Three's Company

This entry is not about the formative experience that watching the above-mentioned situation comedy was for me. Nor is it about using proper punctuation in titling. It is, however, about company. Or rather, companies. Or rather, theatre companies. And threes are just funny, as any self-respecting reader of this 'blog by now knows.

I have been a part of several start-up theatre companies at this point, and I have been in-on-the-ground-floor-ish of several original shows, the which is a bit like being a part of the beginning of a repertory company (just one that is guaranteed to disband at some point [probably a month or so from the first rehearsal]). I'm sure there are many who have been a part of more over the course of a decade, but I've had my share. A brief history:

1. Just after junior high (which is 7-8 grade in NoVa), my drama teacher at Lake Braddock started his own summer theatre camp, producing children's plays he had written, which were mostly adapted fairy tales or adaptations of existing plays. I attended two summers, the first two, and looking back I'd say it was safe to suggest that he had very little idea where to begin. He just began, and it was begun. As far as I know, that "company" disbanded when he switched to teaching high-school theatre at a different school.
   
2. In high school, every show was like a company beginning and ending, in the compressed nature of intense teenage experiences. The one we really felt we owned, however, was our competitive improvisation troupe. That one ended, for me, in graduation, but as far as I know continues on through the years at good ol' James W. Robinson.
   
3. In college I fell in with a group which eventually came to be called Lacquespace (sp?) Enesmble, or Theatre, or Productions, or something like that. It was essentially formed from the frustrations of a writer who wasn't getting what she wanted from the curriculum and actors who were tired of not get cast, either for grade restrictions or simply because they went unnoticed. The group put on several well-meaning, hard-working productions. I acted in the first and wrote something for another. At a class meeting (read: me: geek: I was '99 theatre class president), I suggested that we needed to get involved to keep Lack-space alive after we garduated, and the woman who got it started misinterpretted it as an attempt to wrest control from her. Still, I believe it continued beyond our departure. When I graduated, a younger woman was at the helm, steering it toward geurilla theatre.
   
4. It took me a while to get settled, upon graduating college and moving to New York, and for some time there was no possibility of knowing enough people to strike up an organization. Then, about a year into my residence, the seeds of two such start-ups were planted. From the group that produced a show entitled Significant Circus would eventually come the circus-theatre troupe Kirkos, and from my work with David Zarko on a farce entitled Der Talisman I would come to be included in the formation of Zuppa del Giorno, the contemporary commedia dell'arte troupe. Kirkos enjoyed a few years of productivity, but now exists more as a talent-funneling organization than anything else. Zuppa del Giorno, of course, is still going strong in Scranton--as well as annually in Orvieto--and for that I am grateful.


5. UnCommon Cause (formerly known as Joint Stock Theatre Alliance) began the process that would eventually become As Far As We Know almost four years ago, and nearly three years ago I was invited to join it. This does not a company make, but after two-odd years of working with a group on a single project, one does develop a certain sense of family.

Recently I got an email from Friend Nat, one he had sent to about a dozen theatre folk he is familiar with, testing the waters for the enthusiasm people would have for starting a theatre company. Shortly thereafter, Friend Avi contacted me about the possibility of collaborating together (in spite of his current busy-ness with grad school) on a script or show. Avi and I have already met and agreed to do mutual research. Getting together with Nat (Hi, Nat!) is like trying to barter for clothing in a refugee camp (totally a mutual difficulty [Hi Nat!]). Finally, prior to both offers, I was contacted by David at The Northest Theatre about the possibility of joining in an effort to set up a resident theatre company there starting next season.

For most actors like me--that is, who dig "straight" theatre productions and are of not-too-great fiscal ambition--the idea of becoming a part of something like a permanent company is awfully tempting. "Repertory" theatres, as they are often called, are scarce in America these days, at least in comparison to how many there used to be. Now, every actor is a sort of "free agent," every theatre an economic liability that relies on celebrity draw and its elder community for staying afloat. (You notice I'm not backing this up with anything--this ain't wikipedia--and you are free to disagree.) A company, or even a single venture, with any staying power (and staying-with-me power) is very appealing to me. This is part of why "university theatre," or the track of going back to school, teaching and eventually getting tenure, is so sought after. It occupies more and more of my thoughts these days.

However, I am also a little gun-shy about starting something new, about doing it all over. That's understandable, I think, given one perspective on the past twenty years o' life. In some senses, how far have I gotten? Where am I now? Many people--myself occasionally included--look at my life and wonder at why I should be in such an insecure, unestablished place at my age. It's not uncommon for me to be written off in a lot of people's opinions as anything from undisciplined to inconsequential. Ah: But. In the past twenty of my years--and especially in the past ten--as an actor and creative collaborator, I have had experiences I wouldn't trade for a 41" flatscreen TV. Through all the beginnings and endings, misunderstandings and perfect chemistry, I've created my own work in little communities of people who care, and it has made me a better person. I have no doubt. Whatever is the next, best choice for me and my life, it will be a choice that leads me to as much of this sort of experience as I can handle.

Take a step that is new, y'all. Take a step, that is new . . .

Knock-Knock

My favorite joke to tell is a knock-knock joke. So, pretty much automatically, you know that it's inane and probably not reliably funny. So why should it be my favorite?

Last night I had my first New York rehearsal for As Far As We Know since returning from our New Hampshire (NOT Vermont) week-long workshop. It was just my person, Kelly's and Laurie's all in a tiny rehearsal studio working through the two scenes in the play (for the moment) that are simply Nicole and Jake, sister and brother. They are memory scenes for Nic, with elements of hallucination or nightmare, and one of them we've been doing in one form or another almost the entire time we've had a playwright on board. It is affectionately referred to as "1-2-3 In a Car."

For a while there--in particular over the last workshop period--it was entitled simply "1-2-3." That's because it was restructured and taken out from inside the car to being set partially underneath it, as Jake works on the vehicle. Yesterday, minutes before rehearsal, I printed a revised script that had been emailed to us, one and all, to discover that the scene had been largely restored to its former state.

"Damn," thought I.

It's incredibly awkward, you see, performing pantomimed driving. There's a reason mimes don't speak. That reason being, all mimes have their vocal cords personally removed by Marcel Marceau.

No seriously though, pantomime takes enormous concentration (I sometimes wonder if mimes haven't indeed had their sweat glands removed) and I think it's an especially talented person who can convincingly drive an imaginary car whilst truthfully playing a scene. Hence: "Damn," thought I. And the first part of rehearsal was just as I might have expected with a scene so well-worn, with a layer of additional pretense applied: Halting and stilted, with a dusty sensation in my throat. "Damn," thought I, "will the hoped-for acting rehearsals all be as dry for me?"

And then, remarkably, we all started working together as actors and a director. I had somehow forgotten how good it felt. Sure, we did some revision of the script along the way (prerogative of the UnCommon Cause) but it was more internal, within the scene and without too much time spent (re)hashing out the play as a whole. In sum, we found the emotional truth of a scene that has existed for almost two years, and did so within the confines of a tiny room and a fairly standard rehearsal process. I was so uplifted by the experience that when I left rehearsal at 10:00, I felt as though I was leaving a performance, full of juice to run another four hours or so (and I did stay up past my bedtime reading old drafts of a werewolf story I may never finish).

In his Being An Actor, Simon Callow asserts that the most comparable experience a non-actor has to performing is the act of telling a joke. In a joke, so the theory goes, all the considerations of structure, performance and communication are present, in a very concentrated form. Personally, I dread telling jokes, especially to people who don't know me very well. It seems to me the expectation is just too much, that I'll never encapsulate my experience of hearing the joke sufficiently to make it worth people's time. Occasionally I'm wrong about this outcome, but for the most part it's another one of those skills most people assume actors (especially comic actors) naturally possess, right up there with impersonations and dance, and that I am sadly lacking.

So. My favorite joke to tell?

Knock-knock.
Who's there?
A mime.
A mime who?
. . .

Never mind that I find reversal of expectation, silence and surreality (is SO a word) incredibly funny; this joke leaves off all that junk I feel horribly self-conscious about and, usually, somewhat disappointed by. No applause, no critiques, no climax or denouement. In fact, no feedback of any kind, as I've robbed the listener of even the moment before the promised catharsis. I love the rehearsal. I love the problem-solving and private victories. To hell with the punchline, I usually say.

Yet I'm excited, this time, to put all our work on The Torture Project/As Far As We Know up in front of you all.

New Hampshire Log: Day Two—This Man’s Army

It’s fascinating to be reading Simon Callow’s Being an Actor during this process, and hear his (young) voice in frustration over the direction Joint Stock is taking. I often feel this way about our work in UnCommon Cause (formerly Joint Stock Theatre Alliance, a not-too-subtle nod to the original company), but I’m aware that these feelings have varying degrees of validity. (Which is good, because my expression of these feelings in this here ‘blog got me in a brief period of hot water with Laurie at the start of the summer.) Most of the time, any frustration I feel has to do with this: “Oh holy Hefeweizen! Can’t we just work on scenes and have directorial decisions applied to us and get the hell on with it?" Ah-ha-ha. No, Jeff. That sort of defeats the two years of patient, sensitive work we’ve already invested, don’t it? The whole point of this manner of work is that it challenges everyone involved to be truly involved, and that creates beautiful, nuanced effects you just can’t get from a three-week rehearsal period with an unalterable story and script.

It’s a little bit like Mr. Miagi’s training in The Karate Kid; you spend months painting and washing and seemingly suddenly you can deflect the blows of a superior opponent.

Or perhaps it’s a bit like boot camp. Monday was dominated by training in military ways and means, one of our new strengths being the presence of a former Marine in our current cast, in the form of actor Mike (Yes, yes—I will get his last name already!). In the morning Mike took me through my military paces, in part under the supervision of Tracey. It was reminiscent of many things I’ve experienced in my life: years of Boy Scouts (I had already made this connection in the character, and try to wear my Boy Scout belt to every rehearsal), marching band, martial arts and Suzuki training. The appreciation of discipline is a real help to me in this particular research. I have also always wanted to be a warrior in some sense (as much as violence goes against my personal philosophy) and can appreciate how American military training prepares one for this. We worked on the proper forms of standing at attention, at ease, basic marching and how a drill instructor or sergeant might put a soldier through his or her paces—that being the most fun for me, a chance to briefly test my efforts at conditioning thus far. I didn’t do so bad.

At the same time, it’s something I will never fully appreciate. Months of being ridden as hard as you can take, and harder, and the sense of accomplishment and belonging that arises from it. Mike spoke of a drill they would do in which someone would throw something to the ground and shout “grenade!” The training for this is to hit the deck with one’s feet pointing toward the grenade, presumably to reduce the potential damage to vital organs (though I can think of one vital organ I’d feel rather in danger from that angle). In every drill of this, if some guy were a foot or two away from the “grenade,” he’d actually fall on it. This soldier would be promptly punished with PT by the drill instructor, but the behavior wouldn’t change, and the reason is the platoon itself. As we have a line in the play saying: There is not one man in the armed forces I would not willingly die for. Imagine that commitment, that feeling.

Thereafter, Mike, Abby Royle and I drove out to Hanover for lunch and errands. My particular errand was to get the dreaded buzz cut. To my surprise, it bothered me from the first moments of rehearsal to have hair so contradictory to the character, and besides, it was becoming clear that the more filming of the multimedia aspect we could get done ahead of time, the better. The barber shop I found was the old-fashioned kind, and I was the only one there who didn’t know the barbers (barberettes?) themselves. When I got into the chair, however, it was the best experience I could have hoped for. I showed the woman a picture of Matt Maupin (in spite of our apparent complete difference of appearance) and she worked on my cut in painstaking detail. That may not have been necessary, of course—in boot camp it would just be 3–4 quick swipes of an electric razor. Nevertheless, it looks terribly authentic, and the reception I received from my peers upon returning was very encouraging. Whoops and flirtation as I approached the barn—made me feel all of twenty five again.

The latter part of rehearsal, our first evening one, was spent orchestrating more group movement scenes. Between that and military training, there’s little else I’ll have to do to remain in shape. To build a greater shape, however, I’m working between actual working moments to eat protein and hit the deck. I have my moments of checking in to make sure that the military mind-set isn’t overwhelming the character himself, but so far it isn’t a problem. That’s one definitive benefit of working on a show for as long as this one; the character is there already, and all else is layering.

But Mom, I've Got, Like, a Gagillion Hours of Homework...

Keeping with the theme of assignments (see 6/4/07), today I write to you, most dear reader, about some of the behind-the-scenes work of creating a show from scratch. This, I realize, imperils my ratings (kicking people in the head and complaining about irrepressible sexual urges, for some unfathomable reason, gets more readership) but it is more in keeping with the purpose of this here 'blog and so I heedlessly hurry onward.

The thing about (okay: only one of the many things about) creating one's own work in a theatrical context is that--at least at the no-to-low-paying level--the creator has to do a lot of work outside the collaborative setting of a kind he or she wouldn't otherwise be doing. I mean, if I'm working on, say, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (a totally random example, and not at all a play I am performing voodoo rituals in the hope of being cast in), I will do plenty of work outside of rehearsal. There's the simple line memorization, reading up on the backgrounds of Stoppard, Hamlet, late-1960s theatre, Denmark, absurdism, determinism, Shakespeare, etc., working on any tricks or skills the director may want included, dialect training . . . it goes on and on. A good actor becomes obsessed with his or her role and the world of the play for the time he or she is working on it, and does it all to more thoroughly incorporate his or her self into it all. (Man, but I hate the standing rule about not using "them" or "they" to refer to male or female hypothetical persons. He's got the right idea over at xkcd.)

(Parenthetically, [this is the most parenthetical parenthetical ever {my boss insists on doing this in her letters: saying "Parenthetically," at the start of something in parentheses, no matter how many times I point out it's redundant, and I deserve a medal or ribbon or something for not throwing my keyboard at her head}] I have a giant tape X on my lumbar region today, applied by my physical therapist to remind me to sit up straight and bend--if I absolutely must--from the hips. I consider this some kind of oblique revenge by Anton Chekhov from beyond the grave for this post. Plus it's a sign that my body will actually explode this Saturday when I turn thirty. Parenthetically.)

When you are responsible for building the show from the ground up, however, homework takes on all-new, mammoth proportions. The best example of this I have, to date, is the period of weeks leading up to Zuppa del Giorno's debut of Silent Lives. Friend Grey was directing, and we were all pretty obsessed with the subject matter--silent film characters and actors--so it didn't take much to motivate us to spend all our time building that one. Yet somehow Grey managed to motivate us to spend literally every waking hour working on the show. I mean, we just never stopped. Sleep was watching silent films. Eating was learning the bread dance from Arbuckle cum Chaplin cum Downey Jr. and Depp (Brits: Please don't censor me for my use of "cum" in this context). It was, to borrow a term, ridonkulous.

As Far As We Know is not that bad. In fact, we often eat and drink during our table sessions, so it's like the opposite. Except for the assignments, which are hard and just keep getting harder. I have written about these on past occasion (see 2/28/07-3/1/07) and this last, due by early Saturday, is no exception. The assignment, as comprehended by me, is as follows:

We've been given a bunch of material. Using this material (act one of three and numerous transcripts of interviews with people from Matt's hometown and people of related significance), 1) rewrite or create a new scene far act one, or 2) create a stage "moment" with a piece of text from the interviews, or 3) present your character in an impossible situation, or 4) all of the above.

Now, this kind of assignment is how a great deal of the play got created in the first place, with even less to go on. Sometimes these assignments would be assigned in rehearsal, with ten minutes provided for a group to pull something together. I like working this way. Parameters are fun for me (I like the crunching noise they make as I break them, to paraphrase Douglas Adams). Yet somehow I always stress about these Joint Stock/unCommon Cause assignments. One I stayed up until two in the morning working on one, blasting Damien Rice (like that's a bad thing) and practicing punching holes in paper with my finger. It's a measure, I believe, of how high an esteem I hold my fellow collaborators in. They're all such skilled and talented actors and writers and directors that I feel a need to rise to their level, and that feeling is most poignant the night before a presentation.

This one's going in a funny direction for me so far, possibly because it lacks some of the specific parameters the prior ones have featured. I had an initial idea: to explore the similarities between my character (the captured soldier) and Sara Bakker's (the casualty assistance officer who ministers to his family). But I didn't then set to an examination of their particular scenes, or even rumination on their respective characteristics. Instead, I got fascinated with this idea of rewriting a scene that we already had. I began to wonder how the play would read if I had been writing it by myself all along. (The answer, it seems to me, is that it wouldn't read, at least not particularly well. I couldn't have gotten more than few steps with this material by myself, and don't excel at writing naturalistic dialogue.) So what I started doing, quite unintentionally at first, was underlining any dialogue that--out of context--directly addressed the experience of the captured soldier or his family and town.

I have NO idea what I'm going to do with this yet. I have some vague notions involving gathering all these fragments together, finding appropriate music (always my favorite element of the assignments) and perhaps drawing more connections between Sara's character and my own. And that's about it. Tonight, I will sit quietly and let my mind stretch and wander over the raw material, and see what happens. Laundry will be done as well, and packing for Italy. Somehow mundane chores always help with idea flow.

And hopefully, by 2:00 AM, I'll be making props out of defunct coat hangers and leftover moving boxes. This, in the mind of a "creactor," is the image of a perfect sort of evening. I'm looking forward to it.

Serving One's Country

Worry not. I am not about to chime in on the political a la Friend Nat (although if naughty words were permissible there, Nat would already be employed by The Nation). Rather I write to update the confused and huddled masses (Readership of Odin's Aviary now in the double digits! What what!) on the status of that collaborative project celebrating its second birthday some time soon. That one that I occasionally travel to Vermont/New Hampshire for, and what deals in large part with the war/conflict/mess-o'-potamia in Iraq. That Project, if you get my meaning, mentored by Moises Kaufman and occasionally exhibited in workshops around the Isle of Manhattan.

Why am I being so coy about the name? Because, dear friends, we have a new working title. Yay! I am so pleased. Telling people about The Torture Project had gotten old long ago. It reminded me of the conversations I have with strangers when I'm wearing my stilts. "How's the weather up there?" "You really drank your milk, didn't you?" Except it was usually something like "And is the project torture?" (Answer: No. Except when I have to hold the Shabaq position for five minutes.) Plus, the name just wasn't appropriate after about the first year of development. We got stuck on the word as a guide instead of a label. So the TP's new moniker...?

As Far As We Know

I like it. It sums up a lot about the show as far as we've developed it, and is less obscure than a previous consideration for a title: DUSTWUN - Duty Status: Whereabouts Unknown. But that's not all, folks! To add to the total anonymity of the project, the producing company has also changed its name. Joint Stock Theatre Alliance is dead; long live--

UnCommon Cause

I also like this name, but I'm uncertain as to why they changed this aspect. It may have been because the project itself is taking a dramatic new turn. It may also be that there is, in fact, already a Joint Stock theatre company out there. The only thing I miss from the old name is the word "alliance." Good word. UnCommon word, if you will, and it pretty accurately describes what the producing directors aspire to in their working style.

So what, besides nomenclature, has changed? Well, it remains to be seen. What has definitively happened is that our directors have received an almost unheard-of amount of input from the real hometown of Keith "Matt" Maupin. Last Saturday we met for about four hours, just to cover a fraction of the photographs and interviews they returned with. It was exciting and humbling, and made me wish I could have been along for the ride. There's promises that the entire company will make a trip out there soon, but that seems a pretty grand undertaking to me, and may take time. In the meantime, the next step is a series of biweekly (Wait...wait.... That means twice a week, not every two weeks, right? I'm almost positive...) rehearsals through June to explore new avenues in the--frankly--new show. Our first assignment being to take the transcriptions of interviews with assigned people from the community and present a short piece illustrating that person (or those people).

And I've been chosen to do two of Matt's commanding officers. This was the assignment I hoped for, though I have no idea what I will do with it creatively yet. I've spent so much time trying to imagine a military head-space that I'm eager to have actual examples. Also, these guys know Mat. They just do. It's insane to imagine. One anecdote sticks out from the Saturday session. They said Matt would carry around a rubber ball (I wasn't clear if it was like a bouncy-ball, or racket ball, or what) to play with to combat the urge to smoke. I don't know if I'll ultimately be playing the soldier character in our story--there's some concern that I look too old--but I carry a liberty dollar coin with me to combat smoking/nail biting, and it meant something to me that there's at least one, small commonality between I and my character's real-life counterpart.

There's something else, too. Patriotism. I fret sometimes over the distinction between patriotism and nationalism, but there's no use denying that I feel like a patriot--at least in the sense that I believe in my country in ways it doesn't always live up to. Now, if someone had asked me at age nineteen to serve my country by going to war, I probably would have turned them down. I fear bodily harm when it comes to flying metal, and would have felt ill-equipped for the challenges. Nevertheless, I believe hard in this idea called America. I grew up in the Boy Scouts, for f%$k's sakes. This is something I'm eager to explore in my work on As Far As We Know. What is it that takes people a step farther into patriotism, to the extent that they feel justified in killing and dying for it?

Of course, fanaticism and fear are powerful imitators of just about any conviction, and that can lead to really irrational decisions. (For example: Break me a freaking give.) People need belief as much as they need food and water. I just hope, personally, that belief is something that saves lives without taking them.

Projecting Torture

I can't recall whether or not I've written about this previously, but I have had a disturbing tendency of late to choose movies to attend at the theatre that contain torture sequences. Surely a lot of this is owing to a certain renewed relevance torture has come to attain in contemporary American media, but part of it feels almost comically fated to me. I mean, I went to a freaking James Bond movie, and the torture was there, and grisly, and . . . ugh. I should have known better when it came to Syriana, but James Bond? Couldn't you guys just lay a titles sequence over that jonx so I could choose to look at the pretty silhouettes instead?

The answer is, of course, no, they couldn't. Because that movie (Casino Royale) ruled, being all character-driven and fantastical at the same time. Torture should not be made part of a montage, or music video. It's irresponsible representation. It makes it sexy, or conjures memories of Ralph Macchio doing switch kicks on harbor posts. (Oh Macchio...you truly are The Best Around.) Torture is the most vile of human behaviors, if it can indeed be called a behavior. The word covers so many actions, referring more to the intention than the deed, that it is probably better described as an attitude than as a behavior.

Last Thursday Joint Stock Theatre Alliance held a meeting to discuss changes to our ongoing work on The Torture Project. How significant are these changes? Well, significant enough to warrant the change of the name of the producing company (though I don't know if that was motivated one by the other). Goodbye, JSTA; hello Uncommon Cause. As I've mentioned previously (see 4/7/07), one such change is that they may be dropping me from the roles as an actor, in need as they are of someone who looks the correct age (19) for my character. But there were many more changes already made, and I suspect dozens more to come.

In the first place, there was a lot of serious talk about making decisions about exactly what kind of show we are trying to make. Historical account? (Most likely not.) Dramatic re-enactment? (Closer, methinks, but perhaps too close to what Tectonic did with the ever-famous Laramie Project.) Fiction inspired by true events? (That's what it's mostly been until now, and I suspect is going to change.) The director even presented us with a brand, spanking new "organizing principle" (Thank you, Moises.), which . . . I really wish I had written down at the time. Because it was too long for me to memorize. This is all for the best, as far as I'm concerned. I've been craving a sort of ruthless focus in this process for a little while now, so it is at least dramatically apt that such a change in direction might mean the end of what I came into it for in the first place: to collaboratively create a world and perform in it. Some part of me is crushed, sure, but it is rapidly over-ridden by the excitement for the TP becoming its butterfly. Its war-inflicted, quasi-grieving butterfly.

But the family of our inspiration, real-life soldier Keith "Matt" Maupin, does not grieve. They believe. We (dare I say we [hell, I dare say it a second time]) We will get a big second-hand dose of just how everything progresses in his hometown of Batavia, Ohio when Producer/Director Laurie Sales and Producer/Actor Kelly Van Zile return from there. They have spent the weekend--and today, the third anniversary of Matt's capture--in his hometown. One has to presume such an experience would be revelatory anyway, but already we've gotten hints at just how affective and effective a dose of reality can be. A couple of days ago Kelly wrote to inform us (amongst other things) that the town they live in isn't actually Batavia. It's something else, skirting Batavia. She did not go in to detail. Presumably an explicit explanation of that will be included in whatever information they return with.

And this, as far as I know, is how the rest of us stand: poised for intensive listening upon our heroes' return. I would be surprised if any of us had any expectation less than that our worlds, theatrically and personally, are about to be rocked. Imagine imagining a world for two years. Then imagine arriving there suddenly, and not recognizing it at all. That's what I imagined, anyway. Kelly also wrote to us about some amazing sympathetic coincidences between what we created and what was really there, which only goes to show that the only thing one can count on in life is being surprised.

Amongst such surprises arising (phoenix-like) from the Indian food and conversation in Faith Catlin's apartment on Thursday, was one that makes my tenuous position in the company seem downright comfy. Namely, one of the characters we've spent a lot of time and interest on in our process had been cut, meaning in addition that the actress playing her was cut. I'm sure many factors contributed to this decision, but the primary cause was that the character (the "girlfriend" left at home) was decided to be tangential to the story we were trying to tell. A rough call. We all knew, I think, that things would eventually play out this way. We even signed contracts about a year ago solidifying our rights to back-pay and creation credit. Still. Good work hurts.

Many of these tough decisions were the result of a meeting held between our producers and the good people at The Public, following our last presentation. The feeling at our meeting (and I may not be well-tuned to this, leaving early as I had to for that night's call for A Lie of the Mind) was that we were collectively interested in advancing the project. Not just finishing it and getting it produced anywhere, but doing what had to be done to make it a valid bid for a place like The Public, or New York Theatre Workshop, etc. It's an important topic for us, and obviously very important work, and we want it seen.

For those of you who think context unimportant in comparison to good work, who believe a project of any kind will be appreciated in its turn no matter what kind of exposure it gets, I beg you to read this article I was led to by Anonymous: Pearls Before Breakfast. One could argue of this article that it only solidifies the value of the artistic struggle within a generally unappreciative environment. Such a one, however, would be both stupid and wrong.

What does it all mean? Nothing yet, silly. It's a work in progress. But it's all dreadfully exciting, and I mean that expression very specifically. I was reviewing my entries up until this point that addressed The Torture Project, for fear that in my 'blog-enhanced sense of self-righteousness I had somehow cast it in a negative light. Whether I have or not, it's clear that I've been frustrated and uncertain about where we were headed, and how much longer it might take to get there. Now there's a charge to the work that's almost threatening, and I have the experience of both being very excited for it, and dreadfully concerned about whether I will continue to be involved in it.

I want to be. It's when it gets scary, the stakes raised, that things like this get really good.

Omega, meet Alpha

Over the past week I've had a couple of difficult bits of news concerning my artistic endeavors. The first was that, indeed, we did not achieve enough enrollment in In Bocca al Lupo to make the trip happen. That was the sort of news one receives with little surprise, though it still saddens and disappoints. In many ways, I was counting on going back to Italy this year, as an actor, teacher and just me. That was my fault, but . . . COME ON! WE'RE TALKING ITALY, HERE!

In other difficult news, one of the outcomes of Thursday's update meeting for The Torture Project was that . . . well . . . I'm maybe probably not performing in the show. And the reason? The character should be nineteen years old. And I, believe it or no, do not look nineteen. (Having that fact confirmed is, in some ways, a relief. I'm ready to play men these days.) There was a lot more to that meeting, the which I will address anon, but just that part was the difficult bit.

Meanwhile, A Lie of the Mind continues to receive a very positive reception, and I feel better and better about the work I'm doing in it. Last night Friends Patrick and Melissa (1/2 of The Exploding Yurts) were there, and we had some discussion of the merits and foibles of Sam Shepard's plays. It was nerve-wracking to perform for my colleagues, but I should have known better. They were the best audience members that night, laughing unabashedly when they found something funny instead of pausing to wonder, "Oh my--should I be laughing at this?"

So what does an actor do when work falls through, or a project hangs in precarious balance for him or her? I don't know what other actors do, but I've always found it helpful to curl up in the corner of my closet, sucking my thumb and squeezing my eyes shut until I can see purple and orange explosions behind my eyelids.

I'm sure I'm not alone.

In all seriousness though (a first for this 'blog), it can be really rough to lose work when all you really want to do is work, and it often feels as though such moments of loss pile up on a guy. "When sorrows come, they come not in single spies, but in battalions." Word, Hamlet. Word. This kind of situation can also be inspiration for a fellow to throw in the towel on the whole thing. I mean, nobody's clamoring for your work, for your presence on the stage, and now it feels as though not only are they not shouting your name, they're actively discouraging your aspiration. I would be lying if I said these moments don't have me contemplating a life of nine-to-five employment, in which I have the money to support the little entertainments easily found and purchased in most of the shopping malls of this great nation. I mean, that actually sounds really nice to me sometimes, no foolin'. An uncomplicated life, which I am somewhat more in control of, and that no one will outwardly question. Just leave me alone. I'm normal.

Whatever normal is, I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't consider repeated crying jags in public places to be it. (Which may simply be an indication of how screwed up people's perception of "normal" is.) Those of you who've seen the show already, or have been reading recent entries here, know that in the eleventh hour (being really honest, more like one A.M.) I had a breakthrough regarding the last moment of the thing. Since then, and thanks in ginormous part to fellow actors Todd d'Amour and Laura Schwenninger, I have consistently achieved that emotional sincerity necessary for my character's final moment on stage. Last night I even got it to the point of strength and relaxation that I could afford to really try to fight through the tears to say what needed to be said, which is what the moment should truly be.

But a switch was flipped, in some ways, and the damn thing was stuck last night. On my way home, I kept weeping unexpectedly. It was really pretty comic, with a little distance. (My fellow passengers on the grand ol' Metropolitan Transit Authority must have thought that it was a really sad crossword puzzle I was solving.) Maybe it was a simple case of sort of programming a "crying trigger," (in the show I have to make sure I don't breathe too rapidly, in order to let the emotion happen) and not having a handle on letting go of it yet. Maybe I've tapped some well of emotion I've had a plug on for some time now (that's a nasty habit of mine I'll own right up to). Maybe it really WAS an emotional crossword puzzle. I mean, Maura Jacobson knows her stuff, I'm telling you.

The point is not to wonder at the why of my behavior. Rather, I find value in an earnest acknowledgment of the behavior--neither judging it nor letting it go unnoticed--and moving through it. Whether I was sad for Frankie, Jake, myself, the ending of hopes and beginning of dreams, or for a five-letter word that means "narrowly prevent," I was experiencing grief. Grief's important. I'm not going to go seeking grief (apart from when a script calls for it) but it's there for a reason, and avoiding it is really only saying, "Grief, yeah. I remember you, but look, I uh, I'll have to catch up with you later, 'cause, I got some things . . . to do . . . . LOOK! A SEAGULL!"

[sound of hurried footsteps rushing away]

You'll meet grief again. He's there to help, ultimately. No sense in delaying it, much less ignoring it indefinitely. Every ending is a beginning of something new, and grief is part of how we get from A to B. And "B" is always a good place to be.

PS - This is how the alphabet would look without Q & R.

PPS - Avert.

Doing Lines is bad for Doing Lines

I myself, personally, have never tried cocaine. For many reasons, which are probably pretty obvious, but there are two that are personal to me. The first is that I don't like the idea of consuming--in any fashion--synthetic materials. I do; daily, of course, but some such materials we have more choice about than others. The second is that I can safely say the last thing I need in my life is more reason to be anxious or hyper kinetic. Thanks. Thanks, no. I'm all set.

The other night in rehearsal we got into a brief discussion about controlled substances, and one actor (I'm not naming names...or naming anything, for that matter) posited that one of the reasons he was beginning to have more trouble memorizing his lines was probably all the alcohol and marijuana he had consumed in his life. Another revealed that, as a result of his misspent youth and habit of ingesting cocaine, his teeth were shot to the point of mostly having fallen out--a bad thing for a performer . . . or, really, anyone. Finally, still a third member of our merry crew revealed another interesting, burdensome blight that one of her friends had to endure as a result of her years of cocaine usage.

The bridge of her nose collapsed.

AAAAAAAAUUUAAAAAAOOOOOUUURGH!

{Tangent: Our final project for make-up class in college was to be handed a picture from a magazine and emulate the appearance of whomever was photographed. We had, I suppose, about an hour to do this. I got handed a close-up of Michael Jackson, taken from an angle looking up from rather under his chin. Along with being plastically pointy, his nose was missing the connecting bit between his upper lip and his nose proper (("proper" being a relative term in this case)). I did it, and I can't remember exactly how, but I do recall smelling black greasepaint for about two days afterward.}

However it happens, memorizing lines gets harder as one gets older. It's science. (<- movie quote) When you're young, you may be able to read something a couple of times and get it surprisingly perfect on recitation. As you age, the little things, the specifics, get harder and harder to store. (I take particular issue with variances: anybody/anyone; somebody/someone; North Dakota/South Dakota :why can't we just pick one and be done with it? Poetry? Bite me.) Like crossword puzzles, regularly committing material to memory is good for one's mental health. Unlike crossword puzzles, it doesn't get easier with age and experience. It gets harder. Similar to one's prostate. You have to work it regularly to keep it in good shape, but with every use, it's getting weaker.

I can understand why we don't have redundancy on our brains; that would just get confusing. But why not on our prostates? It could be like a Pez dispenser in our pelvis. Just keep a couple of spares below the diaphragm, and when ol' faithful wears out: Ker-chunk. Out with the old, in with the new.

But I digress. I am having particular difficulty with memorizing my Shepard. This is actually the first Shepard play I've ever done, and there are allowances to be made for adjusting to the poetry (Anybody? Anyone?) of an unfamiliar playwright. And age, or brain abuse (chemical and cultural) stand as neat excuses. But what I really believe the problem to be is this: I haven't had to get off-book for a new script in approximately a year. Word is bond.

Todd shares this in common with me, to some degree. For the past year, we've both been working our tails off in theatre, but never on projects with a script, per se. Everything is a workshop (script in process), semi-improvised (scenario instead of script) or movement theatre (um...dance? basically dance). I started the past year of theatre excitement with Zuppa del Giorno 's last original play, Operation Opera, which was semi-improvised and essentially written (and rewritten every performance) by the actors. Then it was off to Italy, where we worked on structured improv the entire time, culminating in Il Postina, in which the dialogue was not only semi-improvised, but in Italian. Thereafter, I did do a "straight play," Over the River and Through the Woods, but it was in its third incarnation and "memorizing" the lines consisted of reading the script a few times. Fall and spring, up to this point, were predominated by developing The Torture Project, which takes the concept of a work-in-progress to all new heights.

In fact, the last scripted play I did was Good, last March. Guess where that was? Same place A Lie of the Mind is going to be: ye olde Manhattane Theatre Source. Does it end the unscripted cycle of a year? Probably not. Most of the work I've invested in with any kind of long-term interest has been related to development and improvisation, in one respect or another. As in art, life. Or is it the other way around? Anyway, this past year has also definitively been the most unscripted of my personal life as well. I only hope I'm remembering enough as I go to be learning the whole time . . . maybe even learning more than the same three lessons over and over again. Still: They're good lessons. They must be. Otherwise, why would I remember them, right?

Now if only I could get that damn Eric Clapton song out of my head . . .

Rainer Shines

Tonight's rehearsal was hard for me. We were working (amongst other things) on the final scene, during which my character spends about 5/6ths of the scene unconscious and shivering on a couch. On the last two pages, however, he has to suddenly experience all the pain and want of his journey . . . possibly also whilst hallucinating. Specifically, Frankie learns he is losing the person he loves most in the world, in spite of doing everything he could to help that person and make things right. Sounds hard enough, but I seem also to have a block about that particular set of emotions, or with the journey it takes to get to them. Or both. So there was much frustrated conference between the director and my person, and finally I got something of what it should be, and then on the final run I failed to access it again. This is the process.

Today, too, I decided to search for a nice quote for a card I have to write. I turned to Rilke, my favorite poet, and specifically to a book of his prose and poetry entitled "Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties," translated and evaluated by John J.L. Mood.

The book has an interesting story. Well, my copy does. Well . . . it's at least interesting to me.

It was published in 1975. The book is unique in form: unique font (Linotype Caledonia), unique dedication and "epilogue" pages and a surprising sampling of words from throughout Rilke's life of dedication to poetry. It's an orange paperback, with one of those designs on the cover that makes one say to oneself, "Ah. Late-sixties, early-seventies." It apparently cost $3.95 in its day.

But I'm not interested, Jeff!

Well, I didn't buy this book, nor was it bought for me. In 1999, the year I graduated from college, my parents began the move from my hometown in Northern Virginia to where my mother's church is, in Hagerstown, Maryland. Immediately prior to graduation, I helped (with Friend Mark) move my entire childhood home into storage. After I returned from my summerstock gig in Ohio, I shacked up with my dad in his temporary apartment in NoVa. See, my parent's new home was being constructed, and there were problems. In the meantime, my dad continued to work in NoVa and my mom had her apartment in Maryland. So, for a time, none of the Willses were living together (my sister was in her second year at college in Blacksburg).

It was a strange time. I wanted to get to New York, but didn't have any money. I was beginning my career as a professional actor, but was waiting to hear about work. (Eventually, I would be hired by The National Children's Theatre in Minneapolis--a whole other story.) I didn't really want the work, though. Mostly I was motivated to it because my home was gone, and I sort of wanted to be in New York, where my girlfriend at the time was. If I had settled in my childhood home--if my parents hadn't moved, and I wasn't forced to stay on a cot in my father's apartment--I might not have felt sufficient motivation to move the hell on.

My father's apartment was small, and the laundry facilities were shared in a room off of the lobby. I can't remember if it was when I arrived there, or after I had been there for some time, but this is where the book came from. The laundry room. My father found it, and my dad is wonderful, but not commonly noted for his attention to personal detail; yet somehow he saw this book and remembered Rilke as someone I cared about. So he ganked it for me. It meant a lot to me. It still does.

But I'm still not interested, Jeff!

Well. The final facet of this particular book is that it was a gift at one time, from a certain "Brad" to a certain "Jennifer." (No; not those. Definitely predated them.) In the front of the book is a hand-written dedication in black ballpoint pen:

"Jennifer, with whom
I am learning the difficulty
of love.
-Brad"

The dedication was written for Valentine's Day, 1977, which happens to be the year of my birth. I have no fondness for Valentine's day (see 2/14/07), but knowing this was a gift between two people in an intimate relationship means something to me.

But it's funny, too. Jennifer (I presume) has gone on to mark up the book. And not just with dog ear-ing, but in blue ballpoint pen. She underlines, she writes occasional notes in the margin. And, in a climax of irony, she inscribes a large-written "Bradley!" next to this particular section:

"In his uncertainty each becomes more and more unjust toward the other; they who wanted to do each other good are now handling one another in an imperious and intolerant manner, and in the struggle somehow to get out of their untenable and unbearable state of confusion, they commit the greatest fault that can happen to human relationships: they become impatient."
Emphasis added (by "Jennifer").

In this section, Rilke is writing specifically about the errors made by the young in love. He argues that love can not be won and deserved until those involved are mature enough to appreciate that it is work, it is ultimately difficult, and that such is the true value of it. I think Rilke might have suffered from similar psychic afflictions as I do, which is to say, "Rainer, get over it. Not everything must be a struggle." But he also has a solid point.

The purpose of this 'blog is not to write about love, but life and art. None of these can really be separated, however. I love this book, and the journey it's had, its glories and its blaring imperfections. And I love the way life is a story of the same kind of strange and often untraceable--but always extant--connections between people and times.

Cold Head

Sorry, I'b a liddle buddled. I beant "head cold."

I am a wuss. I will admit it; I will declaim it with gusto . . . as soon as I feel a little healthier. When I get sick, there's nothing halfway about it. There's no "little 24-hour thing" for this boy, ever. I like to believe it is because--even on a physiological level--I maintain the courage of my convictions. Probably, though, it has more to do with having a Constitution score of about 2. (Yeah gamers: I went yon.) Friend Patrick (who has a much more admirable Constitution score) was right in his comment in my last entry. The past year has made personally known to me much illness and injury (for more detailed explanation: 12/31/06). In the words of the Bard: I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors, but think that God's got a sick sense of humor, and when I die I expect to find Him laughing.

Meanwhile, the world marches merrily onward, oblivious to my suffering. Monday's rehearsal and showing of The Torture Project (v. 3.5.07) occurred. That's not to suggest it went poorly, I just never really know how it went until I hear back from the producers. I spent whatever of the day I wasn't in the Shabaq position lying on the floor trying to marshal my reserves. The showing was PACKED, the which I take some of the responsibility for. We had a small room to begin with, and there was more concern for surrounding the big-wigs with appreciative audience members than there was with actual space, so . . . mistakes were made. Which should be okay, what with it being a workshop presentation and all, but you never can tell. Some of the more memorable of these included:

• Tripping into an audience member in the first row because there was no light in which to exit after my first scene.
• Running out to strike a music stand and getting it nearly disentangled from the newly added Christmas lights on the ground before realizing I jumped the gun on its removal . . . all the while the next scene has already begun.
• Literally choking whilst trying to make drowning noises in a tub of water placed behind the audience because--due to the necessary additional seating--I was awfully worried about splashing the designer handbag just inches away.

I blame it all on the sickie. The response immediately following the presentation seemed positive, but of course that's what you do when locked in a room with about a dozen people who effectively told you, "I made this, and I think it's pretty and special." We'll get the real response when Ms. Laurie Sales emails us all to say either:

• Quit your day jobs! The Public wants to create an everlasting ensemble troupe comprised solely of us and the entire Schreiber family!

Or:

• Do you guys want to rehearse in New Hampshire again? At least we get free space there . . .

For the moment, I am merely glad it's over for a while, and merely hopeful that the next time we mount whatever version of it we have much more ample time and resources. Since the showing, too, I had my first rehearsal for A Lie of the Mind. I spent the day leading up to it resting, which is a significant sacrifice when one works an hourly job one already has to take some time off from for various theatrical endeavors. Sadly, I was not (and am not yet) cured by this respite. I did, however, manage to unbind and recycle countless Torture Project scripts into draft paper. So I've got that going for me. Which is nice. (And which is today's movie quote; name it, you freakin' namers!)

The cast of A Lie of the Mind is awesome. Just awesome. I was in no shape to socialize, but the work is so engaging there was very little impulse to, either. I've been lucking out on the casts I've been a part of the past couple of years. I can't be sure if that's luck, actually, or one of the occasional benefits awarded those of us who stick with this nutty craft long enough to build a bit of a community. In addition, I have to spout that I'm very impressed with the director, Daryl Boling. I've worked with Daryl in this capacity twice before, the first on a debut called The Center of Gravity (his directorial debut, I believe) and the second on a production called Criminals in Love. It's been three years since CiL, and in that time I've caught only two productions Daryl's directed: his Black Comedy/White Liars a couple of years ago and his Miss Julie about a month ago. I suspected, based on that last production, that he had really developed since I last worked with him. My suspicions are confirmed. He is approaching the text with a sensitivity and insight reminiscent of David Zarko, and I can't wait to be able to breathe through my nose again so I can rise to his work.

Tonight is another rehearsal for ALotM, and naturally I have mixed feelings about being there. This is what I want to be doing most in the world, but nothing is exactly fulfilling when one is in pain (see wuss comment above). It's one of those sacrifices--along with the resulting reduced income--that tests my resolve to be doing what I'm doing. So in at least one way, I'm coming out strong today.

PS - This Vick's nasal inhaler is good stuff . . .

PPS - Total sidebar: Amazingly excellent actor Chris Kipiniak from the TP is a comicbook writer as well, and today the first of his Spider-Man series arrives on the shelves. It's a series for youth. I so don't care, and am getting my copy right now. I know a comicbook writer!

And on the seventh day . . .

This guy had twelve hours of rehearsal. And it was wicked cold. And he feels as though he's coming down with something, which is perfect timing for his little twelve-hour rehearsal and presentation tomorrow.

Awesome. Awesome.

Strange Times bring Strange Tidings

Where have I been? Where have I been? I've been busy, okay? Do I have to report every little thing I do to you, huh? Huh? Do I? Do I? No. NO! I DON'T!

I'm sorry. Hey: I'm sorry. Really. I lost my temper and, um, I . . . I said some things I shouldn't have said there. I may have, you know, given you the impression that I felt smothered, and I don't. I do not. No, no, I'm just . . . stressed. I'm a little stressed right now, and I took it out on you and that wasn't fair and I'm sorry. Okay? Can I make you some pancakes? How about waffles?

And just where have I been? Oh, here and there. The glorious thing about my end-o-week is the astonishingly little time it has me strapped into a desk. The un-bloggerly thing about it, is the astonishingly little time it has me strapped into a desk. It's a trade-off. But it's Saturday morning, I'm doing laundry and watching old Paramount(TM) Superman(R) cartoons (first episode: "Japoteurs"!) and finally my much-neglected 'blog gets a tune-up.

When last we left our erstwhile hero, he was opining about the glacial pace of The Torture Project's development. He has since resuscitated after various activities in the intervening day-and-a-half to the extent that he is barely aware of writing about himself in the third person. >Ahem.< I did receive some unexpected support in my feeling of impatience over the TP, which helps me feel less psychotically insecure, so thank you, O eponymous anonymous contributor. In addition, we had circus night at the loft on a Thursday this week. We did not receive the promised jugglers, but we did have both Zoe(umlaut) and Dave of Paradizo Dance with us--a rare treat. I got to fly a thigh stand on Dave, which was like climbing a tree with roots to China, and based Zoe(u) in a high angel, which was a first for me. Friday brought another day teaching at Validus Preparatory Academy, but another "first." This time it was the first time both Alex and I were supervising the boys as they filmed themselves playing basketball, and it was fascinating. The guys were more responsive and invested in the project, and Alex learned a little bit about all the kind of work I had to do in her absence last semester. After that it was off to a photo shoot for A Lie of the Mind at Manhattan Theatre Source. I bought one of those circa-70s cowboy shirts (with the pearly snaps) for the occasion--a fantasy buy for me for some time now (whoa, slow down there, Tex) and the shoot was spent in pretty continual laughter over the antics of Todd d'Amour and Laura Schwenninger.

Tomorrow returns me to The Torture Project, but after such a varied series of hours I feel more equipped to be there. It's strange how that works. There is the usual inertia factor when it comes to personal energy, how one just generally feels capable of more when he or she is already active; there is also, however, a kind of recharge to acting that comes from just living a little more life. I wonder sometimes if it works the same in all things creative, or in all things in general. You have to be out there, having a life, to bring something back into whatever you're working on. Do other things one is working on count toward that? I venture a yea. It's worked for me this weekend.

Needs Must, when the Coffee Drives

I was so groggy for rehearsal last night. How groggy was I? I was so groggy that I was actually angry with myself for not being more in-the-room because I was so groggy but too groggy to even allow that anger to focus into something useful to rehearsal, on account of all my grogginess. It doesn't help, of course, that Ripley Grier Studios have the stuffiest little rooms on the Isle of Manhattan. It also didn't help that I opted last night--as I had the night before--to go in sans caffeination. That worked out two nights ago, when I was psyched (read: anxious) to jump back in to The Torture Project, but last night the magic had fled. Indeed, at this very very moment, The Torture Project feels a bit like an old marriage. Sunday mornings, decaf in bed, the paper. "Honey, can you pass me the Ideological Ranting section? Thanks. Oo, let's remember to get out to the Home Depot today to buy some duct tape."

Actually, it's a bit more like the marriage in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, what with all the torture and lies. Could do with a bit more sex. Though last night, too, we had what I believe was only our second actual on-stage kiss. It was hot; personally damaging and inappropriate (scenically, that is), but hot. One participant in this kissage was a Mr. Joe Varca, best known for his appearance in last Fringe Festival's smash hit, I Was Tom Cruise, and who is being utilized as a sort of doppelganger (Blogger, have not you an umlaut shortcut?) to my character in this show, owing to the shocking similarity of appearance we apparently share. For the first time, that damn mirror bit from the Marx Brothers would be interesting to watch. I've had to try and do that bit in at least three different shows. I'm sick of it. I'm afraid beginning to feel similarly toward this show we've all been working on for the past two years now.

It will change. When we have to present what we have again on Monday, I'll be anxious and excited and "psyched" as all get-out. But this is a development, this waning interest in open collaboration on the show, the which it's good for me to acknowledge. I'm growing impatient, which I don't believe to be a factor of time, but rather an indication that I'm beginning to feel as though we're spinning our wheels a bit. The director has talked a lot about taking more personal control and determining whose story this is, what voice(s) tells it and what kind of story it will be. I hope she makes these choices soon, right or wrong, because it influences a lot and gives (pun unintended) direction to the whole piece. Basic questions, like: Is it a memory play? Is it magical realism? Are we aiming to provide answers? Will we eventually make millions of dollars in royalties?

The work last night was also good, but with more off-the-cuff assignments divided (with all those deviser-actors) into shorter segments. One of the prepared pieces that we didn't get to two nights ago was brilliant--a series of six monologues from different residents of Bethel, Ohio (where our scene is set), including a sixty-year-old man and a twenty-three-year-old boy. And a caricature of our director. The performer was referencing The Laramie Project in this, but had no idea. She's never seen it. My impromptu assignments last night were to play Jake teaching his sister Nic the casualty terms that were a part of my piece last night, and to create a series of tableau of the supposed execution of my character with the actress who plays the "torturer" and our do-it-all designer. Kelly and I melded the quiz scene with a scene we already have of us in a car, quizzing her on flower meanings, as though it were a dream she's having, and ended it with, K-"Are you alive or dead?" J-"I don't know." That one worked well. The second we couldn't quite get the effect we wanted with what we had. Our idea was to show three poses from the video (Jake kneeling in front of a hole, Jake standing with his head turned slightly to the left and Jake shot on the ground) then give three progressively closer shots--as if they were expanded--of the left side of Jake's jaw, which is the only part of the supposed Maupin video that lends itself to personal identification. Tricky to do without proper lights and a soundboard.

To think: For the past five years, this time of year has always found me working hard on ecstatic comedy.

Tonight, instead of TP rehearsal (Laurie is off workshopping with Moises for three days [How's that for name-dropping?]) I have acrobalance at Friend Kate's loft. Tonight with jugglers! It will be a welcome respite. Send in the clowns, you bastards. Send in the clowns...

Acting is Hard Enough

Being a creator/actor (somebody, please, provide me with a better term than this) is downright tricky.

The process for The Torture Project has been an original one the entire way, owing mostly to relying so much upon the regular creative input and interpretation of it's entire cast and burgeoning crew. Similar to the development of The Laramie Project (and, indeed, the director/co-collaborator [we artists love our slashes][and parentheses] of Laramie, Moises Kaufman, is serving as a mentor on our show) this show was developed through improvisations and individually planned performance pieces inspired by real-life circumstances. Where we part company from Tectonic Theatre is that we have done more extrapolation, to create a piece of fiction rather than an accounting of an event. So my character is not named Keith "Matt" Maupin, rather Jake Larkin. Yes: The lines between can get confusing. Particularly during a brief stage when we used our own names during the improvisations.

So last night, the first rehearsal of our re-up, everyone brought in an assigned scene (/performance piece) he or she had prepared. Mine (see 2/27/07) was a quasi-clown-style piece based upon definitions I finally found online for various categories of unaccounted-for people during war time. I was to show these definitions through various filters, essentially, on a kind of journey from sense, to nonsense, to chaos and back to sense again. I was to use light sources, architecture, possibly music, definitely audience involvement and various styles to communicate it all. In ten minutes. These assignments invariably remind me of a particular summer ('96, I believe it was) when Friend Younce and I would trade creative assignments with one another every week or so.

It was not altogether successful. Laurie, our project leader, basically loves performance art (though she may not know it) and is always very complimentary of my work. This was no exception, but I felt I failed to make it tight and timed in the way I liked, and toward the end I felt almost completely without control in the piece. Which, for simple acting, can sometimes be good. But for clown, or performance art, it's more like dance. I believe. Timing is more important than verisimilitude.

The piece began as a press briefing (with a direct light facing me), at which I told them to pay close attention and read seven or so terms and their definitions off of index cards, ending with, "Any questions?" Then we switched to a sort of military classroom (with that direct light behind me) and I played an over-the-top drill sergeant grilling them for definitions of the various terms. After leaving that scene in disgust, the direct light was traded for the room's overhead fluorescents, Sara Bakker played a Midwestern teacher and announced my next character to an elementary school class: Casualty Assistance Officer Clown. I entered in a clown nose and tried to teach them about the terms, but got flustered, eventually dropping my cards and getting them out of order, and one of the students stole some. Bright Eyes' "False Advertising" began to play and I searched for the missing cards, finding them nowhere and growing more and more upset until I collapsed on the floor and the lights were shut off. After a five count, the lights came back on, and I arose and removed my nose. Now I was a lost soldier, searching the ground for something but unable to find it. Not recognizing my surroundings, I weep and pound my chest until I find something. I slowly pulled out from my breast pocket a long ribbon of paper with the terms and definitions on it. As I pulled it out, I read the terms one by one. Then, as the music faded, I read this:

"The United States' Department of Defense (DOD) lists a military serviceman as MIA if 'he or she was not at their duty location due to apparent involuntary reasons as a result of hostile action and his/her location is not known' (Department of Defense 1996, p. 5). In addition, three criteria guide the accounting process for missing personnel by the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office: (1) the return of a live American; (2) the return of identifiable remains; and (3) provision of convincing evidence why the first two criteria are not possible."

End o' scene.

Don't get me wrong: I got my point(s) across. It just wasn't very satisfying in a dramatic or performance sense, I suppose. That may have had a lot to do with my feelings about the assignment from the get-go. Character exploration? Kick ass. Term definition? Um, does spelling count?

It was great to be back in rehearsal, however; especially with folks as talented and professional as them what comprise Joint Stock Theatre Alliance. During the evening I helped out with three other scenes, two of which I had to improvise in. This is very, very difficult, even were the subject matter not as heavy as these scenes happened to be. Simply doing kitchen-sink improvisation is tough. It takes sensitivity to your character that I readily admit I have a ways to go on with good ol' Jake. The scenes themselves, however, added necrotic poison to the blow dart: the first was Jake telling his mother he had joined the Army (compliments Faith Catlin's assignment) and the second was an imagined scene, if Jake's girlfriend back home had had an abortion of the baby he had never known about, and then they fought about it as though he weren't missing. I hope I held my own. I fear I was too soft in the first, too hard in the second.

It's an interesting problem. We're showing the most private moments of people I've really never lived among, so I have yet to find a reliable character model to observe in person. Jake's a middle-class, pro-nationalism kid who worked at Sam's Club and grew up in the late nineties. Does he curse? (I'm playing it he does, but not around his family.) What music does he like? (I'm guessing post-grunge crud like POD or . . . I don't even know; it's too depressing to think about.) What's important to him? (Really.) These are the questions one can glean from the text when rehearsing a script. In our world, we're baking from scratch.

Well, nearly scratch. There's this pre-mixed war and domestic situation that in most cases we just have to add water to.