The Complete Urban Guide to Proper Umbrella Usage

The Umbrella

: Some have argued its worth beyond even that of fire, or the wheel, or individually package snack foods. Known by many names--bumbershoot (or bumpershoot), parasol, canopy, sunshade--and appreciated by many cultures, the umbrella is an essential tool in humanity's war against the elements. Canes, hats, sock garters, they've all gone the way of the Dodo as far as standard equipment goes, but the umbrella has persevered in the face of fashion, and with good reason. It is versatile and seemingly infinite in variety, it is simple yet effective, and it's nifty.

This is why, dear friends, after enduring yet another day of the perils of a rainy city, I feel obligated to share with you the secrets of that ancient, nigh mystical martial art surrounding the sensitive and affective use of the umbrella in an overcrowded urban en(and "in")vironment. These many secrets of both external and internal practice have been passed down only orally through the centuries, handed from generation to generation of master, all the while cleverly disguised under the nomenclature "common sense." I think you will find, however, when next you visit New York (or Chicago, Washington D.C., Bangor, etc.), that there is nothing at all "common" about this "sense." Let's begin . . .

• Rule the First: Best Defense for Rain, No Be There.
• I paraphrase Mr. Miyagi, of course. (Pat Morita, it is widely known, was a long-time secret practitioner of The Way of The Not Retarded With An Umbrella In Public.) This rule is pretty simple. If it's raining, don't go out. You won't get wet. Oh sure, you may spill some water on yourself at some point, but come on. Take some responsibility for yourself. While you're at it, call in sick to work. Think about it. Public transportation will be full to the brim with people convinced they're getting to work faster by not driving, all the while slowing down the public transportation with their numbers. In such an environment, it's an act of charity to fore go one's usual strident work ethic, and charity is one of the 99 Virtues of this style.

• Rule the Second: Second-Best Defense for Rain a Hat.
• It's true. Hats still work. It may seem ridiculous to us, but not so long ago our ancestors (read: grandparents) wore hats out that had a little more style than just a logo and a standing deck on the front. These hats were not just stylish, but practical, with lots of air underneath to separate one's scalp from the elements and, more often than not, a wide brim all the way 'round what prevented elements from getting all elemental in our faces. This simple alternative, when combined with a long coat, will protect all the essentials from said elements.

• Rule the Third: You Need a Coat
• No, really. You do. I know, I know, but -- you do. It's the city. Water's going to come at you from directions you never dreamed possible, and it doesn't care how good your legs look in those shoes/pants/eccentric ruffles.

• Rule the Fourth: As With the (Hu)Man, So With the Bumpershoot
• So you are rash, young Padawan, and have chosen the Way of the Umbrella over the Ways of Responsible Delinquency and/or Hat. So be it. First: You still need a coat. I'm not letting go of this one. Coat, cloak, poncho, whatever--deal. Second, you are unique. You are special unto your own self. Your umbrella must reflect this. If you are larger than most, you may need an umbrella of greater radius, with corresponding longer neck. If you are more diminutive, so shall your umbrella be. Play to your strengths! Far more often than you may imagine, someone of insufficient height takes it upon his or her self to wield a Vorpal sword of a parasol, thinking bigger to be better. This is plainly untrue, and further, is contradictory to the virtue of Not Being a Punk-Ass, another of the 99 Virtues of this style. Further still, with an over-large umbrella, you are imperiling not only others, but yourself, owing to still another of the 99 Virtues: Tendency to Kill Umbrella-Punk-Asses.
• Rule the Fifth: Know Your Place
• What is your "place"? TWoTNRWAUIP is a sophisticated philosophy and way of life, not just a highly effective art-form, and it recognizes that set rules and forms will ultimately limit our ability to adapt to different challenges. For example, a person who's 5'10" in D.C. might think of his or her self as a tall him or her. Odds are, however, that such a one will find themselves in the shorter margin of humans at some point on a visit to N.Y.C. Ergo, one should learn to judge one's opponent(s) on an individual basis. This is harder than it sounds. To practice properly, one must meditate daily on images of reeds in the wind, unconcerned about the battles of ego that might occur in rainy urban conditions. There is no shame in taking the lower stance. Especially if you're a 4'9", slow-moving, grocery-shopping grandmother.
• Rule the Sixth: Movement is the Key to Successful Movement
• Herein lies all the complexity of the technique--that formless form that only masters of TWoTNRWAUIP may someday achieve. One must move with precision and ease through the myriad bumbershoots, maneuvering smartly whilst maintaining a sufficient velocity of foot travel, rather like a traceur (a practitioner of le Parkour), or those cooks who chop stuff really quickly. There are many movements, most of which only life can be the teacher of, but the key to them is this: It is not enough to avoid impaling yourself; you must avoid impaling others. Also: Understand that your umbrella is, oddly enough, wet, and can moisten others. Additionally: What is WRONG with YOU? STOP BEING RETARDED.

Dang. I think I need to meditate a little more.

Making a Stand(ard)

Hi. I was wondering if I could be let back into your life. You can't see me now, so I'll just let you know that I'm standing, in a trenchcoat, outside my car, holding a boombox over my head and looking mournful. Sure, the boombox is playing "Life Is just a Bowl of Cherries" rather than something romantic that we got freaky too (like "The Thong Song"), but that's just because I'm stuck in the '30s, and can't get out. At least, not until October 21.

Some people are genuinely upset with me for being so absent.Not so much on the ‘blog—that, at most, inspires increased frustration with work-induced boredom—but more in general.I never write.I never call.The least I could do is ‘blog every now and again, just so you know I’m still alive as you sit there, reading in the dark without your glasses, two miles in the snow uphill both ways.I am sorry, truly.I have had a worry or two of my own, you know.Nothing to rival your worries, and of course the greatest worry I have is that something terrible would happen to you and I wouldn’t know about it because I have been so selfish, and unworthy of your thoughtful consideration.You have, at the least (as you lie in traction from your tragic tractor trajectory) this comfort:It has been in the name of Art.

And fart jokes.

Look here to see what has been so occupying now that I’ve not been available.Oh, I can’t trust you to links!It’s Zuppa del Giorno’s first original creation in a year-and-a-half: Prohibitive Standards. If you do take the “here” link above (and how much better it is to live in the here and now), you’ll see that a tremendous amount of work has gone in to creating this show, and the ‘blog(s) don’t hardly reveal but half of the actual salt-water work (that is: sweat and tears [thank you, Friend Kate]) what’s gone into this production.The rehearsal room, after all, is where all the material for Zuppa’s shows really springs from, and for the past three weeks we’ve been gathering in a room (or two) to make our baby.

I had previously attempted to ‘blog about the process of that, but never got very far, because I was constantly off to learn music, or watch movies, or try to master a front handspring.OR, to balance my life.Because that’s a special effort too, when you’re an actor of somewhat modest means working out of town. It’s important to acknowledge that aspect of The Third Life©. From balancing one’s checkbook, to reminding one’s parents that he or she is not, in fact, home to be visited, to maintaining some sense of home and personal identity amidst characterization and shacking up in someone’s guest room, the traveling artist has a lot to contend with.Not that it’s not without its perks, either.New experiences are fantastic fuel for creative endeavor, and it’s easier to obsess (constructively, we hope) without frequent reminders of responsibilities.

One of my previous attempts at ‘blogging on this process was entitled “A Host of Angles.”I’ve written to some extent already about the unique process of creating a show from improvisation in my experiences with UnCommon Cause Theatre and Zuppa del Giorno, but never since opening the Aviary have I been so close to the process, nor has it culminated in quite the same way.Prohibitive Standards will be performed in a structured improvisation style.It will never solidify entirely. It will always be different. This means that the same concepts applied to making the show from the ground up will be applied in making it work when the curtain goes up.That creates an intense energy in which one has to set rules for oneself in order to be ready for anything that could happen on stage.We’ve constructed a scenario—or sequence of necessary actions—as our rules, within which we can play and stretch and improvise.In this way, the energy of a performance is very much like live sports, for both the participant and the observer.Everyone’s eager to see what happens next.

But “A Host of Angles”?Well, the most impressive reminder I was receiving about this process when I came up with that title (a lifetime ago, on September 15) had to do with the abandonment of structure and the necessary mastery of the elements of a play involved in creating one by committee, from scratch.In a more standard process, there is a sequence of events and a hierarchy of authority.Typically, the play passes from playwright to producer to director to actors, with very little passing back, and each party has a sequence of gradual development that results in a finished product.In creating a show in the living tradition of commedia dell’arte, however, everyone fills each role in some fashion all the time.One moment you are discussing character arcs, the next you’re leaping around imitating a boiling tea kettle, and still the next you’re trying very hard to be open and objective as you argue for more time for acrobatic training.Rehearsals end, of course, eventually, but they never really do, because everything you see, feel and do at all times goes into the soup, and as a producing playwright directactor, you never stop thinking about and discussing the show.Rather than a sequence of creation, you are coming at an intangible goal from every angle at once, and a lot of the time it feels as though you’re completely wasting your time, spinning your wheels while nothing productive takes place.But I leave out here, as something too obvious to mention, a critical ingredient in this creative soup: Faith.

However we got here, here we are, with a complete scenario that we may even manage to remember and properly reproduce on preview night, this Thursday.It has been a tremendously ambitious project, involving collaboration with Marywood University, regular workshops and training sessions with students and a good deal of marketing.Not everything has turned out the way I had hoped: the student actors are not as involved in the story as I would have liked, there's less emphasis on vaudeville than I had imagined and our physical daring, so prominent in the last two shows, has taken a backseat (necessarily) to an intricate story.However, I am very proud of what we’ve made, and excited to add an audience.Everyone is doing something they never thought they could do before, including me.

What new am I doing?I’d like to keep it a surprise for anyone who can make it out.Let’s just say that my embouchure hasn’t been in this good a shape since I was fifteen.

This Is How We Do It

The past week has been a busy one, especially in comparison to the actual clocked hours of teaching last week, never mind my peculiar travel habits for the re-up of

As Far As We Know

. The bulk of the work has been to educate a group of incredibly mixed experience into Zuppa del Giorno's style of theatre . . . and, in the process, remind even ourselves of what it is we do.

That may seem odd. It seems one of the most consistent subjects I bring up on this here 'blog is Zuppa, that ever-adventurous work I've been doing pretty consistently for the past five years. When we're not doing a show, we're planning for one, or teaching workshops, or recruiting students or venturing off to Italy. Yet somehow, in all that hustle and bustle, we've gotten away from our roots--that is, creating a play directly from improvisation on a scenario. In Italy, we devoted much of our energy to incorporating Italian into the scenario.

Operation Opera

was as much about writing the scenario as it was improvising upon it, and

Silent Lives

was similar in that sense, and completely different in the sense that it was a clown show. There are entire technical elements of our original work that I had lost sight of in the rest of the machinations, elements such as David's "Newtonian Impulses" and the ways in which we strip down a scenario to its most basic elements, and strip away language as a communication tool.

So we've all been learning together. It's fascinating to watch the students toil in such unfamiliar territory, probably doing many of the same things wrong and right that I did in 2002. Fascinating, too, to watch how Sam, Erin and Geoff trust in the process so implicitly in spite of being new to it. I suppose acting experience in general (though, perhaps specifically experience with improvisation) helps actors perceive the merit in doing things as thoroughly and gradually as this process demands, in spite of having the intense deadline it does.

And then again, maybe I don't give my fellow actors quite enough credit. It's an amazing group. (And just how have I been so lucky this year as to only work with incredible people?) Which is just to say that the "new" actors to Zuppa's process are very disciplined and talented artists who somehow get it. They just get it. Thank God they do, too, because when your working with people who don't it adds a whole lot more work to an already intensive work process.

So just what is this work what takes me away from my beloved Aviary for so long? How can we have so much to do when we don't even have a scenario related to our play yet? I am so glad you asked! The bible of our little group is a book of

Flaminio Scala's collection of original commedia dell'arte scenarios

. These scenarios provide very little information in the way of dialogue or explanation. They begin with a character breakdown such as you would see at the beginning of any published play, but with no character descriptions as such, since the characters they they would be known by their type to the original actors. Then there is a paragraph or two about "the argument," which describes a little about back history and relationships, though generally not reaching much farther back than a month or so. Finally, there is the scenario itself, which is divided into paragraphs titled after the character or characters concerned in the central action of each. The scenario merely describes the action of the "scene," and provides no explanation as to specific actions of characters or motivations for such, so there's much to be interpreted (including the extensive use of pronouns: does "he" refer to Pantalone or Arlechino this time?). The scenarios don't even say "the two fail to understand one another because _______." They say, "they speak at cross-purposes."

So David will begin by assigning parts (in our case, occasionally assigning two parts to one actor, unconcerned with the supposed sex of the character), then he will read the scenario a few lines at a time, and we actors will fulfill its demands as he reads, rather like the theatre sports game "Typist Narrator." In this round, there's typically very little interpretation, and we can speak whatever dialogue helps us understand the action. The point is to absorb the scenario. After once through, we try again, and again, until we can run through the thing without narration. Then David gets us to run it more and more efficiently, giving us only five minutes to fulfill all the actions, then three, then one. This gets us centered on the action, and away from flourishes and embellishments that may have snuck in after several runs.

Then it gets difficult.

One of the distinctive features of traditional commedia dell'arte is very specific, very full physical characterizations. (This was part of the benefit of working with the students last week on creating grand characters for busking.) One part of effectively using such characterizations is learning to use one's body to communicate as specifically as one might with words. The scenarios lend themselves to this approach in the way they were recorded: no dialogue, only action. The trick, then, is to train oneself to speak with the body as significantly as with words. After learning and stream-lining the scenario, then, we begin on several challenges:

• Three-Word Phrases - The actors can only speak two-to-three words at a time, and must shave down their free dialogue to what's essential (not to mention learn to really dialogue in order to create more opportunities for each other to use another two or three words).
• One-Word Dialogue - The actors can only speak one word at a time, which drives them to use their physical life to imbue that word with as much specific meaning as possible. I.e., saying love comes to mean love that wrenches me in confusing directions whilst lifting my heart into my mouth.
• One-Word/One-Gesture Unification - Closely related to many impulse-passing exercises we warm-up with, this challenge is perhaps the most challenging (well: for me, anyway). The idea is that a scene is about passing energy back and forth, and to do so with as much commitment as possible. This is the challenge that gets us closest to the traditional style of performance. One actor begins it, with his or her body, creating a continuous motion that communicates his or her need until he or she passes it off to the scene partner with a single word punctuating the end of the motion. THEN the actor must suspend in that pose until his or her scene partner passes the changed impulse back in the same manner. (It feels very unnatural to western actors trained in "naturalism," but really it's just a different rhythm to applied to the same concept of unification.)
• Dance Through - After One-Word/Gesture, this one is typically a relief. Plus, it frees actors to make different, less-obvious choices with their characters and actions. This challenge allows NO language, only physical action, to communicate the story. Music is played throughout (we used Strauss waltzes, but I've enjoyed this with mixes of different types of music as well), and the actors are encouraged to allow the music to inform the manner in which they play the scene. Not only does this relax the actors into using physical choices to communicate, but it helps strip away physical "language," those gestures that have agreed-upon definitions, such as the thumbs-up or flipping someone the bird.

As you might imagine, after going through all these different versions of a scenario, one learns it pretty well. To keep things fresh, we often switch roles around somewhere in all this, so everyone pays very close attention to everyone else's scenes. In this way, we actors really learn the scenario, and not just "our part" in it. (...B.S., B.S., my scene with Arlechino, B.S., B.S., ...) As you may also imagine, this work helps us learn what to expect from one another in general, our strengths and enthusiasms, and builds tremendous ensemble mentality. We also work, amidst all this, on developing an instinct for the "comic three;" not just as a comedy rule, but as a method of tracking an improvisation and patterning the rhythm of interaction. A joke between two people generally has two developing beats and a punchline. If an action repeats, it does so in segments of three(s). And when acting with our scene partner, we receive his or her impulse, suspend and process it a beat, then send it right back out again. Threes are helpful.

I have the benefit or having seen how impressive the results of this groundwork can be. It helps to create a show completely unique and rewarding to a western (and I believe any) audience, and allows us to get very comfortable with that strange crisis of the moment on stage that improvised shows create: What will happen next? The audience doesn't know because we don't specifically know. It's all life. Through this work, however, we know where we are when we float in that uncertainty. Next week we begin developing the scenario with Steve, and we begin that period of rampant change and uncertainty, when sometimes all one wants is for someone else to make a decision and write us a pretty little script. Together, however, we will find the courage to not know what the hell we're doing.

ZdG Busking Workshop Day One: Welcome to Higher Education, B%$@#es!

We have begun.

It's been about a year-and-a-half since

Zuppa del Giorno

's last official show, in which time we have been quite busy as a company, with two trips to Italy, numerous workshops taught in improvisation and acrobalance, and even the odd public event or publicity stunt here and there. Still, nothing quite compares to doing what the company started out to do: Create original comedies from scratch using commedia dell'arte as a living tradition. I missed it last spring (suspended for a season in order to effectuate more work in Italy) and now we are back with a very ambitious bang. Not only are we doing another wholly original production, but we are:

• Hiring three new actors on board for it.
• Collaborating with Marywood University's theatre production department.
•  
• Casting students from Marywood University's theatre department.
• Performing the eventual product in two venues: Marywood and The Northeast Theatre.
• Beginning by teaching a week-long workshop in improvisation, character development and busking to the theatre students, culminating in their performing in La Feste Italiana in downtown Scranton on Labor Day weekend.

It is this last that we began last night in the Mellow Wellness Center (read: gym) on Marywood's campus. For all the teaching and workshops I've done in various areas of theatre in the past five years, this is the first time I've taught one with an emphasis on busking, or public performance. And by "we," I'm actually referring to a very new group of collaborative teachers. There are three of us here, teaching approximately twenty-five students. Myself, Dave Berent (Gochfeld), who appeared in the last Zuppa show,

Operation Opera

, and Geoff Gould, with whom I haven't worked on stage since my first show at TNT,

The Glass Menagerie

. To summarize the significance of all this--Last night, after the first day of school, we spent three-plus hours teaching a workshop that was new to us, and that we are planning and modifying as we continue along.

It went quite well, all things considered. We were all rather nervous about what kind of reception to expect from students who are essentially required to attend this workshop (that's for a few days--thereafter we get to say, "Okay, if you want to continue and perform, stick around. The rest: ciao!"), but we just a few exceptions everyone seemed very eager to risk and learn. And we didn't necessarily make it easy on them. Our concession to their first day back and the mandatory nature of this event was to focus on game-playing, team-building and staying away from lessons or lectures. There were, however, punishments handed out (when games were misplayed, they were made to apologize to the class until it was accepted) and their own feedback--occasionally critical of one another--was encouraged. In addition, Dave did the whole class in character.

Dave has a clown called "The Maestro" who performs around New York with some frequency. Last night he rather merged The Maestro with one of his former teachers of clown,

Gaulier

, complete with costume, mustache and French dialect. The result was a very energetic, high-status, enigmatic man who occasionally took over teaching and kept the students on their toes. I was impressed by how easy this was to accept, for both them and me. Dave and I had discussed putting our own work out for critique during this workshop, but I hadn't imagined a character living an entire class out, and wasn't certain about what was to be gained. It turns out the answer is 'quite a lot,' as the students come to see the differences between us and our characters, and just how livable and continuous that characterization can be, even without lines or blocking.

In terms of our lesson plans, we're incorporating a lot of skills, but trying to base things in improvisation (and some clown) concepts. That is, building habits of listening, responding on impulse, accepting and building on others' ideas, making the other looks good, making physical choices, etc. Yesterday we played several games to build awareness and group mentality, touched on the concept of an "active neutral" state (devoid of character [even your own] but aligned and ready to make choices in an instant) and building a physical character, and we even began with some improvisation exercises. We were impressed with how much we managed to get through, which hopefully bodes well for the rest of the week. The emphasis will gradually shift from core skills to more specific ones having to do with public, improvised performance, such as using one's environment, prop acting and audience involvement.

Each day we will plan anew, based on the previous evening's progress. It's exciting to go back to school in this way, and truly, as a teacher I feel I'm learning as much as--if not more than--our students.

Poetics (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Downtown Theatre Scene)

The very first show I did here in New York was one I auditioned for within my first two weeks of moving here. I wasn't even going to audition. I felt like it was a bit quick for me, and I barely had a day job yet. But, considering it was why I moved there in the first place and that my then-girlfriend was auditioning as well, I screwed my courage to the sticking place and auditioned and got a part (girlfriend, not so much). The show was called

13th Avenue

(this would be the 2000 production, not the

2003

I just found out about), and it was an experience. I learned a lot about doing theatre in New York (especially original scripts) in a very short amount of time. I won't go into details about the show (you can thank me later), but I will say that it was an interesting experience in meta-theatre, being a show entirely about "below 14th Street" characters and performing it at the

Gene Frankel Theatre

, just south of Astor Place.

Not too long after (say, two or three shows later) I wrote a play (no, you can't read it [looking back, it's pretty terribly done]) called

Tangled Up in You

that addressed two subjects I had trouble getting my head around: the nature of love/obsession, and the downtown New York theatre scene. I was very much influenced by every experience I had had thus far in terms of the shows I had been involved with in the city, and my perspective hasn't changed that much in the years (SO MANY YEARS) since. In spite of it being the only sort of theatre I've done in the city thus far, I'm not a big fan. I wonder at a lot of aspects of it. Who are these people who choose to experience this extremely varied, often distressing genre of theatre? What do they want, or expect from it? Why does the more-adamant downtown theatre scene so often seem driven to

avoid

entertaining or providing catharsis? What drives so many of my fellow "creactors" and sundry to invest so much in shows I find so often incomprehensible, or unnecessary?

Get not me wrong. I'm a part of this movement. I have worn the Bauhaus costume. I have pretended my hair was on fire. It's just that, at heart, I'm a really basic guy . . . at least in terms of my appreciation of theatre. Just look at my sense of humor, and the work I've done the most of:

Zuppa del Giorno

. I like the classics; I like fart jokes; I like stories that surprise us, but accomplish a sense of ending. Call me simple. It's how I roll. I'm a fan of the unities. For those of you who managed to avoid Theatre History class (and this would include a great many theatre majors I know personally), "the unities" is a colloquialism used to refer to a parameter for tragedy described by Aristotle in his treatise on the subject:

Poetics

. Namely, a set of conditions that helps define, or rather contour, the shape of a tragedy. For instance, a play having a beginning, middle and end, and themes and actions complimenting each other. Aristotle mentions the word "unity" a lot in this document. Twelve times, actually. Eleven, if you're not including headings.

Last night my plan for the evening was very basic. I figured I needed rest, given my travels behind and ahead, and I knew I needed to do laundry and pack before a brief visit to my hometown this weekend. So the plan was only complicated slightly by needing to see my sister later that night, but it was a singular, welcome complication. Enter the complication master, stage left . . .

Todd d'Amour

, ladies and gentlemen! Let's give him a big hand!

Actually: do. At about 2:00 yesterday Mr. d'Amour calls me at my office, completely freaking me out by leaving this voicemail, "Non esisto. Forse." ("I don't exist. Perhaps.") It doesn't take me too much longer to figure out who it is, and soon after I'm hearing the master plan. It seems Todd is inviting me and fellow Zuppianna Heather out to see a show with him at The Kitchen, one which features a favorite (downtown) "creactor" of his, David Greenspan. Oh, man. Now I have to change my sedate plans. Have to, you see, because when Todd calls it's always a good time. When Todd calls in relation to theatre, it's a good time with the potential to be life-changing, with reduced risk of hangover. So I anted up, and was in and rolling.

But I had my doubts. The show(s) was(were)

The Argument & Dinner Party

, based respectively upon Aristotle's

Poetics

and Plato's

Symposium

. The theatre was at Nineteenth Street, but way over between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, which somehow makes it in every respect way more downtown. And the guy taking me to this extravaganza is part of the team responsible for

Stanley

[2006]

, which, though I loved it entirely, is exactly the kind of "downtown theatre" that perplexes me under different circumstances. We were only on the wait list for the show, this decision to attend being rather last-minute, and as we sat in

Trailer Park

awaiting the time of reckoning on that point I found myself perhaps not minding so much if we didn't make it in.

Of course we did. Only six folks did, but we four were first on the list, thanks to Todd's enthusiasm to get our names there early. The space was cavernous, and immediately made me wish we were seeing some kind of circus show. Sadly, I knew the first act was simply a man talking. I sat and waited for the entrance I had read about in reviews all day--said man simply walking on and beginning to talk, sans cell-phone warnings or lights dimming. And then it happened. He came in, and started talking, and the first thing I noticed was that he had a slight sibilant lisp. "Oh man," I thought. "How rough is this going to be?"

That's the trouble with expectation. It's the dumbest human capacity ever.

The Argument

was the best thing I've seen on a New York stage in years. I'm still mulling over what exactly it was about it that made it so engaging for me. It's possible that it was owing largely to the performer's charisma. Mr. Greenspan has a remarkable talent (skill?) for making himself inviting on stage, not just taking it by force, but literally giving you the option and making you feel as though it is continually your choice to pay attention to him. It's also possible that my interest in the subject matter--that is, the construction and mechanics of an effective living story--dominated my insecurities vis-a-vis the downtown scene. My fellow gaming geeks will no doubt agree that the construction of a good story is a topic of conversation that can inspire endless debate. Finally, there's the possibility that it was sheer empathy on my part. I've had to create my own work and hold a stage alone before (though rarely have the two conditions coincided [thus far]) and I am impressed on quite a personal level when I have the opportunity to witness someone achieving both.

But I hesitantly contend that there was a fourth factor to my renewed opinion of the scene. When I was doing

13th Avenue

, the writer/director said something about going to school for years to learn all the rules and, with that production, intentionally breaking every one. I have since heard this sentiment expressed variously and in various contexts, and it invariably makes me hitch my shoulders in an effort not to throw a piece of furniture into something(-one) breakable. As I've said, I'm something of a classicist, but I feel I have good reason. Like an actor who (to pick a personal foible) makes a choice that gratifies his performance more than the story, people today are eager for an excuse to "break the rules." So eager, in fact, that this act is more often

excused

than it is actually

motivated

. I don't trust most people to understand the rule they're breaking well enough to understand what they stand to achieve by breaking it.

Watching Greenspan willfully but sensitively break some of "the rules" in his performance and creation of

The Argument

and, better yet, making it work in light of those rules was thrilling. I believed he understood each choice, and trusted the reasons behind them even when the literal purpose eluded me. Best of all, he was quoting these thousands-years-old "rules" to us as part of the performance. I can't even say for sure if it was theatre in the technical sense (

Friend Geoff

and I have a running discussion over the merits [or lack thereof] of the dreaded monodrama), but then again I suspect that's how the Greeks felt when Thespis (so it's rumored) stepped out of the chorus and began orating all by his lonesome. I can understand why the appeal of being such an originator might draw some artists to some unfortunate conclusions. Just remember, you lot: Picasso could really draw.

Sadly,

Dinner Party

did not thrill as

The Argument

did, and didn't even really entertain me until Mr. Greenspan actually entered the stage at the last. It debated the nature of love, and so should have held me pretty good (love being the only subject more likely to inspire discussion in me than "poetics"), but alas it succumbed--in my humble opinion--to my fears for the evening. Some people really loved it, methinks.

That may be the real lesson in all this: Downtown theatre is a gamble, and some of us are addicts.