Thoughts for a New Season

Having just enjoyed a fantastic turkey feast and a good beer, I’ve plonked down on the sofa in the company of family, music, and some long-desired moments of care-free thought.  I like this time of year.

Even though a lot of people consider New Year’s a time for contemplation and change, I find that Winter is naturally my favorite and most thoughtful season, and it usually begins for me around Thanksgiving.  This holiday, as I mentioned in my previous entry, lends itself to taking a moment for contemplation.  But not in a sad way.  In a joyful way.

I’m contemplating, right now as I look out the living room window at the beautiful mountains calmly fading into night, just how much I have to be grateful for.  So much has gone right for me and I know, despite inevitable setbacks and challenges, I have a bright future.  Maybe someone older or more experienced would consider that a naive sentiment, or even unrealistic, but I think it is probable and born out of a healthy optimism.  Oftentimes, if we believe the positive reality we create in our minds, we will bring that reality into existence in our lives and the lives of others.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world,” is perhaps an overused quotation, easier said than done, but if I put those words into practice on a personal level, I believe I will reap the benefits in the long-term.  It is certainly easier to criticize what we see wrong with the world and in our own lives than to enact change.  But if we take the time to consider where we are and where we could be, if we are willing to work, I find myself pleasantly surprised to find there are far more dreams within my reach than I ever realized before.

But more importantly, I am grateful for what I already have.  To be in a place of contentment, and yet still yearning for new adventures and discovery in life, is a fine balance for me.  It provides me with satisfaction with where I am, but encourages me to never settle for what is easily attained, when some of the greatest experiences in life can be achieved by those who push their boundaries.

Rest, Thanksgiving, and Art for Art’s Sake

A bit of a gap again since my last entry, but better late than never.

Peace at last!  It’s almost the end of the fall semester of my Junior year, and Thanksgiving Break is finally here.  It is a special holiday for me, not so much because of the “founding fathers” but rather because it is a reminder in my personal life of all the blessing I have received.  And this Thanksgiving was no exception: having gone through arduous auditions, callbacks, and a 2+ week waiting process for the final cast lists, I have managed to be cast in two of my university’s departmental shows, which is a great honor indeed.  I have two great parts in two great casts, and it really is a wonderful feeling to be rewarded with results like this in a business that constantly dismisses the talent of an individual.

And now I can enjoy this five day break, back at home with my family, and with a reassuring blanket of certainty keeping my ambitions safe (at least for the next few months, then who knows WHAT!)  Actors live very transient lives, I realize.  As a student, I am only just beginning to grasp how fleeting the nature of my work will be.   Shows hold auditions, are cast, produced, and closed within the blink of an eye, and consequently it can be tempting for me to dismiss the lasting impact of my craft.  But I suppose memories and emotions last longer than the final curtain, even if they are less tangible measures of enduring value.

For me Thanksgiving is a time for rest, but it is also a time for contemplation, as I look back on what I have in my life and where I plan to go from here.  Sometimes I question my contribution to society – what good is acting for the world?  One of my professors, thankfully, helped me to reexamine this notion.  He talked to us in class about how we should never treat our chosen field in the arts and humanities as somehow inferior to the sciences or social sciences.

Yes, the world will always need scientists, doctors, engineers – creators of the practical.  But to create art is of no less importance.  Science should not be compared to art, and vice versa, because they are incomparable.  After Yo-Yo Ma finishes a concert, one would not ask him ‘What’s the point of playing the cello?’  A better question might be, ‘What compels you to play the cello?’ or ‘When you play the cello, what do you feel?’  Art is not and should not be a product that can be bought and sold like a plastic toy off a production line.  It does not necessarily feed us, clothe us, assist us in the practicalities of day to day life, or answer the deeper problems of our existence.  But for anyone who has seen a beautiful painting, heard a moving composition, or experienced the enchantment of a sublime piece of literature or theatre, they know that art is an essential part of being human and enjoying our lives to the fullest.

And so I realize that art for art’s sake is more important that art for the sake of practicality.  Art can be practical, but it must exist for itself first.  We create art because we are inspired and we go to art because it inspires creation within us.  Art can give us solutions, but more often I think it raises questions.  And I am a firm believer that it is just as important to be able to send a man to the moon as it is to inspire the hearts of men and women through the mystery of art.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!  May it be Filled with Rest, Peace, and Good Art!

Absence and Practicality

Hello all, or one, or whoever might happen to read this.

First of all, my apologies for my lack of updates recently.  I suppose it is not very “professional” to leave one’s blog un-updated for so long.  And I enjoy writing.  It gives me a release valve for all the built-up pressure of words and thoughts and ideas that accumulate in my brain over the course of the day (or in this case, weeks).  But as with so many things I enjoy, it still requires practice.  And practice requires a certain amount of discipline.

I would consider myself a person of grand ideas but with sometimes unrealistic expectations or patience for such ideas.  Ultimately, I have a persevering personality, so good and even great things do get done.  But they do not always happen when I want them to, nor do they always attain the level of achievement I desire.  For the past few weeks, I have had auditions, callbacks, classwork, and other personal goings-on that have distracted me from this blog.  But fortunately they have also distracted me from myself.  Instead of constantly raking my mind for new grand schemes that are inevitably overambitious, I have become preoccupied with the demands of the current moment because the current moment has required it.  In others words, I’ve finally had a dose of practicality.  Thank God.

That really is what the last couple of weeks have taught me – simple practicality.  As one of my acting professors told me on Friday during a class improv, “Just work on the simple stuff.  You can break the rules once you’ve learned the simple stuff.”  So if I’m worried that I’m not extending myself enough, (knowing me) I’m probably overextending.  Less is more.  Quality, not quantity.  Find something to do, and do it well.  Practicality.  This is a good thing for me to learn.

Bring Honesty to the Stage

I’ve been thinking a great deal lately about honesty and what it means in acting and life.  Sadly, I don’t think we live in a culture that values honesty as much as we should, but I believe that many people still greatly appreciate honesty when it is shared with them.  But in acting, honesty is not merely an act of kindness or respect, it is essential.  You must be honest with your audience, and you must be honest with yourself.

This might be confusing, since the nature of theatre is often compared to a lie – what is happening on stage is not really real; actors are portraying characters.  But I don’t always like to consider theatre a lie.  I like to consider it a different representation of the truth.  Even an autobiography contains some altered or fictional elements that have been adjusted or rephrased for the integrity of the entire message.  A play should be performed with honesty if it is to share the integrity of its message with the audience; the performers must believe in their characters if the audience is to believe in them.

I think the process of acting would be easier if actors placed greater emphasis on portraying characters and situations with honesty.  At the same time, I don’t mean obsessive realism.  Film can be a medium for obsessive realism, but it is rarely manageable on the stage.  By its very nature, the stage is an unrealistic convention for sharing moments of significance with an audience.  Instead of bringing honesty to the stage through ulta-realism, bring honesty to the stage through authenticity.

To play Hamlet, for example, it is not necessary (nor advisable) to work yourself into a suicidal state.  But neither is it good to demean the character to a stereotype, to a Shakespearean cliche from centuries past.  To paraphrase noted film and stage actor Anthony Zerbe, “you must take a step towards the character on the page and let Hamlet take a step from the page towards you.  You are not Hamlet.  Hamlet is not you.  But if you meet each other in the middle, you can find a little of each other and share something with an audience that maybe no one has ever seen before.”  And that authenticity is compelling.  It is honest, and that is an undeniably satisfying quality to see portrayed on stage.

Theatre: The Great Provoker?

I recently saw a professional production of David Mamet’s Oleanna at a regional theatre near my university.  I’ve read both Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo, but this was my first exposure to Mamet on the stage – and it was moving.  Perhaps I shouldn’t say moving, because if anything, the play stopped me dead in my tracks . . . and it made me angry.

The subtitle for the play is appropriately “a power play” and it was just that – a constant shifting of energy between just two characters for 90 minutes, with an inevitable explosion of frustration between them overwhelming the audience with a catharsis of violence and anger.  It was not traditional Mamet, at least not from what I have read: minimal strong language, vulgarities, or obscenity.  There was just a simmering, brooding resentment that seemed to be building in the characters for the entire duration of the play (and, it often seemed, within the audience as well).  Apparently, the original Broadway production suffered brawling fistfights between audience members in the lobby after the premiere.  How can a play, a work of fiction, do this to us?

I’ve known for a long time that the theatre can be a place of extreme provocation.  Just look at Brecht, or Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, or Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.  It even goes back to the plays of Shakespeare’s contemporaries and some of the satyr plays of the Greeks.  As long as there has been a need for censorship in the theatre, there has been provocation.  But at the same time, I’ve probably more commonly associated theatre with a place of entertainment, maybe even enlightenment.  Provocation, I feel can be both.  Just look at Mel Brook’s The Producers.  Springtime for Hitler and Germany?  Brooks manages to accomplish much of his humor through almost, but not quite, deeply offending his audiences.

But then, is that really provocation?  I think my 21st century, Western notions of theatre can be very comfortable at times.  If its a comedy, it’s funny.  If it’s a drama, it’s “moving” (whatever that means).  To roughly paraphrase something I heard Anne Bogart say, “It is not the theatre that moves me, that I find so interesting, as the theatre that holds me motionless – that takes my breath away.”  Oleanna took my breath away, because it provoked me.  It made me angry.  Alright, so I didn’t get in a fist-fight in the lobby afterwards, but I was deeply concerned about the implications of what I had just seen – because I could see truth in it.  Perhaps this is why a play like Oleanna is more than just an “edgy comedy” or an “enlightened drama” – it takes us past a comedic edgy into a realistic edgy and instead of patting us over the head with a neat, little moral precept or enlightened solution, it throws deeply distressing problems in our face and then withholds any satisfactory answers to our questions.

Oleanna stopped me in my tracks, despite the play being nearly 20 years old, because I could see the relevance of the problems it was exposing.  And instead of trying to offer a solution to the problem (which I don’t necessarily think is the job of a playwright), Mamet frustrates us to the point of emotional anguish, to the point of an explosion, and then perhaps we realize the irony – we are not so different from the characters on that stage.  And unlike them, we are real.

Take Care of Yourself

This advice is just as much for me as for anyone else who happens to read this.

As humans, we have almost always lived in some state of danger or uncertainty.  Living in a country like the United States in the 21st century, however, it is easy to forget just how dangerous the world can be.  With cell phones, the internet, medical technology, transportation, abundant food, and a huge amount of instantaneous satisfaction, it can be VERY easy for me to forget just how quickly all of this can be taken away.  I am NOT invincible, even though sometimes I would like to think I am.  Accidents can happen, mistakes can occur.  I am blessed with a tremendous amount of control over my life and my future, but even then, money and privilege can not but CERTAINTY.  I do not know that I will wake up tomorrow, for certain.  I do not know that my dorm room might burn down, for certain.  I do not know that my friends or family might be killed in a car accident, for certain.  These are terrible things to think about, which is why I think death is such a taboo topic in our culture – it makes us feel uncomfortable.  But I think it is far better to acknowledge these possibilities rather than live in denial.  I’m not saying be morbid, I’m simply saying that we shouldn’t take our lives for granted.

Recently, I have been taking my life for granted.  I have been taking the opportunities given to me for granted.  I would even go so far as to say I have been squandering them.  Despite my privilege and opportunity, I have not taken care of myself or the blessings I have in this life.  Staying up late, very late, with no real reason other than I do not want to sleep; I think I am too good for sleep.  As a reaction against my narcolepsy, with the help of my new medication, I think part of me thought I was invincible, that sleep was no longer that important.  It was a big mistake.

By staying up late, by increasing my sleep debt to an inordinate amount, I literally made myself sick.  At first I thought it was just seasonal allergies, but I’ve realized over the past few weeks this is a yo-yo effect: if I get a decent amount of sleep for a night, I feel alright the next day, but since my sleep is never consistent, the sickness soon comes back.  I had terrible, chronic headaches.  A bad cough and painful sinuses.  My muscles felt weak and stiff, and I was feeling cold shivers.  It was getting to the point where I was even starting to feel dizzy when I got up, almost falling over if I exerted myself too much.  And this was entirely my own fault.

Yes, I could easily blame seasonal allergies, the flu season, the demands of college, but deep down inside I know that I am the instigator of the suffering with which I am now contending.  I have taken life for granted, to the extent that I am causing myself harm.  Nothing outside of me has done this, so I must take responsibility.

This is perhaps a sobering entry, maybe more so for me as I type it than for those few who I know read it.  But I am glad I am saying it, because it is encouraging me to be accountable.  And my life is improving.  I have been insisting I go to bed at a sensible time and after several nights of good sleep, the improvement in my overall health is very apparent.  The key is to make such behavior a CONSCIOUS habit, just like any form of actor training.  It must become a part of my daily ritual, the same as brushing my teeth or doing my stretches.

My advice to all: please, take care of yourself.  No one else can do this for you, and no one else can help you recover until you take the initiative yourself.  Whether you are an artist or not, you will reap the benefits of good health through this behavior, which will also help you tackle the challenges outside of yourself, over which you may have little or no control.

Take care of yourself.

A Life Led by Fear, Will Lose the Chance to Love

Once upon a time, a boy and his father went walking in the woods.  The boy loved this.  He loved the woods and he loved spending time with his father.  They would walk for hours, hand in hand, amidst the trees, crossing bridges over bubbling brooks, sometimes looking up to see the sun peering cheerfully through the thick forest’s hair.

One day, the boy and his father were enjoying one of their walks through the woods, but the cheerful sun had disappeared and quickly been replaced by glowering rain clouds and the the flash of untamed electricity.  The boy was scared and began to cry out in terror, but the father quickly took him in his arms and ran through the woods faster than the boy thought possible.  Under the shelter of a cave, they sought refuge while the storm thundered overhead.  The boy clung to his father, who comforted him greatly, but the fear still gripped his young body.

“Father?”

“Yes, my son.”

“Will you always be here for me?”

The father smiled with warm certainty.

“My son,” he said, “I will always be with you, even when I am no longer able to hold you in my arms.  Storms will come and fear will swell up in you, but if you remember love, you will never be without me.  One day, you will be able to give that love to another.”

The boy did not completely understand his father, but a feeling of complete reassurance wrapped itself firmly around him.  He was comforted, and his fear began to fade.

Suddenly, as if the sun’s familiar glow had never left the heavens, rays of light shone through the once cloudy sky, now replaced with a tapestry of celestial blue.  The boy and his father emerged back into the world, hand in hand once more.  Fear no longer divided the boy from the life he was learning to love, and as the Father grasped his tiny palm, he began to realize his potential for compassion.

Advice for the Actor

Some observations I have found helpful and am endeavoring to incorporate into my own art:

Believe in what you are doing!  If you do something with absolute commitment, you will be undeniably compelling and your charisma will be infectious.  Be fearless!  Seek the truth in all you do, risk everything, restrain only what is immoral.  Create art that is sprung from necessity, not from contrivance.  Open upwards and outwards, do not contain.  Share, do not be self-indulgent.  Find a community that nurtures you and challenges you.  Do not take no for answer, and do not stop at yes, but continue towards “and.”  Love the art you do, love the artist you are, and love the artists you work with and the audience for whom you perform.  Be bold, but don’t be distasteful.  Pornography is shocking, but nudity can be meaningful.  Baseless obscenity can disturb an audience, but the purposefully vulgar can move them.

Always listen, speak when it is necessary, and remember that you are a part of a whole, not the whole part.  Art begins in life and carries onto the stage, so remember to keep that art in your life long after the final bow.  Always train.  Never, ever stop training.  The day you stop growing is the day your art dies.  If you are bored, search for the compelling.  If you are boring, believe more strongly in what you are doing.  But please, please: be fearless.  Carry your fearlessness wherever you go, whether you are acting on a stage, reading in your home, walking through town, or eating in a restaurant – be open to everything, but afraid of nothing, confident in who you are and what you can do, but always ready to change and grow.  If you do this, the profundity of your art will carry over to every area of your life, and individuals will watch you, whether you are performing Hamlet’s soliloquy or tying your shoelaces.

Stuck

Have you ever been stuck?  And I don’t mean wedged down a ravine, I mean in a place of indecision.  Of inner turmoil.  We can become entangled in the simplest of troubles.  The tiniest complications can easily become our nightmare, if we let them.  I believe we can work our way out of a state of being “stuck,” at least in the sense I’m talking about.  Sometimes there are obstacles in our life that will not go away and remain completely outside of our control.  But the way in which we encounter such challenges determines whether or not we get dragged down or fight long enough to escape the quicksand.

I don’t really have any particular situation in my mind right now.  I have experienced many in my past though, and I’m sure many more shall arrive.  This is part of my life experience, as it should be.  By living practically and with a certain degree of trained positivity, I can usually circumvent the pitfalls that show up in my path.  This doesn’t mean I gloss over a serious situation, it simply means that I try to find the redeeming elements, because they are what will see me through.  I have never encountered true suffering in my life, and I hope I never will, but odds are that new challenges will continue to present themselves.  By finding the light in the darkness, the humor in the chaos if you will, I am able to open up new opportunities that might otherwise have been shrouded by the illusion of futility.

I have suffered from depression in the past and currently take antidepressants.  That (coupled with what was at one point near-crippling social anxiety in addition to my Aspergers) has presented me with a fairly unique set of challenges during adolescence, a difficult time for anyone.  Each year I grow.  Situations that rattled me when I was 15 seem inconsequential now, and even moments of extreme confusion and pain from earlier in my college career no longer hold that authority of negativity over me.  Life is hard, but I learn to find the beauty and truth in its mysteries whilst enduring the pain it sometimes holds.

Perhaps, I should try and find a more grounded example.  This summer, I experienced the most challenging experience of my life training with the SITI Company in Saratoga Springs, New York.  It was an amazing experience and an honor to work with so many talented individuals, but at times it was terrifying and overwhelming.  I broke down and wept on more than one occasion.  I felt like I was lagging behind the other actors, unable to do the work to a sufficient standard, and failing to appease my own sense of “accomplishment.”  At one point, I sent a text message to a very close friend which simply read, “I am broken.”

But looking back on this experience now, and even at the time, I knew the incredible importance of what I was doing and realized that ultimately the process suited my best interests.  If there was no hardship, there would be no growth.  And I would be a bad actor and a pretty shallow individual if I never grew.  I feel this change in myself and am told by my professors and even some of my peers that they can sense it as well.  This change manifests in my academic and social life and I realize just how fortunate I am to have had such an experience at the age of 20.  And, in fairness to me and some of my difficulties training this summer, a couple of months ago I was diagnosed with narcolepsy.

It is good to have standards and goals, but they should not dominate one’s existence to the point of becoming barriers in their own right.  My perfectionism has often been my own worst enemy, but when I simply strive for personal excellence unimpeded by external pressures, I am usually my most successful.  In summary, I find this quote comforting:

“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.” – Winston Churchill

Be Fearless

The other night I was in a dance studio at my college.  A friend of mine within the performing arts department had kindly agreed to teach me some basic dance lessons.  I knew she was an excellent dancer, which was one thing, but the fact that we get along so well and sometimes see the world through shared eyes was an added bonus.  We were meeting for the dance lesson quite late because she had rehearsals immediately before that.  As I have told her, “Actors are lazy, dancers cannot be.”

I had done about 30 minutes of stretching before entering the dance studio, but continued with additional warm-ups when she arrived.  I have minimal dance experience and training, certainly not in a traditional setting, and my coordination has not always been where I want it to be in the past.  I grew up a clumsy and awkward child.  I had unusually long legs, even for someone as tall as me, and a very small upper body.  I was hopelessly bad at almost every sport, but I had always prided myself on being faster than almost all the other kids I knew at sprinting.  By the time I was a junior in high school and had developed an interest in acting (and at the advice of one of my closest mentors), I took up weightlifting in an attempt to not only increase my confidence but also my physique.  It did wonders.  By now, 4 years on, I am still 6′ 2″ but rather than being 160 lbs, I am 190 lbs and far more confident in my figure (although at times, years of bad body image still manage to trick me into seeing something different in the mirror than what is really there).  I also take pride in stretching and flexibility, endeavoring to be limber as well as strong and defined.

Thanks to my training in Suzuki and Viewpoints with the SITI Company this summer, I found a new elegance in my movement that perhaps had always been there, I just had not realized.  I had unlocked it, somehow, like Michelangelo freeing David from the marble, but now I needed to continue to refine it.  To train.  I needed technique, I needed training, I needed diligence and patience and commitment, but most of all I needed to destroy any fear of failure, because fear of failure is what prevents an actor from sharing the truth of the moment on stage.  I needed to be fearless.

Tadashi Suzuki’s rigorous training method gave me the discipline of mind and body I needed, Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints gave me the playfulness and capacity to work with the ensemble, Ellen Lauren gave my voice and breath the groundedness to find truth which came from my body and not my overactive nerve endings, but it was Barney O’Hanlon who gave me fearlessness. Barney’s movement class terrified me.  I felt out of place, like a clumsy dodo trying to be an elegant swallow.  My left foot wanted to go where my right foot should be.  And then Barney said something to us that struck a revelation in me (that is a bit unfair, because he said MANY things that had this effect): “Dance is simply conscious movement.”  Suddenly, instead of worrying about how pretty I was, whether or not I looked ridiculous (which at times, I am sure I did), I just dove into his class with every ounce of my creative being.  And I reaped the rewards.  By the end of the training program, Barney told me personally: “You have come a long way since the first week.  You have found the connectedness in your body.  You’ve loosened up.  It shows.”

So in that dance lesson with my friend, after we had warmed up and she had gone through some basics with me, I danced.  Nothing in particular, nothing written down in any codified book on Ballet or Modern or Jazz or Tap.  I simply danced.  At first I held back.  I realized this after about 5 minutes.  I told her.  I began again.  And when I finally forgot she was in the room, to the point where I was barely conscious where my foot or arm or neck would move next in space or time, it was then that I became fully conscious.  I became fearless.  My dance was for me, it was for the expression of me and my place in this universe, my pains and sorrows and frustrations and joys and discoveries and bliss.  It was a living, breathing experience of experimentation that was never sure where one moment ended and another began.  It was uncertain, and it was exciting!  I was having fun, and I wasn’t letting anything stop me.

At the end of the dance, I slowly, slowly lowered myself to the ground as if laying myself down in a holy bow to the gods of dance and theatre.  They didn’t need to respond.  No one did.  I was simply finding my way back down to the earth, down to where life was created, the nurturing mother that absorbed all the fear that been lingering for so many years in my trembling bones.  It was liberating and it was invigorating.  I breathed deep heavy sighs.  I knew I had been no Baryshnikov, but I FELT like Baryshnikov.

My friend was silent for a long time, as was I.  Finally, she said this to me: “You were completely fearless in your dancing.  Many dancers with far more technique than you can’t do that.”  And I took that as one of the greatest compliments I have received in regards to my art.  Because no performer can hold onto himself on the stage.  I do not mean he should throw himself at the audience either – he should share himself with the audience and with the stage like a man shares his lunch with a friend or a stranger in need.  He should not withhold his spirit, nor should he hurl his spirit indiscriminately into the audience.  He should breathe each breath with honesty, and move each muscle with the intent of sharing the realization of life.

I knew that night that technique did not matter.  It is a necessary and useful thing, which requires many years of diligent, brutal focus and labor.  But this can be acquired through effort.  Fearlessness cannot be acquired in such a way.  It can only be received by letting go.  I am learning to let go.  And the rest shall fall into place.