Cultivate Heart, Nourish Nature

For a company/project that I am working on we chose as our motto the saying "Cultivate Heart, Nourish Nature." I like it for many reasons. It is adopted from a phrase that is perhaps better translated by using Mind for Heart, as in Universal Mind, or Oneness. And Nature refers to Buddha Nature, or the nature of all things. So you might say Cultivate Oneness, Nourish the Buddha Nature of all things. But the connotations and implications become many just as is, in its simplicity. So I love it really, embrace it.

Yikes and Yikes

I think it's going to be a go on North Korea. That's not theatre unfortunately and of course I hope that I am completely wrong and that peace and common sense prevails. But things don't look good that way.

Things I'm Craving

Apricot Jam. A long hike in the forest. Dancing. Something that smells really good...anything. A road trip adventure.

Getting Along

Back to work we go this afternoon for four hours or so working on Richard the third. Half the problem is always sorting out who the heck all the characters are and what they are doing around here, and what in the world are they talking about! All that being much clearer, much more understood, there is always the problem or issue with the language itself, those damn words! Now nothing is worse to my ear than "the tone" adopted by some actors when reading or performing Shakespeare. And mind you, reading is a separate function, task, skill from acting. Knowing the words, lines and using them in context of doing an action on stage is radically different than reading from a printed script while kind of indicating something is being meant, felt, wanted, etc. And so to me, acting cannot and does not take place until a person completely knows their lines by heart. Once you know your lines, you can rehearse. Until then, no. But anyway, even reading doesn't stop many of us from adopting that "tone." Drives me bonkers! The beauty of the language in both sound and meaning comes not from airy official sounding declamation or rhythmic vocal gymnastics or even from the obvious indicating of an implication from an individual word, but rather more from a total phrase, a total thought put together and expressed freely and easily. Actors tend to think that they need to stress so many words, and play their one action of explaining (to explain), so that the spectators get it. Big mistake and happens all the time and might be the single biggest reason that I myself hate going to see plays. (ok, hate is a strong word there). Don't they know that spectators can grasp whole thoughts, complete sentences all put together without constant pause and emphasis and gesture meant to further explain? Nothing ruins my ear more as a spectator that small, plodding, obvious phrasing. But given that we love our moments as actors and love to act we want to act the hell out of every word - especially in Shakespeare. But surprisingly enough, or not, if you are doing what you should be doing as an actor, the dialogue as composed by Shakespeare begins to take its proper place in an exacting way. An exacting way. Yes it requires some attention, as all language does, and some physical skill in breathing and articulation, and knowledge of meaning and music, but those things come to the forefront with all good acting. Emphasis on good.

What Are We Seeking With Our Work?

To make a brilliant work of art? To bring people together? To enlighten? Can you do such a thing in three or four brief weeks of standard rehearsals? Why do some declare every show to be great? Are they?

More Richard III - Shakespeare

Working on learning more and more of the details of Richard the Third. I am about to take on a new book - Blood Sisters, the women behind the war of the roses, by Sarah Gristwood. I can't wait to see what new information is to be had!

Problems!

As you can see, I rarely finish an essay these days. I only just get started. Mostly it is a time factor limitation and I hope to change things up in order to devote more time to writing soon. But my mind, my thoughts are often there still - on the work of the actor, helping, theatre, etc. There are so many things for an actor to consider (and to write about), and here are some of the "problems" in no particular order. 1. How to turn the fiction of a play into something personally meaningful. I don't for one split second buy into the thought that an actor need not have a personal interest in his/her activities on the stage. For I truly believe that if the actor is not personally caring and alive in a given role then there is no real art being made, none taking place. 2. How to teach the body to respond impulsively, fully and spontaneously to the commands given to it by the mind while one is onstage. Most plays completely lack any sense of designed spontaneity and too many actors cannot function fully while on stage, resorting to cliches and time tested habitual behavior which robs the work of nuance and meaningful human behavior and expression. 3. How to make the senses of the spectators and actors come to response, come alive and full during a performance. 4. How to repeat... An action, a gesture, a thought, a sensation, over and over and over in rehearsal and in the exact same way and keep it spontaneous each time. 5. How if you are able to achieve most of the above do you venture further along toward Stanislavsky's concept of "spiritual theatre," a place where the subconscious takes over the creative process and the strands of cumulative human experience which tie us together begin to become more and more evident and we literally know it, feel it, believe it.

Third Unfinished Piece - Only a Beginning Few Lines

A friend of mine and fellow actor decided to combine Michael Chekhov and Viewpoints exercises in a recent workshop that he was facilitating for us. Why on God’s green earth he would commit such blasphemy I know not. But alas he did. Viewpoints in and of itself is enough to send me running home. Michael Chekhov techniques require a kind of brilliant insight and explanation - which is rare - and so also come difficult to me. But that said, I will try to be fair and patient, as I tried to be in the workshop itself, and give some thoughts to clarify my feelings for flight. Now, I am not a cynical person and I am not an exclusive freak so you can’t read this and think I am simply dismissive. I just like my acting workshops to be about acting. In a dismissive and uncaring manner I would simply say Viewpoints is a fine way of organizing polite playground type of games so everyone gets along and feels included and Michael Chekhov techniques (in the wrong hands especially) are fruity illusions and metaphors trying to take the place of actual acting work. But my friend who was leading the workshop is a young man who takes his study seriously and is in the early stages really of putting together his own understanding of all the various crap, er, I mean ideas, he has been subjected to in his colleges and training centers. He hasn’t completed connected the dots or found his own experiences on stage yet as his theme. He is getting there though. And so when you are in that state that he is in as a theatrical artist Viewpoints - Chekhov happens. And in a world where everything is cool to try and combine, its makes sense. (So that answers my earlier plea as to why on God’s green earth this happened).

Another Unfinished Incomplete Essay

We don’t have directors who work creatively with actors and we don’t have actors who work creatively with playwrights and we don’t have playwrights who work creatively with designers and we don’t have designers who work creatively with directors….and so it goes, around and around. Now we do all know how to behave and get along (most of the time) and figure out together things that “work.” And we put those things that “work” onstage for the spectators to see. But out of this “working” environment periodically comes the actor or director who does not feel creative. And so they go on a quest for more creative means. Many go off and devise their own work, write their own plays, their own performances, make their own props, create their own particular space in which to perform. Some go so far as to make attempts to classify and organize a system or way of learning and creating stage art. Some see the stage as the empire and domain of the playwright (Playwright as God). Some see the stage as the empire and domain of the director (must have a grand vision and concept). Some see the stage as the empire and domain of the Storyteller (Actor who speaks words). And these ways of thinking shape how and what they organize as their way of working, as their method of creativity. All totally self-serving of course. The director/choreographer who envisions the stage as their domain invente ideas that make it so - such as “Viewpoints.” Here is technique that has little or nothing to do with the creative process of acting but some (or a lot) to do with generally making and keeping order on the stage. Similar self-serving approaches have been or are being invented (as we speak) for each of the ways that the world of the stage is imagined. Actors who understand that the stage is their domain but who don’t understand the creative process of the actor (or who don’t want to accept it for what it is) also invent a myriad of things to substantiate their view or belief. Let’s take Michael Chekhov as an example here. And so the possibilities and combinations of people feeling less than creative and their point of view about the stage gives us all manner of “techniques” and makes a muck out of what is creative and how creativity unfolds on stage. What is most often lost in these “techniques” is the human factor - the biological apparatus, the body that thinks and feels and desires and moves and senses and is - the one that has knowledge and awareness of past, present and future. To be fair, some techniques take up parts or a part of this notion. Movement but not feeling. Thought but not Sensation. And when it comes to the most burning of all questions for the actor and creativity, the fusion of the fiction and make believe of the stage with the very real and immediate in this very moment living and breathing person of the actor, what do we get? Most often the answer is a game of some sort, or the notion to simply “play like a child.” While those concepts may have their time and place and reason on occasion, they do not get at the core of the actors work. No, they just don’t. Nope, nope, nope. I’m shaking my head a hundred times. And so it comes down to the fact that if the essence of our art is not addressed in our training or in our application via our techniques, then its not even like we are leaving it to chance come eight o’clock performance time, its more like we are discouraging it and manipulating ourselves further away from its creative possibilities.

Unfinished Thoughts - Incomplete Essay.

Stanislavsky said that when an actor goes on stage to perform, the nature and demands of the craft most often inhibit, suppress or distort normal human functions that we take for granted in our everyday lives - thinking, sensing, feeling, moving. In haste and effort to overcome or counteract the problem, actors adopt cliche behaviors and/or devised behaviors to make their performance. The result of that according to Stanislavsky is an art that is superficial, and void of originality, creativity, and inspiration - arriving wholly short of potential. His answer to this was that actors should have “a return to life” while in the context of the role and under the specific conditions of the stage. Then and only then would there be potential for the art to have the detail and depth that could affect spectators in truly meaningful and profound ways. Another way of saying it is that actors tend to lose their “life” in their attempt to perform. “Life” is the essence of stage art. Without the “life” of the actor, the essence is lost and thus it’s art is lost. (becoming mere imitation). In order to restore the essence and the art, the actor must be revived on stage, must return to life. In order to follow and completely understand the ideas, logic and terminology developed by Stanislavsky, those meant to help solve the “lifeless” problem of the actor and bring about profound change to the quality of the art, it’s necessary to consider the three components that make up the issue at hand as Stanislavsky saw it . The three components are the actor her/himself, the role which is to be portrayed, and the stage itself, or rather the particular conditions and conventions that are associated and necessary for acting on stage. The actor of course is a living human being, with thoughts, feelings, sensations, movements, influenced by the past, doing in the present, and anticipating the future. The role is a fictional personality based on an interesting set of circumstances and situation. And the stage is that place where at eight o’clock spectators have gathered to witness and the actor has come to perform - a completely contrived setting. Individually considered, each of the components may be magnificent. And they might be brilliant even in pairs. But problems arise when you try to put all three together at once. When Stanislavsky sat down in front of his mirror in the privacy of his home, working at his own pace and time, for example, he could move and feel and think and assume as the role he was playing. Himself and the role worked together just fine. When eight o’clock came and he had to do it in public view surrounded by all the make believe stuff in the contrived setting, he couldn’t move and feel and think and assume in the same way he did earlier at home. And when he had to repeat the process every night, it only got worse. Himself, the role and the stage didn’t get along all together so great.

Beginning Work on Richard III

After the first reading of Richard III for the Rogue Theatre...the question had to be asked...Why in the world is this considered to be a good play? Somebody explain it to me.

The Warren Buffet of Theatre

Patient and Smart.