The world's always just about to end in New York City. It's not just a staple of our cinema, but a strange background noise to all the on-going construction and planning for the future. We traded in our "THE END IS NIGH" wearable placards a long time ago for ones that read things like "CASH 4 GOLD" and "Flashdancers - 2 4 1!" Because we're used to the idea. So much so, that when this date finally rolled around, we just hoped it'd be something interesting, like a giant creature or zombie plague, rather than the plain ol' typhoons and militant citizenry.
I've entertained an apocalyptic fantasy or two in my time. John Hodgman sums up this type of fantasy pretty succinctly when he describes it as one in which we envision ourselves not only as survivors, but special survivors - the ones too wily to wilt in the face of Armageddon.
I honor today's date over at one of the Tumblr 'blogs I oversee with Friend +Dave Younce - Post-Apocalyptic Fashion - with the kind of pragmatically light-hearted look that comes natural to a naturalized New Yorker: A Very Merry End-o-the-World to You! Please enjoy, and if you've gotta go - go out with some style...
Editor's Note: Once again, I'm adapting personal email into 'blog posts. I shall mutlti-task, and you shall dig it. This comes out of a discussion with a director friend of mine who was tasked with considering a production of Richard III based on a graphic-novel approach.
So: "a pre-1700's graphic novel story," eh? First of all: Do we mean a graphic
novel written and drawn in the "pre-1700s"? A graphic novel set in
the "pre-1700s"? And why the "pre-1700s"? Do we set Richard the Three in 1699, or Roman-occupied Ireland, or dare
we make it 1485? {Ed.: I've since learned that the particular audience in discussion rejects any Shakespeare set later than that as being too much a departure from historical accuracy. Hilarious.}
But my greater confusion here is what on earth we mean by "graphic
novel." That's a little bit like saying, "Let's produce a Richard the
Third like a pre-1700s movie story." Graphic novels are a medium about
as varied as cinema.
But not everyone knows that, and were I to assume (thereby making an
ass out of you and ume) a thing or two, I might assume we mean a sort
of highbrow comicbook approach. Somehow. Which is still about as clear
as the mud from which one might need a horse in order to extricate
oneself.
My assumption however is based on the following facts:
The
most commercially viable and well-known printed graphical storytelling
of the prior and current centuries has been "comic books"; and
"Graphic novels" is a popular term
for comic books when you're trying to lend them prestige, or raise
people's opinions of them from out of the pulp.
The
term "graphic novels" also frequently refers to works that have a
little more length or over-arcing story to them than some, but that usage is a
little reductive as it implies all "graphic novels" were written in one go
(like a novel) when in fact the majority were originally published in a serial manner. Comic books, in other words,
then collected into the so-called graphic novel. So what are we to do with a concept based on highbrow comicbooks? In short (HA HA HA) there are too many different kinds of
graphic novels to know what we mean when we use that ill-defined term, and the
differences traverse everything from art to layout to content. A few varietals:
Maus
- seminal in raising the reputation of comicbooks; it casts mice as
Jews and cats as Nazis in a true story of one family's experience of the
Holocaust
The Dark Knight Returnsand Watchmen
- in a fit of zeitgeist, Frank Miller and Alan Moore both
eschew/satirize the bubblegum aesthetic of superhero comics; Miller by
taking a classic hero and giving him hard-boiled moral ambiguity, and
Moore by taking superhero archetypes and subjecting them to a dystopian
environment and socio-political realities
From Hell
- Alan Moore here again, this time writing an exhaustively long
"graphic novel" that delves into one possible explanation for the
identity of Jack the Ripper
Sandman
- what began as a pitch by Neil Gaiman to revitalize some of DC Comics'
forgotten characters evolved into an epic story with a beginning,
middle and end that chronicles the king of dreams (and his family:
Death, Desire, Despair, Destiny, Destruction and Delirium [formerly
Delight]) whilst tying in extensive details from the world's mythology, literature
and religion
Ma' humps, ma' humps...
And those are fairly conventional examples, as far as just form
goes.
I suppose the thing I can't quite wrap my mind around yet is why
exactly to apply this concept to this particular work of Shakespeare's. As I
see it, there are other plays of his - even other Histories - that might
be better fits.
Henry V is a pretty good Superman/superheroanalogue. Hell, the Henry VIs have those constant turn-overs that would make pretty interesting structure for exploring "serialized" storytelling on stage. Richard III may be episodic enough for serialized storytelling, if that's the angle, but I can't quite make it work without adding layers.
Recently it has been tremendously popular to adapt graphic novels into movies and, even more recently, television.
The Walking Dead, for example, is an on-going serialized story that's perfect for television. But they also adapted Watchmen
into a film, which tried to do too much and with so much flash that the vital humanity of the story was lost. Even Ang Lee made a
superhero movie with the first Hulk
Hollywood blockbuster, which in my opinion is practically a lesson in what elements
NOT to take from graphic storytelling when adapting from it.
When they go
wrong, what many adaptions have done is adhered too closely either to
the content or the form of graphic storytelling (or both). When a graphic-novel story is transported
cross-media, it's an injustice not to re-conceive at least a little. Two Frank Miller comics have been adapted into what most consider to be quite successful movies - his Sin City and 300 - and both with a keen eye on staying loyal to the aesthetic of the source material. I would argue, however, that as graphically similar as these movies are to the artwork from which they came, they are in fact very thoroughly re-imagined into a cinematic landscape. Miller went on to direct his version of The Spirit, which copped Sin City's look and failed miserably, lacking the originality of the other two adaptations.
Graphic novels, or comicbooks, work because of the spaces between
the panels and how our minds fill those in. They give you some of the
interpretive freedom of books or radio, with more of the visual
fireworks of TV or film. It takes a certain amount of mental coding to
read them, but that can be learned intuitively, and when a good unity
between the words, layout and illustrations can be achieved, the
story-telling is enhanced.
Simply sliding that on top of a film, the languages do not converse. Movies are all about seeing change, seeing it very closely. Just because one of the steps to creating them involves story-boarding doesn't mean that a medium that utilizes frames and composition will automatically translate. You're still filling in the white spaces. You're still animating the iconic. When it comes to adapting a live show into a "graphic novel" context, there are a few examples from which to pull, but most of them take a fairly satirical (or lightly tongue-in-cheek) slant and have more to do with traditional superhero comics than more varied graphic storytelling. I was in a production of Stand-Up Tragedy in college for which the director brought the main character's comicbook imagination somewhat to life on stage with enormous puppet cut-outs, but that was for one sequence only and functioned rather more as a simple staging element than as anything functional. Vampire Cowboys here in New York have done many a popular show using comicbook tropes, but these are largely original productions and focus on the combat elements (not a bad notion at least by the end of Richard III). I don't know of any examples specific to only the medium itself - not the characters within them, for example.
So anyway: why Richard III in this context? Perhaps we are thinking of him as a character similar to superheroes like Marvel's
X-Men mutants, who are ostracized and persecuted for being different, said
difference being what makes them special and powerful? Perhaps Richard's
story is episodic enough to remind of serialized story-telling - there
is a strong procession of scenes of mounting ambition and stakes.
Perhaps we're thinking aesthetically of something that utilizes
iconography, or stained-glass windows, both of which comic books owe
something to.
Yet in discussing all this, what I'm struck by is a very different idea.
Richard III
reminds me of nothing so much as the trend in television over the last
five years or so for highly successful, critically acclaimed shows to
feature a main character who is morally flawed. Don Draper of Mad Men is a philanderer, Walter White of Breaking Bad is someone we've watched become (or simply come into being) a ruthless criminal, Dexter is a fracking serial killer, and a host of other shows have followed suit - Damages, Boss, etc. In other words, tragedy makes for great television. In terms of a contemporary hook for RIII,
that's where my mind goes. Those shows are incredibly effective, and we
root for some of the worst characters in them the hardest. Did this begin with Tony Soprano, or Richard the III?
I have no ideas, however, about how to invite those influences on a production. That's an entirely other conversation. One we should have soon!
In the waning days of 2006 I started this here 'blog in the interests of exerting a bit more control over my online presence. It probably speaks volumes to my misconceptions about the Internet that I imagined I could "control" my online presence, but at the time I had just had a website put up for me, and simply wanted to contribute to that effort in a more personal way. After a short time, I found a guiding principle for the 'blog, which I decided would be used to explore and expound upon my efforts to live what I called "The Third Life." That is, a life lived outside of conventional norms and perspectives, one that aspires to be about more than just home and work, that incorporates something else (see 12/19/06, but also, and perhaps more interestingly, 2/21/08).
In the five years since I started the Aviary, one or two things have changed. I've been involved in myriad productions of great variety, including one low-budget sci-fi film and several original collaborations, traveled to and performed in Italy four times, and performed an extended-run NYC Fringe show that I helped develop. I got to play Romeo, well past my freshness date for that particular role. I moved three times, once between Brooklyn and Queens, and I took up aerial silks. Friend Andrew and I dared to experiment with a performance collective. I've acted, written, choreographed, directed, curated and devised. In that time I also changed day jobs and taught in various capacities, including joining a UK-based corporate training company. Most significantly, my sister moved out of the city, and I married a woman I've known and loved since I was seventeen.
For a little over a month now, my evenings and a significant part of my weekends have been devoted to rehearsals for and performances of a play called Sacred Ground. It was written by my fellow As Far As We Know collaborator, Christina Gorman, and is the first time I've worked with her since we departed that show. Sacred Ground also represents the first naturalistic drama in which I've acted in the city since Lie of the Mind - which, as some may recall, did not garner me the most magnificent of notices. Well, it's only taken me about four years to get over that, and so I've been dutifully applying my craft to a rather down-to-earth, straight-forward drama. And I've enjoyed it. And I'd say I've even done a fairly respectable job.
It was very interesting, returning to a conventional off-off-Broadway rehearsal schedule in NYC. Rehearsals went rather late, and something about that - combined with working with all-new people (other than Christina), and tackling something by which I was more than a little intimidated - came to remind me very poignantly of how I generally existed in my 20s. There was almost literally no stopping, from day job, to rehearsal, to wherever life took me next. I'm just not as resilient now, and the hours came to take their toll on me toward opening. There were dark circles under my eyes and dark thoughts crowding my spare moments. I really felt the personal sacrifices I was making to be a part of this play, and that was another difference between the 80-hour weeks of my 20s and now.
I have loved the part. My character, Father William, is one with whom I can uniquely identify. There was even a time when I contemplated going to seminary (though never have I contemplated converting to Catholicism) and his sensitivity and passionate need to help were another reminder to me of my earlier decade. I can't, of course, speak to how successful I've been overall with my portrayal of him, but he has felt to me like a good match for my particular personality and skills (in spite of the lack of opportunity for self-effacing pratfallery). The experience of the show, trials and rewards and all, has felt redemptive of a few lingering personal regrets in a lot of ways - fulfilling exactly what I wondered about its potential when I auditioned for it.
It's also got me thinking about acting in a different way. It's strange how the process tosses us around, a profanity of effort for one sacred experience. It's incredible how hard actors have to work, yet for ultimately so very little ownership of what they create. At best, actors co-own a collection of moments. For stage actors in particular, those moments are as temporal as anything in life. Theatre actors have to sweat through constant insecurity and uncertainty, stand up for their perspective and submit to others' needs in rapid turns, and the immaterial reward is to stand in front of a large group for a time and accept the possibility that they are "with" him or her in a given moment. God in heaven, why would anyone do this for less than big money, or at the very least a livable wage?
This perspective on acting has been developing with me for some time now, but my experiences on Sacred Ground have helped me put it into more cohesive language and context. In part, I can understand this view because of some of the challenges I experienced directing The Puppeteers. During that process, I continually found myself vacillating between the perspectives of a new director doing his best to make something a little daring and different, and that of myself as an actor in a Zuppa del Giorno show. It's often said that the best quality an actor can have is the ability to access a child-like self or state. I have to wonder if actors are given any choice in the matter, really. Every scrap of their work is entering an unknown world head-first. They are effectively forced to make mistake after mistake after mistake, and surrender themselves to forces they've no hope of fully comprehending.
Nearly five years on from my first post - and on this, my five-hundredth - the landscapes of many things have changed. Not the least of which is the landscape of the Internet itself. I've succumbed somewhat to the more-visual and less-verbal style of the "tumblelog" here and there, posting tiny entries that do nothing so much as capture (and attempt to render somewhat less temporal) brief moments of contemplation. I thought, however, that I'd return to a bit of my former style for this post. At least the length and varied direction is a return. My tone, however, has undeniably altered. Well, it's still pretentious and overwrought - don't get me wrong. It's also less immediately gratifying, I think, and looks a little farther into the horizon.
When I examine my life now, I've got no true regrets. That was one of my goals as a college student, about to venture into adult life and trying to make sense of what I wanted from it - to have no regrets. At the time, that meant pursuing a life as a professional actor, heedless of anything else. Now, my personal "Third Life" has more in it than that, and some potential for a greater richness of experience. It's taking a certain amount of courage to embrace that, to embrace everything I want. But I've done it before. I'll do it again.
Or: A Blatant and Frankly Uninspired Excuse to Post Photos of Christina Hendricks
Maybe it's just my recent stint on Pavarti K. Tyler's (nee Devi) 'blog, but lately I've been mulling over some of my opinions on more risque subjects. (Well, more risque than normally occupy this particular space, anyway.) Today I found a couple of items that reminded me of one of these long-held opinions. The first such item had to do with Christina Hendricks' long-held desire (longevity at least in Internet scale) to play Wonder Woman, and her Drive director Nicolas Refn's claim that not only was he interested in bringing that particular character to the big screen, but that Hendricks would be his...er...woman. The second had to do with Refn's particular take on the character and her world, insofar as he's dreamed it up.
These public discussions about Hollywood casting rarely yield results, even when they're held after the movie deal has already been picked up, much less so when every single person involved in the conversation is speaking hypothetically. Now, too, studios are banking way too many dollars on their superhero franchises to leave decisions about casting to people standing so far from the board room. Case in point: Donald Glover for Spider-Man. An amazing groundswell of support (though, too, controversy) responded to the suggestion he play Spidey for the reboot, and that sure didn't work out. So I'm not banking on a Hendricks/Refn Hellenic team-up any time soon.
What the possibility does raise is a couple of issues I'd like to address.
The first is the as-yet-unspoken gimmick of one of the few lauded curvy celebrities playing a superhero who is also - let's face it - a sex symbol. (And feminist symbol; and if you don't believe me, do a web search for "William Moulton Marston" and "wonder+woman+bondage." [With safe-search activated {Of course.}.]) Christina Hendricks has somehow tread a brilliantly slender line in her career, being both of ample figure and widely regarded as sexy (and in some [these] circles, to "sexy," please append "as all hell"). And lest we forget, a damn fine actor, regardless. So we can say Ms. Hendricks would be an unconventional choice for the Woman, yet a potentially popular one. Sex sells in Hollywood.
Detractors would complain that she isn't hot enough, or that she's fat. Neither is the case, by a long shot. Would-be supporters might argue that of course she's sexy - just look at that bust. To whom I must respond, of course that doesn't hurt (not in a bad way, anyway) but if you think that's why she's beautiful, you're missing it by a-mile-and-a-half. And finally, some really, truly, well-intentioned fanboys might cry that she has the nerd pedigree for her Firefly connection, and that with a dye job and some sit-ups they will welcome her with loving arms. Add to that a few of us who might even feel a little earned self-righteousness from endorsing a full-figured super-heroine. I am no better than these hypothetical people, but all of these miss the point when it comes to Hendricks as a good choice for Wonder Woman's boots.
Christina Hendricks would be a brilliant Wonder Woman (particularly if paired with a director with real ingenuity, like Refn) because she understands all the complexity involved in and strength needed for navigating life as a determined woman with a powerful - not to mention inescapable - sexual identity. Not only has she had to see past the limitations of others' assumptions, but she's succeeded in being associated with good work that she presumably has a personal appreciation for. In some ways, this is a scenario in which any woman finds herself, in some way and on a daily basis. I just happen to think Hendricks is well-qualified to portray that fight with unique grace and sensitivity.
Issue the second that this brings up for me is perhaps a less socially significant one; yet more important personally (I'm somewhat ashamed to admit). It also brings up a criteria that might put my dear Ms. Hendricks to the test, in a way.
Women who work wear muscle.
Look, I'm not a body-building fetishist, any more than girls who lust after brawny Hollywood hunks are. Taken to extremes, muscle mass is often freakish and Geiger-esque. The trouble is, ideas of contemporary beauty seem to limit us from finding any developed musculature on women appetizing. What is that? And why must it be used as an excuse for me to suffer through another fight scene such as this:
I mean: really.
The bad examples are too numerous to relate, and I can only think of a few positive ones; among them, Terminator 2 and G.I. Jane. T2 is of course well known for how impressive a transformation Linda Hamilton made. In particular, she went from making an especially soft impression in 1984 to a very lean and angular one. I don't mean to detract from that at all - it was impressive - but I also have images of Ms. Hamilton spending quite a bit more time on aerobics than anyone in her character's situation likely would. To wit: still an emphasis on weight loss. G.I. Jane's Demi Moore did quite a shade better, daring to wear biceps and actually demonstrating her strength on film.
These examples remain in the minority, however. Most Hollywood images of powerful heroines still favor slinky dresses and long legs over developed shoulders. Sometimes this leaner physical type is handled better than others. Smart fight choreographers put such nimble minxes in fights in which they get to move fast and use lots of kicks and lower-body advantage (real advantage, rather than the fetishistic "leg lock" depicted in the video above), and intelligent directors offer plot-related explanations for ballet-bodied ladies putting the smack down on crews of mercenaries.
But please to be noting, if you will, the distinction between the way the admittedly wonderful Summer Glau looks, and the way a woman (Bridget Riley) who spends her days actually working on fighting does:
(To her enormous credit, Glau does manage that scorpion kick much better than Riley.)
I know movies are not reality, and that men don't always rise to similar challenges, either (it would seem the Internet hasn't favored us with a capture of Kilmer's shirtless scene in Batman Forever). In recent years, however, Hollywood has held to a truer physical standard for their male superheroes, and I'd like to see a little courage in applying those standards to Wonder Woman, whenever she finally appears. Some may argue that women don't put on mass in the same way most men do, and this is the where the topic really does get a little personal for me.
They do. They so do. It may not always read the same on women, but hard work = muscles. I have had the pleasure of working with female circus performers off and on during my acting career, and in particular in the past two years as I've studied aerial silks I've gotten to see women physically transform over the course of time. I can say with absolute confidence that when a women practices pulling herself up a few yards of fabric once a week for a month or two, not only do her arms get more defined, they grow larger muscles. Girls have guns, gang. Respect.
That's it. In sum: Christina Hendricks, with some push-ups, as Wonder Woman: Yes. The larger issue is that I believe the predominant opinion of feminine beauty pretty much sucks. My two little opinions above don't even begin to cover it, of course. Plus they address my personal preferences just as much as Hollywood's bias, I suppose. That's all completely subjective, but I know female fighters have real arms, and nobody in this lifetime's going to convince me Christina Hendricks is less than beautiful or talented. But I pretty much expect the accusations of personal taste to start rolling in, so...hang on...lemme just get my latest issue of Guns & Curves in hand so I can read it (for the articles) at my leisure as the flame-war commences (I should be so lucky, to have such readership)...
A collaboration with Pavarti over on The Node, submitted sans comment:
Loch Ness Monster - Chronic Insecurity
Far from his reputation for being "elusive," the Loch Ness monster is all up in e'rybody's grills, all the time. "I'm told I'm the best at hiding," he'll let you know at any available opportunity, all while preening for some unwitting tourist's camera. Then the photographer will try to leave, and Nessy will be all, "Oh, you have to go, huh? Right now? What've you got planned? Who are you meeting? It's not Duncan, is it? Well can I come?" If you say yes, you'll have to discretely text Duncan and anyone else to give them fair warning while Nessy stumps along behind, talking incessantly about being the best at walking on fins. And if you say no, well...have you ever had such huge, wet, black eyes stare at you while a prehistoric amphibian mumbles something about guessing he understands, what with how close you and Duncan are and all? Actually, it's not so much that no one can capture Nessy - it's that they quickly discover there's too high a price to pay for that particular accomplishment.
Vampire with Seasonal Effective Disorder
Nosferatu's attitude is just turning south. We JUST turned the clocks back, isn't his depression supposed to hold off at least until December? I don't know if I can take another winter in this cave with him. The rest of us are partying, thrilled to be able to have so much time out in the world, but whiny pants just can't stop muttering about needing a UV lamp. Seriously? He can't have that thing in here, if he wants to burst into flames that's fine but other people live here too and personally I'm perfectly happy without the tan.
Yeti - Body Dismorphia
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE! You are not supposed to BE here! Oh, GOD! I don't have nettles in my fur, my claws aren't christened with fresh ram's blood, and...OH! Well, the timing couldn't be worse. I mean, I've only consumed five whole rams per day for the past three months. Of course I look WAY too skinny. If I had known you were coming, I could've plumped up a bit and been properly Neanderthal, or closer, anyway. If I had known...but it's too late now, isn't it? You've seen. You're already judging my fur. IT'S TOO SILKEN, YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT?! Some of us just have finer hair, and that's all there is to it. You know, we just, like, get the wrong impressions from the media. Ever since that damn WAMPA movie came out - you know the one - we're all supposed to be 500 pounds and have HUGE tusks. Forget it. I'm going to go eat a truckload of vegetables and then get a bikini wax. That'll show you. THAT'LL SHOW YOU ALL!"
Chupacabra - Trichotillomania
Hi. Uh, hi! Down here! Yes, hi. I, uh...I don't go to parties very often. I don't know why, I guess I just don't think of it. How are the pigs-in-a-blanket? No, no, I haven't tried them. Too cooked, you know how it is. Plus I'm kind of full. Um, so.... What? Oh yeah, I'm fine. Why? Oh, the mange, you mean? No, it is, it's mange. Um, well.... I don't really think it's a problem, but I kind of maybe over-groom. A bit. A little bit. I'm going to stop. Totally. I mean, I know it's a little off-putting, what with the scabs and all, but hey, look: you try combing with these fangs some time and see where you get. So anyway, how about that Middle Eastern sit -ACK! Oh, excuse me. ACK-ACH! ACGGGGGGHHHHCHOHKK! Oh wow. Sorry. Hairball. I...hey, where are you going? Okay. Can you maybe grab me a bit of the goat tartare, if there's some left?
Wolfman with Classic Narcissism
I find it difficult to go out. You know, there's always that feeling of living up to what people expect of you. I mean, really, I just want to be a guy. I know that I intimidate a lot of folks but, it's just hair. It's luscious and soft and stays perfectly in place but in the end it's really just hair. Always having to be the beautiful one really takes its toll on me. One day I'd love to just be the fat friend or the ugly friend, you know, stay out of the limelight, but it seems like no matter what I do, everyone's eyes are trained on me. I guess that's the price you pay for beauty...
Jersey Devil - Performance Anxiety
Guys, I'm starting to worry about Jersey, for reals now. Ever since we did that tour through Connecticut, he's been missing practices and spending lots of money on new gear. He says he's working on new stuff, but he won't let me hear any of it. Just mumbles something about "progressive alt-anti-folk with a dub-step beat" and how "it's not ready yet." I mean, he's got the perfect metal look and all, but even on tour, didja notice his bass just kept getting quieter...and quieter? And, I mean, I'm not even that close to him or anything, but even Delaware Succubus thinks something's up. She said something about "gone soft," or "completely impotent," or whatever...
The Boogey Man with Generalize Anxiety Disorder
Sometimes I just feel so overwhelmed. Like I just want to crawl under a rock and die. There's so much to do, so many kids to traumatize and so much pressure to really get it right. You know there are movies about me? And books and songs!? But whenever I'm out with the guys I just feel so disconnected, they have jobs and families they can talk about and I just feel the panic rising in my chest whenever the conversation turns my directions. Lately I don't go out at all. I feel safest in my room. This Saturday there's a bachelor party for The Blob and I don't want to go. Just the idea of all those people, god, I feel like I'm going to throw up just talking about it. F%*#...I can't catch my breath...I need to just go lie down for a while...
Medusa - Battered Person Syndrome
This fall, check out the new romantic comedy from the people who brought you Over Her Dead Body and Mannequin: On the Move! In spite of her seductive good looks, nothing has worked for Medusa - bars, speed and online dating, even her shadchen can't help this brash beauty out. Men seem to just freeze up around her. Her so-called friend Athena even switches her conditioner with ammonium thioglycolate. Some girls just can't catch a break! And just when she was starting to get comfy with the idea of eating in every night for the rest of her life, along comes an intrusive neighbor: Perseus. He's ripped, he's rude, and he's got a bad attitude - and Medusa just can't get enough of him! Watch her try to circumnavigate his gruff exterior, and find the loving man she knows he can be, if he'll just stop hysterically screaming and weilding blades!
It seems I can't stay away from festivals. Play festivals, that is (which, sidenote here, should really involve more traditional "festival" elements: streamers, confetti, [more] libidinous excess, etc.). Love Me and the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity have wrapped up - with some very nice houses and a good review, I might add - and I am in rehearsal for another festival with a play called Laid Plans. This one is a part of The Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival (henceforth, "The SFOOBSPF") and is a mere thirty minutes long, which is good, because it's in concert with several other short pieces in its time slot.
The best part about being a part of a festival is how much gets taken care of for you. You have venue and some basic facility provisions, likely some advertising, more appeal for reviewers to make the trip and a certain amount of additional credibility. I don't know how strictly scripts are vetted from one festival to another, but odds are that plays that have to pass any kind of screening at all are likely to be safer bets for an audience than ones produced solely by the playwright. The worst part about being a part of a festival is the following conversation:
"Hey! I'm seeing your show tonight!"
"Hey! I'm pretty sure you aren't!"
"What? Why?"
"We don't have a show tonight."
"But it's Friday."
"Yeah, I know. We have one Sunday."
"Oh; okay. A matinee?"
"Sort of. It starts at 2:00."
"I can do that!"
"A.M."
"Two o'clock in the morning?"
"Yeah. Give or take 15 minutes, of course, given that the show before us has to dismantle their lasers before we can even enter the space to set up."
"Um..."
"Hey, don't worry: You can catch my next production."
"Oh good, cool. When does it run?"
"Saturday, July 17, at 9:00. PM. And maybe the next day, depending on how well we do."
Theatre festivals invariably involve some ridiculously tight and erratic scheduling in order to take full advantage of taking over one or more theatres for a few weeks. This has a certain charm when you have the reputation of one of the Fringe festivals, and even in that case it gets pretty confusing pretty fast, and productions still end up having to oblige seats with butts for some impossibly impractical showtimes. Still, they're fun, and there's something pleasing about being a part of something larger in this way. "Larger still," I should say, since being a part of any production is being a part of something more than oneself. Layers upon layers, people...
I've never participated in The SFOOBSPF before, and am looking forward to discovering how it all works. Planet Connections I found to be rather similar to my two FringeNYC experiences (As Far As We Know and La Vigilia) in terms of practical concerns, though generally more focused in purpose and rather better organized--simply because it is less sprawling than the Fringe. The utterly strange thing is the possibility of performing the play only once. It reminds me of high school productions or, more accurately, elementary school ones. It seems an awful lot of work for one, ultimately rather static performance. On the other hand, the stakes for getting a good show off should be nice and motivating.
WAY BACK in November of 2008, when I still had hair (I still have hair), I encouraged you folks to go out and read a little comic called Kick-Ass. I had only read the first issue at the time and, thereafter, I read only through the third or so. (Out of eight? I can't be bothered to Google this?) When I wrote that there 'blog post I promised a movie was in production and, last weekend, said movie opened in wide release. And last night, I observed the playing of said movie. This, then, is my response.
RESPONSE. NOT a CRITIQUE, or even a REVIEW. Just to be clear. Though there will be SPOILERS, me mateys. (Gatling jetpack. Wha-tah! How's that for timing?)
I'll preface this with a few interesting facts about this particular movie deal and my particular choices with regards to how I ingested this morsel of mixed media:
Obviously, I was sold on the concept (as I understood it) straight off.
I elected not to pursue the comic very far so I would not spend the whole movie comparing the two.
The comic got the movie deal from practically the first issue (can't be bothered to Google) and subsequently delayed releases of its issues in an effort to release the final one in the story arc as close to the opening date as possible.
The last issue of the comic that I did read -- though this was not a factor in my decision to stop reading -- I found a little off-putting.
I like comics, action movies and underdog stories.
To be brief: I enjoyed the movie a great deal.
All right, goodnight everybody! Tip the lamb and try your waiters!
[Then he just went on, and on, and then on about the damn movie...]
Those of you fervently tracking my 'blog, eager to analyze my responses to comicbooks and their cinematic interpretations in particular, may be reminded here of my rant on the impracticality of superheroes (see 2/14/08). It's true: Superheroes are entertaining mythology, and an answer to almost nothing practical. In that sense all this hubbub about the moral issues supposedly addressed in Kick-Ass are simply a mess of malarkey. (Points: "hubbub" and "malarkey" in the same sentence.) This film is not immoral, it's amoral, and one simply has to accept that as an aspect of the genre in order to approach it on terms remotely related to its intentions. It's reminiscent of Japanese manga in this sense (not to mention in much of its imagery) -- indulgent fantasy that knows it is indulgent fantasy. Is it immature and irresponsible? Totally. It's a teenager, and that's apt for its story.
That having been said, if this film catches on big, kids are going to emulate and probably get hurt or killed. One can easily argue that such kids will be stupid to begin with, because the movie more than emphasizes the catastrophic physical danger of vigilantism, and one would be right, but one would also be missing the point that many kids are stupid, because they're kids. They haven't had enough experience to reliably process this kind of information with some sense of distance. I know this, because I literally fantasized about sneaking out to "fight crime" when I was a teenager. I didn't see why I couldn't, nor that doing so was in itself criminal, nor even what that actually meant. More on that later. Point: This is an irresponsible movie. End of point.
I had a hell of a good time watching it. I may even buy it when it's released on DVD/Blue-Ray/DRM-FreePsychicImpression, if for nothing else than to revisit some of the brutal, beautifully choreographed "fights." (There was maybe one actual fight in the movie; the rest of the sequences were, to coin a phrase, "heroes" owning "villains.") This film takes a good ol' power fantasy that fanboys have had for at least half a century and just gives it a good, hard nudge into a more relevant setting. Relevant, but not in any sense realistic or naturalistic. Some may be fooled by the many parallels -- far more than even the new Batman films -- between the movie's environment and reality, but to those people I would say only this: Gatling jetpack.
Things I liked:
The action choreography was a really rather interesting blend of tropes and innovation. For an (amoral) example, Hit Girl straight-up kills bad guys, which is really the only way an 11-year-old could be expected to defeat adults, and many of the ways in which she does this are completely over-the-top, but also gratifying in their efficiency.
It did not pull punches in any sense, and was not aiming for any PG-13 rating, which allowed teenagers to be non-idealized and consequences to be heavy (when actual consequences were audacious enough to appear in this movie).
There was a very dark humor throughout, to the extent that I can see why some people seem to think the humor ended about midway through.
Nicolas Cage. I know. I KNOW. He still made gratingly huge acting choices, but if ever there was a movie in which they seemed apt, this is that movie. There was also a fanboy level of appreciating that he was for a long time thought to be Tim Burton's first choice for a very different interpretation of Superman(TM). In particular, the cadence of speech he used for Big Daddy was an astonishingly bizarre, yet recognizable, riff on Adam West's Batman. Fun; lots.
The movie and comic took a nice risk in actualizing a commonly held fantasy with creativity and specificity -- namely, answering the question of what might happen if a teenager followed through on his power fantasy.
Ironically, this last point was what initially intrigued me with the concept, yet also provided my biggest disappointment with the film. I was already rather resigned to this disappointment from the last issue I read (in which Hit Girl makes her splashy entrance) and from the tone of the movie previews, but I can't shake it completely, because I really wanted to see the movie I had fantasized about way back in November of 2008.
The only actual fight that takes place in the film happens about a third of the way in, and involves Kick-Ass fighting three guys in defense of a fourth whom they have chased into his path and proceeded to beat on. This is months after our hero's initial confrontation, in which he is stabbed and then hit by a car, then takes a little time-out to recuperate in the hospital. Before jumping in, he tells a nearby teen to call 911. The fight goes awfully for Kick-Ass, but he manages to first distract the attackers, then straddle the victim and keep them at bay with two batons. He doesn't win in any conventional sense. In other words, he doesn't beat them, but he endures mortal danger until they have to flee, owing of witnesses and the increasing risk of the intervention of the police. I liked this scene in the comic. I love it in the film; the lighting and dressing is gritty, and the direction is frenetic enough to communicate the utter confusion that the fight entails for our hero, while staying removed enough to allow us to distinguish just enough specificity to appreciate the story of the encounter.
The movie I wanted to see -- am in fact left still wanting, quite badly, to see -- is one that continued along that line. It's shortly after this point in Kick-Ass that Big Daddy and Hit Girl are introduced as supposedly more capable superheroes (in fact: vigilantes), complete with tremendous budget and revenge subplot, and everything is amped up. This is the movie (and, I suppose, the comic [the chicken-and-egg here is nigh inconceivable]) they wanted to make and, as I said, I enjoyed it a lot. It's just: What if? I mean this question both in terms of the comic/film, and in terms of continuing what I felt was the set-up and development of the beginning of the story.
What if when our hero gets in over his head, no one is there to bail him out? What if he revisits the hospital? What if he gets involved in the world of crime so deeply that his boundaries start to blur? What if he drops out of school? What if he inspires other teenagers in both directions, heroics and villainy? What if he has to choose whether or not he'll use firearms? What if he kills someone, or even just witnesses murder, and there are actually psychological consequences? What if, somehow, through it all, he actually gets quite good at fighting crime -- what does that entail and lead to in reality? What if he discovers he can't make a difference -- but personally needs to, anyway?
Lately a lot of hybrid superhero movies have been produced, many of them setting themselves in decidedly naturalistic worlds (Defendor comes to mind) but none that I know of approach the idea in such a straight-forward way. No one has made this movie yet, and I'm afraid no one will. Even I balk at writing the story, because I have some pessimistic views about how it might be received by producers and audiences alike. Certainly last night's audience by-and-large would not be pleased with the movie in my head. Yet I'd really like to see it. I think it would be entertaining and interesting, and that it would continually surprise its audience with events that occur with such veracity that anyone can imagine the same thing happening to them. Not to mention that it's the kind of story that is best served in film; no other medium could express it with such specific verisimilitude.
I think it's a shame that Millar and Romita, the creators of the comicbook, didn't go in this direction, but they did create one hell of a ride that probably many, many more people will enjoy. I know I did. The movie does what it says it is.
We like to have fun here at The Aviary, as verbose and pretentious as we can sometimes be. (For example: Referring to ourselves in the collective third person.) Theatre, after all, is all about the play, and so it would be contradictory to approach writing about it without a certain sense of playfulness. Occasionally, however, we have to address serious issues the severity of which no amount of levity can affect. In that this 'blog is about a personal journey as much as it is about larger issues of a fulfilling life and artful journeys, naturally some of these more-serious topics are going to cut pretty close to the bone, and come up here as a result of being personally important to me rather than due to timely relevance or any particular external instigation. In this case, however, the issue is both personal and timely.
The theatre is in serious danger of being killed off. I'm not leaning on hyperbole by phrasing it in this way -- I very specifically mean to suggest a murder. It's a killing by little pieces, a sloughing-off of life as if by erosion, and so it is insidious in the extreme. An alternative form of entertainment is taking over the theatre's former place in our lives, and we may not even appreciate the threat, simply because we are so entertained by it. This form of entertainment is characterized by flashy effects, easy laughs, baser instincts and extremely brief demands on our collective attention span. Moreover, as impossible as it may seem, it is spreading rapidly in popularity by merit of its availability and relative lack of expense, both to produce and to enjoy. There is no greater threat to legitimate theatre, nor has there ever been or likely will be again if we don't take a stand against it in a timely manner.
The new entertainment I refer to is, of course: "The Vaudeville."
Naturally, I know you will react dismissively to this assessment, but I beg of you to hear me out. I, too, rejected the premise when initially it came to me. Though it may seem absurd in the extreme to regard this cheap, new-fangled idiom as any kind of threat to the grandeur and history of the theatre, I have noted several indications of late which suggest that The Vaudeville is not only encroaching upon the theatre's domain, but that it threatens to wholly and utterly usurp said domicile. You will argue against it, naturally. I can not hold this against you. But forgive me whilst I demount any and all of your protests:
The theatre has stood as a standard of verisimilitude for too long to be torn asunder by the actions of gag men. While patently true in its own sense, this argument is actually irrelevant to the particular threat at hand. Of course The Vaudeville can never hope to approach the sheer reality of a truly produced theatrical endeavor; no amount of colloquialism can hope to make up for the utter lack of design and artistry. However, dear friends, note that the equation has reversed in the case of The Vaudeville. It does not seek to imitate life, because life is imitating it.Why, just the other day I approached a fellow in the hopes of acquiring a newspaper, to which request he replied, "Hang it for a tick, guy. My Bob's ah'summin'." Needless to say, I did not remain to inquire who or what constituted this man's "Bob," or in what state of which it could be said to be "ah'summin'." No, recognizing the idiomatic language of the small stage, I departed in terror of this Vaudeville language, or "VAUL-speak."
The Vaudeville, unlike the theatre, does not elevate our beings; in fact, it degrades us with its total lack of style or substance. Again, Dear Reader, I must agree. And yet again, I must with great regret dissuade you of conventional priorities. That is to say -- and I say so with tremendous apology and concern -- the larger audience may not be interested in having their beings elevated. I KNOW, I know: It is an horrifying concept. Yet all my observances of late suggest that people seem to want their entertainment to, above all else, entertain them. This The Vaudeville does exceedingly well, albeit with prattling mechanics and base, visceral humor. Of course we all respect and admire the astonishing word-play of Mr. Shakespeare, particularly when a seasoned actor may truly take his time over each, and every, word . . . but how can we not but laugh when any fool falls to his bumpkin? It is base, as I say, reflexive, even instinctive, but there can be no denying its immediate effect. Laughter-as-opiate can only draw, however gradually, more and more addicts from our ranks of thespian-enthusiasts down to the cellar of The Vaudeville.
But the theatre is an event, a special and discriminating experience that must be planned for, researched, sacrificed for, and ultimately - we may occasionally hope - baffles our expectation! Reader: I know, and I empathize utterly with your devotion. But kindly brace yourself for this next: A growing number of people are valuing convenience. Convenience! It's true: there is nothing so wonderful as the sheer effort involved in attaining the hard-earned income for a ticket to the theatre, attempting to attain that ticket, and thereupon spending more money and time on the ceremony surrounding a trip out to the theatre. Can anything afford greater satisfaction than this? Of course not! The idea is pure tomfoolery! Yet imagine for a moment, if you will, a whole neighborhood of people who are never afforded the opportunity to experience this reward. And why? Because just down the block is a tiny space that costs not two bits to enter, and wherein food and drink are all served amidst a rabble of conversation and entertainment. Terrifying, isn't it? Just. Down. The block. Not two bits, and anyone can not only attend, but contributeto the evening's experience.
Chin up, my friends. We must show no fear in the face of this threat, and stand confident in the continued importance--nay, necessity!--of the theatre. But a threat this The Vaudeville is, and will continue to be, unless we prove our superiority. It is not enough, comrades, to be resolute yet docile in our stuffed-velvet seats. We must rise up, and resist the new order and its slavish devotion to progress with our greatest weapons: Consistency and Ostentation. It is only by relentlessly doing things specifically and exactly the way they have always been done that we can hope to overcome this entertaining, inexpensive and inclusive so-called "theatre." We can do it, my friends. Onward, my histrionic soldiers, onward...
The movie adaptation of Interview with the Vampire came out in theaters in late 1994, plopping it right into my senior year of high school, and bringing Friend Davey and I to Springfield Mall one fine day to see it. Malls, at the time, were one of the few social milieu available to us in our particular environment -- not that we ever talked to anyone there, but that was more us than the environment, I think. At any rate, Springfield was well-waned in popularity at the time, making room for the cleaner, generally fancier Fairfax Mall, so it was strange that as we were leaving the movie I thought I saw someone I knew. Thought, that is, only for a moment. Where at one moment I thought I had seen a familiar pair of eyes and a flash of radiant hair, there was nothing when I checked back. Well, that wasn't so odd. I had just spent a couple of hours in the company of some rather charismatic vampires, after all.
These kids today, with their so-called vampires, glimmering and psychic and whatnot . . . I have zero insight into what social conditions exist for the teenagers of today. They have ten thousand methods of communicating, but who knows how well that works, unless you're one of those who is newly double-digited in age? What I do know is that it's in our teenage years that it grows imperative that we become social creatures, and that a lot of our energy is spent solely on figuring that out. Not all that long ago, a teenager wouldn't be allowed out to a movie without a guardian or chaperon of some kind, terrified as we were of the assignations that might occur. Apart from serving as a rather absolute method of birth control, I can't see that there'd be much point to such restrictions anymore -- they'll only go and render 3D avatars of themselves on 2nd Life and get on with getting to know one another as well as any teenagers could ever hope to.
"Social networking media" has changed a lot of things about our methods of communicating, though it remains to be seen if the content and intention of that communication has changed dramatically. Truth be told, it is in many ways returning us to older forms. Facebook, for example, seems like a kind of oddly tiered public forum until one considers that for years upon years the borders of social circles were similarly enforced, only by money and class instead of who you know (as though the concepts were so extricable). MySpace felt like a sort of coliseum of kill-or-be-killed customization and lecherous advertising by comparison, and Twitter is . . . uh . . . man, I still don't know what Twitter is supposed to be. It feels a bit to me like the one-liner exchanges detectives on a stake-out have, or hunters gathered around a fire, except every single person everywhere is there.
They are all public forums, and there's a mistake in supposing this is something new. An easy mistake, really, because for a long time we've all been pretty focused on privacy. There's nothing wrong with that, obviously. I like my privacy too, but all things in moderation. Time was, being entertained was a social occasion. (I'm about to blow your mind.) A theatre was the place that one would do all this stuff we're now excited to do through computers. Performers and audience alike would have all kinds of dialogue, assignations and accidental encounters. They'd chat, they'd collaborate; I'm sure some of them even occasionally tweeted. That was part of the point -- not to hollow out our private space and be polite to those around us and avoid physical contact, but to engage. We all want to engage. That's what theatre is for.
Now, I'm not going to turn this car around if you all don't start using theatre for what it's for (but give your brother back his shoe, or I will). However, I like the world much more when we're all more engaged. Going to the movies to be alone is ridiculous, in other words, and one cannot live by Netflix alone. By God, yes, please: 'blog & tweet & Xbox & make that avatar dance. It's great stuff. But also, every so often, do something to see and be seen in the flesh, because when we just seek to entertain ourselves in isolation we are little more than soulless bloodsuckers, feeding from our own veins.
I should end it there, and the girl I glimpsed outside of the movie way back in 1994 might remain a figment of our collective imaginations.
On Sunday night that girl and I did some very out-of-character things. First among these was that we were out on a Sunday night; second was that we were seeing a movie; and third was that we were seeing a hopelessly, shamelessly (and I do emphasize here the utter lack of shame) popular movie on its opening weekend. These things are bad enough anywhere, but particularly redolent with practical difficulty in New York City, so I bought tickets in advance and cased the joint to find out where the inevitable line might form, and we spared just enough time to get a little oxygen out of our bloodstreams before joining said line well in advance of the opening of the doors. It was kind of nice, actually. Everyone knew why they were there, and some of us seemed more embarrassed by it than others, but no one could judge; not really. As happens with this sort of meme, this zeitgeist, casual conversations formed amongst strangers. Is this the line for tickets, or a seat? Did they say when the doors would open? I got here just in time, I guess. Look: No one's under 25 here, and there are guys! Lots of guys!
Oh, they try hard to give us plenty of material with which to accuse, but it's true: Teenagers, they are not dumb.
Oh. Hello. Been waiting here long, have you? Here, let me just get out my keys, and . . . . Wow. Which one is it again? Oh right: "Aviary." That makes sense. And to the door which is now, open again. Huzzah! Hello! Welcome! Your back-order of ponderous pontification awaits!
Theatre and technology have in my mind of late been taking interesting waltzes together. This is owing largely to my new adventures in administration with the ACTion Collective, which incorporates a lot of models from Internet media and business, because Collaborator Andrew and I are raging geeks. It also, however, has a thing or two to do with personal discoveries I've been making about my interactions with others. For example, in acknowledgement of finally emptying my inbox (upon purchase of a so-called "smart" phone) I decided that from here on out I would reply to every single email I receive. Previously, I did not, because I saw it as a waste of time and a furthering of compulsive behavior. Now I'm finding that I get much better responses and results from the people I'm corresponding with when I always reply in some way, not to mention the better results I get from myself by always trying to find something to add. It's a very basic idea. It's also a core tenet of good acting.
Look for a future post regarding my ideas about theatre being the original "social media." Breathless anticipation, thy name is 'blog . . .
One particularly interesting overlap I find in the folds is the way in which theatre and electronic mediums of communication reflect our social behavior back to us in often startling and crystal-clear ways. I recently read an alarming article (link to some salty language and disturbing behavior) that addressed the strange privilege we all seem to feel now to be reporters rather than people involved in what's going on around us. We've always been drawn to vicarious experience, even before YouTube and video games, and some of us are drawn to involvement in the creation of such experiences. The voyeur impulse is strong in all of us, I think, because we continually need to refresh our sense of belonging -- self-awareness can be oddly isolating. Do others feel things the way I do? If only I could see into other people...especially when they think they're alone.... There's more to it than that of course. It's all really rather complex.
Which brings me to a term I'm using lately to describe a phenomenon I've particularly noticed lately: causal coincidence. It's difficult for me to discuss this idea without getting inured in issues of philosophy and religion, but it's not my aim here to expound on those aspects. No, I'm just standing back and marveling at the way Twitter works, and how similar I find it to the way in which acting work comes my way. To (t)wit -- a large number of tiny incidents, relatively unrelated, somehow culminate into a large or significant effect. I say "relatively unrelated" because it's difficult (impossible?) to determine all the interactions in something with as grand a scope as Twitter's network, or the casting community of New York. I think of fractals, Escher progressions and helices -- tiny, basic elements that develop seemingly of their own accord into complex structures. Issues of cause and effect seem almost meaningless in this context.
In 2003, I decided that a good way to spend my birthday would be by starting it out going to an audition, so I did. In spite of a strong audition, it didn't seem I'd get the part -- they were looking for someone who played the piano -- but through a series of incidents, I did. We ended up incorporating my circus skills, which took it in quite a different direction. That show led to returning to work with the same theatre in subsequent summers, and seeing a show that involved my costar from the first show. That show grabbed my attention, and I mentioned admiring the work to the director. Years later, I was invited to join their new project, in which I became deeply involved for a couple of years. A lot of change went on for me during that time, including both rather seriously injuring myself, and acquiring the most raw strength I've ever had, and much as a result of both I made a return to circus studies, which in turn has me now seeking out playwrights and performers to create my own circus theatre.
And off of all that, myriad other unexpected challenges and opportunities. You could point to any one action in my career and see how it indirectly led to things amazingly other, and maybe that's just life, but it's brought into sharp relief when you consider the question of cause, or coincidence. I see it as both. More specifically, I see coincidence -- that is, any correlation between (relatively) unrelated actions or events -- as often being causal, and I see a certain mass effect when these causal coincidences coincidentally accumulate.
Maybe another definition of the whole question is in order, but I'm not going to be the one to make that happen. What I'm going to do is embrace the function, however it functions, and make the most of it. To be involved, and not merely reporting.
Those of you who follow me like hawks on Twitter (the many, many people who are all up in my @AcroRaven junk) know that I found a convenient excuse to make the plunge into so-called smart-phone territory. I coyly tweeted from the purchase, "no, not THAT smartphone," thereby piquing the curiosity of the entire nation. Well, Nation (I will someday be Colbert's body double), peek at this. That's what I done and got myself. And so far, I'm pretty happy about it.
Ironically enough, it's actually a much better phone-phone than the last I had. The sound quality's better, the overall ergonomics: entirely better. So I feel non-silly about that. And I have to admit that the purchase has me on some much better habits of communication so far. Something about being alerted to incoming emails keeps me vigilant about sending them back out, and that leads to better communication and more things getting done. It also lends itself to more things being on my plate at a time, of course, but that's rather what I was asking for when I joined this technological demographic, idn't it? That and, naturally, endless Sudoku puzzles.
Friend Sarah and I have occasionally exchanged emails about a collaborative theatre project that addresses information and communication technologies and what effects they've had on our behavior. The irony of this is that Sarah lives in San Diego, and frankly the only reason we can begin to contemplate such a collaboration is because of the devices that have developed in the past five years for exactly this type of communication. I have a rather love/hate relationship with the new forms, particularly with regard to how they've influenced theatre, but there's no escaping their relevance. We can outright deny them, sure, and there's value in that approach, but frankly I'm enamored of them all. The prospects of Google Wave are exciting to me, I must confess. Would I rather sit in the same room as people, read their faces and experience their energy (or be aware of a lack of it) first hand? Yes, a thousand times. Yet I also get a charge out of being connected to friends and collaborators in Pennsylvania, California and the United Kingdom.
Now I am a giant leap closer to being entirely plugged in to the "ambient awareness" of which so many write. I can let anyone who may be listening know where I am and what I'm doing in great detail at the very moment of my existence. I've done a bit of this, but frankly, I can;t keep up the way others do. If I tweeted and Facebooked-it as much as others, I'm not sure I'd actually be accomplishing anything else. Yet many do, and I suppose I envy them a bit. perhaps I'll get better at this whole thing with time, but I'm not certain that I want to get better at it. I rather like having this many choices about how I communicate with folks, but the choice itself is defeated if it gets to the point at which I'm serving the mode, rather than the mode serving me. So in spite of my recent acquisition, people will still be hearing from me in person quite a bit. In fact, I rather miss the days when it was a little more socially acceptable to show up at a friend's door. Now such a surprise would be considered rather creepy by all sorts of otherwise friendly and open people.
I know someone who had this advice for his child upon her moving to New York: YCNYDLNYCY. That translates into, "You change New York; don't let New York change you." (I wonder if he ever sent this advice via text?) It's a fairly inspiring bit of caring wisdom, and can easily be applied to all sorts of information-technology applications. (I'm tempted to type YCHTMLDLHTMLCY [and so I have] but I don't really know what I'd be saying with it.) It's impossible to deny, however, that the relationships in any case are utterly reciprocal, if not nigh symbiotic. We can't change anything without it changing us right back, and we're not adrift in a world that is rapidly dehumanizing us, nor one that is creating splendid multi-cultural interconnectedness, either. As thinking, feeling, viscerally connected creatures, we are engaged in this dialogue and responsible for every aspect of it. I embrace that, to my modest capability, and with a little luck it will help me to create with a little more truth, a little more connection.
I'm fascinated by accounts of the theatre and opera as places where people went to be seen, to make important deals and carry out vital communication. They seem to me rather like revisionist history, so biased am I to the notion that theatre is of itself the purpose of going to the theatre. I read about some important assignation that took place in the opera house and immediately think, "Oh come now, Author -- being a bit dramatic with the staging now, aren't we?" Yet I have to acknowledge that such meetings were a vital part of what kept the theatre alive in its glory days. Imagine a world without Twitter (it's easy if you try) or even phones -- to see and be seen was the only way to exist in whatever social strata you lived or aimed to live.
Whilst in Italy we sat down with Hanna Salo of Teatro Boni fame, and had a discussion as to what we could bring with us next year in terms of a production. The discussion turned to a trading of agreement about the frustration of getting audience these days, be it in Italy or the US or, I don't know, Istanbul (not Constantinople). We had just had the inauguration of their refurbished outdoor anfiteatro, which had the feeling one wants every theatrical event to have -- one of a community coming together to meet each other anew and have a good time doing it. In the wake of this, I suggested that shows should be orchestrated to be more like events somehow. Events are what make people leave their places now-a-days. Events are exciting and promising and lend themselves to word-of-mouth advertising.
My notion was met with underwhelming enthusiasm, but the underwhelmation (is SO a word) was both well-intentioned and earned. Hanna and David Zarko have been struggling with the bizarre ups and downs of creating an audience for years now, on the front lines. Events come and go, and sometimes they even result in big groups, but repeating it is a different trick. Repeating it with any consistency is yet another. And here's the kicker: How does one keep it theatre, and genuine, while event-ing it up? No, my idea was not the solution for which we are searching.
And yet. I keep thinking about it. Some things I've remembered, and that have come up recently to feed this nascent fire:
Wife Megan gets really, really excited by rock concerts, and I sometimes wish I could bottle that and infect people with it to get them to come to theatre shows. Music concerts don't have to advertise all too hard. People know what they're getting, but don't know, at the same time. There's both familiarity and the potential for surprise.
The social event is the thing that nothing else can quite replace. Sure, if you really want to, you can live as an Internet hermit your whole life, but it's not very nice in the long run. People want to be around other people, preferably happy people, and when they are they want to socialize in some respect, whether that's discussing politics or screaming and making archaic hand gestures with great enthusiasm. Theatre repels, I think, in part because it is seen as discouraging participation and socialization. Sit here. Watch this. Don't talk.
An old acquaintance in DC -- Casey Kaleba -- is making headlines with his production of Living Dead in Denmark, which is a battle-rich fantasy set around classic Shakespeare characters (written, I might add, prior to all this hyper-popular zombie meta stuff of the past few years). I think people respond to this because it sounds like fun, and a unique experience. I know the theatre up here in NYC that premiered it (though I've never seen a single show of theirs) because it's this weird, sort of wonderfully fun idea: Vampire Cowboys.
The shows I've been a part of that succeeded in terms of audience had many features of an event-ful nature. They involved a number of people from a cohesive community, or had an accessible concept, or incorporated popular elements, or had a limited engagement, or were especially current, or some combination thereof. Many of those that failed in this regard had similar elements . . . but I also daresay we could feel when adequate anticipation had not been cultivated, prior to the event.
When I was young, the circus literally came to town. They'd set up a huge tent in the junior high soccer field, or occupy the Patriot Center, and for a little while conversation for children and adults would revolve around whether you'd been, or were going, or why you couldn't this year. This happened too with the ice-capades, but to a lesser degree, because you knew that someday you WOULD BE JUDGED. (I'm judging myself right now.) It was regular, annual, and as much an event as anything since.
At this point, I go to the movies for three reasons: 1) I want to be among the first to see something, to be able to discuss it; 2) I want to experience a particular movie with a group, or on a large screen, for whatevere reason particular to the movie; and/or 3) I want to be out, doing something, and often breaking routine. With all the alternative, affordable ways of seeing films now, these are my reasons. To be part of an event.
People go to parties for numerous reasons, any of which have the potential for a temporarily happier existence: food, drink, sex, excitement and/or all the emotions and changes associated with social activity. Similar to concerts, parties let you know what you can expect, but hold potential for great surprise. Cover, no cover, social circle, menu, open bar or no, these things are announced. Where you'll be and what you'll be doing at two AM, that's up to you and God.
Now me, I usually have a miserable time at parties. I'm too self-conscious, and the schmooze factor grates on me. I can probably count on one hand the excellent experiences I've had at parties, and they have several factors in common. I knew a good number of people there, we were united in some goal and/or people were more interested in having fun than getting somewhere. If I were good at parties, I probably would be in sales or somesuch, but I'm not, I'm in theatre, and we should be hosting parties, it seems.
The problem is (just one?) once you've identified event potential, and risen to the challenge of meeting it, and marketed your event successfully, and are on your way to repeating it . . . how do you keep what you're doing what you're doing? In other words, how can you invite discussion and participation from everyone without making it into a chaotic talk-show mess? Or feed bodies as well as souls without creating the dreadful dinner theatre? Or make something be perceived as special over and over again without resorting to gimmicks and trickery?
Maybe the answer is that you can't. I don't know. But I'm fascinated by the questions right now, for two reasons. One, I want to be a part of making theatre that is regarded as an event of this kind, even if it doesn't mean any more money or career advancement for me. Two, I am (as is this here 'blog) moving toward more integration in my outlook. (I hate how Microsoft that sentence ended up sounding, through no fault of my own.) That means asking both more of myself, and more from my world in general. I think the world can take it. Me, that remains to be seen. I don't mean to make a big, whoopin' deal out of this.
