Anxiety ANXIETY Anxiety

Yeah. The dreaded A-word. That one what doth top off my list of topics more often than I'd like. There are some occasions for which I'm sure it would not surprise you, Dear Reader, that I experience my share of stress. Under-rehearsed show openings, callbacks with prominent theatre artists and just auditions in general. Then again, there's one I probably haven't written much of -- namely, the return to NYC after a long-term gig has taken me away.

Last night I had not one, but two anxiety dreams, both closely related to the fears associated with returning to the city and my more-regular life after I've spent some time acclimated to the good life. Keep in mind, "the good life" dangles me over a cliff of poverty, taunts me with creative failure at every turn and has its own share of stress. Yet somehow, the thought of returning to el day jobo and the verities of (big) city life manages to top any of that. It tops it, turns it around three times and kicks it out the door by its reproductive organs. It's awful, frankly. Mostly, I think, because it's laced with reminders of the compromises I have still to make in order to make this triple-life work for me. I crave integration now just as much as I did as a freshly graduated BFA holder. More, perhaps, because now I understand how sweet it could be, and how rough, too.

I haven't a whole lot to complain about, from one perspective. And I dearly love returning to better food, somewhat more fiscal compensation and, of course, my much-missed wife and friends. And heck (AND tarnation), there are no surprises here. I'm good at NYC at this point. I got my technique down and everything. My fellow artists will understand the frustration of tasting, just tasting, the possibility of sustaining one's life doing what one loves. Wherefore anxiety? Why not anger, or sorrow, or something more productive? I have no ready answer. My theory is that it springs from the aspect of less-than-welcome change. I'd probably do better with it if I could embrace it as opportunity. It doesn't have to be a reminder of what I

don't

have. I need to work on this.

In the meantime, the final showings of

The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet

gallop apace. This show has definitely infected me with a Shakespeare bug. I'm planning to read more of W.S. for a bit when I get back to the city, feeling very connected to the amazing, functional poetry of it. Last night we had a pleasant surprise in our audience in the forms of a former Zuppa actor and friend of the troupe.

Erin McMonagle

and

Seth Reichgott

visited from

BTE

, where they are rehearsing

Leading Ladies

. They had effusively nice things to say about our work, which is always welcome from fellow theatre artists, particularly those you particularly respect. We visited ever-so-briefly after the show before they needed to get back to Bloomsberg, but it was loverly. I hope I get to work with Erin again, and Seth for the first time, soon.

Some of my anxiety over the end of the show, and the re-entry to the day job, has been mitigated into productivity. I've arranged to meet with

Friend Cody

to discuss a regular acrobatics/balance group, and intend to spend a good deal of my time once back in sending out headshots and auditioning, perhaps for more Shakespeare. I usually have the best intentions for setting my best foot forward when I return to my home base, then wallow in adjusting to my return and feeling (quite frankly) sorry for myself. So it is my fervent hope that making appointments and such will keep me out of such nonsense this time around. Dang it, I like this work. Why lag, much less stop? I don't need a vacation. I need a never-ending trip, and I am my own events coordinator.

Hm. Maybe I should have been an author of self-help books, instead.

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?

Yesterday

I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, you know? I mean, you let people know the date once these days, and you're getting greetings on that date every single year -- from emails and comments and MySpace and Facebook and da, da-da, da-da. It's endless. I'm not sensitive about it, mind. I think every passing year is an accomplishment. Sure, the work may not have quite the same vim and vigor as it did in earlier times, but I like to think that's balanced out now by a sort of tempered harmony between enthusiasm and effectiveness. And besides, sometimes you just want a quiet day of reflection instead of some big celebration; a little time to contemplate times that were and where we are now. You know, like an adult.

Plus, I forgot.

Yesterday marked the second anniversary of Odin's Aviary. (You can check out how I celebrated the first ovah heeya.) Yep, without a clue in my head on how to proceed, I popped on Blogger(TM) and chose some pretentious style elements and wrote a tiny missive out to the 'blogosphere. The rest, as they say, is history. I haven't directly addressed The Third Life of late, but that's partly because I feel it's a concept that's inherent in most of what I do, hence most of what I write about. It's where I live most of the time, and for as long as I can remember. In some ways working to live "fully, freely and honestly" is everyone's ambition, and in other ways it's a unique responsibility for the would-be artists amongst us. This is not a unique idea (it's not even a unique name, as we learned early this year), but it's one that continues to resonate for me, and this here 'blog has proved an invaluable resource for helping me to stay true to that course.

Some highlights from the Aviary in 2008:

• One-hundred thirty five entries thus far, including our 300th.
• Visitor traffic has increased by about 50% over 2007. W00T!
• 5/22/07 remains the most-visited entry, proving that quoting pop music has virtue, and perhaps that sharing a question is more common than sharing an answer. But in 2008, thanks to Reader GeorgeW, we got our answer to this question! This means I can no longer count this entry as popular for its own reasons -- it got posted here. Perhaps I should advertise on this entry . . .
• In second and third places for popularity (in hits): 2/6/08 and 2/20/07. It would seem perhaps that people read me more when they're trapped by snow. Which I choose to take as a non-specific compliment.
• October was far and away the liveliest month here for visitors, owing perhaps to the Aviary being used as a kind of report for review by the powers that be at North Pocono High whilst I was teaching there.
• Virtually all of my referred traffic comes from people doing searches on Google Image. 'Bloggers, take note: use pictures. Me, take note: start citing photographers.
• Outside the US, we're biggest in Canada, but in recent weeks there's been a surge of interest in the UK (thanks Dave) and Germany (thanks...uh...wait, what?).
• We had the launch of a sister (er: brother?) site this year: Loki's Apiary. His star is on the rise as I refer to him as continuously as I can possibly justify (Loki's Apiary).
• Loki's Apiary offers you a concise view of what I've been up to when not typing here, of course, but for a novella view of my working-year 2008, here are my highlighted entries for each month: January [Losing Work], February [Reading Loud and Clear], March [Recovery], April [I'm Not a'Scared of You], May [Ta-Da], June [Viva Italia - 1&2], July [Friendly Neighborhood], August [Writing Wild], September [Health, Wealth & Wisdom], October [Open Up], November [The Rest is Finally Silence] and (on estimate) December.

It's been a hell of a second year, Dear Reader, and I thank you for whenever you may have tuned in. The entries usually slow down here when I'm traveling, and I'll be all over the place in the coming weeks, in many cases nowhere near a glowing box of interweby goodness. As you warm your hands by the dying embers of your monitors, think of me, and be merry. Eat and drink, too, or you'll die. I'm not a medical doctor, but I have it on good authority.

Useless Beauty (All This)

Great song. I'm not a huge Elvis Costello fan, but every so often one of his songs hits it out of the park for me, and

this

would be one of those. Friend Heather, who is a much better devotee of Costello, introduced me to it. I'm not sure if I've ever discussed this here, but songs rarely resonate for me based on their lyrics. This is a thing that drives some people (such as Wife Megan) a little crazy, but I can't really help it. Or, I don't want to. I like being better attuned to the song than I am to the lyrics. I don't have a whole lot of clear, intuitive behavior that doesn't get second-guessed by my intellect (such as it is) -- I'm keeping this one. This is all just to say that words to this song are brilliant, but it's the feeling of the chorus that carries me away.

Last night I saw

the Alvin Ailey dance company

for the second time in my life, and they were just as affective as I remembered. Poke around the site a bit and you'll soon see that the company members are gorgeous, and I assure you that without seeing them move, you don't know the half of it. Their work is passionate and specific, and it is a real treat to spend time experiencing their artistry. The first time I saw them was some five or six years ago, and I didn't know what I was in for then, so was doubly appreciative. I wondered if the blush of first impression would have faded a bit for me this time around. It didn't.

Of course, their beauty -- physical and kinesthetic -- is far from useless. Even if one were to be stupid enough to see dance as a generally useless expression, Ailey's work and the work he's inspired since wouldn't be lacking in usefulness. It always expresses something about a specific culture or movement that we couldn't quite learn in any other medium. Watching last night though, immersed in all that keen beauty, I got to thinking about the supposed virtue of beauty. Or rather I should call it the

disputed

virtue, since beauty as either cause or effect in "good" art has been a hotly debated aspect of art since time-just-about-immemorial. I think about it quite a lot myself, in the context of an actor who can't help but notice that some very pretty, very untalented folks get rather far rather fast. But last night, engulfed by it, I started thinking in less jaded terms about the role of beauty in artistic expression.

A girl I knew in college and I were taking a walk in our fairly new home of Richmond, Virginia. I remember passing an old, decrepid brick building, with exposed and broken pipes and a fire escape, all various shades of red and rust. I wondered aloud what it was that was drawing me to ugliness lately. My friend replied, "What makes you think that's ugly?" And she was right -- it was beautiful. Thinking of that run-down building as ugly was a preconceived judgment on my part, based on ideas about good and evil as they apply to structure, society, prosperity, etc. It's an easy mistake, as beauty/ugliness is in itself about as subjective a concept as I can imagine. It has as much to do with an emotional response as with anything else, and emotions are not binary. I suppose part of what impresses me about Ailey's work is that I'm immediately confronted with stupidly beautiful people, and then that experience of beauty is surpassed in strides (literally) by the beauty of some particular movement or shape they create.

Of course, I'm sure there are some who will disagree.

Actually, the subjective nature of beauty and ugliness (and all gradients thereof) gives me some hope for capital-T Truth playing a significant role in our work. One of the most famous (read: most cliched) quotes about Beauty and Truth having a relationship come from poor, too-soon-departed Keats:

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

It's one of those that I can go on considering in different lights throughout my life, I think. (That has proven true thus far, anyway.) You've got to love that the essence of the argument is the only bit in quotes; the idea that it is all we (or it [the urn]) know, and all we (or it [you know: the urn]) need to know, is all Keats. In other words, it's up to us whether we know it or need to know it, but history itself tells us that that Beauty = Truth, and vice versa.

Why am I going on about a (beautiful) poem? Because it forms the basis of a relationship between Beauty and Truth that is key to my assertion. That is, the commonality between perceptions of beauty is founded on a more shared, communal sense of Truth. In other words, given just how incredibly individual is everyone's opinion about what is ugly and what is beautiful, it makes sense to me that there must be a contributing factor to all those disparate opinions that allows them to find common ground in some cases -- that common factor being Truth. In my humble opinion. Capital-T Truth, mind you, which has less to do with empirical facts and more to do with feeling, with instinct. I think an innate sense of this Truth is that in which we're all participating when we come to an mutual appreciation of Beauty.

Certainly one can have beauty without Truth (one can have it, thanks to advertising and such, any time one wants it); hence my capital-B Beauty. Otherwise known as Glory, Spirit, Love, etc. I wouldn't have called seeing Alvin Ailey a religious experience per se but, then again, it did rather feel like going to church ought. There were times I felt lost, others when I felt as though we were going through the motions a bit, then suddenly a time without a sense of time, when I felt lifted out of myself and part of a whole I had barely felt myself in just moments prior. Then it would end, as all things must I suppose, and seem just as brief as it had infinite when it was happening. It's difficult to define or even describe a unifying experience, even though all of us have at some time or another felt it, probably because most of our intellect comes of division, of making distinctions. So you have to live the moments of unity. And should we creators and makers and artists try to make Beautiful work?

Yes.

Memory Play

They're very interesting to me, memory plays. Memory-anything, really, but particularly memory plays, because plays are live and immediate and ever-changing stories. Some of my favorite and most formative theatrical experiences have been in some fashion memory plays, from

The Glass Menagerie

to

Franny's Way

to

As Far As We Know

. What I love about them most, I think, is the added layer of perception and perspective. They can be almost like meta-theatre in their effect, yet without a lot of self-conscious devices. As an audience we get to through layers of distance to empathy and recognition, and as players we get to ask really interesting questions: how true is this rendition, who's influencing the story, how much is this to be played as a unified series of events, and how much as after-the-fact fantasy? Finally, memories are stories we all have within us at every moment of our lives. It is fascinating to be invited into someone else's, real or imagined.

I'm almost done with my series of short plays inspired by reading

Mary Roach

's book,

Stiff

(thanks, Nat). That is to say, I've almost finished writing a first draft of the whole sequence, as I see it now. It's been a big project, luckily entered into blindly and without expectation, so nearing a complete first draft is at once an accomplishment and a very small step in what ought to be a much longer process, if I really expect this writing to be produced sometime, somewhere. As I see it now, I've one-and-a-half scenes to write and I'll be ready to have that most cringe-worthy experience of early drafts: a first reading. These happen to be the last two scenes, and I'm not certain which will be actually last yet, but I am (maybe) halfway through the one that's actually only a monologue. And, wouldn't you know it? It's a memory play.

Memory monologue? That just sounds stupid, and enforces the idea that a stand-alone monologue has no place in a larger play. So: Memory play.

It's difficult. If I'm doing it right, it is more of a play than a monologue. It should have a little drive behind it, a little "umph" of conflict and action and, above all, it should change something. It's strange how it's all coming out. I've essentially set myself up a challenge: How would someone who lived to a ripe old age tell her life story if she didn't have all the time in the world in which to do it? I've made no preconceived decision about this (at least, not a conscious one). Instead I'm writing as ideas come to me, and trying to keep some feeling of urgency behind it, in conflict with the way in which pausing allows memories to flow better, and holding still allows us to appreciate those memories more. I'm not altogether sure it's working, and I suspect I won't know at all how it's worked until someone -- poor soul -- tries to perform it for me. As a writer, I'm also hampered a bit by knowing where I want to end up with this one. The idea for the end is what started me writing it. Knowing something like that is good for direction but, personally speaking, bad for writing motivation. I'm propelled by exploration, as my rambling 'blog entries must attest, which is what makes revision processes so difficult for me.

I have an ever-changing relationship with memory. Generally speaking, as a kid I took it for granted, as a teenager into young adult I wallowed about in it, as a young man I rather spurned it, and as an adult (or so I'm told I am) I value it in any way I can get it. All of that just adds up to a high value that I place on my stories, good, bad or (rarely) indifferent. Memory is tricky. I'm thinking a lot about the expression, "If memory serves...". Did this saying come about because we see memory as serving us, or because we recognized that memory is an unreliable thing, bound not to serve us? Or was it rather because we're more at the mercy of our memories than they of us? That's the way it seems to me, most of the time. Will I remember Wife Megan's recent warning about the weather forecast? Not a chance. Will I suddenly recall an episode from ten years past so vividly that I feel ashamed most of the day? Highly probable, at any given moment. Ah sentience! What a trade-off!

Finally -- in every sense of the word -- memory is all we are. What we've experienced is who we end up, one way or another, and when we're gone, what really survives past our ashes here but memories of us? So perhaps being lightly in love with memory as a general concept isn't all that strange. Maybe memories are brushes with something far-reaching and universal. They can certainly affect us, albeit some more than others.

And if I write "memories" one more time, will

that damn song

get stuck in your head too? Oh good . . .