Recovery

This morning I received an email from the playwright UnCommon Cause Theatre had been collaborating with to create As Far As We Know, informing those of us who did not yet know that the remains of Staff Sergeant Keith "Matt" Maupin had been recovered and identified. For those of you who don't know, the events resulting from the disappearance of Matt -- in 2004 -- were the inspiration for that show. For years, in spite of a video purportedly exhibiting his execution, his status remained active as far as the military was concerned, and his family kept faith that it could be true. That was the real subject of our play, what really kept our interest in it: keeping that faith and what we may have to lose by keeping it.

I had decided at some point in the process that most likely Sgt. Maupin had died. I had no details, and vacillated frequently on this position, but ultimately it was the idea I came to embrace. He was gone. That was my luxury, that perception. If I learned nothing else working on As Far As We Know, I learned that the perspective I was afforded by my distance from the situation was absolutely a luxury. No one who knew Matt, none of his family or the people living in his hometown, no one who had loved ones involved in this war could afford that luxury. I could. I had the distance to decide for myself, regardless of the hopes of others, that the best thing for all involved would be to grieve now, to try to say goodbye.

What I've discovered, with the arrival of this official news, is that my decision to say goodbye never reached my heart. It was just a decision. Now, this morning, I discover that all this comfortable time of mine I had been keeping a candle of faith going in my heart for Matt and his family. I've discovered that I wasn't comforted by my perspective at all. My perspective merely quieted my mind. What gave me comfort was that unconscious lick of flame, that nearly unjustifiable hope, which is now just as quietly extinguished. Matt is gone now. He has been missing, potentially and finally actually deceased for years, but now he is truly gone.

I can't compare my grief to his parents', his brother's, his friends'. I can't even compare my grief to my fellow players' and collaborators', some of whom have been to Matt's home and met the people there. It would be ridiculous to conceive of it. I'm just a guy who followed the news, studied the situation and tried to imagine the lives inside it. Yet I'm in tears to learn that he is gone. What was Matt to me? I'm not sure. Probably, figuring that out for myself will be what allows me to let him go. He represented a lot for me -- patriotism, ambition, discipline, the commingling of faith and love -- but representation doesn't tear at emotion this way. No, in some way, without ever meeting him, I came to love Matt for myself. And there is nothing right in this, in his death. No matter what peace it brings, no matter the resolution. His death is wrong.

In one of the introductory classes we were required to take as freshmen in the BFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University they tried to help us understand the nature of tragedy. Actually, of capital-t Tragedy. That is to say, as a form, not simply a vocabulary word. One more colorful teacher asked us, "What is it when a busload of nuns dies?" Someone naturally responded, "A tragedy." (That someone: probably a young guy with a bit of something to prove who valued very highly his own ability to know the "right" answer, and obviously in no way was that someone, nor could he ever have been, me.) "Wrong. When a busload of nuns arbitrarily kicks it, that's a travesty. Now, if it's a king, and we can see it coming from a mile off, but nothing we say or do can change it, and we just have to watch it unfurl into its ultimate conclusion ... that, my friends, is Tragedy."

The circumstances of Staff Sgt. Keith "Matt" Maupin's capture, torment and murder add up to a travesty. Even accepting that Arthur Miller made us see the possibility of a salesman experiencing a tragedy normally reserved for kings, there's too much that's arbitrary about Maupin's story to leave it room in the parameters of tragic action. He was not in combat, but escorting fuel trucks, and they weren't meant to be on the route they took when he was captured. He lied about his personal details on the hostage video that was released, presumably because he felt he had to, and even now news agencies are reporting those, misunderstood as facts. The government had to do everything they could to avoid looking like they were flailing helplessly, owing to how little they knew. It's a travesty.

But. But. Part of what makes Tragedy work is the way in which we come to resist the inevitable outcome. The tragic hero could be someone we would never get along with in life, yet through the journey of the story we come to intimately identify with a commonality: the will to live. "Rage against the dying of the light." We do. We always will, be that light our life or hope for others'. Ultimately, Matt's situation would not turn out well. The more time that passed, the more certain his fate became. We would have been smart to let our hope go, to will it to pass. And yet. And yet.

I -- little me -- will miss you, Matt Maupin. I wish I could hold you and your family up. I hope you all find peace and the space of breath to grieve. The tragedy of this outcome devastates me, but the years of your faith . . . our faith . . . inspire me. May you never lay down, may you always believe.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas

Nobody Nose the Trouble I Seen

Remember way back in the day (which was 10/26/07 [in which I also first shared Zuppa del Giorno's idea for a clown R&J]), when I mentioned wanting to script a clown film? Well, thanks to the gracious support of my fellow Exploding Yurts and Friend Davey, I've actually made a really strong start on it. As with most projects, I'm finding that actually working on it (as opposed to just going on and on about it as an idea I once had) is teaching me a lot and raising interesting questions. I thought I'd share some of these questions with you, Dear Reader, and solicit your opinions. Don't be shy if you're new to the Aviary. I'm an actor. The only thing I crave over approval is attention.

• Why is it so flim-flammed important to me to make something involving a red-nose clown? (This might be a bit rhetorical to start out with, but it's come up for me lately.) As I write, I see that more and more what I'm writing is something like a silent film, full of visual (physical) behavior and sight gags. And the silent film clowns pretty much proved that no nose is good nose. (Sorry, sorry. That...I really couldn't help it.) And everyone I talk to seems to respect that, from performers to non. Yet for some reason apart even from a clever plot device, I find the nose necessary.


• Is it important for me to track a specific learning curve for my character? In a conventional story, I would be inclined to quickly reply: Yes. This one, however.... In many of the silent films of yesteryear, the storytellers didn't so much worry about that, and many of such as these films are the funniest and most memorable. Buster Keaton was fond of saying that a good movie should be able to be summarized on the back of a postcard, and then extrapolated upon. That would certainly describe my conceit. It's just possible that the key is to tie it all together in the end in a satisfying way, and make the journey there as unpredictable as possible.


• Am I screwing myself by planning almost everything to be shot in public places?


• Should I start filming it as an episodic web series? I'm a little sick of these; everyone I know seems to be doing them, but few do them well (Friend Jason has a good one: Three Percent Enemies) and frankly it seems to me the market is a bit glutted. Still, I understand the appeal. Low budget, near-instant product and feedback, not to mention the ability to disguise oneself as a tourist whilst filming in public places. The outline I'm developing definitely lends itself to this format, too, divided as it is into segments comprised of short incidents of action. Still and all, I have my reservations.

I continue to write on it when I can. The trimming -- which is always the tricky part for me -- will be arduous, but perhaps made slightly easier by the constraints of time and money. Just like at the beginning of a collaborative process, I find myself relishing right now, when all is possible and the ideas fly about willy-nilly.

Update--4/2/08: Friend Davey seems to think that my movie is going to be optioned, taken over by mindless Hollywood moguls with warped priorities, and recast. At least I have to assume that's what he meant when he sent me this link. Thanks, Fuzzy.

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Wait. Er.... Oh shoot!

The Courage to Collaborate

Not too long ago (though and hey: where the heck did March go already?) I was writing about my disillusionment with the collaborative work I had been doing of late (see 1/18/08). Now I am suffused anew with the natural light of a hard-won, worthwhile collaborative experience. Am I fooling myself? Does this gratitude spring more from my frustration over the lately lack of long-term work in my life, or is it genuine and in response to reclaiming the better bits of collaboration?

I was gone last week. Did you miss me? (<--rhetorical) I was in Pennsylvania once again, working. Whilst there I taught various workshops, thanks in large part to the efforts of Friend Heather, and worked with The Northeast Theatre and Zuppa del Giorno in initial efforts and training for a new original show. Well, somewhat original, at any rate. You may notice a new link to the left under the "Hugin" heading. Zuppa del Giorno is taking on Romeo & Juliet.

So last June the gang (gang this time: David Zarko, Heather Stuart, Todd d'Amour and yours truly) was sitting around the breakfast table in Italy, pondering a perfect project for collaboration with Italian artists as we sipped our espresso, munched our Nutella(R) plastered bread and peered out at the castle on the opposite peak. Thus encumbered by effort, we managed to mention R&J, and it tickled our fancy. (Fancy tickling being perfectly legal---nay, encouraged--in Europe.) Romeo & Juliet had, in a way, haunted us from our first trip to Italy, when we visited Civita di Bagnoregio by night and discovered that all those seemingly over-wrought R&J set designs, full of giant boulders and myriad irregular balconies, were in fact quite accurate. David said to me, "You're into Shakespeare, right?" I thought, I am? Oh yeah! I am! It had been so long for me, I had literally forgotten how much I loved studying and acting in Shakespeare's plays.

I can't recall who first suggested it be a clown show. (See 3/14/08, paragraph 2.)

Cut to last week, and six Zuppianni, local actor Conor McGuigan, Italian actor Andrea Brugnera, and clown director Mark McKenna, playing at different times in the conveniently inactive space on Spruce Street. It was amazing. Sure, there were times when we couldn't communicate well, both due to linguistic differences and differences of vocabulary within the same language. There were many moments of being on stage and thinking/praying, "Dear God...send me an idea, please." There were even mornings when we arrived at the theatre and the consensus was that it was the last place we wanted to be. But every time we played, if we played long enough, we made beautiful discoveries. Commedia lazzi hundreds of years old surprised us with laughter. Clowns telling us a story we knew by heart, even while inserting punchlines, made us cry. And through all of it was a sense that we were somehow being reunited, even with those people with whom we had never played before.

I have often said that the beginning of a collaboration is my favorite part, the part when all the possibility seems most present. It's when the show still has the luxury of existing in your mind just as you want it to be, before any compromises, before anyone really knows anything, before argument, ego and expectation pressurize the palate. In the past year I've been forced--forced, because it's quite against my will--to accept the possibility that any collaboration may end in tears or, worse, sighs of resignation. But hope springs eternal, I suppose. Especially when one is so surrounded by brilliant friends.

Learing Glances

I was walking down the street the other day, on my way to il dayjobo, when I noticed a woman wearing boots with the kind of impossibly narrow and tall heel I see in anime, and believe to be a physical impossibility. She was having no trouble with them, and I considered asking her if she'd stilt with me some time, but then I noticed that the boots were black leather and patterned somewhere between a musketeer's and some kind of glam paratrooper. Aggressive boots. Which got me thinking.

Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of concept-heavy theatre. There's a great temptation to do it with Shakespeare, and many arguments for and against such approaches. I like my concepts light, and with little-to-no discernible influence on the dramatic action of the play, especially when it comes to The Bard. After all, the play's the thing. Don't change the ending of Hamlet. Face my wrath. That having been said, and in honor of beginning work on a clown version of the Romeo & Juliet story, I decided to share what this woman's boots got me thinking on.

A lot's been done with King Lear. I was in a Suzuki-styled production set in a sanitarium (molto originale), there was a recent movie called A Thousand Acres that set the story in rural America of the 90s, and of course there's Ran, Akiro Kurosawa's feudal-Japan take on the thing. It's been done to death. Still, these things get done to death because they resonate. It's a play about the anguish of youthful ambition and oncoming mortality, and that don't ever go away for we humans. So it may be done to death, and my ideas may fall far short of being original, but a strong idea benefits from expression.

I wonder how the play would change if it were the love of sons rather than daughters that incited the action? Lear has so many family relationships through it that in many ways it's all about family, so I got to wondering about that. Suppose Cordelia, Regan and Goneril were -- I don't know -- Corey, Ronald and Gary. They act completely the same, but have wives (or an imagined future bride, in Corey's case) they involve, and their possession of the inheritance is more assured. Not sure if Lear should be a father or mother in this case, and not sure if that altogether matters.

Once I'm imagining the story this way, I immediately want to set it in an urban, contemporary environment. Perhaps amongst some entitled New York family. There is a film version of Hamlet that does this (with Ethan Hawke) and, in my opinion, fails spectacularly to play past the adaptation, but I feel the idea can be done well. In this environment, the sons can be fairly underspoken, manipulative and cruel and it seems quite normal to us; masterminds of business, or media. Their wives take more direct action, but this is fitting in a contemporary environment as well. I can also see Lear (be he or she) as descended to a homeless state very clearly in this setting, and wonder how all the nature imagery might translate to an urban environment.

From here I wonder what else I can alter without getting in the way of the story. Suppose Corey is gay, and that contributes to his estrangement from Lear. It would have to be done without issue; the idea would be to avoid making a statement not found in the original story, to just have it proceed as you expect, but this son is gay. Suppose, too, that Edgar and Edmund are the same person.

WHAT?! I know. I start to doubt myself here, too, but I want to play it out; to play with it. So deal.

Without having read the text in years, I wonder if it could be played in such a way that the E.s are one guy with a personality disorder. I imagine him vaguely as a guy taking prescription medication, young and volatile, freshly returned from treatment. Gloucester, his father, is thereby a bit more justified in his ineffectiveness. He's been through a lot with this kid, who has his good days and his bad, and Gloucester finds him, on his bad days, to be a different sort of bastard. Gloucester also must humor E. in his dual personas, in the hopes of bringing him through to sanity, but everyone around him doesn't know how to respond to this, because it isn't clear how much is his humoring and how much he's come to believe his son is divided in two.

If you're still with me now: Let's go produce, because you are a rare creature.

Gloucester, of course, has his eyes dashed out for him by Cornwall, Regan's husband. Or Caroline, Ronald's wife, in this case. It was the glimpse of those boots that got me thinking about it all. In the production I participated in, I played Cornwall, and we stamped out Gloucester's eyes with my heel. Those boots would make that choice far more ... shall we say, effective. The rest of the ideas rolled out from there.

Violence. Such a potent aphrodisiac for romancing the id.

By this point, of course, I have to imagine the show out of the context of the language. You can subvert some lines here and there to justify cross-casting genders, but combining two characters into one? Introducing contemporary psychological understanding to Mr. Bill Shake-Off-Subtext? No, no. I imagine it now as a contemporary retelling, rest assured. Still and all, William had some unshakable lines. There's no escaping, in the end:

"Howl howl howl howl howl! Oh, you are men of stones! Had I your tongues and eyes I should use them so the heaven's vaults should crack! She is gone, forever..."