Scaling Hypotheses

I am a great lover of hypothetical questions. To my mind, they are the most efficient method of getting a person to write you a very brief and personally grounded bit of fiction. Maybe this, too, is why many people avoid hypothetical questions -- they're all-too aware of how revealing their answers may be. I think these sorts of questions are a little too entertaining to be concerned for my own exposure, though. Over the years I've tried to disguise my hypothetical questions in forms people won't find too fanciful or threatening. Instead of asking, "If you were trapped on a desert island with a CD player and only five albums, which would they be?", I go for, "Top five albums?" Even then, many balk. "You're allowed to change your mind," I insist. Still, nuthin'. Some favorites of mine:

• Would you rather be able to fly, or become invisible at will?

• If you had to pick one musical artist or band to compose a running soundtrack behind your every moment, who would it be?

• What would you do if you knew you had three weeks to live?

I thought of a new one the other day, and a series of events seemed to conspire to bring me back to my answer to it, over and over. I had the answer before I had the question, to be completely honest. The answer: Climb. The eventual question:

• If you could only do three things for the rest of your life, which three voluntary actions -- besides sleeping, eating and sex -- would you choose?

So when I put it to myself that way, I came up with to climb, act and write. I took some time with it, because I figured that given more options I might come around to see that to climb was not my life's greatest ambition. And it's true. I don't aspire to climb, particularly. What it is about the act of climbing that puts it at number one is that it makes me the happiest out of these three things I love to do. This is very interesting to me. I notice that I am not a professional rock climber, nor a telephone-pole repairman, nor even a stuntman, per se. I could make some practical assertions as to why not, but all of these would crumble once applied to my chosen aspiration of maintaining a legitimate acting career.

I'm not sure I can explain what it is about climbing -- simply climbing -- that is so satisfying to me. It seems like such a simple action, yet it always cheers me up somehow, to the extent that if I had to give up acting or climbing, I really don't know which one I'd choose. (So please: Nobody ask me that one.) Writing's third because I love it, but it's solitary, and acting's second because it comes with some really nauseating lows right along with the dizzying highs. But climbing, it's very pure, and uplifting (see what I did there) and heck: I just don't know. I fantasize about getting a grant to do performance art for which I climb various public sculptures, turning major American cities into playgrounds. From what I've heard, I've always been this way. One of the earliest stories of me that my parents have involves climbing to the top of an nine-foot-tall metal giraffe. This same story also highlights a rather strange accompanying fear: of heights.

I don't know what this says about me, and I don't particularly care. I get a greater sense of reward out of definitively identifying a little joy for myself than I do out of plumbing its roots and motivations. So I instead put it to you, Dear Reader:

• If you could only do three things for the rest of your life, which three voluntary actions would you choose?

Remember: Fun, not Freud.

Adesso.

Dunque.

In Bocca al Lupo is a non-stop program. On their three-week course, the students have only two free days. They also have two days of gita scholastici which add the time up to two full weekends, in which we go see shows and visit towns and regions they otherwise might not, but that's as much as to say that it's a required activity. They need context for their huge undertaking, and we all need that kind of time outside the rehearsal or class rooms to really develop a personal bond. After all, a sense of ensemble is critically essential to the final project.

We had a week to plan and prepare and, quite frankly, relax before they arrived. They hit the ground running, however. The very next day, after their flight got in, they began language classes at Lingua Si and master classes in commedia dell'arte with Angelo Crotti in a converted convent. I can attest to the fact that the language classes are mentally taxing, and as far as Angelo's classes go, well . . . any Crotti class you can limp away from is a good one. They did brilliantly. There were some breakdowns, but no dramas, and by the end of the week, everyone had forgotten their aching gams, bid Angelo a bitter-sweet adieu, and managed to speak enough Italian to make sense of their little world in Orvieto.

So we moved them to Aquapendente and took away their language classes.

In Aquapendente our artistic home is Teatro Boni, a beautiful little classical theatre complete with velvet seats and crystal chandelier. Boni is where the students began their master classes with Andrea Brugnera, who emphasizes a more internal approach to character creation and story-telling. It's at this time that we also introduced them to the scenario they would be learning and performing—in Italian—and began that work. The trade-off for not having Angelo's physical demands during this time is that we begin regular “conditioning,” as I've come to call it. At the end of every day, after master classes and rehearsal, for a half an hour, I get to lead the students through strength and endurance exercises. I'd be lying if I said I didn't relish this. Some part of me misses working with a circus troupe, still.

This period is a complex one in many ways. One of the objectives is to encourage the students to learn improvisation as not just a useful skill in dealing with problems, but a preferable one. So, even as we're asking them to memorize a story and do things “right,” we're also trying to encourage thinking (or perhaps more appropriately, feeling) spontaneously and in a spirit of discovery. This ripples through everything we do, including trying to locate parking on a group trip. It's frightening. Everyone reacts differently. Most people struggle to get a grip on something concrete, to get it “right.” They ask for a written copy of the scenario, which we never provide, as it's important to learn the story through one's body and connections with others. They aim for consistency in on-stage exchanges, and we do what we can to shake them out of these. They come to rely on certain routines (such as the conditioning) and we viciously disrupt them.

It's also a complex time because we are becoming an ensemble. Relationships that are akin to a family are nascent, and manifest in both helpful and unhelpful ways (when your priority is improvisation and doing, terms like "good" and "bad" prove decidedly unhelpful). Not only are the students living and working together, and in the process attempting to avoid falling into reality television cliches, but we as teachers are becoming their directors and - in my and Heather's cases - fellow actors. We all have to depend on one another and, even as we're getting past the polite or glamorous demeanor of first encounters, the idea of treating everyone you work with as an inspired poet and artist turns from a nice idea into an essential survival tool.

In the third and final week, I invariably wonder to myself, Can it really have been only two weeks? Yet the performances loom and there seems still to be a million things to decide and discover. People despair and laugh uncontrollably and have personal revelations, and none of it helps us feel any more prepared for our first audience. The students have their second brush-up Italian lesson while we teachers hasten to pay rent on theatres and generally determine what use of rehearsal time will be most useful. And then whoosh, flash, bang: It's over. Over two or three days, all our fruition and reversed expectations. And we part ways. And it seems impossible that we are indeed going to go separate ways, much less that we've known each other for only a few weeks, and not most of our lives.

The students this year were absolutely amazing, and a privilege to work with. I'll have much more write specifically about their work and the particular experience in the coming days. Until then, I simply savor the glow of it all. While working on a show, it often seems impossible, even when it's with a script, and in English. The feeling after you pull it off, especially when you pull it off well . . . well. Suffice it to say the night never feels so refreshing in the piazza, and the gelato never so sweet.

Adventure

I've always maintained that just about any event, effort or circumstance can be perceived as an adventure. Some adventures are more entertaining than others, but in any circumstance, calling it an adventure is bound to make everything a bit more entertaining. I immediately second-guess myself in this statement, trying to imagine some of my worst days or least-favorite activities as "adventures," but that is pure cynicism. Besides, I'm unconvinced that it disproves the theory. The fact is, adventures come in all shapes and sizes, and the better adventures have a proper dose of loss and pathos.

I occasionally lament that "adventure movies" fell out of fashion. Then they make another one, and I think,

Oh right...mostly they're crap...good call, Hollywood!

Back in the days of

Erol's

, it was my beeline section, and many a

pseudo-oil-painting-covered

movie found its over-sized box going home with us to play on our VCR. The blending of action/adventure at the movie rental locations was, in my opinion, a fatal move. They are distinct genres. Although adventure invariably contains action, it functions under a rather different formula. Which is to say, the action is more narrative, and generally less dependent on direct conflict. In fact, part of what appeals to me about adventure as a genre is that it has less to do with problem-destroying, and more to do with problem-solving, as fantastical as that solving may sometimes be. I suffer a similar lamentation for the degradation of the genuine spy movie into

Die Hard with Sunglasses

.

Let me give you an example from life.

In my younger years, I would spend whole summers on acting jobs. Such jobs are commonly referred to as "summer stock," in that a company hires a bunch of actors for the whole summer, and uses them in various capacities for a multi-show, two-to-three month season. The company usually provides housing and pay, assuming one is not an intern. This is quite an adventure for some; some being, in this particular case, a rather naive and directionless recent college graduate. The excitement of having to open a checking account and figuring out little practicalities like telephone capabilities (you know, with a cord and everything) for the sake of a few months' time wears off after a few more years of experience, but at the time it was all adventure. So perhaps it was natural for me, especially given my economic position, so see it all as a grand test in which I was the likable protagonist. I had my angst; do not doubt my penchant for angst, good sir. Yet it was all part of a movie-poster adventure.

One morning (midday perhaps; depends if it was a day off) my friend and I discovered that we were in need of matches. Matches are one of those things for which any need is a fairly absolute one. Can we make do with a stick of chewing gum, or perhaps a single, abandoned shoe? No. These things will not help us. We needed fire, and neither of us smoked. My friend's first impulse was to go into the nearby grocery and buy a pack, which would have probably been one of those plastic-wrapped cubes of a year's supply of wooden matches. Nay, said I. Pay for matches? What absurdity! We, instead, shall have an adventure. And we did. Only nominally dressing in street clothes (apply footware and jacket, e voila!) we set out into the strange wilderness of strip malls, parkways and median greens. The grocery store didn't sell cigarettes. The Pizza Hut didn't carry matches. All passing strangers who did smoke only carried lighters. Where was a 7-11? Where had we stranded ourselves that there was no gas station within walking distance? Suddenly, like a beacon on a distant hilltop: A Fancy Restaurant. But alas! Would such a mecca of not only matches, but Really Very Nice High Quality Matches be open at such an hour, on such a day? Surely not . . .

Success can be spelled in a mere six letters: BRUNCH.

As I recall, they were only too happy to give us a number of their matchbooks, thereby prompting our departure; probably because we looked more than a little like recently released psych-ward patients, in our sneakers and pajama pants. Flush with the glory of accomplishment, we returned to the dorm-like apartment with our bounty of RVNHQMs and proceeded to light the stovetop, or fulfill whatever desire the nascent fire represented at the time. I can't remember exactly. It was too long ago, and too trivial in comparison to the journey it inspired.

It's much more difficult for me to adopt this mindset now-a-days, and especially difficult in times of . . . well, difficulty, though I'm aware that's exactly when I need it most. Indeed, it sometimes seems to me that adulthood is all about averting or, when that fails, mitigating disaster. Experience teaches us to be prepared for disaster in all things, to perceive danger in details, and somehow that leads me to associate caution with wisdom. Yet that's only a small part of real wisdom. Life is not that simple, and staying safe can be a very direct route to losing joy. Just as small joys can get us through a day, little risks can result in a lot of joy. It's that possibility of failure, and the refusal to surrender to it, that makes life more spontaneous and rewarding. I think my favorite aspect of real adventure movies, after all, is how much potential there is for unpredictability. Sure, the "good guys" will triumph (unless perhaps it is the second in a trilogy) but what risks will they undergo next to achieve it?

In

Raiders of the Lost Ark

, when Indiana Jones just about gets to his

MacGuffin

(or so we imagine) he is confronted with his worst fear, and gets his soundbite: "Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?" Why, Henry Jones (Jr.)? Because you're on an adventure.

Puppet Mastery

Allergies continue to plague my existence, and after work yesterday I also realized I had lost -- in the very same day as buying it -- my $81 monthly metro pass. This led to a return to the office (yes; said discovery took place once I had walked the three avenue blocks to the station) for to be searching, then logging on to the MTA's website to ensure my refund. This left no time for writing, the very purpose for which I dared bring my spanking new laptop (dubbed

Gracie

, by the way) out into the harsh urban environment. When all was said and done, I was glad my late-night meeting had been canceled. I was even considering revising my plans with

Friend Patrick

so that I could surrender to countless omens, go home and do the thousand mundane tasks screaming for attention at the moment. Maybe even make up for some of that lost writing time.

I'm glad I did not.

The event of which Patrick reminded me was

Slutty Puppets

, a semi-regular sort of vaudeville of puppetry (and quite a bit of clowning, as it turns out) works-in-progress. The show had originally come up a couple of weeks ago when I was looking for shows we could see at

Galapagos

' DUMBO space

, a venue by which Patrick is rather inspired. Me too, at this point. It's arranged as a kind of theatre-cum-club, and the main audience area is divided into six clusters of seating suspended by curling iron walkways over a shallow pool. With a bar at the back, a mezzanine, relatively high ceilings and a proscenium stage, it's at once intimate and rather awing -- perfect for variety or environmental stuff, in my humble opinion.

As for

Slutty Puppets

itself, it was not what I expected. The works were mostly excerpts, and largely seemed to be very much in progress, if you are picking up what I'm throwing down. However: Puppets! Maybe it's just my upbringing, but it's hard to be disappointed or overly critical of puppetry. I love it. I have no problems with the medium whatsoever. I was raised by puppets, in part, and the Henson child in me responds to inanimate objects given behavior and personality the way Pavlov's puppy responded to that dang ding-a-ling. It's one on a list of activities over which I kick myself every time I realize I still haven't devoted just a little time and energy to learning more about. In a way, it's a very pure, direct form of a general aim of mine in life: To bring more life into it.

Um. Interpret that as you may.

What I kept thinking about last night, as we moved through various degrees of preparation and bawdiness, were the ways in which puppets could be used effectively on stage. This is quite a preoccupation of mine, actually. Before I even knew who

Julie Taymor

was (she is best known in wider circles for engineering the

The Lion King

musical) I was imagining productions rather like hers. I always want to bring magic into my stories, and I especially like the sort of magic that is fueled by live performers (read: relatively inexpensive). Even as I found ways to do this with circus skills, I started imagining those skills applied to creating creatures -- puppets, in effect. As I watched the variety of forms of puppetry last night, slutty and non, I returned to that niche of my imagination a little.

The thing for me is, I don't want my puppets watered down. I want them terrifying and funny and weird and fascinating, and I want them a part of a story I care about. It's simple enough to use puppets to tell a story about, say, a girl who travels to a magical realm, or to tell a tale involving largely Aesop-esque animals. (It's not simple. That's stupid. It's actually very complex, no matter how you do it. Ignore me.) I want a story that incorporates puppets that are mysterious, and interactive with "regular" actors, and that I end up, against all possible odds, feeling something for. I'd like to hold a puppets performance to the same standards I would an unadorned actor's. That, my friends, would be something to 'blog about.

I wrote a little while ago (see

5/18/09

) about

Coraline

, and that one of the few truly effective moments for me involved puppets of ghosts. They were very simple. They might've been a couple of sticks with a handkerchief draped over them, one the head, another the functioning hand. At their introduction, they surround Coraline like needy children and tell their stories. You may not notice it right away, but the ghost to her right is doing something slightly different from the others. The hand with which he's gently petting her as he speaks is shuddering. Slightly. Like a very human tremor.

Frighteningly effective.

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.