"3: We are now held within un-, sub- or supernatural forces. Discuss."

The comment thread on my last post (see

9/17/08

) has me seriously jonesing for a good

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

quote match. For those of you unfamiliar with the

play

and/or

movie

, it's essentially an absurdist retelling of Hamlet from the vantage point of the two minor characters made titular ("of a title," you perverts). It's a fave. It's often

the

fave, depending on mood, time of day, strength of coffee and relative distance of Saturn from Venus. So, some favorite quotes, checked against

Wikiquote

, from which even more can be found...

Rosencrantz

"Out we come, bloodied and squalling, with the knowledge that for all the points of the compass, there's only one direction, and time is its only measure."

"Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect."

"We'll be all right. I suppose we just go on."

Guildenstern

(

clearly the part I want

)

"I mean, you wouldn't bet on it. I mean, I would, but you wouldn't."

"It must be indicative of something besides the redistribution of wealth."

"What could we possibly have in common except our situation?"

"All your life you live so close to truth it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. And when something nudges it into outline, it's like being ambushed by a grotesque."

"A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself."

"Don't you discriminate at all?!"

"If we had a destiny, then so had he, and if this is ours, then that was his, and if there are no explanations for us, then let there be none for him."

"...now you see him, now you don't, that's the only thing that's real..."

"Pragmatism. Is that all you have to offer?"

"No, no, no…death is

not

. Death

isn't

. Take my meaning? Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not be on a boat."

The Player

"The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means."

"We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else."

"We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style."

"Hamlet…in love…with the old man's daughter…the old man…thinks."

Cobbled dialogue

"So there you are...stark, raving sane..."

"I don't believe in it anyway ... What? ... England. ... Just a conspiracy of cartographers, you mean?"

Learning from Loki

I have finally completed, through sporadic spouts of dedication, backlogging my performances and appearances over at

Loki's Apiary

. As I look back on this not-quite-yet-a-year, I feel I can say with some certainty that this will go down in my career history as the Year of the Reading. I mean: dag. Look at all of

these

! I'm even missing one I had to back out of. Odds are that I'll participate in one or two more, before the year is out. As someone might put it:

WHAT

is the

DEAL

with the

READINGS

?

Another thing that has made a distinct impression upon me is how few actual full productions I've acted in this year. In truth, I count the number as zed. I mean, I'm currently, technically, understudying

La Vigilia

, and I did

The Women's Project

's

Corporate Carnival

in the spring, but

LV

hasn't needed me, as it turns out, and

CC

was something I entered about midway through their process, and never quite felt like a full partner in, not to mention the fact that it wasn't a play, per se. (On the bright side, I think I gave Faulkner a run for his money with ten commas in that sentence [Not really. {At all...}].) And so, I count myself as not yet having been in a full-length production in 2008. Further, I probably won't be. I mean, I don't want to be overly pessimistic -- not

overly

-- but I'm spending the next couple of months gearing up for

The Big Show

(which, sorry, doesn't count on this scoreboard). And thereafter, well, the holidays are an awful time to get a show, much less rehearse one. So . . .

That's not good! I mean, on the other hand (four fingers and a thumb):

  1. It has otherwise been an awfully busy year, professionally and personally.
  1. A lot of the work I have done on stage has been with and for young, promising playwrights, which is sort of the best sort of work one can invest in one's future with.
  1. I have written quite a lot this year, and even completed some of it.
  1. I signed to freelance with a management agency, and have gotten work through them.
  1. I did collaborate to create an original show this year, and began collaboration on an all-new one.

So, really, nothing to be ashamed of in terms of this year's work. Year 2007 was all about the large projects, with Prohibitive Standards, As Far As We Knowand A Lie of the Mind, not to mention trips to both California and Italy, so it's not like my resume feels wounded. Still, it is irksome. I am irked by it. I think it's because I rather rate my worth as an actor not on what I've done, but what I'm doing. Which, you know, has a certain integrity to it, but also a certain dose of unbridled masochism. Hence my love of being completely overwhelmed by a barrage of projects at all times. It's funny (ha ha). When I attended All the Rage the other week, I ran into a friend with whom I performed in A Lie of the Mind, and we got to chatting about what we'd been up to of late. I volunteered that I really hadn't been doing much of anything, and she remarked, in sum of substance, "What? That's not true. I feel like I just got two emails in a row from you advertising performances." I realized she was right. I had been busy this summer. I forgot, because the shows were readings, benefits, short plays, etc.

Friend Patrick commented on my first entry about the new site (see 9/4/08) that perhaps making Loki the namesake of my fledgling 'blog was inviting trouble. He is, after all, most famous for spreading chaos, benevolently or no. It could lend new meaning to the term "easy come, easy go." It gave me pause. [Hold for pause...] I'm sticking with the name for now, however. Maybe it's my impatience for another full-length show, soon, but I feel that maybe a little stirring of the pot might just do me good.

A little, mind you, Loki.

And the Award Goes To... (4)

So there's this guy I've known for just about 26 years now, and he came to the 'blogging game even later than I did. In the interests of maintaining his relative anonymity (he posts no profile on his 'blog, though most of his readers know who he is), we shall henceforth refer to him as Fuzzy. For no particular reason. And certainly not because it pertains to any childhood nicknames. Anyway: Fuzzy created his 'blog,

Peter, Puck and Mxy

, a little over a year ago, without any particular mission statement that I have been able to discern, but it does have a continuous theme, and one which is most apt, I assure you. Every single entry title is a song title.

Why is this so apt? Well, Fuzzy is one of the smartest and most perceptive people I know as it pertains to music. He's got it in his blood. I am a bit biased, of course, owing to the fact that he was one of the first people to introduce me to popular music and -- of particular note -- the one almost single-handedly responsible for any Beatles education I have received. We've made beautiful (sort of) music together, in fact. In elementary school we both started trombone lessons at the same time, and for a few years there we sat in the same section of a couple of different bands. As we approached high school, of course, I showed my true talents (among them, finding anything at all after school to do

except

practice trombone) and Fuzzy learned more and more ways in which he understood music. Thus, not for the first time, we went down separate paths. One of my all-time favorite memories is still of the Fuzz-man playing a solo at the final jazz band concert for our graduating class.

So you might expect to find a lot of music or music theory or music criticism over at

Peter, Puck and Mxy

, but you must consider Fuzzy's other interests, which are legion. Note, too, that the title is a bit . . . shall we say . . . eccentric. It suggests popular music, sure (if you consider 60s folk music to be of that category), but there's something more. I have it on good authority that

Peter

refers of course to Peter Pan, and that

Puck

is that merry wanderer of the night, Robin Goodfellow. I must imagine that some people scratch their heads over

Mxy

, in spite of a clear visual reference in the banner, because some people can't be bothered to pick up a dang comicbook every once and awhile.

Mxy

is short for Mr. Mxylplyx, common inter-dimensional, impish villain to Superman's hero. He works by magic, creating chaos wherever he goes, and the only way to get rid of him is to . . . well . . . say his name backwards. Xylplyxm (Retsim?). I think this is a gag that worked better when it functioned exclusively in the realm of comics, inciting debate betwixt Superman fans as to the proper pronunciation. At any rate, three supernatural, youthful spirits claim namesake to his 'blog.

So what you find at

Peter, Puck and Mxy

is a melange of commentary, quiz, personal narrative and comic strips, all of it salted with insightful and acerbic humor. It doesn't get updated quite as often as it once did, which makes me sad, but Fuzzy has good reasons and has provided plenty of old entries to get caught up on. It's a little like buying a ticket for a variety show and, owing to the simplicity of the 'blog's structure, you essentially have to read it in reverse chronological order. There is no menu or archive list. It reminds me of a book he told me about in my youth (and that I still haven't read):

The Once and Future King

. That was another thing Fuzzy introduced me to -- fantasy fiction. Now-a-days I take him to be my go-to authority on comicbooks in general, and so occasionally forget that even before that shared interest he shared with me an interest in fiction that has shaped the course of my entire life.

Fuzzy, really, was my first introduction to the trickster clown. (Ooo, but he'll hate that, coulrophobe that he is.) He's got a passionate method of diving headfirst into fantasy and stories, and immediately assuming all the priorities of that particular story's world. If you want to talk "playing high stakes," give him a tug by the ear. I've learned more from him about investing my all into what I do than perhaps anyone else I've known. It can be a little scary, frankly. There's something Fuzzy has in common with jazz musicians and method actors alike -- a complete abandon, a total surrender to the song he's playing, the story he's hearing, or creating -- that most people back away from before they ever even get close to appreciating its price and its glory. It's one of many good creative traits he's got (along with an excruciating attention to detail and an ability to pattern-recognize like a mo' fo') that I continue to aspire to, that have helped to drive me forward in my own creations.

And so, this award goes to

Peter, Puck and Mxy

.

Writing Wild


I have been seized by a powerful urge in the past week or so to write short plays. I explained last week (see 8/8/08) that Friend Nat had inspired me to write from start to finish a short play, and that I was rather proud of this. At the time, this led me to re-examine my progress on other creative projects I had professed on this here 'blog. One of my usual excuses for failing to follow-through on projects is getting distracted by bright, shiny new projects. I'm not exactly a fickle little magpie, constantly collecting projects that glint at me from below, but my joy for life does seem to flow from these occupations, and so I rarely refuse them. I consider being distracted by a new project, so long as it proves fruitful, a more-worthy reason for abstentia from older ones than, say, needing to find out what happens next on So You Think You Can Dance? Just as a random example.

Thus far, this one is proving more fruitful than I had dared hope. When I wrote the initial short play, it was very much a stand-alone scene, meant to explore my thoughts on death a bit (it's a comedy; don't judge me). Then, aided by a little research, I found myself fairly excited by an idea for another short play with a similar theme, and it connected itself pretty naturally with the first. Now I have four first-draft short plays, loosely connected either by character or, er, object. I've also got vague ideas for two more scenes, which would give me six in all, which -- length-wise, at any rate -- would give me a pretty full little evening of theatre. Hoo-rah, say I. It remains to be seen if the scenes provide some sort of satisfying arc once strung together, of course, and there's always the stage of revision, which is sort of my kryptonite when it comes to these things. Still and all: hoo & rah.

My writing this time around is reminding me of a lot of specific influences, and I feel variously pleased and confused with them. Friend Daryl is just bringing to a close a production of Keith Reddin's All the Rage at the Manhattan Theatre Source, a show for which I auditioned but did not achieve casting. I read the play in June to prepare for the audition, and it too is a somewhat loosely-strung (though not nearly so loose as mine) set of scenes revolving around darkly humorous themes. In the spring, I checked out a lot of Martin McDonagh plays from the Lincoln Center branch of the NYPL, having enjoyed The Pillowman on Broadway and curious about all these other plays for which he was more renowned. His boldness with a morbid and macabre sense of humor have definitely helped me justify some of the areas in exploration in my little efforts of late. There's even a good dose or two of Ben Jonson, Neil Gaiman and Adam McKay, though you'd probably never notice those, mired as they are in my own concepts and interpretations.

A writing experience is best for me when it gives me moments of feeling guided by the material itself, rather then my steering of it. Similar to the enjoyment of watching a play that I haven't read (movies are exempted utterly for the most part, as we're inundated with previews that seem hell-bent on spoiling at least one surprise for us), when I write something that has a will or energy of its own, part of what keeps me going forward is wondering what this or that character will do next. It's entirely up to me, of course, but occasionally they (I) surprise me (myself). This may seem at best naive, at worst indulgent, but I would argue that at least some portion of this feeling is necessary in writing something original. One of the best bits of advice I ever got on writing fiction was given by a speaker at a writing conference I attended back in 2001. He was narrating (aptly enough) his process in writing a story set in a hospital. He had a choice of three things happening next to his protagonist, three ideas. The first two were something like the character would flashback to memories of whomever he was there for, or he could have a talk with someone else in the waiting room, but the third was that he receive a telephone call on the hospital payphone . . . from his deceased mother.

Perhaps it's needless to say that this particular writer chose option three. At the time, thinking of it only as a writer of short stories and the like, I remember thinking about how pervasive fantasy is; it barely qualifies as a genre name, there are so many distinctions (besides swords and dragons) for its use. Now -- flashing back, if you will -- I'm struck by two things this illustrates. The first is an acting lesson to be found in this "other" medium. As an actor, one is often faced with two or more choices that work, that adhere to the givens and move the action along. We explore them all, and generally take the one that's most interesting; that is, the one that heightens conflict or develops character and/or, if we're lucky, surprises. The second strike is a reflection on both fiction and acting (and painting and cycling and governmental science, I'm sure), and has to do with risk. My sustained engagement in these writings and my apparent influences from recent reading are both results of remaining open, exploratory and loose, during my writing process. It's risky to release control, to give oneself up to the possibility of failure (or, perhaps worse, gratuitous exposure), yet without it what are our chances of creating anything fresh or effective? This is a not-uncommon thought here at the Aviary. Still, I enjoy finding it anew in corners I wasn't expecting to.

So please do forgive, Dear Reader, if the Aviary is a little lacking in posts this week and next. It is because I am enjoying the exploration. Worry not. I shall return. (Undoubtedly when I should otherwise be revising whatever I've cranked out.)