A Myth Gone Public

Last night I attended the public The Public reading of Christina Gorman's play, American Myth. You may recall I attended a reading of her "work-in-progress" back in November, and this was that. I feel more at ease to address the play by name, in spite of it still bearing the WiP nomenclature, because this was a seriously serious reading, my friends. The Emerging Writers Group advertised, and filled the center section of the Anspacher Theatre (dear God, what a wonderful space!), and I don't want to name-drop here. I really don't. But suffice it to say that there were some very respectable names attached to the acting and directing of the thing. So, Christina, I'm outing you, whatever other work remains to be done on your script.

American Myth deals with a fictional set of characters, but ones plucked out of the headlines like a Law & Order episode (only more insightful, of course). It deals in questions, which is probably my favorite thing about Christina's writing. All plays tend toward argument; conflict, after all, is drama, and vice versa. But there's nothing like a play that encourages one to ask questions rather than deliver a personal judgment, and American Myth does this for me. It asks what history is, both personal and national, and what we want or need it to be. It questions the motivations of the supposedly moral, and the supposedly immoral. Maybe it's simply the Unitarian Universalist in me, but I love pondering these questions because I can never be absolute in my judgments of others in my daily life. A play that impartially (hyper-partially, perhaps?) explores all the angles of a moral conflict resonates very personally with me. Plus, the script has all of Christina's usual wit and incisive display of human behavior that I've come to expect from her work.

Actually attending the reading was a sort of strange experience for me. I went by myself, with which I'm normally fine but this time, somehow, felt conspicuous about. Christina was wonderfully and specifically grateful for my attendance, and that went a long way to comforting me; in fact, for the brief moments I was in her presence I felt totally at ease. Yet apart from that, even as I was simply sitting and reading, waiting for the performance to start, I was uneasy and downright riled up. It's taken me a while to put together what could be the source of this, but this morning I realized that it was being so close to so much of what I want . . . and not having it. Of course I couldn't figure that out last night -- I was fully invested in the play and its development. This morning however, as I packed my chattel for today's workshop in Philadelphia, I put it together.

As much as I parlayed my feelings of rejection regarding the AFAWK changes into moral outrage and philosophical questioning, the fact is that I had allowed myself to become too dependent on the whole effort for the wrong reasons. I very genuinely cared about the story we were trying to tell, of course, and felt committed to our work and intentions. All that was not compromised. However, I had in a way come to rely on the show as a ticket to somewhere, and I have to admit to myself that part of my response (or lack thereof) to the casting changes was petulant and careerist. We had a reading at The Public scheduled, and then I felt it yanked out from under me. Yes, I care about that show; yes, I put good, hard work into its creation; yes, it is deserving of a life beyond our Fringe Festival performances and sacrifices ought to be made to ensure that. But I also want very badly to be valued more than I yet have as an actor, and that very visceral urge pushed on me hard when all of that went down. I had another opportunity to rejoin the process shortly thereafter, which I ignored. Maybe it was because of all the reasons I said, to distance myself from the story we created before, etc. But also, I was hurt by my own sense of slighted ambition.

Believe it or not, I do not want to dwell on that episode, apart from coming clean a bit on the whole thing. As Far As We Know continues in its development, and I'm very happy to hear that it lives on. It is wholly deserving of whatever success and attention it can create, as are its current creators. In fact, Friend Nat is one of those "creactors," which I find oddly comforting -- he's like a God-father for me. I mention it not just to come clean, but also because what allowed me to realize the source of my anxiety last night was that it felt just like an emotion I used to have in high school and college all the time.

I would sit down in the auditorium, or little theatre, and wait for the lights to dim. I was usually by myself, for whatever reason. (Often, that reason was because it was my third time seeing the show and I had run out of folks who wanted to see it.) I would sit and sit, a mounting sense of anticipation and dread occupying my heart and head. Then the show would begin, and I would get wrapped up in its machinations, but one part of me would always be on the outside of that. That part would feel wrapped up tight, strong, full of urge and impulse. And it would only feel more so after the bows were had, and the applause faded from memory. That urge sits there in every performance and whispers to me,

"I want to do that.

"I want to do that . . ."

Origin Myths

Last night I was privileged enough to attend a private reading of Christina Gorman's work-in-progress. Christina -- as you may recall, Loyal Reader -- was the playwright attached to our process in creating As Far As We Know for the 2007 NYC Fringe Festival. She has since become a part of a play-development program hosted by The Public Theatre. So last night I strolled into the Public, to the downstairs rehearsal room, and tried as hard as I could to look like I belonged there. I think I did okay. My practiced nonchalance bordered on disdain, especially while wandering the back hall while all around me well-employed theatre folk busied themselves about rehearsal, and workshopping, and probably warming up for a performance at Joe's Pub. Yeah, I was cool. I didn't even stain my shirt at dinner beforehand.

(I made sure my coat was closed.)

I won't say too much about Christina's play, except to say that I enjoyed it. I'm not saying much more because it is, after all, a work in progress, and who the hell am I to out it prior to Christina's releasing it upon the world at large? She expects to be presenting it in some kind of final form in the Spring, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it again after she's incorporated whatever notes she took for herself from this reading.

Whenever I see it again, I may also see a few familiar faces again. Going into this reading, I was preparing myself to be reunited with some AFAWKers (that really doesn't read well, does it?), most of whom I haven't seen in a year or so. To my surprise, I was the only one from that crew there. I did, however, see Gaye-Taylor Upchurch again, my director from the reading of Burning Leaves we just completed. She and Christina have apparently worked together in the past, hence Christina's attendance at the BL reading. Christina also knows Tom Rowan. It is, I tell you, a small world after all. As if that weren't enough, one of the actors performing in the reading attended The Big Show. I didn't recognize Bhavesh Patel as he sat directly in front of me and I read his name in the program. He had to come over and clear things up for me. So. Pathetic. I'd rather have spilled pizza sauce on my shirt.

Bhavesh did a great job, as did the rest of the cast: Reed Birney, Carla Harting, Brian Wallace, Alex Webb and Halima Henderson. The whole affair was directed by Michael Goldfried, and to good effect. It was simply done, with the actors remaining seated and with music stands in front of them. I often find it a bit stifling to be seated for a reading, but no one seemed to feel repressed by it on this occasion, and I appreciated being allowed to focus on simply the actors' choices. Christina is writing a play that has very much to do with characters being nudged out of their comfort zones through discoveries about the frailties and failings in one another. The relationships are very distinct, and the action largely achieved through conversation and various storytelling forms, so creating a space in which we as the audience were left to focus in on faces and the minutiae of expression was very smart. Afterward, I was very briefly introduced to Goldfried, and discovered that he had seen As Far As We Know and thought it to be good work, which was certainly a nice note to leave on.

Christina's play concerns itself with origins in a variety of ways, including the origins of personal passions and America itself. It was strange for me -- and I do hope she will understand where I'm coming from with this -- to find familiarity in this new play. At times her new play reminded me of the style or even thematic content in AFAWK, and it's a difficult chicken-or-egg deduction to make. How much of that was Christina's influence on our script, our story, and how much of it was an effect of her experiences working on our play? Ultimately, I don't think it's an important question to answer. She and I both invested a lot of time and energy into AFAWK, and it's only natural that prints will be left and continue to be made long after our involvements ended. Still, I am curious about origins, in general and as they pertain to creative expression.

Many, possibly most, of my favorite stories are origin stories, and I've written here before about how fond I am of that earliest stage of a collaboration, when the ideas are ALL good and the response is ALWAYS "Yes, and...!" The first of a superhero movie franchise is generally the best, because it's like watching a tragedy in reverse: Inevitably, the hero will become something greater than he or she could have imagined, and we get to watch it all happen, to appreciate intimately the progress, the journey. Maybe we're transformed too. (Talk about your adolescent power fantasies... [Seriously - talk about them.].) But what of the origin of a story? There's a popular idea that there are really only about nine (or so; the number varies) stories in the history of the world, and every supposed "new" one is just a retelling of one, or a hybrid of a few. That's as well as may be. I've got no argument with the idea. However, I believe each story told has the potential to spark "new" stories, and that the culmination of these quite literally changes our reality. In this sense, stories are made new all the time by our ever-changing belief in them. Take, for example, our Founding Fathers. Were they as we describe them now? Certainly not. Will they become further mythologized (is SO a word) a hundred or so years from now? My bet is for yea, and those new beliefs will affect the world as we know it.

So I am, irresistibly, inevitably brought back to that tired question that caused me so much grief nearly a year ago: Who owns a story? Or, to be more neat to this particular entry: Does the originator of a story own it and, if so, how do we say who originated that story? All glory be to Allah, I suppose (Welcome to the DoD web surveillance, Odin's Aviary! Here's your complimentary pin, with GPS included!), but how do we claim ownership of a story when we're little more than synthesizers of other stories, and stories themselves exist to be shared? I'm not talking here about commercial ownership -- that question bores me, immediately necessary though it may be. Rather, I wonder about the ways in which we attribute credit in what may be essentially a great dialogue between storytellers that reaches back thousands of years. Maybe we only borrow the stories we "create." Maybe we're just helping them along to the next stops on their journeys.

But hey: Christina's play is Christina's play. Don't step up to that, 'cause girl will mess you UP.

Carnie Corporation

The Women's Project is a great organization that I was proud to be a part of for a short time this spring, helping to develop and performing in Corporate Carnival. (I also managed to accidentally lampoon their ideals while performing for them, which just goes to show that I am a consummate method actor. While playing a rather right-wing-inspired character, I complained of "sounding like a girl." THE CHARACTER complained of it, I should say. Yes. The character...) It was something of a unique experience, however. I entered a process with which I was ostensibly very familiar -- collaborating to create original material based on a few clear themes, using improvisation and incorporating circus and other "physical theatre" skills -- only to be surprised by how different my experience was from working with Zuppa del Giorno, Kirkos or Cirque Boom.

The first strangeness was getting the gig at all. I auditioned for Corporate Carnival way back in February, I think, when I was still unemployed. (Part of the reason I'm so crazy busy these weeks is my panic to book any and every bit of work I could find during that period.) I assumed that train had sailed, yet I heard back from them months later about my being a part of their "temp" squad. Judging by the email that offered me this slightly dubious-sounding position, that initial audition was intended to see if I suited their needs for the main cast, and they just kept me in mind for the sort of filler/choral needs fulfilled by the temps. Judging by my having performed in nine shows last week, I think we can safely say that I accepted their offer.

The greater strangeness came from becoming involved with the show at a later stage of its development, and being asked to contribute (in a limited way) to its further development. It felt strange to be included at this point because I had to play catch-up on the ideas that were feeding into the show's concept. Yet no one was actually talking about "the concept," because half of the people there were so familiar with the dialogue already that they didn't perceive a need for it. At least, that was my interpretation. I also found myself immediately confronted with this approach to play-building: "Okay. We need a commercial for a pharmaceutical drug that cures the 'Mundays'. Go outside the space, build one, and then come back and present it." This is much the way As Far As We Know gathered material, so I had to pause to remind myself that this was not, in fact, the same show. It's a good technique in a group with an established rapport, the members of which can enjoy and contribute freely to the work. It's a little, well, weird when you're a group of strangers who have little-to-no concept of what you're aiming for in terms of mood, idiom, etc. Still, we did all right, I think. It felt a little bit like the kids' table at Thanksgiving, our temp crew. But that was fun in its own way, too.

The ultimate strangeness, however, was how different it was to build what was ostensibly a circus-themed show with people who were predominantly concerned with the theatre. ( I believe -- and I could be grossly mistaken here -- that I and Richard Saudek were the only ones in the cast with previous circus performance experience.) I've gotten quite accustomed to running up to my fellow performers and shouting, "Hey! Let's see if I can throw you over this wall!" The accustomed response is, "Okay!" Now I tried on for size, "You mean, like, representing throwing me over the wall, in a clever pantomime?" Richard actually suggested a bad-ass assisted flip that he could do, that we demonstrated on the first try, yet it never made it into the show. I did get my little acro-influences in here and there. Some weight-sharing, a shoulder-sit. The rest of the actors also really incorporated new skills onto the bottom of their resumes, too. Just about all of them are way better at juggling now than I am (not hard, but still). It wasn't a lack of skill or eagerness to learn; just a whole different perspective on things.

The experience was good, however. Great, intelligent and talented people. Probably a little bit more intelligent and talented than the particular idiom in which they were performing, but what can you do? Work is work. It does compel me further to get organized and make my own circus/theatre show and/or troupe. God's winding up with a 2x4 on that one. I've gotta get in that . . .

Update, May 28: Friend Sara has posted an encyclopedic range of photos from the Carnival! Peruse!

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

Three's Company

This entry is not about the formative experience that watching the above-mentioned situation comedy was for me. Nor is it about using proper punctuation in titling. It is, however, about company. Or rather, companies. Or rather, theatre companies. And threes are just funny, as any self-respecting reader of this 'blog by now knows.

I have been a part of several start-up theatre companies at this point, and I have been in-on-the-ground-floor-ish of several original shows, the which is a bit like being a part of the beginning of a repertory company (just one that is guaranteed to disband at some point [probably a month or so from the first rehearsal]). I'm sure there are many who have been a part of more over the course of a decade, but I've had my share. A brief history:

1. Just after junior high (which is 7-8 grade in NoVa), my drama teacher at Lake Braddock started his own summer theatre camp, producing children's plays he had written, which were mostly adapted fairy tales or adaptations of existing plays. I attended two summers, the first two, and looking back I'd say it was safe to suggest that he had very little idea where to begin. He just began, and it was begun. As far as I know, that "company" disbanded when he switched to teaching high-school theatre at a different school.
   
2. In high school, every show was like a company beginning and ending, in the compressed nature of intense teenage experiences. The one we really felt we owned, however, was our competitive improvisation troupe. That one ended, for me, in graduation, but as far as I know continues on through the years at good ol' James W. Robinson.
   
3. In college I fell in with a group which eventually came to be called Lacquespace (sp?) Enesmble, or Theatre, or Productions, or something like that. It was essentially formed from the frustrations of a writer who wasn't getting what she wanted from the curriculum and actors who were tired of not get cast, either for grade restrictions or simply because they went unnoticed. The group put on several well-meaning, hard-working productions. I acted in the first and wrote something for another. At a class meeting (read: me: geek: I was '99 theatre class president), I suggested that we needed to get involved to keep Lack-space alive after we garduated, and the woman who got it started misinterpretted it as an attempt to wrest control from her. Still, I believe it continued beyond our departure. When I graduated, a younger woman was at the helm, steering it toward geurilla theatre.
   
4. It took me a while to get settled, upon graduating college and moving to New York, and for some time there was no possibility of knowing enough people to strike up an organization. Then, about a year into my residence, the seeds of two such start-ups were planted. From the group that produced a show entitled Significant Circus would eventually come the circus-theatre troupe Kirkos, and from my work with David Zarko on a farce entitled Der Talisman I would come to be included in the formation of Zuppa del Giorno, the contemporary commedia dell'arte troupe. Kirkos enjoyed a few years of productivity, but now exists more as a talent-funneling organization than anything else. Zuppa del Giorno, of course, is still going strong in Scranton--as well as annually in Orvieto--and for that I am grateful.


5. UnCommon Cause (formerly known as Joint Stock Theatre Alliance) began the process that would eventually become As Far As We Know almost four years ago, and nearly three years ago I was invited to join it. This does not a company make, but after two-odd years of working with a group on a single project, one does develop a certain sense of family.

Recently I got an email from Friend Nat, one he had sent to about a dozen theatre folk he is familiar with, testing the waters for the enthusiasm people would have for starting a theatre company. Shortly thereafter, Friend Avi contacted me about the possibility of collaborating together (in spite of his current busy-ness with grad school) on a script or show. Avi and I have already met and agreed to do mutual research. Getting together with Nat (Hi, Nat!) is like trying to barter for clothing in a refugee camp (totally a mutual difficulty [Hi Nat!]). Finally, prior to both offers, I was contacted by David at The Northest Theatre about the possibility of joining in an effort to set up a resident theatre company there starting next season.

For most actors like me--that is, who dig "straight" theatre productions and are of not-too-great fiscal ambition--the idea of becoming a part of something like a permanent company is awfully tempting. "Repertory" theatres, as they are often called, are scarce in America these days, at least in comparison to how many there used to be. Now, every actor is a sort of "free agent," every theatre an economic liability that relies on celebrity draw and its elder community for staying afloat. (You notice I'm not backing this up with anything--this ain't wikipedia--and you are free to disagree.) A company, or even a single venture, with any staying power (and staying-with-me power) is very appealing to me. This is part of why "university theatre," or the track of going back to school, teaching and eventually getting tenure, is so sought after. It occupies more and more of my thoughts these days.

However, I am also a little gun-shy about starting something new, about doing it all over. That's understandable, I think, given one perspective on the past twenty years o' life. In some senses, how far have I gotten? Where am I now? Many people--myself occasionally included--look at my life and wonder at why I should be in such an insecure, unestablished place at my age. It's not uncommon for me to be written off in a lot of people's opinions as anything from undisciplined to inconsequential. Ah: But. In the past twenty of my years--and especially in the past ten--as an actor and creative collaborator, I have had experiences I wouldn't trade for a 41" flatscreen TV. Through all the beginnings and endings, misunderstandings and perfect chemistry, I've created my own work in little communities of people who care, and it has made me a better person. I have no doubt. Whatever is the next, best choice for me and my life, it will be a choice that leads me to as much of this sort of experience as I can handle.

Take a step that is new, y'all. Take a step, that is new . . .

Losing Work

Ownership is a funny thing in the theatre world. Since plays are a collaborative art form, it can sometimes be difficult to point to one person who merits the "ownership" of any given one. The very idea of owning a play is a little preposterous, but relevant nonetheless in our community. Playwrights can own scripts. Actors can own their own faces or voices (though sadly, in many cases, don't). Producers can own a theatre or a title. But a play? A play is an experience. You could even argue that it's owned as much by the audience as by the people who created it. The audience, after all and at the very least, hopefully paid more money for it.

Yesterday I got an email from the producing team on As Far As We Know. It was not a joy-infusing email. Simply put, it informed the longest-standing members of development ensemble that--for the reading for the artistic director of The Public--they would be recasting the show.

Ouchy. One does try to behave like a professional in these circumstances; still and all: ouchy.

I'll not waste a lot of time here on the why and wherefore. Suffice it to say, the show is moving in a new direction, and Uncommon Cause wants it to have a life of its own, and the best way to accomplish both seems to them to involve different people. I don't know if they're looking for notoriety, or just new faces, or even if the rewritten show includes the same characters as that we performed in the 2007 NYC Fringe. I know very little, in short, but hope to speak with Laurie or Kelly soon to get more information on this change. And hey, those of you who may be quick to react in my defense: it's okay. These things happen, and what I'm expressing are feelings, which also happen. No harm. No foul.

Letting go, for just a moment, of all the typical actorly responses of self-doubt and insecurity, what I'm left with are feelings akin to grief. There's sorrow, there's regret, there's anger that feels righteous, but that I know isn't; there's even a little relief. So "grief" sums it up nicely. I'm forced to say a goodbye that I want to resist on a fairly visceral level. It's unexpected, and it's personal. It's even likely that it's forever.

To many people, taking something like this personally is only barely comprehensible. After all, acting work by its nature is usually a process of gaining one job at the closing of another, and that's if you're terribly lucky-slash-diligent. I concede that I wish I were able to immediately respond to this development with more poise and perspective, but not that my feelings are an over-reaction. The truth is, those of us who've spent time building a show through extensive process understand it to be a part of our family of work. Hell; in some cases we feel it as a part of our person. That, as you might imagine, can be very, very difficult to let go of. Even setting aside the potential job as an actor, and all the promise that holds when the job is connected with an well-established theatre of good repute . . . well, actually, that's a big part of it. I'm not discounting that. CRAP!

But my original point is that work one creates for oneself is very dear. It's difficult enough to see another person in a role you've played but didn't write or originally conceive, much more so when you did. And you know what else? I'm going to be okay, as far as I know (har har), when it comes to compensation and acknowledgment rights should As Far As We Know become enormously successful. All of the core members who helped develop it signed contracts assuring us of that in relation to the approximate hours we spent developing the show. So, with a little faith, I needn't even have angst over the respect being paid to my efforts to date. In a sense, I own stock in this show. Even from a business perspective, much less my belief in the importance of its message, I should want the show to succeed at whatever cost, with or without me.

These are the thoughts I'm counseling myself with when I get emotional over this. The fact is, As Far As We Know still has the potential to change lives for the better, including mine. I only wish I could be on stage at the moment it does.

Going Out with a Bang

I usually prefer a quiet celebration of the New Year. You know: a few friends, some laughs, feeling self-righteous about not subjecting ourselves to the cold and hassle of watching the ball drop in person. That's just how I was raised, really. In NoVa, that seemed like all there was to do on such a holiday. Stay in. Maybe go over to a friend's so you can feel sociable. Drink that really cheap champagne that makes you wonder why anyone in their right mind would want to drink champagne on a regular basis. Count down with everyone until you get to pretend the words of Auld Lang Syne actually mean something to you. Then you wait a bit--because of course no one else out reveling will think of waiting a bit--before driving home.

This year, I will usher in the new at the Hammerstein Ballroom, enjoying the dulcet tones of Velvet Revolver. For those of you unacquainted with this hybrid band, I understand it to be comprised mainly of the members of Guns n' Roses (plus one guy from Suicidal Tendencies), but with Scott Weiland--of Stone Temple Pilots fame--fronting instead of Axl Rose. They are, in short, a rock band. And in a matter of ten hours or so I will be hearing them live for the first time through newly purchased earplugs.

There's no shortage of contradictions in life. Paradoxes abound. Every time I find myself at a concert that requires earplugs, I also find myself wondering, sometimes even aloud, "Why the hell am I here?" The absurdity of the situation is inherent. Some argue that they want the music to be loud enough to feel the bass in their chest cavity, and I can appreciate that, but I'm also aware that all that really requires is a decent subwoofer placed on the floor. It does not necessitate creating the decibel equivalent of a breaking subway car. But that's rock and roll for you. No one said it ought to make sense.

In many ways, this is an increasingly appropriate way of spending my New Year's. Maybe it was just turning thirty this year, but a lot of the good parts of it have been spent in reclamation of things of my past, trying to make good on promises to myself and reconsider what's truly important to me. I came into the year as uncertain and detached from myself as I've possibly ever been and I leave it with, if not certainty, a very surprising yet somehow familiar intimacy with myself. Reclaiming one's life involves a lot of confrontation: confronting perception, confronting contentment and, perhaps most strange, confronting assumption. There are many ways in which I did this, quite subconsciously, this year. I attended Camp Nerdly (see 5/7/07), which I never would have thought I'd find myself doing, right up to my arrival there, I returned to Italy (see 6/12/07), which was a touch-and-go promise right up to the flight, and I managed to push myself to a fairly new physical dimension for As Far As We Know (see 7/12/07), an objective I'd long held and never before dared to commit to.

But the most satisfying illustration for me of reclaiming some of my favorite parts of life, chewing over where I am and where I want to be now, comes from music. You can see over on my Library Thing widget that I recently read a book that had a lot to do with mix tapes. This inspired me to try and make one again for Christmas. For a few years now I've been mailing out what I call "MiX-mas" CDs to close friends, which are compilations of new (to me) music I have on my computer that has meant a lot to me over the course of the year. Processing my music through the computer has had an interesting effect on how I listen to it. It and my iPod urge me toward new music all the time, and I come to appreciate songs over whole albums. I love the access and maneuverability of the format, and it quickly usurped my CDs as the source of my musical accompaniment. When I first became capable of MP3 audio, after importing maybe a third of my CDs, out of a concern for space I stopped. It has, ever since, been an intended "when I have the time" project of mine to crack open the CD binders again and import more music. Just the good stuff. Some day.

In deciding to make a mix tape, I had a lot to do. I actually had to purchase a CD player with a tape deck. I have been using computerized music for so long, I had found my boombox fairly neglected a while ago. If I wanted to listen specifically to a CD, it was usually a mix someone made for me and I'd simply play it over my DVD player or alarm clock. So I bought the cheapest boombox (more a toot-orb) I could find, and felt a certain sense of relief upon finding that, yes, people still sell blank audio cassettes. Then I cracked open the CDs and sort of just gave a listen to anything that I hadn't heard in a while.

I remembered some simple things, like using the "pause" button between changing CDs and keeping an eye on the amount of tape left on the left-hand reel. This is why I was so surprised to be reminded of some other aspects of mix-tapery. I mean, I had been making mix tapes for over a decade before switching to the seductions of laser-guided lyric lathing. Yet it took turning the pages of forgotten albums and the engaging mechanics of an actual tape player to bring back certain things. The main thing was how differently I listened to the music when it was relying on me to cue it. A lot has been acknowledged about the flirtation involved in passing on a mix, but few (to my knowledge) have exposed the complex back-and-forth between music and a mix maker when it comes to real-time recording. For example, does music these days tend to use a fade-out less? Or is that only my perception after making this tape of predominantly 90s music, as I would perk up at any diminution in tone or volume on the songs I was laboriously copying to cassette? I forgot how I would turn the volume all the way up at the end of song to be sure I captured the end of the diminution, and the rush to depress the button before the next song leapt into the speakers. And remember that? "Song"? Not "track," but "song"?

Anyway, I'm not calling for a return to tape format, or anything like that. What I am calling out is myself, as someone who too often takes progress for granted. I do it in two ways: assuming that as it happens, it ought to happen, and I take it for granted in the sense that progress is a given. Time proceeds, progress is made. It isn't so, but it's very easy to fall into that thinking. I had an amazing time making my first mix tape in some five years. It made me remember good music, which was difficult to take for granted in that context, and it slowed me down. I had somehow forgotten how fulfilling it could be to surrender to a song, rather than treat it as a score to my life. I had forgotten just how long 90 minutes, one song at a time, is. You can fit a lifetime of experience in there! Most of all, I was reminded of how it feels to meditate on the moment. It feels wonderful.

I'm glad I didn't know, during the 90s, how much I would miss the music in the years to come. A sense of nostalgia-to-come is akin to a sense of impending doom, and the gift of this year for me has been the opportunity to reflect on old times without nostalgia; rather to approach them as songs I still sing. Back in the day, I favored Metallica over Guns n' Roses, Pearl Jam over Stone Temple Pilots. The beauty of age, I suppose, is in being able to appreciate all of it in some way. It seemed contradictory before. Now it just seems full, and well-realized. And, after all, should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should old acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?

James Thierrée

Don't get your fingers in a cramp from Googling and Wikipediating the name. He is Charlie Chaplin's grandson. He deserves to be regarded in his own right. He has been performing in circus since he was four years old. I have finally seen him perform with his company, in their show Au Revoir Parapluie (Goodbye Umbrella). The company performed at BAM's Harvey Theatre. The last time I was in this theatre was a few years ago, close to when it had just opened. I was stilting in the lobby with Cirque Boom as a sort of warm-up to their contribution to The Lysistrata Project, which was a national initiative begun to protest the war in Iraq. As I took my seat for Au Revoir Parapluie, along with Friends Kate, Patrick, Dave & Zoe, I considered how long it had been since I worked with them all, how long it had been since I performed in a circus show.

Then I watched the show, which made my lungs laugh, my heart burst and my spleen evaporate. Plus it tickled.

Oh guys, guys guys: I can't spend the whole entry raving, but I could. There was so much about the show that I found personally appealing that I actually didn't notice the lack of concrete narrative, which usually irritates me when I attend circus/theatre. It reminded me of good classical music, the way it transports me so that my free association and emotions provide me with my own story. Circus performed with seeming ease, pathos and humor allows one to relax in that just-right way, a way that makes an audience receivers more than interpreters. The older one gets, the more their critical faculty takes over their personality, because they have more and more comparisons available. Great art, in any medium, allows us to happily (gratefully) release that faculty.

So this isn't a critique of the show. I was too inspired by it to be objective, and anyway it's sold out this time around (as opposed to closed, which is what most shows are by the time I get around to my opinion of them). No, all I'm saying, party peoples, is that capital-a Art still exists, and the French probably have more of it than we do. (Stupid French [it's a joke, Sara].) Plus (see, you knew that wasn't all I was saying), I am very inspired to make my own pale, incomparable imitation-of-style piece based on the show.

There was just so much to it that I want to be doing in my own work, yet am not. I've always been a fan of direct-address that breaks the fourth wall in one way or another (though I remain ambivalent about the Brechtian convention of "breaking character" to speak with the audeince, when in fact you're still speaking lines someone else wrote). Au Revoir Parapluie did this with action and clown, but no actor-spoken dialogue. It was completely sincere, yet transported the audience with music and surreal imagery. The performers were all capable of circus feats, yet also strong clowns and actors, sensitive and expressive and subtle. There was nothing pretentious to the show, even when I was amazed by it. Joy without guilt, catharsis without lingering sorrow.

When I was a young man, fresh out of my first professional theatre experience, I was driving around the southern states with my girlfriend of the time (Friend Rachel this was, for those of you keeping score at home) and whilst we mused on our performance futures I fantasized about a company of actors trained in dance, and vice versa, who would create brilliantly sincere and physical debut shows. I was going to call it Sugarsweet Willpower, which proves, as though nothing else ever did, that there's a good reason a lot of our youthful ambitions never come to fruition. This was prior to my even contemplating the worlds of circus or commedia dell'arte, and obviously I wasn't well-versed in theatre companies already at work on similar goals. No, I felt this idea was unique and timely, as well as of course feeling fully qualified to found just such an institution.

Ah, me.

It may be a bit gauche at this point, starting my own theatre group. It's kind of what all my comrades do. "Oh, Jeff started a company now? Yeah. Neat. So . . . how 'bout them Mets?" It's not something I'm interested in doing, at least not from a practical standpoint. I've seen too much of the "Artistic Director" process to be fooled by the name, and anyway, where would I find a Producing Director I could work with? (Who are these people? What makes them sign up for all the sucky parts? It ain't the pay, I'll tell you that much.) No, no company-birthing for this persnickity mother. What I might do, given the right circumstances, is make a show.

I say "might," because of these three entries, from which not much has yet arisen. I'm chomping at the bit to express myself, but not tearing up the track, and I feel as though the gate has been open a long time now. I hope this show was the poke in the rump I apparently need. I'm keeping it alive in my mind, replaying moments and recording my own ideas. It's interesting to me that I have so many outlets for creative expression, yet feel somehow that there's something personal, important and specific I have yet to express in my work. I want Zuppa shows to hang from the ceiling. I want Kirkos to craft another comedy. I want UnCommon Cause to improvise in performance (more). The most direct answer to all of these wants is to just do it myself.

Just as soon as the holy daze is over . . .

Making a Stand(ard)

Hi. I was wondering if I could be let back into your life. You can't see me now, so I'll just let you know that I'm standing, in a trenchcoat, outside my car, holding a boombox over my head and looking mournful. Sure, the boombox is playing "Life Is just a Bowl of Cherries" rather than something romantic that we got freaky too (like "The Thong Song"), but that's just because I'm stuck in the '30s, and can't get out. At least, not until October 21.

Some people are genuinely upset with me for being so absent. Not so much on the ‘blog—that, at most, inspires increased frustration with work-induced boredom—but more in general. I never write. I never call. The least I could do is ‘blog every now and again, just so you know I’m still alive as you sit there, reading in the dark without your glasses, two miles in the snow uphill both ways. I am sorry, truly. I have had a worry or two of my own, you know. Nothing to rival your worries, and of course the greatest worry I have is that something terrible would happen to you and I wouldn’t know about it because I have been so selfish, and unworthy of your thoughtful consideration. You have, at the least (as you lie in traction from your tragic tractor trajectory) this comfort: It has been in the name of Art.

And fart jokes.

Look here to see what has been so occupying now that I’ve not been available. Oh, I can’t trust you to links! It’s Zuppa del Giorno’s first original creation in a year-and-a-half: Prohibitive Standards. If you do take the “here” link above (and how much better it is to live in the here and now), you’ll see that a tremendous amount of work has gone in to creating this show, and the ‘blog(s) don’t hardly reveal but half of the actual salt-water work (that is: sweat and tears [thank you, Friend Kate]) what’s gone into this production. The rehearsal room, after all, is where all the material for Zuppa’s shows really springs from, and for the past three weeks we’ve been gathering in a room (or two) to make our baby.

I had previously attempted to ‘blog about the process of that, but never got very far, because I was constantly off to learn music, or watch movies, or try to master a front handspring. OR, to balance my life. Because that’s a special effort too, when you’re an actor of somewhat modest means working out of town. It’s important to acknowledge that aspect of The Third Life©. From balancing one’s checkbook, to reminding one’s parents that he or she is not, in fact, home to be visited, to maintaining some sense of home and personal identity amidst characterization and shacking up in someone’s guest room, the traveling artist has a lot to contend with. Not that it’s not without its perks, either. New experiences are fantastic fuel for creative endeavor, and it’s easier to obsess (constructively, we hope) without frequent reminders of responsibilities.

One of my previous attempts at ‘blogging on this process was entitled “A Host of Angles.” I’ve written to some extent already about the unique process of creating a show from improvisation in my experiences with UnCommon Cause Theatre and Zuppa del Giorno, but never since opening the Aviary have I been so close to the process, nor has it culminated in quite the same way. Prohibitive Standards will be performed in a structured improvisation style. It will never solidify entirely. It will always be different. This means that the same concepts applied to making the show from the ground up will be applied in making it work when the curtain goes up. That creates an intense energy in which one has to set rules for oneself in order to be ready for anything that could happen on stage. We’ve constructed a scenario—or sequence of necessary actions—as our rules, within which we can play and stretch and improvise. In this way, the energy of a performance is very much like live sports, for both the participant and the observer. Everyone’s eager to see what happens next.

But “A Host of Angles”? Well, the most impressive reminder I was receiving about this process when I came up with that title (a lifetime ago, on September 15) had to do with the abandonment of structure and the necessary mastery of the elements of a play involved in creating one by committee, from scratch. In a more standard process, there is a sequence of events and a hierarchy of authority. Typically, the play passes from playwright to producer to director to actors, with very little passing back, and each party has a sequence of gradual development that results in a finished product. In creating a show in the living tradition of commedia dell’arte, however, everyone fills each role in some fashion all the time. One moment you are discussing character arcs, the next you’re leaping around imitating a boiling tea kettle, and still the next you’re trying very hard to be open and objective as you argue for more time for acrobatic training. Rehearsals end, of course, eventually, but they never really do, because everything you see, feel and do at all times goes into the soup, and as a producing playwright directactor, you never stop thinking about and discussing the show. Rather than a sequence of creation, you are coming at an intangible goal from every angle at once, and a lot of the time it feels as though you’re completely wasting your time, spinning your wheels while nothing productive takes place. But I leave out here, as something too obvious to mention, a critical ingredient in this creative soup: Faith.

However we got here, here we are, with a complete scenario that we may even manage to remember and properly reproduce on preview night, this Thursday. It has been a tremendously ambitious project, involving collaboration with Marywood University, regular workshops and training sessions with students and a good deal of marketing. Not everything has turned out the way I had hoped: the student actors are not as involved in the story as I would have liked, there's less emphasis on vaudeville than I had imagined and our physical daring, so prominent in the last two shows, has taken a backseat (necessarily) to an intricate story. However, I am very proud of what we’ve made, and excited to add an audience. Everyone is doing something they never thought they could do before, including me.

What new am I doing? I’d like to keep it a surprise for anyone who can make it out. Let’s just say that my embouchure hasn’t been in this good a shape since I was fifteen.

As Far As I Go

It seemed so simple: Rent a car, in order to commute between Prohibitive Standards rehearsals in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the extended performances of As Far As We Know at 45 Bleecker Street in Manhattan, New York. Maybe you'll feel a little strung out, but you won't miss much back in Scranton, and hey, you'll achieve in a very strong manner that continued connection to your theatrical home you always struggle to maintain when you're doing the regional theatre. It's a win-win.

Wrong wrong!

There's a line in Kevin Smith's Dogma that springs to mind here. "Any moron with a pack of matches can set a fire. Raining down sulfur is like an endurance trial. Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in . . . next to soccer." To that short list, I would choose to add working on two different shows in two different states (and by states, I mean every possible definition of the word). I was warned of this by a thesis defense I witnessed in college. A brilliant actor (who immediately ceased to act once he achieved his Master's, as I understand it), Greg Guy DeLeonardis, mentioned in his thesis defense that he would never again rehearse two shows at once. Both shows suffered, yet neither quite as much as he.

Now, for myself, I can't say that I suffered any great defeat or anything of the sort. It was simply exhausting to vacillate between the different mind states required by each show, much less adding a vacillation betwixt Pennsylvania and New York. In retrospect, too, it may be that any suffering the shows experienced was owing more to other circumstances than my own strung-out demeanor. But more on that later. Simply going between broad, physical comedy and quasi-Epic theatre with a dash of naturalism was a difficult transition. I have difficulty with such a stylistic shift even with months between productions. It seems no matter what I do to prepare for that kind of transition, some remnant of the last style I worked in remains hopping about in my brain. I suppose I had thought that my character in As Far As We Know was developed enough that I could slip back into him like he were my favorite pair of jeans; still, on the opening of the re-up, I found myself more a thinking actor than a feeling one.

As I say, there were other factors involved in this. There could hardly have been more, in fact. In addition to Laurie making some important changes to the play itself between The Fringe and the re-up, the space was vastly different from that we had become so accustomed to playing in. Essentially, take the Flamboyan space in CSV and turn it sideways with the addition of some more-awkwardly-placed poles and curtain slits for entrances, and you'll have some idea what we were confronted with at 45 Bleecker Street. The tech, which I was excused from owing to my commute, was apparently disastrous. Laurie was out of town working on a new job, and she tore back into town on a $500 flight after hearing how our opening night went.

The most interesting snafu that night--for me, that is--was the failure of the video to play. It seems the video projector will go into rest mode, or some such thing, if not set properly. This it did, and so the first video cue failed to play. It's not a particularly necessary cue. That is, not particularly necessary to the action on stage, but it is, however, necessary to cue Lea McKenna-Garcia to begin her drill sergeant rant about the war. The end of which is my cue to stop furiously doing push-ups. (You may be able to see where this is heading.) Fortunately, as I began to approach push-up 40 or so (Yay, personal best for single set!) and my back started to twitch involuntarily (Boo, muscle spasms!) Lea summed up the predicament and I was saved a trip to the ER.

There were plenty of other interesting diversions from the play as it is written that night, lending the whole thing a bit of the quality of a Zuppa del Giorno production. Suffice it to say, it was a godsend that Laurie could return to set things right. The successive performances just got better and better, and I think we may have even got the thing 'round to its lovable old self by closing night. In the meantime, I continued to spirit back and forth through New Jersey in my Enterprise rental car, chanting to myself, "It's all a tax write-off, it's all a tax write-off . . .." The truth is, it was a grand time. Once some of the fires got put out, and I resolved my feelings over missing a good chunk of the work on Prohibitive Standards, I relaxed and enjoyed being so thoroughly employed in the theatre. Last week, when we were learning some fight choreography for the show, Geoff Gould turned to me and said, "We're getting paid for this." It's funny after ten years how joyful that simple thing can feel.

The big question, of course, is if As Far As We Know will have any life after this experience. That was the point of all this effort, and no startling news has yet to filter my way, no offers of space or interest or passionate replies of sponsorship. In my typical actor sensibility, I take this to be a sign of moving on. Actors get used to this attitude--somewhat, at least--through continual auditioning. "Well, that's done. Mustn't dwell on whether I'll get the call." Fortunately, I have something altogether preoccupying (read: freaking difficult) to work on for the next month or so. Perhaps AFAWK will ripple out to greater effect; perhaps not. How I feel now, if this is the end, is that we created work that was good, and that mattered. That's the kind of work that you really learn from. That's the kind of work that sticks with you through the years and, hopefully, with others as well. I feel proud of that.

SO . . . MUCH . . .. BRAIN . . . 'ASPLODING . . .!

Hi. Hi. Hi.

That's kind of the rhythm of my life this week.

Hi. Hi. Hi. Very precise, slightly manic in pace. It would be mostly the good kind of stress (what "good" kind, you ask -- the kind that comes of having too much to do as a result of lots of stuff one loves...an important caveat) except that nobody's personal life takes a holiday without extreme measures, and I've had several reminders over the past ten days or so from said personal life as to how trivial some of my stress is. Which compounds it with a sense of guilt. Which is about par for the course for yours truly.

There was this week, back in college, when I essentially disappeared for several weekdays in a row. I think it was during my Junior year, and it was highly uncharacteristic of me, at least in one sense. That sense being about how I was Super Student in college. I dove into my work with untempered zeal, and didn't really start to surface until some time mid-Senior-year. In another sense, it was utterly characteristic of me, because what prompted my dive into working solitude (relative solitude) was a certain powerful emotional response to events in my personal life. So Junior year, having no increased work to dive into, I took a time out. It was quite unintentional, and I look back and marvel at how easily I did it . . . and how, even once I recognized I was doing it, the recognition didn't prompt concern for my own well-being. I finally came out of my room, and just went about my business as I always had before.

That's the kind of "extreme measure" I refer to, and it is not an adult option. Sure, everyone needs some time off once in a while, from work, from friends, etc., but short of entering an institution for the treatment of nervous breakdown there is no healthy way to rest from who one is, or one's current responsibilities. And really, I don't want to. I want to achieve, and change, and all that good stuff. Good stuff, nonetheless, can at times be overwhelming.

Another thing I did in college, a healthier and more repeated thing, was to make a B.F.L. in times of many goals, such as when finals rolled around. "B.F.L." is a reference to the PC game DOOM, which I'm not proud of, but thought I ought to own up to. It stands for "Big F'n List," and was essentially just that, comprised of everything I had to get done before a given period of time was out.

Now, for certain pragmatic reasons, I can't list all the to-dos here so, in the spirit of As Far As We Know's launching notice, I present the short list:

• Work enough hours at day job to cover lack of pay at upcoming gig
• Do laundry
• Clean apartment
• Pack for two months away
• Forward mail to working address
• Interview folks
• Brush-up rehearsals for As Far As We Know
• Two performances to "close" As Far As We Know
• Write "closing-night" cards for As Far As We Know
• Arrange dates to breach upcoming contract in order to perform in potential re-up of As Far As We Know
• Figure out and arrange transportation for Pennsylvania-New York commute for re-ups
• Plan curriculum for workshops launching Prohibitive Standards rehearsal period
• Continue research for Prohibitive Standards
• Contribute to Prohibitive Standards collaboration forum
• Maintain exercise regimen, sleep schedule and sanity

I'm not trying to impress you. Okay, well, yes: I crave sympathy. But I have friends with a lot more on their plates--in school, for (a big) one--and I'm aware that all this comes from good tidings, not to mention said reminders of late about how trivial such concerns are in the face of issues such as life, death and family. So, more to the point, I list my pre-Sunday to-dos in order to set them down, make them seem more manageable and share a slice of my life when it's in this mode.

The keen-eyed amongst you may have noticed that I rather slipped in there the possibility of a re-up of As Far As We Know. (It being a mere possibility at this stage is yet another in a long line of inadvertent puns on our title.) I don't want to jinx anything, but the sentiment from our side of things is that when a show gets such press as ours has, it's a good idea to use that momentum whilst it is most momentous. This has long been the goal of our esteemed production team (read: Laurie and Kelly): to get the show supported or otherwise picked-up by a more major theatre. There's a very interesting double-motivation here--one for success in our creation, and one for success in spreading the story and awareness of the Maupin's struggle. That, I suppose, is the balance to all the hassles of creating one's own work: that you will really, personally care about getting it out there.

Which leads us to my present conflict--eager for resolution, but utterly lacking in information to resolve. Both shows are very personally important to me, and both rather rely on my presence. The Zuppa del Giorno shows have been my greatest priority, and my most evolved work, for close to five years. I love them: They are me as an actor, in so many ways. This project is far and away our most ambitious and exciting to date, with a cast of five plus student actors, and performing in two venues. As Far As We Know has been in collaboration for over two years, I've been with it since nearly the beginning, and it's also a creator/actor piece. Now it has the hope of reaching a larger audience than any of my work has to date, and I'm loathe to let go of it, even for a few performances. The two don't absolutely conflict, but decisions are on the horizon. Here's hoping the fates are pleased.

Why, you may ask, in the midst of this would he take time from his day to write here? It would actually be worse if I didn't. Somehow staying connected on the Aviary helps to keep me connected to myself, if just a bit more. Doing less has never given me more sense of peace. Doing more of what I love inevitably does.

So there's much to do before I leave. I appreciate my friends' understanding of that. Hopefully I can make it up to them before "Hi. Hi. Hi." becomes "Bye. Bye. Bye."

And not in that nice *NSYNC way, either.

Oh, get over yourself. You were right there with me.

Photographs ... As Far As We Know

With just two shows left, this Wednesday and Sunday, I find myself already feeling nostalgic for this production of As Far As We Know (I just love how every time I visit the website, there's some new review quote attached--makes me feel like I'm in a movie or something). With the understanding that some of you can't make it out to the show (just because you're in Virginia [I mean: geez.]) and with the intention of enticing those of you who have no such excuse, I post below some photographs from Saturday's matinee, compliments of Sloan Alexander. These may be your last chances to catch what I modestly submit is a remarkable production; at least, your last chance as far as we know . . .

Words Were Exchanged

We have had some official feedback on As Far As We Know, and the feedback has been good, which is enormously gratifying. I know reviews are not supposed to mean anything; nevertheless, they do, and not just as regards ticket sales. No, in spite of making every effort to judge my work by the process and personal standards, it remains work that exists to communicate with others, and when the dialogue is one that the audience is showing their appreciation for it make it far more worthwhile. As you know from previous entries (8/8/07 & 8/15/07), New York Magazine began by citing us as 1 of 5 of the most promising-sounding shows of the Fringe Festival, and we had a very nice 'blog review from an audience member who attended opening night.

As a result of Tuesday night's show (ironically enough for me [see 8/15/07]), we now have two more good responses: one from American Theatre, the other from Time Out New York. Actually, the one from TONY is a fantastic review, save their confusion over who is now playing the character of Connie. I do believe it's the first time anything I've worked on has ever been assigned five stars. Actually, it's probably the first time stars have been at all applied to something I've worked on, what with that generally being a restaurant rating system. And a kindergarten incentive. But I digress.

The idea is not so much that you're not supposed to care what the critics think. It's more that you're supposed to care about and believe in your work so much more. Let's face it, though: We can only have so much objectivity about our selves. People need mirrors, and the mirrors that matter most are the ones that write scathing reviews in newspapers, or 'blogs. (Picture that, if you will. [I picture a hand mirror doing that weird floaty thing Disney inanimate objects sometimes do, wrapping its handle around a quill pen.]) Anyway, when it's all said and done, I'd just as soon only ever hear about the glowing reviews. Somehow that never happens though.

Lots of actors refuse to read reviews prior to the closing of the show, most of them on the argument that they don't want it to influence their confidence or performance. And it's true--simply hearing observations on one's work in this regard, good, bad or mixed, tends to make one self-conscious, and that would be terrible to take on stage with you. This used to be my philosophy, but it's changed recently, and not because of these good reviews. In fact, it changed because of bad ones.

Back in the spring I shared some feelings here about the reviews and feedback I was receiving for my performance in A Lie of the Mind (see 4/25/07). I found them demoralizing, when taken all together. I knew that it was not my best work for a variety of reasons (not the least of which was my learn-as-I-go process with Shepard's writing), yet the reviews made me feel as though I had no right to be up on the stage at all. The show closed with good feelings all around, and some rallied to support me when I expressed this angst, for which I am still very grateful, but I had to take some time to evaluate the experience. As Far As We Know has been my first show since, and I decided to read the reviews as they came in.

My reasoning is that I don't want to work in a bubble. Art is an interaction, and I feel that as an artist (God, it still creeps me out to call myself that) I ought to allow myself the opportunity to respond to all kinds of feedback. It's true that acting is a delicate creation, and the urge to please can quickly override the sense of truth in an actor's work, but if I can't maintain my priorities in the face of opinion, just how skilled an artist am I? Some may even argue that actors in this culture don't get enough time to develop their work in rehearsal, and need to insulate themselves from uninformed feedback well into performances. Poppycock, say I. (I say it all the time, actually, which is I think part of why nobody ever wants to watch sports with me.) Once you've put yourself in front of a paying audience, you're no longer in the safety of the rehearsal room, and you better realize that. It's just a different phase of discovery, one that requires that audience. Besides, "uninformed feedback" is what we care about most. If we only wanted to perform for theatre professors, we could just stay in our little rehearsal studio and accept the sound of patting our own backs for applause.

Naturally, it's up to the individual performer whether or not he or she will read reviews during a run, or at all. I just say that it's not blasphemy to choose to hear what people are saying.

Oh, and reserve your tickets for As Far As We Know. We are a ***** show.

Let's Get it On!

Two ludicrous topics today, web-loggers. The first is in reference to last Tuesday's post (8/14/07). It would seem that it's a popular choice for people to endorse Batman against any and all odds in a fight, giving him the acclaimed status of figures such as Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris and Most Guys' Girlfriends. I have Friend Adam to thank for exposing me to this (my own) bias, in the form of a string of submissions to IGN.com. It seems IGN had a survey/fantasy-football-esque event in which they paired off comicbook characters to see who would win in a fight, until they were down to a final two: (The) Batman and The Phoenix. Batman won the votes. Which is ridiculous (I concede...begrudgingly). So IGN began a series of articles inviting people to describe how Batman would win in the face of a variety of unbeatable odds, aptly titling the series "Use Your Delusion." I invite you to check it out. I daresay they make my proposed Batman vs. Wolverine scenario seem utterly reasonable in comparison.

The other ludicrousity (is SO a word) is the terrible volatility of personal relationships between artists. I am not even kidding. Sometimes it seems to me that these involve more bloodshed even than Wolverine fighting a busload of overweight babies. And understand, I'm not speaking exclusively here of romantic relationships . . . you know: "relationships." rather, I mean any personal relationship that develops between artists. But I should confine myself to actors, here. That's where most of my experience has lain, with a dash or two of dancers and writers for good measure.

We will rock your world. We will: It's science. Now, get two of us together and add a dash of affection, an ounce of attraction and a dram of chemistry and you've got one intense stew. The only problem with that stew (assuming you like stew [and intensity]) is that when it is really cooking, it means it is constantly at a boil.

Wait. I lost myself in the metaphor.

I think it's something having to do with dedicating a good part of one's life to exploring emotions others generally choose to avoid, practicing reacting out of instinct and cultivating an awareness of everything everywhere. For a start. So we apply that exploration, reaction and awareness to our greatest priorities, many of which are personal relationships. That's part of why I'm grateful for those of my friends who aren't artists (though I'm just as grateful for my fellows in the arts), because it's kind of nice to know people who can let an issue slide, or are interested in just sitting down over drinks without discussing the ramifications of society's increased isolation from itself. It's great to be uncompromising and sensitive, to have an alternative viewpoint, but it's not always good to apply this ethic to the day-to-day of personal relationships.

I think there are myriad causes for the explosive nature of relationships between artists, and I haven't the experience or interest to explore them all, but one think we can agree on, I think again, is that personally involved artists working together on a project is the most explosive situation of all. I am thinking here, of course, of my relationship with the actor who left As Far As We Know. Moreover, I'm thinking of her relationship with the producing team, with which she is/was really close. I wonder how much of the reasons for the rift had to do with personal feelings on both sides, and how much with work disagreement. I suppose I'll never really know. What I do know is that, regardless of how much you can clean up both aspects of a relationship--professional and personal--this kind of event creates a breach of trust that I don't believe ever really goes away.

So maybe the better question is, assuming they don't rip each other to shreds, how can we hope for Batman and Wolverine to find a reconciliation together? You know? Kick it over a bucket of wings and a couple of brewskis?