ITALIA: June 16, 2007

We’ve had a couple of amazing days working and playing here, but I’m also losing a lot of endurance for the unfamiliarity and somewhat self-imposed isolation. It’s very difficult for me to feel I’m contributing anything when I’m so terrible with the language. I didn’t fully appreciate all the contact I had with our American studenti last year, and the way that made me feel more valuable to the experience as a whole. It’s going to be particularly difficult once Todd flies back this Monday. I don’t speak the language, Heather is much better with it but lacks confidence and David often has trouble hearing what people say. What exactly we’re going to do, I don’t know. I have to confess that I have contemplated trading my ticket with Todd if he were willing to do (capable of doing) what is necessary to stay.

The lesson for next time is to really work on my Italian. That’s the primary difficulty. Though my shyness is moderate, in Italy the desire to connect is much stronger, and if I can break past the language barrier my enthusiasm will undoubtedly carry me through any timidity I might otherwise have in new social situations in my native land.

Thursday began with a business proposition from our friend Piero, head of marketing at LinguaSi. He had a very strong proposition to essentially host Zuppa del Giorno through LinguaSi, establishing a separate association and including courses through the school that we would teach in a sort of high school, period structure, for LinguaSi’s students from all over the world. It was all very appealing—in some ways exactly what we’ve been hoping for—but there remain a great many considerations to be made and discussions with our other Italian contacts to be had.

Later we met with Andrea at Teatro Communale Porano to show each other what we do. As is by now to be expected, from the first moment there we were blown away by the environment. The theatre itself was not nearly as impressively beautiful as Teatro Boni; in fact it fairly closely resembled a little regional theatre in America. Then Andrea pulled back the curtain that ran along the back of the stage, and there was a fresco covering the entire wall up to the roof. It turns out the theatre was formerly a church. All that was left exposed were the wooden roof beams, a huge entrance door and that marvelously surprising fresco.

We presented the Valentino excerpt from Silent Lives, sans rehearsal. It went fine, all things considered. Andrea responded very well, but it has also been agreed since then that our timing and listening were strange after so long away. Not bad, per se—maybe just quirky. One of the benefits of performing this piece again was that—finally—thanks to my investment in my shiny red camera we have a little video of what we do. The quality is far from great, but it’s great to be able to watch what we’ve done to represent our work of the past three years. Afterward, Andrea presented a portion of a solo piece he’s performed for years: an encapsulation of the movie The Ten Commandments. It was absolutely charming, and afterward there was much discussion of how to bring Silent Lives over next year, and Andrea to The Northeast Theatre.

Thereafter it was off to il lago di Bolsena for the first time since our arrival (a favorite spot of repose last year). A gorgeous, huge volcanic lake, it was cold. Last year we had been there just a week later and the water was wonderfully temperate. In spite of the chill, David, Todd and I plunged in (well, I waded). It was great, once my body numbed itself a bit. A short drive later we had an amazing meal at a chance restaurant in nearby Montefiascone, and for surprisingly little Euro. I drove home as my friends dozed, enjoying the freedom of a little car on long, hilly Italian roads.

Friday was our day in Rome, to meet Sebastiano (a.k.a. “Romano”), another actor and a friend of Piero’s. He met us at Termini, the train station in Rome, which was a bit like meeting us on our doorstep for breakfast, as we all slept on the train. He is, in many ways, what I might have expected of a Roman actor. We all went to lunch at a place of his choosing (where they were accustomed to tourists, which is at once relieving and entertaining for me—they say things like “would you like water with gas?”—definitely a far better gaffe than some of the ones I’ve made in their language) and while we were there, a man on moped crashed right outside the door trying to avoid a young girl. American girl, of course. Everyone was fine, but it was startling. It perhaps also set the tone for the meeting. There was a lot of kvetching about how hard it is to be an actor in the big city. It’s nice to know some difficulties are not exclusively American.

We spent the rest of the day until our 20:00 train back to Orvieto sight-seeing. Sebastiano joined us for Dumo de San Petro (where Michelangelo’s Moses and the chains that bound Saint Peter are to be found) then departed for an appointment. The rest of our tourism was something of a disappointment. It was muggy, and some of us tired pretty quickly. We tried to see a commedia dell’arte puppet theatre Todd had discovered last trip, but it looked as though it were being torn down, and I did get to see my favorite place in Rome—Piazza Navona—but only as we charged through it to make our train. Todd remained in Rome overnight, of course (pazzo lupo that he is) and there’s yet another reason for learning Italian better. But the rest of us did have a good little meal at a pizza place where Orvieto’s furniculare lets off, and Heather and I stayed up a bit talking and watching the recording of our Valentino sketch.

Finally (I know you’ve been holding your breath [wait, are you still there?][hello?]), this morning we rose and Heather and I ran off to Orvieto to buy groceries and meet Todd’s train. It seems he ended up going to Sebastiano’s apartment and staying there, where he got a much more detailed (and increasingly positive) impression of the guy. We finally got more toilet paper (YAY!) and all settled in to a meal at a trattoria at the base of the winding dirt road from our agriturismo to the main road, which was splendid and cheap (yet again: YAY!). Andrea met us there and we ran over to Teatro Boni again to receive one of his workshops.

He brought his masks—amazing masks—and we spent three hours working our way into and learning how to effectively use them. We began by walking the space, getting into the feeling of our feet (a marvelous way to begin) and then imagining a specific environment of our choice to walk through. Mine became a vast, shallow, rocky river lined with trees. Once that was well-established, he asked us to choose an animal nature to occupy our environment. We lived a long time in that nature (mine, a beaver) before he asked us to bring it to our feet and interact. At this point we were almost our characters, and he set out the masks for us to discover in character. We all chose (I ended up with a Brighella mask—not entirely inappropriate for a beaver) and a tiny play of interaction developed. After a break, he assigned us masks, and we improvised a scene. Then we performed monologues as the various characters before calling the end of a working day. All in all, it was a lot of work, and very rewarding. We had planned on working in Andrea’s style with prop work as well, but there simply wasn’t enough time. Always our time is borrowed, always we steal some more.

The rest of the evening was pretty amazing too. First we drove to San Angelo to try and track down David’s friend, Mauro. He wasn’t around, and we had many interactions with locals to determine this. We spent a total of about twenty minutes walking around the town. We passed the house of a woman David had told us about last year. She had been the local priest’s mistress for years. When he died, the town chose to ignore her connection, and refused her any of his property. In response, she “went crazy” and began collecting all the wild cats to her apartment. When we were walking, we turned one corner and suddenly we were surrounded by all different manner of cats, and we knew where we were. Also in that time, a local man approached us and tried to give us the keys to Mauro’s apartment, assuming after word got around we were American tourists he had rented it to. Finally, upon leaving the town, we were approached by another man, who explained without prompting that Mauro and his wife had left town at around 2:30 to buy some meat. Google’s got nothing on a small Italian town.

Unsuccessful in our attempt to contact Mauro, we headed to nearby Rocolvecchi, the town that was the inspiration for our first show as Zuppa del Giorno, Noble Aspirations. It was meant to just be a quick nostalgia trip, but on our way by the local church we heard amazing music. We stepped inside and received a free, hour-long choral concert that was just amazing. I believe it was some sort of arrangement of medieval music, and it was thrillingly beautiful. Thereafter we were off to Civita di Bagnoregio, where we had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, overlooking the ancient city on a hill, before ascending to walk the city late at night. That’s a whole new kind of stillness, right there. We rather disturbed it for a little while, as Todd and I gave in to some fantasies and climbed a thing or two we really weren’t meant to climb. It was worth it. Risk is always worth it.

But Mom, I've Got, Like, a Gagillion Hours of Homework...

Keeping with the theme of assignments (see

6/4/07

), today I write to you, most dear reader, about some of the behind-the-scenes work of creating a show from scratch. This, I realize, imperils my ratings (

kicking people in the head

and complaining about

irrepressible sexual urges

, for some unfathomable reason, gets more readership) but it is more in keeping with the purpose of this here 'blog and so I heedlessly hurry onward.

The thing about (okay: only one of the many things about) creating one's own work in a theatrical context is that--at least at the no-to-low-paying level--the creator has to do a lot of work outside the collaborative setting of a kind he or she wouldn't otherwise be doing. I mean, if I'm working on, say,

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

(a totally random example, and not at all a play I am performing voodoo rituals in the hope of being cast in), I will do plenty of work outside of rehearsal. There's the simple line memorization, reading up on the backgrounds of Stoppard, Hamlet, late-1960s theatre, Denmark, absurdism, determinism, Shakespeare, etc., working on any tricks or skills the director may want included, dialect training . . . it goes on and on. A good actor becomes obsessed with his or her role and the world of the play for the time he or she is working on it, and does it all to more thoroughly incorporate his or her self into it all. (Man, but I hate the standing rule about not using "them" or "they" to refer to male or female hypothetical persons. He's got the right idea over at

xkcd

.)

(Parenthetically, [this is the most parenthetical parenthetical

ever

{my boss insists on doing this in her letters: saying "Parenthetically," at the start of something

in parentheses

, no matter how many times I point out it's redundant, and I deserve a medal or ribbon or something for not throwing my keyboard at her head}] I have a giant tape X on my lumbar region today, applied by my physical therapist to remind me to sit up straight and bend--if I absolutely

must

--from the hips. I consider this some kind of oblique revenge by

Anton Chekhov

from beyond the grave for

this post

. Plus it's a sign that my body will actually explode this Saturday when I turn thirty. Parenthetically.)

When you are responsible for building the show from the ground up, however, homework takes on all-new, mammoth proportions. The best example of this I have, to date, is the period of weeks leading up to

Zuppa del Giorno

's debut of

Silent Lives

.

Friend Grey

was directing, and we were all pretty obsessed with the subject matter--silent film characters and actors--so it didn't take much to motivate us to spend all our time building that one. Yet somehow Grey managed to motivate us to spend literally every waking hour working on the show. I mean, we just never stopped. Sleep was watching silent films. Eating was learning the bread dance from Arbuckle cum Chaplin cum

Downey Jr.

and

Depp

(Brits: Please don't censor me for my use of "cum" in this context). It was, to borrow a term, ridonkulous.

As Far As We Know

is not that bad. In fact, we often eat and drink during our table sessions, so it's like the opposite. Except for the assignments, which are

hard

and just keep getting

harder

. I have written about these on past occasion (see

2/28/07

-

3/1/07

) and this last, due by early Saturday, is no exception. The assignment, as comprehended by me, is as follows:

We've been given a bunch of material. Using this material (act one of three and numerous transcripts of interviews with people from Matt's hometown and people of related significance), 1) rewrite or create a new scene far act one, or 2) create a stage "moment" with a piece of text from the interviews, or 3) present your character in an impossible situation, or 4) all of the above.

Now, this kind of assignment is how a great deal of the play got created in the first place, with even less to go on. Sometimes these assignments would be assigned in rehearsal, with ten minutes provided for a group to pull something together. I like working this way. Parameters are fun for me (I like the crunching noise they make as I break them, to paraphrase Douglas Adams). Yet somehow I always stress about these

Joint Stock

/

unCommon Cause

assignments. One I stayed up until two in the morning working on one, blasting

Damien Rice

(like that's a bad thing) and practicing punching holes in paper with my finger. It's a measure, I believe, of how high an esteem I hold my fellow collaborators in. They're all such skilled

and

talented actors and writers and directors that I feel a need to rise to their level, and that feeling is most poignant the night before a presentation.

This one's going in a funny direction for me so far, possibly because it lacks some of the specific parameters the prior ones have featured. I had an initial idea: to explore the similarities between my character (the captured soldier) and

Sara Bakker

's (the casualty assistance officer who ministers to his family). But I didn't then set to an examination of their particular scenes, or even rumination on their respective characteristics. Instead, I got fascinated with this idea of

re

writing a scene that we already had. I began to wonder how the play would read if I had been writing it by myself all along. (The answer, it seems to me, is that it wouldn't read, at least not particularly well. I couldn't have gotten more than few steps with this material by myself, and don't excel at writing naturalistic dialogue.) So what I started doing, quite unintentionally at first, was underlining any dialogue that--out of context--directly addressed the experience of the captured soldier or his family and town.

I have NO idea what I'm going to do with this yet. I have some vague notions involving gathering all these fragments together, finding appropriate music (always my favorite element of the assignments) and perhaps drawing more connections between Sara's character and my own. And that's about it. Tonight, I will sit quietly and let my mind stretch and wander over the raw material, and see what happens. Laundry will be done as well, and packing for Italy. Somehow mundane chores always help with idea flow.

And hopefully, by 2:00 AM, I'll be making props out of defunct coat hangers and leftover moving boxes. This, in the mind of a "

creactor

," is the image of a perfect sort of evening. I'm looking forward to it.

"When there is nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire."

I have spent far too much time here at work trying to find the source for this quote. What I have mostly found, are 'blogs. Endless fields of 'blogs. The quote, as I know it, is a vocal sample at the start of a song called

Your Ex-Lover Is Dead,

by

The Stars

. It sounds rather like Orson Welles to me, but it could very easily be someone trying to sound like Orson. No clue. It's frustrating. I really need to know who said this, and as a part of what.

Because I want to tattoo it on my chest.

Just found it. It's the lead singer's father,

a noted actor

. (Dag! No wonder I was having trouble finding it.) Yet I am still context-less, apart from the album itself, which is mostly about breaking up and breaking down. (Such a novelty in a pop album.) It sounds so much like a classic quote, and Mr. Campbell is noted for his association with

The Stratford Festival

, so the possibility persists. In the meantime, I'll just have to go on ascribing my own meaning, on which more in a moment.

This is one of those strange things from strange places. The album was released some three years ago, and I'd never heard of it. The song came to me in the form of a mix CD made for me by a relative stranger (though we did pretend to tromp together through deepest Africa once) from

Camp Nerdly

. He handed it off to sort of drop cargo on his way out, originally intending--I believe--to barter with it at the Nerdly goods swap. It's all scratched up from transport and informal packaging, and I frankly couldn't be sure it would load into ye olde iTunes successfully. Yet it did, and weeks later it is rapidly scaling my "Tha' Jams You Can't Leave Alone" chart.

What does it mean? Not the fortuitous and coincidental nature of my acquisition, mind you, but the words: When there is nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.

Well, kids, for me this is a pretty direct statement. I mean, I do spend some time involuntarily picturing men in the arctic north who've set fire to everything and are now drawing lengths of rawhide to see who gets shoved in the flaming pile of sleds, dogs and clothing. But I quickly

transcend

such an image to my usual metaphor: acting. Also: life. Generally: inseparable, when you're doing something right.

As

Friend Patrick

might put it, fire has been a recurrent symbol in my life lately. Literally and figuratively, come to think of it. I loved my parents' fireplace back in

Burke, Virginia

, and lots of rituals surrounded it in the winter months. Whenever I get the chance (the last such chance being a rooftop barbecue last Sunday, and prior to that, Camp Nerdly), I put myself in charge of the fire. It's methodical and physical to build, dangerous and unpredictable in practice, but also warming, soothing and inspiring. So perhaps it's natural for me, especially now, to link the notion of fire with acting. There's a great quote from

Slings and Arrows

about why actors act that I can neither remember, nor find online, but it says something about why anyone would want to return to normal life once they had experienced the kind of truth one can achieve through a successful performance on the stage. That's setting yourself on fire.

As for having nothing left to burn, well, here's a couple of different thoughts on that:

• Maybe that's the job of the actor, to find that level of stakes and desperation for the appropriate moments on stage. Not every character is despondent, but every good character should want something so badly that he or she comes to a point--at least once--of not knowing what to do about it.

• Use it.

• That happens all the time to most actors in America, and dare I say the world. Even when our personal or financial lives aren't a shambles, we tend to work ourselves past all endurance on parts we play until either epiphany or disaster occur. Either we pull off the trick of a phoenix . . . or we don't.

Of course, none of this probably has much of anything to do with what the songwriter(s) intended. But that's the beauty of pop music, isn't it? It means what you most need it to mean at the moment you need it.

When there is nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.

Cry Me a River, Emo Boy

You think Rivers Cuomo "broke up"

Weezer

because the unflattering tag of "Emo" was applied to the band, which started as a sort of garage-band flavored pop sensation in the latter era of alterna-rock? That Emo crap bugs me. Not the supposed lifestyle--which, really, has had many different names through the ages, including "angst"--but the way the label seems to be applied to any kind of vaguely depressive or introspective subculture. Like being thought of as "Goth" in high school because I was creepy and wore black all the time. Which is . . . well, Goth. It's Goth as f%#k, actually, but let's understand the artist's intention before we rip him a new one with labels, shall we?

Speaking of which,

A Lie of the Mind

has been reviewed. Yes it has. (Friend Nat passed it along.) And it is a goodly review, as far as the show is concerned. You must believe me when I say that I feel the slander of my performance is deserved for the job I did last Wednesday night, though inaccurate in specifics. I claim it, and so my next claim should hold more water: The review reads like it was written by a twelve-year-old. Think I'm exaggerating? Lie thy judgments

yon

.

Having a bad review is a burden, but in this case one easily shaken off by a variety of factors:

1. Feeling I deserved no praise for all the mistakes I made in that particular performance.
2. The critic obviously devoting about ten minutes to the writing of it (at least it's spell-checked).
3. Friends.

Oui: Friends. In my days off from the show (glad to be getting back to it tonight, though slightly anxious about having sufficient audience to justify the effort), I have spent time with a number of friends, the which it can be hard to find time with even when I'm not embroiled in a rehearsal process. Sunday I met with Friend Adam for catching up on "Heroes" episodes and talking about superheroes(TM) and comedy, then adjourned to Harlem for dinner with Friend Patrick. Monday brought me to dinner with Friend Dessida (of Friend Kate fame), and last night I saw Friends Geoff and Melissa.

Each friend brought me something I needed without knowing it. Adam brought me indulgent joy by creating a space in which geeking out is not only allowed, it's encouraged. Patrick brought me so many, many things, not the least of which were several excellent books to read now that I'm (pretty much) line-perfect for the show. (Incidentally, if you ever get curious about what it's like to be an actor in the process of interpreting a great character, read Antony Sher's account of portraying Richard III: Year of the King. The only bad thing is how envious you may get about how one man can contain so many well-developed talents.) Dessida brought me new insights into art and life. Melissa brought me unrestrained joy and some time to meditate upon life paths (plus a little more information on what she expects of me in my joining the ranks of Kinesis for a project this summer, which was a relief and terror all rolled in one). And Geoff, as always, brought me beer(s). And questions. Which are always good.

I can only hope I brought each of these people something they needed half as much as I've needed them.

Kinesis

Last Saturday evening I attended a dance concert:

Right Before You Fell

. I just fit it in, thanks to the repeated calls from my friends who made it a priority to check in with me and make sure I didn't forget about it in the miasma of my current schedule. I went directly from rehearsal to dinner at a friend's restaurant, to this concert, and then even made it to a late party. The party was to bid adieu to the loft that was home to

Kirkos

for years. The concert, that was a culmination of a friend(and fellow Kirkos member)'s very hard, very disciplined, and as it turned out, very

fun

work.

Kinesis Project Dance Theatre

, headed up by dancer/choreographer Melissa Riker, had its full evening of performance last Saturday. My ties to Mel are multiple. I met her, as I did many good friends, performing in a show called

Significant Circus

,

in 2001. She,

Kate Magram

,

Patrick Lacey

and I formed a sort of creative support group not too long after that--The Exploding Yurts (

please

don't ask)--and Kirkos came into being shortly after that. In the six years that I've known her, I've had the pleasure of watching Mel work and grow through that work. Saturday evening was a surprisingly emotional experience for me. I should have expected it, but I was surprised to experience just how much hope and excitement I was giving off during the concert. I was seeing my friend's work fully realized. I know how difficult that is to achieve, and something about just how much that means to her.

Me and modern dance, we don't hang out much . . . in spite of having had long-term relationships with two professional dancers in my time. I have a great appreciation for what the dancers can do, how expressive and dynamic their bodies and movements are. I envy that, in truth. I also respect it. So much so, in fact, that I refuse to be categorized as a dancer. This occasionally brings much frustration to the likes of Friends Melissa and Patrick, who are hell-bent on convincing me that I am worthy of at least the adjective, "dancer," if not the title. I resist. It's related to how I feel about Joe Nobody doing

Guys & Dolls

in his community theatre and then going around calling himself an actor. I mean, sure, he is. (Mad props to ma' boy Joe.) But he hasn't received any training, he hasn't gotten up at dawn to stand in a line for an open call, he hasn't haggled over a summer stock contract or sold worldly belongings in order to take said contract.

But I transtate a bit.

So we don't hang, me and the modern. I have just enough experience and appreciation to say about a concert, "I liked it because of THIS. THIS seemed a little weak, but that may have been in support of achieving THAT." I've been to concerts with dancers before, and often we appreciate the opposite aspects. When a number leans toward narrative a bit, I get excited. When it is seemingly solely about the beauty of the movement, I begin to tune out. Don't get me wrong: It's beautiful. Wow. Pretty. But so is a photograph of a sunset, and somebody needs to tell me why I should care. That's me. I'm an actor. Because of this bias (and I've done what I can think of to separate my appreciation for theatre from my appreciation for dance), some dance concerts I've seen have made me want to claw out my eyes and throw them underfoot.

And it's not the ones that are all about the beauty. No. If I can figure that out from an early moment--that priority--I can sit back and relax, let them dance me where they may. Rather, it's the ones that have something to say,

but don't seem to give a damn if you understand it.

Or that say something

whether you like it or not, sucka!

These really get to me, because the people involved--though I'm sure they went in with the best intentions...in some cases--inevitably chalk my lack of understanding up to me, not their efforts or ability to communicate with me. I suppose you could say that I value communication in my art. Intentional communication, be it about ideas, emotions or something else entirely.

To this end,

Right Before You Fell

was sort of the perfect show for yours truly. I must confess that, right up front. This critic is biased. The concert utilized set pieces, spoken dialogue, live music, character, scenario . . . it was very theatrical. People were constantly doing things, not just fulfilling choreography, and acknowledging and responding to one another. Imagine that.

Read about the inspiration for the show

here, March 15

. Some would have hated it. If I had gone looking for pin-point-perfect technique, or classical movement, or really anything conventional at all, I would have been disappointed. Instead I was uplifted by vignettes about trying to get along with and without people. Between dances, open doorways and closed doors were moved about on rollers by dancers dressed like nuevo gypsies, as they held a kind of movement dialogue with one another. Each had what seemed to be their own character, informing their choices and scenarios. Melissa's acrobalance experience shone through at certain points, particularly to a number choreographed to Tom Waits' "

The Piano Has Been Drinking

," a piece I was lucky enough to get a preview of at the

Kinesis

benefit in December (see

12/25/06

for a photo). That section, too, is a good example of one of the best aspects of

Right Before You Fell

: its sense of humor. I've known Melissa for a while now, so her brand of humor is about as familiar to me as anyone's.

RBYF

was a great manifestation of unbounded joy for living, and unabashed moments of the surreal.

I could critique some aspects of the show, of course. It irritated me not to have a schedule and titles of the different dances in the program, and I felt as though the end of the evening needed a more significant punctuation, or perhaps clearer imagery of having come full circle (or home, if the notion of taking a walk is to be followed through). But these things may become clear to me after our inevitable Yurtian debriefing. Kate, Patrick, Melissa and I will all gather and surmise, and I'll get the inside skinny on what her specific intentions were. Even without this knowledge, I walked away from the concert feeling fulfilled, and even a little happier about the little unhappinesses in my life at present.

Melissa has extended me an informal invitation to join

Kinesis

in some performances this summer. (She couches it in the term "movement actor" in deference to my sensitivity about artistic categories.) I hesitate, uncertain about what I can contribute and what I hope to get out of it, but seeing her concert shows me more possibilities for an exciting, empathetic collaboration. It might even be funny.

Hey! We could do excerpts from

Guys and Dolls

!