Acting! thank you

Kelli and I were having a conversation about a friend the other day, and we wandered into the topic of what makes people become actors. It's the nature of such conversations to become reductive and oversimplified, but it's interesting and can be illuminating nonetheless. We decided that there are three main motivations that drive people to willingly make themselves a spectacle to other people.

The first is the "Love Me Do" actor. This is somebody who wants an affirmation that they are a valuable person by having people see them and praise them for their courage, brilliance, and sensitivity. The play becomes an opportunity for them to shine. This person is secretly more interested in the curtain call than any other part of the show. Also, the backstage drama is almost as important as the one that happens on stage, much to the chagrin of many a stage manager.

The second is the "Anyone but me" actor. These people are drawn to the stage because it is a place where they can not be themselves. For whatever reason, the self is not a good place to be, and so they try to find a place where they can be somebody else for a while. These actors often don't even really enjoy acting very much, and rarely feel good about their work. But it's better than the alternative. For a few brief hours a night, they can not be. They are often nice and hard working, but you can sense their burden, and often a sense of futility or fear.

The third type is the "Peter Pan" actor. They just want to play. As a kid, they loved make believe more than anything else, and never really got over the fact that you are expected to stop pretending once you hit puberty. So they are drawn to the stage by the chance to continue the wonderful games of imagination that were so captivating as children. Those that get paid to do it count themselves lucky that someone else is naive enough to give them money for something they would do for nothing.

Obviously, few people are all one of these: most actors have a combination of these factors, and I bet you almost every actor would identify themselves as number three. But in my experience, only a few, and they tend to be the ones people most like to work with, really have that love of play at the center of their work; where the play's the thing, and acting is not more about psychology than art. Some really can't help it - life has dealt them a crappy hand - and some would benefit from thinking about something bigger than themselves for a change.

Yeah, I'm a cranky old cynic. But actors are ridiculous creatures, aren't they? We kind of ask for it... and don't get me started on critics...

Simple

Kelli and I went to see Fragments at ArtsEmerson last night. It's 4 short pieces by Samuel Beckett, directed by Peter Brook (and Marie-Hélène Estienne). Now it's hard to go wrong with Beckett for me. I love how he brings together the profound and the incredibly mundane, the deepest despair with the simplest joy. I think he just zeroes in on the most elemental relationship between human beings and the universe. And he is so damn THEATRICAL. His plays are witty, moving, very funny, absurd and tragic all at the same time. I don't know how he does it. But he sends me.

And I can't imagine anybody better than late-career Peter Brook to direct his work. Brook and his company have made a lifelong mission of finding the most essential, deeply simple work, and it really shows in this small company. Two older gentlemen, and a young woman - who performed with such humanity and deep, profound simplicity. Nothing showy or indulgent anywhere; just being in the space with the words and characters. Three people relating with each other, with themselves, and with the world in the most natural way. It was just the thing for me.

The nerve

So I'm trying to figure out what's happening with my body. For parts of every day the tingling in my arms has decreased to the lowest level in 5 months, and I begin to hope that maybe I'm getting better, getting back to the person I was. But then, pretty much every day, if I sleep too long, or after I've sat in a restaurant chair talking for an hour, or at other random times, suddenly my arms go all wiggy and I can't move my neck without thrills - the unpleasant kind - running up and down my limbs. And there's still that weird tiredness in my legs...

They told me that the spinal cord takes up to a year to heal, which is what I keep telling myself, but I can't help wondering if the damn thing worked at all. I'm itching to get another MRI to see if the frightening hourglass that was my spinal cord is really gone or if I still have that pinch, slowly eating away my mobility and strength. They don't want to give me one - cutting medical costs, etc., but I think I need to be a demanding health consumer. I was supposed to see my doctor this morning, but he bailed on me, and now I have to wait until Friday!

All in all, this recent change in the way I feel about my body is a constant drag on my subconscious. I think back to when I played Lucky, and would perform that nuclear explosion of a monologue and do a dead flat fall right onto my face so I'd bounce six inches in the air (the stage was padded, but still), or Marat Sade where I bought my own harness so I could be suspended by a meathook for an hour before running around screaming and hurling myself into metal tables. Or even two years ago as Coriolanus, getting wheeled around on that cage smashing it with wrenches as hard as I possibly could, sometimes missing a little so my fingers were perpetually swollen and bruised. Of course that's partly how I got myself into this mess... But to think that my whole world view would get changed by a play where I mostly stood around talking and sometimes played the viola, and for two seconds I got pushed over by a guy and fell hard on my butt and that has completely shifted everything, it's just bizarre. And I don't like it, I won't pretend.

As an actor you have to believe that you are invincible, to a degree, so that you can take the risks you need to take. I'm still trying to take the risks, but I'm so aware of the costs now. Maybe that's good...

What's real

So on Friday I went to see my son Spencer as Winthrop in the Ottoson Middle School production of The Music Man: Junior! which is essentially the Music Man with half the songs and half the plot cut out. He did great, no question about it. The kid is a regular chip off the old block and knows in his gut how to sell a song. It was a thrill to see him, and I swelled with fatherly pride to behold it.

But something really interesting actually happened at this little event. The girl playing Marian was a little 6th grader - I mean a LITTLE 6th grader - she must have been 4 foot 2 - and she had a cold. She croaked her way through "Goodnight My Someone". Now somebody had been teaching this little girl about acting, and it wasn't a good thing. Maybe it was someone who thought that acting was an important skill in junior beauty pageants, because she would put her hand on her hip, give the audience a patent leather smirk, then toss off a line, and then prance around like a show cat. It was everything scary about child acting you can imagine.

But the girl had a cold, and she couldn't sing. At intermission, there was long pause, and then the director, a hyper-intense woman, the kind who are the only ones to be able to stand directing 90 kids in The Music Man: Junior! - which is both a good thing and a bad thing for the kids as far as their mental health is concerned. Anyway, she came out to tell us that the little girl was in tears because she didn't have a voice - and normally she had an AMAZING voice - but really wanted to finish the show - it was her only chance, after all. So she was going to finish the show, but we all had to know that she was sick and give her whatever support she needed.

So the little girl came out for "Till There Was You" in the second act. And she tried to sing, and her voice was Gone. Nothing there. And then, suddenly, an amazing thing happened. Truly beautiful and amazing. This little girl, who could have melted, or tried hell or high water to sing even though she had nothing but a croak, did something really special. She started to speak the song. And she spoke the lyrics, and she did it simply, and clearly, and with feeling, clarity and passion. Suddenly, in the midst of all this other wonderful silly stuff, she was really acting. Real. It was magical. And moving. So so simple.

And she finished, and the audience went wild, and she went right back to prancing up and down the stage like a crazy performing cat trying to win a beauty pageant, and the moment was gone. But it was Real. Funny when it shows up.

Glee

Kelli and I watched the last episode of Glee last night. Or maybe it was the one before that - she's been really busy. I'm really torn about that show. I know from Facebook how much so many of my friends LOVE LOVE LOVE the show. And I myself feel a weird attraction to the characters. But there is a piece of me that can't help feeling that the show is....welll...crap.

The first thing is hard to quantify. It's this feeling that the show can't really decide what it wants to be. This weird uncertainty of tone keeps bugging me. Every week, suddenly all the students and teachers are all obsessed with One Thing. For example, a couple of weeks ago, everybody was interested in "DRINKING" - which hasn't been on the radar in any way whatsoever for two years, and suddenly EVERYBODY is getting drunk, embarrassing themselves, etc. And then they take a nice quick lesson that drinking is something you have to be thoughtful about, and BOOM, next week nobody is drinking anymore. Or being obsessed with Justin Bieber. Or whatever. I guess I wouldn't mind this sudden obsessionism if the show didn't continually insist that it's characters were also real people with real problems that I should take seriously. I can't rationalize these two totally different styles.

And then, are they really losers? They say they are losers, but some of the hottest students in school are in the chorus, and they do these performances again and again that students get really into, with amazing production effects, but still, somehow, they are not cool? At many school in the U.S., show choir is VERY cool, so what is the deal? Hard to manage the consistency here.

The final thing is, well, that the songs, which were pretty marvelous in the first season, are getting repetitive, and well, boring. The medium isn't kind to the theatrical, and you need a really fresh POV to make it work, and they are starting to run out of fresh POV. Though of course, I still get teary at show all the time (though I must admit that a cat food commercial can make me teary).

I will probably be excoriated eviscerated and emasculated for my cynicism. But there it is.

Death by blueberry

Okay, so here's what I dreamt last night:

My brother Charlie and I were part of a choir in England who's director had committed a terrible offense, unnamed and unknown to me in my dream. According to ancient tradition, we were instructed to execute him in the following manner. He was set before the choir, tied up, and we all took turns hurling darts - like the ones you see in bars, or in someone's den - at him as hard as we could. We would dip the tips of these darts in blueberries, some, only some, of which were poison. He stood there like a statue, as he began to resemble a pincushion with dozens of little darts sticking out of him. I was very proud of my ability to hurl the darts with great force and accuracy into his body, but I couldn't help wondering if he was congratulating himself on the brilliance of having insisted on this bizarre and not terrible effective form of ritual slaughter.

Now, my brother and I were in a choir in high school - not English, but with a real elitist British bent. And it did have a choir director who was forced out by angry parents because he was one of those intensely ambitious artists who make great things happen for kids but often at the expense of their mental health. And I have recently been reminded of this choir because somebody on Facebook has been posting dozens of pictures of people and things from this era. But why was I so savagely happy with my ability to hit him with darts? And what the hell is up with the poison blueberries?

Spring is here

Isn't life weird? I have spent the last two months thinking about death, and the inevitable decline of the body, and how pointless things are, and how people are selfish and insular, and everything negative.

And then, two nights ago, I'm walking my dog, Spiker! and we go by Spy Pond, and the light is shining on it, and the messy snow is melting everywhere, the air is still cold but with that smell of spring in it, and Spike is bounding up the hill in the most ridiculous and adorable manner, and I suddenly think: "this is awesome. this whole life thing. what difference does it make that it's finite. Or is it? who the hell knows. I LOVE THIS."

And then, I go see Hotel Nepenthe. Now, honestly, I almost don't go. ASP still threatens me with waves of misery, but I try to be brave for the artists whom I love. And I get there, and who cares? Nobody "complicated" is there, but people are there who are genuinely glad to see me, and it's just nice. I see the show, which is isn't perfect, but golly, the acting is awesome, the designers and director and author have put it all out there, and they are having such joy making this work, and there is so much to rejoice in here. It's magical. And then I go to see Kelli's Spring Concert at Milton. And the kids choreograph pieces that are AWFUL - but gosh, they are so joyful, who cares? And Kelli makes work that is so subtly brilliant, so delicately magical, I'm enthralled. Everywhere, people are making things. And my dog bounds through the melting snow and smells the amazing smells of spring, and I suddenly think: Winter makes you an extremist. Art pushes you to be an extremist. But it doesn't have to be that way. The effort, the engagement, the commitment, the simple pleasure in making stuff - what more to you need? This is GOOD.

Welcome Spring.

Linkded in

I spent the day trying to figure out this LinkedIn thing. I'm not sure I get it. I have a feeling it could be useful to me as I try to get the Rose project off the ground, but I'm damned if I know how. I connected with about a million people, but now that I'm connected I have no idea what to do. Do I post things? Or what? It's all very "professional" and "business", and other stuff with "airquotes" around it. I guess I'm basically hoping that somehow it will lead me to people who want to invest in my project. One can dream...