Notes on Acting,

2012-13

2012-01-28T09:04:00.000-08:00

Big Parts, Small Parts

2012-01-20T10:50:00.000-08:00

Malvolio, Titus, James Tyrone Jr., Nixon--it's been a great run of roles. These big characters have brought me fun, confidence, and great ensemble experiences, as well as a wider sense of myself (once you've played a king you never stop feeling a little bit more noble than you did before.) It's going to be hard squeezing back into smaller roles, as all actors must, sooner or later. Opportunities abound in all but the tiniest walk-on parts, though, so when I retreat upstage to support my fellow players, I'll make the most of them.

And for now, I'll savor fully the taste of scenery between my teeth, as we head into tech for Frost/Nixon. Nixon feels like the right role at the right time, for me. And, like Malvolio, he's sure to be in my repertory for the rest of my career.

Becoming RMN

2012-01-17T11:17:00.000-08:00

2012-01-04T11:28:00.001-08:00

Knock Her Over with a Feather

2012-01-01T13:04:00.000-08:00

I'm a happier man at the top of the run this year than I was last. 2011 started and ended well, but in the middle, the trail got rocky, not enough work, not enough confidence saved up from all-to-brief weeks of work for the long flat stretch of months during which all I seemed to do was ride the bus back and forth from NYC for auditions. And I seemed to grind my edges relentlessly on rocks in on camera acting classes in which I just couldn't seem to find the click; couldn't quite translate hard-earned stage skills into usable skills in the relentlessly-new-to-me and exotic terrain of episodic t.v. and film. It took a half dozen workshops and a wad of tuition money before, finally, I began to figure out how to get those smaller, less-used muscles to work.

But I stuck with it, and the new skills did finally begin to take, and the stage work grew more consistent, and my expectations for how it should all go have become better aligned with the realities of how things really are. By the time I got into late summer/early Autumn, I began to relax, enjoy what was I was doing at the moment, and looked ahead more eagerly than I had in months. Philadelphia finally felt more like home just as I was hitting the road for out-of-town gigs that would keep me mostly out of Philly for the next 18-36 months, depending on how it all goes. The New York Theater scene began to feel less alien. My own long-simmering writing projects began to feel more doable, and are now a way to balance my stage work, not least of all by giving me something to do when not on stage. My love life stabilized nicely. And, by now, I can say I'm the most genuinely content with myself in the world than I have... well, perhaps have ever been (my sister's reaction to that last statement was, "knock me over with a feather!")

So, as of now, 14 out of the next 19 months are booked, I get to travel a lot for both work and play (since I can keep my expenses ridiculously low by not paying any rent or mortgage, having given up on keeping an apartment until such time as I'm actually in one place long enough to use one,) I enjoy my colleagues and friends, and I'm in pretty good health. It's a good time....

And from it I hope to gain strength for the not-as-good times which will, of course, come 'round again. Life is nothing if not seasonal.*

*(which, by the way, is my answer to Bill Maher (whom we saw in concert at the Waikiki Shell on New Year's Eve, last night) when he asks: what is religion good for? What religions does well is help us gather ourselves for the cyclical seasons of our lives; spirituality, to me, is about sowing and reaping our spiritual harvests--harvests of both our individual and communal emotional lives. What religion does badly is... everything else. I'd like Maher to better understand the difference between Belief and Faith--the former is dangerous, the later, necessary.)

Custom Knock Offs

2011-11-14T12:08:00.000-08:00

"So you see plays based on reviews."
Sometimes.
"Have you read the play?"
No.
"Did you read the novel?"
No.
"But it's a classic of world literature."
You can't read everything.
"But it's a classic."
(Repeat with dead-eyed stare) You can't read everything.
pause
"Maybe you're a critic yourself."
No (finish drink.) Enjoy the show.

- Last night's conversation, in the bar at The Manhattan Theatre Club before the start of Venus in Fur, with the snottiest theatre patron I've encountered in memory, demonstrating what is, however, a common misconception of conventionally educated consumers of 'culture' that 'culture' consists of a checklist to be gotten through, a shelf of products to be consumed (Waldorf School educators and their unfortunate former students, for all their nonsense to the contrary, are among the worst offenders of such unreflective cultural elitism, which misses the point of culture--or at least, the kind of culture I give a damn about--altogether.)

The day before, I walked into a small store in The West Village that sold various items handy for travel, shoulder bags, notebooks, easy-to-wear shirts. I choked on the prices: $250 for a tasteful small notebook similar to a moleskin. $500 for a tasteful cloth messenger bag. Etc. I was assured these were all "one of a kind, custom designed" items, not to be confused with "mass produced" products of similar utility, though these were utility items, custom designed or not, indistinguishable from their mass-produced cousins--in fact, certainly knock offs of the mass-produced originals (knock offs of knock offs!) but somehow... better?

Do these moments have anything in common?

I'll let you infer the obvious, but one thing, among others: I usually only run into this kind of wackiness in NYC, the home of all manner of unhinged striving and social fetish.

American Shakespeare Center's 'Tempt Me Further' Tour

2011-11-02T05:47:00.000-07:00

I'm happy, grateful, and humbled to say that I've accepted the offer of an 11.5 month contract with The American Shakespeare Center for its 2012/13 TEMPT ME FURTHER tour, which performs in a variety of locales across the country, as well as at The Blackfriars Playhouse, in Staunton, Va. The contract starts in July, 2012, and extends through mid-June, 2013. I may be answering my phone less frequently during that time.

I recommend visiting the ASC website. It does fascinating work.

Circuit-riding Actor

2011-09-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

I would love to live in a smallish rural town--say, Missoula, or Bend, or Waitsfield, or Georgetown, Grand Exuma--a place in which I could feel physically and mentally rooted. I grew up in the outdoors, working and playing--mending barbed wire fences, shoveling horse manure, skiing, skinny dipping--and in small communities, in which neighbors know too much about one another (or so they think, ready to treat gossip as gospel). About the people in such places: I miss their fewer veneers of social polish; their inability to hide what they're thinking, for good or bad. Delight and contempt flash more readily in personal interactions in the small town's I've known before than in the cities I tend to spend most of my time in now. Small towns are more Shakespearean than you know (and occasionally Jacobian.)

Unfortunately, being primarily a stage actor, in the early years of my career, I don't have the option not to live in a city. It would take fame, fortune, and a private jet to make possible the commute from Missoula or Bend. But, to my quiet surprise, being a circuit-riding, regional stage actor is bringing me back to rural communities for short stretches of five or eight weeks in duration: Durant, Oklahoma; Middletown, Virginia, Columbus, Georgia, and wherever I go next. I'm satisfied to rediscover what is up out here, beyond the cultural radar, for good and bad--e.g., the denizens at Denny's after midnight--when I go there to review lines and blocking--can scare the b'jesus out of me, though there's nothing warmer than the smile of a young waitress on the night shift who, bored with the old faces, is delighted to meet a new one, and one with a mouth, ready to talk.

I have many, many thoughts about the experience of doing theater (or any kind of art) in the slow to medium-slow lanes of America, with the heavy star traffic visibly zooming by in the fast lane....

Character : Success

2011-09-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

This NYT Magazine article is a must read for educators, parents, and students (of any age.)

I would like to add that I believe 'character' to be at least partly--if only partly--trainable well into adult life. I know adults who have leveraged already-strong traits to improve weaker ones, and I've seen other adults who have let weaker character traits sap strength from their more developed ones. (rehab is full of people who've spiraled down in that way.)

And perhaps it's not necessarily obvious which positive character traits may save your bacon in adult life. In my case, what the researchers call "zest," may well be what's made late-blooming achievement possible, after I squandered assets of more than one kind throughout my twenties and thirties. "Zest," for me, is a kind of desperation to experience life as fully as I've intuited myself capable of doing, but have--or had--as of yet failed to do. Sheer desire for more has impelled me to fight against my own propensities to be distracted and irresolute, a fight I still wage.

When I was in grad school for philosophy (!), back in the 1980s, I wrote a (somewhat half baked) essay on desire as the quality most important in education. At the time, I was enamored of Israel Scheffler's essay, Of Human Potential. By "desire," though, I think I meant something along the lines of "character," as educable and trainable throughout one's life.

BTW: that essay got me invited to join a PhD in Education at Boston College, but I declined, partly out of not being able to make up my mind, partly out of not wanting to go into a field--education research--that I perceived as having less status. Sigh. That was probably one of the biggest missed opportunities of my life (though if you think me insufferable now, just imagine me with a Ph.D. after my name).

John Patrick Shanley Says:

2011-09-01T13:50:00.001-07:00

"Lose the game. The game is a trap. Stop protecting yourself. Pay the price."

- John Patrick Shanley, Facebook Update, Sept. 1, 2011

Creating Chills On Stage

2011-08-17T11:55:00.000-07:00

I'm well into learning, by heart (always by heart) my part in The Woman in Black for Wayside Theatre, where it's being directed by Warner Crocker, for an October run. It's a ghost story, or rather, as labelled on the cover, "a ghost play," set in some indeterminate period--in what could roughly be the turn of the 20th century--in an indeterminate, seaside village in northeastern England (all this indeterminacy giving me some welcome latitude with dialect, which, as long as I keep it forward in the mouth, make it non-rhotic, and round up the shwas, should play well). The most interesting aspect of the play is its dependence on atmosphere, established only partly through stage and sound effects. The story gets its chills from a verbal narrative that interweaves with and underscores actual scenes, which are always played by either one or two actors (there are only two 'actors' in the show... or, at least only two who get credited in the playbill.) Also, the 'story within a story' frame helps defeat an unwillingness to disbelieve and establishes the audience goodwill on which all tellers of ghost stories depend. The play depends neither on gruesome spectacle nor outrageous imagination. The place and characters are spooky and establish their hooks in our imagination through their antecedents in literature and simple curiosity piqued by the genuine, if restrained, emotion with which the character I play begins the evening.

Last Year at The Menil

2011-08-17T08:36:00.000-07:00

Matt Tramel and I in One was Nude and the Other Wore Tails in Main Street Theatre's co-production with The Menil Gallery, in June, 2010. This photo gives a sense of the audience-performer-space relationship.

Anton Chekhov Says:

2011-07-30T07:10:00.001-07:00

“It is time that writers, especially those who are artists, recognized that there is no making out anything in this world."

Amy Winehouse : Addicts I know.

2011-07-23T14:11:00.000-07:00

I'm genuinely saddened by the death of Amy Winehouse. I don't have soft feelings about addicts--I've been up close and personal with alcoholics, drug users, sex addicts, and anorexics (though I've never been an addict myself)--and find them profoundly dishonest, manipulative, hooked on victimization, prone to blaming the world for their problems, and sometimes just weak--but their plight breaks my heart. They are victims of both biochemistry and trauma--physical and sexual abuse are common in their backgrounds--and they piss away (literally) the best of what is a short life. For their sake, I want to kick their asses into gear. For my sake, I let it go. Ultimately, their fate is in their own hands. If they put themselves in the position of responding to help, man, I'm there for them. If they only pretend to do that I kick 'em to the curb, hoping the best, expecting the worst. Addicts bullshit a lot. A lot.

I have friends who have pulled themselves out of addiction not only to the substances they were hooked on but to the habits of mind that made them more vulnerable to those substances. I know how difficult that is and my respect for their courage in facing their addiction grows with every passing year I know them. I love them not only for their courage, but for their honesty, and spiritual rigor.

(One of the most difficult aspects of working in theater is being around so many artists addicted to alcohol and nicotine. Hanging out with 'em I can't quite escape the sense I'm enabling them. But, I remind myself that we all have a right to pave our own path with the obstacles most attractive to us, and let it go, best I can.)

I expect one day I'll find myself working in a rehab as a counselor. Addicts piss me off, yes, but they piss me off more for them, than at them.

Credo

2011-07-19T14:36:00.000-07:00

If you have to choose, be known for being generous, over being right. Tip well, praise effort, be credulous, encourage the young, listen to the old, don't nit pick, and eschew cool for cool's sake.

Frost/Nixon at Springer Opera House

2011-07-18T15:21:00.000-07:00

I'm delighted to say that I will be playing Richard Nixon this coming winter in the Springer Opera House production of Frost/Nixon, directed by Paul Pierce, in Columbus, Ga. Paul is a delightful guy, and the Springer Opera House is The State Theatre of Georgia, and on the National Registry of Historical Sites. It's a beautiful venue.

This makes two terrific shows in a row in this, my first season as an AEA actor. I'm happy and grateful.

Current Top 10 Plays I'd Like To Do

2011-07-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

(in arbitrary order)

1. I Am My Own Wife
2. Moon for the Misbegotten
3. Seafarer
4. Fifty Words
5. King Lear
6. Red
7. Macbeth
8. American Buffalo
9. The Sunset Limited
10. The Lonesome West
11. Richard III
12. Taming of the Shrew

Ok, 12. This is this morning's list, subject to change with time of day, weather, mood.

Bob Krakower Says:

2011-07-13T07:23:00.001-07:00

"Rehearse the relationship."

Bryan Cranston Says:

2011-07-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

“It’s up to them, but I won’t bend unless I’m convinced it’s the right thing to do....Convince me and I’ll do it. I have a theory — our job isn’t to lie to the audience, our job is to find the truth in the character. If we lie, we’re giving the audience a little pinch of poison. They won’t even know they ingested it. But if you lie again and again and again, all of a sudden, your audience is going, ‘This isn’t working for me.’ They just feel sick, and they turn you off.”

-- Bryan Cranston, quoted in The New York Times, July 6, 2011

The Tree of Life

2011-07-04T09:15:00.000-07:00

Terrence Malick's Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The Thin Red Line are among my favorite movies. Humorless as they can be (though Badlands is pretty funny in a horrible deadpan way), they're also extraordinarily beautiful and earnestly spiritual. They're prayers of thanksgiving in which Malick works through the obvious horror of life to articulate what there is to be thankful for. He's a sentimental realist, spiritually articulate, fully alive to the compelling arguments in favor of a nihilism that he works hard to reject. All his movies might be about the friction between "nature" and "grace," though The Tree of Life is the most explicit.*

I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated The Tree of Life even when it doesn't quite work for me, especially in the final reel, in which Malick attempts to weave a visual coda from all the associations the previous 'stanzas' of the movie have laid down and articulated; though in fairness, this kind of symbolism is tricky as nitro even in hands as steady as Malick's: the associations and images can be fragile containers of the meanings they've acquired. The movie opens with a quote from The Book of Job, and Job is referenced at least twice more in the film's sparse dialogue. It helps a lot to have actually read The Book of Job rather than merely be 'familiar' with it. For long sequences, what we see on screen is the visual equivalent of "the Voice from the Whirlwind," which in The Book of Job upbraids Job for his capitulation to despair. I recommend the poet Stephen Mitchell's translation, which, back in my late twenties, during a 11,000 + cross-country car trip that took me across Canada, to southeastern Alaska, down the west coast of the U.S., and back across the mountain west, was the catalyst for one of the great epiphanies I've experienced, one which I value all the more as I find that epiphanies come less often as I grow older.

I also love how Malick layers sounds on top of images, e.g., sounds of waves crashing over images of stellar nebulae uncoiling. Also watch for how he moves human beings through the frame. They're always in motion, one stepping into background as another steps into foreground, etc., so that characters are always telling both their private story and relationship stories visually, if not in dialogue.

Lastly, though many viewers have complained they couldn't follow the 'plot' in The Tree of Life, I had no trouble. All one must do is be willing to hold a question in mind for a longer time before it's answered than most Hollywood movies ask viewers to do. I admit to enjoying the sensation I experience by not having the answers too quickly: left open, they create a space for images on screen to acquire meaningful associations with the human story that frames them: if plot questions were answered too quickly, images on screen would appear to be merely random. I find that this movement between still-open plot questions and (otherwise unrelated) images on screen to be soothing, particularly since the human story of the film is as elemental as it is, drawing on our childhood memories of our mothers and fathers, limning the origins of our life long struggle to choose grace, while working to survive in nature.

(*Oops. I say this not having seen The New World.)

Test for Hitting Send on Emails, Plotting Novels, and Inflicting One Man Shows on the World

2011-06-13T08:25:00.000-07:00

Does it need to be said?

(yes, always)

Are you the one who needs to say it?

( ? )

Does it need to be said now?

(yes, always)

Home Made Goodness

2011-06-12T23:25:00.001-07:00

I've come to judge performers less on perfect execution of bits and more on how willingly I slip into suspending disbelief while watching their work: sometimes craft, sometimes imagination, sometimes soul in varying measures do the trick. Theater is home made, like Nanna's chicken soup. The ingredients never quite simmer down the same way and yet always convince.

Mr. Radcliffe dances well, has learned to act through an enviable apprenticeship, and can't hit the high notes in the lead role on a Broadway stage, and I say, "Bravo." I'd feel differently if I'd never see Robert Morse hit every note in the movie made of the original Broadway production, but since I have seen him do that, ok. One lesser performance now does not diminish greater performances in both the past and future. And what Radcliffe does bring is youthful brio, charm, immense good will, and paying audiences.

'Freud's Last Session'

2011-06-10T10:35:00.001-07:00

This little two-hander by Mark St. Germain is more fair to both Freud and C.S. Lewis than I anticipated it would be, and much of it's smart, and feels well researched. I'm not always convinced by it, though. The arguments by both men fail to seem entirely full, though my educated guess is that Germain does touch the essential premises and essential self-awareness of both men. If there is anything missing, I think it's probably Freud's appreciation of Nietzsche, who gets beyond the polarities that Freud is here dramatized as having accepted.

'Circle Mirror Transformation' : Yup, that was it.

2011-06-10T10:30:00.000-07:00

Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation reads well enough, but I've been told it plays better and I can see it, but even on the page it brings back the cold sweats I'd get in those beginning Acting classes, in which you wonder when you're ever going to get around to "acting" and what the hell all those animal grunts and 'personal sharing' exercises are about. Looking back, I realize I hated those classes, though they were beyond doubt necessary, and yes, therapeutic.

Dialect Plan for Multi-part Role

2011-05-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

Seven characters, London and North Country:

1. Standard British
2. Cockney
3. Standard British, character (low pitched, deliberate)
4. Scottish
5. Yorkshire
6. Yorkshire, character (high pitched, quick)
7. Standard British, character (comic)
8. Yorkshire, character (low pitched, slow)

That's the plan.

Equity

2011-05-14T11:39:00.000-07:00

In the fall I will 'turn' Equity and put to rest the usual questions about whether or not I should. Perhaps it's a smallish gamble. Being union will put me out of contention with a number of small, worthy Philadelphia theaters, but I've been so much on the hunt for regional theater work that I'm willing to accept the cost. It feels right, it's time, my resume is chock full o' big roles, and so here we go.

AEA membership also gives me the option to buy into SAG when I feel ready to go for the small t.v. and film roles that can both pay bills as well as satisfy a different kind of itch than theater does; an itch for behaving more than performing. I don't at all mind leaving behind the world of non-union commercial work.

The Woman in Black @ Wayside Theatre

2011-05-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to say that I've accepted the role of Actor in The Woman in Black, directed by Warner Crocker, at Wayside Theatre, in Middletown, Virginia. The show runs October 8th through November 5, 2011.

Richard II 5.5 from Shakespeare's Globe

2011-05-11T06:22:00.000-07:00

There is so much to learn from this.

Mark Rylance on Shakespeares plays (2011)

2011-05-11T06:21:00.000-07:00

I may well not find good reason to believe that Shakespeare is not the author we think he is, but I thoroughly respect the reasons Rylance gives for questioning authorship. Again, I tend to cede arguments about Shakespeare to the best Shakespearean actor in the room at the moment.

Mark Rylance Says:

2011-05-08T08:03:00.001-07:00

‎"The theatre, in my opinion, has been hijacked a bit by literary departments of academia. It's a live, aural tradition, much like rock 'n' roll is an aural tradition. One day rock 'n' roll will be hijacked by music departments of academia, and it will be like 'this is the authentic version of 'I Can't Get No Satisfaction' that has to be sung every time'" - Mark Rylance

When Not to Look for Subtext

2011-05-04T13:54:00.000-07:00

"That was very good,"

or

"Do you have 30 seconds of something else you'd like to do?"

or

"We appreciate you,"

or

"Thank you for coming in,"

or

"Are you available _______ to _______?"

or

"We'll know by Sunday,"

or

"I'm looking at you for________,"

or

"So you live in Philadelphia?"

doesn't mean,

"You're hired."

Only,

"we'd like to offer you the role of ______,"

means that.

Steinbeck : Memoir : Reportage

2011-04-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

THOUGHTS OCCASIONED BY THE NYT STORY ABOUT STEINBECK'S TRAVELS WITH CHARLIE:

I STILL say that the spine (i.e., the founding element in the invisible infrastructure) of memoir needs to be good reportage and I'm unhappy Steinbeck couldn't be bothered with it. And people who think that it's ok to make up stuff in memoirs seem to me confused about one point: using "techniques of fiction" does not mean "fictionalizing." All the techniques of fiction may be used with non-fiction material without making anything up.

For a writer to master non-fiction/memoir means for that writer to bend him/herself to the dictates of the material, NOT the other way around. Writing is a high-wire act. If an inherent claim of a work is that it's 'real life' then it should be real life. Yes, this is more difficult. But to invent episodes or massage memory to be friendly to one's aesthetic design or themes is to exercise an arrogance I find less offensive than I find it uninteresting, which is a much greater sin. I would rather see a nonfiction writer/memoirist occasionally fail aesthetically when tackling complicated memories than aesthetically succeed by manipulating those memories (I mean manipulating those memories in ways that the audience can't follow: a writer can certainly announce his or her manipulations ad hoc--as thought experiments--as long as the reader knows they are such.) There's a lot of pressure from writers I know to accept invention as part of memoir writing but I continue to resist.

My position on "reportage" as part of non-fiction/memoir writing feels uncomfortable to me because I've always risked accusations of unsubtly or philistinism. But I keep digging for a deeper, more interesting commitment to be made by writers. Not that I've been willing to walk this walk myself: I write blog posts, not books, so perhaps I'm (in part) disqualified from critiquing, since I've not facing this writing challenge myself.*

*(This post is cribbed from my side of the debate in a long Facebook thread. A blog is one way to get the last word!)

New Plays, Short Scenes

2011-04-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

I've seen a fistful of new plays during the past year and one thing that most of them have in common: their dramatic action accretes over the collected span of many short scenes rather than builds organically over few long scenes. This is because writing long scenes that build plots isn't easy to do. But, I'm afraid it's necessary. Plays built of many short scenes just don't pack the same wallop. All those short scenes read about as well as a blog post. Good enough for communicating a few interesting thoughts but not as in depth as an essay of many thousands of words. They're all short jabs rather than knock out punches with a sustained swing behind 'em.

These plays may be influenced by movie writing--which can tell a story in literally a hundred little scenes--but I don't think that's the main influence. Writing plays is just plain not easy. Henry James couldn't do it.

I would like to see all these new plays restructured along the classic lines of five act, three act, or even one act plays. As they are now, they're interesting starts.

Sunshine and Motion, Damn It.

2011-04-03T07:48:00.000-07:00

So, I've been told by my brother who lives part of the year in Vermont that this winter brought the best skiing in years to New England, and I missed it. Philadelphia has been a little too far away, especially with performance and audition commitments. But what a drag, man. This makes the second winter in a row in which I haven't skied and the pain I feel is physical, and emotional, like not having seen a lover in too long, blue heart, blue balls. Can't let this happen again.

Since I didn't ski, this winter was also painfully long, wet, dark, and all-around freak'n miserable--but you knew that. Gratefully the sun appears to be returning for extended periods. So it's still cold, but I can live with that, sort of, though if I were offered an extended gig in Florida or Hawaii (not such a strange prospect as it sounds), I'd be off like a shot.

It's been too long since I've exercised my spiritual need for doing things outdoors. For a couple of years now, I've lived head down, in front of the computer or in audition and rehearsal studios, chipping away at a mid-life start in a new artistic career. But this is not enough. Sailing, skiing, hiking, long-distance bicycling (though I'm done with that now), motorcycling, scuba: that's where I've always gone to re-find myself and recharge. The little bit of hiking near me in Philly hasn't been enough. Walking in Fairmount Park is like putting a giant rundown battery on a trickle charger for too short a time: I've been walking around in constant brown out. Forty-five minutes on a rowing machine once or twice a week at the gym is just enough to piss me off.

I would like some company in all these pursuits, too, but theater people? They're often couch potatoes. They watch sports but don't do them. Beats me why.

The Good/Bad of an Instinct for 'Networking'

2011-03-31T15:07:00.000-07:00

What I do well: meet many people doing interesting work and keep up with their projects so that I'm 'in the loop.' I believe I tend to be good at 'networking' because I honestly enjoy it most of the time.

What I do poorly: trust 'networks' to do their work without any added push from me. I too often write one email (or, sigh, more) too many. A corollary of this is that when I've been in two-way communication about projects for which I may be right, I too often count my chicks before they've hatched, thinking I've secured a job that I haven't.

What helps me continue to do what I do well and try to avoid what I don't is remember that I'm a would-be artistic collaborator rather than a supplicant. I'm at my best when articulating and working an artistic vision and at my worst when asking for others' approval, as theater work so frequently does ask one to do.

For Actors in Need of Inspiration

2011-03-29T12:44:00.001-07:00

"Here We Have..."

2011-03-08T19:50:00.000-08:00

Bespoken in Shanghai

2011-02-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

Irene has encouraged me to have suits made while in Shanghai. We will troll the fabric markets for fabrics and tailors, though after googling comments from purchasers, I anticipate this to be a fraught process in which great quality isn't guaranteed.

I'm looking for traditionally cut suits that will last me a long time. I have a wonderful, grey pinstripe Armani that I bought off the rack a few years ago, but I've never been fully comfortable with the lapels, which seem to start high for my taste: it's a very mid-2000s look, I think, a bit boxy. I have a second suit, dark blue with alternating red and blue pin stripes, that's a very slim cut, and which I thought was pretty ugly when I bought it at Nordstrom's rack for $200. However, I bought it for my rehearsal suit to use in grad school, and I've found that it reads well on stage. Rather than look garish, the pinstripes make the suit pop (I'm wearing it in the photos below of A Moon for the Misbegotten.)

Here are things I know I want: slimming cut, single breast, side vents, sleeve buttons, well placed pocket for mobile phone and single car key, moderate break, moderate double cuff. Ideally, I'd like two suits, a dark blue pinstripe (good color for me) and a rich brown/chocolate herringbone. Even better, I could have some shirts and ties to match. My guess is that even in Shanghai I won't quite be able to afford all this and get excellent, heirloom quality, too.

It'll be an adventure.

Advice?

Generosity of Spirit : Self Knowledge

2011-02-11T09:38:00.000-08:00

Artists are of necessity so self-involved that they can be dispiriting to be around unless they also, habitually or more self-consciously, show interest in, and gratitude for, others (sometimes a self-conscious expression of gratitude strikes me as more touching for the effort behind it.) So, I do what I can to show I've noticed someone's work, and celebrate their high points, and commiserate on their lows. Most often I do this simply with a Facebook message, which trite as it sounds, still counts. I also buy the occasional cup of coffee or glass of wine. In sum I hope to acknowledge and celebrate others' presence.

Acknowledging one another is to me the wit and soul of generosity--not material generosity, but generosity of spirit. Sometimes such generosity seems to be missing in artists or is occluded by habitual snarkiness and cynicism, qualities that never seem to go out of style, especially in the young. When I do see generosity of spirit expressed by others my own spirit soars and I feel bonds of loyalty difficult to break. When I see it rarely or never arise I can sour and I must watch that I don't make it too difficult for myself to be won back.

I look for generosity as a species of self-awareness in others, a quality without which trust mightn't be possible at all. When it's present, however, anything seems possible.

If "generosity" were a coin, on one side would be an emblem of acknowledgement, and on the other, an emblem of self-disclosure; of seeing, and, of showing.

Shanghaied!

2011-02-08T15:28:00.000-08:00

Irene's taking me to Shanghai! She has a month-long work trip that takes her to Mumbai, Singapore, and Shanghai, so I'll be joining her on the last leg of her trip. I'm grateful to her for gifting me the miles. Irene tells me I shouldn't miss the opportunity to have a suit handmade at a price I'll never find again so she might have to lend me a few bucks for that, too, but I'll pay her back, soon enough.

I'm also planning to be in Las Vegas at the end of March for my Mom's 70th Birthday. If I'm not working out of town this summer that's all the travel I anticipate for a while. I need to bring in some cash.

I've never been to Asia.

Artists' Virtues

2011-02-08T08:50:00.000-08:00

Generosity
Discipline
Honesty
Curiosity
Perseverance

A Moon For The Misbegotten Trailer

2011-02-08T08:46:00.000-08:00

Restless

2011-02-07T08:06:00.000-08:00

Preparing James Tyrone Jr. for A Moon for the Misbegotten taught me one big acting lesson--how to underplay more effectively--and reminded me that I can work quickly and in a more relaxed fashion than ever before. In my first year in Philadelphia during which I worked on stage a substantial amount, made a little money in on-camera/voice over work, and auditioned a lot, my work has settled. I trust more both my instincts and the process of discovery in creating a role.

Jim Tyrone Jr. is a big part. I memorized it almost d.l.p. in three weeks. Titus, in Titus Andronicus, might have been as big (or bigger) a line load but it took me well over six weeks to memorize it to the same proficiency. Much of the unproductive tension I used to feel during rehearsals seems to have eased away for me. Again, my sister said it best, when she noted during a recent visit with her, "you seem to be trusting your talent more." As a bonus, understudying at The Arden put my work on the radar with some theater artists in Philadelphia with whom I hope to work.

But this will be the last understudy gig I do in which I don't also have another part in the show to play. Understudying wreaks too much havoc with life: I don't dare take on-camera jobs lest I have to go on stage during a shoot; nor dare I travel out of town for regional auditions or to visit my girlfriend (who lives in Houston). I'm sitting at home more than I want to be, feeling broke and unloved, restless.

I am writing more, to take advantage of the time on my hands and being more broke than usual, and I'm exercising more, and running my lines and blocking every day, just in case. What I'm not doing (much) is going down to Quig's Pub--the Philly actors' opium den (not really)--lest I find myself drinking more than is healthy or boring the socks off other actors.

Two movies I've seen in the past week gave me a fright: the animated Illusionist and live action Somewhere. Both movies depict the lives of performers who spend more time than is healthy in limbo while offstage, from which they find relief only on-stage or on camera. I take them as cautionary tales.

Memorable Dawns

2011-02-04T10:26:00.000-08:00

Honolulu from Round Top Drive
Haleakala Volcano
motoring into Beaufort harbor
raising anchor on Exuma sound
awaking in tent near Haines, Alaska
mucking stables before school bus in Vermont
awaking on picnic table at rest stop near Yakima

Jim Tyrone Jr. and Josie Hogan

2011-02-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

Josie Summerfield as Josie and David Millstone as Jim Tyrone, Jr., in understudy run of A Moon for the Misbegotten at The Arden Theatre Co. Photos by Kyle Cassidy.

Jim Tyrone Jr.

2011-02-01T11:01:00.000-08:00

"Indie Film 2.0"

2011-01-26T08:59:00.000-08:00

Complete Video of Kevin Smith's "State"-ment - Movies - News - IFC.com

My New Internet Addiction: The Maria Bamford Show

2011-01-22T07:37:00.000-08:00

I, Hulk

2011-01-21T07:35:00.000-08:00

Playing big characters changes me by either exposing more of myself to view than I saw before or by introducing into my own characterological DNA news strands of personality I hadn't before possessed. I welcome the change, or the forced acknowledgement of self (or both) even when it's disturbing. I take a step out of solipsism when I do: e.g., once the show was over, I couldn't leave behind fast enough the abusive and guttural Mr. Klemper (a small role but major force) in The Boys Next Door, but channeling his violence and jealousy through my own body stepped me nonetheless closer to an enlarged experience of, and regard for, the human condition. Likewise with Malvolio, and Titus, and James Tyrone, Jr. (a little less so with Harold in Orphans and Henry in Henry IV I & II). It'd be nice to play a hero some day.

James Tyrone, Jr. is tough for me to like or entirely admit in but I'm aided by how acting technique both distances and brings him closer to me as I work both to recreate the essence of Eric's work and make Tyrone 'my own.' Distancing and collapsing-distance between self and character are mutually supporting modes, which allow me to pry open or build new doors within myself. I find the process challenging, but extraordinarily fun, and ultimately spiritual.

Taking in a big new character is like discovering that I'm The Hulk, an alarming, but enlarging discovery.

Been There, Done That

2011-01-20T12:30:00.000-08:00

A funny thing happened on the way to becoming a journeyman: I lost interest in talking about how to be one. These days, my 'notes on acting' seem to be more about plays, characters, themes, professional issues (e.g., union), and personal interests tangential to acting far more often than they are about 'process.'

Likewise, I find I'm not interested in either reading or writing about writing. I've taken to skimming quickly the blog entries by my writer friends about writing itself even as I linger over their personal posts.

My sister said to me recently, "you seem to be trusting your talent more," after I'd updated her on my theater work. That says it best.

Porn vs. Sex in Cinema and T.V.

2011-01-18T08:37:00.000-08:00

Contemporary porn is awful soul-destroying stuff, slagging flesh humped in un-sensuous mounds, astonishingly un-erotic, because there's very little that's erotic about the raw act of sex itself. All this internet hard core erases the imaginative distance between imagination and act that makes sex sex. This is a familiar argument so I'll stop here and merely refer you to a terrific William H. Gass essay from (I think) the 1970s, called, On Being Blue. The examples Gass shares of eros in literature are truly erotic, and are wholly dependent as much on the unsaid as the said.

I'm mentioning porn--both shockingly ubiquitous and just plain bad--in our lives because I have the thought that now, more than ever, we need to see good sex--or rather, good love making--in mainstream movies and television shows. I had this thought when, in watching a love-making scene recently, I found myself feeling relieved to see a reminder that sex isn't only all that banging away from behind that porn would have us believe (though it's that too); or, more importantly, have young people believe, since they are the ones most propagandized by what they see. In order to counter the ugliness of porn, then, I say we need more well-wrought sex in mainstream entertainment rather than less. Of course, I wouldn't mind if sex in cinema and t.v. were more coy, elided, verbal, teasing, and witty, as well--as in a 1940s screwball comedy--but I'm not holding out a lot of hope for that. The days of the endless verbal love making of Rosalind Russell and Carey Grant are probably over--at least, for the foreseeable future, since I'm not willing to bet against any reversal of the cultural tides, which will always rise and fall, or so I hope, given my residual faith in our collective taste for both novelty (there's so much porn that it's getting old) and hunger for art that rings true.

Understudy Heroics: Jennifer Summerfield

2011-01-15T09:34:00.000-08:00

Jennifer Summerfield sat in the light booth throughout the second performance in the regular run of Moon for the Misbegotten because the actress she was understudying, Grace Gonglewski in the massive part of Josie Hogan, had been deathly ill all day. Before performance time, Grace was ministered with anti-nausea pills and rest, so she made it to the stage, but if she had been to collapse or cry uncle at intermission, Jennifer stood ready. The production is fortunate that Jennifer has had her part down cold since before previews and despite the fact that we didn't have our first understudy rehearsal until yesterday, the day after she spent the evening on stand by. That's how it goes, folks. Understudy and put-in rehearsals are welcome but you ain't necessarily gonna get one.

An increasingly familiar saying around the rehearsal room these days is "Jennifer rocks."

Jamie's Instinct for Redemption

2011-01-08T08:20:00.000-08:00

I'm roughly off-book for Moon and will be solid before first understudy rehearsal. I'm in good shape as long as Eric stays healthy and doesn't feel like disappearing to South America within the next week or so.

The deeper I've drilled into this role the more sensitive to its main theme I've become: that redemption is possible, though imperfect, if we need it badly enough. Anyone who's lived past forty and has weathered a catastrophe or two--e.g., bad marriage, career dead-end, substance abuse--can grasp Jamie's self-hatred and end-game desperation to cleanse his soul even as he settles into what he know's is his final chapter, the final two months of his sour, self-pitying little life. (I can't help being reminded of Leaving Los Vegas.)

This is the material for rehab and Twelve step encounter sessions--I know, because I've been there--but worthy of literary, dramatic treatment because at the heart of one's need for redemption is a mystery irreducible to self-help platitudes and bromides or sociological schemas: the mystery is that one feels the need to redeem one's conscience; one's soul. I'm not (or no longer) a religious man and feel great distain--I even share Jamie's disgust--for the metaphysics and crude promises of monotheistic religions, but I'm fully alive to one of the needs to which religion administers: the need eventually to live with a clean conscience; and also, somewhat more obliquely, eventually fully to become the person one knows one self to be, or have been, underneath the sedimentations of guilt and remorse that can have accumulated over a life time.

Jamie is not a likable man in the end. He's self-indulgent, infantile, violent, misogynistic, self-deluding, weak, and self-pitying, but underneath all that, his self pity leads him to fulfill a spiritual purpose, freeing both himself and Josie, his chosen confessor, from the existential hell that they may not have created for themselves, but which is their own responsibility to escape.

Working on Moon for the Misbegotten has deepened my understanding of forgiveness as the mechanism for personal 'redemption,' not easily earned, as O'Neill reminds us by writing it out at lengths unfriendly to Aristotelian economy or Hollywood movie brevity. If O'Neill had written out Jamie's confession more concisely I don't think I'd recognize or believe it, as hellish as it was to memorize.

p.s. The Arden production is terrific, please see it. If you're interested in seeing the understudy run, as well, drop me a line and I'll tell you when it is.

Ghosts and Atheists

2011-01-06T11:43:00.000-08:00

Jamie's atheism is as confused as Hamlet's. Both these guys see ghosts but don't believe they'll become one. Both find out one way or another real soon.

Jamie's irritating infantilism of the raging alcoholic is familiar to anyone who's dallied with Twelve Step groups or has done a stint in rehab, or to anyone who's worked their way inch by inch to the purging confession that often (but not always) marks a turning point in psychotherapy.

The grandiosity of the alcoholic--the alcoholic especially, but applicable to the rage-aholic, and drug addict, and over-eater, et. al.--creates an unweildy personality best summed up by a therapist I knew as "King Baby," whom it's best to love but not pamper. That's Jamie, who loves to blame his own foul behavior on "John Barleycorn," saying, "I'm drunk. Not responsible" (cf., "you don't understand, I have good reason to be angry," insists the anger-alcoholic to his exasperated therapy group.) Jamie mostly earns his redemption in Josie's lap, but Josie earns hers even more. The woman fearlessly faces her own distorted self-image in Jamie's misogyny and defeats it. I know that Jamie's confession and Josie's comforting of him make it look as is she submits but that's not how it reads to me deep down. There are some canny inversions at work in O'Neill, as there are in Shakespeare.

Matching Actions

2011-01-04T08:36:00.000-08:00

Eric Hissom beautifully and delicately underplays Jim Tyrone, Jr., in The Arden Theatre's current production of Moon for the Misbegotten, directed by Matt Pfeiffer. Eric is a smaller man than me with a light, crisp tenor voice, which contrasts to my larger profile and baritone voice with chestier tone. Reading the script aloud yesterday with Jennifer Summerfield, who understudies Josie, I realized once again that my job as Eric's understudy is to realize his actions--his intentions--with out overt mimicry of his physical choices, which don't fit on my body or in my voice. E.g., I would love to mimic Eric's little half-dance he often does, but considering that my stride is half again as long as his I might end up in the audience. If he hops like a bird, I'd bound like a stork. I do want to find Eric's combination of light vocal delivery with addled, neuropathic, often sluggish physical gestures, but I need to be patient if I don't find a combination that satisfies me in the condensed rehearsal period available for understudies.

I find that understudying is a terrific opportunity to rediscover the qualities of my own instrument.

Tyrone in Moon

2010-12-16T13:27:00.000-08:00

I'm delighted to say that I'll be understudying the role of James Tyrone Jr. in The Arden Theatre's upcoming production of Moon for the Misbegotten.

Union Question Revisited

2010-12-11T09:02:00.000-08:00

Recently I've been re-visiting the 'union or non-union?' question (because possible union contracts are popping up more frequently) at least for stage work (non-union for on-camera is my only good option for now.) I solicited advice from well-rooted Philadelphia actors and producers as well as from mentors in Houston and Portland. A Philadelphia producer managed to put my choice most succinctly: if I want to establish myself as trustworthy in Philadelphia I should stay non-union until I have more exposure; if I want to focus on regional work, which casts mostly out of the AEA center in NYC, then I should go union. The choice depends on which priority is greater.

So, for the next little while, at least, I intend to stay non-union (unless something too-too tempting comes up) to fully establish myself here, in Philly. Once that feels reasonably done I'll seek out AEA. The pay may be crappy non-union, but the roles are good, I like the Philadelphia scene a whole lot, and I want to put down roots. Also, I can build both a local and national career better by establishing myself first in Philly than I can by establishing myself first regionally.

(I think I have greater ambition for doing regional theater than do many local actors though I'm not sure why. I enjoy the travel and living in dorm-like conditions for a few weeks at a time. But of course I don't have a family or day job to worry about.)

I'd rather be union, no question, but I can wait a bit. I feel good about my career at this point no matter what. The important thing now is just doing the work.

Thanks especially to Dan, Brenna, Jan, and Jack for the well-informed advice.

Tact and the "Sacred"

2010-12-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

Tact is a metaphysical category ("metaphysical category" = something that makes our experience possible) not just etiquette. When a 'truth' is stated crudely the expression of it has been torn from the deep interconnections between instincts and experiences of the insight giving rise to it. Some time ago, a friend gave me advice at which I flinched. He thought I was reacting to his being "overly honest." Not by half. He wasn't wrong about what he had to say but by stating himself crudely he managed to be not-right.

In a more public context, a word I recently felt rendered an original insight 'not-right' by crude use was "sacred," which is a word I find that I can best accept when referring to human life, or (following Abraham Heschel) to ritualized time, but not to places: when the word refers to a place--e.g., a religious house, or war memorial--I find that it's cut off from what it's meant to express: i.e., the hallowing of some aspect of our lives.* I grow irritated by what feels like propagandizing, because, to me, making something 'sacred' shuts off words and thought; we're being told what not to think as much as what to think. "Sacred" implies "this thing is beyond either argument or even examination," especially when applied to a place, which we are supposed to see as 'inviolate.' The word "sacred" asks for internal quiet, which is right at Shabbat, and at funerals, and in all moments of awe, but bullies at other times, and in it's bullying, weakens it's ability to evoke the insight behind it that says "this otherwise unsayable aspect of being human must find expression."**

I felt irritation (which for me is sometimes an alarm bell, signaling a metaphysical emergency, below the level of immediate awareness) at The Arizona War Memorial in Honolulu that commemorates the heart-breaking war deaths of 900 soldiers who died aboard and remain interred in the wreckage. The Park Ranger guiding tourists through the memorial and Earnest Borgnine's voice, on the guide tapes we rented, referred to the memorial as "sacred" many times over. Certainly, the memorial--a cool, reasonably humble, white hand stretching beam-wise at midships over the mostly-sunken, rusting hulk of the Arizona--permitted awe and a deep sadness in me, and I saw other tourists tearing up as they read the names of the dead on the marble memorial at starboard, and one could say that calling the memorial "sacred" ritualized our time there--not the place itself--but the word felt wrong. It seemed too defensively patriotic. I appreciate how little there is in the contemporary public realm in America to remind us that we're a national people (by now) and that we could use reminders, but I heard more the incipient jingoism behind calling a national monument "sacred" than I heard an honest call to citizenship. I'm not sure what was being hallowed. I think the word "sacred" made what was being hallowed difficult to hold in my mind. Were the dead victims? Were they heroes? Is it possible they could be both? (e.g., by falsifying the circumstances of their deaths, calling the majority of victims of 911 "heroes" dishonors those who died by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The heroes of 911 were the rescuers, not those who so arbitrarily died. The arbitrariness of their deaths breaks my heart no less than the heroic deaths of those who attempted to save them.) Does the Arizona Memorial hallow our capacity for forceful, communal rage, which we can call on to fight for what we (as a people) believe in?

Somehow, the word "sacred" on The Arizona seems tactless in the way that renders both honest communal sorrow and honest communal resolve as untrue (if not quite false). The word seems to coerce rather than cohere.***

*perhaps I contradict myself by saying that I enjoyed the use of the word "hallow" by J.K. Rowling in Harry Potter and the Ghostly Hallows (at least in the movie; I didn't read the book.) By wondering about the noun, I found myself drawn to the verb, which made the physical totems over which Harry and the bad guy were fighting rather interesting.

**Again, what I love in Shakespeare's plays is the hallowing of human spiritual yearnings without falsifying them as discrete ideas; the plays sanctify without sanctity.

***This post is a mess. I may clean it up later.

Republican Viagra

2010-12-03T08:56:00.000-08:00

I think Democrats may be worse at politics than Republicans because they are not so driven by anger and cultural resentment. Cultural resentment seems to be a kind of aphrodisiac for political rage that makes possible political ruthlessness. Republicans know how to keep their hard ons. Cultural resentment = political viagra.

Fake Representation?

2010-12-02T17:43:00.000-08:00

I learned today from my Philadelphia agent that someone other than she has been submitting me and a few other actors for auditions with local casting directors who don't like multiple submissions because they clog the work flow. I haven't the foggiest idea who this could be since I don't have an agreement with any east coast agencies other than Agency Connects. I'm not sure how mystery-person thinks they're going to make money off of me, because if they did get me an audition or job, I'd have to show up, and I'm not going to do that if I know that doing so is making my agent and casting directors with whom I work unhappy.

So, they're doing, what, pulling info off my website and sending it off as if I were a client? I suppose there's a compliment in there somewhere.

Learning A Lot from Two Iliads

2010-11-20T10:33:00.000-08:00

Last night I saw An Iliad performed at Portland Center Stage by Joseph Graves and directed by Penny Metropulos. Mr. Graves is an energetic performer who brings sterling but not overdone diction and tremendous physical vitality to this demanding solo show. He balanced the show differently than did Stephen Spinella at The McCarter. Where Spinella was more often harrowing, Graves was avuncular. Where Spinella worked with physical economy and precision, Graves was freer and less sculptural.

I learned more by watching both these two productions than I would have from just one of them about how to support textual lyricism, choreograph action, and establish multiple characterizations in solo performance.

Thanksgiving Travel Plans

2010-11-12T12:58:00.000-08:00

I'll be in Portland from Sunday, Nov. 14 through Sunday, Nov. 21., taking care of personal business and spending time with friends. I'll then be in Oahu for Thanksgiving with Irene and her family from Mon., Nov. 22nd, through December 1, then, back to Philly.

Orson Welles on politics and art (1960)

2010-11-08T05:50:00.000-08:00

Computer and Monitor Find a Home

2010-11-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to say that I've donated my laptop computer and 30" monitor to Ahmad Kenya, for Images of the Motherland Interactive Theatre's "Living History Heritage" project, which include shows such as The Life and Times of Omar ibn Sayyid and Abdul Rahman Ibrahima-The Prince Among Slaves. Mr. Kenya is currently on tour and will pick up his new equipment when he returns, and after I've had an Apple store give the laptop a clean bill of health (I'm having trouble reloading software and don't want to give Mr. Kenya a bad apple, so to speak.)

Finding a way to give my computer and monitor to someone who could put them to good use was a good way of learning what work people are doing. I'm grateful for the opportunity.

Solo Performance as Song

2010-11-05T09:15:00.000-07:00

Around this time last year I was researching a possible one man show featuring the life of Boris Karloff but ran into trouble. Although Karloff is a genial subject and also seemed a good fit for me, I found myself not interested enough in him or his work to pull off a show about either the man or his work (to do so would have been an exercise in grim careerism.) I did find themes that interested me but those were not enough. Not enough, either, were the inherent theatrical elements that would have been required, e.g., donning neck plugs and steel boots and making a do out of putting on and taking off make-up in front of the audience. I'm not terribly enthralled by elaborate make-up and costumes, though I love the grace notes and efficient storytelling of well-chosen items. I like when costumes and make up support a performance by making suspending disbelief easier for both audience and actor but my imagination isn't set alive by dressing up per se. Having eventually rejected Karloff as a subject, then, I found myself at a loss for how to approach a one man show. Yes, autobiography came to mind, but evidently, I'm not ready to go there. I did have in mind a show that would have revolved around my experience with singing lessons with the incomparable Theresa Koon but I'm still too much in the middle of that story to shape it.*

Then, last week, I saw two one-person shows, one at The McCarter Center, in Princeton, and one here in Philly. The McCarter Center show was The Iliad, performed by Stephen Spinella. The Philly show was 1812 Productions's Why I'm Scared of Dance by Jen Childs, written and performed by Jen Childs (this show is similar thematically to what I had in mind for my show about learning to sing.) These shows have helped me (I think) to find a productive and creative approach to a show of my own; or, after having absorbed one-man shows over the years that I've liked, they finally occasioned the penny (or two) to drop:

Other one-person shows I've truly enjoyed have been Hamlet, and Moby Dick, and anything by Spaulding Grey (whom I've seen live both at The Brattle Theatre and Lincoln Center) or Lily Tomlin. These are either first-person rambles, or personalized and essentialized dramatizations of great works of literature not originally meant for dramatic staging, but conducive to it.
One-person shows to which I've never roused myself to see have been those about historical figures, such as Mark Twain or Ray Bradbury--and so, though they've been popular with audiences, that I haven't gone to see them is a big hint: I shouldn't do what I wouldn't see. Evidently, I don't care for the constraints of biographical (as opposed to autobiographical) rambles. I especially don't care for either the hagiography (whorish) or skullduggery (cheap) on which these works feed.

What especially opened my eyes was a leitmotif in The Iliad: Spinella, in his character as a timeless, modern-ancient Homer, spoke more than once of "my song." The tale he told of us of unending war was his song, his method lyrical, as it was for the 'real' Homer, who must have sung his epics from town to town. This was my ah ha! In thinking of solo shows as an individual performer's "song" I find the right aesthetic justification (as opposed to careerist rationalization). Suddenly, all these one-person shows sprang to life in my mind as a viable theatrical genre, rather than as the mediocre, economical make-shift stripped-down, poor man's version of real theater, as I think I thought of them, until now. And, I suddenly saw that the right material for this 'genre' is, indeed, large works of 'undramatic' literature and/or personal tales. All this excites me.

And so, yes, I do have something in mind, again, though I'm exploring the possibility of doing a 'one man' version of an-already (lengthily) dramatized version of an originally non-dramatic giant literary work. I make no apologies for that, since the dramatized version struck me deeply when I saw it, in the late 1980s. But, if this one doesn't turn out to be right, at least I now have a guiding idea more authentic to my tastes and interests to help me find the right work, as I didn't have a year ago.

*(I also had some worthy ideas of staging a personalized ramble through Shakespeare and the reactions to Shakespeare that many people have, positive and negative, but I'm not so comfortable with Shakespeare, myself, to feel at ease there. Those ideas need to mature.)

Recent Productions of Shakespeare in Philly

2010-11-04T05:36:00.001-07:00

Deb Miller surveys recent productions here for The Art Blog.

Portraits of Titus

2010-10-31T21:33:00.000-07:00

I sat for several hours for artists Jennifer Hagan and Stephen Early. The one above is by Jennifer. It's probably 90% complete. The one below is by Stephen. It's probably 50-60% complete. (for one thing, he has to re-do the eye, which looks like it's been punched and sewn shut; this happened after Stephen decided it was in the wrong place.)

After they're completed, they'll be auctioned off with portraits of characters from other plays recently produced at Plays & Players, which is celebrating it's 100th consecutive year sometime next fall with a Gala.

Al Pacino Says:

2010-10-31T17:14:00.000-07:00

"Doing Shakespeare once is not fair to the play. I have been in Shakespeare plays when it’s not until the last two or three performances when I even understand certain things."

- Al Pacino

Defending the Fool(s)

2010-10-31T09:04:00.000-07:00

I wrote the following comment as a reply to an essay by Leon Wieseltier, a writer whom my readers will know I deeply respect, so here I disagree with him at my own peril on his ill-assessment of the public's dependence on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for moral clarity. Wieseltier's essay can be found here: ghosts-beltway-washington-wieseltier

"This is one of the rare moments--or perhaps only moment--in which I've felt disappointed in a Wieseltier essay. I think he's not looking carefully enough or from a wide enough view at these very effective court jesters. He gets Colbert's appearance in front of Congress wrong in the very way that congressmen who easily get their dignity ruffled got it wrong: Colbert was (I'm embarrassed to be saying this, it's so elementary) with obvious irony, irony which (to my ears) didn't trivialize a serious matter, but instead (to my ears) revealed the trivialization of a serious matter by continued unserious congressional talk, which always seems meant to avoid action. Colbert's very persona does that. Really, when he's a witness at a hearing, he's Lear's jester, telling him to cut the bullshit and getting to live another day because AS the clown he's been given dispensation. This is just plain obvious that Colbert and Stewart are the jesters we've currently picked to give dispensation for saying the truth; or rather, by giving them dispensation to say it, we give OURSELVES dispensation to hear it, because we don't seem inclined to hear it elsewhere. That Colbert and Steward miff Mr. Wieseltier would content me more if I didn't like Mr. Wieseltier's work so much. If Peretz were having this snit I'd grin.

Steward and Colbert are culturally ascendent at the moment NOT because we're all too-easily seduced or distracted by stand-up comics, but because NO ONE ELSE IS SAYING ANYTHING IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE that rings of HONEST moral dudgeon. We're only turning to them because, at the moment, there's no one else one cares to hear, and not because the speakers are themselves unworthy, but because they incessantly go round-and-round with an impoverished rhetoric that has so thinned out any actual argument that we're ALL left benumbed by the 'spin.' The court jesters shake us awake by not spinning. Their act itself--their shtick--strips away layers of spin. And Stewart's routine--dare I say it? I think I can use the word correctly--actually 'deconstructs' all the freak'n spin in a way that allows us to hear the difference between the said and unsaid; between the implied and the proven. Etcetera. Again, this is all obvious, it seems to me. Stewart and Colbert get all this attention because they do us a service as public rhetoricians.

Who but a comedian can reveal the sophistic shenanigans of a Glen Beck but a stand up comic? As Stewart said in his interview with Teri Gross, he can undo Beck for an audience so effectively because he and Beck do the same thing, they're both stand up comics, using the same rhetorical techniques. "Serious" writers have the skills to demolish Beck's bullshit (ok, ten-year-olds have the skills) but not the delivery. We need a clown, with comic timing, to take down the clown pretending not to be comic."

Individual Donating : Due Diligence

2010-10-25T20:39:00.001-07:00

I'm pleased to say that I've had a couple of submissions so far for the computer and monitor I plan to donate, so someone will definitely be getting use of them, which are currently sitting in my closet. I don't typically give away expensive stuff but I haven't given back in a while: this is one way to do it.

I'm trying this as an experiment in 'do-diligence' in making the kind of smallish donation of the sort that an individual such as me may find him or herself able to make. It's more important to me to have some sense that a donation I make is actually in use for some worthy end than it is for me to too-closely dictate what the end is, which ultimately is none of my business, within bounds (that I've dictated a use at all--i.e., educational or for social or economic work--is more a statement about what I think of as my own area of competence, in which I may judge. I have no useful knowledge or instinct about rocket science, for instance.)

I also feel more confidence making a donation to someone who'd not feel put out by being asked to take a half hour to describe their goals and their means for achieving them. Someone once said to me that she thought I would give my "shirt off my back" to someone also willing to help themselves but wouldn't "lift a finger" for someone who isn't. This was a roughly correct observation. My liberality (sic) is real but not-naive, which may confuse some of my friends, especially to the left of me.

Computer and Monitor Seek to Do Good

2010-10-22T20:49:00.000-07:00

I'm donating a 1997 Apple Powerbook and 30" Cinema Display monitor to the person or group who sends me the BEST 250 word pitch and c.v. I would like the equipment to be used either to educate young people in live theater, film, photography or music, or to organize a long-term project in social or economic justice. Pitch and c.v. are both crucial to demonstrate you're organized (though they won't take long to do, it's only 250 words and a resume.) I would like package to go to someone I think will use it effectively.

I'll post the winning pitch on Notes on acting so everyone knows I really did give the stuff away.

Cheers,

David

Conan O'Brien Says:

2010-10-19T12:03:00.001-07:00

"Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record, it's my least favorite quality; it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen. I'm telling you, amazing things will happen."

--Conan O'Brien

(stolen from Annie R.'s Facebook profile)

Getting Down to It

2010-10-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

By both inclination and training I prefer tactful but direct and unadorned truthfulness in communication. If being overly polite means the work suffers--which happens more often than I ever expect--I'm ready to dispense with polite. The trick is that one can not unilaterally decide to dispense with "polite" and expect one's interlocutors to come on board and respond in kind, putting the work first, and feelings second. Tact and politesse are thus crucial in any new working relationship. What can help relationships sooner reach truthful communication is experience and training in the field. The more experience and training in the field everyone has, the more they're interested in getting down to brass tacks.

Favoring efficiency and truth in working communication does not mean turning cruel or selfish. In critics, for instance, I value honesty but not inane cruelty. Among Philadelphia critics, Toby Zinman is always honest and can be very smart but is frequently lazily cruel, choosing the easy one-liner over more informative analysis. Neither efficiency nor truth require abusiveness by either critics, directors, actors, designers, stage managers, carpenters, or producers.

I've come to value working in ensembles with which one does more than one show over time because a context evolves for honesty and efficiency and putting the work first. This was especially true in grad school where we were learning how to do just that. When I get the opportunity to produce or co-produce my own work one of my goals will be to create an ensemble in which there's enough trust to get down to making art. My experience is that being polite is not a sufficient condition for trust to emerge. Truthfulness is necessary, too, born of an instinct to always-work-better.

Of Two Minds

2010-10-18T20:46:00.000-07:00

I'd like both to write and act, but:

First, there's the inchoate mess of ideas and day dreams that vie for attention and are difficult to order sensibly.

Next, there's the long hours of physical passivity and outer quiet that feel as if the current living world has jammed to a halt.

Then, there's the always-concurrent conviction--concurrent with a not-wholly-convinced-of-itself creative urge trying to get something down on paper--that "this is a waste of time," a thought impervious to the demonstrable evidence of the waste of time committed by not writing.

Finally, writing mind moves slower and is surface-dumber than acting mind, even if deep-smarter.

Writing mind likes things quiet and steady and feels selfish. Acting mind likes things brisk and unexpected and feels a little bit more connected.

Can they co-exist?

Zizka's Macbeth

2010-10-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

What I liked best about The Wilma's Macbeth: the reversal of roles by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth after their murder of Duncan was the clearest I've ever seen. I'd not noticed before that Mac makes essentially the same prayer that Lady M does earlier, and that when he does, she then realize the enormity of their crime. I also like the meeting of MacDuff and Malcolm in England. I imagine this 'England' is what America looks like from the perspective of post-war Czechoslovakia. Director Blanka Zizka takes brilliant advantage of mis en scene.

And the wall-walking witches are terrific.

I didn't care for the speech style that Zizka chose and I suspect she learned different lessons than I would have from the Cicely Berry workshop on verse speaking the company did with the RSC's Andrew Wade (I did a one-day workshop in Portland with Wade; the Macbeth company did a week.) I found irritating the over-pronunciation of consonants, especially "t"s (they all seemed to be exploded, which didn't make sense to me,) and I grew frustrated with the largely unvarying pitch and tempo--the pace of most of the show was deadly steady--but in fairness I heard other audience members say that they appreciated the clarity and understood every word spoken. For me, the delivery was pedantic. It sacrificed too much color and personality, too much theater.

But, I liked more about The Wilma's Macbeth than I disliked. It's recognizably, for good and bad, a Wilma show, and I appreciate the Wilma's aesthetic, which makes up in originality and creativity what it loses by self-consciousness.

MFA First Years: Viewer Discretion Advised

2010-10-14T22:26:00.000-07:00

Someone's been going through my old blog posts again... from my first term of grad school, in 2007. So, I'd better put up a friendly "Viewers' Discretion Advised" warning. Jack's First Years, I'm talking with you: if you're stressed out (as you probably should be), by all means, give my posts a quick read. They're sure to make you feel less alone because I was not shy about describing the challenges of that first term. But, I caution you against reading too leisurely or looking for information about what's coming up. Knowing your next assignment is not only kind of useless but can be anxiety-inducing. Go with the flow. If you're feeling shaken just stay present and keep showing up. On the other hand, if you're on top of the world and simply loving it, you should ignore both what current-me and old, in-the-thick-of-grad-school me have to say. I found that first term challenging in ways you very well may not.

Grad training is a blast, though, ain't it? Anger-tears? Dance Project? And it goes by too fast.

Reading & Watching

2010-10-11T09:29:00.000-07:00

The Transit of Venus, Shirley Hazzard
To the End of the Land, David Grossman
Djibouti, Elmore Leanord
Refresh, Refresh, Benjamin Percy
Tamburlaine the Great, Part I
The Shadow Box, Michael Cristofer

The Winter's Tale
Tis Pity She's A Whore
Midsummer Night's Dream
The Tempest
Henry V
The Importance of Being Earnest

The Sober Joy of Theatre Exile's IRON

2010-10-10T16:10:00.000-07:00

In what at first appears will be a grim Iron, something of a domestic drama (albeit entirely in the visitors' room at a Scottish prison) at Theatre Exile, a middle-aged female prisoner meets her now grown-up daughter for the first time in 15 years and the two recover possibilities for one another. Granted, those possibilities are reasonably constricted ones, but because 'possibility' is (at least in the human realm) a matter of the mere fact of being able to exercise choice, the narrowest of non-determined futures can be as broad as an unlimited horizon when it comes to freeing a human spirit. Both our monotheistic and philosophical traditions put the exercise of "free will" at the center of a meaningful human life. The particular, accidental features of the choices we make with our freedom seem to be of secondary importance (when not actively evil), though I'd hazard to guess that we most liberate ourselves when we happen to liberate someone else. Fay and Josie liberate one another, though Fay will never, ever leave prison, nor should she, and Josie will never let her self experience wild abandon, and nor, perhaps, should she.

The cast is fine. Catharine K. Sulsar reveals through beautifully executed physical work a spirit turning toward renewal. Kim Carson sifts for the gold of Josie's emotional truth as a particularly eagle-eyed gold panner sifts the elusive glimmers of a riverbed full of false hopes. Michael Hagan and Caitlin Antram give well-modulated and genuinely supportive supporting performances (Hagan stands utterly still for what must be a ten minute monologue by Sulsar without ever pulling focus or looking unnatural.) Director Deborah Block directs with visual imagination and sensitivity to shifting status without drawing attention to her choices. Laura Jellinek's set forces the audience to remain alert to it's own involvement. Christopher Colucci's sound design imprisons without entraping. Alison Robert's costumes feel right. Dialects are believable.

PDX

2010-10-06T12:33:00.001-07:00

I will be in pdx from Nov 14 through Nov 21 and after visiting Irene's family on Oahu again on Nov. 30.

To Do List

2010-10-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

One on One Meetings with Casting Directors (Public Theatre, et. al.)
Annual revisit of idea for novel (not yet dead)
Annual revisit of idea for one-man show (not yet dead)
Schedule emptying out of pdx storage unit (art, sporting gear)
Read plays in ASC season
Read The Shadow Box
Schedule refresher scuba course
Take in scuba gear for maintenance
Continue singing lessons
Begin dance lessons (?) ugh.
Tell (remaining) friends I'll be in pdx from Nov. 14 to Nov. 22
lose 10 lbs. (as ever)

Titus Closes

2010-10-03T08:13:00.000-07:00

We had ups and downs as we worked to put up this production of Titus Andronicus, and small audiences were our bane for many--if not all--performances--but now on the morning after closing I already miss speaking those lines from downstage center. The plot is ridiculous but the arias of grief are frequently stunning. I love the images and the sounds and the emotional ride. Titus is proud, cold, hot, heart-broken, furious, mad, cagey, resolved, charming, crass, and not least, funny. Playing him will have warmed me up for the chances I hope to get to play Richard III, Leontes, Iago, and Lear.

I will also miss this particular cast. Everyone was warm-hearted and worked with joy. I ask for no more.

Titus Pics (from dress rehearsal) by Drew Hood

2010-09-29T06:22:00.000-07:00

These shots were taken during tech/dress rehearsal. This Titus Andronicus is certainly minimalist, with a basic two-level set and minimal costuming. The dressing for my chopped-off hand is entirely unconvincing (in one shot I'm not wearing it, because it didn't quite make it on stage. It did in performance.)

Franzen's Freedom

2010-09-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Franzen's Freedom entertained me for a while by mimicking current every day speech reasonably well and tapping into the weltanschauung of college-educated, middle American, liberal white folk, whom we all know and don't always love. And for dozens of pages I was hopeful to revisit the 1980s and early 1990s for a romp through a cultural moment I remember in general but not in many of the specifics. But, even though Franzen gets some things right--how could he not? Google would make it difficult to excuse not splashing on helpful color--I find myself bored. Because I've been reading it on my ipad I don't know what page I'm soon to give up on. I'm guessing I'm around page 100 or 150 or thereabouts. These characters are not insightful enough, or entertainingly quirky, or sexy, or exasperating, or funny enough (Patty has moments) to stay with. A huge part of the problem is Franzen's prose style or lack of it. I don't know if he's not capable of writing better, doesn't care to, or thinks his readers are too incurious to mouth out aesthetically-arresting sentences, sentences that speak a voice. This f**king novel has no voice! The prose is neither Carver-clean nor Bellow-baroque (using as exemplars at the antipodes two of my favorite writers and prose stylists.) Why is this novel on the bestseller list? Or maybe that it's on the bestseller list is a reasonably good sign. The adult thought in this novel may not be deep but at least it's adult. We're not in a land of car chases, vampires, rabid St. Bernards, or wizards, at least.

When is Cormac McCarthy's next book due? I want to read that.

Altman Hearing How Men Talked to Women

2010-09-26T20:08:00.000-07:00

Irene and I just watched The Long Goodbye. I'd never seen it. Elliot Gould is terrific. I also loved Sterling Haden. I'd only ever seen him in Dr. Strangelove as the mad colonel who blows up the world so he was a special revelation. I also love Altman at work. He's sneaky.

It's strange listening to men talk to women in these movies from the early 70s. I almost thought Altman wasn't hearing how bizarre the men's treatment of the women is, like games keepers talking to kids in a petting zoo, but the bit around the woman who gets a coke bottle smashed in her face makes clear that he most definitely heard it.

City Paper Mini-Review

2010-09-19T18:10:00.000-07:00

Titus Andronicus

by Plays & Players

Running Time: 110

part of LA 2010 Fringe Tickets

showtimes

CP Review:

Titus Andronicus: Shakespeare’s Sopranos? Liam Castellan’s low-budget, streamlined production successfully reveals character (and lack thereof, integrity-speaking), with marvelous moments of depravity: Cyndi Janzen’s Tamora refusing Titus’ daughter Lavinia (Jennifer Ann Hutten) mercy, directing her sons to rape and mutilate her; Jerry Rudasill’s Aaron celebrating his murderous mischief, even while his tenderness for his newborn son wells; and Titus (David Millstone), pushed to bloody insanity — or is it rational coldness? In last night’s first preview, blood effects, combat and some young actors seemed tentative, but will no doubt grow to match these powerful performances. Through Oct. 2. —Mark Cofta

First Preview

2010-09-17T06:27:00.000-07:00

We opened Titus Andronicus last night with a solid run with very few technical muck-ups, especially for the first preview of a relatively tech heavy show. Not all the elements of our production are what I would wish them to be, resources being tight as they are for a community theater, even one as venerable and as well-located as Plays & Players, which is just a few blocks off of Rittenhouse Square. Without enough time and money, costuming is sketchy and suggestive at best, and scenic elements which were part of the original design were discarded due to unavailability of running crew. But, of course, issues such as these are secondary, since the big fat beating heart of the show is the acting. Our actors seem all to be working near the top of their game. The low bar for the acting in this show is higher than almost any other pro-amateur production I've been in (the exception is In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer at Northwest Classical theatre Co., in Portland, Or. That show rocked.) Not all our actors are equally well-trained in speaking Shakespeare, but I can hear in everyone's delivery that they've worked the language with all the tools and sensitivity at their disposal. The acting is honest almost always, and if the honesty slips here and there, it's because we're all hip deep in challenging work that requires lightening fast thinking and execution and sometimes one may well slur a transition or sudden 'hot' moment here or there. We're delivering a good show for the resources at hand, worth the $20 ticket price.

Program note: for the record, I need to correct a couple of mistakes in my program bio. I completed the One-month Intensive at Shakespeare & Company but was NOT a company member. I understudied Fallen Angels at The Walnut Street Theatre but was NOT in it (i.e., did not appear on stage.)

Insomnia

2010-09-13T03:01:00.000-07:00

I slept terribly last night. Chunks of Titus monologues came bobbing to the surface between long unwinding dreams about stage life, details already long gone, though it's only 5:45 a.m. I've been up for an hour. I opened my browser this morning to read the papers. First thing that caught my eye was an essay by Jonathan Chait in The New Republic about the not-ever-new whining of American liberals that will, this time, help curtail Obama's effectiveness and, in the past, has done its share of damage to Democratic presidents positioned from center to left, e.g., Clinton, Johnson, Carter, LBJ, FDR. F**k'n liberals. I'm one of 'em. I'm a LIBERAL. But, I've never been under the illusion that the country as a whole is as liberal as I. I'm tired of the political Right in America getting away with untold shenanigans and destructive change. I'd be happy if the Left showed as much discipline as the Right. Though come to think of it: if we're lucky The Tea Party will be to Republicans what Nader-sympathizers and other "I-want-it-nowers!" are to the Democrats.

I'm driving up to South Orange in a couple of hours to audition for a show that received a terrific NYT review in its Off-Broadway run last year. Then I drive back to Philly, have a nap if possible, then go into cue-to-cue and a tech run-through of Titus. Hopefully I'll see my costume. We open on Thursday and no costumes have yet appeared. I do have my boots, though. I bought them while in grad school, and they continue to come in handy, perhaps for kicking fellow Liberals' behinds.

Keeping Score

2010-09-10T22:04:00.001-07:00

a woman with black hair and eyes and an easy laugh sleeps in my bed
a pie from Michigan sits not-yet-eaten in my kitchen
several blog posts by a friend attest he's happy
the evening's cool
a new novel that everyone is reading and may be truly good sits at hand
many of my Facebook friends I actually know, or will know, or care to know
I'm bored less frequently
I like my work

"7 Sins in 60 Minutes"

2010-09-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

I'm appearing in a staged reading of the new play 7 Sins in 60 Minutes at The Philadelphia Fringe Festival on Thursday, Sept. 9th, at 8:30 p.m. The play is an original work directed by Melanie Sutherland, produced by AAI Productions, and written collaboratively by Paula Cizmar, Cheryl L. Davis, Olga del la Fuente, Chisa Hutchinson, Natalia Naman, Anne Phelan, and Melisa Tien.

"AAI Productions is a non-profit off-off-Broadway theatre company committed to exploring classical, contemporary, and originals works, with a special focus on women artists and managers."

- from the website for AAI Productions, http://7sinsin60.com/

7 Sins in 60 Minutes

The Playground at the Adrienne,

2030 Sansom St., Philadalphia, PA

8:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept 9th, 2010

The Illusion of Place

2010-09-05T08:03:00.000-07:00

Each time I settle anew in a town I didn't know well before backing the UHaul up to my new rental apartment I go through a period where it looks not so much like a movie set as it does a temporary encampment, an oasis of human activity in some brief desert spring of nature's indifference, an indifference that threatens to drift in and cover permanently whatever little projects we've set for ourselves. When I first arrived in Philadelphia, Center City--Philadelphia's economic and cultural hub--seemed like a dark warren of little streets merely as over-crowded as some Somali refugee camp. First arriving in Houston for grad school three years ago, to me the wide empty streets seemed uninhabited, and uninhabitable, and the little clusters of restaurants or shopping centers one would find, like desperate denials of the nothingness from which they were scrounged. New York City, back in the 1990s, felt like an ant hill and smelled faintly like human feces (like Mamet's train cars), a smell I never quite learned not to mind.

Oddly, the places I've lived that have felt most 'permanent' have been the smaller ones, Great Exuma, Missoula, Portland. They have a less rushed, less sky-scraped feeling, and they're less crowded.

The bigger places in which I've lived--Boston, Seattle, NYC--have always in time grown more rooted in my imagination, if just barely. Now, when I walk through Center City at night I'm alert to the layers of human inhabitation and building, though the temporariness of each 'layer' still shrouds my awareness more than does the built-up illusion of 'permanence' over time. Buildings always look as if they're crumbling and resurrecting, parks decaying and regrowing, people dying and growing up, generations taking leave of the world and re-inhabiting it, largely indifferent to one another's passing in-and-out. Our sense of place often seems comic to me.

Elliott Gould Says:

2010-09-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

A. One of the things that is at the root of our problems as a species is the ego. With the ego, then there’s fear.

Q. So part of those roles is letting go of your ego?

A. Absolutely, that’s what life is about.

-- Elliott Gould, in NYT interview, Saturday, Sept 4th, 2010

Titus 3.1

2010-08-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

The Lavinia-Titus bond breaks my heart. Act 3.1 turns out to be a stunning aria of grief, a duet and pas de deux, but I could only know this by getting off book and into rehearsals at full-tilt boogy. My God. It's not the relentlessness that's so stunning: it's the precision of the imagery conveying the grief that stuns. Before doing 3.1 I didn't think I was "going to be able to cry." Ha! Can't help it. Though if someone replaces my glorious Lavinia (Jennifer Ann Hutton) I may cry for another kind of grief.

What a ride can be found in the most unexpected places, e.g., in a--"sniff"--"early play." Shakespeare may have only been 18 or something like that but the little feck was still Shakespeare.

What a ride.

The Naturalism Blahs

2010-08-27T23:10:00.000-07:00

I find myself inundated by 'drama' every now and then, all the familiar tropes blowing in and through all the cracks like sand in a windstorm. I weary of the incessant whine of naturalism. Doing Shakespeare is an antidote in a way because his story-telling isn't the most interesting part of anything he writes. What is addictive is the welling up of passion, of emotion and intellect in almost exact equipoise. Titus Andronicus pours out his grief in torrents of emotion that remain bound together by the intellect of the verse itself (yeah, it's called "aesthetic distance," I know, I know.) If Titus were a mere fictional creature expressed in a dreary naturalistic fashion I'd be bored stiff by him. Rather, he's an aesthetic distillation that burns like acid right THROUGH the story-telling.

Did you ever see the non-musical film version of Sweeney Todd with Ben Kingsley? Ugh: what was the point of THAT? Reduce Sweeney Todd to a story and it's just more blah blah blah. Wrap Sondheim's lyrical worldview around it and it becomes heartbreaking truth. At this moment I'm tired of pedestrian story-telling, of prose, so-to-speak. I need a touch of lyricism these days.

Philadelphia Fringe Festival Blog Item

2010-08-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

Philly Fringe Vital Stats: David Millstone

Posted At : August 12, 2010 11:58 AM | Posted By : Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe
Related Categories: Philly Fringe, Theater, Titus Andronicus

In this series, you get to meet your 2010 Philly Fringe artists. Today: the actor who will play Shakespeare's most vengeful and bloodthirsty general, Titus Andronicus.

Name: David Millstone.

Age: Over 40.

Where do you live now? East Falls.

Where were you born? St. Louis, MO.

What's your show title?
Titus Andronicus.

What was the first thing you stole?
Quarters from dad's jar at the bottom of his closet. Turned out he counted 'em.

What's your favorite alcoholic beverage?
18-year-old Laphroaig.

What was the last performance you saw?

The Miser at Commonwealth Theatre Co.

What's your favorite Philly intersection?
Scotts Lane and Ridge Ave.

What's the worst thing you ever did for money?
Extra for stock photo shoot. Never, ever, ever again.

Who's your favorite Phillies player?
Uh . . . uh . . . I was warned about this before moving to Philly.

What's your least favorite country, and why?
I'm not walking into this trap, uh-unh.

Do you own a gun? Have you fired it in anger?
Once owned a Mossberg Six. Heck no.

Do you have pets? If so, what are their names?
They done dead. They were two (mutt) cats, Saapho and Blue.

If you weren't an artist, what would your job be?
Politician. Democrat. Barney Frank is my hero.

What's the most disgusting thing you've ever seen on SEPTA?
Two guys discussing a potential hit during rush hour who, er, suggested I mind my own business when Isuggested it wasn't a smart thing to be talking about then. Have you seen the movie Death Wish?

Yikes! I was on SEPTA yesterday, and the only thing icing me was the A/C, thankfully. Titus Andronicus runs September 16 through 19 at Plays and Players, 1714 Delancey Place, Rittenhouse Square. Times vary, $20.

--Nicholas Gilewicz

Living the Life

2010-08-09T11:26:00.001-07:00

I'm riding the bus two hours each way for an audition tomorrow (NYC) and driving 5 hours each way for an audition on Wednesday (Hartford) and riding the bus another two hours each way on Thursday (NYC) for networking and training and have rehearsals every night in Philadelphia and have more driving to do (New Brunswick) next week.

Aspiring actors: subscribe to Backstage, have a driver's license, and know the bus schedules.

Tall Titus

2010-07-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

Olivier
Sher
Cox
Peacock
Hopkins

are short.

Millstone is tall.

(Keegan isn't short but he's barrel chested and thick.)

Syncing up Verse and Audience

2010-07-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

Tonight I've made a discovery about how Shakespeare's verse works.

We talk about it not having "subtext," by which I think we mean it doesn't say anything between the lines. Important thoughts never go unspoken. My discovery is this: the audience is never asked to try and figure out what just happened. Shakespeare spells things out clearly enough that the audience is always thinking about what might happen next. He always gives his audience enough time to hear what's being said: arguments have beginnings, middles, and ends; images are completed; conceits drawn out. The verse can go fast because meaning is never off text. If it were, the audience and verse would get out of sync, the audience puzzling out what the last moment wrought, the actor charging ahead to the next surprise, which now the audience will miss, because it's pre-occupied in the wrong way.

Bad Shakespearean acting happens when actors start acting off-line; you've seen it a hundred times, actors hamming it up, doing all that 'feeling' before or after they speak. Even when it's good that kind of acting of Shakespeare is deflating because audience and actor are out of sync.

Two things contributed to this discovery tonight: 1) reading Woza Shakespeare by Antony Sher and Gregory Doran, their memoir of mounting Titus Andronicus in South Africa, in which Doran writes about how acting off-line in Shakespeare bogs it down and mishaps a play; and 2) going over proposed cuts in Titus, especially one cut that makes me fear the audience will remain a beat behind me in a crucial moment. I see now that in cutting Shakespeare one must be careful not to make the text denser than it already is. Shakespeare packs in so much more than other writers do because he almost always prepares the way so clearly and explicitly as he goes. One is at peril of unraveling him into nonsense through injudicious cuts. Cutting Shakespeare per se is just fine. However, one must cut for the ear rather than for the eye. If you have to act Shakespeare for the eye you're f**ked.

Titus Journal

2010-07-28T13:12:00.000-07:00

I've begun a working journal for Titus, something I've not done in a thorough way for a part before. Blogger is useful for me here. It helps me keep my thoughts organized by ordering them in an attractive fashion. It's as if I'm my own audience and appreciate the presentation.

Because this is a working journal it will remain private at least until after the show has closed in October. Then, if it seems interesting to me, I'll share it in some form, either as a raw diary or pounded into an acceptable essay.

I have made a few discoveries. I think Titus is to Rome as Colin Powell is to America, until Titus surprises Rome (in the person of Saturninus as well as the tribunes) with sudden savagery that reveals him also to be their Goth--their Golem (borrowing from elsewhere)--America's Lieutenant Calley or Conrad's Kurtz. Then Rome ignores him.

Titus is lucidly mad or madly lucid: mad enough to feign madness.

The great embodiments of Titus from which I hope to learn either first hand or through reports: Olivier, Cox, Peacock, Sher, Hopkins. They seem to canvas the possibilities that would make any sense to a contemporary audience.

Bloodletters: Staged Reading Tonight

2010-07-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

Bloodletters at The Modern Stage

Tonight I'm performing in a staged reading of Tom Sime's Bloodletters for The Modern Stage at The Bleecker Street Theatre in NYC. Show is at 7:30 p.m.

On Lake Time

2010-07-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of my fiftieth year. I'm in Vermont, on Lake Champlain, with family, and mostly away from internet. A few video greetings are wending they're way to me via Facebook (go to Events on my profile.) Irene is getting a needed massage as I type this. This afternoon we go kayaking.

That's it from The Green Mountains. See you in a few days.

Stay cool.