Making Humans More Human

I am new to this world of blogs. I have read plenty, I just have barely written any. I have been asked, bugged, prompted and cajoled by our web master to please write something on a panel series we are doing in a two weeks time in Boston:

The Importance of Live Theater in Our Culture:The Art of Making Humans More Human

In thinking about this blog, I ask myself – why are we doing this panel? Why is this important and what would make it worthwhile for someone to come to downtown Boston if they had planned to stay home that night?

Here are my thoughts from the last few days;

We’re doing this because there is a hunger for conversation about the topics that stretch us and stun us as people. How to become more human is a big subject and one with all that we see in the news, and on our streets and schools, worthy of deep consideration. At our best we bring life to each other, at our worst we take it away. How can we live our best lives, and be the best creatures on this planet fulfilling our individual purpose? Finding  answers to questions like these and getting there is often not a solo journey, but one accompanied by others who come to us in ways we often do not expect or anticipate.    The beauty of conversation is that it is not only about speaking, it is about listening. So, conversation much like live theatre requires two parties to fulfill the experience –  speaker and listener, actor and audience, complete the exchange. 

Before our panel discussion we are performing Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage.  In her words, “a funny tragedy”. I was so relieved to find this description because while I find the play very funny on another level it is also very disturbing. Two couples gather to discuss a fight between their sons, and disintegrate as the time wears on.  The first suffocating moments of the play, offer images of good people, trying to abide by societies rules. As the images get shattered, the real angers, hurts and vendettas are revealed and we have an inkling why the two boys fought on the playground. 

Reza reveals the problem, but does not resolve it. It is left to us to take the next step whether it be in our communities, in our homes, or simply in ourselves.  

So, besides a dynamic panel, free sandwiches and a great play, I would invite you, encourage you, and compel you to come to this discussion for it holds in it the seeds of hope for the future of our communities. It is also good to know you are not alone in this life, trying to honor the humanity in yourself and in others around you. 

The Safety of Being Known......

As a resident company, the members of Elements have the distinct privilege of knowing each other really well. I mean REALLY well – like, probably knowing more than you want to know or be known about at times.

This has its pluses and minuses. I confess that I have wondered recently about what it would be like to put on a show with total strangers – no baggage, no worries, no relationships to protect…

But then I was thinking about Dream, and specifically about the Mechanicals. Now, without giving too much away, we Mechanicals have decided that we are all members of a certain group that meet regularly to share our common struggles, to confront each other, and to support each other. We know each other really well, and we’ve seen each other at our best and at our worst. We want good things for each other. And a fascinating thing I’ve noticed in our process so far is that the time spent off-stage, developing these relationships and really getting to know Snout, Snug, Flute, Quince, and Bottom, has been way more important than the time spent acting on-stage. And the things that come out in our interaction through Shakespeare’s dialog present a Technicolor experience of total honesty, trust, earnest-ness, and joyful abandon.

Huh.

So I return to my original wonderment, about the potential benefits of anonymity. Maybe I’ll get to try it someday, but for now I wouldn’t trade that safety of knowing and being known. For us Mechanicals anyway, it’s a very good thing.

Heat

"Passion is engendered, not by feeling and emotion, but rather by action."  Anne Bogart

Here is the link to a fantastic blog by Anne Bogart founder of the SITI Company in NYC.

http://siti.org/content/heat

Dreaming

"I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was..."
Bottom, Dream IV.i.

After rehearsal last Friday night, I had a dream.

I dream a lot. Nightmares, constantly. Life-like scenarios when you wake up thinking "that actually happened," all the time. Naked dreams, flying dreams, speaking-in-a-foreign language dreams -- yup, all of the above, frequently.

No wonder then that since we've embarked on Dream my sleeping hours have been as hyperactive as ever.

Here was last Friday night's scenario:

Myself (female, married, with children), a co-worker (also female, married, with children), and a fellow actor (male, and actually a monk) were moving in together, into a very small but lovely suite -- 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a closet. It was a glorious day, and the sun was streaming through the windows -- white walls, light wood floors. The center of the biggest bedroom, which happened to be the adjoining room, also featured a large indoor plot of grass. This grass was picture-perfect blue grass -- the kind you want to lay down in and fall asleep. We immediately set to work figuring out the best sleeping arrangements. She and I would share the smaller room, since we all know he gets up earlier than us and goes to bed later -- so there would be no awkwardness of crossing paths, or conflict with use of the bathroom. Then we got to work on our perfect little indoor garden.

I don't remember much else about the dream, except that all of this seemed 100% rational. No one at any time said, "This is insane," or "What the hell is going on here," or anything like that. We weren't in the least bit upset about it.

Analyze this however you want -- it's probably more revealing than I'd like it to be. But the next day, I couldn't wait to tell my friends about this dream, for the sheer joy and smile it brought to my face when I woke up in the morning. Suddenly, I felt a lot like Bottom.

In that barely-awake moment at the end of IV.i. when Bottom relives the "rare vision" he has just experienced, I get choked up. I always feel like that dream is the thing that gives Bottom the oomph to go on, and when he returns to his fellow Mechanicals, his zeal is infectious and spurs them all on to their moment of greatness.

Sometimes dreamers scare me. Their ideas are so big, and usually require a lot of work, major risk, and 100% dedication, and the outcome is never certain. 

But what if I was more like Bottom? An ass with a dream, who's not afraid to share it, or to take others along for the glorious ride. Something about that seems oddly appealing.

Word Made Flesh

Yesterday, we started on a 5-week refresher, based on Kristin Linklater's exquisite guidebook to the universe, "Freeing Shakespeare's Voice."

Lying on the floor, standing there in a circle, with people I love and respect greatly, allowing vowels and consonants to have their way with us physically and emotionally -- well, as one teacher said to us once, "I'm not sure what it is, but it isn't nothing."

I must remember to prepare myself in the future, because it always opens a door of immediacy in me that I find it impossible to close.
Let that "O" really drop into the belly,
give in to all that vulnerability that "AY" demands,
and suddenly I feel everything intensely, personally, devastatingly. I can't turn it off, and frankly, I don't want to.
The best advice to myself and others at this point has always been to pray for a thick skin, and a soft heart.

Danger, Will Robinson: this experience cannot be about me. My vocation is to be an actor. I am an emotional skydiver on behalf of my audience. I serve the playwright and his text. I open myself as a vessel for the character that has been created. I give myself to my scene partners. And if I don't, then I am a selfish pig.

"Resist the sound for as long as you can," Kristin Linklater says, "and when you can't stand it any longer, give in to it." I give in. It's all there. I don't have to add anything, or be clever, or anything like that -- just available. Word made flesh.

Opposites Attract - Part One

I find opposites an absolute thrill. 

In our Dream, we've discovered that the Mechanicals all have their foils in the Fairies. Peter Quince, Snout, Snug and Flute -- salt-of-the-earth citizens struggling to stay upright and on the wagon -- evolve into Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, Moth and Cobweb -- amoral sprites who don't hesitate to do...well, anything Titania tells them.

The Mechanicals also seem to discover their alter-egos in their roles in Pyramus and Thisby. During a rehearsal of 5.1 the other night, we found ourselves in the middle of a sort of epic Greek drama, involving elevated poses and complex choreography.

This is a rush. And I think it's because all of these opposites have already met inside of each one of us, and they are simply psyched to be let out of their cages for a little while.

Taking it a little further, I think this might be why Dream is thrilling in general. In your own dreams, you can suddenly be anything and find yourself anywhere. The same's true in this Dream: our inner monarchs, lovers, magicians, and warriors all show up for the party.

What is Love?

What is love? 'Tis not hereafter.

Present mirth hath present laughter.

What’s to come is still unsure.

In delay there lies no plenty.

Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty.

Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

Feste sings this in 12th Night -- I confess I didn't give it a whole lot of thought during our production. But here we are in "Dream", and the question of what love is in my face again.
I wouldn't describe myself as a naturally loving person. Love sneaks up on me, and when it hits me, it hits me hard. This terrifies me. I'm married with children - I have no business falling in love with anyone else ever again. But guess what? It happens, and I can't control it, predict it, or understand it - witness the fact that during our last rehearsal, I found myself completely, fiercely enamored with Helena. Huh.
Genius that he is, Shakespeare manages to touch on almost every conception and misconception of love I can think of in "Dream." Love monopolizes "Dream" - parent/child, spouse, romantic, unrequited, spurned, ridiculous, misplaced, friendship, and on and on... And frankly, as much as it scares me, I'd like to experience it all at some point during this process.
We had a teacher once who said that she falls in love at least once during every production. This same teacher taught us about the main Shakespearean archetypes: The Monarch, The Warrior, The Magician, and - yes, you guessed it - The Lover. The Lover's motto is "All of service, nothing of self".
The Lover's action is to begin by placing one's clenched fists over one's heart, and then releasing both hands and arms to open wide. I dare you to try it.

Very Tragical Mirth

This was a real conversation.

Them: So, what's Elements doing next?
Me: Midsummer Night's Dream.
Them: (brightly) Oh, I love that one! With the fairies, right?
Me: (suspiciously) Yes...
Them: (eagerly) It's really funny, right?
Me: (beginning to be put off) Well, not really.
Them: (gleefully) But it has those doofy guys in it who try to do that play, right? What are they called...
Me: The Mechanicals.
Them: Yes! And they're really stupid and it's so hilarious, right? And the little fairies flitting all around, and the lovers running around in the woods --
Me: (irritated) Well, I wouldn't call The Mechanicals stupid or hilarious...
Them: (almost patronizing, in an ignorant way) But the whole thing is a big joke isn't it?
Me: (barely able to restrain myself) No! No, it is not a joke at all!

The conversation continued, but I'll stop there.

Let's just say that the strength of my feelings about this play, which is regarded by many as one giant lark, really took me by surprise. Yes, of course people remember the humor and the magic and that's fine. But perhaps what they don't realize is that for every character in this play, the stakes are high -- life and death, in fact -- and there is danger on every page.

We put "Dream" on its feet for the first time yesterday. And, as always happens with Master Shakespeare, I saw and heard things in the story that I'd never seen or heard before.

I'll admit, a cursory glance of the play reveals a bunch of ridiculous people who are either planning weddings, fighting with their parents, struggling to speak English, engaged in tangled teenage love triangles, and - yes - fairies arguing and flitting through the forest playing tricks on humans and each other with love potions and donkey heads.

But when you break it down a little, it's a whole lot more violent than that.
• Right off the bat, Theseus reveals he has won his new bride, Hippolyta (who is, by-the-way, an Amazon -- yes, the ones who cut off a breast in order to better use a bow and arrow) by violence and bloodshed.
• Egeus (Egea in our production) basically asks for permission to kill her daughter, if she refuses to marry the right guy, who (you find out later in the woods) really is not a nice guy at all.
• When the Mechanicals express a certain amount of fear for their lives if they scare the ladies by roaring too loudly during their play, they actually do fear for their lives.
• Those lovers running around in the woods -- well, just remember the intensity of your own feelings and actions as a teenager in love, and you get the seriousness of their situation.
• And those cute little fairies? Not only have they enticed humans and each other to infidelity, murder, and other crimes, but the weather, the seasons, and all the elements are all out-of-control off-balance because of them -- and some of them don't seem to mind that one bit.

Don't get me wrong -- there will be a lot of laughter in this production of "Dream." But I believe the reason "Dream" works as a play is because for every single character it is deadly serious. They all face down the dangers that threaten them, and they all emerge victorious. Miraculously, bizarrely, dreamily....

I believe that's also why it's a true comedy -- very tragical mirth, if you will -- and reduces people (myself included) to tears and laughter every time.

I'd Die to Go Back in Time

I’d die to go back in time.

To feel the hazelnut shells under my feet. To smell the crush of groundlings’ bodies. To taste the air of London. To see Gloriana herself up in the stalls. To hear the words spoken for the first time.

To wonder with Viola. To war with Henry. To die with Desdemona. To wash away the blood with Lady Macbeth. To embrace madness with Ophelia. To drink with Falstaff. To curse with Lear. To resurrect with Hermione. To lust for power with Richard. To laugh with Dromio. To revenge with Shylock. To love with Beatrice. To mourn with Cleopatra.

I’d die to stand just for a moment in that little room above the teeming streets of London.

To hear the scratch of quill on parchment. To see the inky fingers. To witness the birth of genius. To feel the love and knowledge of humanity in all its sweat-stained, tear-streaked, bloody glory.

I’d die to talk to him myself – to tell him that after all this time, his words are still ringing, his characters are still alive, his voice still speaks, and every word means just as much or more as it did more than 400 years ago.

I want to tell him, I don’t care what some people say, I know it was really him that wrote all those words all along.

I want to tell him how’s he changed me. Given me courage to love, permission to rage, grace to forgive, humility to bow.

I want to tell him, Happy 449^th birthday, William Shakespeare. Thank you for everything you’ve given to me and to countless others over all these years. And I want to wish us all many happy returns. Here’s to next year, and the 450^th!

ETC in NYC

             Wow! What a week it’s been for ETC! Monday, Elements was in NYC at the Manhattan campus of NYACK college leading workshops, doing a performance and hosting a panel discussion.

 In the afternoon, director Sr. Danielle Dwyer led a workshop in Opera Theater for the students of Dana Talley, former principal tenor of the Metropolitan Opera! Other members of Elements lead a workshop on Shakespeare for an English class that is currently studying Othello. The afternoon culminated in a no props- no costumes abbreviated presentation A.R. Gurney’s The Dining Room by ETC for the students of the college. The workshops and show were a smashing hit. The students were so actively participating and there was a palpable buzz of electricity between the students and ETC as they shared this time together.  It will be so cool to see what comes of this bond and mutual learning!

                Now of course I HAVE to talk about the evening! I feel so lucky to have been able to attend a panel hosted by Elements Monday night at NYACK Manhattan. The topic of the panel was “How Do the Arts Humanize Culture” and there were three fabulous and seasoned speakers there to discuss the matter, with ETC’s own Sr. Danielle Dwyer as the moderator. The speakers were:
Larisa Gelman, Director of the Educational Outreach department in the arts at 92^nd Street Y
Peter Filichia, acclaimed theater critic
Mauricio Salgado, Director of Domestic Programs for Artists Striving to End Poverty

This was such an interesting discussion, really proving  that the arts are SO critical in our society today! They can teach us empathy for one another, and have the power to reach and change us in ways that other things can’t.

Shakespeare 101

As of yesterday, I have a new appreciation for Shakespeare and all of his works!! The Element's apprentices have been given our new assignment! To do a production, like the Reduced Shakespeare Company, where we act out each of Shakespeare's plays in 3 minutes! 

 At first, this sounded pretty simple. Basically summarize the play in 3 minutes- we can do that. But, then I realized that meant distilling a 3 hour play into 3 minutes, and we can't just rattle of the plot summary. I looked at the list of his plays, and I have only read about half of them, and that might even be stretching the truth. We need to understand what is happening in each play thoroughly, to be able to wrap it up in a shorter form.We also need to come up with interesting and unique ways of presenting each play, and then put it all together. 

As I mentioned before, the Reduced Shakespeare Company took this challenge on and produced, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). I was watching the clips of their performance on Youtube, and I was inspired to say the least. They use Shakespeare's language mixed with modern language, so you get the feel of Shakespeare while understanding everything! As I was working, the enormity of this project started to dawn on me. The part I can look forward to is being a real Shakespeare scholar; being able to know all of his plays inside and out is exciting! 

Three Little Pigs

I watched a you-tube clip the other day wondering what fairy tales might be like had they been written by Shakespeare. (here's the link - http://youtu.be/OxoUUbMii7Q)  At the beginning of his dialogue he mentions that Shakespeare had a working vocabulary of 54,000 words. The average American adult today has command of only 3000.
We have become such a visually based culture that our ability to communicate with text has been crippled. (says he who attached the YouTube clip!)  Visual is important - but if we don't continue to exercise, expand, and respect our use and understanding of language we will dull it's power to communicate.  Learn a new word - read a poem - memorize a sonnet.  Keep language alive.

Shakespeare- The Bard of Avon

Reading Shakespeare can be a daunting task, but it can also be an exciting way to challenge yourself. For the past few weeks, we have been reading some of Shakespeare's plays and every time we tackle a new play, my confidence grows. If I am in any way worried about understanding the language; I won't be able to. It is amazing how fast normal English words can turn to gibberish. But I have realized that if I relax and let the language come through, it all makes sense. Shakespeare was a genius; everything you need is right there, I don't need to add anything to it. When I let the language speak for itself, I can finally see the humor or the passion in his writing. All I need to do is take myself out of the equation, and let Shakespeare be the Bard!

Improv: A New Approach

I recently heard Wynton Marsalis speak about the importance of Improvisation.
"It teaches self-acceptance and personal pride through developing your own unique sound. It teaches you to identify and investigate your own emotional identity through truthful self-analysis, contemplation, introspection, joy, love, sorrow, weakness, and pain. All through searching for something meaningful to play in our own language."
He was speaking in the context of music - but this lens gives me a fresh look at how to to approach Improv in the theater sense.  Maybe part of fleshing-out my character, is finding (and accepting) my own language and identity.

Letting Go

There are so many things I love about acting- becoming a character, relating to other people through that character, and giving everything to a story that isn't my own. But, once I give myself fully to the character, I realize the hard part is getting out of it.
At the end of last month, our group (the Elements Apprentices), put on a showcase of the play Proof by David Auburn. I had the pleasure of playing Catherine, the brilliant daughter of a mathematician, who believes she is going crazy. At the beginning of the rehearsal process I felt like "Catherine" wasn't coming across, but towards the end I felt much more connected to her. When we finally did our two performances, I felt like Catherine and I were the same person. I felt schizophrenic and literally crazy. I felt like I had really become the character. So, when it was all over it was very hard to transition out of being Catherine, and go back to being me. What was the character and what was me? For days afterward, people would ask me if I was still being Catherine, and I realized I was acting a lot like her. Was I still being her, or had I moved on, back to normal life? I think the only conclusion I can make is, I connected with the character and the borders between her personality and mine were blurred. Now, I need to say goodbye to Catherine, and move forward, as myself.