Showman/Shaman - Quaker-Theatre

Tunapost 6 - transformation again

nospam@example.com (Benjamin Lloyd) — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 23:05:03 -0500

It had been a long day. I didn't sleep well last night. Griffen woke me up twice. Once at 1:30 a.m. when he reported an "ear ache". That took an hour, between the administering of liquid Ibuprofen, settling him, re-settling me. Then, at 6:30, he and Ella were doing something that sounded like dodge ball downstairs. I staggered downstairs and quieted them with extreme prejudice. Maybe I got another hour of sleep after that. So today, I was sullen, tired and grumpy as we went to see the holiday toy trains at the Brandywine River Museum - an annual Christmas pilgrimage for us. Even though I slept for about a half-hour this afternoon, I still arrived for the show tonight feeling like I was dragging a 10 pound bag of sand behind me. Then I was transformed.

Here's the equation: Ben needs to escape (he had a bad day). Ben finds an escape (Greater Tuna). Ben meets people who delight in him there (the audience). Ben delights in them. Everyone's delighted. Everyone's transformed. This equation has happened over and over. It doesn't need to be a comic play either. Tragic catharsis can occur for the actor too. And sometimes, the worse the day, the bigger the catharsis - or comic release - and the higher the dramatic effect. This is the cycle of the Wounded Actor in microcosm - a cycle I describe in more detail in my book The Actor's Way. The actor uses the performance as an escape from his life, and creates a bond with the audience to do so.

It helps when you have an audience eager to play, like we did tonight. Especially fine was the elderly lady in the front row. Seated there propped up on her cane, staring at us from behind spectacles, she could have been the personification of my characterization of Pearl Burras. She got so into my manic Rev. Spikes routine, she shouted "Hallelujah!" during a pause in the proceedings. I had to stop and acknowledge the raucous audience response to her by sitting next to her and improvising something along the lines being so glad she could make it to church that day. And if you believe as I do that the Spirit is present all the time and everywhere, that's exactly where we were - in church . . . being transformed . . . by the Spirit.

Griffen's "ear ache" turned out to be a build up of wax, by the way, dealt with through the application of ear drops and a warm water flush later in the morning. He was fine, and had a great time looking at the trains, and throwing rocks into the Brandywine Creek.

LEAP-post 7: reflections

nospam@example.com (Benjamin Lloyd) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 09:51:00 -0400

So there's been a phrase jumping around in my head since working on LEAP which I feel like writing. But I can't be sure if it's authentic or if it's just hyperbole to get a rise out of readers. The phrase is:

I have seen the future of theatre, and it is long-form improvisation.

After wrestling with this for a bit, I have refined it:

I have seen the future of my theatre, and it is long-form improvisation.

Over the last several years I have been exploring actor-generated theatre in a variety of guises. I have been creating it, studying it, performing it: meetings for theatre, commedia dell'Arte, long-form. A great deal of my professional life has been spent teaching actors to make artistically empowering choices. A great deal of the artistic friction in my life has come from my exploration of the actor/director relationship and my resistance to hierarchical power structures. All of this is rooted in family-of-origin issues which have made me who I am. My creativity as an actor has been an ongoing journey of self-actualization through the guise of theatre. I am most delighted and provoked when a role reveals something about my self to me. Sometimes this revelation is painful and sometimes joyful. Recently, it has dawned on me that the more solipsistic the journey is the more damaging to me. So in order for the journey to bring me to well-being the discoveries must be shared, must serve a purpose greater than my own betterment, and that purpose is service to my community.

This journey finds its apotheosis in long-form improv. Absent the dictates of the conventional theatre script and the conventional theatre director, the actor is left to find his way through an outrageous and spontaneous balancing act: on one side his own creative impulses and visions; on the other his complete willingness to follow someone else's creative impulse. In this - the central creative dynamic in long-form improv - the paradox of actor creativity is brought to life on stage. It's all about me and it's all about you, and we don't cancel each other out.

But what narcissistic crap it would be if it was all just a means to perform our own therapy. And so we must be conjoined with the audience, and it is their secrets and unspoken desires which form the foundation of what we make. The initial union is not between actors, but between actor and audience. This union binds the experience in a way that makes it uniquely personal for audience and actor alike. In doing so, long-form capitalizes on the essential feature which makes theatre distinct from film and TV: we are all in the same room together. What is made and witnessed over the course of a performance will never be made or witnessed again. Long-form takes this essential aspect of theatre and puts it in bold face with a line underneath it.

Don't get me wrong: there is something indisputably theraputic about long-form, especially for the performers. But I have always maintained that creativity in any form is theraputic, in that it focuses life-energy outward and assists the person in feeling useful. Long-form just brings the stuff to the fore: you know, all your stuff, your fears, issues, desires and wishes. And when all your stuff is heard and affirmed by a warm and supportive company of fellow artists, as mine was, you almost don't need to perform at all to be a little healed. But then, when you perform, and you sense your stuff being shook out and flapped around the stage in different ways by you and others, it stops having such a hold on you.

And don't get me wrong here either: we had a director. She gave us notes, provoked us forward, reigned us in, adjusted our impuses (or tried to), negotiated situations - in short, she functioned in all the ways a conventional director functions, except one. She had very little to do with the stories we told on stage, or the choices we made while telling them. Whereas a conventional director assumes a kind of ultimate responsibility for the thing presented, our director had almost no responsibility for the thing presented. She had responsibilty for the form it took and our training in that form. But on the night itself, we were on our own.

What do we crave in theatre? Well, the answer to that question will be different for each of us. Certainly, for those who crave the elegantly crafted two-hour story, the beautifully choreographed ensemble, the knock-out show tune or the gorgeous marriage of poetry and idea, long-form will come up short. And yet, I have seen and participated in moments in long-form in which each of these virtues was evident (well, maybe not the knock-out show tune). And the fact that everyone in the room knows it is being made right in front of them makes its genesis electrifying. But underneath the variety of theatre we crave, I think we each crave the same thing: the communal experience. It is simply this experience which has kept the theatre alive, I'm convinced: warm bodies together in the same big room, elbow to elbow, witnessing other warm bodies doing something fabulous. The same air being passed around. The same laughter being shared. The same Spirit being worshipped.

In this modern era we live in, in which we are in continual danger of being permanently attached to our digital devices, in which we spend more and more hours each day stimulating ourselves and our children with electronic media, in which we the time spent amongst each other shrinks each year until, sadly, we will only see people outside our tight little circle in emergencies. Even universities - once the the place where we met the rest of the world - are being offered now through computers, and some parents, convinced their children will be taught heresy in actual schools, or worse, gunned down by some cyber-depressed adolescent, keep their children at home and school them there. This is the age of isolation. No wonder so many young people are depressed. No wonder so many of us are on Prozac.

Communion is the antidote. Communion is the solution. Somehow, joy is created when we are together, even when the thing we see is sad. We are reassured that the world is safe, that others have feelings like ours, that we needn't be ashamed of who we are, or who you are. In the immediacy of of the theatrical experience, our isolation is melted and we soothe each other. This is why, after seeing LEAP, my friend Chris told me he felt like he been to church. It wasn't because he was made aware that he was seeing and hearing something holy being delivered to him by holy people. It was because he felt joined to the common everyone in the room with him, and the feeling of being joined reminded him of God. I say, it was God doing the joining. But that's just me.

Back Blogging

nospam@example.com (Benjamin Lloyd) — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 09:17:00 -0400

Dear Readers,

I have recently archived many entries from fall '05 through fall '06 which were orginally part of a journal I was keeping. They cover, among other things: my work on the following plays, Jason and The Golden Fleece, The Crucible and The Imaginary Invalid; reflections on the workshop I created called "Revival: Meetings for Theatre"; various pedagogical concerns related to teaching acting; the life of the "citizen actor"; my journey in recovery; thoughts about popular culture and various accounts of my Quaker and family experieinces.

I have expanded the categories to reflect these additions. These new posts can be accessed through the "older" tab in the "archives" section to the right.

Shrewpost 9: Transformation

nospam@example.com (Benjamin Lloyd) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:33:11 -0400

4.5 has reared its ugly head again, late in the game. Our journey into laugher was feeling hollow, forced, contrived. I have always felt that pretending to laugh on stage is worse than pretending to cry. But that's just me. Anyway, I expressed my frustration about it during a note session and we went back to work on it last night, after a run-through.

Tom, John (Vincencio), Frank (Hortensio), Ceal and I sat around the ring of the stage and talked about the scene for a bit. Poor Keith had been called back to Whole Foods. We were oddly spaced apart, each of staking out unique positions in the room, not by design but by chance or inclination. It felt like we were satellites circling an invisible sun. I began by asking - again - what everyone thought was happening in the scene. The conversation felt labored and strained, with Ceal quiet and listening. We spoke the scene through from our dispersed positions a couple of times and got nowhere. My frustration grew. We finally had to acknowledge that this was the most major wrenching of the script we were doing. As written, it's a scene about K caving, giving in. We are looking for "the contrivance of least offense" to pull K's transformation into a 21st century context we can all live with. Finally, we landed on a choice involving P having a "tantrum" - or at least sinking into some kind of agonized despair at Kate's refusal "play his game." K sees the effect her choices are having on him, and comforts him. While rehearsing, I looked up from the embrace Tom and I found ourselves in as we worked through this choice and there were tears in Ceal's eyes. "She's learning compassion" she said.

Then, this morning, my Buddhist Mom sent me a Unitarian sermon by Kurt Kuhwald. It's an extraordinary piece called "I am carried by a great wind across the sky" - a quote from a Chippowa song. Late in the sermon, he lists seven "great demands" he has articulated in response to our poor world's dilemmas. The first great demand is Be Loyal and Dedicated to your Transformation. "Get it, a very deep and visceral level, that you do need to change: that you, along with all of us, have been wounded by empire, by parents, by school, by lovers, who didn't know any better. You have been wounded by by your attempts, all these years, to protect yourself from further pain, and to gain some sense of self value. And, along with these truths, you also have the capacity for liberation, both internal and external. Be loyal to yourself in that transformation and in all your efforts to grow. It is our true work." Yeah . . . that's what I want Kate to see, somehow, in the tiny, two-page act 4 scene 5. And, of course, it would be nice for some of that to rub off on me, too.

The other Great Demands?

2. Cultivate Intention, Then Surrender
3. Lean into Obstructions
4. Give.
5. Encourage Curiosity
6. Let Joy Alone
7. Be Patient, Then Dare to Reach Out Boldly at Any Appearance of Light, of Relief, of Compassion.

As far as I can tell, this sermon is not available on line yet.

Is there a connection between our work on 4.5, my dark mood these days and my Mom's email? Yes. It's God. See, I'm a Quaker, so I choose to locate God in the events and confluences of my life. This is deeply informed by what I learned in The Rooms: there are no coincidences. God speaks to me through patterns and poems in my life, and sometimes quite directly through people. That's called ministry, and as a Quaker, I don't confine ministry to pulpits or people in robes. Continuing revelation leads me to sense God hovering in the midst of artists working together, in the electronic transmissions between loved ones and certainly, certainly in the energy emanating from the luminous sun of our play, when we all - actors, designers, director, playwright - are in synch.

My acting is ministry, and as such, I will bring a rehearsal to a grinding halt in order to be sure we are taking responsibility for what we are sending out.

By the way, they're not bike shorts. They're bike . . . tights. They go down to my ankles. Kate's costume is a fluid business still. I had an odd head piece until last night, when the production team took pity on me and scrapped it. But the general consensus is that they want my (balding, crew-cut) head covered with something. Just not sure what yet.

And found this on the web yesterday: that's Sir Lawrence Olivier as - you guessed it - Katarina the Shrew. What company!

Shrewpost 7: Diets & The Journey into Laughter

nospam@example.com (Benjamin Lloyd) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:12:38 -0400

Okay, true confession time. I'm dieting for this play. Why? Two words: bike shorts. You know, those tight, lycra things that go from mid-thigh to waist. It's what I wear in the play, under the, well, you'll see, won't you? I wondered about my vanity today. Is it unmanly of me to worry about what my ass will look like in bike shorts? Is playing a woman making me think about my body in new and unusual ways? I actually began dieting before I learned about the bike shorts. But playing Kate was the initial motivation. I'm playing a women, I thought, I want to be smaller. Then I'll be all cut and sexy for the spring time. For the record, I've lost eight pounds. Thank you South Beach and YMCA. But would I have dieted if I had been cast as Petruchio? Grumio? Hmmm . . .

It's all women on top in our all-male production of the sexist play: director, stage manager, fight choreographer, literary manager/assistant director and managing director - all female. Maybe if we get attacked from the feminist fringe for one choice or another, we can point to the assembly of women in charge and say "It was their idea!"

I continue to ruminate over the "actor" issue. I mean the "actor" I play as part of the the company of actors who arrive to perform the play. I know we only see "him" for a minute or two - but who is he? And why isn't he me? We explored this choice recently and made some adjustments with the "I want to play Petruchio" conceit. Now, I'm just a sullen, moody actor who has to be massaged into playing Kate. Wait - maybe it is me . . .

Griffen came to rehearsal recently - another childcare snafu - but it was fun to have him. He went backstage exploring and the first thing he asked was, "How do the actors get back and forth?" He couldn't find the crossover right away and was concerned. I was so proud - my little theatre brat. I thought of my time with Fava last summer, and the continual presence of his son Farrucio. I'm glad and grateful to be raising kids in the arts, snafus and all. Later, Griff and I watched The Empire Strikes Back at home, and I thought: if Mark Hamil can act with a big puppet, then by God so can I.

Speaking of Fava, I've seen the tendency in our rehearsals I noticed in his workshop: actors getting really loud and "grabby" when confronted by comic territory they don't get yet. I mean big, noisy acting and the urge to physically touch one's scene partner. Then, the slowing, calming and specifying.

Ceal and I drop into a stripped down, super direct communication style which is both refreshing and challenging. It's challenging because we put each other on the spot so quickly and with no chit chat. Part of it is that we know each other so well and so can dispense with the pleasantries. Part of it, I'm convinced, is that we are both Quakers. Speaking simply and with integrity, you know. We were joking during a break about our mutual habit of taking off-hand intros like "What's new?" literally, and having an awkward pause as we stop and try to formulate honest responses. Part of it too is that Ceal is sick, and she has no extra energy. I'm worried about her.

Over the weekend, and into the beginning of this week, we have been confronting the end of the play and the way K and P's relationship transforms. The key is in 4.5, when K agrees it is the moon which shines so bright in the middle of the day. It was agony trying to make this something other than K caving, K submitting, K losing, K just playing along so they can get to Padua. Initially, I was drawn to the "where two raging fires meet" choice: some kind of enormous fight about the sun being called the moon resulting in a screaming crying tantrum by K, followed by tenderness from P. We worked on this approach for two grueling hours. But finally, I think we realized the danger in trying to torture the text in to something it just isn't. Now, we've arrived at something more true to the play, which has more to to with the "journey into laughter" idea and P's continuous exhortations that K "be merry". You'll just have to come see it to see how this choice turns out . . .

Ironically, the big speech of 5.2 is turning out to be not as much of a worry as 4.5. After some intense homework, I'm finding my way through it, tracing who I feel like she's speaking to, chunk to chunk. By "not as much of a worry", I mean that if, by the time we get to the big speech, we can convince the audience that K and P have a relationship they can respect, or at least be charmed and not offended by, then the big speech won't grate quite so much. It is what it is. There's nothing I can do to hide what she's saying. I'm just trying to make what she's saying make some sense given the world she's living in and the people she's surrounded by.

Tomorrow, we have our first run through. Deep breath.