Isolations

In my warm-up routine for teaching commedia dell'arte characters and physical characterization, we spend most of our focus on two things: warming up the spine and isolating parts of the body for specificity. This guy's video may have to become a part of the multimedia model for the class:



I PROMISED FART JOKES; I GIVE YOU FART JOKES.

Bizy Backson

Prof. Jenn & friend.

I'm still hard at work on The Puppeteers, which you can (and should!) follow here.  That job is 36/8, and extra time in between the hours, and includes doing interviews with various publications local to Scranton.  Getting interviewed over and over about the same show can be . . . well . . . slightly repetitive.  So it was a refreshing change to be interviewed this past week about physical theatre by someone I admire: Jenn Zuko Boughn.  Professor Jenn runs an entertaining and thoughtful 'blog called Bonzuko, which I highly recommend for anyone interested in theatre and/or the physical arts.  Or, if you enjoy your reading with fiber(s), get her book!

The interview: Five Questions with Jeff Wills.

Marywood on the Green

My first introduction to the concept of a "greenshow" was through my second professional theatre job, at the Porthouse summer theatre.  I haven't been back in a while, so I don't know if they still do this, but in my time there a great mass of the more minor players would be expected to learn songs and devise routines to entertain the audience who came early to enjoy a picnic dinner on the green between the parking lot and the stage.  This in many ways was my first introduction to variety performance, and at the time I had absolutely no idea that variety would play such a significant role in my creative development as an adult.  Just about all of my busking, clowning, circus and self-generated work stems in some way from that first experience - a connection I only recognized just now, while writing.  So naturally I was thrilled when Heather suggested that for this year's Portal Project initiative with the theatre students of Marywood University we divide the group of nearly 30 into some working on the commedia dell'arte scenario, and others devising a greenshow.

I've written in the past (see 9/2/08 & 8/28/07) about my experiences teaching this week-long commedia dell'arte intensive.  Last year, regrettably, it followed too hard and fast on our time in Italy and I had to give it a pass in favor of maintaining my day job (yes - irony is ironic).  I was eager to return this year, and the whole thing felt fresh to me once again, particularly in regard to all the new faces I would be meeting.  I confess I was a little apprehensive about the loss of many graduates who started out with us back in 2007, but that anxiety proved entirely unfounded - somewhere between my and Heather's greater experience and deeper understanding, and the students' willingness to focus and commit to the work we found the experience to be one of our most efficient and successful.  Safe to say, too, that everyone had a lot of fun.

The key to this success, I think, was in getting to working directly on the scenario sooner.  In the past we spent more days on general training on improvisation, stylistic elements and concept, not arriving at a scenario until the Friday or sometimes even the Saturday before a Monday performance.  This time I found the team problem-solving involved in working from a scenario does a lot of the training for us, creating situations and challenges that end up being far more interesting (not to mention well-motivated) than anything we can prepare them for in hypothetical exercises.  It was a near-perfect balance, spending a couple of days on character and improvisation, one on physical lazzi (could have used a bit more time there, I confess) and then three-or-so hours to memorize the scenario and ten more to develop and refine it.  We came out strong, with the perfect amount of fear, I think.

In a sense, the real challenge we set for ourselves this year was the greenshow, rather than the scenario.  Heather was responsible for both the challenge and the success of that portion of the endeavor.  She has an impressive talent for not just randomly applying a routine to performers, but recognizing in them a possibility for a routine already lying in wait within their personalities or styles.  This is part of what makes her such a brilliant clown, her ability to read people (including herself) and comprehend unspoken personae.  Our greenshow ended up consisting of a couple of clownish acts, a group of acrobats, a group of musicians, a tie-in relationship with the conclusion of the scenario (Heather's brilliance again) and all of it encircled by an MC character who also provided a prologue to the scenario.  The greenshow established the space, warmed up the crowd and was integrated into the scenario by way of concept and a couple of character references.

All the performers were amazing, and I believe everyone grew a little through the process.  They had two shows, at noon and 2:00 respectively.  The first was pretty sparsely attended and had some of the earmarks of the struggle to discover that last scene member: the audience.  They did well enough, though, and by the end of the first show they had definitely learned a lot about what was going to work.  They won the audience they had over, in spite of the dialogue being nigh inaudible over some terribly insistent generic "Italian music" blaring from the nearby clocktower, and after some lunch we regrouped at the theatre for our second run.  We gave them some advice for the second show, but I don't think they needed it.  In the second show, the audience was far more substantial, the greenshow-ers took bigger risks and the scenario-ists (is SO a word) made fuller, clearer physical choices.  We all still had to contend with blaring, generic music, but they compensated beautifully and really knocked it out of the park.

I had a tremendous time working with this group again, and it fortifies my desire to teach more often.  These were, to be frank, practically ideal circumstances (apart from the lateness of the hours).  It's exceptional when one gets the chance to work with a fellow ensemble member as a co-teacher, and have as students a group so focused on strengthening their sense of ensemble and overall improvement.  Two incidents in particular however stood out for me toward the end of this week, neither of which had anything directly to do with these circumstances.  They had to do with something larger.

The first of these was introducing the students to an idea we at Zuppa have used from our very first show: the musical run. In this style of run, we play an ever-changing mix of music during a run of the scenario involving no speaking.  The players thereby run through a very complex sequence of action using only their bodies to communicate that progress, plus they must continually listen to whatever music happens to be playing as they enter and synchronize their tempo, mood and choices to it.  It's inordinately helpful, but exhausting and can be a difficult concept to grasp.  Frustration is easy to find here.  Yet, just before their first showing, the players took to quite naturally, and seemed to really enjoy it.  This seeming was later proven for me when we were between the two shows, all rather full of food and feeling the week behind us, and I gave them the option of resting or doing another musical run.  They enthusiastically leaped into that second musical run, and came out of it grinning like mad.

The second was a more abstract result, and the result of another brilliant idea from Heather.  That is, a way to warm both the scenario people and the greenshow folks up together.  Eccolo:

Ich Bin Ein Scrantonian

The view from inside my Scranton office.

Editor's note: The following is an entry that I wrote last Thursday.  Normally I would update it and post it as written today, but I can't seem to make any time for 'blog posts lately, so I'm breaking with convention, leaving it as it is and posting it to yesterday's date.  (I am no longer in Scranton; my caffeine intake has since subsided, somewhat.)  This is in the hopes that I can write today about what I really want to write about, but we'll just see how that goes, shall we?  Without further ado:

Today I've spent five straight hours sitting in a coffee shop off of the Scranton town square, plugging away at this and that on my laptop.  In that time, I've had various meetings with people, both planned and unplanned, in person and over the internet.  I've occasionally engaged in some of my usual time-wasting computer activities - a little Facebook, a bit of tearing through Google Reader items - but by-and-large I have been at work.  My work, not anybody else's, and that's delightful.  I think my rear end is going to give up and walk out soon, with or without me, but there'll be plenty of time for movement and making up for that tonight when I return to the reason I'm here in the first place: to once again teach commedia dell'arte to and stage a scenario with the good theatre students of Marywood University.

I've been here since Monday, and in that time have been preoccupied with adjusting my body clock to our teaching schedule.  The students have classes until the evening, so our "extra-curricular" mandatory activity takes place between the hours of 8:30 and 11:00 at night.  Poor Heather has to be up early in the morning as well, to work her day job and attend her newly acquired graduate studies, but I have the luxury of simply sleeping until 10:00 am.  And frankly, if I did not, this bird would not fly.  I am not a night person.  Even with my adjusted sleep schedule it's a trial.  I make bad decisions past about 9:00 pm, and under normal circumstances they're confined to junk food and succumbing to my onychophagia, but this week these poor decisions extend to dramaturgy and personal safety.  Fortunately for me, la commedia dell'arte tends to thrive on regrettable choices.

There's something really lovely about the people I work with here in Northeastern Pennsylvania (or "NEPA," a nice analogue to my accustomed "NoVa").  It's as though everyone understands that what we're doing is what we're doing, and not that thing we're doing now that will hopefully result in something later that will contribute to that big break or that huge pay-off down the road.  Plus there are no subways.  But I digress.  All I'm trying to say is that focusing on work is a lovely, lovely thing that I very badly needed, in spite of all the work I've gotten to do in NYC lately.  I'm exercised and inspired and healthy, and generally happy in a way that can be easy to forget as I stride my way down the Avenue of the Americas to this, that or the other.

Commedia Day

Last Thursday, I failed, and was generously rewarded for it. The manner in which I failed was by opting out of performing with other talented artists for the International Day of Commedia dell'Arte, and I was rewarded by instead sitting in the audience and getting to enjoy multiple fascinating, commedia-inspired performances. It was quite moving, actually, to see such a concentrated example of the commedia dell'arte approached as a living tradition, which is an ethos Zuppa del Giorno has long espoused but rarely heard echoed back so specifically. I should have stepped up, and regret my own rather ironic sense of un-preparedness (is SO a word) to perform an improvised form, but regret nothing about attending the evening.

A couple of acquaintences with whom I've wanted to work -- Brian Foley and Billy Schultz -- performed and were involved in pulling it all together, in association with Fiasco Grande Productions. It was an evening that seemed to aim to inform as much as it entertained, and all within a sort of informal framework of each act presenting itself with little explanation, then that performer hanging around a moment to introduce the next. I appreciated this, because it lent a feeling of inclusion, but it may have made some who were expected a more refined production feel awkward. In particular, I enjoyed a description of the commedia dell'arte given in prelude to the whole thing, by a gentleman named Stanley Allan Sherman. Mr. Sherman had that immediacy about his demeanor that is so essential to good commedia, and can be rather intimidating or unpredictable to folks unaccustomed to that sort of ride. He reminded me a bit of our friends Andrea Brugnera and Angelo Crotti, and I wanted to talk to him more. A young student was interviewing him before the show, and I was giddily elated to hear he designed the mask for a famous professional wrestler, Mankind, and that he based it upon Arlecchino's visage. Living tradition, indeed.

The evening included commedia tropes, clown routines, satire, buffon and acrobatics, and tons of just lovely silliness. There wasn't much traditional scenario work -- Brian came closest I think with a lovely solo piece reminiscent of the lazzi of perhaps Arlecchino or Pedrolino -- but I was pleasantly surprised to see transformational elements such as masks and wigs. Billy participated in a structured improvisation with a great premise: that of an international competition for paper airplane construction and flight. This was the piece that most reminded me of Zuppa's initial original work, insofar as it was essentially a use of commedia techniques and archetypes in a more contemporary context. I was later blown away by the comical mastery displayed by the Acrobuffos. They ripped it up, stitched it back together and made the whole audience more alive with laughter.

The purpose of this International Day of Commedia dell'Arte, as I understand it, is to bring a wider appreciation and understanding of the commedia dell'arte to the world in the hopes of getting it acknowledged as the major cultural influence upon western civilization that it has been. (So, you know: modest goals.) In the US, Faction of Fools seems to have taken up the bulk of the mantle of this promotion of "intangible heritage" and is doing an accountable job of mobilising troupes and players into action. It's a bit regrettable that, here on the northeast coast, the day takes place in February, given that outdoor performance would be both historically appropriate and good for advertising. Nevertheless, the day is a great idea that I hope carries ahead full steam into the coming years and toward its eventual aim. The Commedia dell'Arte is alive and well and almost no one seems to know it. I'd like to believe we can change that.

As to my failure, I paraphrase that towering Capitano Sinatra: Regrets, I've had a few. As much as it was scheduling and insufficient time to prepare (yes - to prepare my improvisation) I think it was also a feeling of being quite out of touch with my craft, not having performed in the style since last summer's trip for In Bocca al Lupo. This evening rejuvenated that sense of connection, better than I could even have imagined, and has my imagination whirling again with archetypes and acrobatic gags. Who knows what will come of it, but I know that it will be driven forward by two things: the first, to never again be caught unawares for a similar performance opportunity; and the second is this feeling that I just walked into a room and found a panoply of old friends in the form of commedia characters. Thanks for that, everyone.

Zuppa: The Next Course

Traditionally, we know what our Zuppa del Giorno show is going to be at least a year in advance, if not more. That seems funny to write, especially with how much I write about the process starting from nothing at the beginning of the rehearsal process. Yet both are true. We never start out with a show, and we always end up with a show, yet at least a year in advance we know what the show is going to be "about." The first would be about updated commedia traditions, the second about the Marx brothers, the third about silent film comedians, etc. One needs to know that much in advance so one can research, and plan, and gather materials for the horrifying moment when one finds oneself in an empty space without a single indication of where to go next, surrounded by folk who have as little clue (and at least as much anxiety) as you do.

In effect, Zuppa has officially now skipped a year. Owing to the ambitious nature of our last original work, and a focus on advancing our study abroad program, In Bocca al Lupo, we took a little break. Recently, however, David Zarko asked us to pool some ideas for the next endeavor into wholly original (or at least creatively stolen) show material. Here is what I emailed him, off the top of my head and verbatim:

• Mummer's (or guiser's) Play: adaptable to public spaces, most characters performed in disguise or with mask - Wikipedia link. They usually have to do with good versus evil, and involve some element of resurrection. Prepare an original show utilizing style elements; perform in a different space every time. If at ETC, in ballroom, second stage, shop, lobby, abandoned rooms, etc. Scranton, all over, including weirdness like bowling alleys. In Italy, piazzas, but also tourist spots and museums.
• Show set in a circus. I've resisted this for some time, but we really should attempt it some time. Doesn't have to be circus intensive, but can include stilt-walking and other street-theatre conducive elements.
• The Great Zuppa Murder Mystery. Classic isolated scenario, names after Scranton locales and exit signs (Lord Dunmore Throop). Either played straight, or played a la coarse theatre -- more a play about players trying to put on a murder-mystery play, but not having their act together. OR, totally meta-: a real murder is supposed to have happened during a performance of a murder-mystery play that is being put on by coarse actors who are incapable of getting anything right.
• A play about religion. I don't know -- religion is funny. Maybe a play about mythos and superstition, as well, or instead of. Zuppa's vampire play.
• Another silent show, but based in something besides silent movies. This isn't really an idea. Sorry.
• Collaborations with mixed media: visual artists, musicians, writers, dancers. The idea being that we highlight the ways in which everyone uses improvisation by performing alongside folks, united by some storytelling commonality.
• Oh and also: A really real vaudeville show (There were some plans to incorporate a significant vaudeville presence into Prohibitive Standards, but they never crystallized. - ed.). With guest artists.

I'll probably have more ideas over time and, as is perhaps evident, I'm not especially sold on any of these in particular. Zuppa's mission statement when it comes to our original shows (in as much as we have one) is to illustrate the living traditions of the commedia dell'arte that permeate our culture, and inspire our audiences to learn more about that interconnected culture. Hence ideas that hearken to older forms, or hang on the twin cousins of homage and parody.

So what do you think, Gentle Reader? Seriously -- Which of these ideas would you like to see our merry, rotating band of "creactors" make a whole new show of? Or, better yet: What are your ideas...?

La Commedia e l'Aula

Dear God, do I ever hope I've written that title right.

Day the last, I taught once again for one of Suzi Takahashi's classes at City College -- a "Movement for Actors" class that consisted of actors and non-actors alike, and I had less than a couple of hours in which to introduce them to the commedia dell'arte, in particular about how it can apply to physical characterization and character archetypes. I type a sentence such as that and it occurs to me that it must sounds dreadfully boring to the average Joe or Jane, one unaccustomed to seeing this work. That's a danger of "studying" commedia -- it all starts to seem academic at best, irrelevant and inaccessible at worst, and these are not adjectives that should ever have anything to do with the form, ever. So I try to avoid study, and focus instead on practice, which is an effective strategy in general for getting young men and women fresh from four days of eating and loafing to be involved.

I love guesting into Suzi's classes, and yesterday was no exception. The students were willing, focused and fun to be around (after a bit of a gradual warm-up period) and I found several applications that will be useful in future workshops. For example, I gave a generic pose for the three basic status types -- a deep stance for zanni, a lifted straight one for innamorati and a bent one for vecchi -- and periodically shouted out one of these types, for which they'd rush to assume the pose. It worked great for keeping them alert, teaching them the classes and getting them thinking physically (in particular because the Italian names had no literal meaning yet, so they could just be immediately associated). Having to abridge my usual material to make good use of time led to some interesting discoveries as well. A quicker pace kept the students from getting too wrapped up in right and wrong, so when it came to creating their own Capitano character they were more apt to drop the form elements they had already learned in favor of observed behavior.

There is something about teaching workshops that really fulfills me, and I often wonder if I would lose some of that feeling if the occasions to teach were more frequent, less special. Certainly there's a lot about regular teaching that a workshop instructor gets to be exempted from: long-term lesson plans, getting to know the students well (by which I mean, by name) and dealing with any amount of administrative concerns. The consequences, too, are mitigated by the brevity, which can also cast a bit of a glow on a workshop teacher as something new and fleeting, to be valued somehow more intensely than the teacher one sees day after day. Yeah, jeez: there's a lot of liberty in being a workshop leader. Yet the thing that gives me a sense of fulfillment more than any tricks I figure out or insights I have has more to do with the students than the class.

What's really amazing about sharing the commedia dell'arte perspective with people is watching them take it in their own way, at their own individual paces, and then suddenly run with it. That's got little to nothing to do with me, or even the material, and everything in the world to do with an individual person finding through the process a spark that lights them up. Maybe it's a moment of "I get it!", or perhaps it's one of "I give myself permission...", but whatever it may be for a given person, you can watch it happen around the classroom like popcorn. Here's where the commedia workshops and the acrobalance ones converge, in this infectious energy that spreads around in different patterns every time, but always results in more trust and bravery, and somehow, a new sense of community. It's really inspiring.

I've had a lot of experiences in the past year that have been seeming to say to me something literal and specific: Make community. That's it. There's a whole lot of different ways to do that, and I'm actively involved in a few of them, from starting up The ACTion Collective with Friend Andrew to working to stay better connected with all my friends, far and wide. Soon there'll be directing a show to add to the community-building pile, with a little luck. From the rehearsal studio to the Internet to visiting home (and other homes) it's a bit of ground to cover. I'm grateful that the small space of a couple of hours in a classroom can be part of that, too.

In Defense of la Commedia dell'Arte

A disclaimer: I do not claim to be any sort of authority on the art and history of the traditional Italian commedia dell'arte.

An opinion: No one is, really. Not anymore. There simply weren't enough written records kept (indeed, this contributed to the genre's definition) and the oral tradition is -- by its nature -- subject to evolution in any and all aspects.

A philosophical theory: Commedia dell'arte theatre exists as we make it, and is defined by a method and process more than by specific style elements or traditional strictures. It is in essence a living tradition, one that influences and is influenced by the life and art that surrounds it.

Allora. I feel that there exists in my community here in the United States (and possibly all over the western hemisphere, but I write to what I know) a prejudice against the commedia dell'arte. Perhaps it's futile to address this possibility, given how small a percentage of the population has any idea what the commedia dell'arte is, even in concept, but I'm a theatre artist. Futile pursuits are what I was born to pursue. Plus, it riles me somewhat that the people who are aware of the commedia dell'arte are somehow unaware of its nature. (Just look at this riling on my forearms. And that's only the part that shows!) The Cd'A (went there - for the Twitter crowd) has gotten a bad rap.

Rep? Rap. Rap? A rep, rap, the reppie the reppie to the rep rep rap and I don't stop.

I've had two profound experiences with the genre and its practitioners in the past year, and both have fueled my desire to set the record a bit straighter, but especially the latter. First, in January we began two months' work on a commedia dell'arte and clown production called The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet. In this production we worked with two Italian artists, Angelo Crotti and Andrea Brugnera, and learned much about how the commedia dell'arte informed all of their work. Most recently, our study-abroad, cutural-immersion extravaganza, In Bocca al Lupo, concluded its 2009 program, in which the students received training from both these artists as well as we members of Zuppa del Giorno, and performed an original Scala scenario, semi-improvised, in Italian, in two Italian towns. This program is one that always yields surprising, dramatic results; this year, for me, it proved to be tremendously inspirational.

The problem with some people's perception of the commedia dell'arte is, in my opinion, that they perceive it to be juvenile, gross and pandering to the public. There are other factors involved that typical western audiences can have trouble digesting -- the use of masks, the lack of script -- but primarily the problem seems to lie in the commedia dell'arte being stuck with a stigma of being the lowest common denominator in theatre . . . both in terms of content and execution. And, worse yet, this perception is perpetuated by numerous well-intentioned(?) artists. I recall a performance I saw a couple of years ago in which a prop of fake linked sausages was performing with more truth than almost all of the other actors. Shakespeare suffers from similar widespread abuse -- people basing their work on their experience of the form rather than on an understanding of the function. The difference is, with commedia dell'arte theatre there's no one reminding you and insisting that it's really quite good when done well. Well, there's me, today, and there's this guy, pretty much always. And many others, but nothing like the masses of famous Shakespeare scholars and advocates.

We had a diverse group of students for In Bocca al Lupo this year, just as we did the first time we ran the program, in 2006 -- from undergrad theatre students to middle-aged non-actors, and even one professional actor who was close to my age (but even she is from Australia, where absolutely everything is strange and backward and strange). As if sadists, we threw them into intensive classes the day after their plane arrived: hours of Italian immersion class and then they were introduced to Angelo Crotti, who promptly worked our bodies so hard that the next day you couldn't help but feel that you were somehow being punished, perhaps for being so complacent a human being as to not regularly imitate the walk of an alligator for at least ten minutes every day. Heather and I attended all these classes with the students (though we had trained with Angelo extensively before, how could we turn down the opportunity to do so again?) and experienced first hand their struggles and responses. As we began to see, from the very first day, this was not a group that shrunk from challenge.

After intensive physical training and an introduction to the characters and mask work, Angelo ended his (too) few days with us by creating an on-the-spot scenario. It was a little like taking a trip inside his brain, and I know I was often struggling to keep up, so I can only imagine what my fellow actors thought of it. It was fascinating, though, because we got to superimpose Angelo's years of experience on our own relative ignorance, and try to reconcile the two. Watch as gli studenti -- Maureen Arscott, Beth Burkhauser, Marti Cate, Gemma Cavoli, Brian Jones, Becky Lighthizer, Carolyn Ruggiero, Heather Stuart and Addam Wawrzonek -- learn from a master:

Forgive our efforts at acting and mask work (for most of us, it is the first time for both or either, and everyone's just trying to do as they were asked here) but, more importantly, watch the glimpses of Angelo's work the lesson affords. The only thing lacking here is him in mask, which is an incredibly effective thing. It works when he does it because he can be believed. With all the artifice and style and for all the funny fun he's having, he can be believed. Angelo is not, perhaps, the most gentle of teachers. Yet as we reached the end of our time with him, the lessons he repeated were less to do with Arlecchino's stance or needing to put more energy into it, and more and more to do with a repeated imperative: "You must believe in what you are doing."

Angelo's other big axiom, oft repeated while we were working on R&J, is "all is for the audience." This is one that I tend to shy away from a bit, because I've been trained on some instinctive level to perceive working for the audience as pandering. What's interesting is the way in which this axiom can easily be perverted in the same way the commedia dell'arte style can, by putting emphasis on form over function. Ergo, pandering. Of course, as with most things, we have to practice the form over and over again before understanding the function. My understanding of what Angelo means, as far as I've gotten with it, is that the actor must be absolutely generous with the audience in this work. The form is to keep the mask presented forward; the function, to not only maintain the connection with the audience, but make that connection as strong and inclusive as possible.

Fast forward now, through two weeks' continued training and rehearsal, through more Italian lessons and great exercises from Andrea in character development and creation, through innumerable personal experiences (good and bad [sorry: helpful and less-helpful]), through even an initial performance of our scenario (The Two Faithful Notaries) in which we hit all the important plot points with clarity, yet somehow failed to create actual theatre. Fast forward to our second and final performance, in Orvieto. For whatever reason, we had an audience of five adults, one toddler. We held the curtain for about thirty minutes in hopes of more (not unexpected, that: Italy, after all), which is a tough time for actors in general, but especially difficult prior to an intensely physical, comic performance. At last we parted the curtains for our tiny audience.

You know that question about trees in forests and the existential quandary of an unwitnessed fall?

It was a brilliant show. Brilliant. I venture to say everyone of us learned from it and surprised ourselves. It felt to me more like the work that we set out to do with Zuppa del Giorno than even many of our own shows have. There's video of it, but I don't have it and I suspect it's pretty terrible (yes, even worse than my handheld digital camera work) and besides, video always leaves out the best thing about live performance: the direct, real-time communication with an audience. So you'll just have to believe me about how everyone, across the board, ultimately found the show together, and brought characters to life instead of simply getting them "right," and improvised golden bits of true comedy, and lived all the wants and needs and instinctive responses out loud, and on a grand, beautifully physical scale. You have to believe me because it's true, and because that belief is what I've been carrying around with me since I returned to the US of A, and it will make you smile like I do just to think of it.

At its best, the commedia dell'arte offers all the most enjoyable parts of theatre, dance, stand-up, circus (and a little you-name-it, always) in a format that is utterly inviting and inclusive. There's two sides to every coin, of course, and as one of the first recorded commercially motivated theatre genres it can be terrible. We can make it formal beyond repair, or pandering to laughter and coinage, or simply a mess. That's very easy to do. When we make it great, however, there's nothing like it. There are many contributing factors to such greatness. Lots and lots of technical work and training ought to go into any performer taking it on. It's a very difficult form, in my opinion, and as with circus part of the trick is in making it look easy. Most important of all of that, however, is belief. Believing in what you're doing and feeling, the audience's belief in you and your belief in them, and believing in the commedia dell'arte itself.

My point? Just to draw a little attention to what I consider to still be a rather neglected and abused form. Maybe also to say: Make gooder art, everyone. The things we create aren't always magic, but on those occasions when they are . . . hoo-boy . . .

IBaL: Selected Photos

Adesso.

Dunque.

In Bocca al Lupo is a non-stop program. On their three-week course, the students have only two free days. They also have two days of gita scholastici which add the time up to two full weekends, in which we go see shows and visit towns and regions they otherwise might not, but that's as much as to say that it's a required activity. They need context for their huge undertaking, and we all need that kind of time outside the rehearsal or class rooms to really develop a personal bond. After all, a sense of ensemble is critically essential to the final project.

We had a week to plan and prepare and, quite frankly, relax before they arrived. They hit the ground running, however. The very next day, after their flight got in, they began language classes at Lingua Si and master classes in commedia dell'arte with Angelo Crotti in a converted convent. I can attest to the fact that the language classes are mentally taxing, and as far as Angelo's classes go, well . . . any Crotti class you can limp away from is a good one. They did brilliantly. There were some breakdowns, but no dramas, and by the end of the week, everyone had forgotten their aching gams, bid Angelo a bitter-sweet adieu, and managed to speak enough Italian to make sense of their little world in Orvieto.

So we moved them to Aquapendente and took away their language classes.

In Aquapendente our artistic home is Teatro Boni, a beautiful little classical theatre complete with velvet seats and crystal chandelier. Boni is where the students began their master classes with Andrea Brugnera, who emphasizes a more internal approach to character creation and story-telling. It's at this time that we also introduced them to the scenario they would be learning and performing—in Italian—and began that work. The trade-off for not having Angelo's physical demands during this time is that we begin regular “conditioning,” as I've come to call it. At the end of every day, after master classes and rehearsal, for a half an hour, I get to lead the students through strength and endurance exercises. I'd be lying if I said I didn't relish this. Some part of me misses working with a circus troupe, still.

This period is a complex one in many ways. One of the objectives is to encourage the students to learn improvisation as not just a useful skill in dealing with problems, but a preferable one. So, even as we're asking them to memorize a story and do things “right,” we're also trying to encourage thinking (or perhaps more appropriately, feeling) spontaneously and in a spirit of discovery. This ripples through everything we do, including trying to locate parking on a group trip. It's frightening. Everyone reacts differently. Most people struggle to get a grip on something concrete, to get it “right.” They ask for a written copy of the scenario, which we never provide, as it's important to learn the story through one's body and connections with others. They aim for consistency in on-stage exchanges, and we do what we can to shake them out of these. They come to rely on certain routines (such as the conditioning) and we viciously disrupt them.

It's also a complex time because we are becoming an ensemble. Relationships that are akin to a family are nascent, and manifest in both helpful and unhelpful ways (when your priority is improvisation and doing, terms like "good" and "bad" prove decidedly unhelpful). Not only are the students living and working together, and in the process attempting to avoid falling into reality television cliches, but we as teachers are becoming their directors and - in my and Heather's cases - fellow actors. We all have to depend on one another and, even as we're getting past the polite or glamorous demeanor of first encounters, the idea of treating everyone you work with as an inspired poet and artist turns from a nice idea into an essential survival tool.

In the third and final week, I invariably wonder to myself, Can it really have been only two weeks? Yet the performances loom and there seems still to be a million things to decide and discover. People despair and laugh uncontrollably and have personal revelations, and none of it helps us feel any more prepared for our first audience. The students have their second brush-up Italian lesson while we teachers hasten to pay rent on theatres and generally determine what use of rehearsal time will be most useful. And then whoosh, flash, bang: It's over. Over two or three days, all our fruition and reversed expectations. And we part ways. And it seems impossible that we are indeed going to go separate ways, much less that we've known each other for only a few weeks, and not most of our lives.

The students this year were absolutely amazing, and a privilege to work with. I'll have much more write specifically about their work and the particular experience in the coming days. Until then, I simply savor the glow of it all. While working on a show, it often seems impossible, even when it's with a script, and in English. The feeling after you pull it off, especially when you pull it off well . . . well. Suffice it to say the night never feels so refreshing in the piazza, and the gelato never so sweet.

Le Provi Specifica

So. Hi. Sorry for the adamant lapses, but I am at this moment sitting in a tiny piazza in Montefiascone where we have discovered available WiFi. This is tantamount to finding gold, or an Etruscan ruin heretofore undiscovered, hence the long delays. Also, we are busy. Very, very busy, so I can't even pre-write and load an entry all that easily. I could no doubt find a few hot spots in Rome tomorrow during our little trip to see a Plautus show in the Roman ruins, but I'll be honest with you -- I care more about my shoulder hefting about Gracie here than I do about 'blogging. Mi dispiace. I'll make it up to you, I promise.

It goes well with me here. Every day is a new adventure in highs and lows, and everyone has had their little panics, but on the whole the group is amazing and the work is wonderful. We've seen no less than three theatre productions of various sorts (not including tomorrows), learned a lot of Italian, learned a classic Scala scenario, been to the hot springs and an arts festival in Spoleto, had some time at il lago di Bolsena, had master classes with two Italian actors, some great meals, and Friend Heather and I even performed our clown Romeo & Juliet for a crowd of appreciative Italians in a renovated Spanish amphitheater. It goes well with me here.

I miss you all, but I wouldn't have missed this for the world. I'll write more in detail soon. Or later. That's me being very Italian . . .

Forse . . .

Allora.

It's been about a week and a half in Italia, which means we're in our third day of classes with the students. This also means that I have finished my third day of Italian classes, which means that my grammar and syntax may come across a little...funny...at certain points of this. Mi dispiace! The good news is that this trip and its classes at Lingua Si are improving my comprehension enormously. The bad news is that it sometimes makes me say things like, “The gelato likes to me.”

I'm writing you from one of the more impressive views of mountaintop Orvieto, sitting at a park bench not fifteen feet from a sheer cliff's edge facing roughly northeast (I think). Behind me a little ways are the ruins of an Etruscan amphitheater, and my stomach is full of pizza. It's roughly three o'clock, and it's been a good day in spite of some challenges. Such as barely being able to walk down stairs for the past two days, my knees occasionally buckling unexpectedly toward the cobblestones. You might think that given my situation, nothing could be better. And that's true, in many ways. We teachers, David Zarko, Heather Stuart and myself, have had a week here to prepare before the students arrived last Sunday, and we made good use of it. We had many adventures and misadventures the which I will write about at some point when there's more time and convenient internet access – including attending la Prova in Siena, the dry-run of their famous horse race, il Palio. (You may have seen shots of that in the latest Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.) For now what's more pressing is to talk a little about the work.

It's fascinating, thus far, what's different and what remains the same when comparing this trip to 2006's. The reason I'm staggering about this year hasn't so much to do with drinking wine with my lunch; rather it's because this week we have four days' worth of commedia dell'arte master classes with Angelo Crotti. As anyone who's met Angelo knows, he is a man of great strength and energy, and he has no problem asking as much from his students. Monday he took us through an hour's worth of strengthening exercises that kicked off the pain-fest, and yesterday he continued with various exercises and added some very committed, very acrobatic animal movement. All this, of course, in addition to working on the many postures and movements of the commedia dell'arte archetypes, most all of which involve raised arms and deep stances. I love it, but next time I'll be training up to it rather more. Jogging, she is not enough.

It is an amazing experience, studying Italian all day, then working intensively on traditional commedia in the evening. Angelo's techniques, talent, and not to mention his gorgeous masks, make for a very challenging, expanding experience. Perhaps even more amazing is to watch the students – all with varying degrees of experience and context – take on these incredible tasks. Some of them have never even seen commedia dell'arte before, yet they're finding moments of great expression in approaching it. Most of them have little to know experience conversing in Italian, yet every day they manage to communicate more and more with it. (For me, for the first time, the language feels useful rather than intimidating – just as a personal sidenote.) Everyone's a little (okay – a lot) frightened of the ultimate goal: To perform an original commedia dell'arte scenario in Italian, for Italians. Yet that is just how we were in 2006 as well, and it turned out to be wonderful. I'm sure none of us expected to be able to hold a conversation in Italian on the first day of classes, either, but we all did.

The major difference between our last full program and this one is the amount and variety of training and practice we'll be making use of. In fact, we're only spending this week in Orvieto. Next week we'll be back for brush-ups in Italian, but largely we'll be in Aquapendente at Teatro Boni, our artistic host. There the students will take classes with Andrea Brugnera and we'll begin the work on the actual Scala scenario we're using, The Two Faithful Notaries. That, too, is when the major events begin. So far we've only had meal-oriented ones – and those are of course great – but starting at the end of this hard-working week we start seeing sights and shows. Hopefully I'll be able to write about those individually as they occur...or anyway, soon after when they actually occur.

I've done a lot of reflecting during all this, of course. Italy is enticing, exciting and extremely challenging to me, all at once. I've had some major (insofar as my experience extends) victories on the trip already, as well as some harrowing moments and, let me face it, outright failures. Yet the failures have been more productive, somehow, than I've allowed them to be in the past. We're trying to teach, after all, that risk and mistakes are great tools to improving communication. It seems I take that lesson more and more to heart the more I challenge myself in this way. God, is it challenging! Which is both an outburst of frustration and an exclamation of thrill.

I'll write more soon, e vero. Until then, may the gelato like to you as well, my friends.

Laughter Builds

I've been doing a bit of work lately that has required me to articulate some work I'm accustomed to doing instinctively. Specifically, building comic structure.

[Big, protracted, pet-peevy sidenote: I do not understand the need for the word "comedic." It's very existence irritates me. There's probably some very specific, distinct reasoning behind its use, and I'd love for somebody to explain it to me, but even given a reasoned explanation I'll probably continue to literally cringe every time I hear it. Do we hear "tragedic"? No; we hear "tragic." Comic. Comic comic COMIC!]

So -- building comic structure. At some later date I'll address what's gotten me started so specifically on this subject, but it also looks to be useful work in preparation for our new curriculum for In Bocca al Lupo. Friend Heather and I have had to modify our lesson plans owing to two factors: 1) having students enrolled who have taken our workshops previously, and 2) having master classes with Italian actors who can certainly offer more insightful training in commedia dell'arte than we can. When we took a look at what we could offer that was new, relevant and supportive of the lessons others would be teaching, techniques for building comic (COMIC!) structures and sequencing came out at the top of the list.

It's funny (See what I did there?): This is the sort of thing that's generally considered to be a talent or instinct, similar to singing, or mathematics. We tend to equate the ability to construct comedy to one's sense of humor -- an intangible mix of givens and environmental influences that somehow result in one person "being funny," and another, not so much. AND we tend to equate "having a sense of humor" with being funny, which is right off. After all, you can be completely incapable of telling a joke or pulling off a fall, yet still enjoy a fine appreciation of others' comedy. In other words, we are adrift in a mire of assumptions and generality when it comes to the larger subject of humor. Sure, there are comic prodigies, just as there are mathematical ones. The fact is, however, that building comic structure is an ability, a skill, and it can be learned and honed.

But how do you teach that?

I've put together a lot of theories, and some are more tested than others. Certainly the bulk of the work we've done in Zuppa del Giorno has given me experience to draw from, both in the form of what's helpful to building a comic story, and what's more of a "what not to do" lesson. We have developed many exercises and guiding principles in our work that apply to this more-general challenge, and we are lacking in some areas due to the specificity of our work. We're never focused solely on "making something funny"; rather the emphasis is on "making a contemporary commedia dell'arte story," or "making a new story in the style of silent film." This is an interesting point to notice in and of itself -- that once the techniques are ingrained, you need a specific focus in order to use them effectively. Breaking down the techniques themselves, however, takes some new, encompassing thoughts and actions. The danger here is in over-generalizing.

To my mind, the ultimate goal is to offer to the students as many useful ways as possible to get them in a mode in which they are excited to build the story. When that enthusiasm sets in("enthusiasm" is a better word for it), creating a comedy becomes more about communication and the collaboration than it is about fear or getting it "right." This can be said of any collaborative effort, but I find it particularly essential to comic storytelling. For all my perceived poo-pooing of the role of instinct in developing comedy, there is a very distinctive feeling that overcomes us when we really hook into a fruitful collaboration, and the better taste of that we can offer the students the better they'll understand what to aim for and how to guide themselves in future efforts. Teaching that is the way to teach them to fish for themselves, rather than simply slapping a fish down on the table.

Of course, there's more to it than that, especially if you're aiming for (as we are) teaching how to build good comedy. There's the rhythm, and the notion of threes, and contrast, and reversal of expectation, and separation of beats, and the logical absurdity (thank you, Gary C. Hopper) . . . and a bunch more, I'm sure. There is, in other words, no shortage of theory and technique to be instructed and applied, which is very good for us. But the thing to focus on in on, it seems to me, is the build. Find the build, and the comedy follows.

Class Act

{You've probably been 'blogging for too long when you start to feel, with every post title, "I must have used THIS pun before...."}

I have a lot of semi-traumatic memories of school. I say semi-traumatic because, in spite of how very very real they were to me at the time, in light of some more adult tragedies it seems inapt to apply the same word. Still and all -- without that perspective and with the fiery, passionate, all-or-nothing stakes of youth -- some of these events were rather defining for me. I was thinking of one of the less traumatic (possibly even redemptive of...something...) ones this morning as I hurriedly recorded my lines for tomorrow's film gig in the hopes of absorbing them through audio osmosis. In a history class in what I recall as being my junior year of high school, I gave a presentation on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and afterward a guy who had given me a hard time in the past rather announced to the class, "Hey, you were acting. That was just like when you act." Somehow I had the presence of mind not to feel injured by this call-out (it was definitely an effort to draw negative attention to me) and I calmly responded, "Yeah, I was. I can do that." And sat down. And the class continued, my would-be persecutor left scratching his head a bit at why acting was allowed in class.

Yesterday I returned to Hunter College to teach an Intro. to Theatre class about the (living) history of commedia dell'arte. I've taught similar classes at Hunter before, though always a shorter class with more students, and to date always with my commedia partner-in-crime, Heather Stuart. This was, in other words, something of a new experience for me. Oh, and in addition to these circumstances, it was my first time really teaching solo for a class of desk-bound students -- generally non-actors who hadn't any expressed interest in getting out of the seats to try the work on for size. I was made a little nervous by it. (Ironically, I got three potential In Bocca al Lupo-ers out of them, but I couldn't have known that was a possibility ahead of time.) As far as I was concerned, I was there to lecture. In my own, inimitable style.

Said "inimitable style" involves quite a bit of amateurish waffling and tangential thinking.

The class went well, actually, I think. The teacher, Sascha Just, was complimentary afterward. Most of the people seemed to be engaged most of the time, and I certainly never ran out of things to talk about. There were gaffs, and the lesson plan needs more work for certain, but in balance I'd say it was a success. I was pleasantly surprised by some techniques I implemented that were half-planned, half-spun-out-on-the-spot; rather like working from a scenario. I asked the students periodically to imagine themselves in the shoes of a commedia dell'arte troupe of the 1500s; not in a "picture-this" way, but more actively, using modern equivalents and inviting them to draw images without requiring that they do so. This worked to wake them from note-taking stupors, and also helped us find a common ground when I got cyclical or tangential in whatever aspect I was covering at a given moment. "Where was I? Back to the piazza...." I also had the idea to tell them to interrupt me whenever they had a question or a reaction. They didn't take me up on this too much, but a little, and I was pleased with how it kept things lively and served to illustrate the level of interaction traditional commedia had with its unpretentious audiences.

I was acting. I was very much putting on a show. In another interesting parallel, though, it reminded me of the first time I used mask work in performance. This was not in a commedia context, per se, but it did involve a similar half-mask style. I was suddenly divorced from a powerful component of my acting -- my facial expressions. I had to relearn what read to an audience, which gestures and intonations would connect without facial cues, and I can assure you that it was a rocky start to demonstrating that particular skill. Hopefully I've improved since. Hopefully, too, I'll learn more and more about teaching a class in an actual classroom, as opposed to a theatre, or movement studio. I couldn't jump about too much there, and it affected everything from my method of description to changes in my overall energy pattern. I had quite a patter kept up; definitely could have afforded a bit more relaxation, but by the same token I believe my enthusiasm for the subject was welcome.

I left feeling very gratified. In a way, finding this new way of expressing the essentials of commedia dell'arte renewed my excitement for it, which will be very valuable indeed in the coming month. My enthusiasm while teaching in Italy will be genuine. I won't even have to act!

Er, wait . . .

Alternating Realities

Warning: I will be spoiling the new Star Trek movie for you. If you haven't seen it and give a tootin' holler, go read this instead.

So, apparently, everything we've ever been taught by the cinema about extra-normal time travel is wrong. Go figure. I can't say how we can be wrong about something that at this time exists purely in our imaginations, but if such a blunder is possible, I'm sure Hollywood can find seventeen ways to achieve it in but one script session. It would seem that paradoxes, changing the past and alternate time lines, as such, aren't. I'm certainly crushed. There goes one of Hollywood's greatest plot crutches. I'm sure we'll never, ever have another story that ever uses time travel to the screenwriters' advantage ever again ever.

Unless, of course, someone goes back in time and changes that.

In the new Star Trek, the world of the 60s television show is effectively re-imagined, with lots of lens glare and "hand-held" close-ups. I am told the kids are calling this a "reboot" and, indeed, I noticed they put new boots on the Federation uniforms. This reboot is explained, justified, and otherwise meant to be made more palatable by way of time-travel incidences and alternate realities. (Alternate time lines = bogus. Parallel universes = apparently not ruled out just yet.) My biggest complaint about the movie -- which I enjoyed, by the way -- was how adamantly they established and reinforced this argument for making fresh new choices about Star Trek backstory. Just under the scene-after-scene of repetitive expository dialogue I could detect the seismic effects of so many screenwriters giving themselves pats on their backs. Thank you. Yes. I get it. The future is now, conveniently, mostly, unwritten.

It did, however, get me thinking about alternate realities. It's not inconceivable to much smarter people than me that there are multiple universes in which an incredible variation of common elements occur. We tend to be pretty narrow in our conception of such alternate dimensions, imagining them largely as revolving around us and our personal choices in life. But who knows? If the alternate realities are as infinite as we believe space and time to be, anything we can conceive of might occupy one or several. A moss universe. A universe in which the motions of the planets are determined by the game mechanics of backgammon. If nothing else, the notion of alternate realities is a very decent metaphor for, or illustration of, the human imagination.

Viewed through the filter of my comicbook-ridden mind, the new film makes Kirk our Batman, Spock our Superman. Kirk is the vigilante anti-hero, Spock the alien who wants more than anything to do right (and be accepted), and now both are motivated by parental demise. There even seemed to be an aggressive (in more ways than one) sub-theme of Kirk getting his ass handed to him in fights. These interpretations are not too far from the originals, so I took them in stride and tried not to snigger derisively. (Aw man, they blew up Krypt- . . . I mean, Vulcan . . ..) Uhura is way more bad-ass-er, which they tried really hard to make less-than-obligatory, and then they made her Spock's love interest, thereby reinforcing what Hollywood considers its biggest obligation to its audience: a love story. McCoy's a divorcee drunk, thank you Spielberg, Chekov is adorable, Sulu is exactly who you'd want in a bar fight, and Scottie -- well, Simon Pegg I love you and you can do nothing wrong not even Run, Fatboy, Run.

It's the characters that struck me and stuck with me, you understand. I suppose they were the reason I was there, to see a different troupe tackle archetypes, strap on the classic masks and have a whirl. This can be a recipe for disaster, and this wasn't a disaster, not by a long shot. It's just that the actors came across as more imaginative than the writers, which, keeping with a commedia dell'arte metaphor, is fairly apt. But it would have been nice to have both; maybe next time, or in an alternate parallel universe, somewhere/when/which. Which brings me back around to how we think of these alternate lives we could have had, or are having, in some-dimension else.

It's popular to opine that if we had it all to do over again, we wouldn't change a thing. Even when we think about changing something, many of us realize that we sort of like who we are -- the only "who" we know -- and we wouldn't be said "who" without the "what" we were given, when it was given. Or perhaps taken, depending upon your philosophy and/or theology. At any rate, the experience of our age just allows the slightest logical space to daydream about the past, and what-if scenarios. "What-if," I'm not the first to say, is an essential element in all aspects of acting. It's that logical crack that lets a little imaginative fresh air and warm light into the room. As Friend Melissa quotes Leonard Cohen, "There is a crack, a crack, in everything - that's how the light gets in...." There are people we have been, as we've grown, who in retrospect seem as foreign to us as strangers. Personally, I'm usually embarrassed by my former incarnations; but there are a few of me that I still love, that I'll always love, and will never quite be again.

Fortunately, there are no paradoxes, so I can visit with those guys any time I want, and the universe(s) is safe from implosion.

Nice Place You've Got Here . . .

" . . . lots of space . . ."

I have rarely been so tempted by the university setting as when I arrived at Swarthmore College yesterday. In fact, I'm a little frustrated by their website. If I ran things there (and just give me time) there'd be a gallery devoted to the scenery. It was misty, gray and generally chilly out, and I was still blown away by lovely architecture, a long, green lawn, and it was all backed up by forest that descended to a river valley. Gorgeous. I arrived a bit early, and walked about, checking things out. In my brief progress, I found an enormous amphitheatre built into the forest, stone walling etching out green lawned levels, studded with 150-year-old oak trees here and there. Took my breath away with theatrical possibilities. I was a little disappointed not to be working there, even given the nasty weather.

Then I found the space in which we would be working.

Tarble Hall is a movement-studio-slash-performance-space within Clothier Hall, which appears to be a converted church space, complete with monk's walk surrounding a small courtyard, a bell tower, and of course a worship space. Well, where they put us was in the worship space -- twelve feet up. The space has been converted in such a way that a movement floor was put in right about where the large ceiling begins to angle steeply together, replete with ornately carved beams and arches. Below it is an access hallway to the other rooms off the ground floor of the main building. The effect is rather like one is in a long, ample movement studio suspended in space. The floor was well-sprung, and it was rigged for performances at either end or, really, wherever you felt like it. Some spaces invite you to perform, to fill them out with motion. This was such a place, in spades. I was awed.

And, I'm afraid that probably showed through in my teaching. It wasn't exactly a bad class, but it definitely wasn't my best. I had some trouble holding everything together with 22 students, giving them both an overview and a practical approach to commedia dell'arte. It was partly awe, partly the weather and partly travel fatigue. And, as I say, it wasn't a bad class. It was just that at times I thought to myself, "You know, this has felt much more intense and cool before...." That having been said, I think everyone had fun and learned a little something. About midway through, I broke out the "tag trick" to wake everyone up a bit. The tag trick is to convince everyone that you are about to do an exercise that is very serious and requires a lot of concentration, then tag someone and tell them they're "it." It usually serves to get people laughing at themselves a bit. I usually fail to keep a sufficient deadpan for the set-up, and this class was no exception.

All in all, it was an interesting dynamic with this class. I spent a lot of time considering how to loosen them up, and I'm not sure that I was altogether successful. I think I would have benefited from giving them a few more opportunities to perform. They certainly responded well to what opportunities I did manage to give them. If I ever return, I'll put more emphasis on outlining ideas, then asking them to take the ball and run. That's my preferred way of working anyway; if I was more didactic this time, it had everything to do with being excited to have authentic commedia dell'arte training to draw from since working with Angelo Crotti.

Perhaps my favorite moment of the class, actually, occurred during break. One of the students was working on a handstand, and I coached him a bit, encouraging him to try for alignment rather than arching his back for balance. Another student joined in as I was explaining the importance of pushing up through the upper palm, and they both noticed considerable improvement in their ability to stick it. I think this was the best moment of me and students meeting halfway in our enthusiasm and focus, and I relished it. I wrote not too long ago (see 4/13/09) about the value in inviting people to learn, instead of requiring it, and learning to invite in as compelling a way as possible. I'm enjoying working on that skill, be it in a rather run-down office, or the most beautiful movement space I've ever before seen.