Road Blocks

I find not being actively engaged with a show frustrating, I've realized. I think is one of the longest, possibly the longest, breaks from theatre I've taken in about two years. The other substantial lapse of not rehearsing or performing anything must have been May of 2011, I think. I remember right after finishing The Mousetrap I was feeling kind of burnt out after having done something like five or six plays of varying sizes so far that year, mind you three of them were small productions with very limited engagements, but it still had wore me down by that point.

After a week or two of not reporting to rehearsals, I remember feeling more or less ready to go again, and from there I went to New York for the Samuel French Festival, booked Crooked Arrows, and it was generally good crazy from there on out, going at a pace of every time a show would be wrapping up I would be just getting started on a new one. This was a satisfying pace for me to be working at, and I'd pretty much maintained it through Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead until now.

Since then, I've been intermittently successful in filling my theatre hole with other stuff. I've had four or five improv shows this past month, worked on music (including a new song) tried and mostly failed to blog (I have a whole bunch of incomplete blog posts in my blogger), auditioned for and booked some film stuff as well as had some fall into my lap, sort of started a podcast (for which I have one episode done, and a bunch of material recorded which I'm still figuring out what to do with) oh and have gone to see a lot of shows.

Despite all that, I can't get over a sense aimlessness. I've been finding it very hard to finish the things I start or start the things I'd like to finish. It's weird for example with the podcast, the strange alchemy we found with the first episode which at first appearance looked like a train wreck I was able to craft into something sort of remarkable, I think. Maybe one of the funniest things I've made just with my two hands. Which isn't necessarily saying too much, I haven't made too many things like that (some songs and poems, a few bits of stories, a few pages of a screen play much of which I was ripping off at the time, etc). But I haven't felt us recapturing that yet, which is understandable we're still figuring it out. But more importantly, I've made about half way through editing both recording sessions and still haven't finished either! And then when I sit down to work on them, I find myself lamenting that the sessions weren't more successful, but that's not really a productive way of working.

Something I took away from Making It, the podcast I tend to reference, and also from when I attended "If I Knew Then" back in February or whenever that was, is that as an actor you need something else fulfilling in your life. For me, I really want to find to find a creative outlet that does that and ties back in to my acting pursuits, like hopefully helps get more acting stuff. Music is good, but doesn't accomplish that as directly as I would prefer. Improv also is good, but is very dependent on the presence and participation of other people and also various gatekeepers between you and having shows, etc. Maybe it could be writing eventually, but I can't get my head to go that way right now. So I really wanted it to be podcasting. And I hope it still can be. And I still have this blog, as much as I've been neglecting it.

I guess it's OK to feel like I'm in a little bit of a slump, these things happen and I'll come out of it then back into another one, inevitably. Such is part of the life of an actor. Success and disappointment, agony and ecstasy, and part of growing as an artist is learning to deal with all that stuff. So I'm spinning this frustration into a learning experience. And I've got some film stuff coming up this week that will hopefully challenge and energize me in a meaningful way. And then Vanya, of course. And everything else I can't foresee. And I feel better having written about it. Maybe that's what I've been missing, writing, so I'll try and do more of that too. Talk to you soon, I hope.

Getting Back to Blogging

Dear Blog,

I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated you, especially compared to June and July when I'd been updating with such frequency. I guess it's beacause blogging for me is about processing, and when I have things to process I enjoy doing it in a public way, much of the time, while also flexing the old writing muscles which otherwise are neglected. Then again, since R&G closed I've had a lot to process. I've seen a bunch of theatre, gone on some auditions, did another reading of The Last Jews (which included my first visit to the Berkshires, my first King Lear, and getting to know my collaborators that much better) and performed a bunch of improv after over a month's hiatus. 

None of which though has really satisfied me like I'd hoped it might, and one thing I've tried to avoid processing is dissatisfaction because that's much less fun to read about then vicariously experiencing an artist who is satisfied by their art, and ultimately that is the product I'm trying to manufacture for your consumption, dear reader. 

Well goddamnit I'm going to update today (there are several unfinished drafts of things laying around) I'm over an hour early to a film shoot at CDIA plenty of time to tap on my iPhone. 

And I have a topic worth processing, my first significant audition in some time is this Wednesday for Stoneham Theatre's production of It's A Wonderful Life for it's ensemble. I've never seen the film version, I should probably watch it. Or at least skim the screenplay. So they want a monologue... What do I do? I have a few that might work, like my ancient standby Tom from Glass Menagerie. Or that piece from Crossing Delancey I've never quite gotten to work like I wanted.  I'm thinking of learning something new, before Wednesday, for a part in a show somewhat in my reach (I think) that would constitute kind of an important break, my first Equity show. So it's kind of stupid to learn something in three days and use this audition to test the waters. But you have to be working on stuff and trying it out and overall be taking risks. 

So that's what I'm processing. I brought some plays with me to Waltham, where I am killing time before a shoot, writing this blog, watching a father and daughter feed ducks. I realized writing this, I need to get back into blogging for the sake of process and the experience and joy of writing. Writing and creative output is like mining a river for gold I feel like sometimes. You need to keep going back to it and you'll get ounces of dirt for every gram of gold but so be it, that's how you get at the good stuff.

Week filled with theater!

This has been and will continue to be a theater filled week. Not what I was expecting after wrapping up Rosencratz and Guildenstern just this past weekend, but so it goes!

Starting Monday was the beginning of living a dream in miniature... that being, playing the role of Konstantin in the Seagull. I say in miniature, because the context was that of a presentation for my friend Thomas' directing class. He needed someone on short notice who wouldn't require a great deal of directing to pull off a Chekhov role, which I fit the bill for, and inadvertently served as sort of an assistant director filling in gaps from the play and helping to shape the staging.

And you know what? It was overall one of the most artistically satisfied experiences I've had in a long time, in a weird way kind of on par with actually getting to play Tuzenbach (my favorite role after Konstantine, followed by what's-his-face that young socialist in Cherry Orchard, actually these are just Chekhov roles I can play before my mid 30s but because it's Chekhov I still love all of them). The reason being that unlike my other recent theater experiences, all of which were wonderful in their own ways... I felt a degree of freedom and also input, of true collaboration, like I was able to come in and really just do my own thing where the scene was concerned and give input without fear of overstepping a boundary (generally speaking, giving notes to other actors or on the piece as a whole as opposed to your part in it is a faux pas). And then it went from being one thing, to another, much more beautiful thing, in just three days and it was wonderful to watch that develop and feel like I took a real part in it, as more than just an actor, but again a true collaborator. (It actually got me thinking that I might be ready now to try my hand at directing, but that's for another blog post).

So that was Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday I had an audition in Melrose of all places for someone I knew in high school's exploitation film, which I'll probably do some kind of a part in, depending on what they offer me (I don't really want to do anything super explicit, and was offered the role of "naked hippy" on the spot and which I declined, so we'll see). Again, that could be a blog post in itself.

Last night I went and saw All In The Timing by David Ives at The Factory, the first production from Amazing Moustache, a new theater company founded by someone I sort of know through Improv Boston and featuring various people I know through working with them, and although I found the sketches kind of uneven throughly enjoyed it and had fun seeing the work of my peers in the theater and improv communities combined. I'm looking forward to seeing what's next from Amazing Moustache, and would definitely audition for them in the future (I totally would have gone out for this, but it conflicted with R&G, ces la vie).

And then tonight, I saw Commonwealth's Coriolanus... not the most typical play to do a big budget out door staging of, but very well acted, very well teched, and very possible to follow, with some particularly strong performances I thought from Remo Airaldi, Karen Macdonald, Maurice Parent... oh and everybody else, they were all good. And it was also pretty cool seeing people I know from Boston theater acting in the ensemble/citizen roles, as well as my classmates from Yo-el's movement class.

When I had planned on auditioning for the production (which I ultimately wasn't able to do, due to a scheduling thing the day) I illegally downloaded and watch (nobody tell the MPAA or Comcast on me!) the recent Ralph Fiennes film adaptation, which I think will actually be coming out on DVD fairly soon and when it does... oh man, Nextflix that shit, it's really fantastic. Ralph Fiennes sets in modern day Eastern Europe, which makes certain scenes extra trippy in that you could see how a crowd would go on a riot due to a food shortage and then more so when he goes cross country, hitch hiking to Volumnia and he's just completely unconcerned with making Coriolanus sympathetic he just plays him with such brutality... it's something to see.

So anyway, I think somewhat unfairly (although it also helped enhance my experience because I knew better what was going on) I spent a lot of the time that I was watching it comparing the two, and of course film is a completely different medium from theater so there's not much point in going in to the differences. This production was much more invested in giving Coriolanus a sympathetic level of depth, and was much more sparing on the text, whereas of course the movie version cut it down to shreds and back. And the actor playing Coriolanus was much more explicitly charismatic and less psychotic then Ralph Fiennes, and this version idolized Coriolanus in a way the movie didn't. I could go down the list, but even though I didn't enjoy it as much as last year's All's Well That End's Well, I think it's very worth seeing before it closes next Saturday especially because who the hell ever stages Coriolanus? Practically nobody, so check it out.

The cap to this weekend filled with theater is that I'm waking up at 8 AM to meet my collaborator on The Last Jews, Larry Jay Tish who will be driving with me out to Lenox for the next stage of the project, a staged, filmed reading, footage from which will be used in conjunction with Kickstarter to fund a full production some later this year or next, which is exciting. In addition, this particular round of readings are being hosted by my friend and also collaborator on the project, Chuck Schwager's new theater company, Pythagoras Theater Company. So I'll be hanging out in Lenox for two days, Chuck, Larry, Bobbie Steinbach and myself. We'll be doing a reading tomorrow afternoon, then seeing King Lear at Shakespeare and Company (my first time seeing it) and doing another reading on Monday before coming back.

Theater! Oh yeah! OK I should go to sleep, check you later, blogosphere.