had the idea to tell them to interrupt me whenever they had a question or a reaction. They didn't take me up on this too much, but a little, and I was pleased with how it kept things lively and served to illustrate the level of interaction traditional commedia had with its unpretentious audiences.

I was acting. I was very much putting on a show. In another interesting parallel, though, it reminded me of the first time I used mask work in performance. This was not in a commedia context, per se, but it did involve a similar half-mask style. I was suddenly divorced from a powerful component of my acting -- my facial expressions. I had to relearn what read to an audience, which gestures and intonations would connect without facial cues, and I can assure you that it was a rocky start to demonstrating that particular skill. Hopefully I've improved since. Hopefully, too, I'll learn more and more about teaching a class in an actual classroom, as opposed to a theatre, or movement studio. I couldn't jump about too much there, and it affected everything from my method of description to changes in my overall energy pattern. I had quite a patter kept up; definitely could have afforded a bit more relaxation, but by the same token I believe my enthusiasm for the subject was welcome.

I left feeling very gratified. In a way, finding this new way of expressing the essentials of commedia dell'arte renewed my excitement for it, which will be very valuable indeed in the coming month. My enthusiasm while teaching in Italy will be genuine. I won't even have to act!

Er, wait . . .

Emerging Work

When I graduated from college, I topped the whole experience off with one, final, profoundly disturbing regret. At the theatre department's ceremony, I presented my favorite acting teacher with a gift -- my complete collection of dramatic writings, which at the time totaled something like two full-length plays and a couple of ten-minute ones. All nice and neat in a three-ring binder. I think I saw it as sharing a personal connection with him that hadn't been permitted before, and perhaps I even hoped to spark a dialogue or future collaboration. He is a great director, after all. I even have a photo of us posing with the tome, taken by my ever-encouraging (to a fault, I daresay) parents.

Oh God, how I wish I had a time machine and a flame-thrower.

So when I say that the culmination of NYU's undergraduate play-writing class on Monday was an impressive display, I say so with the wisdom attained only by retrospective utter failure. Monday night, in the Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row, I participated in

a staged reading

of excerpts from an approximate dozen dramatic works by some of NYU's finest. Many were funny, some were heart-breaking, and all were very carefully crafted and re-crafted over the course of a year's study. I had the pleasure of performing in five of the pieces, alternating between an every-man, a lothario, a yuppie, an historian and (naturally) that classic foil: the best friend. The performances were oddly cathartic. I had the sense that they were very, very important to the audience, which was made up mostly of the playwrights and their friends and families. I suppose I'm more accustomed to feeling that the performance is most important to the actors, which undoubtedly says something about me and the theatre I've had experience creating. Bear in mind, too, that

my instincts suck

.

It was an interesting day, and by "interesting," I in fact mean "largely boring." We began at 11:00, and ran through every excerpt a couple of times for tech purposes. This meant a lot of waiting and, when time came to actually occupy the stage and a character, only as much acting exploration as didn't get in the way of logistics. We had a lot to get done in seven hours, and we did, and it's all a credit to everyone's professionalism and commitment. But that doesn't mean I wasn't kicking myself for not committing to buying a new laptop already. I kvetch about not being able to make time and space to write, and when it's handed to me on a tin platter (this sort of gig doesn't exactly pay large sums) I am unprepared. Boo me, say I.

No, I don't give up writing because I'm so embarrassed by my younger efforts. Somehow the memory of my previous works and their

naiveté

doesn't occur to me when I'm excited to write something new. It's not quite selective memory, because it's not quite intentional -- more like a non-gag reflex. I think it's a reflex akin to the little tricks everyone's memory plays on them to get them to ride roller-coasters, or fall in love. One doesn't think of the terror, the loss of control, the vomiting; one only thinks to oneself, "

WANT!

" It's a dangerous urge, which seems to me the only kind of urge worth having.

Unwanted Knowledge

I've returned to my research of corpses, which seems to be endlessly fascinating to me. (This return is in the hopes of generating new [more gooder] material for

my play-in-progress,

Hereafter

.) I think the fascination stems from the fact that so much of the research is a discovery of items I never even had a hint of before. No one knows, because no one wants to know. I've always had an appreciation for the taboo--in some of the dullest senses--but this is the first time it's struck me as a pointed preoccupation. I love learning about things I ought not to.

Actually, it's not quite true that I've never before tapped this appetite for the occult. As an elementary school student, I almost single-handedly kept the library out of its stock of books on monsters and mythological creatures. It was embarrassing, I remember, but a thrill. The strange is thrilling. Erotic, too, in a way. Remember playing doctor, or sneaking looks at pictorial nudity? No? Just me? Alrighty then...

I feel I'm at a curious stage of writing, too. It reminds me of a couple of my first serious attempts at creative writing. A short story and a short play, written years apart, they both started out as one thing in my mind and were drastically different by the end, largely through the application of heart, of earnest meaning. These were improvements to the work, hands-down, but in both cases I was initially resistant. "No, I'm not trying to make

that

, I'm trying to make

this

." Someday I'll learn that it's more about whatever it is I'm making, and what it wants to ultimately be. In the case of

Hereafter

, this self-made conflict has to do with whether it's a play about what happens to our bodies after we die and how funny that can be, or if it's about how we process the idea of death itself. The latter is, naturally, winning out in terms of dominant content.

It's curious how creative work gets started, and where it can go from there. The ideas that energize our start-up can eventually hinder the process, and the emotions we discover in the process itself may end up being more significant. Well: If not more significant, than more directing, at least. Yet my research today has done more to motivate me to rework the play than anything else in recent memory. In particular, I was learning about the embalming process, and it was really firing up some ideas that I want to get on paper . . . er, screen. Which is ew; very ew. Still, it's fascinating. I didn't know, for example, that you should never investigate the lower end of the coffin in an open-casket funeral. Why? Because sometimes morticians remove the major inner organs and seal them in a plastic bag that gets deposited at the corpse's feet.

YEAH. LIKE THAT. YOU'RE WELCOME.

I also had a wonderful conversation about

Hereafter

and the subjects it addresses with a friend yesterday, which invariably motivates more writing. So that's the order of business this weekend, while

Wife Megan

is away selling swag -- writing more interesting tidbits about the verities of death. Maybe the things I have to share with you are unwanted. Or maybe, it's all just fascinating, and I'm saving people the trouble of admitting it.

Inversion

It's surprisingly pliant and strong fabric, stretchy, but just to a certain point where it locks and holds at whatever length marks its limit. It's called a "silk," as if it represented a single object rather than a length or segment of some endlessly stitched material. "Silk," also as if it were the softest textile to use, but be careful: it will give you subtle burns, taking away skin at such microscopic increments that you won't feel the blister until much later. As with most circus skills, you've been deceived by how easy the experienced performers make it look and, in at least a small part, by the seeming innocence or mundane appearance of the "silk" itself. Nothing of the performance of that skill suggests throbbing forearms or aching, limited lats in the slightest.

So the first thing you learn is how to climb, which is also the first deception. It would seem as though you're powering your way up, Greco-Roman, arm over arm. In point of fact your abdomen is the one of whom a lot is asked, lifting your feet as high up the tail of the fabric as you can so you can lock it between your feet and push with your legs until a new, higher point is within the reach of your ready arms. Once you've climbed, it's time to learn to descend. That's the slide down, but a controlled one, because even at a reasonable pace the silk can tear at your dermis. If you want to be demonstrative, you can add a certain flair to releasing your grips, extending your arms out wide to accentuate how little you feel the burning resistance between your clenched feet.

Next up is to learn a couple of locks, or positions in which the fabric holds your weight without much help. From the ground you step up into a foot lock, and learn new sorts of pain from the silk, which has instantly attained the leveraging attributes of a jiu-jitsu practitioner. You see yourself down the road a ways, your new blister healed and with an instinctive understanding of how to settle your foot into this lock without your toes cramping but, for now, both aspects are toying with your pain relays. The hip lock seems okay, once you learn to trust the twist involved and to be cautious of your external reproductive organs (an interesting trade-off in advantages for your upper body strength, if you possess said external organs), until you try the straight-leg variety, which performs a relentless shiatsu massage on the delicate nerves in your hip flexor. Perhaps all this nerve conditioning is more than you ever wanted, and gives you pause, but you're on to the next thing and are sure everything will be all right now that you aren't in a straight-leg relentless-shiatsu hip lock any longer.

Why is it that all the deaths related to circus practitioners you've heard of lately happened off of silks?

The next steps integrate what you've picked up (or limped through) with inversions and, eventually, drops. That's a large part of the appeal of silks; they very easily encapsulate the dual appeal of beauty and danger people associate with circus acts. Because of the forgiving behavior of the material (ha ha), the performer can not only climb it and flare it out and bind themselves up, but he or she can also drop, fall, spinning toward the ground, saved at the last possible moment by the bobbing silk. Obviously, the more dangerous the drop seems, the better response there is to be had from the audience. Dropping head-first is something you want to do. And it takes practice.

It's a funny thing, being upside down. You never really,

really

get used to it. Practice doesn't ever quite make it to perfect. There's always some part of you that insists that things are going to continue as they have, with the ground beneath your feet and your balance based from there on up ("up" being a direction associated with your standing "up" hair). So when someone tries to teach you how to tie yourself upside-down, you have the curious sensation of feeling proud of being able to pull it off. Then they ask you to fall face-first toward the floor, and you have the curious follow-up sensation of trepidation over whether or not you tied yourself upside-down in the right, un-cracked-spine manner.

Drop! Catch! Not even a bloody nose, and you suddenly have an easier time imagining yourself enduring pinched muscles, swollen forearms and blistered ankles.

Last Thursday

Wife Megan

and I took our first circus class together, and were taught beginner's silk lessons by

Friend Cody

. I have been eager to rejoin the world of circus training, so there was little doubt in my mind about the fun and challenges to be had. Still, one wonders if he has lost anything, if the risks now outweigh the rewards, if new patterns will allow for older enthusiasms. I haven't, they don't, and they do. Can't hardly wait for this Thursday's follow-up lesson and time for more drops and inversions.

Nice Place You've Got Here . . .

" . . . lots of space . . ."

I have rarely been so tempted by the university setting as when I arrived at Swarthmore College yesterday. In fact, I'm a little frustrated by their website. If I ran things there (and just give me time) there'd be a gallery devoted to the scenery. It was misty, gray and generally chilly out, and I was still blown away by lovely architecture, a long, green lawn, and it was all backed up by forest that descended to a river valley. Gorgeous. I arrived a bit early, and walked about, checking things out. In my brief progress, I found an enormous amphitheatre built into the forest, stone walling etching out green lawned levels, studded with 150-year-old oak trees here and there. Took my breath away with theatrical possibilities. I was a little disappointed not to be working there, even given the nasty weather.

Then I found the space in which we would be working.

Tarble Hall is a movement-studio-slash-performance-space within Clothier Hall, which appears to be a converted church space, complete with monk's walk surrounding a small courtyard, a bell tower, and of course a worship space. Well, where they put us was in the worship space -- twelve feet up. The space has been converted in such a way that a movement floor was put in right about where the large ceiling begins to angle steeply together, replete with ornately carved beams and arches. Below it is an access hallway to the other rooms off the ground floor of the main building. The effect is rather like one is in a long, ample movement studio suspended in space. The floor was well-sprung, and it was rigged for performances at either end or, really, wherever you felt like it. Some spaces invite you to perform, to fill them out with motion. This was such a place, in spades. I was awed.

And, I'm afraid that probably showed through in my teaching. It wasn't exactly a bad class, but it definitely wasn't my best. I had some trouble holding everything together with 22 students, giving them both an overview and a practical approach to commedia dell'arte. It was partly awe, partly the weather and partly travel fatigue. And, as I say, it wasn't a bad class. It was just that at times I thought to myself, "You know, this has felt much more intense and cool before...." That having been said, I think everyone had fun and learned a little something. About midway through, I broke out the "tag trick" to wake everyone up a bit. The tag trick is to convince everyone that you are about to do an exercise that is very serious and requires a lot of concentration, then tag someone and tell them they're "it." It usually serves to get people laughing at themselves a bit. I usually fail to keep a sufficient deadpan for the set-up, and this class was no exception.

All in all, it was an interesting dynamic with this class. I spent a lot of time considering how to loosen them up, and I'm not sure that I was altogether successful. I think I would have benefited from giving them a few more opportunities to perform. They certainly responded well to what opportunities I did manage to give them. If I ever return, I'll put more emphasis on outlining ideas, then asking them to take the ball and run. That's my preferred way of working anyway; if I was more didactic this time, it had everything to do with being excited to have authentic commedia dell'arte training to draw from since working with Angelo Crotti.

Perhaps my favorite moment of the class, actually, occurred during break. One of the students was working on a handstand, and I coached him a bit, encouraging him to try for alignment rather than arching his back for balance. Another student joined in as I was explaining the importance of pushing up through the upper palm, and they both noticed considerable improvement in their ability to stick it. I think this was the best moment of me and students meeting halfway in our enthusiasm and focus, and I relished it. I wrote not too long ago (see 4/13/09) about the value in inviting people to learn, instead of requiring it, and learning to invite in as compelling a way as possible. I'm enjoying working on that skill, be it in a rather run-down office, or the most beautiful movement space I've ever before seen.