Moments of Anticipation

I've realized I need to become less precious with the communications I share via this blog. Since coming back from Shakespeare and Company this February (wow hard to believe it's been that long) I've started to write a whole bunch of blog posts and then either stopped and not finished them or meant to go back to them or what have you.

Part of this I think had to do with how Shakespeare and Company dealt with the subject of communication in their training, in that they teach you to talk about things as succinctly and specifically as possible. This lead to a struggle in my writing to continue doing that, and when I've felt like I don't completely or succinctly communicate something in a first pass, I get frustrated and want to write it over until I get annoyed with writing it or move on to something else and then I have no writing to share!

That's silly. I have observed my writing process is that I'm most likely to actually get a blog post at the end of a writing session if I commit fully to writing down the thoughts I have in a given moment, ideally doing a quick pass of an edit, and then sharing it and moving on. The blessing and the curse of the internet is how easy it is to access quantity in a sense that it's removed from the expenses of physical media, so you can quickly and cheaply create things and so there are lots of things being created. Vast numbers of things, so many that it becomes counter productive at a certain point to spend too much time worrying about the quality.

But that's another blog post.

I'm pretty far into rehearsals for Caucasian Chalk Circle, we've been getting into the really rough and difficult parts of the "birthing" as it were of this piece of art. Is that an appropriate analogy? There's a lot of collective pain and suffering as we work through the gritty details and logistics of mastering the text, smoothing over the staging, sweating out blocking and staging. For many of us in particular a big part of this has been mastering our Spanish lines, I know it has been for me! I studied Spanish a good deal in school, so I'm not coming in completely ignorant to how it works, but back then I never worked very hard at it, or was ever a preternatural talent for the language, I don't think. So that's been very challenging. But also pretty cool and kind of rewarding. I really like the Spanish text and it's fun getting to work with different sets of actors on the same scenes but in different languages. It's basically equivalent to rehearsing two shows at once. On the hand, that sucks, you're rehearsing two shows at once and it's a lot of work. But also, I'm getting to rehearse two shows at once, so I feel like I'm growing perhaps faster or at least exercising new and different muscles than I normally do as an actor and that's really rewarding.

I talked in that last process about how creating theatre feels like giving birth. Obviously, I haven't ever and will never get the chance to experience that particular component of the human experience, which is honestly something I sort of regret. If I could do it, I would do it. Is that weird and over sharey? I remember talking to my mother as a younger person about her experiences birthing myself and my two brothers. She talked about doing it naturally, and that when I was conceived the philosophy was that the feeling of giving birth can be perceived as being pain but that it's not, it's something else and if you can learn to experience it as that something else pain killers become unnecessary.

So maybe this analogy is stretching it a little bit, but what the hell. For us as artists, what other people might perceive as the tedious, frustrating or painful work of putting something together maybe what sets us apart is that we're able to see the process of birthing work as that something else, something joyful.

This is especially true in theatre, where getting to that final result is such an ecstatic experience, sharing work with an audience, sharing moments with cast members, getting to relive and redo and retry each individual moment night after night and watch it grow and change. I find myself in a series of moments of anticipation as we're on the verge of those final contractions before we can share our creation with the world. I see all the beautiful things beginning to happen, I can see all the things I've already discovered and can already imagine the moments of discovery to come. It's an amazing feeling.

Remind me to make sure I get back into the habit of blogging about it, OK? Thanks.

Closing the door on one show (all the monsters are dead), opening another (the oppressors still live): She Kills Monsters to Caucasian Chalk Circle

Last weekend was the closing of She Kills Monsters, and the end of a months long artistic journey going back to our initial read through way back in February until mid May, now that all the monsters are dead and Tilly's bedroom has been packed up for good, once and for all.

And so I say goodbye to Chuck Biggs aka DM Biggs because he's big where it counts... one of the most outsized but fully realized parts I've yet brought to the stage, and I'd like to think perhaps the best work of my acting career and certainly the highest profile, which is very satisfying professionally and personally. Likewise I say goodbye to the story of Agnes the Average, the girl who never left home and the experience of coming together with my first cast mates now friends every night to bring this story to a new group of strangers.

You know, the thing that happens when you put up and close a show. Very possibly you're a theatre person, so you know what I'm talking about. I'm still sort of bathing in the after glow of that experience, going through the world having people tell me how much they loved She Kills Monsters. I can still remember all the lines, all the moments. I don't have to think back very hard to conjure them. If I had to go back and do the show again tonight, I probably could.

But that won't be true for much longer, because life goes on. And for me, I really haven't had time to be depressed about this one ending (although often as not I'm not one for sentimentality with these sorts of things) because I've already started work on my next show.

Last summer I blogged a lot about putting Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead/Han Muerto, Tom Stoppard's classic in both English and Spanish, and this year I'm rejoining several of my cast mates from last year and a whole bunch of new folks in bringing another modern classic to Mary O'Malley Park in Chelsea, Bertolt Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle. I'm playing the part of Yussup, a young man who dodges the draft by playing sick for a year until he's married on his "death bed" to the play's heroine, a young peasant girl who's adopted the abandoned child of a displaced upper class family. I'm also playing a horseman, a peasant, a soldier, a drummer and at some point the guitar. Oh and probably a bridge, or a door, and who knows what else.

The read through was this past Sunday, and last night was our first rehearsal. We spent most of the time going through cuts and then because a lot of English speakers are tackling sometimes substantial roles in Spanish (myself included I've got some pretty big chunks to untangle) much of the time was spent addressing that issue.

And then at the end of the night, we sort of stumbled through Act 1, and I thought to myself "whoa this play is crazy! And awesome! And oh man this is going to be amazing in the park" and then I thought "oh shit and we've got to figure it out in two languages simultaneously".

If you do the math on what that entails, it's a lot of work, which I realized last summer. Initially, there were certain productions of an Equity nature happening various places I was hopeful I'd be cast in, because that's really the next big goal post for me as a performer, to get on to Boston's equity stages and start getting those EMC points. But it became clear at a certain point that wasn't going to happen, and I was debating whether to do a show, in particular something like Caucasian Chalk Circle where I figured there would be room for me in the ensemble and I would know various people involved and the environment we were staging it in and also from all of that prior knowledge the time commitment involved.

I was on the fence, on the one hand I could take it easy this summer, work my summer jobs making money, do music, work on my podcast, maybe pursue stand up again. But once we were in the run of She Kills Monsters and I had that feeling of being in a room of collaborators with a room of strangers on the other side of the dressing room, the sense of connection to each other and anticipation for what we had to do, I realized "nope I've just gotta keep doing shows, this is where I'm happiest, this is where I belong" and that's what I'm doing.

To quote the cliche line, Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more! Look forward to more blog posts on this exciting process. Knowing Apollinaire's work, trust me you're going to want to take the trek over the bridge (it's not as far as you think, seriously it's just a ten or twenty minute bus ride from Haymarket) to check this one out.

Up... And Running!

And we're off! Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are/Han Muerto is off to the races with two performances down in English and one in Spanish, and it is such a pleasure doing such a fantastic production in a beautiful space like Mary O'Malley Park (seriously it's gorgeous) for such appreciative audiences.

Probably my favorite thing so far have been the reactions from the little kids, usually on blankets in the front row, audibly responding to the events of Act 3, which is also the most violent, action packed and close quartered part of the show. Probably my favorite responses so far have been to the Player's Hamlet reenactment at the end of the show, "the bad guy's went down! yeah!" and then when we get back up for curtain call "they weren't dead!".

My Mom came to the English and Spanish opening, and enjoyed it throughly. She wrote a response to the Spanish opening that reflects her observation of  my ongoing growth as Alfred, and also some of the responses from audience members that make this show so damn satisfying. So here's a guest post. And if you haven't yet, come see this show! Boston Globe article, yeah!

From my Mom: "Even though they lost their place a couple of times in the long, complex back-and-forth, those guys were great!

I watched several passers-by get hooked on the coin-toss bit, sit down, and constitute themselves into an audience.  Stray kids got drawn in by the physicality of the coin tosses and reactions.  I got the sense everybody was on board for the intellectual hijinks, and several lone men, in the clothes of immigrant workingmen, showed distinctly high-brow responses to the philosophical jokes. By the time the Tragedians appeared, they were already hooked; the burst of costumes and instruments was a shower of amazement after amazement.

I think many of the people I'd seen hanging around the edges Wednesday actually were forming the intention of coming back last night, for the Spanish language production.  I didn't count the audience, but I think it will grow.

Alfred was even better than the first production.  The portrayal of the emotionally intense but fickle queen is hysterical, and is enveloped in a meta-portrayal of portrayal itself, as a creative act of the character you're actually portraying.  Alfred's unshielded empathy for Ophelia elevates that whole scene, and focuses his whole forceful stage presence right onto her crumpled form, like an emotional spotlight.  Crushed and hurt beyond human reason, she shines.  Bravo; brava."

Playing at Coins/Jugar de monedas

Well, Three Sisters is still over but Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead is just beginning! I take that back, because we're a couple of weeks into rehearsal and we open in just under a month. So actually, I untake it back, because now is the time when shit gets serious.

So far so fun though! I'm having a great time playing Alfred, in the context of my last couple of roles this is just what I need, a super fun, goofy, comedic supporting character who has some really nice moments and a decent helping of stage time but neither is he on stage every other scene. This means I'll get to come on, do my bits with the tragedians, get some laughs, go off while the other characters talk for another twenty or thirty minutes, come back on, get laughs, etc. Also, there will be music and funny trumpet sounds. It's gonna be a good time.

My director mentioned something about the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston and my blogging about the bilingual show experience, so let's blog about that! As we've gone from just giving bits and pieces a basic shape and are now moving into really refining them, the challenges are beginning to change. At first, rehearsing in Spanish at all was a challenge because it was like "what is going on at all?" but now that I better understand the scenes in English, and having taken far too many years of Spanish to have my low level of proficiency I can basically follow what's going on.

The problem I faced last night was the timing of entrances and physical bits. The script calls for a moment where Rosencratz confuses Alfred for Queen Gertrude, puts his hands over his/her eyes and says "Guess who?!" which our director wasn't super into, but to make it work we've blocked it where Rosencratz is going off and he basically bumps into Gertrude and then, not knowing what else to do, does the "guess who" bit. If you've ever had to do any kind of physical comedy on stage, it's all about timing to the point where it's almost like a dance. Things need to happen in a certain order, in a certain way and at a certain pace all in conjunction with the text, to get the laugh. The nature of this particular bit is that I'm coming around a corner and Rosencratz bumps into me, right? So I'm trying to land in conjunction with the text and the actors on stage where we arrive at the same time, but the two Rosencratzes play the scene at a different pace and energy level which I have to accommodate in my timing.

Do you see what I'm saying? It would be really interesting to talk to my cast mates and see if they've been influenced at all thus far in the process by the work of their Spanish/English language counterparts. Maybe I'll try to have a conversation with them and blog about it.

Uno dia, dos ensayos (one day two rehearsals)

Today was an adventure. Did you know, tomorrow I'll be playing guitar in the 8th grade talent show of Martin Luther King Junior K-8 School in Dorchester? It's true, an acting buddy of mine referred me his fellow actor who teaches there, was putting together a talent show and needed a guitar player. And thus I took a train and a bus into Dorchester.

On the way there, I thought about my relationship to that part of Boston. What relationship? Well, when I was born my mother taught at a program for teenage mothers in Dorchester. While they were having babies and joining the program as a means of accessing resources and staying in school with their infants, my mother had me. I remember as a kid, seeing pictures of myself as an infant with her students. Later, she told me a few horror stories about the various drugs particularly crack which was in an epidemic phase in many parts of the United States. But some inspiring one's as well. I'll tell you more at another date.

It was kind of an adventure getting to the school. I consulted Google Maps, who told me there was a bus I could catch from Umass Station which I then missed by about 30 seconds when my train ran late. Using Google Maps and Next Bus I was able to triangulate my way back into a route to the school. After a ten minute walk and a five minute bus ride then another five minute walk... I got the school, and met the kids I would be performing with. What song will I be performing with them? Who You Are by Jessie J, that's what. It was really cool getting to hang out with these kids even just for a little bit, and hear them sing and get to watch the process of them rehearsing together even just a little bit, working out Man in the Mirror and the other numbers their performing, realizing "oh yeah these kids are pretty good, they are just 14". It was also kind of fascinating seeing into their anxieties about performing for their peers. I mean, for me at this point it's pretty much automatic when the show starts you go on, no matter where you might be at and I've been in some plays where there's been reason to question where everybody was at. But being 14 and singing, SINGING in front of EVERYBODY, I'd forgotten that. Not that I did much singing when I was 14. Strangely, I can kind of identify with them through my guitar playing, which I haven't done a lot of in front of people. Uncle Vanya was definitely the most I'd ever done, and actually one of the most defined ways in which I grew from that experience was in how much more comfortable I am playing music for people.

Anyway, the performance is tomorrow, and the more I think about it, the more I look forward to having the opportunity to connect with the kids on stage and in the audience. I mean, that's what art is all about, right? Something else I haven't done in my 6 or 7 years of guitar playing and general performing has been playing as an accompanist. I did during Marat/Sade, and it was really cool, but that's about it. And I think this will be too.

The other thing that struck me about the experience was realizing that if I weren't so set on being an actor, to the point that I don't really know what else I could do with my life... I could have been a teacher, maybe. A music or theatre or english teacher. I don't know how happy I would be as the person I am today, but what if I'd been a different person? I could see how that could have happened and teaching would be something I'd be OK with, I think.

Anyway, I'll blog more about it after I've actually done it. The reason the title of the post is in Spanish was because today was my first bilingual theatre rehearsal ever! Exciting, right? And very challenging. I mean, it's such a trip, trying to do theatre in another language entirely. Granted, I sort of know some Spanish... but actually not really. It wasn't made easier that everything we went over had been worked previously at a rehearsal I wasn't present for but that was OK I'm a fast learner. Will I be though when it comes to this Spanish stuff? Yeah actually, I hope so. And it will give me a totally different perspective on this process, no doubt. I mean, the first step will be studying the passages in English where the tragedians interact with each other, The Player and of course the pair of the title. Then figuring it out in Spanish. I think it'll be a fun exercise. And I'm already having fun in the role. It's getting late, and I have to get to a performance early in the morning, so this too will have to wait till a future blog. But hey, I'm blogging! Aren't I? I feel pretty good about that.