143 to be precise.
Lo! as a careful housewife runs to catch
One of her feather'd creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe and makes an swift dispatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay,
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face,
Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;
So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind:
So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'
If thou turn back, and my loud crying still.
It's the sonnet I took with me to work on during the intensive. I picked it because it was a week past the deadline of when I was supposed to have all my stuff in to the training assistant, and I'd been procrastinating on sitting down and finding a sonnet. My teacher had sent out an extensive list of sonnets which weren't too far out in their iambic structure so I picked one at random and read backwards from there. I think it may have been 145, but I don't remember.
I came to 143 and was immediately struck by it. Why? I had to answer this question at the workshop. Well, it's adorable, for one! Babies and housewives and chickens, what's not to love? And then it turns sexy and just a little (or a lot) dark.
Working on it with Dennis Krausnick opened my eyes to so much about Shakespeare and my work as an actor. Reading it to myself, I can't help performing it in my mind. And when I do in this moment, I'm struck by the "but" of the speech, it's antithesis, which becomes a musical theme in the lines. Behind, but, back. A big shout out to asses. I love the sway of these lines, to me they invoke the hips and butox of a beautiful woman.
"You have to get interested in big buts." Your friend, Dennis Krausnick (inside joke, Dennis and I are friends on Facebook though!)
And then at the end, "my loud crying still". I'm struck by the two potential meanings of still. Do you turn back and I'm still crying, or has my crying stilled, have I stopped? It could be either, and it's both!
Thinking about sonnets...
This has been an exercise in simplicity.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Walking back into the real world: Post Shakes and Co Diary Part 2
I find myself overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings every time I go to write in this blog since leaving Shakespeare and Company five days ago. It feels like months have gone by and not days, like I've been transported to a different dimension with nothing to show for it but an endless sea of memories.
Gah, and then it's metaphors like that being the only description for the experience that frustrate me even furher! "An endless sea of memories"?! While I was doing the intensive, the single greatest boundary to my "work" or I guess the most significant facet is my intense self judgement. A big part of the Shakespeare and Company training process for me (and in general, there I'll say it) is becoming aware of my judgements of myself and by extension others. In order to facilitate that, they make really, really specific use of language. In writing this blog I also try to make specific use of language. As a poet as well. And very often I find myself judging the "success" of that specificity in my writing. Was I able to clearly convey the thought of how overwhelmed I am by the Shakes and Co intensive experience? I'm fighting against the instinct when I find myself going for an image like "an endless sea of memories" (it's not a very creative image) to just stop right where I am, and go back to Facebook.
But I owe it to myself to persevere and do my best to write my truth to whatever I'm feeling as best as I can. In writing that sentence, I struggle with the earnestness of that statement, and it's obvious quality. But it's earnest and obvious because it's truthful, and inevitably if something feels overly earnest and obvious it must be because it's TRUE.
This self judgement I've been trying so hard to observe and understand no doubt stems from all kinds of sources. One I spent a lot of time working on while at Shakespeare and Company was my child hood. I've struggled a lot with my body image in my life, and with not liking the way I look. But I remember a time when I was very young when I was with my friends in a park in Berekeley California and I took my shirt off in public completely free of fears of judgement. After moving to Massachusetts, and first being bullied over my weight, I started judging my body as being ugly, or a source of shame.
Oh christ but who gives a shit? So I was intermittently alienated and made fun of as a kid, it's affected the person I am today, why do I need to write multiple paragraphs about it? Quoth the voices of judgement in my head.
Long story short, with the support of a lot of people, friends and teachers and teachers who are now friends, I made a lot of progress on a lot of stuff. In particular, I was really able to carry forward all the movement work I've been doing in intermittent starts and stops, and discovered a whole new path of development in Linklater voice training, which I hope to continue as well as the movement work (I've found a Linklater teacher and a dance class, I just need to follow up on them).
Gosh there's so so much I want to blog about, I feel it pouring out of my pores. Coming back into the real world has been an adjustment. Something about spending a month surrounded by incredible people with whom I share a common love of the craft of acting and in so many other ways connected with as deeply as I've ever felt connected to anyone in my life has made it very difficult to incorporate the experience into my daily routine again without emphasizing the reality that I may and not (and in the cases of some) will not ever see those people who I came to love and care for so deeply ever again in my life. True statement! But how true it is will be up to me to decide. And how much of the work I did in that workshop, not just the work on my own instrument but on my life as a piece of art (something one of my acting teachers talked about which is now beginning to resonate with me as I write this) is up to me to decide.
Part of that needs to take the form of this blog, and through writing bringing all or as many of the parts of my artistic life as possible into one medium. One of the things I've been taking a great deal of comfort with in staving off the melancholy... no that's a bad choice of words, in expressing everything I've been feeling has been through my guitar. Indeed being reunited with my electric guitar and having the time again to practice has been one of the great joys of returning back to regular life. Something my teachers talked about was the ability of iambic pentameter to contain any possible emotion an actor could channel into Shakespeare text (apologies if that doesn't make sense, I'm moving on, this has been my briefly allowed moment of self judgement) and I believe the same could be said of the Blues, the musical form. Mind you for me, the blues encapsulates all of the creole music founded in the union of African and European influences which have taken place in the context of American music, and it's the feeling I have when I play that music on my guitar. Especially my electric guitar. I think if I could be anything in the world other than an actor, it would be an electric blues guitar player (and maybe singer but I'd settle for being Jeff Beck and not Eric Clapton). When I connect to my guitar, any emotion I could ever feel becomes accessible and expressible through my music. It's an incredible feeling, and something that's been incredibly pivotal in maintaining my mental health during this difficult time, as it has been during other difficult times and will no doubt continue to be in the future.
The same is true of writing. And the feeling I get knowing you read this. The hope that some part of you understands what I'm talking about, and hopefully if you're one of my fellow participants encountering it that it helps you in some way too. Until we meet again!
Gah, and then it's metaphors like that being the only description for the experience that frustrate me even furher! "An endless sea of memories"?! While I was doing the intensive, the single greatest boundary to my "work" or I guess the most significant facet is my intense self judgement. A big part of the Shakespeare and Company training process for me (and in general, there I'll say it) is becoming aware of my judgements of myself and by extension others. In order to facilitate that, they make really, really specific use of language. In writing this blog I also try to make specific use of language. As a poet as well. And very often I find myself judging the "success" of that specificity in my writing. Was I able to clearly convey the thought of how overwhelmed I am by the Shakes and Co intensive experience? I'm fighting against the instinct when I find myself going for an image like "an endless sea of memories" (it's not a very creative image) to just stop right where I am, and go back to Facebook.
But I owe it to myself to persevere and do my best to write my truth to whatever I'm feeling as best as I can. In writing that sentence, I struggle with the earnestness of that statement, and it's obvious quality. But it's earnest and obvious because it's truthful, and inevitably if something feels overly earnest and obvious it must be because it's TRUE.
This self judgement I've been trying so hard to observe and understand no doubt stems from all kinds of sources. One I spent a lot of time working on while at Shakespeare and Company was my child hood. I've struggled a lot with my body image in my life, and with not liking the way I look. But I remember a time when I was very young when I was with my friends in a park in Berekeley California and I took my shirt off in public completely free of fears of judgement. After moving to Massachusetts, and first being bullied over my weight, I started judging my body as being ugly, or a source of shame.
Oh christ but who gives a shit? So I was intermittently alienated and made fun of as a kid, it's affected the person I am today, why do I need to write multiple paragraphs about it? Quoth the voices of judgement in my head.
Long story short, with the support of a lot of people, friends and teachers and teachers who are now friends, I made a lot of progress on a lot of stuff. In particular, I was really able to carry forward all the movement work I've been doing in intermittent starts and stops, and discovered a whole new path of development in Linklater voice training, which I hope to continue as well as the movement work (I've found a Linklater teacher and a dance class, I just need to follow up on them).
Gosh there's so so much I want to blog about, I feel it pouring out of my pores. Coming back into the real world has been an adjustment. Something about spending a month surrounded by incredible people with whom I share a common love of the craft of acting and in so many other ways connected with as deeply as I've ever felt connected to anyone in my life has made it very difficult to incorporate the experience into my daily routine again without emphasizing the reality that I may and not (and in the cases of some) will not ever see those people who I came to love and care for so deeply ever again in my life. True statement! But how true it is will be up to me to decide. And how much of the work I did in that workshop, not just the work on my own instrument but on my life as a piece of art (something one of my acting teachers talked about which is now beginning to resonate with me as I write this) is up to me to decide.
Part of that needs to take the form of this blog, and through writing bringing all or as many of the parts of my artistic life as possible into one medium. One of the things I've been taking a great deal of comfort with in staving off the melancholy... no that's a bad choice of words, in expressing everything I've been feeling has been through my guitar. Indeed being reunited with my electric guitar and having the time again to practice has been one of the great joys of returning back to regular life. Something my teachers talked about was the ability of iambic pentameter to contain any possible emotion an actor could channel into Shakespeare text (apologies if that doesn't make sense, I'm moving on, this has been my briefly allowed moment of self judgement) and I believe the same could be said of the Blues, the musical form. Mind you for me, the blues encapsulates all of the creole music founded in the union of African and European influences which have taken place in the context of American music, and it's the feeling I have when I play that music on my guitar. Especially my electric guitar. I think if I could be anything in the world other than an actor, it would be an electric blues guitar player (and maybe singer but I'd settle for being Jeff Beck and not Eric Clapton). When I connect to my guitar, any emotion I could ever feel becomes accessible and expressible through my music. It's an incredible feeling, and something that's been incredibly pivotal in maintaining my mental health during this difficult time, as it has been during other difficult times and will no doubt continue to be in the future.
The same is true of writing. And the feeling I get knowing you read this. The hope that some part of you understands what I'm talking about, and hopefully if you're one of my fellow participants encountering it that it helps you in some way too. Until we meet again!
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Returning to the real world
Yesterday afternoon being driven back to Boston by my Mom after the 2013 month long intensive at Shakespeare and Company felt sort of like being released from a mental institution. Wait, hold on, that's not a very flattering image of the month long intensive. It felt like coming back from college for crazy people. Nope, that doesn't work either. I felt a little crazy, a little overstimulated both by exposure to the outside world after not having ventured outside of a mile radius from the Shakes and Co property and the knowledge of just how much outside world was waiting for me. When we got back to Cambridge, we went to our usual lunch spot after the extended drive, and I was immediately struck by the sensation of defensiveness and closed off-ness emanating from the other patrons in the restaurant.
A lot of the work I did at Shakespeare and Company had to do with allowing myself to be as fully present and open physically, mentally and emotionally as I can possibly be which I rediscovered can be very, very open. Practicing the Alexander Technique prior to going, I became conscious of this struggle in my own body, walking down the street leaving my apartment I would start out "aligned" and at my full height but after coming into contact with however many passer bys I would immediately find myself collapsed inward. I think this is partially true of Boston specifically, people are really closed to off each other here, particularly strangers on the street. A lot of what the instructors talked about prior to our departure from the program was that people in our lives might not react well to how open we'd be emotionally, but I think my real struggle will be remaining open mentally and physically not necessarily with my friends and family (whom it helps are all on board with my being an artist) but to the outside world who doesn't necessarily want to see me allowing my full physical presence and energy in their personal space.
So there's all that. I don't think it helped coming back to my apartment yesterday how incredibly sleep deprived I've been. I think maybe one night I was there I got something close to 8 hours of sleep, maybe 7.5, but I would average between 5 and 7 hours of sleep, with our intermittent days off being the worst of all when my internal alarm clock would wake me up at 7 AM like I had to be at an 8:15 class but I didn't and then I would be unable to get back to sleep on my rather uncomfortable bed in my weirdly shaped room which was directly next to the entryway to the dorm, so even if I could sleep I'd be woken up quite shortly. Yesterday lying in bed with my girlfriend, in my half asleep state I would sort of dream/hallucinate that I was still in physical awareness with a room full of people, dozing off between instructions on what part of my body to focus on as I allowed my breath to drop in.
I'm doing better this morning. I thought about going to see some theatre yesterday, but decided it was for the best if I stay in and chill out for the night. Today we have some fun stuff planned, there's a chocolate tasting event in Harvard Square, and tonight I'm finally seeing my friends in the Huntington's production of Our Town which they conveniently extended until I'd be back to see it.
I'm trying really hard not to just go on Facebook and look for people's pictures of themselves and each other at the intensive, or hanging out in New York, and just be present with this moment. Things which are helping, fresh, home made coffee. Playing my electric guitar. Playing an electric blues again, which like Shakespeare is flexible enough to contain any possible emotion in the human experience (that's another blog post). And my beautiful girlfriend, who last night made me a celebratory molten chocolate cake for my arrival.
I'd hoped to do more blogging while I was at the intensive, I was writing, but it was in my private journal. Maybe I'll share some of that with you, at some point. Or I'll try to process everything I saw and learned and experience from a place of digestion and reflection. Needless to say, more blog posts to come.
Also welcome to all my Shakes and Co friends who might be reading this! If you want to get a sense of my personal history, well here it is from the past year and a half or however long I've been doing this blog. And if you want to know where I'm at, here I am. Hello, goodbye, hello.
A lot of the work I did at Shakespeare and Company had to do with allowing myself to be as fully present and open physically, mentally and emotionally as I can possibly be which I rediscovered can be very, very open. Practicing the Alexander Technique prior to going, I became conscious of this struggle in my own body, walking down the street leaving my apartment I would start out "aligned" and at my full height but after coming into contact with however many passer bys I would immediately find myself collapsed inward. I think this is partially true of Boston specifically, people are really closed to off each other here, particularly strangers on the street. A lot of what the instructors talked about prior to our departure from the program was that people in our lives might not react well to how open we'd be emotionally, but I think my real struggle will be remaining open mentally and physically not necessarily with my friends and family (whom it helps are all on board with my being an artist) but to the outside world who doesn't necessarily want to see me allowing my full physical presence and energy in their personal space.
So there's all that. I don't think it helped coming back to my apartment yesterday how incredibly sleep deprived I've been. I think maybe one night I was there I got something close to 8 hours of sleep, maybe 7.5, but I would average between 5 and 7 hours of sleep, with our intermittent days off being the worst of all when my internal alarm clock would wake me up at 7 AM like I had to be at an 8:15 class but I didn't and then I would be unable to get back to sleep on my rather uncomfortable bed in my weirdly shaped room which was directly next to the entryway to the dorm, so even if I could sleep I'd be woken up quite shortly. Yesterday lying in bed with my girlfriend, in my half asleep state I would sort of dream/hallucinate that I was still in physical awareness with a room full of people, dozing off between instructions on what part of my body to focus on as I allowed my breath to drop in.
I'm doing better this morning. I thought about going to see some theatre yesterday, but decided it was for the best if I stay in and chill out for the night. Today we have some fun stuff planned, there's a chocolate tasting event in Harvard Square, and tonight I'm finally seeing my friends in the Huntington's production of Our Town which they conveniently extended until I'd be back to see it.
I'm trying really hard not to just go on Facebook and look for people's pictures of themselves and each other at the intensive, or hanging out in New York, and just be present with this moment. Things which are helping, fresh, home made coffee. Playing my electric guitar. Playing an electric blues again, which like Shakespeare is flexible enough to contain any possible emotion in the human experience (that's another blog post). And my beautiful girlfriend, who last night made me a celebratory molten chocolate cake for my arrival.
I'd hoped to do more blogging while I was at the intensive, I was writing, but it was in my private journal. Maybe I'll share some of that with you, at some point. Or I'll try to process everything I saw and learned and experience from a place of digestion and reflection. Needless to say, more blog posts to come.
Also welcome to all my Shakes and Co friends who might be reading this! If you want to get a sense of my personal history, well here it is from the past year and a half or however long I've been doing this blog. And if you want to know where I'm at, here I am. Hello, goodbye, hello.
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