Week filled with theater!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blogging My Movements

I would say I've gotten pretty good about consistently blogging lately, wouldn't you? Nod and say yes. Well done. Well, I'm sipping my iced coffee with a few minutes before I have to run off to our all day tech rehearsal for R&G so why don't I take a moment to blog a bit, yes? Yes.

This was my last blog post. You didn't read it, because I didn't post it to Facebook. What we ended up doing in Yo-el's class was some more of the Laban work, and the observation stuff I talked about didn't end up coming in to play. However, the Laban work has been helpful, although I feel like I'm only scratching the surface of it. I did have one meaningful "moment" in that particular class. Towards the end of the "Breakfast Warm Up" cycle that Yo-el has been teaching us, we do what he calls a "Pinnochio" where you basically skip across the room on a diagonal in small groups. He encouraged us to open up to this exercise, as I interpreted it to let go of our cynicism and adult doubts and be more child like and joyful. So I did that. I really did. I dropped my tension, my self awareness, and just went with the movement. And then when Yo-el noticed this and encouraged me to continue, my self awareness came back and I was a little less in it. Oh well! It's funny how even simple praise can create self awareness, isn't it? Because then you're stuck in this feedback loop of trying to recreate that moment of praise instead of making a new one for yourself. More on that later.

Friday we didn't have movement, which I didn't find out until I arrived at the BCA due to a communication error. But they were very accommodating, and instead I was able to sit in on a Linklater voice class with a local actress named Melissa Baroni who Jennie Israel had previously recommended as someone to study with. Linklater is a particular school of thought about breath and voice work that's taught at Shakespeare and Company where Jennie studied as did a bunch of ASP associated people and various Boston actors. This class was actually also made available to me as part of the Commonwealth thing I'm doing, but due to my schedule it didn't seem like it would work out and I feel like movement is more of a priority to my work right now. However it was very informative and enlightening, and I discovered a sense of my breath that I hadn't felt before... a sense of connection, of being in my breath within my body (as opposed to being in my head, which I've been trying to get out of by doing all this work) that was sort of an epiphany.

Saturday was movement again! And the beginning of our work with Jerzy Gratowski techniques, who was this cool Polish theater director and you should Google him. Previously, I'd done exercises inspired by Gratowski with Tommy Derrah (who unsurprisingly knows Yo-el) and found them kind of incredible in their power and energy with a large group. What we did on Saturday was called the River and was much more of an intimate exercise with a group of four, where one at a time we take up the energy of the "river" which in this case begins in one of part of the body and emanates throughout, inspiring movement in different body parts which the observers then followed. When I went up the first time for what was to be a minute with the river, it started in my knee and I followed it as it pulled up around in the space. I've found in my movement work, my poor sense of balance and coordination limits me from moving in the ways that my imagination would dictate, especially in the way that I want to escape what I find to be the more pedestrian levels of our everyday standing posture. So I'm always trying to get down low or high or at a diagonal and immediately I'm off balance. With this exercise I was able to accept that, and ultimately I was brought to the floor where I find myself less restricted by gravity and was able to embrace the inner chaos I was feeling in that moment, to the point of nearing what seemed like could have been self injury had I continued when Yo-el ended the exercise after what felt like 20 or 30 seconds, instead of a minute.

Afterwards, Yo-el commented that it was the most "out of my head" that he had seen me move, and inside of course I blushed a little, and he encouraged me to continue exploring in that direction. But how!? Now that I was aware that I'd been out of my head, I would be in my head trying to get back to that place. I was aware of that conundrum when we started the exercise a second time for two minutes. Instead of feeling violent and chaotic in my movements, I found a sensuality, exploring the feeling of my own body, the floor and of my breath. Instead of feeling like 30 seconds, it felt longer than two minutes, like three or four. We didn't talk about it aftewards, but we made eye contact and I felt Yo-el gave me a thumbs up. And I give myself a thumbs up too, because I don't think I fell into that trap of trying to recreate my own energy.

I'd hoped to tackle the challenges and joys of this tech week, but now I need to get to tech rehearsal! Until then bloggers!

Movement with Yo-Cassel: Day 4 Prejournal

I'm trying a new experiment for my first return to movement with Yo-el and the Comm Shakes apprentices after my four day hiatus, blogging before hand my thoughts and feelings coming in to the class.

As you might have read previously, last session we all participated an hour long exercise in observation in Boston Common, and as you might have further gleaned, I didn't have an easy time with it. I think Unpacking the experience just now in the shower (which was a continuation of an on going process starting with the exercise itself) I think I had an epiphany. My difficulty in the exercise could be boiled down to an inability to get out of my head. That I was having difficulty at all was ironic, because to be frank, I'm a very experienced people watcher going back at least to when I first discovered poetry in high school... but maybe even further back, to when I was young and would sit by myself at recess or lunch and just watch the other kids or adults or what have you. At a certain point, I started connecting this activity to my craft as an actor as my craft itself began to expand and open up, I found ways of applying casual observation and more focused "people watching" in my everyday life, and this practice has definitely affected my work. But the thing I've learned to watch for and try to puzzle out is not necessarily the other person's physicality, as is the focus in this class and which I have done at times but less than the times when I've tried to watch for another person's mental state. How are they feeling? What are they thinking about? What are they looking at, how does that thing make them see or feel? And in the case of this exercise, I was watching the people and trying to answer the questions on my survey "what's dance like about their movement, what are their surroundings, is there a soundtrack, are there any props"etc. The first thing which happened was I lost sight of the act of observation. Instead of just observing, I was trying to observe and trying to find answers to these questions and subjects with compelling responses. The second thing was the observed individual became aware of me watching them. Third, I became aware that they were aware of me, and this brought me even further into my head, until I completely lost the exercise except for a few cursory notes on some homeless guys' physicality and mannerisms as they thought some guy was trying to narc on them, which made me feel even worse and stranger and more in my head about the whole voyeur relationship I was sort of forcing onto these people.

And then at the end, I did have a meaningful and uplifting experience, like many of my classmates when I found the saxophone player in the public garden, beautifully and simply playing a jazzed up rendition of "You Are My Sunshine". I'm not sure if Yo-el wants for us to think ahead about what elements to include in our pieces, but I do know I want to somehow incorporate that melody. And moving forward in my work, an increased awareness of physicality in my everyday observation, not trying to observe physicality but just seeing it in people and feeling it, instead of thinking it. This brings me back to my motivation in the first place for taking the course, getting out of my head and into my body from moment to moment in my life and on stage. Here goes!

Topping From The Bottom

I had one of my favorite discoveries thus far in the R&G rehearsal process just the other day when I discovered this weird new persona for Alfred; a gender-queer street smart bad ass drag queen doing what he has to do to get by. This runs contrary to my initial intention, and to Stoppard's script, but since we've cut all of the really explicit rape jokes and Alfred's exchange with Guildenstern, and also considering my physical size and the world of the play as my director has been shaping it... it makes the most sense. At first, I was interested in the idea of Alfred as a victim, someone who's been put through a lot, has probably been assaulted and is clearly used when necessary in a sexual way by the player. So I was interested in how that affects someone's physical state, you know when someone has been a victim of trauma it affects them in a certain way. Except I realized with Alfred, and remembered from people I've been close to the in the past who I know had gone through those kinds of experiences, it doesn't necessarily translate to weakness and in Alfred's case it's made him very tough and weirdly strong and resilient. I mean, just considering my physical size, I don't look like someone who takes a lot of shit when you remove my gentile personality from the equation. And neither does Alfred. Danielle is really interested in bringing this ongoing sense of menace and danger to the Players as a unit, and it's been really enjoyable exploring that with Alfred. And with the gender-queer aspect, Alfred wears the dresses and plays the women because he wants too and because he does it damn well, and when he gets down to business with the evil king in the dumb show, he really gets into it.

All of this power and toughness though is in spite of his intrinsically low status, arguably in the text as written Alfred is the lowest status character in the play. This kind of changes when you remove the rape element, and instead of Alfred being a smallish 14 or 15 year old as he would have been in Shakespeare's time and so might be traditionally played in a straight reading of Stoppard's text, he's me, a 6'2" 200 pound 23 year old dude, so I have to bring the truth of "what if I were this person" and not "what if this person in the text was me" does that distinction make any sense? I guess I mean I have to bring the character to myself, rather than vice versa. And I've been exploring that, and this new sense of physicality and having tons of fun with the costume (the full version of which I saw today and it's pretty great), and especially the physical comedy.

Which is a fairly efficient segway into the other thing I wanted to blog about tonight. As of tomorrow morning, every Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning at 9 AM I'll be reporting to movement class with Yo-el Cassell courtesy of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. As you may now, Commonwealth in it's third or fourth year of offering an apprenticeship program where you give them a bunch of money and in return they give you training, farm you out to do a "selection of scenes on this theme" style show in the 'burbs and you understudy and/or play a spear carrier in their main stage production. This year, in addition to all that, their offering parts of their training to the public, which will include me. So I'll be in with the apprentices and whoever else responded to the Stagesource post and had $500 doing Alexander Technique, Grotowski, Laban (don't know who that is but I'll find out), dancing and generally getting sweaty early in the morning for the next month. I'm excited! Having not done a BFA, movement is a big gap in my training and I'm looking forward to filling it in, becoming a more rounded actor and of course blogging about it.

Briefly, before I sign off, progress has been made in the podcast front. I have a tentative partner in the venture, someone I'm very excited to be working with and hopefully we'll be recording some stuff in the next few weeks. Till then!