what we talk about when we talk about reading/writing

"I love this idea—the way any story is an amalgam between the written version and your own experience. We could have a contest where people draw the kitchen table in my story, or in Carver’s, and everyone would depict it differently. The round table you had growing up, or plates on the wall in your grandmother’s kitchen—these details work themselves into the way you imagine the story. And that was what I was working with: not Carver’s story specifically, but my memory of his story."

- Nathan Englander, talking to Joe Fassler of The Atlantic about the new collection. Full interview is here.

and this, of course, makes me go back to the quotation from jeanette winterson at the top of my blog as another example of this. the 'weak signal into the outer space of each other' is the text we strive so hard to make clear to our readers, and yet they are just 'stray words on crumpled paper' and no matter what i say, you will hear it like only you can. because your brain works differently than mine, has different images and experiences stored in it.

but in both cases we are talking about the same phenomenon, which Englander spells out a little more in this paragraph:

"This is something that's particular to fiction. You watch a movie and it becomes a movie in your head, but you don't remember it and mistake it for a memory. Only with writing do people say—when did that happen to me?—and then realize they read it in a book. It's because you construct what you read in your mind, and if a written reality is successful, it becomes a memory. Not remembered, a memory. That's how story functions."

and the thing is, this phenomenon is the exact same in the process of acting. what a reader does from page to imagination is what an actor does from page to body. (which means we, as readers, are all actors in our minds, loves.)

because an actor takes what is given in a script, and by their director, (they don't get to choose the table, but they do get to decide how they feel about it) and then they get to move around the space and flesh out (literally, with their own flesh) all the action that is to take place. not just the action, but every movement, and every emotion--exactly how to express the look of disgust they must give their partner at that one moment. in order to know that, in order to have a grasp of the physicality, one must be in total control of the mentality. in order to give the motivation that lies beneath every last thing portrayed on stage some real, truthful meaning, many actors take what is known about their character and infuse every bit of that--and every bit of back story they can come up with--with their own thoughts and emotions and maybe even experiences. they decide who in their own life their character's dead mother looks like, what the incident that started them on their emotional journey actually looked and felt like, where and when that one vacation that is briefly mentioned in the first scene was taken. they basically set design and storyboard the character's entire life.

so it's actually a super close and active reading of the text. but no two actors will interact with the same role the same way, which is just what Englander (and Winterson) is (are) talking about. and which is why watching a movie of a book is hard when the set designer and director can't see into your head and they get it all wrong.

i've thought for a long time about what would happen if technology ever develops to the point of us being able to download the thoughts and images and emotions in our heads (and hearts and things) into the head of someone else. wouldn't art then become unnecessary? wouldn't closing that gap between our heads make our starships redundant? wouldn't we all just have access to everyone's images and not feel the need to express them to each other anymore? i fear it, i have to admit, i do. because, then what?

i feel on some levels that my purpose in life is to make connection with other people through my words. if words become unnecessary, will i be able to function anymore? what will i do with my time and energy? if all the challenge is taken out of making yourself understood, is it worth trying?

because right now, the joy i get from trying is the one thing i've got going for me. and the challenge is something i'm willing to put a lifetime's worth of energy into. to have the power to put clear and (hopefully) compelling pictures into other people's heads (or to induce them to create pictures in their own heads), even if they look nothing like the ones in my own, that is worth so very much to me. and everyday i'm trying to nurture and strengthen that power. and right now i have faith in that power, not just mine but all artists', being a source of real and lasting good in this world.
(which is why i can't start talking about writing without getting to a meaning-of-life moment, i guess. :P )

narcissism and self-loathing in one convenient package

this set of images, which originated *here* (please go look at the originals because they are actually gifs that don't seem to play on blogspot and the movement in them is important to what follows) and had this caption: "I just wanted to point out Benedict’s phone answering dance, now documented in two very different films." sparked the below conversation with a fellow trans-masculine person who is also somewhat Sherlocked:

me: i can’t even begin to express how happy it makes me to watch this. especially the swing of his hips in the second frame. yes, i’m entirely too sherlocked for my own good, and yet, this is still a jd’s eyeliner moment. thank you, benedict cumberbatch for doing your (not so small) part to bring a touch of femme-sexy back to men’s roles on screen.
wt: I love it when you find an actor's quirk that is so ingrained it shows up in every character. I worked with an actress once who always added a hitch step/ball-change step when changing direction during arguing or angry dialogue. not sure why I love it so much but yes, there is pointed smiling going on over here. also, it makes me think that's how he answers the phone in real life which is a very satisfying idea.
me: my thoughts exactly. like, since he was young he has believed that it is always necessary, if you are going to be using only your voice to communicate, to readjust your stance so it's at least 4 inches wider than normal.
wt: clearly it's a business to be taken seriously. also, apparently a hand in the pocket is key.
me: ‎(oh, god. why is he so perfect?? how do we become him? *despairing sigh* ) ... you know, the other thing that is fantastic about this is tho the dance is clearly necessary no matter who he is playing, it takes on a different form depending on the role. peter and sherlock do that dance very differently. it is so clearly a bit of b. cumberbatch shining thru, but it is still refracting thru the lens of each of his characters. ♥
wt: this is one of those times when I wonder how you have enough time on your hands to think so deeply about a fan crush. :)
me: heh. it's the product of visual multitasking while aurally working and spending my life obsessed with (mostly masculine) presentation on and off screen/stage. the fan-crushing is just a byproduct of my super-objective. :P
wt: see now you have a purpose, I just develop intense fan crushes from time to time. more often of the "be you" variety than the "do you" variety. I suppose it's a byproduct of having to intentionally cultivate and groom my personal presentation of masculinity, having missed out on 24 years of socialization.
me: exactly. it's the same thing for me, really. it's just that the writer in me analyses my process of crushing (which is actually fubu-ing*) and makes it into an essay about masculinity and gender and presentation in society. over and over and over. :/
but because we have to do it intentionally as adults, i have to believe we are in the perfect position to articulate it for others, yo.

this conversation highlights two points:

1) the last thought is bordering on my manifesto for 'johnny depp's eyeliner', or it's at least the founding thought process. if i, at 30+, am figuring out what range of masculinity i want to fall within, and am using images in popular culture to pinpoint it, i might as well write about it and show the images of what i'm trying to articulate. namely, that there is a range of masculinity out there and the part of it that have at least a hint of the feminine are incredibly compelling. as someone who is unable to deny the feminine parts of my masculinity, i delight in finding the same things in cis-men who have found where they are comfortable on the gender spectrum. (yes, i'm basically a teenager looking for role-models. but in a postgrad gender theory/media studies kind of way.)

2) because i think a lot about the performative nature of everything we do in real life, when watching actor's performances i tend to be able to zero in on the moments and glimpses when they aren't acting, they are just being. and when they are being, they are, at least in some measure, being themselves. these moments totally exist on screen, and i am a big fan of the directors who know how capture them. i agree with coatcollar that benedict cumberbatch has figured out the most important rule in acting: to be as truthful as possible in imaginary circumstances, which has the corollary of: the only way to be completely truthful is to bring yourself into the role. so yes, the phone dance, different for each role, but nonetheless there, because it's his own.
this concept strikes so deeply into the heart of my love of theatre/film, says so much about my own writing, even speaks to my asterisked comment below on attraction, that i don't quite know what to do with myself. i'd say more if i thought there was a clearer way to elucidate my feelings, but i don't know that there is.

(and yet, of course, i must at least attempt):

it's those little bits of truth, those moments of a person's true self shining thru, that i live for, generally, in my life. with everyone i know, and everyone i see. cuz we are all playing roles, we are all acting for someone, everyone, (ourselves...?) but we are all humans, each with our own self inside, which so much of the time is hidden from sight. some people would say that actors are the worst at showing their true selves, being in the business of performing, but i believe the opposite. i believe they are the ones most able to understand how to let themselves--their true selves--be seen thru the characters they take on. and by extension, by our witnessing of their efforts, to teach us how to do the same. this is why theatre and film are so important, they create the imaginary circumstances for truth to be brought forth, as an offering in the service of bettering humanity, to us.

_________________________________________________________________________________
*f.u.b.u is the dilemma of being unsure whether your attraction to someone is due to your desire to fuck them, or to be them: ef you / be you = fubu. it is also called the 'frank sinatra complex', as referenced by wt in the form of 'do be do be do'.
for me, becoming someone--getting inside their body and their mind--is such a sensual, all-encompassing process, so similar to fucking them, that i don't think i have a difference in my desires between one and the other. if i am attracted to someone, i almost surely want to both be them and do them (and yes, i'm very aware of how problematic this can be, trust me).
in the case of mr. benedict cumberbatch, this feeling has manifested as a physical ache in the pit of my stomach, and an alternating blind belief in the possibility of being somewhere close to his perfection, and a despairing realization that there is absolutely no possible way of even approaching it. this is my life as a transmasculine genderqueer with body dysphoria and a certain taste for beautiful men. and this, my friends, explains the title of this post.

boy, girl, girl, boy.

i assume we have all seen this routine. or if not this one, maybe something like it. men dressing and acting like women is a standard comic device that has been used in popular media for a long time. if you've never seen the classic version like some like it hot, you've at least seen bosom buddies or tootsie, or mrs. doubtfire, or, god forbid, big momma's house #whatever. in all of these examples (except for bing and kaye) at least one man tries to hide his identity by dressing up and acting like a woman.

this situation is 'comic' for three reasons:
1) it subverts social convention (which was more true when women weren't wearing pants, but still applies because very few men would be caught dead in a dress)
2) it creates dramatic irony (where the audience knows something that a character doesn't--namely that those who interact with the cross-dressing character are unaware of his true identity and therefore treat him differently)
3) it banks on the belief that a man in women's clothes is funny in and of itself because what man would want to demean himself by dressing as a woman? (sentiment not my own)

now, i'm all for subverting convention, and i think dramatic irony is one of the most compelling ways of bringing tension into a scene, but there is a fine line between laughing because someone thinks they are dealing with a woman when in fact they are interacting with a cross-dressing man, and laughing because the idea that a man to would want to be treated as if he were a woman is absurd.

and god help me if i'm going to sit here and let you tell me there is something inherently amusing about a person dressed in the clothes of the 'opposite' gender. i'm not even going to address the fact that i do it everyday, mostly because at this point in history, it's not in any way outrageous for a woman to dress in men's clothes. (also, talking about the transphobic consequences of this sort of 'comedy' is more than i can handle right now. i'm just gonna stick with the misogynist ones here)
however, society has some really strong negative feelings around men putting on women's clothes. why is that? is it because most men would find it absurd to dress in revealing and uncomfortable clothing only so they could be thought of as attractive by other people? if so, why do those same men want nothing more than for women to do so for their enjoyment? (and why are we still having this argument 50 years after second-wave feminism started?)
if you were going to make a show about such a thing in this day and age, i feel it would be highly irresponsible to not consciously address this double standard of gender stereotypes. (among other things)

abc, however, seems to disagree with me. they just started airing a new show called work it which is described on the website as a "high-concept comedy [that] centers on two unrepentant guy's guys who, unable to find work, dress as women to get jobs as pharmaceutical reps. Not only do they pull it off, but they might just learn to be better men in the process." yes, we are back in the 60's, folks. in the pilot episode one of the women who works in the office, when asked by the main character if he could apply for a job, says, and this is a direct quote, "we're kinda just looking for girls...we've had some guys, but the doctors seem to want to nail them less." and this, friends, is supposed to be funny.
it's 'bosom buddies' all over again, except one of the guys is latino and their boss is an african american woman (at least they can do better with race than they can with gender, which isn't saying much).
the main character, lee, is a straight white male with a wife and daughter both of whom he doesn't really understand--thinks taking his wife to the bar with his drinking buddies is 'going out'--you know, standard network sitcom man.
the best friend, angel, who also dresses as a woman for work, is a single, blue-collar latino man who, of course, is billed as "a hot-headed ladies' man" (direct quote from abc website).
there is not a round character in the whole bunch. (granted, two 20 minute episodes doesn't give one much to work with in character development, but still) the wife has a nasal voice and is usually annoyed with her clueless husband, the daughter freaks out when they have to shut off her cell phone to save money, the women at the office fall safely into the 'bitch', 'ditz' and 'nice one' categories.

the main dramatic arc of the second episode is lee trying to figure out what kind of saleswoman he is. angel knows nothing about the drugs he is selling but is good at flirting with the doctors and does just fine. lee knows so much he lectures his clients, which they can't handle coming from a woman, so he tries the sexy approach (which includes a red bra and thong), which also fails. finally he goes for promising good customer service--always answering the phone, always 'being there' for his clients. which means we have gone from being too smart, to too slutty, to too maternal--the last of which, for a male doctor/client is just right.
and you guessed it, no analysis of the 'sex sells' situation. in fact, his wife even tells lee that when she asked for a raise at her job (she is a nurse) she didn't wear a bra. of course, angel's flirting bites him in the ass when a doctor wants to take him out to dinner because they hit it off so well. he says yes, and is squirming about how to get out of the situation without it getting intimate, when lee comes sweeping into the restaurant and pretends to be angel's boyfriend. yep, the man saves the day once again. we are going backwards in time, people. not to mention the jokes about food (lee brings a huge sandwich to work while the other women are eating salads) and fashion (the 'ditz' wants to help lee with his frumpy and outdated wardrobe) and size (the 'bitch' harps on lee being an 'amazon woman').
but i guess this is just what network tv is like. i forget. i've gotten so spoiled with bbc and hbo shows and miniseries that i have lost track of what advertisers feel 'middle america' is ready for when it comes to social conventions. which seems to be nothing but stereotypes. excuse me for saying so but i don't think "i guess there really *is* more to being a woman than makeup and high heels" is a legitimate family sitcom lesson to come away with.
thank god for subscription based and nationally funded programming that creates things like 'queer as folk' and 'hung', the latter of which actually cast a trans woman to play a trans-feminine role in at least one episode. (btw, hung is about a regular family man (sound familiar?) resorting to prostitution to support his kids. why? because he is, ahem, 'well hung'.)

but i digress. 'work it' is only one of many shows/films that have used this device for laughs. the thing i'm trying to get at is that it's not funny. or shouldn't be. if there was a mistaken identity situation and it led to both romantic mix-ups and teaching moments between people in different gender roles, without all the crazy misogynistic societal baggage, then we would have something interesting. actually, then we would have shakespeare. which is why i love twelfth night, or what you will so goddamned much. of course, it helps that the story is of a woman dressing up as a man and not the other way around. takes the 'absurdity' factor out of things. (in fact, movies like Shakespeare in Love and victor/victoria aren't thought of as comedies at all. think about that one for a bit.)
cuz the common theme of all of the men-dressing-as-women performances that i mentioned above is that the cross-dressing situation only happens out of desperation. the premise is set up that no man in his right mind would do such a thing unless absolutely necessary; that he is stuck in this predicament against his will (or at least against his preference) and he has to figure out how to deal with the consequences of this action. it's a 'fish out of water' routine, really. and of course, through learning how to make it as a woman, the cross-dressing characters learn how to be more sensitive men, which is a 'walk a mile in her shoes' routine.
all of these are old hat, sure. and you can argue that tired shtick is still shtick and can still get laughs. but at what cost? because the part that really upsets me is the undeniable yet disconcerting fact that once you get to 'a man dressed as a woman is inherently absurd' you are spitting distance away from saying 'women are inherently absurd'. and that, my friends, is what this is really about.
cuz again, if it was just a 'fish out of water' routine coupled with a 'walk a mile in their shoes' routine, without all the gender baggage, i would be entertained. however, that insidious third reason up top, the one that you can prove is fucked up because scenes where women dress as men are not as 'hilarious' somehow, that reason does not make me laugh.
this image below, however, this makes me smile a mile wide.

ps--if you want to see a good, non-comic movie about a man dressing up as a woman (but with slightly too much of a hetero-hollywood ending for my taste) watch stage beauty. billy crudup treats his female role as the pinnacle of artistic expression. totally worth a viewing. or better yet, there is a phenomenal movie directed by neil jordan called breakfast on pluto about a transwoman in the u.k. and cillian murphy kills it in the role of kitten.

the spiderman effect

so, let me paint a picture for you. well, a moving picture, actually. but let me just bring this image to mind real quick:
spider-man is crouching down, perched on the edge of a building, high above the city streets. most likely on a cornice, or the rounded tip of something that reaches to a pinnacle, so his feet and hands are all occupying the same 2 sqft of space. he looks around and finds a building across the way to shoot a web at, then does so.

and then comes the brilliant part: he launches himself into mid-air. now, attached to his web, he begins swinging directly toward the side of a skyscraper with 20 times the momentum of a kid on a swingset, cuz his pendulum is 20 times longer. the velocity with which he is approaching a large expanse of metal and glass is extreme and nothing can stop it. however, halfway thru that arc, he has spotted the next edifice on which he can attach his web, and he shoots, letting go of the first web the moment the next one can hold his weight and redirect his path. now he is hurtling at nose-bleed speed toward the next massively large and incredibly durable building against which he could easily dash his brains if he didn't find another pivot from which to swing. and this happens over and over till he's home, or has overtaken the bad guys, or has landed in the alley around the corner from the diner where mary jane works.

it must be a hairy business, this sort of travel. takes quite a bit of knowledge of physics, i'd expect. at least the kind that pool players have--angles of incidence and whatnot-- it's just that in this case it's about changing something's course by pulling in a different direction, not pushing. and that 'thing' happens to be one's own body, of which, i can only assume, one would be terribly fond and not want to mangle or destroy.
it is, however, one of the most exhilarating ways of getting around possible. or at least, i can only imagine. and extrapolate. and that's what i'm going to try to do here. because i would like to posit that many of us have actually felt the exact same feeling that spider-man has when he is swooping thru midtown manhattan on his web strings.
it's the feeling you get when you are in the middle of a performance and you stretch out past your self, and maybe even your abilities, to a place that has only two options: complete success or complete failure. you have made a choice bold enough to realize there is no going back, and if the audience doesn't come with you, you will land with your face smack against the glass of some board room 73 stories up.
these are the greatest moments on stage ever. this is where the tension of live performance comes from. you don't have to crowd surf to feel it, tho that is theoretically this same thing, in physical form.
you can argue that succeeding in this 'spidey launch' is a major triumph for the performer, but i think success is as much due to the behavior of an audience in one of these moments. cuz we've all seen it, that moment when you are sure everything is about to fall apart, and then it doesn't. musicians do it, actors do it, circus performers do a really good job of making you think they are doing it, and comics definitely do it (some with more success than others). and i think it says a lot about a person individually, and an audience as a group, by how they respond. if they see the jump and reach out to the performer, or wait and see if the performer can reach them. i've said before that i'm a generous audience. if i like a performer even a little bit, i'll do what i can to make that jump successful, but i'm only one person in a crowd.
cuz i'd argue that the scariest thing about live performance is the fact that each audience has a different length of arc to the pendulum swing, a different distance between pivotable buildings, and you don't actually know how dangerous your jump into mid-air is, how far you are going to have to reach out before the next pivot site is visible and even then you can't be sure whether the web you throw out will stick to it.
we have prolly all seen a performer fall apart. maybe they land one or two swings after the first spidey launch, but at some point they make the fatal error of misjudging a distance (which happens to be the distance between themselves and the audience) and they slip. there isn't a laugh where there should be, or the reverse. and that first grazing of a building can make the performer lose confidence in their next swing. if that happens, it's the death knell. soon, not one of the webs they shoot will hit their targets and eventually the pendulum will swing them into a brick wall of derision. which is the roughest of all places for a performer to be. there is a way of saving the performance after that first miss, but it requires not showing fear, and throwing things--lines, jokes, melodies, webs--out with confident belief that someone out there in the house wants to help keep you alive. that somewhere there is a friendly building that you can attach to and pivot from. cuz when it comes down to it, not many people would prefer to see a performer bite the dust. that is, until the crowd mentality kicks in, and the survival of the fittest concept of weeding out the weak and sick takes over. that's how people get booed off stages. cuz fear on stage is like blood in the water. and it will cause a feeding frenzy.

this exact thing is why i hate, with a towering passion, when anyone says "i'm sorry" on stage. no matter what it's about, it's like signing your death warrant. even if it's cuz you broke a string and have to take 5 long minutes to change it mid-set, it's not worth it. don't say it. just do not say "i'm sorry". ever.
cuz i wasn't sorry i was watching you on stage until you thought to apologize for being there. my time wasn't being wasted till you said it was. and if you are going to betray yourself like that, what's to stop me from betraying you too? it's basically shooting a web out into the ether without the thought of trying to attach it to something. and it kills a performance on contact. or, on the lack of contact.

there are, however, some performers that have no concept of apology in them. ones that have almost completely fooled themselves into believing that a spidey launch has no chance of failure. that the only way to interact with an audience is to throw themselves as high and far as humanly possible, knowing that there is no other way even though there is no certainty of a place to land on the other side. some people make their entire careers out of jumping into the thinnest of air and either being given support by the audience who will follow them anywhere, or by falling, crushingly, into glass or concrete.

now, this post was originally inspired by a conversation with my friend ed who is working on a piece that describes r. kelly as having this sort of career, even when he turns something like the slow and sexy r&b song 'feeling on your booty'(which normally goes something like this) into an opera. like so. (please, god, click on the second link. it is so worth it.) he knows he has the audience eating out of his hand, and then he just goes off on the most random trajectory possible, and they are all right there with him, totally led by the nose wherever he wants. it's a brilliant moment of stage performance. it's a spidey launch of epic proportions. and i gotta say, it makes me kinda love him.

cuz the true triumph for a performer in a spidey launch situation is knowing how to feel for that sweet spot when the audience is most receptive to your reaching out and are ready to open up the opportunity for you to jump. sure you might not know what it will look like to swing along their rooftops, but you can judge the right time to start the pendulum swinging. and, as in the case of r. kelly above, you can give them a heads up. in fact, he even asked permission first, smart man.
and yeah, since i've practically already said it (must be r. kelly's influence), this process is kinda like having sex with your audience, so you best be doing whatever you can to make them feel good and be paying attention to when they are ready. and for god's sake, don't you dare say you are sorry in the middle of it.

who is that in the mirror?

[note: this is an incredibly self-referential post. all the links lead you to other relevant posts, sometimes more than once. i do not apologize for this, as i believe Mr V. Nabokov would approve. --rvf]

“Here is what sometimes happened to me: after spending the first part of the night at my desk—that part when night trudges heavily uphill—i would emerge from the trance of my task at the exact moment when night had reached the summit and was teetering on that crest, ready to roll down into the haze of dawn; I would get up from my chair, feeling chilly and utterly spent, turn on the light in my bedroom, and suddenly see myself in the looking glass. Then it would go like this: during the time I had been deep at work, I had grown disacquainted with myself, a sensation akin to what one may experience when meeting a close friend after years of separation: for a few empty, lucid but numb moments you see him in an entirely different light even though you realize that the frost of this mysterious anesthesia will presently wear off, and the person you are looking at will revive, glow with warmth, resume his old place, becoming again so familiar that no effort of the will could possibly make you recapture that fleeting sensation of estrangedness. Precisely thus I now stood considering my own reflection in the glass and failing to recognize it as mine. And the more keenly I examined my face—those unblinking alien eyes, that sheen of tiny hairs along the jaw, that shade along the nose—and the more insistently I told myself “this is I, this is so-and-so,” the less clear it became why this should be “I,” the harder I found it to make the face in the mirror merge with that “I” whose identity I failed to grasp. When I spoke of my odd sensations, people justly observed that the path I had taken led to the madhouse.” --"Terror" by, Vladimir Nabokov

The feeling of not recognizing yourself in the mirror after a long night of writing makes perfect sense to me. Just as we try to make connection by seducing others in their loneliness from our own solitary states (explored here and here), we also can sometimes attempt connection by transformation from one self into another. There is the very real example of James Tiptree Jr. but there is also the everyday feeling of peopling your world with your characters. Often, in order to understand how they think, act, and speak, one can find oneself not only adding a healthy dose of one's own character, but also, or alternately, divesting oneself of every likeness to one's ordinary persona and delving as far into the mind, body and soul of the character on the page.

This, my friends, is how a writer can be more like an actor than anyone is willing to admit. I've recently realized, especially since working on a modernization/novelization of Hamlet, that I am an actor for the page, instead of the stage. But in this case I'm not only an actor that plays every role, but also the director. And the set designer and the costumer and the dramaturg, not to mention the playwright (well, the guy in charge of adaptation). Thank God there isn't really call for a stage manager, given everyone is in my own head. (An editor, however, would be nice...)

But that said, it's true that for both writers and actors there is that moment, as you are climbing up out of your scene and shaking off your character(s), where you look around and blink, trying to remember who you are when you are at home. And sometimes it comes rushing back to you and you feel like you are at home in this self when interacting with others. And sometimes it doesn't, especially if you are a writer and don't have the immediate crush of people congratulating you on a performance and reminding you of who you normally are. If you aren't paying attention, you can go the rest of your day/night/life, not ever thinking about the self you left behind in order to do your work. (and when i say you, i mean me...)

Part of me knows so strongly that I have a trans streak running thru me because I will write about a boy character in order to feel myself in his body and interacting with other characters as him. If i'm not careful I find myself being a little too 'method' with my writing and refusing to take off, say, my Hamlet nature even after i've finished writing. I'll just stay inside him as I make myself lunch, or even go to the coffee shop, just to feel what it's like to be him in the world. This is actually a great writing (and acting) exercise when it doesn't sound creepy and full of Gender Identity Disorder baggage (like it does here).

Thing is, if you live too long inside a character, you start to lose your sense of who you are when you aren't playing a role. (again, kinda like Alice Sheldon.) Or you have no self left to come back to when you have taken off a character. This might sound weird, but it's true that I've actually wished at times that I could be as devoid of identity as possible when not “playing” a role. I've thought about that trend in theatre where it was cool to have everyone dress all in black as if there was no other entity beyond the role and the words. As if the actor didn't really exist. I liked this idea only because it seemed to show that any role could be played by anybody, and the audience's job was to fill in the specificity necessary to fully realize the character by watching the way the actor played the role. I think it would be a worthy place to start from. To be seen as indistinctly as possible, and for people to only take my words and deeds as the information with which to understand me. This is definitely how I want to come at all my projects, from a place that is as neutral as possible.

But i've also wanted to come at my life that way. I've wanted that badly to not take sides in identity struggles (any and all of them). To just be seen as a person. Nothing else. Age, race, hair/eye color, gender, personality, sexuality, rationality, all of these boxes unchecked. An undressed paper doll. If I could go thru life like that—unclassified--i could feel limitless in my choices for characters to put on and “play” (on paper and in life). But alas, I have a type. In fact, I type-cast myself. And I realize the more I write, that I type-cast myself in roles closer and closer to how I want to be seen by others in real life. Not all writers do this, but it's already something that the public's imagination does to them. Hence why so many women writers, specifically ones that write male characters, no matter their identity politics, choose to use pen names or simply their initials so as not to have the reader assume that the gender of the narrator is the gender of the author. Or to at least assume the correct gender (for the narrator, if not the author) when doing so.

Cuz this is a risk one takes as an author, and an actor, that you as a person will be identified as having characteristics close to that of your characters. Again, this is why I love Nabokov so much. He wrote Humbert Humbert with full knowledge of this phenomenon. I assume this is because he knew that the kind of reader he wanted for Lolita was the kind that would end up in love with Humbert and forgive him his trespasses, thereby keeping their respect for Nabokov alive and well. [Mr. Humbert footnote here]

Tho, maybe it only works on those of us who are willing and able to be taken in. which I am. Which I almost pride myself in being—if I am anything in this (literary, theatrical, human) world, I am a generous audience. And therefore, I am somewhat gullible. This could be because I am continually on the lookout for a new identity to sink my little black-clad, nondescript self into. To swim around in and get the feel for. I've been doing this all my life and I can swear to you that at least the majority of my motivation has absolutely nothing to do with my self-esteem. It am not unhappy as myself. I am not trying to get away from my own personality. I'm simply trying to get away from any unwanted identifying markers on my self. And attempting to try on as many various, more comfortable selves as possible. So much for simply working on a gender spectrum; we are not dealing with lines, we aren't even in a 360 situation. I'm talking about being fully in the realm of at least three dimensions, wanting to be able to identify on any level as anything. An identity sphere.

This is why I watch movies. And plays. And why, you guessed it, I tend to latch on to actors (thru the characters they play) such as j. depp, r. phoenix, j. gordon-levitt, c. bale, e. wood, d. tennant and the like. The selves they take on are engrossing to me mostly because they are the closest i've found to the kinds of characters I would wish to 'play'. But also, how they take these characters on is what I pay so damned much attention to, as a connoisseur of the craft. 'What is it about that performance that made me believe so strongly in it and be so enamored with the character he just played?' I dissect these performances like I have done with Nabokov's characterization of Mr. Humbert [ibid footnote], because like i said, it's all the same skill.

[And yes, i admit the study of these actors entails the FUBU dilemma. Because, of course I find them attractive, but promise you I wouldn't if they weren't good at their job (case in point: I both hate keanu and think he is really gross. because he gives me nothing, i think he is ugly as sin). But yes, the FUBU dilemma = am I attracted to you because I want to fuck you, or because I want to be you? (or, for Sinatra fans, the 'do-be-do-be-do' problem) And, yes, a lot of times the answer is a little of column a, little of column b, but i'm noticing more and more that column b wins out.]

Cuz the thing I really want to do with these guys is to compare notes. To check my blueprints against theirs. [sound familiar?] this is how I would have gotten there, is that what you did? Teach me how to you see this working. What shape is your foundation, why those pillars, stones, arches, that decorative cornice? How is it I can become you for a time, and how long can you be on loan for? (how else does one learn to be a man, except like this?)

And this, my friends, is why I generally refrain from looking in the mirror. (and, incidentally, why I have taken to using images of my actor-mentors as fb avatars. Cuz at this point, they feel more familiar than my own face.)

muscle memory

things most people pay very little conscious attention to in a day:

the length of your fingernails.
how far apart your feet are when standing.
the way you put on lip balm.
how much you smile.
how long you hold eye contact.
the way you hold, light, and smoke a cigarette.
the way you ask for a light.
who you choose to sit next to on the train/bus.
how you take off a coat or sweater.
how you check your pockets.
where you keep your wallet.
the length of your stride.
how you rub your eyes or scratch your head.
how you jam out to music on your headphones.
how you hold and touch your phone.
where you keep your phone.
how you lick your lips.
how you touch your hair, neck, face, chest....
how you shake hands.
how you take a sip of a drink.
how you hitch up your pants.
how you hold your shoulders.
how you lean on something like a wall or a railing.

thing is, i actually do. at one time or another in the past month, i have consciously thought about and made choices about each one of these things. cuz whether you know it or not, each of these things contributes to how people assess your gender. i spend time wondering whether or not i do these things in a way that would be perceived as at all masculine. i think the reason i pay such close attention to actors is that i understand how they feel when they take on a role, trying to translate their ideas of how a character feels and thinks and functions into the ways in which they express themselves thru their bodies. cuz it's not so much about saying the line right as it is about moving your hand, or tilting your head, or leaning in as you say it to get the desired affect. it's body inflection. and we do it unconsciously, or semi-consciously all of the time. however for me, it's not unconscious cuz i haven't been inflecting the same way my whole life. and changing the perception of my gender isn't just about wearing men's clothes, growing facial hair and speaking in a lower register. it's about how i ride the bus: do i let the woman get in line ahead of me? do i sit next to a dude instead of boxing in a young lady? do i stand up and give my seat to an older lady? do i keep my knee or shoulder from brushing against the guy next to me? do i say 'excuse me' instead of 'sorry' when i bump into someone while exiting? if yes, then i'm most likely seen as a young man by virtually everyone on said bus. and at this point, in this place (sorry, midwest, but you are more dichotomy-based than the coasts) that identification is preferable to double-takes and confused (possibly hostile) looks. i play a part to balance feeling most like myself and keeping my day hassle-free. cuz not being socialized as a boy/man, i've had to learn this role--like a second language. or, to not mix metaphors, like a period piece. i study the culture and customs of men in order to be true to my character.

hence why, when i see johnny depp with long hair, wearing a silk scarf and eyeliner, i study every other aspect of his being to figure out how he is seen as a hot man as opposed to a fucked up freak. cuz it's all the other little things he does while wearing the eyeliner. the long practiced, and therefore automatic, ease of lighting a cigarette with a zippo. casually propping a hand on a bent knee. these things 'read' well. it plays.

but i am never sure this is actually true for me. that people don't see me as a fucked up freak. so i pay attention to every little thing i do. not that i always change how i function to fit other people's gender prejudices, but just to be conscious of these semi-conscious tells and decide if i feel comfortable with how i'm being perceived while doing them. which means that i live my life in public (and sometimes in private) as an actor working to embody a new role. to use a clearer image, this means that i feel always like a guitarist who has just learned a song and is playing it for an audience for the first time, still looking at the music and watching my fingers, instead of functioning like a traditionally socialized 32 year old. he would feel like a musician who is playing one of their old favorites for their listeners, with the lyrics memorized and their hands finding the chords on their own. my problem (if i want to call it a problem, maybe a conundrum, or simply a situation--just the place i am on this journey) is that i don't have the muscle memory of being a man. this really shouldn't be called a problem because i actually welcome the chance to practice my performance and improve upon it with more and more attention to detail. it's a craft i enjoy perfecting, if only for the practice it gives me as an actor. (and to be clear, this role i 'play' feels much more comfortable than the one i practiced my whole young adult life, one which i also felt the need to study because it sure as hell didn't come naturally.)and now, this weekend i will literally 'take the stage' (it's really only a script reading) as a man for the first time. i guess i 'read' well enough at the bar this weekend for the folks to cast me as a young man in real life (i assume) which led them to cast me as a young man in their play. now we will see how it feels to not just perform this role on the street, but actually make the practice work in an artistically performative venue. i must tell you i'm totally intrigued to see if my performance can hold together on 'stage' for an hour and a half as well as it does on a bus for 15 minutes. wish me luck, i guess.

dear johnny depp

[draft of a letter to johnny depp]

dear johnny depp,
given what follows, i feel it is almost unnecessary to say, but i will nonetheless begin this letter with my supreme respect for your talent as an actor and your choices in roles and projects throughout your career. i have seen many, (but not all) of your films and have been more than a little impressed with your performance in every one, whether or not i ultimately like the film as a whole. to me, your choice of roles and projects shows a personal courage in your art that i very much appreciate in a hollywood actor (few of them have it, and those that do tend to have come from either theatrical or non-american backgrounds).
enough with the preamble. i've read in interviews that you have contemplated acting on the stage, and in that musing, the title Hamlet has come up. i'm writing to ask you to give it a try, now, and in the way i propose. i have a concept for a production of hamlet that i think would greatly benefit from your portrayal of the title character. i want to lay the concept our for you and illustrate why i believe you could do my hamlet justice. if my interpretation of the character doesn't sound intriguing to you, of feels outside of your comfort zone or interest, i totally understand. but please take my offering you the role as a compliment to your skill and your acting choices to date, nothing more or less. here is the main gist of my request:
i want you to play a queer hamlet. and i want you to play him with all the depth and sincerity and honesty with which you play everything else. this is not a camp version, this is a queer reading of a character with great emotional depth. i use the word 'queer' deliberately, and not in the old sense of the word, but in the more recent adoption of it by the younger generation of lgbtq's--in the sense of being broader than strictly gay or lesbian or bi, of encompassing the possibility of alternate gender identity as well as sexuality. (or at least seeing both of these as on a spectrum.) to my knowledge you have never played an overtly gay character, though i've read of you joking that all of your characters are secretly gay. i appreciate that thought because i feel it hits on something very important in your acting, namely, that you queer all of your characters (in using 'queer' as a verb here i imply not purely dealing with sexuality, but more as a way of fucking with dichotomies and dominant thought around a specific idea, in this case, manhood or masculinity). i feel as though your portrayals of male characters in many of your movies are somewhat subversive to the dominant society's idea of a man, and certainly of a hollywood-star/leading-man. this feels so important for so many reasons, most notably for folks of the younger generation (well, all generations, really) to see examples of men who, not only do they not fall into the intensely masculine/macho part of the spectrum (ie, brad pitt in fight club), but are also able to integrate aspects of the feminine into them as well (ie, you as e. scissorhands, i. crane, w. wonka, and cap'n j. sparrow).
i want my hamlet to play with both sexuality and gender throughout the play, to flirt with men and women alike, to have sexual (or at least romantic) history with both ophelia and horatio, to be dealing with how to emulate the role models of his father and his mother, to perform multiple genders (even dressing in drag at one point). i feel you would be incredibly good at the chameleon nature of this request. i also feel that the central problem for hamlet in the production i propose is one that you often deal with in your projects (particularly with tim burton). i think hamlet's journey is one of discovering how to grow up. i think there is a definite tendency early in the play for him to treat everything as a game, as not quite real, or more precisely, not quite serious enough to rise to the challenge--to mature enough to truly deal with. he is good at trying on mourning, trying on madness, making as if to revenge his father, performing the role of prince, of lover, of friend, of son. but it takes for the stakes to continually get higher and higher, for others to take him more seriously than he takes himself, for people to start dying around him or trying to kill him, for him to take real action by making sure as to his heart's choice (horatio) to speak plainly to his betrayers (r&g) to let his mother in on his plans, to frankly apologize to his rival (laertes) and to finally follow through with his rashly made promise to his dead father's ghost. throughout the play i see a struggle for hamlet between his ability to maintain control of every conversation he engages in (which he can do with ease and a surplus of double entendre which keeps everyone he speaks with wrongfooted) and having no control of his life (his location, his direction, his domain, his family, his company, his ability to carry out his plans, anything). he is lost in his homeland, he is a cynical innocent, he is the prince cum court jester, tilting at conversational (and soliloqual) windmills of his own contriving because any more realistic target is to much for him to handle. slowly he learns how to come into himself, to acknowledge and communicate his desires, to hold himself and others responsible. this process could very easily entail a coming out of sorts within it, or it could not. i propose an overt portrayal of hamlet's and horatio's attraction and relationship and also hints of attraction in multiple other relationships (r&g, laertes, a sailor, etc) but i don't want his love affair with ophelia to be undermined in its sincerity and weight by his attraction to men. there is a true and complex romance/attraction goin on there, but hamlet is too immature to sufficiently deal (in a non-performative way) with it even at her grave. she is not the first, nor is the the only casualty of his folly (i would like the possibility of he and laertes having a history to be real) but her death i believe is a major catalyst for his finally taking things seriously and rising to the challenges laid in front of him. hers is the death of innocence, and it ramifications shake him to his core.
enough of my analysis for now, please let me know if the idea of this project excites you in any way. i would be happy to hear your suggestions of other actors with whom you would like to work (helena bonham carter is more than welcome to take on ophelia once again, if she is interested. i think she might like my take on her character as well...)
i eagerly await your reply.

my most sincere regards,
ray van fox (x)

[you may well laugh at the pretension of my letter, i do myself, but i say to you that there is no other actor working in hollywood right now that i would trust with this character like i would mr. j. depp. (not that i was looking for a hollywood actor for this project but i read an interview where he mentioned wanting to do a stage production of hamlet before he gets too old, so you know, my mind went there...) i have however spoken before about his genderqueerness (see johnny depp's eyeliner) and i think he's the one that could pull this off with flying colors. i'll take suggestions of anyone better, but i don't believe they exist.]

my new boyfriend

i watched 4 christian bale movies last weekend. yes, im obsessed. especially with his body. (and yes, i know how this sounds.) but lemme explain:
he takes the idea that 'an actor's body is his instrument' to somewhat extreme levels. he is a method actor, which usually makes me worried that someone is possibly unbalanced. method acting makes me cringe a little. i understand the importance of researching and understanding a role, but fully becoming another person for an extended period of time and continuing that off the set is a little worrisome to me. however, bale's commitment to preparation for a role is impressive, if only for his apparent abundance of self-discipline.
i watched (in chronological order of filming (and almost of watching)): american psycho (2000) the machinist (2004) batman: the dark knight (2008) and the fighter (2010)
this was a somewhat ridiculous list physically, because between each film he had lost or gained at least 60 pounds. for 'american psycho' he is trim and cut beyond belief, and ridiculously well groomed (particularly his skin) as if he was trying to be a ken doll. he looked that perfect and almost that fake. but this was integral to understanding his character. a psycho/sociopath who desperately needs to fit in perfectly so that he can torture and kill without ever being suspected. he does an incredible job of portraying someone with no emotion or conscience mimicking the speech patterns and expressed emotions of a 'normal' person. the facade is so impressive that when it cracks and he breaks down, showing humanity for the first time, its possibly the most disturbing part of a disturbing movie. bale's immense control in being able to navigate these two extremes is undeniable.
for 'the machinist' he somehow (by allowing himself one apple and one can of tuna a day, plus coffee and cigarettes) cut his weight down to 120lbs. he is 6ft tall. this means he literally looked like skin and bones. you could see his ribcage standing out where his pecs should be. his hip bones stuck out worse than any 'waif' model ive ever seen. (the only allusion i can make to describe his body is to mention auschwitz, which i would prefer not to do, but thats the idea) this weight loss hollowed out his face too. made his eyes big and bright as headlights, his face pared down to the angles which made it more feminine and beautiful than ever. and again, all of this was very important for the character he played. trevor reznik is a man wracked with guilt, unable to sleep or eat, living a nightmare of paranoia, unsure of reality. his exhaustion, fear, and loneliness mark his wasted face so strongly, it inspires the audience to identify with him even as the story reveals him, in more and more ways, to be an unreliable narrator and then, ultimately, the 'bad guy'. i was left still being desperately in love with trevor reznik, even after what he'd done. i pitied him his state of mind and his past but i never stopped caring for him because it was so obvious what his actions had done to his mental and physical health.
ive heard multiple actors talk about what makeup can do for them, in getting into character. paul giamatti just spoke (on npr, somewhere) about what the age makup he wore for his most recent film (barney's version) did for him in being able to really understand his character as 30 years older than himself, and how it required him to think differently about how to play him. because the mask, when viewed by the wearer, gives reality to the role they take on, gives weight to the personality so they can embody it well. this is what christian bale does inside his own skin. he is able to (by intense discipline and training) carve his character out of his own body and feel exactly what it feels like to be in his skin. yes, its kinda creepy. and kinda admirable. he is a notoriously hard worker in every movie he is a part of. he takes his craft phenomenally seriously.
so much so, that he has been reviled on the internet for the audio of him chewing out the director of photography on set of 'terminator: salvation' for walking into (and ruining) the shot multiple times during the most emotionally charged scene in the movie. this could prove he's an asshole, but to me it proves that he is astonishingly committed to his work and when others undermine it, he is going to get upset. unprofessional? possibly, but prompted by the unprofessional behavior of another. (note: the audio only catches bale's words, not any responses by the dp. the argument gets heated, but no one knows what the other guy said.)
i have very little to say about bale in 'the dark knight', aside from the fact that he went from an emaciated 120lbs to at least 200 of bulky muscle. his reserve behind the batman mask is more than i think necessary, and the real emotional weight of the movie is carried by the other actors. this is really heath ledger's movie, and its a job admirably done, i feel.
however, 'the fighter' is another story all together. bale's role is based on a real, living person, who bale was able to meet and study and embody, and from his first moments on camera i could feel the fact that he was possessed by another man's soul, not bringing to life a fictional character. he is playing a crack addict so, of course, he lost a lot of weight for this role too...he isnt skin and bones, but he is so very scrappy, which, playing opposite of marky mark (wahlberg) as his brother is perfect. there is something about this role that had me riveted. i think its that bale has amazing control which allows him to play a character that seemingly has no control. this guy is high more often than not in the first half of the movie, and is just a complete 'character'. he just has that kind of loud, attention-getting persona, the kind that knows, and says hi to, everyone on the streets of their hometown. the whole town knows him as once a hero, now sort of a laughingstock, and at one point in the movie, someone to be deeply ashamed of. his relationship with his brother is the most compelling thing in the movie, and bale and wahlberg play off each other with increasingly less glancing blows, until their confrontation almost makes time stand still. except that's the moment the climax starts. if you were to study the narrative arc of the story, its wahlberg's character's film. but bale's journey feels as tho it has so much more at stake, that i was almost surprised when i saw he'd gotten a golden globe for best supporting actor, and not best actor. but as he said in his acceptance speech, "you can only give a loud performance like the one i gave when you have a quiet anchor and a stoic character. ive played that one many times and it never gets any notice...but thank you, buddy. kudos to you for all that." (said to wahlberg in, i might add, a welsh accent. *swoon*) note: mark wahlberg is exceptional in this movie. everyone is. but there is something about christian bale here that is extraordinarily impressive. he has this man down to his last finger movement. the way he hitches up his pants. the glassy-eyed look of his crack-brained schemes. he's playing a man that makes strong (and usually wrong) choices in his life, and he's playing him with all the strength he can muster.
i saw the same thing in 'the machinist' as i did in 'the fighter', the almost visible strings attached to bales limbs and lashes and fingertips that his mind has hold of, and is able to maneuver just exactly right, just pitch-perfect the way the character would do, not bale, himself, in there, but the role completely embodying him (not vice versa). every movement, facial expression, and noise trevor reznik makes in 'the machinist' i see as being his alone. maybe because he starved away any of bale that was left to get in the way. i felt the same thing in 'the fighter', but its possible even bale didnt have the strings of this marionette, but dickie eklund himself, the man bale was portraying. at least, i think thats what bale believed. that his job was to create a direct line from dickie to the screen, and to stay out of the way of the flow. this is an astoundingly difficult thing to ask of himself, but an honorable goal to have. and when someone playing a boxing trainer gets up to go running at 2:30 in the morning cuz it feels good, you know they have gotten in the right zone and will do everything in their power to stay there. they will strive to play their instrument with every last ounce of their stellar concentration and masterful virtuosity.

kudos to you, mr. bale. glad you are getting notice.

(hm. if this isnt a convincing argument for an oscar, i dont know what is...)

a hundred shoes a day

there is a scene in the the play i've been stage managing (today is closing and strike!) where ted kooser (poet, citizen of smalltown nebraska) goes to the hardware store and gets in a conversation about pitching horseshoes. the hardware guy helping him says, 'i had an uncle that was tri-state horseshoe champion three years running. i asked him one time how i could get as good at it as he was, and he said "son, you gotta pitch a hundred shoes a day."'
and ted kooser universalizes it by saying, 'anyone, who wants get good at anything at all, oughta be ready to pitch a hundred shoes a day.'

everyone who has been working on this play for the past few months has been pitching at least a hundred shoes a day for it, and dammit if we havent all gotten really good at what we are doing. last night, at the cast and company party (the board was invited too cuz they have been intimately instrumental in the shows success) i gave each person in the room a horseshoe with #101 written on it.

virginia, the director, said that the above line in the show always got her cuz she felt so bad about all the things she hasnt made time to pitch horseshoes for. i take the opposite view. i feel, if you arent willing to pitch them for something, its not the thing you should be doing. paul, the lead and the impetus behind this show even happening, was talking to me about writing last night before the show and he said, if the work you are setting out to do doesnt feel like going out into the backyard and climbing up to spend the afternoon in a treehouse, its gonna be hard to get yourself to do it.

i feel like if pitching a hundred horseshoes doesnt feel like spending an afternoon in a treehouse, you arent pitching horseshoes for the right thing. and thats why i, all along, have been so grateful to be a part of this project. cuz everyday ive worked on this play has felt like an afternoon in a treehouse.

and it got me thinking about the things in my life that im willing to pitch horseshoes for (this is not an exhaustive list, just what comes to mind right now):
1) theatre projects that my friends are doing. (thats a gimme)
2) making/maintaining relationships with friends and family all over the country.
3) creating/maintaining community however i can.
and of course,
4) becoming a writer.

ive wanted to be good at writing for so f*cking long, and ive been saying im willing to do what it takes for about as long, but it wasnt till i started pitching horseshoes for it in november that i realized i wanted it bad enough to work at it every single day, cuz thats the only way ill actually get good. and have any kind of actual (completed) writing to call my own.
and lo and behold, the new year started and a story came to me that i can sink my teeth into. and for once i can actually see where it might be headed and why. i think its a young adult novel, but im not sure yet. and its set in a really awesome house (yes, its a two-flat). and it deals with identity and reality and memory and loss and im pretty damned excited about it.
sorry harry potter, you might have to take a back burner for a bit. ive got some work ahead of me--some muscles to build up, some ringers to aim for. i got a shit- ton of shoe pitching to do.

opening night.

tonight. we open. after tonight i can finally use my brain to think about other things besides the show. and yes, we have 5 performances this weekend. doesnt matter. i will have it down and wont have to use all of my brain power to figure out how to make things happen. i can just do them. (whew)
anyway, wrote this last night:

twitch of the nose. a smell detected. still dreaming, but olfactory attention has been hijacked by a new scent. pulled up from the deep by the wonder of what this smell could mean, half awake, quizzical and bemused. there is something familiar about this odor, but what? an image of it almost came clear in dream state, but now only its shadow lurks at the corners of consciousness. how frustrating. a thought left unthunk. a friend left unrecognized. an image only half-seen as if still only sketched out, the movement and line and mood portrayed but not the substance. here in waking life, where only the memory of the smell remains, one is left to reminisce over something not remembered, long for reunion with someone never met, become nostalgic for a time that has never been. if in the right frame of mind, the scent could bring back a whole history--an epic tale of life in dreamworld where memories from other lives pass over into this, where there is always a now worth attending to but the now prior and the now following are not necessarily connected (unless you need them to be), and here and there can be interminable distances apart or barely distinguishable from one another.
bright eyes open and then, it comes. here and now, brought up short against waking, recognition for the first time. the smell of one only met unconsciously--you, my mirror me, you, self of myself. you.

three hats, two heads

as of today i have added to my roles of stage manager and light tech/board op, the role of props 'mistress'. now i have 7,000 things to think of, remember, take care of and do before every rehearsal and show from now until forever, it seems, instead of just 5,000. i can do this, but only if i get enough sleep.
and blog, o'mine, you are my biggest reason for not getting to bed early. you and important emails and beautiful letters and story ideas and such...
thankfully first tech went well, tho i cant quite get a handle on running around to do all my plethora of tasks before we start yet. soon, ill have it in my body, like blocking on stage, but the cues havent been written yet and i flounder a bit still. thank god its only previews weekend. by thursday ill be golden.
if only i had one more head to deal with all the extra things i need to put in it...

[coming soon: stuff that isnt about the show, and much longer.]

magic sheet

oh dear god, have mercy on my soul and please tell me that when we shut off the light board with all 49 cues set but not saved onto disk that we didnt lose every one of them and wont have to write and record them all again tomorrow.
please please please.
i wanna make it home for thanksgiving.

almost there

its almost wednesday. i mean, its after midnight. and wednesday is tech. another 14hr day and one where we will be actually doing the work on the light board computer that scares me so. but at least i wont be on my knees laying down flooring for hours on end. (i think i have bruises)
its getting down to the wire. open dress is friday night, first paying audience is saturday. i dont know how i will be able to shut my brain off for thanksgiving, thinking about all the stuff there is to do before we show an audience.
i know, i know. you are sick of me talking about the show. im sorry. i dont really have room in my brain for anything else. and my body aches so much i should be in bed right now. (bed being the loveseat--its not even a couch--that im gonna sleep on in the men's dressing room in the basement of the theatre)
but, you say, i like reading your pretty passages, your stories about interesting people and places, not your whining about having to actually do some work for a few days for once in your homeless 'writer' slack-off's existence.
word. me too. when i get my brain back, i will regale you with such like posts. until then, i can tell you about the fact that i spent hours upon hours of my last two days on my knees laying luan cut and stained to look like floor boards. it was a matter of fitting boards together by shape and color and wielding a 20lb hammer to sink 3/4" finishing nails, approximately 8 to a board, if not more, depending on whether the platforms underneath were shifty. all complaining about my legs and knees aside(now that im just shy of 32yo i can complain about my body not being what it used to), it was a really awesome experience and i really loved working on it. i got good and fast at it, had moments where i thought about how i could take this knowledge and use it towards redo-ing my house when i have one, i got into a groove while listening to the album 'revolver' that made me think of my post about papaspiros and the joy of watching someone who was good at something do the thing they are good at doing. not that i think i was born to be a floor-er, but that when you work on the dance moves enough to get past the choreography and into the feeling of your body thru the movements, when you can take a moment and revel in the motion without thinking, that moment always feels really good. its sorta what gets me thru the day. and not just these epic days, but a day in the life i live.
the only thing better is sharing that feeling with someone else, preferably when they are dancing the same dance you are and are feeling that same feeling of revelry in something done well. its a pretty gorgeous thing, the connection between two people, joyously feeling alive and embodied. and yes, its not far from the same sort of connection people can share while having sex. true. but what i like about this connection is that it rarely happens with the people in my life i have sex with. or i should phrase that differently: the number of these moments i have with the people i sleep with are a small percentage of the number of these moments i have in my life. and a lot of times these connections are shared with people i will never have the opportunity to have sex with, for whatever reason. thats not the point. intimacy isnt either. its a mutual understanding of how awesome it is when you can combine two jobs well done into one big connected synchronous whole.
(i guess ive worked my way back to that thought about the overtone...and god. or sex. or both.)

i am tech week

yesterday i arrived at the theatre at 8:30am, half an hour before load-in was gonna start, to meet with the fella who runs the rentals at chicago dramatists and get the building tour and the keys. we loaded in all the set pieces and platforms and started constructing and painting and laying down the floor. in the evening the piano was delivered and things are starting to look like we are getting somewhere. the production team left between 8pm and 9pm, and i sat in the theatre and wrote a short blog post. then i locked up everything and went down to the basement (where the dressing rooms are) and slept on the couch. i was up by 8am, stretched my muscles, sore from yesterday, ate a bite of breakfast and am now in the theatre lobby waiting upon the production team and my helpers for the day. we have to finish the floor, hang a window, hang and focus all the lights for the show, and hopefully still have time to enter all he cues into the computer before 11am tomorrow when tech starts. and goes for 12 hours. ill be sleeping here again tonight and finishing up whatever last minute stuff there is while hopefully getting enough sleep to be coherent enough to run tech.
this is it. i eat breath and dream this shit. im here for the duration, till we are performance ready because whether the show comes together or not rests largely on my shoulders. this is the stage managers job.
the only thing im worried about is the lights. one, cuz i only halfway remember what im doing, and two, because i will be the one running the board for the shows. ive done all of this before, its just been 10 years and i know ill get back into it as soon as i start working on it, but i dont want my learning curve to be the limiting reagent in getting shit done on time. thankfully, one of our helpers today is a lighting guy and should know the board well enough to get shit together quicker than doug (the lighting designer/technical director) or i could.
anyway, the point is, its my baby now, the director is handing the show over to me this week and by opening, her job is done. and then its my show.
and then you all have to come see it.

stage managment stories pt 2

another story from yesterday starts with a moment that wasnt mine, but affected me very strongly. paul has a line in the show where he says "more and more frequently ive begun to see my fathers hands at the ends of my arms" which is a beautiful line, and it launches into a beautiful thought process about his character's father. today, when he said the line and looked down at his hands, some strong emotion came rushing up at him. he stopped and said 'whoa, sorry. i just had a moment with my own fathers hands.' and he had to take a minute to collect himself. then he started to laugh and we all said, no need to apologize. and as he recovered, virginia (the director) said 'that's great, really. as actors we are supposed to feel these things and then learn how to harness those feelings when playing those parts that call for them. its good you had that moment. each of the rest of us has had a moment with this show already' (which is true--myself, anne and virginia have all had to wipe our eyes at different points this week) 'so it was your turn.' it was pretty beautiful, actually.
it reminded me of a time in my junior year of high school when i was playing a character named eleanor (my only main role) in a play called 'the haunting of hill house' which is based on the shirley jackson novel of the same name. its a very creepy story and most of the creepy stuff happens to eleanor. there is a moment in the play when she alone is being haunted by the house and hears a baby crying. she knows there is no baby but the sound makes her upset to the point of frantic. in rehearsal one day, when we didnt have the sound cue, i used my imagination to conjure up this sound and pictured one of the kids i babysat for in acute distress. the emotion of 'hearing' this was so upsetting that i actually started to freak out a bit. when i opened my eyes everyone was looking at me very worriedly and i felt really exposed and a little bit unbalanced. id tapped into something no one was ready for, least of all me. i had a hard time being present for much of the rest of rehearsal that day, and never went anywhere near the same place emotionally during that show again.
which was a real pity. such a lost opportunity to actually explore the depth of emotion that i could use some level of in performance to make it feel very real for the audience. instead, i was so scared of falling all the way down into that place, that i refused to even look over the edge of the well again. i phoned in my performance from that day on, and im sure it affected the quality of the show. i was good at sounding and maybe even looking scared and creepy and weird, but i didnt let myself feel any of it. which, in a 100 seat black box theatre, is pretty important, cuz everyone is close enough to tell. the feeling that passes between the actors and the audience in a space that intimate is just that. intimate. and the idea of feeling really emotionally vulnerable in a space that small with so many people so close to you was incredibly intimidating. (also, my junior year was one where i felt really insecure socially and therefore emotionally, already. and the person i was in love with who was dating one of my friends was in that show with me.) it was not a situation where i was going to feel safe enough to freak out in front of all of my peers.
and besides, the director wanted the baby cry sound cue to actually exist. it would have been ten times creepier if no one in the room could hear it except me, instead of everyone hearing it and those with me on stage having to pretend like they couldnt. tho really, it was prolly better to play it safe and not let my imagination run away with me. who knows if i would have been able to handle doing that night after night while not jeopardizing my emotional stability. which is prolly why the director made the sound decision she did.
the point being, i never have figured out how to access emotion for a role and then learned how to utilize it in performance without it feeling really scary and bordering on unsafe to try. maybe it would require being in therapy while being in a show so that the hard self work could happen outside of rehearsal. cuz tho i truly believe learning to act is learning how to be a better human being, working on your issues is not working on your character, and therapy and rehearsal are not the same thing. and accessing that emotion and using it are also not the same thing. one is a tool for therapy, the other is a tool for acting. not all people who call themselves actors believe this, god help them. and those that do have their work cut out for them too. its not easy. and i love my actors in this show and all of my actor friends for their courage to work thru the difficulty and bring their truest selves to their performances. i strive to be as good at being a human being as they are.

stage managment stories

today at rehearsal i realized that stage managing is so exhausting because its like conducting an orchestra without using your arms. cuz as the stage manager you know how every line sounds and in what order they go, and you know where every footstep and prop are to be placed, because you have them in your book. thats what you are there for, to record the score--to know the melodies and choreography and have an understanding of each movement of the piece, and then as everyone begins to learn it by heart, to start to keep an eye on the rhythm and pacing of it.
so you have all this information at your fingertips (and at some point in your own body), but you cant tell the actors ahead of time what to do. you just have to sit there and watch and hope they do it right and when they dont you correct them. and when they ask for guidance you give it to them. and you feel like a person standing in front of a half-memorized orchestra and trying, by nods and winks and making faces at them, to get them to understand that they are off beat or key, and, by the way you nudge your elbows, to correct themselves in the right direction. cuz you want more than anything for them to get it right. and so do they, but its not your place to say anything before the mistake, even tho you see it coming from a mile away because they didnt remember to move that one prop 4 pages ago and now they are gonna come across it in the exact wrong spot for this scene and there was nothing you could do but hold the knowledge of the way it was supposed to be done and hold your breath.
and this is why every show is going to keep me on tenterhooks. there are so many props to keep track of, and so many songs to have the guitars in the right place for, and so many anecdotes to convey, that i fear missteps at every turn, my heart in my throat for them to remember where that chair gets placed for this scene rather than that one. at some point they will be utilizing the dance memory part of their brain, where they will get all the movements and scene changes down in their bodies and turn them into muscle memory.
but until then, there is me. nodding and winking and nudging and making faces and stopping them mid sentence to place the manuscript on the table where they are supposed to come across it in a few pages. and praying we get it all straightened out by opening night.
[fingers crossed]

8 hours later, im at it again....

between now and the last post has been nothing but sleep. and sadly, i didnt have one of my epic dreams that tells a whole story as vividly and with the same narrative flow and depth of character as a movie. that would have been so convenient. the first time i had a dream like that i was in grade school and wrote it down in creative writing and felt a little guilty about it. cuz it really felt like writing down a movie i had seen and passing it off as my own. it was a story about a family of raccoons, and was, like many stories about animals, an origin story. it told how they got their masks and rings. spoiler alert: they were burglars and had done time in prison. i realize just now that i probably got that imagery from this disney robin hood scene (1:47 in).
anyway, thats not the story i will tell you today (tho i bet i could find it in my files in my parents basement and give you the original version on yellow lined paper).
today marks the first day of rehearsals for the play Local Wonders co-written by and starring my friend paul amandes (he wrote all the songs too). ive worked on multiple projects of his over the (9!?) years since college and i know two things about this show before we even start: 1) its going to be beautiful and true (in a sincere, down to earth sense, not in a broadway sense) and 2) its going to be a fun process. now, every stage management gig comes with frustrations and snafus and headaches and what feel like insurmountable obstacles that you find a way to get thru, and i know that going in. thats part of the allure. god help me, but i love a challenge (did you read the 'i wanna buy a run down old house and fix it up myself without knowing the first thing about how' post?). but, every gig also comes with the feeling of being utterly present to a collective project, the quality of attention that misses nothing, but nothing, about every detail of the show from the actor's barely flubbed line to the set of keys on the props list to the exact way of letting the director know that none of the production team thinks that one visionary idea is physically possible without derailing everything. if i think about it, in a lot of ways, i was born for this gig.
but it also scares the bejesus out of me. im not quite organized enough as a human being to do this job, prolly cuz it calls for a super-human level of organization. the systems you need to create to keep track of everything or appalling, and for me, they come up organically with the people involved. that only works well if you work well with your co-creators, and its been proved again and again that paul and i are of one mind on many things and work pretty seemlessly together. however, he is not directing this production. a friend of his who lives in nebraska is coming in. i have faith that we will be a good group, but the scary part (aside from tech week, which im not even allowing myself to think about for fear of hyperventilation) is that directly after opening night, the director will leave. and at that point, as she said in the phone interview we had, i will be the only responsible adult in the building. the designers fly the coop once their stuff is perfected, there is no run crew (its 3 people on a stage the whole time, no intermission, few props, one set) there arent even board ops for lighting and sound. i wont be calling the show, i will be running it. (which will make me feel like the evil genius pulling all the strings behind the scenes, the one with complete control...mwahaha) i know its a simple, small production, but this is still a huge responsibility. if something goes wrong during performance, its all me. the actors have to have trust, not in the workings of an entire production team, which, in a collective art form one has to have faith in generally, knowing everyone is committed to a good show and the combined efforts of all these people will make a net that is safe to fall into, but in me. just lil old me. i know each of the actors, im friends with two of them and friendly with the other, but these next 3 weeks will be an exercise, not just in being the directors right-hand man, thinking of things that need done before she even has to say them and the source of all info about who needs what when and how we are all going to come together the two days before thanksgiving and put all the components together, but in building an extreme level of trust with the actors that will outlive what they give the director and carry them thru the entire run which closes in january.
by december 3rd, it will be my show. and i will have to be present with it and take care of it and know exactly what it needs and be sweet to it for the next 5 weeks. it will be (in terms of the amount of work) my baby. but by then i will know every inch of it, every moment, every word, every note, every breath. 90 minutes, no intermission. it will be the kind of workout that conducting an orchestra is. on point every second, barely with time to breath, except you must breath thru everything, cuz you are the heart and lungs and brain. the actors are the face and voice. and you have to be synapse-fire-to-finger-wiggle connected to them. it will be grueling and exhausting and the most fun ive had in a while.
it will get me high, night after night. and it will feel so good. until it doesnt. until i come down. those of you who will see me this december, if its a weekend night, i will prolly crash before your eyes. if its sunday night, after a matinee and an evening show, you prolly wont see me. the part of this that takes me from anticipation to fear is knowing what happens in my body (and, if im not careful, can reverberate thru the show) when something goes wrong. when i miss or flub a cue, or someone else does (which is worse cuz i can fix my mistakes but have to watch and wait and pray they can fix their own) and i feel like i just shot battery acid into my veins and liquid hydrogen flows down my spine and the gas stove burner in my collar turns on and i have to keep the audience and actors from feeling the fire, ice and acid or my fear will infect everyone and the show will fall apart. just like that. sometimes you can get it back on its feet in a minute or two, sometimes quicker, but that falter which can lead to full-on failure is the stuff of my nightmares. (the fear of that failure spikes the high i get from the connection to the play already, bumping me to a rare peak, when near misses are avoided. god i sound like an addict.) but ive seen minor and major failures happen in real life and the threat of them is the only stress dream i have anymore.
in my dream its always the same: there is a huge production of some elaborate musical or erudite shakespeare play or something equally grand. its in a gargantuan opera house with what feels like hundreds of people a part of the productions scurrying around getting ready, trying to get me into costume and makeup and character, cuz its opening night, and hour before curtain (or 10 minutes depending on my level of stress) and im just this moment becoming acquainted with the script. sometimes im still hazy on what the play is and usually have only the cues from my costume and how people treat me to guess at my role. its always a lead, which means there is no way to minimize the failure of the production by virtue of being a minor part in it. its usually equivalent to trying to put on hamlet with someone who has never read it in the title role (80% of the lines in that show are his or depend on one of his). my standard reaction is full of fire and ice and battery acid and involves trying to read thru the play to get at least an idea of what my scenes are about, who my character is, who the other characters are to me, and what i am trying to accomplish, with the stage manager giving me 5 minutes till curtain. its an immanent disaster and its going to be all my fault. and my imagination invariably spins out of control over what havoc i will wreak on stage and what horrible reception i will get, not just from the audience, but from all the people involved in the show who trusted in me and are depending on me to make their efforts worthwhile.
such a nightmare. i always wake up breathless and sweating. i predict that i will have at least one such dream before opening, most likely not the night before, prolly leading up to first tech.
i did not, however, have it last night. which is a good sign. i have nothing to fear about this play. its a beauty and is made up of only the best people. and whatever comes, we can handle it. trust me.