Wallace Shawn: Call Me

Hi there, Wallace. How've you been? You're certainly looking well. I like those pants. Really I do. I'm thinking about getting some myself. Where did you get them? Oh yeah? That's part of what I love about you: stylish, yet down-to-earth. It's great. It's just great. Oh, and Wally, while I have your ear, about

The Hotel Play...

WHAT?

And, if I may pose a follow-up question:

WHY?

For those of you, avid readers, who are ignorant of

The Hotel Play

, it is a work of unparalleled...er...work by the actor probably most widely known for his portrayal of Vezzini in "The Princess Bride." And to apply a little intellectual CO2 to the burning question of how this play exploded across my horizons, see my entry dated

1/12/07

. It is a play requiring no less than 70-80 actors, covering the events of twenty-four hours in a tropical hotel. It has a ton of characters about whom we learn only a little from selected moments of their day, and who are designated only by certain demographic information, such as "Middle Aged Couple" and "Man Who Listens to Fish Story." The only character representing a through-line in this forty-two-page epic is the clerk.

SPOILER:

At the end we learn that said clerk is a ruthless murderer. Possibly by accident. (It turns out "ruth" is an archaic word meaning "pity." So to be "ruthless" really does mean "lacking in pity." I am not smart enough to know this, just lucky enough to have a friend who does.)

Now, I will concede that I may have missed the point entirely. I did only read the play once, and certainly that is not enough to grasp the brilliant interconnectedness of the dramaturgical likes of

Shakespeare

,

Beckett

or

Lewis Carroll

(his adaptation of "The Illiad" for the stage--words can not describe), but I still have trouble shaking the feeling that

The Hotel Play

just doesn't quite matter. Or inform. Or entertain. Like I say: I may have missed the point. But I quote here the final line of the clerk, whilst steeped in the remains of his quasi-sadistic act:

"The pumpkins--the pumpkins, tumbling down the road..."

A line worthy even of my translation of the lyrics of Paolo Conte (

1/10/07

).

On an entirely different note, let me announce to you that I saw (solo, which seems to be a very successful formula for my enjoying the hell out of a film) on Thursday "

Children of Men

." It is the rare day when I actually need a rest that I get it, and Thursday was such a day. I had plenty I could have gotten done--what aspirant actor doesn't?--but found myself wallowing at home, unable even to compel myself to do laundry, much less write the great American novel. So out I went, in the finally-wintry weather. The best thing, the only good thing, in fact, that I can say about the way cinemas are packaging their viewing experiences these days is that even if you are running dreadfully late for a film you stand a good chance of only missing the first seventeen previews. I got in, in other words, and had one of the most satisfying movie-watching experiences I've had in a year.

The

Times review

does a fair job of summing up some of the quality of this film. I think

Manohla Dargis

is surprisingly narrow-minded in the connections she draws between "Children of Men" and current events, relating the thing wholesale to the situation in Iraq. That's hard to trace to an explanation. She started writing for The Village Voice, and both papers have reputations for waging war on the current wars, but perhaps it was a matter of having only so much column space to devote. And World War II parallels may indeed be over-worked by this time. At any rate, the climax of the movie may indeed be a sneak-peek at battles in Baghdad, but the connection I drew over and over again was to documentaries I've seen on the subject of the

Gaza Strip

.

The movie is a drastic, yet to me entirely credible, supposition on where all the evil in the world may have us heading. It's a time-honored tradition in the science fiction genre, but rarely have I seen it so intelligently, effectively and (dare we hope) humorously done. The movie is in this sense more of what I had hoped for in "

V for Vendetta

," and achieves some of the seemingly magical prognostication of "

Minority Report

"...sans the guilty aftertaste and empty calories. Its stabs at modern society are acute and undeniable. As Michael Caine's character says, we live in a society that endorses drugs for potency and assisted suicide, but marijuana is still illegal. There's even a running joke (beautifully, subtly crafted) in which different people admonish our hero for smoking, reminding him that it will kill him (thankfully, Owen is never given a line in response to this advice [and, hey, uber-geeks: the cigarettes are manufactured in similar fashion to those smoked by Willis in "

The 5th Element

"--all filter, an inch of tobacco; it's never stated, that's just the prop used]). The best joke, of course, is that even after the world goes to diarrhetic shit and all the children are gone, Julianne Moore will still look

ethereal

.

I

will

go on, if ever I get talking about this movie with someone for whom I will not spoil it. Sadly, it seems to be getting ripped for all the wrong reasons. People are trying to understand it as a science fiction movie, as an action movie (and the action sequences

are

amazing, exciting but terrible with consequence), as a well-funded art film, and so keep pegging it as being flawed for various reasons. It's not, folks. Yes, the ending is unnecessarily conclusive for a story that dares you to accept ideas about the coexistence of chance and faith that no one's been able to quite get around in the course of human history. It should have ended merely with lights approaching through the fog. Remember I said that when you see it.

The meaning to it all, here? Don't let chance trick you into visiting

The Hotel Play

. Have a little faith in the "Children of Men."

Special Edition: The Anti-'Blog

Ladles and Gentrified, I present to you a special installment of

Odin's Aviary

(r), now with more fibrous additives! A friend of mine is a bit opposed to 'blogs, and uses a brilliantly written bit of dramaturgy to illustrate the extent of his/her/its hatred (names and pronouns have been changed to protect the innocent, and because I like making up names):

I could never love a man with a blog...:

(Jo comes home after a long day of headstand prep. She sees Reginald at the computer.)

Jo

: Hey sweetie, I'm home! What's that you're--

(At the sound of Jo's approach, Reginald quickly slams closed his laptop.)

Reg

: Huh? Oh. Nothing. I missed you.

(He goes to kiss her but she dodges and gets the laptop.)

Jo

: OH--were you looking at

porn

?! Hee Hee Hee!

(She opens laptop and stares. Beat.)

You. You were...blogging? You. You have a blog?

Reg

: I--I can explain. Just let me expla--

Jo

: How could you do this to me?! You know how I feel about this sort of thing!

Reg

: Josephine: it's

just

a blog, for God's sake.

Jo

: First a blog, and then what? Your own SITE?!

(Reginald looks to the ground.)

Oh my God...

Reg

: It's for my career! It's completely valid! This is the way the industry is moving! Why are you being like this?

Jo

: I just can't share you like this! I'm an only child! I--I-- (

She turns to him.

) You have to choose.

Reg

: Between you and my blog?

Jo

: Yes.

Reg

: You can't be serious.

(She glares at him.)

Uh. O--Okay. You. Just. Just let me finish this entry--I'll make it the sign off entry.

(Reginald goes to his computer and sits down. Jo watches, and then begins to gather her things.)

Where are you going?

Jo

: You've made your choice.

Reg

: Josephine, Jo, it's just--

Jo

: --I'm sure you and your three loyal readers will be very happy together!

I'm leaving.

Reg

: Because of this?

Jo

: Yes.

Reg

: But Jo--

(He goes to hold her; she pushes him away.)

Jo

:

(on the verge of tears)

Don't touch me!

(She stares at him as all emotion drains from her face. She is blank.)

I don't even know you.

(She leaves. Reginald stands alone. As the lights fade to black, the only illumination on stage is Reginald's computer glowing in the dark, until that blinks off as well.)

Finis.

This is Private (Bears!)

When I was in elementary school, in

my county

(which I have since discovered was one of the wealthiest counties in all of this great nation [don't ask by what standards {'cause I don't know and will be forced to punch you rather than reveal my ignorance}]) they were very concerned in the public schools with students who might be "learning disabled" (LD) or "gifted & talented" (GT). I have come to adopt my mother's view (she worked as a teacher in the very same public school system for years), namely that the distinction was more a matter of public opinion than actual intellectual merit. In both cases, the powers-that-were were seeking out children who demonstrated alternative patterns of thought and recognition. I'm not saying they did their job poorly. I'm only saying the criteria by which they deemed "good" and "bad" were, at best, hypothetical. As a result and as you might imagine, some very bright and crafty kids ended up with the stigma of LD, and some good test-takers ended up elevated to the distinction of GT.

Was such the case with myself? Possibly. I tested three years in a row, each time at the recommendation of my teacher of the time. Each and every time I earned one point within the required intelligence quotient (141...at age 9, mind you) and the decision was made that the result was too ambiguous to signify my transfer to special GT classes or workshops. On the third try, they followed up with a personally administered, oral test. I frustrated the hell from that tester, I'm sure.

"In this picture, is the man walking toward the tree or away from the house?" "Both."

"How do you measure out 4 liters using these containers?" "You fill that one up one-third--" "You can't do that." "Why not?"

"How many prongs does

this figure

have?" "None. It's a picture."

Nevertheless, by fifth grade I was going to a school that catered to the alternative thinkers. It was certainly a better fit for me than plain ol' school had been, but in retrospect I just wish they could have extended to every student the same listening and consideration they did the "GT" kids. I'm sure there are reasons that this turned out the way it did, but it seems a shame to separate kids in order for them to learn better. I'm put in mind of the educational theories of

John Dewey

(whom I only know about because my Uncle John lent me his copy of this book when I asked for a good book on American History:

The Metaphysical Club

). It just seems like everyone is capable of critical thinking, but so few teachers appreciate the reward of encouraging it in their students.

Anyway. I'm getting a little off-point. Blame my excessively liberal education.

When I started this 'blog (back in ot-six, it was), I barely understood the concepts involved. (I was walking

away

from the

house

, or whatever the crap was the "wrong" answer.) I mean, I've read the press. I know this is the sort of sudden public publishing everyone was getting twisted up about when the interwebz started getting more accessible. I know that what I write gets out there and is open to an audience. In a sense, it's a further exhibitionism for someone who is already pretty obsessive in his need for an audience. I know this, and yet I've already accomplished a few irresponsible acts on this page o' mine. People who know me will read, or have read, things about myself that they don't like. Or, perhaps with more hazard, things they do like and take to heart in a way that wasn't intended. I'm being intentionally obtuse, and I beg your forgiveness.

Blame my religious upbringing (

Unitarian Universalism

).

In another sense, it's hard to say that such was not my intention all along. As an actor, I've had to confront the possibility on far more occasions than your

average bear

that my actions (and inaction) have more intention behind them than is initially apparent. I'm not a believer in the ethos that "everything happens for a reason." I just happen to practice a craft that makes every effort to mirror life with cunning verisimilitude, and that craft relies most often on the intention of a character for dictating how a scene should be played. In other words, we always want something. Sometimes we are conscious of what we're doing to achieve that certain something...and sometimes, we aren't.

One of my favorite

Rilke

quotes says something to the effect of: The mother is the only truly fulfilled artist, because she achieves what all other artists aim for--to produce something of oneself, to have it live in the world, independent of its creator. (Someday I'll find that exact damn quote again, I swear. It's prose. It can't be that difficult.) I aspire to this every day, I think. Call it a defect, a constant need for approval, or a compulsion, an essential insecurity that drives me to constantly prove to myself that I exist, or call it a calling. I don't really care what you call it; it's there and I get pretty dang miserable when I don't feed it. So of course, given the opportunity to publish my thoughts and ideas to the world-at-large, I'm going to do it. And I'm going to write words that will have effects beyond my control, no matter how safe I try to play it. So be it. It's not like I've spent my life up to this point trying to play it safe, and just maybe I'll learn a thing or two in the process.

Then again, maybe I won't. I am, after all, proudly

a bear of very little brain

. I just happen to test well.

A Year (or Three) in Review

Returning from my holiday journeys just in time for New Years, I find the city the same as it ever was. I suppose it's only natural to feel inclined to review one's year in the face of a new one. I have to admit that 2006 was not a year that I will be dreadfully sorry to see go. It was comprised of amazing highs and lows, both; my hope for the new year is for it to be a little more moderate in its exchanges. I feel a bit guilty expressing that desire, what with professing a renewed conviction in

The Third Life

(tm), but who's to say TTL(tm) can't at times have a nice, steady rhythm to it, rather than a course akin to a

wooden roller-coaster

at every turn?

While I was visiting NoVa, a dear friend of mine who has lived in San Diego for years now was home, too, and threw a modest reunion for certain circle of us from high school. I saw her and several other people I had often wondered about since graduating. It wasn't the typical reunion. Everyone there was really interested in one another and speaking intelligently about their lives--none of that dreadful one-ups-man-ship that seems to be the major export of the Uniting Reunions of America. In spite of how lovely it all was, what I'm carrying away with me, and keep revisiting in my mind, is an unanswered observation an old friend of mine had to say. In response to my description of my life since college, all the touring, traveling, month-long shows, etc., she said, "That sounds like it would be so lonely."

Believe it or not, I had never looked at it that way before. And I

love

to look at things darkly. I mean, I am

dark

. (Do you read the last page of a new book first, just in case you die before you finish reading it?

Because I do.

) Somehow, however, this obsidian nugget of darkness had eluded me. I mean, no wonder I've been the great serial monogamist all these years, and no wonder the pursuit of an acting career can be so soul-evaporating.

It is fucking lonely.

Now I cast back to a Christmas party my friends Todd and Kate had before we all scattered to our respective homelands for Christmahannukwanzica. At this party, nothing was said to shatter my earth. My earth remained intact as I bid adieu, but it was certainly rocked. Three of the guests at the party were a family--young parents and an unbelievably verbal sub-toddler. And get this: The parents were in theatre.

I KNOW! The wife/mother performed in musical theatre, touring occasionally with her son along. The husband had switched to directing after being an actor for several years and was having what seems to have been a very good time of it. Now, it's not that I don't know that such people exist. They must, else we'd never have these celebrities with stories about how they learned everything from their quaint, performed-on-Broadway-for-forty-years parents. Right? Right. Somehow, however, coming face-to-face with such folks was a very difficult experience for me that night. There was a lot of envy going on there, and I don't generally get too envious over career stuff. You landed a movie? Congratulations. Your agent says he's going to get you on every CSI they make? Fantastic.

You maintain a career that supports you and have the security and emotional wherewithal to start a healthy family? Come here. A little closer. I NEED TO GO ALL

TALENTED MR. RIPLEY

ON YOUR LIFE!

The thing is, it's not as though I haven't had opportunities to be in a family way. In point of fact, I keep choosing the ol' career over marriage, family, etc. This year has been, in its way, a huge exemplification of that choice. Now, I could argue that the problem has always been that (for one reason or another) somehow the choice always comes up. It's never a matter of someone wanting to be married to

me

, but to the

me I'll be when I get over this acting phase

. I could make that argument.

But I don't, because the question is far more interesting if I don't have that somewhat convenient circumstance to fall back on. So why do I keep making the choice, knowing that it will keep leading me back to questions about my path and insecurities about the ticking clock?

This year I ran around like mad. I moved back to Brooklyn from Queens. I had absolutely

horrible

health (the short list includes something in the area of two bad sprains, teeth problems, four feverish throat infections, and what I thought was a hernia but turned out to be a

chemical epididymitis

instead) but also wrapped the year with enough Equity weeks worked to qualify for six months of free health insurance, starting today. I was in and out of Pennsylvania, and traveled and worked in New Hampshire/Vermont, Virginia, Maryland and Italy. I performed in a satire, a tragedy, two comedies, one work-in-progress and one original debut. I developed a solo clown piece. I danced and sang, fought and kissed, and even got a little writing done.

What is this worth? Where is this getting me, I often ask myself. I view my career in a fashion similar to my spiritual beliefs, which is to say: If I don't question them (or myself) regularly, then I'm not really living them. Questions are not dangerous, unless they go unasked. In fact, I'd say that the darkest times in my life were when I was too certain of an answer to keep asking the questions. So. What is it worth?

The difficult answer (and for God's sake, question even this) is that it's worth itself. And that's all. I have to be satisfied with myself insofar as I need to be to be happy and think clearly. TTL isn't better than the more conventional life, but it certainly isn't worse. Some feel a need to insulate themselves from its danger by observing it and judging. "Doesn't the constant running from show to show seem like an addiction?" "You're not making enough money to make car payments?" Even the classic: "How do you memorize all those lines?" (Folken: What we really hear you saying is, "What on God's green earth possessed you to commit yourself to something so archaic and bizarre?") It is similar to every other priority we might claim without risking such judgment. Doesn't the constant pursuit of more money seem like a compulsion? You mean you just stay at home, all day, in the same home? And how do you forget all those childhood dreams?

We can neither of us judge the other, and I sally forth [insert comic strip pun/allusion here] into the new year eager to continue the wrestling match that is I. Me. I? Anyway. We're all here trying to make sense of ourselves. It's good to be accepting of our different paths; or if that's too much, than at least of our own path. I'm reminded of a conversation I had at the start of college, with my dear friend who organized the reunion and another incoming freshman. That Other asked us why we did theatre,

really

. I said some pretentious, theoretical crap (which I really believed and probably still do) and the guy said something along similar lines, but dear Sarah said,

"I just enjoy it. It's one of the few things in my life that I can point to and definitely [sic] say 'That makes me happy.'"

Well said, my friend. Happy new year, everyone.

Tea and empathy.

I've had a day to think about it, and the blog, it seems to me, is best for communicating with three very specific sets of people:

  • blog enthusiasts, who troll about all day looking for interesting insights into anonymous strangers
  • fans, who, via my website or previous positive experience with this here blog, come to visit on a semi-regular basis
  • web searchers, whose terms are so specific that my blog (out of a shmazillion, n.t.m. all the other types of accessible, search-able pages out there) pings back on the old search-engine sonar

Sew, these being the cases, this is the best venue for venting, extemporizing, theorizing and...er...empiricizing on the issues of theatre, writing, circus and the generally creative life altogether. I have

Douglas Adams

to thank for this insight, and the value it may actually inherently have. I'm not altogether clever about these things, these emerging (yes, it's a blog, they've been emerged for some time now I know SHUT UP) forms of communication, but he certainly was. He was writing about this phenomenon fifteen years before it came to pass.

And so, dear reader, what is to follow will be various observations and extrapolations on what I like to think of as

The Third Life

{(c)(tm) JeffWills, Hugin+Munin Productions Ltd., Inc., LLC, PDQ, WTF}.

The Third Life

is that life lived outside of the norms and expectations of mainstream society. Let me be clear that I don't consider this life special in the sense of rarity; I believe we all have ambitions and inspirations that are outside the frame of expectation. I also believe that we are all interconnected, a whole, in spite of where we come from or what our ideologies may be.

However, some of us embrace a life that, from the outside, seems to be lacking in immediate compensation, a life of more dreaming and possibility than substance and reward. Living that kind of life is hard as hell. What keeps us with it? That's a good question.

Incidentally, I haven't (and possibly never will) read "

The Artist's Way

."

Enough loftiness. My next post will probably address what I consider to be a conflict of interests between comedy and improvisation. And there will be fart jokes.

Oh yes: There will be fart jokes.