Home Remedy

HWAET:

(Though perhaps it won't be such a long one, feels like it wants to be longish at the start.)

First off, thanks to all who have contributed to my last post (see

3/4/09

). I meant the questions, and I hope others (even ones I don't know all that personally) will keep posting in the comments. Stories rule, and everyone's a storyteller to one degree or another. Tell me a story.

Memories often make for interesting stories. Sometimes I think stories are motivated in part by a desire for a common experience, for each person to hold his or her life up against others' and ask, "So, does this make sense? Am I alone in this, or is this normal?" I visited my hometown this weekend to compare some stories with old friends and new family. It was a very short visit, arriving late Friday night and returning to the city Sunday afternoon, and I didn't do all that much talking or telling.

Wife Megan

's family dynamic is still new to me, particularly when extended family are about, and the reason we were home was to celebrate my nephew-in-law's second birthday, so they were. The other major social event was visiting Friends Mark & Lori's house, where along with

Friend Davey

were assembled various other people I knew or didn't know. So I listened a lot, with which I'm comfortable.

I also did a lot of thinking. These visits to Northern Virginia are usually a bit difficult for me. They're a little natural melancholy, being where I lived for my entire childhood and where I and my family no longer exist. What is more difficult, however, is how circumstantially vulnerable I feel there. I have no space of my own, though of course the Heflins keep their house completely open to me. I have no car, which is how one gets anything done there. (I presently have no laptop, which could mitigate some of that frustration.) My friends always make time for me and Megan's family always seeks to provide, yet there is also always a personal, mounting sense of angst whilst I'm there. It's reminiscent of being a teenager, which is the quick-and-dirty explanation I've leaned on for a while now. I was a teenager when last I lived there, so I have a tendency to revert, so I try to resist it whenever I visit.

This time, however, I realized that the sense of angst was much more immediate than some throw-back to my youth -- and it always had been. I recognized what I needed. This was practically a follow-up to another realization I had the last time I visited, in that both occurred under unusual circumstances: I was watching a movie. (Apparently, these movies combined stories with mediums of expression that agreed with me.) Movies generally get a bad rap for accomplishing anything other than entertainment, and it's a pity, because for someone who's open to it a film can open our eyes in some of the same ways (and some unique ones) that theatre or visual art does. Along with my vows to see more live music and theatre, I'm always telling myself I should take advantage of all the indie film here in New York, too.

Over my Christmas holiday, while waiting to be picked up from the Heflins' by my dad and driven up to my parents' place in Maryland, I was watching

Casino Royale

(2006)

. It seemed like a good, entertaining film to be watching. I'd seen it a couple of times before, but many things about it still held a lot of interest for me -- amazingly nuanced performances by Daniel Craig and Eva Green, amazing fight choreography, and rich cinematography. It's a James Bond film; what insight could I possibly expect? Through a series of circumstances best left to memory, while watching this movie it ended up that I got stranded in Burke, in an empty house. It was upsetting, not just frustrating, as my usual angst was. As I found a ride to the DC Metro and traveled up to Maryland on my own, I listened to the theme from the movie. I've always liked it, but it was particularly gratifying to the emotions I was going through. I realized in that moment that what I wanted, what I was so frustrated by every time I visited, was independence. Not just incidental independence, but in my life in general. Here I have this relatively footloose lifestyle, yet it limits me in some ways.

So I've been pursuing that in one way or another since then, and on this particular visit to NoVa, kept in mind the source of my angst. It helped, but I was frustrated (again) to find that it wasn't sufficient. I was missing something. I chalked the feeling up to frustration over having insight with no means to change the situation, and to some extent it was. Then, Sunday morning (whilst exercising some independence by abstaining from a visit elsewhere), I sat down in front of the Heflins' "Fios" (ooooooooooo...) and looked for a movie to order up. I saw that

Redbelt

, a Mamet-written and -directed movie I had some interest in was available, and fired it up. There's a lot to appeal to me here, some of it rather similar to what's appealing about

Casino Royale

, and I was probably similarly relaxed about watching it, though certainly my intellect was more engaged with prepping for typical Mamet-ian intricacies. I only got through half the film before having to move on to something else, but in that half was a moment in Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance (and, it must be acknowledged, David Mamet's script) that struck a deep emotional response in me. His character is talking for the first time with a woman who rather violently disrupted his school and situation -- she's struggling to express something to him -- and he says, "Is there some way that I can help you?" There's no attitude to it. He says it very simply; an offer. It's like it's what he's there to do.

It stuck with me. The scene cuts to he and the woman in his dojo, where he teaches her a small lesson in self-defense, then offers her a sign-up form in case she wants to learn any more. The moment I just kept returning to, though, was that single line of dialogue. I spent most of the rest of that day in one way or another trying to understand what I felt about it. On the one hand, it summed up pretty nicely for me what it is about good teachers that I like and aspire to. Good teachers are there to help the students in whatever way the students may need. On the other hand, I saw in this moment something I have been wanting very badly for some time now, without realizing it. Recognizing that, alongside this newly inspired need to be independent, gave me a surprising sense of purpose. The trick now will be to follow through on it.

I need a teacher. So much of my life has been spent looking for one, in one way or another, consciously and subconsciously. Most of my interests to date have been centered around this dynamic, whether I cast myself as the teacher or the student. I want to teach, I want to lead, but I also want to keep learning and keep improving and not just in acting, or circus, or some other skill, but in life. So -- and I'm addressing you directly here, Universe -- I'm looking for my next teacher.

Reversals of Fortune

Firstly: Over 30,000 page loads! Yay! That is all.

Secondly:

I am beginning to see how the economic crisis will affect me, and others of my ilk. At first, there was a supreme comfort in watching all these richies lose their marbles over watching digital numerals descend. Now, I'm aware that the uber-richies aren't going to feel a thing and perhaps, relatively speaking, I should feel some remorse for the less-than-uber. But I must say, when you're as far down on the fiscal ladder as I, it's difficult to make such distinctions in perspective. (That ended up being a dastardly interwoven, imagistic pun, didn't it?) So I have felt largely schadenfreude, an emotion that is not very common for me. It's completely insensible, too, since I know that rich people aren't rich in spite of me. They aren't keeping money from me, so any resentment I feel is purely self-inflicted. Still and all: Ha-ha.

For some time, it felt as though I had won some terrible lottery that I didn't know I was playing. My lifestyle seemed to defy every pitfall of this downturn, this recession/depression, and in ways very specific to my personal choices. For example, I have an IRA, no 401k. That money is safe, and those who've been making more are now losing out. Another example is my lack of home ownership, car or otherwise asset-enhanced merchandise. It seemed as though I could look at my semi-vagrant, actor lifestyle and say, "Hey buddy, you've actually been sensible. Your frugality and emphasis on the moment was the real safe path. The reckless jokers are actually all these market gamblers and careerists. Here: Here's a pat on your acupunctured back for you." I could recline in my cheap chair and regard the concept of trickle-down economics as an irrelevant, elitist concept from the Reagan 80s.

Alack, it is not so. We're all in this together, as I've known somewhere in the back all along, and on the horizon I can now see the incoming storm. It's in the seemingly little things, like public transportation and food prices, that the first painful slights will appear for we "starving artists." These little things are actually monumentally important -- they're what we spend our little money on. The health insurance I just jumped on due to my newly married status will now not be free. Perhaps most awaking is the fact of the Electric Theatre Company's imminent collapse. Like many (if not most) small regional theatres, ETC is always hovering on the brink of inviability, to the extent that one ceases to notice. But this time around, I couldn't help but see how tight it was all getting. I felt, for the first time, like a strain on the theatre. It was almost an it-or-me scenario in terms of money, and I of course had to choose me.

Though I can't help but be reminded of the Chinese parable of heaven and hell, wherein both places have an elaborate dinner for everyone, but provide only three-foot chopsticks with which to eat. Hell is where they frustratedly starve, heaven where they know to feed one another. Maybe our table has been deprived of its entree, but I still feel the key to getting through this will be to help each other out as much as possible. So I ate some expenses on the theatre's behalf, and I contributed some to their funds, all the while insisting on timely paychecks. Balance in all things. Hopefully some good will come out of this; the bankers and investors will learn to balance too, and the artists will become more focused, more motivated, more true. Hopefully. And in the meantime, some sacrifice and suffering. Some unexpected joy, too.

Inquiring Philosophy

Last night I attended the first dress rehearsal for Marywood University's

A Midwinter Night's Dream

, something for which I specifically returned to town early. It was gaffe-ful, naturally, but I expected much worse, given the students' generalized anxiety about the progress of their rehearsals when I led them in

a workshop

last week. I should learn: Actors in general, and young actors in particular, are given to anxiety about any show. It's how we channel what to most people seems like unaccountably constant enthusiasm. We have to channel it somehow, lest we drive others crazy with it (as if our anxiety didn't risk that) or, more dangerous, make them jealous. Most people rarely get to experience the kind of unapologetic joy that actors with an opportunity to perform do. Most people, it must be said, feel a need to beat down that seemingly selfish celebration.

I may seem a bit cynical with that last, but I swear to you that I'm feeling very open and grateful. Last night's performance put me in mind of some of my earliest experiences in theatre. First of all, I was in about two college productions per year after my freshman one, and was reminded of how that environment is so unique for theatre. Secondly,

Midsummers

was one of my first high school productions. I played Philostrate, a fun but generally thankless role. As I watched a rather Annie-Hall-like Philostrate ply her few lines last night, I was reminded of the beautiful feather they gave me for a quill pen when I played the role, and how the director tried as delicately as possible to direct me to play him, shall we say, as weightless of sole as possible. In brief, I was reminded of the times when theatre was a different kind of adventure for me, when my priorities were all wrong for supposed good work, when I knew little and (perhaps more dangerously) thought I knew more. Thankfully, the Marywood players are far more self-aware than I was a decade or so ago, and their show is well-constructed and a refreshing venue for seeing young actors working with great sincerity and no small amount of artistry.

I'm also writing to you, Dear Reader, from the office of the

Electric Theatre Company

. Directly over the computer I'm using (the one usually reserved for the tiresome business of juggling money to make sure types like me get paid) is a corkboard, and pinned to this corkboard is a quote from Simon Callow. I read Callow's memoir,

Being An Actor

, and enjoyed it. Friend Patrick gave it to me as a 30th birthday gift, and nearly as he did, another friend commented on Callow as a self-important git. Uncouth, to be sure, but the drinks were flowing quite liberally even that early in the evening (as evidenced by the gallery on my Facebook page) and I leave this as the friend's excuse. Whether or not it's true, it colored my reading of the book a bit. I rolled it about as a question in my own mind, and have left it largely unanswered. The book didn't offend me, was interesting, and at times even inspired me, so who am I to judge? The corkboard quote from Callow is from another book,

The Road to Xanadu

:

"The loss of excitement is the beginning of professionalism. The thrill of standing on stage, of receiving an audience's attention and admiration, the release of becoming someone other than yourself; all these stimuli are transient and superficial. They must be replaced by something more deeply rooted which takes as its starting point the audience's experience rather than your own."

I'm still reeling a bit from a troublesome note given to me by one of my directors on

The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet

(see

2/16/09

). Two things I can hardly abide are being accused of selfishness and being instructed to relax. The first is because I'm perpetually paranoid about seeming self-centered simply because I want things for myself, the second is because telling me to relax is possibly the most futile, self-defeating exercises in which to engage me. To me, it's a little like telling someone to jump, than berating them for coming back down without your instruction. I admit that one of my character flaws is in how easily frustrated I am, and how quickly I can lose my sense of perspective -- and I try to take responsibility for these attributes as best I can. But tell me to "relax" too many times, and I will remorselessly rip your ears off. And I'll

still

go off and try to be more perfect for you. I'm in a long process of learning how to fend for myself when it's necessary, something that comes more naturally to some, and I'd like the world at large to recognize that my default state is to do everything I do for it, for them, for anyone but myself.

This is getting a little too self-important/self-flagellating for me, and my reasoning rather a lot cyclical at that. But I've needed to vent, so that was pretty effectively accomplished with the above. The real question I am trying to come to grips with is, where do I draw the line between "good" work, and the work I want to do? Another way to ask it is, what are my standards for myself in my work, and how do I maintain those in the face of adversity? We all have to be open to criticism, but we also can not afford to take all criticism at face value, lest we be stymied completely. There

is

no perfection, of course. Make that your goal at your own peril. So how do we define the best we can do, from moment to moment? I just advised a whole theatre department to have a sense of personal direction in their work, and now I'm questioning my own. It's necessary work. It's also a pain in my ass.

My quick-and-dirty answer (or, my jumping-off-point for re-exploring this question) is to say that in my perfect world, the audience and the actor meet on an equal plane of thrills, tears and laughter. Perhaps this is why I want so much to take the director's chair for a bit, to gain some better perspective on this possibility. Maybe it's impossible. I won't know until I try. And in the meantime, I have had to decide that the note I received was simply a misperception. It felt like a good show. It didn't feel I was showing off, nor in danger of doing so. It felt like the audience and my fellow actors and I were meeting on a level playing field, and each upping the other's emotional investment. I felt like an adult choosing to make that compact with the audience, and I felt like a kid, playing without knowing what to expect next. What else could an actor ask for?

"There is no world without Verona walls..."

I came into this development/rehearsal process for

The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet

with food poisoning, which I considered a good omen. After all, I arrived for the very first collaboration with Zuppa del Giorno, way back in 2002, with a fever. Now I am recovering (knock on wood, cross your fingers, pray and sacrifice small woodland creatures) from a cold that arrived just in time for yesterday's day off. Hence yesterday was spent largely lying about and feeling sorry for myself (though I did learn a line or two more, as well). Yesterday also, however, delivered some exciting news, with which I must merely taunt you -- I don't want to jinx it by letting on too much. Suffice it to say, I need to get back to New York after rehearsal Thursday night in order to attend an exciting audition Friday afternoon, after which I will

HAUL REAR

back to Scranton for our last rehearsal before teching.

Things in the world of

R&J

are good. Good and scary, that is, which is as good as it gets in my personal little circle of hurly-burly. We had a nigh-disastrous "run" Sunday, which has focused our intents to getting the show streamlined and specific. Specifically, David has requested that everyone learn the text in order to depart from it at our leisure (as opposed to the other way around) and the ensemble has been tasked with getting unerringly specific with its foley effects. We are, in brief, starting to fuse together as an ensemble, as our many directors make their choices as specific and consistent as possible. Is there enough time now? No, absolutely not. But that is the status quo, and worser works have saved themselves through a similar schedule.

Today, awaking for the first time in a few days with a little energy, I am spending the whole day at the theatre working on lines and my upcoming audition before this evening's rehearsal. It's more than a little harrowing, having two such important things to prepare for, but it's thrilling as well, and makes me feel a lot of faith. How likely was it that an audition that requires clowning and commedia dell'arte skills should come up just as I'm rehearsing for a show involving both? In this context, even my cold seems to me somewhat fortuitous. It has kept me rested just prior to the news, and given me a lot of time to think about what I'm doing. Actors in general are tempted by perceptions of fate and destiny even when we're not working on Shakespeare; I'm trying to keep my head straight through all this . . . but also to be open to omens, such as they may be.

I wrote some time ago (see

11/28/08

) about turning down an audition for a very lucrative commercial because it conflicted with teaching work I was doing out here in Scranton. I have never wavered on the decision, as fruitful as such work may have proven, and if this new audition couldn't be compromised with

R&J

, I would probably not have committed myself to it. Foolish? Yeah. Then again, I'm the one who has to live with my choices, and I'd rather being doing the work that has something more to do with me and my creative life than someone else's. I feel very lucky indeed to have an opportunity to do both over the next few days.

Now if only I can get off-book for act five at the same time...

Tropic of Gemini

I unintentionally read the anti-

Romeo&Juliet

a little while ago: Henry Miller's

Tropic of Cancer

[link N

quite

SFW]. It is putting it rather on the glass-half-full side of things to say that the book served as a cleansing of my cynical palette before I embark on one of the more profound studies of innocence. When I finished

Tropic of Cancer

, I put it down with a victorious sigh, relieved that I would never have to read it again. Friend Patrick is flummoxed by this behavior in me, my determination to finish any book I've started, no matter how awful the experience. (I did give up on

this book

last Spring, though, because it is just freaking shite.) I can hardly explain it myself, except to say that it is perhaps a deeply ingrained habit. Whatever the cause, I generally read only one book at a time, and when I start a book, I finish it, or it finishes me.

Tropic of Cancer

very nearly finished me.

It's a little troubling to have so loathed a book that has come to be widely regarded a classic. It's supposed to be a work of considerable genius, and has been praised unequivocally by folks like Orwell, Mailer and Vonnegut -- all writers I greatly enjoy and admire. This isn't the first time I've not enjoyed a classic. I've often not enjoyed Dickens and Joyce. And by often, I mean just about every time I've curled up to give them another read. I do believe, however, that this is the first time in my adult life that I've taken such an active distaste for an accredited author's work. That is to say, it is unique in my experience to feel revulsion for something I've read, and perhaps this speaks more to Miller's genius as might any actual critical response I could make. It's not prudery, per se -- I love vicarious sex and violence, whether that's a good or bad thing. Love Anais Nin, so far loathe Miller. So what is it?

It is, I believe, the cynicism. The sheer, unrelenting, unapologetic cynicism. To hear Miller tell of it, I would not have made it out of 1930s Paris alive; there are suicides in this book, and they are all-too understandable to me. It seemed as though every character maintained his or her existence merely to progress to the next selfish experience, and after not too long I was utterly bogged down in the sense of hopeless, purposeless puppetry. I read

Of Human Bondage

not too long ago, and it was almost as if Miller had taken Carey's latter (also frustrating) selflessness and turned it on its ear so hard it went into coma. Miller's narrator (or voice, depending on the ratio of memoir to narrative at a given moment) is given to short sentences of profound and usually brutal imagery and metaphor that definitely would have appealed to me when I was sixteen. Now, they strike me as naive and self-centered and, as far as I was able to tell, the narrator undergoes no lasting change in the course of the story. Was there even joy in this story, really? Miller is famous for philosophically sucking the marrow from life, but this seemed more to me like continually jumping off a building for the three seconds of the sensation of flying.

What this is really about then, for me, is a struggle to process my experience in reading the book. How did, or will, the book change me? You could make the case that it won't . . . but that I feel it already has, and what remains is to understand that effect. It hasn't sapped my hope, at least. If anything, it makes me rail against its perspective, which seems so short-sighted and inconsequential that I want to grab the narrator by the neck and just shake him until he snaps out of it (or something else snaps). Why do none of these people believe in anything? What drives them to write, or do anything lasting, if it is all about survival and gratification? Maybe these are the questions Miller wanted us to ask, or maybe I'm just to narrow in my perspective on the era. If I had to say what effect the book has had on me, I'd guess at this point that it has strengthened my resolve to help and inspire others through my work. And I have to confess that I hope Henry Miller would've hated that.

Lest this read as some offended rant against a slice of literature history, I will say that at times I felt the raw power of Henry Miller's control of the language, and his willingness to savor words without making them self-important or inaccessible. Some of his ideas rang out, too, despite my prejudice against the perspective of his narrator. I wrote earlier in the month about the

supposed virtue of beauty

in art, and a strong argument could be made for there being a unique and important beauty in Miller's work. For me, however, I'm thrilled to go work on

a love story

very soon (and possibly even more thrilled to finally be on to reading it on the subway).

The

love story, for some people, and I'm going to do my damnedest to make it a guilty pleasure to begin, and full of consequence and beauty at the end. And maybe that's what Miller meant.

But I really have no idea.