First of all, let's think about the title of this piece for a second. Or don't, if you don't want to, like if you don't have the same filthy, perpetually sexually frustrated imagination that I do, you're not obligated to imagine me rubbing shoulders with a man named Alan as he achieves orgasm.
A fun fact though while I'm on this bodily riff, someone I told my Alan Cumming story to once related an anecdote that he'd tested a series of cosmetic and hygienic products, including a shampoo line called "Cumming In Your Hair", and I'm sure he thought about a face cream, am I right? Cumming On Your Face? Did I really need to type that? Well I did.
So I was actually inspired to write this by my friend and collaborator on a few projects (including my first ever play in New York) Mark Blickley and his piece Waiting For Robin Williams about a chance encounter with, you guessed it, Robin Williams, that left an impact in his life.
It got me thinking about an idea for a historical fiction novel series I had, imagining my own life and career through the lens of Horatio Hornblower or whatever, except instead of advancing through the British navy and fighting Napoleon while bearing witness to various historical events, it would be a young artist, it's a little convenient but let's say he's an actor, writer, comedian and musician who adventures through the art world and has his ups and downs and successes and failures personally and artistically, meeting the occasional famous people, observing events, etc.
This would be a scene from that series, one of my first acting jobs in New York was an extra on an Amazon Prime series, "The New Yorker Presents", the concept being a series of video pieces, filmed essays, short documentaries and sketches reflecting what you'd read in an issue of The New Yorker. I found this particular gig on Actor's Access, it was SAG affiliated, I'd literally just moved to New York and didn't have anything going on, so I took a weird random day of extra work for $50 bucks and trekked out to Brooklyn somewhere to be an extra in this comedy sketch featuring Bret Gelman (who's a comedian and character actor you can google, you might recognize him) as a homeless person imagining himself talking to God, as played by Alan Cumming.
Unremarkable anecdote, I was hanging out in craft services at the beginning of the day, loading up on coffee to tolerate waking up at like 6 am for the 8 am call time in Brooklyn and of course the free food because what else do you do on set, when Alan Cumming came in, and I didn't register it was Nightcrawler from X Men 2. I overheard later was unhappy about the lack of vegan options, which yeah you could say is diva-ish, but it's like, I'm sure his people communicated he was vegan and it's craft services job to make sure there's stuff for people to eat. So yeah.
Later we were on set, and I was assigned to pass by the shot of the two of them talking outside the grocery store where we were shooting the scene, and one of the passes Alan Cumming jumps up as I pass by and walks next to me, shoulder to shoulder, I imagine to try and create the effect of God disappearing behind this rather tall, messy haired, kinda brawny hipster looking Brooklynite who's walking by like he just doesn't give a fuck. Which I didn't! Part of that was my intention, obviously I was just doing background work, but I was trying to make my walk as naturalistic as possible and not regard the action happening next to me, like if you're going to be on set you might as well try and practice something, right? And additionally, I was going through a rather rough break up with my ex girlfriend who I'd left in Boston to pursue my acting dreams in New York, so I really didn't give a fuck. I was somewhere else. I gave negative fucks, and I wonder if they could tell from my "performance" and because of that and my look as a Brooklyn character I was chosen for that moment.
Or maybe Alan Cumming was fucking around? I don't know. Funnily enough, I really wasn't happy about being featured, because I worried it would effect my ability to be cast in the future if the show went to series (I believe this was for the pilot) if I was recognizable from this piece.
I also remember at the time as it was happening thinking "OK be cool, Alan Cumming is walking next to you, literally rubbing up against your shoulder, don't do anything different, don't change your focus, just keep walking until they call cut", and because I was an extra and like, as an extra you don't talk to anyone unless they talk to you except for the other extras and the PAs in charge of extra wrangling, I didn't say like "Hey, Alan Cumming, what was that beat just now where you walked next to me?" But I kind of wish I had, cause like, fuck it, I didn't deliberately rub shoulders with Alan Cumming, he got next to me.
I don't know where I'm going with this story. If you read Mark Blickley's piece, linked above and which I recommend, his chance encounter with Robin Williams ultimately lead to him taking a chance and getting his first literary agent through a series of events. Maybe if I'd reached out to Alan Cumming, something indirectly would have come of it (or cum of it, get it?) but probably not, and that's fine.
What's the moral of this story? I'm not sure. I just though it was kinda cool.
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Making Connections
Making Connections
Hey blog.
Long time no blog.
I used to use this space to talk about my creative projects and reflect on the processes involved; this was like four years ago. I was actively updating, and then I went through a really harsh break up and fell out of the habit. Since then I've written a few posts, and a lot has happened to me personally and professionally.
Most recently, I made my Netflix debut.
Here I am in Friends From College.
Wait, that's actually not accurate, one of the films I have a bit part in, Crooked Arrows, was on Netflix for some time before the contract expired and they took it down. So I guess that was my Netflix debut. What came out this week was Friends from College, in which I have an even smaller bit part. But people are actually watching this, unlike Crooked Arrows which, to be fair, was targeted towards 8-13 year old lacrosse players anyway.
Fun fact, one time I got a random piece of fan mail to my email from this guy who watched Crooked Arrows with his kids. It seemed very sincere, like clearly it meant something to his family and he was like "who is that guy who plays the announcer? He does a good job, I should let him know." And my email is connected to my IMDB page, so that's probably how he got it. It was still kinda weird.
Anyway, Friends From College is especially cool because I play literally myself. Well I literally play the character I portrayed at the time at Jekyll and Hyde, where the scene is set and where I work in real life. And I mean, it doesn't take a lot to guess that it's because I work there in real life that I got the part in the TV show that happened to be shooting a scene there. It was a stroke of luck that I met the guy from the locations department who was scouting it, who got my info to casting, etc. Success in art really is a combination of luck and preparedness, all of my other acting roles in big things like this (I've had three now, total) were a similar combination of those factors.
And yeah, I'm really, really proud of it. And I'm really proud of the work I do at Jekyll and Hyde. There, I said it. Actually I say it all the time in Facebook posts detailing the various interactions I have with kids while I’m working there. If you're reading this, chances are good you know me, so you do you know this: I'm a devout secular humanist and leftist and I try to imbue that into my work with people. I always have in all of my jobs as a performer, be it running a trivia night (which I did for a while), as a historical tour guide on a Segway or in colonial garb (both of which I've done) or most recently as a character in a haunted theme restaurant.
I try to relate to people on some real level, like I see them, and I understand what they’re going through. I just ask them questions, where are you from, what are you doing while you're in New York, that kind of stuff. And I try to make them laugh, at me, at themselves and at each other. My new favorite bit I do as my mad scientist character (in the show I'm a butler but now I play a mad scientist) is I walk out onto the floor of the restaurant, and just cackle like a mad scientist, you know "BWA-HA-HA-HA!" and then I stop and say "I don't know why I'm laughing, sometimes what can you do but laugh, am I right folks?" but in my deep, sort of growley Dr. Horrible voice.
Yes, my character's name is Dr. Horrible. No, I don't have a sing along blog. That's part of the joke. Dr. Horrible’s backstory: Joss Whedon met me during the writer's strike and based a movie on me, but instead of having me play myself, he hired Neil Patrick Harris, my super talented and handsome arch nemesis. I do that bit when people ask me about it. It's very silly.
But I really believe that as a life philosophy, "Sometimes what can you do but laugh?" I acknowledge that in my case it comes from a place of economic and societal privilege. Like if I was homeless or truly hungry or desperate, I might notlaugh. But when something hurts, be it heartbreak or rejection (which, come to think of it, are the main forms of pain I experience) I try to remember it. And when people come to the restaurant, I try to share that with them, and just do whatever I can to make them laugh.
With the kids I do a little more. I very deliberately interact with them, almost to the point of interviewing them. I ask them their name, how old they are, I ask how them how that's going. Like, "Oh Suzy, so you're eleven. How's that going? Do you like being eleven?" Sometimes they say "yeah it's great". Other times they’re having a hard time, usually if they’re a few years older. They'll admit it’s not great, and I'llsay "Yeah I know, I totally feelz you dawg," again in my mad scientist voice. It's silly, I know, but I actually do. And I want them to feel seen by me at least, like the clown sees you, and wants to know what yourinterests are, what do you like in school, what are you doing this summer you're excited about, how are you really, that sort of thing.
I base a lot of my approach on an article I read a long time ago about how to talk to little girls. It suggests, instead of emphasizing their appearance, that we get to know them and appreciate their personality, what their interests and aspirations are, that sort of thing. Then, whatever they like, I'll try to engage with them about it. If they like math I'll do multiplication with them, or tell them how algebra is actually an Arabic word meaning "to bring into balance". If they like science I'll find out what they know or have learned and try to elaborate on it as best as I can, as the son of science teachers. There was a really sweet moment I had with a little girl this week. She was like 11, and when I asked her what her favorite subject was, she said writing. I asked her, what do you write? She said stories. And I said, oh, so you write stories? And she was like, yeah but just in school. And I said but still, that means you write your own stories. And she said, yeah I do write my own stories! With a note of brightness in her voice, like she might not have realized that was something she did, and could do.
Will that little girl grow up to be a writer? I'll never know, maybe not. But hopefully I gave her a sense of agency. I only remember that interaction because it happened this week. I've talked, at this point, to hundreds if not thousands of children, and had similar interactions. Other times it's less overtly inspiring, sometimes it's just something short or silly, or easy or difficult. I'm always trying for moments like that.
So it felt appropriate that at the same time as that bit of my Jekyll and Hyde character came out, I discovered this poem: Ode to the Women on Long Island, by Olivia Gatwood.
As a poem, I do have some mixed feelings about it. I feel like the author is speaking to a specifically white, middle class experience. But if that's her experience, she should speak to it. And as a feminist, when I come across art that speaks to the experience of women, where so much media is about men and masculinity in ways both direct and indirect, I really try to listen. And listening in this case, I realized I've met many of these women. And just like with their children, I try to relate to them as well, as much as I'm ultimately able to.
I talk a lot in my stand up, and in my life, about being a feminist. And as much as I might joke about it, and I try to remain mildly and appropriately self deprecating as a straight white cis male, I'm really not fucking around. The condition of women and girls is deteriorating globally before our very eyes (in spite of the progress we made in the 20th century), and it's up to all of us to stop it, to do whatever we can.
This video from the Population Reference Bureau does a good job of breaking down the statistics.
For me, it's telling jokes.
Long time no blog.
I used to use this space to talk about my creative projects and reflect on the processes involved; this was like four years ago. I was actively updating, and then I went through a really harsh break up and fell out of the habit. Since then I've written a few posts, and a lot has happened to me personally and professionally.
Most recently, I made my Netflix debut.
Here I am in Friends From College.
Wait, that's actually not accurate, one of the films I have a bit part in, Crooked Arrows, was on Netflix for some time before the contract expired and they took it down. So I guess that was my Netflix debut. What came out this week was Friends from College, in which I have an even smaller bit part. But people are actually watching this, unlike Crooked Arrows which, to be fair, was targeted towards 8-13 year old lacrosse players anyway.
Fun fact, one time I got a random piece of fan mail to my email from this guy who watched Crooked Arrows with his kids. It seemed very sincere, like clearly it meant something to his family and he was like "who is that guy who plays the announcer? He does a good job, I should let him know." And my email is connected to my IMDB page, so that's probably how he got it. It was still kinda weird.
Anyway, Friends From College is especially cool because I play literally myself. Well I literally play the character I portrayed at the time at Jekyll and Hyde, where the scene is set and where I work in real life. And I mean, it doesn't take a lot to guess that it's because I work there in real life that I got the part in the TV show that happened to be shooting a scene there. It was a stroke of luck that I met the guy from the locations department who was scouting it, who got my info to casting, etc. Success in art really is a combination of luck and preparedness, all of my other acting roles in big things like this (I've had three now, total) were a similar combination of those factors.
And yeah, I'm really, really proud of it. And I'm really proud of the work I do at Jekyll and Hyde. There, I said it. Actually I say it all the time in Facebook posts detailing the various interactions I have with kids while I’m working there. If you're reading this, chances are good you know me, so you do you know this: I'm a devout secular humanist and leftist and I try to imbue that into my work with people. I always have in all of my jobs as a performer, be it running a trivia night (which I did for a while), as a historical tour guide on a Segway or in colonial garb (both of which I've done) or most recently as a character in a haunted theme restaurant.
I try to relate to people on some real level, like I see them, and I understand what they’re going through. I just ask them questions, where are you from, what are you doing while you're in New York, that kind of stuff. And I try to make them laugh, at me, at themselves and at each other. My new favorite bit I do as my mad scientist character (in the show I'm a butler but now I play a mad scientist) is I walk out onto the floor of the restaurant, and just cackle like a mad scientist, you know "BWA-HA-HA-HA!" and then I stop and say "I don't know why I'm laughing, sometimes what can you do but laugh, am I right folks?" but in my deep, sort of growley Dr. Horrible voice.
Yes, my character's name is Dr. Horrible. No, I don't have a sing along blog. That's part of the joke. Dr. Horrible’s backstory: Joss Whedon met me during the writer's strike and based a movie on me, but instead of having me play myself, he hired Neil Patrick Harris, my super talented and handsome arch nemesis. I do that bit when people ask me about it. It's very silly.
But I really believe that as a life philosophy, "Sometimes what can you do but laugh?" I acknowledge that in my case it comes from a place of economic and societal privilege. Like if I was homeless or truly hungry or desperate, I might notlaugh. But when something hurts, be it heartbreak or rejection (which, come to think of it, are the main forms of pain I experience) I try to remember it. And when people come to the restaurant, I try to share that with them, and just do whatever I can to make them laugh.
With the kids I do a little more. I very deliberately interact with them, almost to the point of interviewing them. I ask them their name, how old they are, I ask how them how that's going. Like, "Oh Suzy, so you're eleven. How's that going? Do you like being eleven?" Sometimes they say "yeah it's great". Other times they’re having a hard time, usually if they’re a few years older. They'll admit it’s not great, and I'llsay "Yeah I know, I totally feelz you dawg," again in my mad scientist voice. It's silly, I know, but I actually do. And I want them to feel seen by me at least, like the clown sees you, and wants to know what yourinterests are, what do you like in school, what are you doing this summer you're excited about, how are you really, that sort of thing.
I base a lot of my approach on an article I read a long time ago about how to talk to little girls. It suggests, instead of emphasizing their appearance, that we get to know them and appreciate their personality, what their interests and aspirations are, that sort of thing. Then, whatever they like, I'll try to engage with them about it. If they like math I'll do multiplication with them, or tell them how algebra is actually an Arabic word meaning "to bring into balance". If they like science I'll find out what they know or have learned and try to elaborate on it as best as I can, as the son of science teachers. There was a really sweet moment I had with a little girl this week. She was like 11, and when I asked her what her favorite subject was, she said writing. I asked her, what do you write? She said stories. And I said, oh, so you write stories? And she was like, yeah but just in school. And I said but still, that means you write your own stories. And she said, yeah I do write my own stories! With a note of brightness in her voice, like she might not have realized that was something she did, and could do.
Will that little girl grow up to be a writer? I'll never know, maybe not. But hopefully I gave her a sense of agency. I only remember that interaction because it happened this week. I've talked, at this point, to hundreds if not thousands of children, and had similar interactions. Other times it's less overtly inspiring, sometimes it's just something short or silly, or easy or difficult. I'm always trying for moments like that.
So it felt appropriate that at the same time as that bit of my Jekyll and Hyde character came out, I discovered this poem: Ode to the Women on Long Island, by Olivia Gatwood.
As a poem, I do have some mixed feelings about it. I feel like the author is speaking to a specifically white, middle class experience. But if that's her experience, she should speak to it. And as a feminist, when I come across art that speaks to the experience of women, where so much media is about men and masculinity in ways both direct and indirect, I really try to listen. And listening in this case, I realized I've met many of these women. And just like with their children, I try to relate to them as well, as much as I'm ultimately able to.
I talk a lot in my stand up, and in my life, about being a feminist. And as much as I might joke about it, and I try to remain mildly and appropriately self deprecating as a straight white cis male, I'm really not fucking around. The condition of women and girls is deteriorating globally before our very eyes (in spite of the progress we made in the 20th century), and it's up to all of us to stop it, to do whatever we can.
This video from the Population Reference Bureau does a good job of breaking down the statistics.
For me, it's telling jokes.
Friday, April 28, 2017
Returning to the Blogosphere
To quote Simon and Garfunkel, hello blogger my old friend, I've come to talk with you again. Because actually this past year or so, I've been writing quite a bit, at the suggestion of my friend and acting teacher Michael Toomey. We met last summer (or maybe it was the spring? Let's say late spring or early summer) to work on some Shakespeare, at the time I had this idea (well I still have the idea it's just kind of dormant) to develop a piece exploring Hamlet through the lens of stand up comedy. I pitched this to Michael, and he basically said "Mike, why do you need to adapt Shakespeare's texts, can't you just write it yourself?"
And I haven't, at least not yet, but since that conversation I've been writing a lot more, mostly personal pieces not for public consumption exploring and understanding my own thoughts, but also some new poems... also not for public consumption, but maybe I'll put one up here sometime. Side note, did anyone reading this know me in high school when I published a body of poetry over live journal, most of which was awful? Good times but not really I was miserable in high school.
Anyway, I was reminded this thing I wrote in a few years existed, this blog, because the person I've been dating AKA my girlfriend has been reading Three Sisters for work, and earlier today we were talking about it and my experience playing Tuzenbach way back in 2013 for The Footlight Club and I remembered I wrote all these blog posts about the experience and I was like "holy shit, look at that, well this is interesting in a way I didn't think it would be at the time."
Because how could 23 year old Mike know in 2013 that 28 year old Mike would be interested in what he thought about Three Sisters? It's been so many years since I thought deeply about that play, I've done so, so much since then, including several break ups and relationships, starting a new life in a new city, finding my footing as a stand up comedian, a composer, and a writer, all this shit has happened and I feel so distant from that version of myself. But there he is, in those blog posts.
And here I am now, in this blog post, which maybe I'll look back on when I'm 33 and think "that's what I was thinking as a 28 year old?" Who knows.
I was really tickled by one of the lines in those Three Sisters blogs about how I didn't know if anyone would read it or find it useful or interesting besides my Mom (hi again Mom) because I do now, and hopefully my girlfriend does. And actually, not to toot my own horn but no actually I am giving myself a compliment, I had some pretty interesting insights into the arc of that character that I'd completely forgotten about, comparing him to Goethe's Young Werther and how he and Solyony are these mirror images of each other.
I wrote at the time that fundamentally they saw themselves as the heroes of there own stories, both romantic in nature, Solyony's vision of his story was epic and heroic whereas Tuzenbach's turns out to be a tragedy in nature, whether he means it to or not. That really resonates with me today. I think it's for us to relate to the world as the heroes of our own story, because we learn to relate to the world through stories in the form of films and television and I wonder if Chekhov or Shakespeare's audience was doing the same thing. Did they watch Hamlet, or Romeo and Juliet or The Three Sisters and imagine themselves as being analogous to those characters? David Wong writes at Cracked.com about how this kind of thinking creates a lot of dissatisfaction and misogyny, especially in men, who see stories about heroes accomplishing heroic things and being rewarded with beautiful women reduced to objects. Part of me thinks this is a fairly modern idea, and by modern I mean relating to the 18th century and romanticism, but then again story telling as a way of shaping how we see ourselves as a culture, a society and a people is a tradition as old as the spoken word, so who knows.
This relates to a lot of think pieces, you know the trendy ones about how millennial are garbage people who think there special because of course they are for being themselves? Which is something I'm guilty of, except wait I'm actually super talented, laugh out loud! Explicit arrogance! What is the tone of this piece supposed to be? Am I being satirical, self deprecating, or serious? Sorry I got caught in my head.
But I think that idea is in Three Sisters, Vershinin talks about it when he says that the sisters will pave a way for a new and better society. That these are characters are special and there lives are worthwhile, and Chekhov rather than giving us a straight forward dramatic story, shows the rhythms of people's lives on stage and how they give such great importance to everything they do, when in the end there just people and when the play is over, nothing is really different.
Having written this blog post, nothing is really different. I'm still not very good at ending my writing. But there is a document of me and my thoughts in this moment for you to read, and for me to read in the unknowable future, I'm curious to see what my thoughts are then.
And I haven't, at least not yet, but since that conversation I've been writing a lot more, mostly personal pieces not for public consumption exploring and understanding my own thoughts, but also some new poems... also not for public consumption, but maybe I'll put one up here sometime. Side note, did anyone reading this know me in high school when I published a body of poetry over live journal, most of which was awful? Good times but not really I was miserable in high school.
Anyway, I was reminded this thing I wrote in a few years existed, this blog, because the person I've been dating AKA my girlfriend has been reading Three Sisters for work, and earlier today we were talking about it and my experience playing Tuzenbach way back in 2013 for The Footlight Club and I remembered I wrote all these blog posts about the experience and I was like "holy shit, look at that, well this is interesting in a way I didn't think it would be at the time."
Because how could 23 year old Mike know in 2013 that 28 year old Mike would be interested in what he thought about Three Sisters? It's been so many years since I thought deeply about that play, I've done so, so much since then, including several break ups and relationships, starting a new life in a new city, finding my footing as a stand up comedian, a composer, and a writer, all this shit has happened and I feel so distant from that version of myself. But there he is, in those blog posts.
And here I am now, in this blog post, which maybe I'll look back on when I'm 33 and think "that's what I was thinking as a 28 year old?" Who knows.
I was really tickled by one of the lines in those Three Sisters blogs about how I didn't know if anyone would read it or find it useful or interesting besides my Mom (hi again Mom) because I do now, and hopefully my girlfriend does. And actually, not to toot my own horn but no actually I am giving myself a compliment, I had some pretty interesting insights into the arc of that character that I'd completely forgotten about, comparing him to Goethe's Young Werther and how he and Solyony are these mirror images of each other.
I wrote at the time that fundamentally they saw themselves as the heroes of there own stories, both romantic in nature, Solyony's vision of his story was epic and heroic whereas Tuzenbach's turns out to be a tragedy in nature, whether he means it to or not. That really resonates with me today. I think it's for us to relate to the world as the heroes of our own story, because we learn to relate to the world through stories in the form of films and television and I wonder if Chekhov or Shakespeare's audience was doing the same thing. Did they watch Hamlet, or Romeo and Juliet or The Three Sisters and imagine themselves as being analogous to those characters? David Wong writes at Cracked.com about how this kind of thinking creates a lot of dissatisfaction and misogyny, especially in men, who see stories about heroes accomplishing heroic things and being rewarded with beautiful women reduced to objects. Part of me thinks this is a fairly modern idea, and by modern I mean relating to the 18th century and romanticism, but then again story telling as a way of shaping how we see ourselves as a culture, a society and a people is a tradition as old as the spoken word, so who knows.
This relates to a lot of think pieces, you know the trendy ones about how millennial are garbage people who think there special because of course they are for being themselves? Which is something I'm guilty of, except wait I'm actually super talented, laugh out loud! Explicit arrogance! What is the tone of this piece supposed to be? Am I being satirical, self deprecating, or serious? Sorry I got caught in my head.
But I think that idea is in Three Sisters, Vershinin talks about it when he says that the sisters will pave a way for a new and better society. That these are characters are special and there lives are worthwhile, and Chekhov rather than giving us a straight forward dramatic story, shows the rhythms of people's lives on stage and how they give such great importance to everything they do, when in the end there just people and when the play is over, nothing is really different.
Having written this blog post, nothing is really different. I'm still not very good at ending my writing. But there is a document of me and my thoughts in this moment for you to read, and for me to read in the unknowable future, I'm curious to see what my thoughts are then.
Friday, April 29, 2016
A History of Musicianship (part 1)
Oh hi blogosphere, long time no see.
Probably you're reading this via a link on my Facebook page, in which case it's redundant to tell you I've composed and a score to a production of Titus Andronicus, and I've played it as a live accompaniment to the production four times now (with two more performances to go in this iteration of the production). But I'm taking a moment to frame that anyway, because that's what I'm writing about.
After tonight's show, I had multiple people come up to me and say something to the effect of "the music was great, I couldn't have conceived of the production without it" which means a lot to me, because the majority of the work that happened in constructing the show (which if you don't know, used a lot of devised theater techniques in the tradition of Lecoq, which is this French movement theater practice) took place before I was involved, and most of my compositions are a direct response to the work I encountered when I entered rehearsals.
Not all of it, if I remember correctly some percussion motifs were in place, and one of the central themes I wrote after I knew the production was looking for a music director. In fact, although I was familiar with the major details (the hands getting cut off, the people being baked into pies, etc) I'd never fully encountered Titus as a text until I saw a production last summer. When I saw the director post on Facebook that he was looking for someone to do music, my mind began whirring with all the potential dissonant and angular themes that would go along with a play about madness, dissonance and angularity being two themes I take a lot of inspiration from in my composing, I put my courage to it's sticking place, and responded "yes, me, I want to do it".
And now about a month later, here I am!
It's arguably the best work I've done as a musician (or at least the work I'm proudest of) but then when I think that, I think back on my whole history as a musician, and I want to write a blog post about it, so here we go.
I come from a pretty musical family, my father is a very accomplished classical pianist from when he was younger, my older brother was a flautist and a very gifted singer, my maternal uncle played guitar and sang in country bands all across the South, and for much of my life I felt like I had the potential for that same gift, I just never knew where or how to express it. The piano never spoke to me directly (it still doesn't, although someday I'd like to become proficient at it), and when the opportunity arose to learn a band or orchestral instrument in elementary school, I kind of shrugged. My parents bought a damaged classical guitar for me from a garage sale when I was in middle school, I took some lessons, but it never stayed in tune and it was hard for me to play at the time, so I didn't stick with it.
But at the same time, I knew music lived inside me. At one point, I thought I'd learn the sitar (which I'd still really like to do someday, it's such a beautiful instrument). I remember my mom describing the role my father's piano playing played in their courtship and thinking "ok so yeah to get a girl I should really learn an instrument". I vividly remember this one dream I had about an other worldly spherical lute, like a combination of a stringed instrument and a globe that didn't exist in real life, but in that dream I could play it proficiently. I've never told anyone about that before.
When I was in high school, my Mom bought me a Fender Stratocaster. Again, it didn't stick like it could have, and it gathered dust in my room. Around this time though, I was becoming closer to the burn out/musician crowd at my high school, to be fair not all of them were burn outs, and for a while I was the singer in my friend's goofy metal band, which we called The Devil's Agents.
I was deeply depressed about being stuck in high school (and being too awkward to get a girlfriend, and various other things), and I think that combined with the other members getting into other stuff, along with my penchant to turn everything into satire (even then I was a natural comedian/clown) which I don't think they were crazy about, lead to the band breaking up without ever officially breaking up.
That following summer between junior and senior year, several things happened. I started playing Guitar Hero, a lot. Like, I got really good at Guitar Hero. I could play all the songs on expert. I loaned my Stratocaster to my dear burnout friend Jason, and he was going to get it set up and give it back to me. He may have pawned it. He may have taken it to get set up, but then never picked it up. I'll never know. He died of a heroin overdose several months later.
Needless to say, what was already a state of depression deepened. I wrote a lot of poetry. Most of that was bad, some of it was passable. I asked for another electric guitar, my family, god bless 'em, bought me one, that I still own and play when I go home to Boston.
I'd realized at some point, "well shit, if I spent this much time learning the guitar as I have getting good at this guitar based video game, I'd probably be like, good at real guitar", so that's what I did. That year for Christmas I asked for some recording equipment, and I started recording weird ambient songs inspired by all the avant garde/electric Miles Davis and Pink Floyd I was listening to (honestly it was mostly Pink Floyd, now that I've been playing for ten years I can actually cite Miles as an influence but back then it was more an inspiration than anything you'd pick out in my music).
Jason also used to talk about how awesome it would be if we could be in a band together, we talked a lot about starting a technical death metal band (did I mention at the time I was also into technical death metal? I was).
But he died before we could do any of that.
There's more to this story, but it's late and I'm tired, so I'm going to publish this and call it Part 1 of my ten year history with the guitar (amongst other things), tune in next time for part 2 of however many parts it takes for me to be satisfied!
Probably you're reading this via a link on my Facebook page, in which case it's redundant to tell you I've composed and a score to a production of Titus Andronicus, and I've played it as a live accompaniment to the production four times now (with two more performances to go in this iteration of the production). But I'm taking a moment to frame that anyway, because that's what I'm writing about.
After tonight's show, I had multiple people come up to me and say something to the effect of "the music was great, I couldn't have conceived of the production without it" which means a lot to me, because the majority of the work that happened in constructing the show (which if you don't know, used a lot of devised theater techniques in the tradition of Lecoq, which is this French movement theater practice) took place before I was involved, and most of my compositions are a direct response to the work I encountered when I entered rehearsals.
Not all of it, if I remember correctly some percussion motifs were in place, and one of the central themes I wrote after I knew the production was looking for a music director. In fact, although I was familiar with the major details (the hands getting cut off, the people being baked into pies, etc) I'd never fully encountered Titus as a text until I saw a production last summer. When I saw the director post on Facebook that he was looking for someone to do music, my mind began whirring with all the potential dissonant and angular themes that would go along with a play about madness, dissonance and angularity being two themes I take a lot of inspiration from in my composing, I put my courage to it's sticking place, and responded "yes, me, I want to do it".
And now about a month later, here I am!
It's arguably the best work I've done as a musician (or at least the work I'm proudest of) but then when I think that, I think back on my whole history as a musician, and I want to write a blog post about it, so here we go.
I come from a pretty musical family, my father is a very accomplished classical pianist from when he was younger, my older brother was a flautist and a very gifted singer, my maternal uncle played guitar and sang in country bands all across the South, and for much of my life I felt like I had the potential for that same gift, I just never knew where or how to express it. The piano never spoke to me directly (it still doesn't, although someday I'd like to become proficient at it), and when the opportunity arose to learn a band or orchestral instrument in elementary school, I kind of shrugged. My parents bought a damaged classical guitar for me from a garage sale when I was in middle school, I took some lessons, but it never stayed in tune and it was hard for me to play at the time, so I didn't stick with it.
But at the same time, I knew music lived inside me. At one point, I thought I'd learn the sitar (which I'd still really like to do someday, it's such a beautiful instrument). I remember my mom describing the role my father's piano playing played in their courtship and thinking "ok so yeah to get a girl I should really learn an instrument". I vividly remember this one dream I had about an other worldly spherical lute, like a combination of a stringed instrument and a globe that didn't exist in real life, but in that dream I could play it proficiently. I've never told anyone about that before.
When I was in high school, my Mom bought me a Fender Stratocaster. Again, it didn't stick like it could have, and it gathered dust in my room. Around this time though, I was becoming closer to the burn out/musician crowd at my high school, to be fair not all of them were burn outs, and for a while I was the singer in my friend's goofy metal band, which we called The Devil's Agents.
I was deeply depressed about being stuck in high school (and being too awkward to get a girlfriend, and various other things), and I think that combined with the other members getting into other stuff, along with my penchant to turn everything into satire (even then I was a natural comedian/clown) which I don't think they were crazy about, lead to the band breaking up without ever officially breaking up.
That following summer between junior and senior year, several things happened. I started playing Guitar Hero, a lot. Like, I got really good at Guitar Hero. I could play all the songs on expert. I loaned my Stratocaster to my dear burnout friend Jason, and he was going to get it set up and give it back to me. He may have pawned it. He may have taken it to get set up, but then never picked it up. I'll never know. He died of a heroin overdose several months later.
Needless to say, what was already a state of depression deepened. I wrote a lot of poetry. Most of that was bad, some of it was passable. I asked for another electric guitar, my family, god bless 'em, bought me one, that I still own and play when I go home to Boston.
I'd realized at some point, "well shit, if I spent this much time learning the guitar as I have getting good at this guitar based video game, I'd probably be like, good at real guitar", so that's what I did. That year for Christmas I asked for some recording equipment, and I started recording weird ambient songs inspired by all the avant garde/electric Miles Davis and Pink Floyd I was listening to (honestly it was mostly Pink Floyd, now that I've been playing for ten years I can actually cite Miles as an influence but back then it was more an inspiration than anything you'd pick out in my music).
Jason also used to talk about how awesome it would be if we could be in a band together, we talked a lot about starting a technical death metal band (did I mention at the time I was also into technical death metal? I was).
But he died before we could do any of that.
There's more to this story, but it's late and I'm tired, so I'm going to publish this and call it Part 1 of my ten year history with the guitar (amongst other things), tune in next time for part 2 of however many parts it takes for me to be satisfied!
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Booking the job
Hello blog-o-sphere, long time no post. I really ought to be putting more of my New York stories into blog format, but let's start with this new development. The punch line is that I booked my first commercial and I'm enroute to Providence, RI to shoot it. The interesting part is that I actually booked it in my hometown of Boston. In case you don't know my origin story, I've only been in New York for a year. After finishing college, I spent about five years in Boston doing first student films and community theatre, then some paid gigs and eventually some very well received productions with small and fringe theaters. The feathers in my cap were two principal parts I booked in smallish features (both with movie stars and budgets under 10 million) from which I secured my SAG card and a relationship with the local casting office. After moving to NYC, I still will take the bus back to Boston for the day when auditions come up. Which is frequently a crap shoot, sometimes I'll be at a casting call with half a dozen other actors, other times I'll realize I made the trip for a cattle call. One time this fall I misread a casting notice and realized I went all the way out for what was literally a cattle call of 20 something male actors. Even though it was meant for young actors to introduce themselves to the head CD. Theoretically, this might have been a waste of time, but I successfully reminded her that I existed and I think it resulted in my getting called in to more castings than I would have otherwise. Including an audition for a Mass State Lottery commercial last month, which was additionally serendipitous since I've been taking a great commercial acting class with David Cady. I didn't book that commercial, but I did good work and it lead me to being called in last week for another commercial which I'm now on my way to shoot. It's a SAG job, and if all goes well, I'm looking forward to a 52 week buy out for internet usage. I'm not all the way up on my SAG contracts, but I ought to be paying rent off it for the next few months and it's a huge feather in my cap in my search for a commercial agent. I guess the moral is to put yourself out there whenever possible and you never how or when it might pay off, cheers and thanks for reading.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Reflections on a 10-ish year career (When does one start counting?)
After taking a hiatus of several years from blogging, in which time I ended a five year relationship, moved to a new city, appeared in small but pivotal role in a feature film with several credible movie stars, spent a lot of time on stage making music and acting in plays, during which time I mainly focused on writing pithy or insightful Facebook status updates... I return to blogging.
What brings me back, you might ask? Insomnia. I can't sleep. So I figured, why not write? And indeed, why not write. It's occurred to me on various occasions to revisit this blogging project. What's stopping me from putting my thoughts into text and sharing it with the world?
My own selfishness! These thoughts cry out to be shared with dozens of people who already read the crap I write on Facebook and will click on a link because they are bored at work or on the subway or whatever!
Or maybe you miss me. I miss you too.
Today I am reflecting on ten years in the theater (imagine a British accent for emphasis). Ten years is an absolutely arbitrary number, but it was ten years ago or so that the idea of being a professional actor planted it self in my brain and I've been running with it ever since. I think the phrase "he wants to be an actor when he grows up" even appeared in my bio in the fall production my Sophomore year of high school, when I was sixteen. I'm now twenty six... that makes ten years, right? Then again, in that same bio I also wrote "he is a distant relative of Godzilla" and that's not something I ever bring up at parties or on first dates.
Unlike many professions, all you need to "be an actor" is a headshot and a resume. For all intents and purposes, that could be a selfie and a piece of paper stapled to the back with your name, phone number, email address and that acting class you took at your local adult education center, or that time you were in Godspell at church or your local community theater.
Do not think for a moment I am disparaging adult education or community theater. During my ten years of acting (imagine a faux British accent for emphasis) I've met lovely, insightful and gifted human beings who cut there teeth in those very places and whom I'm better for having met. Churches are OK too...
Moving on.
I was reflecting because I find myself in a new city, embarking on all kinds of new relationships within this new acting community I find myself a part of. Like, right now I'm doing a production of King John. King Who? Oh, you know, the bad guy from Robin Hood. Shakespeare wrote a play about him. It's hardly ever done, but I'm in it right now, in the ensemble. We're performing in Central Park. No, it's not "Shakespeare In The Park" like John Lithgow or whoever is doing right now, it's Shakespeare in a park, and I'm pretty excited for you to see it.
I feel very privileged to be sharing the stage with these particular people. Being a part of this cast, and the several other casts I've been a part of since moving here (including an industrial, a student film and several other Off-Off Broadway productions) you meet a really wide range of different types of folks, most of whom are here trying to be actors. Boston, where I was before, gets knocked around a lot for being sort of homogenous. Which isn't really giving it credit, Boston isn't homogenous, it's deeply segregated. I found it's art scene to be a very particular kind of animal, a mixture of Boston natives and people who went there for college and stayed. What linked everybody more than anything was the place where we were. The most compelling reason for living in a place like Boston (or Cambridge, or Somerville, or Allston or the various other communities people called home and where I performed) was the place itself, it's people and it's culture. New York is New York, and to me at least the most compelling reason to be here is because I'm an actor, this is where I have to be in order to achieve a certain level of success.
Eventually, it was then or never, and I left for New York, where I am now. It's striking to me comparing how I saw myself as a Boston actor versus how I see myself now, being a New York actor working at the level I'm currently working at. One trend I'm noticing, is amongst my collaborators will be people who have been doing for a very long time (for example, the director of the last show I was in has been doing this for forty years) and others who haven't been doing it particularly long at all, at least from my view of ten years in the theater (imagine an especially bad British accent, like if I was trying to be self defacing) and comparing how I see the work vs how I see them as seeing the work.
Existentially, it's all very sticky, because as I keep coming back to over and over again in life, I can only ever really know my own experience, everything else is just speculation. Hopefully it's based on good evidence thoughtfully collected through active listening.
But for example, the thought that spurred this blog post actually, is tonight I was sort of promoted, sort of volunteered, to be one of the percussionists for our production. This is not my first time doing percussion or making music as part of a play, and I was actually pretty excited when the opportunity came up, because I've always found it to be a different and enriching experience to be a musician in the context of a theatrical endeavor, especially at something that's not my main thing, like percussion.
And I was having the thought that, although the other people in the percussion section are definitely better and more experienced at percussion than I am, I have ten years of accumulated instinct and knowledge of being on stage to fall back on. A lot of those instincts have to do with knowing when to start and stop, how much is too much or too little, how to balance a stage picture, and also just being able to keep track of a lot of things, cues, scene changes, tracking props, etc, all of which I think will come in handy with making sure all of our percussion business will keep on track. Which isn't to say my fellow drummers (Hey Scott, hey Justin, if you're reading this) can't handle their own shit but they also have a bunch of acting to do, as do I of course but my parts pretty small, and this is one significant way I can contribute to our theatrical organism.
For my own work, this whole meditation relates back to my own inability to give myself credit. "But Mike", you might be thinking (I know who you are) "you give yourself tons of credit, all the time" and this is true. Maybe a better word is difficulty giving myself credit for what I know how to do, and what I've accomplished, because those arrogant tendencies are really just me overcompensating to be honest. I've been thinking a lot about personal quirks like that, since moving here I've met so many new people and have been figuring out how to best present myself from a place of honesty and self knowledge. And frankly, to take advantage of this fresh start.
Probably some of my new colleagues in New York are reading this! Hello friends! Welcome to my blog! If you want to read back, you can see the person I was earlier in my twenties. This is the person I am now. This is my effort to reflect, to pay tribute, and to remember.
What brings me back, you might ask? Insomnia. I can't sleep. So I figured, why not write? And indeed, why not write. It's occurred to me on various occasions to revisit this blogging project. What's stopping me from putting my thoughts into text and sharing it with the world?
My own selfishness! These thoughts cry out to be shared with dozens of people who already read the crap I write on Facebook and will click on a link because they are bored at work or on the subway or whatever!
Or maybe you miss me. I miss you too.
Today I am reflecting on ten years in the theater (imagine a British accent for emphasis). Ten years is an absolutely arbitrary number, but it was ten years ago or so that the idea of being a professional actor planted it self in my brain and I've been running with it ever since. I think the phrase "he wants to be an actor when he grows up" even appeared in my bio in the fall production my Sophomore year of high school, when I was sixteen. I'm now twenty six... that makes ten years, right? Then again, in that same bio I also wrote "he is a distant relative of Godzilla" and that's not something I ever bring up at parties or on first dates.
Unlike many professions, all you need to "be an actor" is a headshot and a resume. For all intents and purposes, that could be a selfie and a piece of paper stapled to the back with your name, phone number, email address and that acting class you took at your local adult education center, or that time you were in Godspell at church or your local community theater.
Do not think for a moment I am disparaging adult education or community theater. During my ten years of acting (imagine a faux British accent for emphasis) I've met lovely, insightful and gifted human beings who cut there teeth in those very places and whom I'm better for having met. Churches are OK too...
Moving on.
I was reflecting because I find myself in a new city, embarking on all kinds of new relationships within this new acting community I find myself a part of. Like, right now I'm doing a production of King John. King Who? Oh, you know, the bad guy from Robin Hood. Shakespeare wrote a play about him. It's hardly ever done, but I'm in it right now, in the ensemble. We're performing in Central Park. No, it's not "Shakespeare In The Park" like John Lithgow or whoever is doing right now, it's Shakespeare in a park, and I'm pretty excited for you to see it.
I feel very privileged to be sharing the stage with these particular people. Being a part of this cast, and the several other casts I've been a part of since moving here (including an industrial, a student film and several other Off-Off Broadway productions) you meet a really wide range of different types of folks, most of whom are here trying to be actors. Boston, where I was before, gets knocked around a lot for being sort of homogenous. Which isn't really giving it credit, Boston isn't homogenous, it's deeply segregated. I found it's art scene to be a very particular kind of animal, a mixture of Boston natives and people who went there for college and stayed. What linked everybody more than anything was the place where we were. The most compelling reason for living in a place like Boston (or Cambridge, or Somerville, or Allston or the various other communities people called home and where I performed) was the place itself, it's people and it's culture. New York is New York, and to me at least the most compelling reason to be here is because I'm an actor, this is where I have to be in order to achieve a certain level of success.
Eventually, it was then or never, and I left for New York, where I am now. It's striking to me comparing how I saw myself as a Boston actor versus how I see myself now, being a New York actor working at the level I'm currently working at. One trend I'm noticing, is amongst my collaborators will be people who have been doing for a very long time (for example, the director of the last show I was in has been doing this for forty years) and others who haven't been doing it particularly long at all, at least from my view of ten years in the theater (imagine an especially bad British accent, like if I was trying to be self defacing) and comparing how I see the work vs how I see them as seeing the work.
Existentially, it's all very sticky, because as I keep coming back to over and over again in life, I can only ever really know my own experience, everything else is just speculation. Hopefully it's based on good evidence thoughtfully collected through active listening.
But for example, the thought that spurred this blog post actually, is tonight I was sort of promoted, sort of volunteered, to be one of the percussionists for our production. This is not my first time doing percussion or making music as part of a play, and I was actually pretty excited when the opportunity came up, because I've always found it to be a different and enriching experience to be a musician in the context of a theatrical endeavor, especially at something that's not my main thing, like percussion.
And I was having the thought that, although the other people in the percussion section are definitely better and more experienced at percussion than I am, I have ten years of accumulated instinct and knowledge of being on stage to fall back on. A lot of those instincts have to do with knowing when to start and stop, how much is too much or too little, how to balance a stage picture, and also just being able to keep track of a lot of things, cues, scene changes, tracking props, etc, all of which I think will come in handy with making sure all of our percussion business will keep on track. Which isn't to say my fellow drummers (Hey Scott, hey Justin, if you're reading this) can't handle their own shit but they also have a bunch of acting to do, as do I of course but my parts pretty small, and this is one significant way I can contribute to our theatrical organism.
For my own work, this whole meditation relates back to my own inability to give myself credit. "But Mike", you might be thinking (I know who you are) "you give yourself tons of credit, all the time" and this is true. Maybe a better word is difficulty giving myself credit for what I know how to do, and what I've accomplished, because those arrogant tendencies are really just me overcompensating to be honest. I've been thinking a lot about personal quirks like that, since moving here I've met so many new people and have been figuring out how to best present myself from a place of honesty and self knowledge. And frankly, to take advantage of this fresh start.
Probably some of my new colleagues in New York are reading this! Hello friends! Welcome to my blog! If you want to read back, you can see the person I was earlier in my twenties. This is the person I am now. This is my effort to reflect, to pay tribute, and to remember.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Challenges and Rewards
This week we finished the long marathon that was teching an outdoor, site specific staging of Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle in two languages during two week period of rain falling at some point almost very night, necessitating additional starts and stops to a start and stopping process on a show with a huge amount of tech to begin with due to the dozens of characters (and subsequently dozens of costumes) and did I mention it was being staged environmentally? In a park? And that we have a bath tub?
It was a very, very challenging week, culminating in a small panic attack yesterday afternoon while I was at work. It was sparked by a moment of confusion over my own age, but was the result of a building sense of anxiety over "what am I doing with my life!? This is crazy!"
It may also have had to do with the fact that after having opened in one language, my native language of English I was preparing to open the show all over again in a language I don't speak and had been struggling to memorize and pronounce correctly while maintaing some veneer of acting artistry for the past two months.
My Spanish text prior to last night's opening had been rocky to say the least. By the time of our first attempted tech run in Spanish, when we got to my big scene, all of my text was on point and for the first time I was totally off book and acting the hell out of my scene. Then I went away for a day or two as we worked English and fixed the very complicated mechanics of tracking all the props, costumes and set pieces as they traveled from act to act. By the time we ran again in Spanish, I thought "my lines were good last time, I got this" but they were not as good as they thought and then when my bathtub had disappeared due to the impending rain I was frankly thrown off balance, further complicating my juggling act of speaking another language and acting at the same time and my pronunciations went to shit.
So I was self conscious going into last night's run in Spanish. Our first attempt at opening had been Wednesday, but then that was rained out, and we finally opened the show in English on Saturday with no major technical glitches but definitely a cautious energy bordering on anxiety for when something would inevitably go wrong. But it didn't, and when we got to last night's Spanish performance, to an eager and excited audience that ultimately grew to something like 30 people a fire was lit underneath us, and we took off!
The crowd began immediately reacting and laughing at the funny bits (which the English audience the previous night did substantially less of, if this was us or them I'm not sure more on that in a paragraph or two) and we fed off that vibe. By the time my big scene came, at the juncture of my big entrance I felt myself go into a kind of comedic "bullet time" you know where stuff goes really slow and crazy in the Matrix movies? I get that way when I can feel my sense of comedic timing lining up perfectly, all of my lines and gestures landing at the perfect moment for maximum comedic effect, what had been a juggling act transformed into a wonderful dance.
And THAT is what I'm doing with my life is the answer to the question that precipitated my panic attack. And in this context, I'm doing it for an audience that gets very few stories at the level of a Bertolt Brecht much less brought to their park for free and in the language they speak.
I've been meaning to write for a while about how beautiful this story is, and how I imagine it must speak to the Latin American experience of the 20th century. At it's heart, it's a story about two young people in love, one of whom has to go off to war but before he does asks the girl to marry him. She promises to wait, but in the anarchy of a coup d'eta, is left with the abandoned child of the deposed aristocracy, sure to be killed if the usurping forces were to discover it. She flees with it, and due to forces of circumstance adopts it as her own. She marries a man she doesn't love to give it shelter, and in this moment her true love returns and condemns her as the forces of the previous regime, now back in power, take her to trial for kidnapping. The village eccentric, made judge by bizarre circumstances, follows his heart to do what is right and gives her the child, her beloved forgives her, they are reunited and with the child they are able to continue with their lives and live happily ever after.
There's something incredibly beautiful about this, and to me it's a story about the redemption of the human race and western civilization. There's a very old version of this story, perhaps in the mode of Greek tragedy, where the man goes to war and leaves his beloved behind, comes home to her and discovers a child and then kills both of them, or where the Judge has an opportunity to bring justice and restore order to the land and is perhaps destroyed in the process.
But Brecht turns those expectations on their head, and his story love wins the day. I speculate on this stories resonance for Latin America, because political upheaval defined the landscape of many Latin countries during the 20th century. No doubt, numerous men went off to fight the war, leaving women behind who were left to live their lives in fear and hope of their return while suffering at the hands of cruel fate. Many of them no doubt had children whether by their choice or not, and were left with no choice but to carry on with their lives as best as they could, as did the men who returned to them.
And in this parable they are able to forgive each other, and love wins the day, and I find that very moving. And the reward we get for all the hard work we've done, is bringing that story to the world at a time when the world needs stories about love more than ever before.
It was a very, very challenging week, culminating in a small panic attack yesterday afternoon while I was at work. It was sparked by a moment of confusion over my own age, but was the result of a building sense of anxiety over "what am I doing with my life!? This is crazy!"
It may also have had to do with the fact that after having opened in one language, my native language of English I was preparing to open the show all over again in a language I don't speak and had been struggling to memorize and pronounce correctly while maintaing some veneer of acting artistry for the past two months.
My Spanish text prior to last night's opening had been rocky to say the least. By the time of our first attempted tech run in Spanish, when we got to my big scene, all of my text was on point and for the first time I was totally off book and acting the hell out of my scene. Then I went away for a day or two as we worked English and fixed the very complicated mechanics of tracking all the props, costumes and set pieces as they traveled from act to act. By the time we ran again in Spanish, I thought "my lines were good last time, I got this" but they were not as good as they thought and then when my bathtub had disappeared due to the impending rain I was frankly thrown off balance, further complicating my juggling act of speaking another language and acting at the same time and my pronunciations went to shit.
So I was self conscious going into last night's run in Spanish. Our first attempt at opening had been Wednesday, but then that was rained out, and we finally opened the show in English on Saturday with no major technical glitches but definitely a cautious energy bordering on anxiety for when something would inevitably go wrong. But it didn't, and when we got to last night's Spanish performance, to an eager and excited audience that ultimately grew to something like 30 people a fire was lit underneath us, and we took off!
The crowd began immediately reacting and laughing at the funny bits (which the English audience the previous night did substantially less of, if this was us or them I'm not sure more on that in a paragraph or two) and we fed off that vibe. By the time my big scene came, at the juncture of my big entrance I felt myself go into a kind of comedic "bullet time" you know where stuff goes really slow and crazy in the Matrix movies? I get that way when I can feel my sense of comedic timing lining up perfectly, all of my lines and gestures landing at the perfect moment for maximum comedic effect, what had been a juggling act transformed into a wonderful dance.
And THAT is what I'm doing with my life is the answer to the question that precipitated my panic attack. And in this context, I'm doing it for an audience that gets very few stories at the level of a Bertolt Brecht much less brought to their park for free and in the language they speak.
I've been meaning to write for a while about how beautiful this story is, and how I imagine it must speak to the Latin American experience of the 20th century. At it's heart, it's a story about two young people in love, one of whom has to go off to war but before he does asks the girl to marry him. She promises to wait, but in the anarchy of a coup d'eta, is left with the abandoned child of the deposed aristocracy, sure to be killed if the usurping forces were to discover it. She flees with it, and due to forces of circumstance adopts it as her own. She marries a man she doesn't love to give it shelter, and in this moment her true love returns and condemns her as the forces of the previous regime, now back in power, take her to trial for kidnapping. The village eccentric, made judge by bizarre circumstances, follows his heart to do what is right and gives her the child, her beloved forgives her, they are reunited and with the child they are able to continue with their lives and live happily ever after.
There's something incredibly beautiful about this, and to me it's a story about the redemption of the human race and western civilization. There's a very old version of this story, perhaps in the mode of Greek tragedy, where the man goes to war and leaves his beloved behind, comes home to her and discovers a child and then kills both of them, or where the Judge has an opportunity to bring justice and restore order to the land and is perhaps destroyed in the process.
But Brecht turns those expectations on their head, and his story love wins the day. I speculate on this stories resonance for Latin America, because political upheaval defined the landscape of many Latin countries during the 20th century. No doubt, numerous men went off to fight the war, leaving women behind who were left to live their lives in fear and hope of their return while suffering at the hands of cruel fate. Many of them no doubt had children whether by their choice or not, and were left with no choice but to carry on with their lives as best as they could, as did the men who returned to them.
And in this parable they are able to forgive each other, and love wins the day, and I find that very moving. And the reward we get for all the hard work we've done, is bringing that story to the world at a time when the world needs stories about love more than ever before.
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