Dang. It. Dang it!

It's raining today. I mean to say, it is RAINING toDAY. I woke at 7:00, struggling to avoid over-indulgence in my snooze alarm, struggling in fact to remind myself to start jogging again today, when I heard outside my window the pitter-patter of raindrops--the most coma-inducing sound ever. I don't know why the raindrops sounded so pittery and patteresque, though, because when I stepped out into it on my way to the day job, it was a steady downpour, with just enough wind to keep it in your eyes. And I lent my sublettor my umbrella, because she's a girl and will apparently melt if she gets wet. It's science. By the time I got to work, I wanted to kill everyone. Violently. With a broad-bladed bastard sword.

See (ye non-New-Yorkers, ye princes of providences), when the weather does something this disastrous during a commute time, there's an interesting phenomenon that occurs in The Frickin' Huge Golden Delicious. The first symptom is a mass decision--akin to Jungian archetype--by every New Yorker who drives or walks into work to forego that, fearing that the rain is a sign of God's vengeance, and take the train. Side effects of this perception include a voracious increase in aptitude for careless acts, such as forgetting to say "excuse me" when the situation invites, or intentionally shoving disabled octogenarians into the tracks because they might contribute to oxygen consumption in the train car. The second symptom of the phenomenon is that everyone's intelligence quotient drops by at least twenty points. At least. People in suits, people accustomed to making decisions dependent on long-term thinking and strategy, become multi-pronged ballistic missiles when they have to carry an umbrella (inevitably right at eye-level [I am not in the upper half of height quotient in this city] leading me to believe that if I ever have to compete in illegal bloodsport in Canada, I'm taking my umbrella) and giant men who work with their hands all day long act like debutantes when faced with a curbside puddle. "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"

My bitterness may have preceded (hence colored) these gripes. I may have awoken in this frame, as last night's A Lie of the Mind wasn't quite up to snuff for me. (Terrible phrase: "Up to snuff." What does it refer to? Nasal inhalants? Illegal movies?) It was awkward being back in the penny loafers o' Frankie, and I had a strange time trying to balance a jittery nervousness and a rather tired energy level. The scene with Beth went fairly well, I thought. But I blew that damn final moment again.

That's not quite accurate. I didn't blow it. I managed to serve my function in it (whatever that may be), but the feeling behind it was not as intense as I would have liked, and as I had discovered last weekend. I'm not sure what went wrong there, being off my game in general, but I suspect it had something to do with nerves and forcing it. Have you ever tried not to think about something? I mean really tried? You tell yourself, "Don't think of an elephant," and for the rest of the day your thoughts are ambushed by elephants. This is what it is to try to avoid self-analysis on stage. The best tactic I've found is to focus on something immediate, and urgent. (Such as the action at hand.) But our body's defenses are strong, our minds labyrinthine and there's a minotaur named Disbelief that is hunting us at every moment.

"Was that over the top? I can never tell!" <-A hum-ding-er of a movie quote, if you ask me.

SOME SEVERAL HOURS LATER . . .

Well, the rain has stopped, and the world is a quiet, cool place. Once again I performed the show, and once again I experienced emotionus interruptus. It was baffling, just a frustrating shock to the system. I'm open as all hell! What's wrong with me now? I was contemplating it all the way to the subway, where I ran into fellow actor in the show, Todd d'Amour. He asked the obligatory "How was your show?" and I somehow managed to be both honest and brief (as the parentheticals may suggest, I have been having the greatest difficulty of late explaining myself in twenty-five words or less) and voiced my frustration with that last moment, actually referring to it as "my last moment." When I had said what I had to I could look in Todd's eyes again, and there I saw total recognition. Identification, even. He went on to say that he has struggled with that moment for himself, and felt, as I had, that he had broken through last weekend. Now it was gone again.

How much better that made me feel, and how much sense that makes. It's our moment, his, mine and Laura's, and we're each of us going to feel it in his or her own way if something's off. Now we just have to unite again, somehow, and lift each other up.

I wonder what the weather will bring tomorrow.

Cry Me a River, Emo Boy

You think Rivers Cuomo "broke up" Weezer because the unflattering tag of "Emo" was applied to the band, which started as a sort of garage-band flavored pop sensation in the latter era of alterna-rock? That Emo crap bugs me. Not the supposed lifestyle--which, really, has had many different names through the ages, including "angst"--but the way the label seems to be applied to any kind of vaguely depressive or introspective subculture. Like being thought of as "Goth" in high school because I was creepy and wore black all the time. Which is . . . well, Goth. It's Goth as f%#k, actually, but let's understand the artist's intention before we rip him a new one with labels, shall we?

Speaking of which, A Lie of the Mind has been reviewed. Yes it has. (Friend Nat passed it along.) And it is a goodly review, as far as the show is concerned. You must believe me when I say that I feel the slander of my performance is deserved for the job I did last Wednesday night, though inaccurate in specifics. I claim it, and so my next claim should hold more water: The review reads like it was written by a twelve-year-old. Think I'm exaggerating? Lie thy judgments yon.

Having a bad review is a burden, but in this case one easily shaken off by a variety of factors:

1. Feeling I deserved no praise for all the mistakes I made in that particular performance.
2. The critic obviously devoting about ten minutes to the writing of it (at least it's spell-checked).
3. Friends.

Oui: Friends. In my days off from the show (glad to be getting back to it tonight, though slightly anxious about having sufficient audience to justify the effort), I have spent time with a number of friends, the which it can be hard to find time with even when I'm not embroiled in a rehearsal process. Sunday I met with Friend Adam for catching up on "Heroes" episodes and talking about superheroes(TM) and comedy, then adjourned to Harlem for dinner with Friend Patrick. Monday brought me to dinner with Friend Dessida (of Friend Kate fame), and last night I saw Friends Geoff and Melissa.

Each friend brought me something I needed without knowing it. Adam brought me indulgent joy by creating a space in which geeking out is not only allowed, it's encouraged. Patrick brought me so many, many things, not the least of which were several excellent books to read now that I'm (pretty much) line-perfect for the show. (Incidentally, if you ever get curious about what it's like to be an actor in the process of interpreting a great character, read Antony Sher's account of portraying Richard III: Year of the King. The only bad thing is how envious you may get about how one man can contain so many well-developed talents.) Dessida brought me new insights into art and life. Melissa brought me unrestrained joy and some time to meditate upon life paths (plus a little more information on what she expects of me in my joining the ranks of Kinesis for a project this summer, which was a relief and terror all rolled in one). And Geoff, as always, brought me beer(s). And questions. Which are always good.

I can only hope I brought each of these people something they needed half as much as I've needed them.

Projecting Torture

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Omega, meet Alpha

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

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

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

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

I'm sure I'm not alone.

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

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

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

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

[sound of hurried footsteps rushing away]

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

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

PPS - Avert.

The Revealing Curtain

When I was thirteen years of age, life started to be pretty difficult for me. That's a pretty universal statement, I believe. I don't believe I've ever met anyone who said, "Thirteen? Oh man, that's just when things started to get GOOD! Everything came so easy, and there was no confusion--not like at five. Man, at five, things were ROUGH...." It has different flavors, but they all relate to puberty, and moving on, and beginning to get a sense that someday (possibly today) you will have to fend for yourself in a much more real sense than you ever imagined before. So I don't believe my experience was unique, per se, but perhaps a little more out-there than some.

One aspect of those difficulties was that one day, in the middle of a math class, I took a big ol' streeeeeeeeetch // en I woke on my side on the floor to discover my tongue was bleeding. I had bitten through it, you see, when I passed out.

A very involved story follows, with a lot of doctor visits, tests, etc., the which pretty much filled up my summer before starting high school. I was ultimately diagnosed with a condition called "reflexive epilepsy," (a diagnosis I have had some reason to doubt) which, in sum and substance, is identified by the tendency to short-circuit one's brain with a specific series of physical cues, such as stretching a particular series of muscles in conjunction. I was put on a drug called Tegratol, which I hated. It made me phenomenally sleepy around the afternoon and--so I diagnosed it--rather depressed, lacking in spark. Being thirteen and imaginative, I also came to convince myself that what I had glimpsed the few times I had the seizure was a kind of peek behind the curtain of reality. To sum it up--and at the risk of sounding even more pretentious than I already may--I thought I was catching glimpses of actuality beyond the world that we had created for ourselves, to occupy our senses and keep us sane. That actuality, was nothingness.

Which was a little depressing.

The seizures are (yes, I still have them from time-to-time) like this: Usually they result from a standing, full-body stretch--after I have been still for some time--with my arms raised above my head. As I'm coming out of the stretch, I feel a tingling numbness that begins somewhere between my back and neck, and rapidly races through my arms and legs. My head gets, well, warm and loud. But the loudness has no noise (bear with me here), it's just a silent over-powering of any sounds in the room. The last thing that happens is that an oddly cobweb-like curtain sort of envelopes my vision, and does so rather slowly, given the drastic nature of what seems to be happening to the rest of my body. I've always thought of it as a curtain, but maybe a cocoon is more apt imagery, because it seems gray, chaotically woven, and it comes in around the edges of my vision, narrowing into a point until rapidly fading to black in which time seems to stop until I open my eyes, a few seconds later and usually looking up at a ceiling.

This story, she does have a happy ending. Somehow, in the course of grappling with high school and all it tides, I learned how to stave off the seizures when I felt them coming on. (My parents always claim the Tegratol helped in that; I always want all the credit for myself.) It was strange to discover, and took what I believe to be a lot of the resources the Tegratol robbed me of: determination, focus and a little fire. The trick is rather simple, actually. When I feel the tingling, and the curtain begins to descend, I simply focus my will on whatever I can still see in the center of my vision and sort of fight the curtain back. (Don't ask me to describe "fight" in this context. Sorry. Couldn't say.) The only thing that happens then is that, occasionally, people around me will wonder why I've just stopped and stared for a few seconds all of the sudden. It it happens less and less, and gets easier to stave off, as I get older.

Which is pretty sweet.

As was last night's performance of A Lie of the Mind. (HA! Thought I'd left the show behind, did you? Don't worry; I won't analyze every performance for a month. Next week we'll be back to fart jokes.) That may seem like a lame transition, but it is intentionally obfuscational. (Is SO a word!) Because you have to understand what coming out of my seizures is like to get the association I'm about to make.

Where Wednesday's performance was taught and tense, last night's was more a fiery calm. It was still an explosive, passionate show, but we had all relaxed a notch . . . just enough to be a little more in the moment, a little less concerned with making an impression. I don't know how everyone else felt (no cast hangage after the second show), but for me it was magnificent. I felt in charge of my game (apart from going up COMPLETELY on a line in my first scene), and much more loving toward my own character. None of the whine came through. His fight was strong enough to stand up against all those obstacles (see 4/5/07). Great, great stuff. I was so relieved, and yet still timorous over that last line and its delivery. I had to tell myself not to think about it prior to the scene. I was afraid I would psych myself out.

The scene arrived, I opened my eyes, and there was Todd, playing my brother, barely holding it together. My character feels relief to see him in that moment, and I felt a relief at how there he was. His tears got through to me, and I knew if I could keep those feelings alive, blow on their embers, I'd be okay for that last line. But the audience is literally two feet away to my left, and I have to say that damn penultimate line expressing confusion over Jake's actions, and I know Laura is actually the director's girlfriend, not Todd's wife, and why can't I have a wife already anyway and what if I go up on my last line, too . . . . But then Laura, as Beth, says her line: "I remember you now." She's not weeping as she has before, but she sounds so fragile, so very very certain, yet scared, and I'm back. All I have to do is . . . not. Not do, anything. Be there. Just be there. If that's a difficult thing to do, I don't know about it right then, because I can't, because if I do I'll lose this . . . I've got to let it flow through me, I can't just hang on to it, but I've got to trust it'll still be there. Don't let it go. Don't hold on to it. Be. Be.

It was as though I could feel that curtain again, not around my eyes, but around my heart. (We're speaking metaphorical heart here.) And it's woven together out of all the experiences I've had that have taught me to have perspective, and protect myself, and to equate that rationale/ity with self-worth. It's me, this curtain. It's a part of me, and there's no abolishing it, but last night I held the cords and I had the strength. And the line came through the tears, and I saw and was seen clearly.

Gang, I don't know if I've nailed it. I rather believe tonight I'll have another experience of shut-down, sort of a backlash from last night's success. But maybe not. I hope not. I can't antagonize myself over it, because that only decreases the likelihood of being in that moment again. All I can do is my best, and try to learn from the worst of it.

Oh right, right! And as for actuality being nothingness: I decided it's cool to have a choice. I choose somethingness.