Follow Through

Yesterday (thanks to an informal assignment set by

Friend Nat

[you're my boy, Blue]) I completed the first draft of a short play, the first bit of fiction writing I have seen through to the state of having a distinct and spelled-out beginning, middle and end since . . . well, I can't recall. It

is

a first draft, and was largely worked through during lunch breaks and lulls at il day jobo, so it's not a magnificent accomplishment. Still and all, there was a very pleasant sense of synergy I experienced in the writing of it and, as you can see, the mere fact of finishing something has me feeling cuddly with myself. So it got me to thinking about the "Notions" series (& a

1

, & a

2

, & a

3

) of 'blog entries I shared with my tremendous, and tremendously grateful, reading populace all the way back in October/November of 2007. (Verily, Odin's Aviary has become an institution.) (Please refrain from unsavory "institution" insinuations. That's rude.) The idea behind those was to experiment with how the accountability that announcing creative intentions invites would affect their outcomes. Simply put, would sharing my ideas for projects sap my enthusiasm for them (as it seemed to when I was younger) or would it hold me to my ideas and keep them coming back to my priorities list? Let's take a look, shall we?

• Freaky Chicks & Aspirant. These are my two most interesting ideas (to me, at any rate) for comic-book adventures, the first being one I wrote a draft of way back 'round 2000, the second being one I had the idea for RIGHT BEFORE HEROES CAME OUT, I SWEAR TO GOD. Both toy with the notions (heh-heh) of superhero(TM)-like people cropping up in mundane settings, and rather unwilling partnerships. These ideas, I confess, I've done absolutely nothing with in the intervening months. Can I explain myself in this? Not really interested in doing that, I'm afraid. Also: No. I can't. I really like these ideas, still. I just haven't done the work necessary to resurrect them.

• The Project Project. This is a play I badly wanted to write when first I thought of it, and is most likely of all of my announced notions to go the way of the Dodo. Frankly, the title is the thing I dig the most about anything I've come up with for it. I started writing it, and got about five pages in before feeling like I had really gotten off on the wrong foot. I found the characters unsympathetic and the structure nonexistent -- two very bad things, made worse by the fact that I was in complete control of both of them. Clever titles are like booby-traps for frustrated writers, man. And this one's a bear trap, because I can't get over how great it could be, if only I could figure how to make it have a heart.

• Mimosa Pudica. A play I directed in college; the idea being that I mount a showcase production of it here with me directing. I haven't re-read the play, I haven't researched a thing along these lines, nor been mentally casting. I've barely thought about it. BUT. Over the past few months a burgeoning desire to direct has been building, and expressing itself through this here 'blog. I think the important thing about this particular notion was that it got me thinking that way with a fairly safe specificity, and now my thinking has expanded to more daring possibilities (such as directing my own Zuppa-style show) which, frankly, may be more apt. Mimosa Pudica may still get done though. It would probably be a good idea to have an intermediate step between my intention and my ambition.

• Building various stilt-related paraphernalia. Mmm, yeah. Well, this is a tough one when you don't have ready access to a workshop. Also tough when your stilts have been in storage for the past three months. And finally, Corporate Carnival queered me on stilts for a little bit. May be coming out of that soon; still would be lacking a power saw or titanium lathe. (Though I do have some nifty welding goggles.)

• Picking back up the trombone. Uh-huh. Next!

• Punch & Judy. Heather and I have made very little headway on this project; just a bit of research (including a wicked-rad find by Samantha Philips) and discussion. However, it definitely informed our creation of Love is Crazy, but Good for our performances in Italy in June, and the experience of working on that ended up being a crucial step toward things like learning how to work together without outside assistance and learning what works, what doesn't. It's difficult to develop something whilst in separate cities, and with so much other Zuppa-related work to do, but I'm confident Heather and I will get something of this up off the ground.

• Superhero(r) monodrama. I don't know how I feel about this notion, these days. The ubiquitous monodrama of the self-generating "creactor" is still something I'd like to have under my belt, but I feel more and more that I need collaborators to get my best work done. It's how I've worked all my life, really, and I'm not sure I'd even want to see a monodrama that had existed in solo for any significant stage of its development. Plus, when I had the idea, the Hollywood superhero(c) phenomenon hadn't quite hit the fever pitch it's at now. I would probably be working against a curve with that concept. Back to the notional drawing board, as far as I'm concerned.

• Using Friend Patrick's Sukeu mask in performance. See above? I don't know. In the spirit of Patrick himself, I'm loathe to apply the mask to something artificially. I want it to inform me of what it belongs with. This may entail getting in a room (with a mirror) with it and playing, without context. Which I should do anyway. It goes on the to-do list under "get new acting job." Patrick?

• My werewolf novel. You know, I increasingly feel that this story I've been writing and ruminating over has been co-opted by its own inciting notion. That is to say, maybe I don't want to write a story about werewolves (but literature needs another werewolf novel!) after all, and I shouldn't try so hard to make it be about that. What interested me and got me started on it was this different idea of what a werewolf might be. What has been most engaging about writing it (and I haven't done any writing on it in a long while) has been one of the non-central characters and writing about people who feel lost. So: Maybe I'm writing two different things without knowing it?

• The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet. It has a title! And a webpage! AND a 'blog! This is certainly the prospective project that has been most worked upon out of my lists, which is in keeping with my suggestion that I need collaborators to get anything done. In fact, the entire nature of the project is one of collaboration, being as it is a vehicle for collaborating with Italian artists, and I can hardly take credit for it as "my" notion anymore; if, in fact, I ever could. The very concept has leapt ahead, and in the best ways, in my opinion. I read my initial idea for the play and cringe a bit at the thought of working on something like that right now. Perhaps it's valuable, in the interests of getting projects accomplished, to think of them as inevitable, and also as something that will ultimately bear very little resemblance to the original notion.

• Red Signal. The clown, quasi-silent film screenplay. This, above all, is my most frustrating venture. Not because I haven't made progress on it; I have. That's the source of said frustration, because (much like a subway train faced with a...wait for it...) the writing hit a brick wall somewhere around March/April. There are a number of possible causes for this -- getting a new day job, busting my laptop, health concerns, getting on and into other projects -- but what it boils down to is that I feel rather out of ideas, and with three acts of a five-act outline all figured out (it's act the third that I have been stalled on; five's ready to roll). Three is certainly the magic number, and I'm confident that the cutting stage of this process will be immense, but I'm just not there yet. Something vital is missing. Apart from occasionally pondering (futility) the casting of the female role, I haven't returned to it in earnest since running out of track. Which. Is. Frustrating.

So all in all: I don't feel too bad about how I've done. I realize this list may read like it's largely a schedule of a lack of completion, but in writing it I've been reminded that every process is just that, and one can't rush it or skip steps. I could certainly have done better (especially when it comes to stilts, trombones and comicbooks) but I see in most of these notions a progression, at least in thinking. I'd like to be more productive ultimately, but that's why I checked in on these in the first place: to see how I can do that. In the spirit of this, this entry represents no great goal post, but another step in the process at large. So. Do I think sharing my ideas helped them move along?

Didn't hurt . . .

And the Award Goes To... (1)

Recently, I was honored to receive the coveted "Brilliante" 'blogger award from

Friend Patrick

. This is an award that functions rather like a chain letter or, perhaps I should say, it's rather an ever-expanding, world-wide web of love and appreciation. I was honored more by Patrick's comments about the Aviary than by the award itself, I must admit. It may be my recent grapples with a theatrical competition, or my reading about the founding of American business practices within the first three decades of the 20th century, or it may simply be my elementary-school self rearing his pudgy head, but I'm a bit turned off by the appearance of competition of late. (Not just the

practice

, but the

appearance

, mind. I hereby willfully acknowledge that such is silliness. Nevertheless.) So I wanted to move this honor of Patrick's forward, but eschew the conventions of the award itself. Plus, I kind of wanted it all to relate to this here 'blog's

mission statement

. So instead of listing here my choice of seven honorees, I'm going to do a few entries, now and then, in honor of fellow 'bloggers within my circle who help me with my struggle to live fully, freely and honestly. This being the first.

It's only proper to begin with Friend Patrick. His was one of the first 'blogs that I added to my little sidebar of links, and he's done a lot with

Loose Ends

. It's probably the strongest of his web presences in terms of representing him, as I'm not aware of any website he has set up. If you poke around a little, you may find

his Friendster:) page

, and various mentions of him as an actor or director in various biographies and reviews. You could be inclined to mistakenly take him for the un-photographed "Patrick Lacey" who appeared in

Babe

, but you'd be wrong. I think. At least, I hope Patrick would have told me already if he (in particular) appeared in a movie with talking animals.

I met Patrick doing one of my first New York City shows--

Significant Circus

--that self-same show that introduced me to the colorful world of circus-theatre. He was playing a dog. Brilliantly, I might add. Some time later, certain of the creative relationships formed during that show maintained, and he,

Kate Magram

,

Melissa Riker

and I formed our informal creative-artist support group, The Exploding Yurts. We would meet with semi-regularity, and mainly discuss whatever self-initiated projects we were working on or toward. We were mixed disciplines, and Patrick and I were the actors of the group, so there was an immediate affinity there. Patrick also creates beautiful masks, so I consider him to be a talented visual artist as well. I'm not sure what came first with Patrick, that feeling of comradeship or the feeling of loving friendship, but we gots both now, and that's the way I likes it. You know how you never have friends quite like you did when you were young? Well, I think the same can be said of the first real friends you make upon moving to a new place. Patrick is one of those.

So I'm a little biased. I admit it. And you are free to judge for yourself how brilliant Patrick is; after all, you can read all about his mental processes at

Loose Ends

. You can decide if I'm off my nut when I say he's one of the most sensitive and daring actors I've had the pleasure of working with, who uses his body in such imaginatively expressive ways that I'm often stunned. You just go ahead and tell me if I'm off when I say of Patrick that he commits more concentration and thought to all his work--acting, writing and other craft--than anyone else I know. And hey: If you think his 'blog doesn't evidence a passionately intelligent mind, one that takes nothing for granted, as well as a beautiful spirit, one that reaches always for truth and beauty, you go ahead and comment to that effect. Plus he's viciously funny. Or so I think. You're welcome to disagree.

You'd just be wrong. No crime in that.

But to bring things back around to self-aggrandizement for just a moment: I've learned a lot from Patrick. Our differences and similarities are very well-matched, if you ask me, and I regret not having made more opportunities to date to work with him as an actor. We've only done so twice, in fact. In the aforementioned show, and a one-act play in mask:

Icarus

.

Icarus

was itself a learning experience for me that could probably take up a whole entry, but one of the plain ol' techniques I learned from Patrick in that process was how to rev up an internal engine of sorts of performance energy, so there was a lot of drive there, but allow it to translate into simple, specific, one-at-time movements, so elemental to gestural work. There are myriad little technical things like that I've picked up from Mr. Lacey. Most significant to me, though, have been our shared moments of empathy and discussions about life as an artist. Not specifically as actors, mind you, but as artists. Patrick has an abiding and unashamed affection for the notion of our work being artful, and that as much as anything else has fueled me through some very tough times indeed. We both acknowledge all the difficulties of being an actor, living in New York, being young, growing older, trying to love more and hate less, etc., etc. And what we come up with is that someday, yes, we will have it all. And in the meantime, despite all its worries and tribulations (or perhaps [for me, at least] because of them) the struggle can be pretty great, too.

Now,

Loose Ends

is great for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it isn't the first thing you'll notice upon visiting, but Patrick is tied into an incredible network of 'bloggers. He gets anywhere from ten to 30 comments per entry, from folks of a similar mindset philosophically. Whereas

Odin's Aviary

tries and tries to stay within the borders of a kind of set of rules,

Loose Ends

weaves its way through every aspect of Patrick's life, rather like the trequetra that holds so much meaning for him. It's style is personable, and you never can be absolutely sure what you'll get. One day it will be a dialogue, the next a theory paper, the next a nature observation. The commonality is Patrick and all that goes with his personality, which is a lot. With other people, this kind of online journal might quickly be mired in ridiculous self-interest and immolating detail or preachy self-importance, but owing to Patricks's personal insight and outward-reaching philosophy you get quite a different experience. Identification and, occasionally, a much-needed pause to consider life outside of the rush of it all.

And so, this award goes to Patrick Lacey.

For the Benefit of "ETC"

Last Saturday I made one of my most brief sojourns to Scranton ever, and also one of my busiest, to perform as a part of the Electric Theatre Company's (nee The Northeast Theatre) midsummer benefit,

Sparks & Feathers

. Although everything I was scheduled to do there is fairly old hat to me, I was anxious about this volunteer work. The theatre has had some extremely well-intentioned benefits in the past that were just disastrous affairs, owing to an almost complete lack of interest (and/or possibly awareness, though they advertise the hell from these things) on the part of their community. It could have gone either way -- on the one hand, the event coincided with their change in identity and received a broad press coverage; and on the other, tickets were $50 a head, which seems like a lot for a buffet-style party even in places where the cost of living is higher. The mayor was scheduled to finally appear, famous as he is for not attending their theatre, but even that was uncertain. There is little more excruciating than performing energetically in the context of a big bash, when only a handful of people show.

Fortunately, the affair was quite well-attended and, perhaps more importantly, everyone there was excited to be there. I have to hand it to the newly formed ETC: They really dolled the place up right nice. The theatre is essentially set up in three areas of a former hotel (about two-thirds of a floor), and when they initially moved in in 2005, TNT/ETC worked pretty hard to refurbish it closer to its original state, peeling away layers of bad decorating decisions through the years. They even framed a rectangle of wall in the lobby that was left un-re-painted to demonstrate the layers of experience the place had had. In keeping with that ethos, a lot of what they've done since has been in honor of the hotel's former glory. This is all well and good and all, but in their traditionalism they had a convenient excuse not to claim something for themselves, to not make something new and wholly theirs (budget, of course, being another handy excuse). What they did for the benefit was hardly reconstructive, but it went a long way to making the space both special for a night, and more thoroughly theirs. Building details were painted in their new three-color scheme, an inexpensive but effective homemade electric chandelier of sorts was hung in the lobby, and the rest was decked out in balloons, show photographs and posters, and old scenery flats. It was a pretty impressive transformation, if you ask me.

As to the work I contributed, it was mostly pretty fun, and my expectations were either met or exceeded. I usually get a little nervous about improvising a speaking character for a busking gig, though I usually do all right with it, and I knew that the characters we'd be walk-about-ing were not the sort that adhered to my particular

busking ethos

.

Richard Grunn

,

Elizabeth Feller

and I were to play the Marx Brothers -- Groucho, Harpo and Chico, respectively (though not respectably). The Marx Brothers, for those of you not in the know (and shame on those of you; you'll catch your death of cold out there) are one of the most anarchic comic groups in recent memories. They exist to stir up trouble, and rare is the cocktail party I've been to at which people were eager to get their horsefeathers ruffled in that way. Fortunately, we had a "backstage" (never mind the quotes--it was literally backstage) to retire periodically to, and Rich had some plans for gags. Some people were still terrified or, worse, disdainful, but by-and-large people were there for a good time and wanted to be included. The Marx Brothers are a great excuse for punning, which is a rare joy for me. Which is, it goes without saying, probably for the best.

Thereafter, I had but a short break in which to change and warm up before performing acrobalance with

Friend Heather

to the live accompaniment of

Cuban Tres

, a wonderful young trio of musicians we had the pleasure of meeting last season. Improvising a sequence of acrobalance moves to live music is really just a joy. I think I appreciate it especially because most of the time I'm either aiming to perfect a move I haven't yet or trying to incorporate it into a story when I'm working on acrobalance, and when it's set to music before an audience I can just enjoy it and loosen it all up a bit. This, too, had its own worries, of course. Heather and I don't get together nearly enough, even when we did live in the same city, to practice to the extent a straight-up acro-adagio deserves. The week before we practiced a bit when I was down for our NEIU (no, the other one) certification, but that's like combining a first rehearsal and the dress rehearsal in one day a week before opening. At that session, I had the idea for us to be domino-esque characters, in keeping with the black-and-white theme of the affair, and so Heather dressed in black clothes with a white half-mask, I in white with black. And we didn't drop each other even once, and we were well-received, and Heather and I may even regain muscle control in a few weeks. So it was really really good!

After my obligations were fulfilled, I got to join the party as a formal participant with

Fiancee Megan

, and so the evening ended with rewards similar to those enjoyed by the rest of the attendees. As usual, I immediately wished I were in better practice with my acro, and wondered at when I would return to the theatre. The mayor had donated a very large, free-standing projection screen to them, and the main stage was set up as a kind of ballroom, with couches at the perimeter, a DJ and a DVD projector running silent films on the screen for a backdrop. People had finally reached that critical blood-alcohol level that allows them to dance with some abandon. I relaxed, however briefly, and dreamed of uses for the screen in shows, and for a moment I had done a job well and had nothing to do but sit back and enjoy my company and the world around me.

Murderous Clowns

In honor of MY NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE

THE DARK KNIGHT

FOR DAYS AND DAYS

, I thought I'd finally get around to writing the sequel (heh heh) to

this little gem

of an entry. I wasn't sure if I'd ever write about this. It's a difficult entry to justify in the ethos of the Aviary (because I've been

so

dedicated to my mission statement to date) except perhaps to say that: 1 - my doing clown work makes for a very real interest in the sociological implications of any clown identity; B - my early cultural influences have untold ramifications on what I choose to create today; and * - it's

BATMAN

weekend, people! And I've got to be a part of it!

Really though, it's Joker week. That's the big excitement over the movie and, I'd wager, would be even if it were not for Heath's untimely exit from the stage. The Joker is almost as iconic a character as Batman himself, and certainly as graphic and emblematic a villain as has ever risen from popular media. He may even indicate that a pervasive fear of clowns has been around a lot longer than some of the current media we have to propagate it. Before

The Dark Knight

, or

Batman

, or

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

, or

It

, or

John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

, or the original appearance of the Joker in Batman #1. Maybe it's always been around, pre-

Punch

. Maybe the fear was first, and the laughter second. That's certainly in keeping with my general theory of humor. [Laughter = self awareness * inevitability, squared.] And for those of you who consider the Joker a relatively trivial source of terror, consider this, too: In his first dozen appearances in the comics, he averaged about three murders per issue.

In my deep, unending and intricate research into

coulrophobia

(sp?) I have discovered some amazing things. Unfortunately, I can not share these things with you, because they are far too intricate, deep and, uh, unending, to . . .. Okay. I haven't exactly been to the library yet. But I've spoken with people about it, and I'm amazed by how few people know who John Wayne Gacy, Jr., was. (He was executed in 1994; one less clown to deal with, coulrophobes.) I thought he was sort of a household name, right up there with Dahmer and Manson, but I only spoke to one or two people who even had an inkling of who he was. Well, he was a seemingly pedophilic mass-murderer with a penchant for imprisonment and grisly dismemberment, who apparently can't even properly be classified as a psychopath. He also enjoyed moonlighting as a birthday clown. Pogo the clown.

So it's difficult to discount coulrophobia as absurd or irrelevant. It could even be a pretty basic survival instinct, as some have suggested. Some of the most ancient human rites involve masks and grinning figures that don't necessarily mean us well. The Joker's white face may as well be the clay pasted to an aboriginal witch-doctor, or the bleached skull an African shaman paints on his face. And death is absurd, too. Well, it seems absurd to the living, anyway. Living is to some extent based on ignoring the fact that we're going to die. This is such a prevalent philosophy that those who embrace death, or even simply associate themselves with it, are seen as somehow mystic or insane. The skull of a deceased comedian grins back at Hamlet's philosophizing, and when anyone grins, they expose the teeth -- the only "bones" directly visible on a living human body.

The Joker makes a great villain for Batman, and the two sum up a very basic human struggle pretty succinctly, so I have to forgive this perpetuation of the coulrophobic phenomenon. Batman is serious, and the events of his life have meaning -- he's a believer. Hell: His whole "superpower" is a character trait, that of determination. And Joker, well, he stands in absolute contrast to that. My favorite characterizations of him never allow him a moment to regret even his own failure. For him, it is all absurd, all pointless. He's not appetite-driven or suppressed, like Gacy, nor a traumatized child who is endlessly acting out his worst fantasies and fears. The story has no significance to the conclusion because, at the end, all our stories end the exact, same, way. If only he could convince Batman of that, maybe then he'd be able to rest. If only the Yorick had survived into Hamlet's story, maybe he could have made everyone see the folly of their ways.

So how do you tell the difference between the jester, who just wants to make fools of us all, and the joker, who wants to make us all corpses? Well, sadly, you can't. That's part of the dread of comedy, and the thrill of death. You just have to take your chances.

Viva Italia!

Ciao, bello/a. Come stai? Buono/a. Io? Bene, bene, grazie. Ma ho stancissimo, perche sono "jetlagged." Forse. Anche forse perche molto movemente questa volta in Italia.

Believe it or not, my Italian has improved, despite the evidence to the contrary that I willfully submit above (the which is all kinds of wrong, and took me about an hour to put together). It is still woefully inadequate, though, and I'll have to do something about that in the coming months, because Zuppa del Giorno's prospects in Italy -- not to mention other work in conjunction with Italian artists -- is blossoming. We are in the springtime of our, uh . . . soup.

Sorry. Still blaming the jetlag.

Well. I really wanted to catalogue the whole trip day-by-day, as I did last June, but since I killed my laptop in the (actual) spring, and as we tend to go a bit rustic when we visit Madonna Italia, it was not to be. I could try to recreate that effect but, well, it would be pretty boring. Not because we did so little, but because we did so much of the same thing in our first week. We WORKED. As you know from my last entry, Heather and I had to throw a show together specifically for this visit and (as you know from either experience or my previous writings or both) such a process takes exactly as long as it takes. No rushing it. Which means you either give it the time, or you don't. We did, and to the greatest extent we could manage between two American cities and mired in the swamp that is jetlag.

The flight out was delayed an astonishing four hours, all told. It was just Heather and I -- David and the theatre's stage manager, Marybeth Langdon, had preceded us on the 6th. For those of you who've never flown overseas, let me tell you: There is no good time to do it. I thought we were all set, flying overnight. I would just sleep through the thing, losing hours left, right and center, and awake at about noon in sunny Italy. Instead, I slept for maybe a combined hour-and-a-half and awoke around 4:00 in a somewhat less-than-sunny Italy. In fact, it rained daily for the entire first week, and some nights we built a fire in the divinely-bequeathed fireplace our little villa provided. Altogether oddly arduous. But enough of the fluff; on to the stuff.

We've developed our own little community of artists and business folk in central Italy, and that became evident as it determined our schedule on this trip. Rehearsals for Love Is Crazy, But Good were broken up with (and, in one case, integrated into) daily meetings with various of our contacts. Normally these were meetings that coincided with meals or coffee, which is the nice thing about our particular experience of Italy. And, because the US-dollar exchange rate is horrible horrible horrible at present, this often meant inviting folks to lunch or dinner at our place out in the country. (Fortunately for us, David Zarko is a masterly amateur chef.) And that meant that Heather and I spent a lot of time on the patio, either eating or developing the act.

One of our most exciting departures from this scene was to spend time with Angelo Crotti, a new friend there whom we met through Andrea Brugnera. Angelo is an Italian actor specializing in commedia dell'arte and other forms of comic physical theatre; he's been practicing it all his life, and it shows, as he travels internationally to perform and teach. Our introduction to him was to watch him teach a class in traditional commedia dell'arte forms and lazzi to some of Andrea's students, the day after Heather and I arrived. He did some fascinating stuff, that we'll promptly steal and incorporate into our workshops. Perhaps unavoidably, we eventually got wrapped up in the action, in spite of our jet-lagged states. He showed us some incredible animal forms that demanded serious physical commitment AND conditioning, and we were generally working up quite a sweat for a while. LOVED IT. Then we made the mistake of sitting down on a break, and both Heather and I promptly engaged in a struggle against overpowering needs to sleep. That was okay, we figured, because Angelo began the next section with brief lectures on the commedia masks and their corresponding characters. As the comfortable Italian speech pranced merrily over us, he moved on to asking the students to take a mask and perform a solo bit of dialogue with the audience in it. Good, good . . . watching students . . . mustn't take their time away from them, now . . . just . . . watch . . .

Huh-uh. We sure did get called on. "No, no," I feebly protested in my pigeon Italian, "Studenti. Studenti. No occupado (was that Spanish, Jeff?) questa volta." They weren't having it and, frankly, I was a little sick of myself as I said it, too. But, damn, was I spent. It turned out the students were working with Angelo the next day as well, so there was plenty of time for everyone, and up I went to choose a mask from the edge of the beautiful Teatro Boni stage. There they all were, and I waited for one to speak to me. I'm pretty familiar with commedia masks, but have trouble distinguishing sometimes, mainly owing to a certain amount of misinformation I've processed in the years of my informal education on the subject. For example, I had learned at some time that Pantalone had a long nose, because he was "nosey" and a phallic character. Well, he often is, but it turns out that Capitano is the one more famous for having a prominent phallus on his face, and Pantalone can have a hook or squarish nose as well. So I stood there, throwing out my presumptive conclusions, and just picked a mask which appealed. It was yellow-brown-er than the rest, with no hair accents, but lots of wrinkles and a hook nose. The point of the exercise was to improvise the mask's nature based on how it looked and felt, but I felt obliged to announce I didn't know who I had gotten as I left the stage to make my entrance. Turns out I had gone right ahead and picked up Pulcinella.

Pulcinella holds a certain fascination for me, not the least of which is owing to a desire Heather and I have to someday create our own show based on the Punch & Judy puppet theatre of Victorian England ("Punch" was inspired by commedia troupes' various "Pulcinelli"). He's also a tricky one, as his overall shape seemed to evolve from a couple of different regions of Italy, and thereby his personality can be a bit more mercurial than some. Plus he rarely gets mentioned in what I've read and heard about the standard characters; he's well-known enough, but somewhat amorphous. Typically--from what I understand--he's a trickster, with a hunch back and a prominent belly. At that moment, however, I tried to wipe all that from my mind and briefly regard the mask offstage (as Friend Patrick taught me to do) for clues about who he would make me before breathing in and putting him on.

Let me just interrupt myself to say that, though it read as a certain groggy fear at the time, it was an absolute thrill to step out on a classical Italian stage and perform in mask for a couple of actors trained in commedia dell'arte.

My mask (for truly, I made no effort toward Pulcinella once I set foot on stage) worked pretty well for me, I think. Everyone performed through a sort of guided interview with Angelo, which was interesting in this case owing to his emphatic English and my god-awful Italian, but we did get along. I began as a rather obstinate fellow, with a supportive cushion of arrogance around him that held up his body in quirky ways -- a hip raised, hands bent outward from the wrists, bird-like neck, all very vain, yet through energy instead of ease. It was (I believe) as though I knew I was the greatest, yet also knew I had to convince everyone else of it as well. I thought of the Italians (to generalize grossly for a moment) and how they all seem to be great about putting what they've got out there and loving it, and so I did that as a guy who really didn't have anything to brag about, but didn't know it. Eventually Angelo quizzed him (me) on how to seduce a woman, and I claimed complete expertise, saying and demonstrating all it took was a rapidly thrust hip from me. He had me bring up a couple of students and work it on them, and I got to play with success, selling something as success, and undeniable failure which is promptly denied. It was great fun.

Angelo -- who is also simply an incredibly funny guy, with what seems like a kind word for everyone and an endless need to be active -- also helped us with our piece two days later. The beginning of that rehearsal, I can confidently say, was the lowest point of my mood and confidence in what we were planning to perform on Saturday. We demonstrated what we had first thing, and it suddenly felt woefully inadequate, trite, and a really, really bad idea altogether. It was Thursday, two days before we were set to perform in Il Teatro che Cammina, and it was grim. I was embarrassed, frankly, and frustrated with the circumstances of our constantly pulling things together at the last minute, never seeming to have the money or time to develop or explore, and all that was really a jagged veneer of emotion covering fear: maybe I'm just not cut out for this work. Ugh. So bad.

Keeping with the Tarantino/Rashomon theme here: The performances on Saturday were not an unqualified success. We had two showings of the ultimately half-hour clown show, the first at 9:00 pm, and the last at 11:00, all as a part of a festival that took over the town with predominantly physical spectacle such as dance, circus-theatre and street performance. (For once, we were probably the least physically eccentric act on the bill.) Our first show made me want to crawl under the stage and hide; David came up to us afterwards and said, "Well that wasn't that bad," thereby straining his otherwise stalwart reputation for honesty. The second show, however, hummed. It had sound failures on both ends, which should have been fatal for a predominantly choreographed show, but the audience was with us and we all had a tremendous amount of fun and at the end, I felt I had earned their kind applause.

What happened between the two shows was this: We intended to use our little break of less-than-an-hour to explore and see other shows and generally try to forget we had another to do. Instead, we were invited into a building next door by some very kind older gentlemen who had a great view of our stage from their windows. They wanted to make sure we knew we could use the bathroom there (which we needed) and while we were there I discovered that the fly on my costume had popped permanently. I tried to ask them for a paper clip or something, explaining my situation through gesture, and they set about raiding office supplies for me. One withdrew a binder clip. "I don't think that'll work." Then he pulled out a stapler, jokingly. "Ci, ci! Parfetto!" I cried, and he, hesitating somewhat, handed it to me. I promptly stapled my wool pants closed with the knowledge that within the first ten minutes of the show I'd tear them off anyway. They found that pretty amusing, and then one of them reached into a drawer and pulled out scissors, gesturing mischievously toward my crotch. Here we were, almost completely incapable of communicating with language, and the lazzi was flowing. From there they invited us all to sit with them, and Heather worked her Italian magic on them. A friend of theirs, Silvano, the oldest yet, visited, was introduced to us, then came from out of the back room with wine and water for everyone. We relaxed. We laughed. And, after all that, Silvano worked to rope audience in to our space for the second show, possibly single-handedly ensuring us that our little courtyard performance would be full for its closing.

The hours spent working with Angelo on our piece were similar to our time with the old men, and this commonality was also in the spirit Heather and I found in our second performance. Angelo took us through what we had in terms of structure, and broke it down into bits -- bits we had already, and bits we inspired him to add. Given a little time to overcome our initial shame and frustration, we found with him a familiar game of discovery, getting excited about our connections and ideas, and really building from one moment to the next. It was brilliant. It reminded me, suddenly and unexpectedly, and from the midst of a recent history of disappointing efforts on my part, of what I love about this work and what keeps me excited about it. With Angelo we returned to our sense of play, with the old men we rediscovered our love of people, of communication, and in the final shot at the show we finally figured out how to have fun with it, and with our audience. Hell: It even happened in a three, looking at it that way!

That performance wasn't the be-all-end-all by a long shot, but it was shot of life that I had certainly been looking for lately. Maybe our enthusiasm had something to do with knowing we were being relieved of a great stress after our final show, and maybe our ease with the audience had a lot to do with their greater numbers and better understanding of what to expect. Nevertheless, coincidence or hard work or that lovely synchronicity of the two, it was a beautiful thing. And it didn't take much longer for the sun to start shining in Umbria again.