Those we Love? (Making Molehills out of Who Picks up the Check)

Today we discuss one of Bevin's spirit jam questions:

What is our responsibility to those we love?

I'll just insert this here and go back to it:

Initial response:

NONE.

My initial answer is nothing.
But, that sounds too harsh.
We have no responsibility to those that we love?
That doesn't sound right.

But, there must be a truth in the gut reaction, right?
So, taking it as a partial truth.

"We have no responsibility to those that we love."

Why?

Because we are our own persons.
We are responsible for making ourselves happy.
That is true of us all.
Therefore, we have no responsibility or obligation to those that we love because it is up to each of us to make us happy.

Okay.
What else?

Considered response:

SOME.

There is some responsibility to the ones we love.
But, what is it?
How do we determine what it is/might be in any given situation?
Partial truth:

"We have some responsibilities to those that we love. "

So what might that be?
I think it is an understood relationship.
Something that is crafted and that we can all agree with.
Meaning, those who engage in sex and expect to have a baby have a responsibility to each other.
They expect and, I think, are responsible to one another and to the child to take care of one another, to support one another.
Now, what shape/details does that entail?
I do not know, they could be anything that is agreed to or understood.
The point is that there is a relationship that is entered and agreed upon.
"We are going to be parents. Therefore, we must enter into a paternal/maternal//paternal/paternal//maternal/maternal//(whatever non-heteronormativity you can insert) responsibility.

Final thought:

FRIENDS

Watching the video, I think it is one of the best ideas for responsibility to those we love:

"Treat them how you would your best friend."

What a beautiful idea.
If everyone treated those they loved as if they were their best friends? What a world in which we would live.
The idea of EQUALITY: out the window!
The idea is one of FAIRNESS!
I want to contribute to this date/holiday, but only make a fifth of your earning potential.
It is a lavish, extravagant holiday.
I cannot pay for half the holiday.
Can I pay for a fifth?
Fair.
That is what I would expect of friends and of partners who work well together.
No one is obligated to pay for everything.
But, it is our responsibility to do our fair share.
Right?

Doing it the other way round.
I could feasibly pay for this entire holiday, but to have the other person not even so much as offer to help out?
Or have them offer to help and then deny them the ability to do it?
None of that seems fair or friendly.
It is important to allow people the opportunity to contribute where they can and to accept help whenever possible.

So that would be my best answer.

"Our responsibility to those that we love is the same as that to our best friends."

We enter into a relationship, a partnership, a teammate situation where we each contribute fairly to one another because that is what we have agreed upon, recognizing that it is to ourselves that we must turn to if we are unhappy with a situation, but we can always ask for help.

Here is a picture of foxes to illustrate the point:

Happy Little Fox Family

How to be Impolite (Why Slapping your Scene Partner is Preferable to Saying Sorry)

Today we discuss Titus Andronicus.
Or at least my favorite bit to illustrate a larger point.
In particular, two noteworthy productions:
One at the Seattle Shakespeare Company:

And one at the Globe:

(You can just hear his balls swinging)

In particular, and I am going to go ahead and shout SPOILERS
Some things happen that I think we need to get out of the way.

• There is the rape, behanding, and de-tonguing of the sole virgin in the show (phew glad we started with that one)
• Her brothers are falsely accused of murder
• Her father has his hand cut off to appease the power mad Emperor
• His hand and his sons' decapitated heads are returned to him

This all culminates in what is perhaps the funniest exit in Shakespeare (yes, I am including Exeunt pursued by a bear):

Titus asks his brother to grab one son's head while he grabs the other.

Then, he asks his daughter to grab his hand.

One problem and I will wait for my audience to catch it...

SHE DOESN'T HAVE HANDS.

There, I said it.

Now, I want to illustrate how this was handled in each production:

1. At Seattle Shakes, Titus is driven to insanity by his grief. He is cold in his comfort, methodical. He asks his brother to remove one son's head. The brother ineptly reaches out grasping at the carrion. Titus takes the other and deftly pulls it off the pike. His brother does likewise. Titus lifts his hand off the pike and puts it in his daughter's face and asks her: "Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth." Dutifully she does so, they cross to center stage, hold a tableau, and awkwardly exit.  It was fun. But, was it art?
2. At The Globe, Titus is driven to insanity by his grief. He is cold in his comfort, methodical. He asks his brother to pick up one of his son's heads (they are in bloody bags, soaking on the floor). He does so. Titus grasps the other with his one good hand. And says to Lavinia: "Bear thou my hand, sweet wench." She looks at him. He gestures at her as if to say "My hands are full." And SHE SPENDS ONE FULL MINUTE TRYING TO LIFT IT WITH HER ELBOWS. Then, Titus, pityingly says, "Between thy teeth." And we see her horror and then her determination as she spends another 30 seconds trying before she grabs it and stands up to the horror of 500 spectators.

Now, if you can't tell...I like the second option more.

I would bet most anyone would (save those with infirm constitutions; seriously, people straight left the theatre at that moment).

WHY?

Impoliteness.

The ability to make things difficult onstage.

See, there is this thing necessary to story: Conflict

Conflict is necessary to story.

It is the antagonistic elements of the story embodied by people, natural/social forces, or things.

It can be literally anything, but it drives the characters towards their conclusion.

The first Titus is a great example of stage business in much theatre that I see.

It seems like great staging: the horror of forcing a putrid hand on his daughter.

But, that is textual!

What did the acting or the directing contribute to that moment?

Nothing. 

One actor said the lines written by Shakespeare and passed a hand to the logical place according to the line.

Conflict and impoliteness stem from making such a moment, any moment, every moment as difficult as humanly possible.

What do I mean by this?

What makes story/drama so attractive to audience is the opposing forces of protagonist and antagonism. 

The greater the polarity, the greater the story.

So it isn't enough to have someone without hands carry the hand in their teeth because the lines dictate it.

Another example?

There are so many....

When actors die onstage, but the body needs to be hidden, they always manage to fall just offstage.

Or when actors are about to be hanged and although they are "fighting for their life" they willingly step up onto the gallows.

These are opportunities! Missed ones.

I present for your viewing pleasure one of my favorite plays:

THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG! (Yes! That is the actual title)

Why do I love this play so much?

Because Everything goes Wrong!

There is not a moment where anything goes right for these floundering community performers.

And so everything has to be fought for, figured out, and dealt with immediately.

Everything is really, really hard!

And that makes for great comedy and great drama.

SO what are some solutions?

1) Be more like Ella Enchanted.

Are you familiar with the premise?

A young girl is cursed with Obedience, capital OB.

She has to do everything asked of her.

However, she has to do what was literally asked, not the interpretation/meaning behind it.

Makes for a thorny problem when a willful girl sets her mind to it.

e.g. Asked for hot tea, gets it thrown in their face

Sack up and don't do everything that the director or fellow actors ask of you.

At least, don't do it in the way they asked it of you.

You will be surprised at the results.

2) Stop Saying Sorry, Ask Did it Work?

Mistakes happen.

Things muck up.

It happens. 

Onstage.

Use it!

Nobody ever did anything great without a little risk.

If you accidentally took a risk and it caused a reaction onstage, exploit it.

Meaning: ask if it worked.

Doesn't matter what it was: accidental butt grab, spilling, tripping, false exit, late entrance.

Find out if it worked and if it did, keep it.

3) Find Out what would Help the Most and do the Opposite

This takes some getting used to and is difficult to phrase without specific examples.

Scenario: You are asked to simulate an assassination. The man is before you, prone, open, ignorant of your premise. You are just that good. The only thing holding you back is your conscience. Damn, damn conscience! You open fire. The scene is done. Alternatively, the man becomes aware of your presence, he fights for his life, running about the room, dodging you and your pleas to just talk. He threatens the alarm, you stop him and now you have the choice to make: kill him or let him go and lose your own life. 

Basically, evaluate the ideal, the perfect ending to the scene/activity/moment.

Then, work against it.

Work as far in the opposite direction as you possibly can.

Start there, and then keep fighting.

Let the other people do the work and trust that they will carry you to where you need to go.

This takes practice.

It takes ensemble.

It takes trust.

Not every one will like this and it is not nearly as covert as the other two options.

This is meant to be tried in rehearsal and not during performance for safety concerns.

The Secret to Happiness (It was the TED talk's Title not Mine)

Today, let us talk about Robert Waldinger.
This guy:

Why is he important?
If you watched the Ted talk you already know he is the fourth director of an ongoing study that studies 742 individual men over the course of 75 years.
This is the longest study of its kind.
What is the nature of the study?
Happiness.

What makes people happy?

They discovered:

• relationships
• the quality of those relationships

"The good life is built with good relationships"

That is the conclusions of their research so far (IT IS STILL ONGOING!)
That overall, the subjects of their study, which, let us be frank, are pretty biased (Harvard men), report that the better their personal relationships, the better quality of life they experience.

Relationships are the single most important determining factor in a healthy and productive life.

When asking millenials what they value, 80% reported financial success, getting rich.
50% reported getting famous.

So what the scientists have discovered is that healthy relationships are the most important factor for determining happiness.
And based on their control group (disenfranchised Boston youth of the 1930s), your outward circumstances/opportunities are not the most important factor.
Having and maintaining those relationships is the most important thing.

Why do I care about this topic?
Mostly because it reinforces my position:
Community in theatre/art is the most important thing to help it grow and develop.

But, it is also really close to home.
And I mean that almost literally.
I recently moved out to a new city across the country from friends, family, and the whole community I love and depend on for sanity.
I have made big moves before with varying degrees of success.

However, one night, I was lying awake wondering about my anxiety when I realized that I have always lived with people
Friends, family, loved ones.

• family home
• college dormitories
• 10 Altin (apartment house with three artists)
• Trumbull House (apartment house with three artists)
• Hancock St (apartment across from university, student neighbors)
• 5th Ave S (apartment with partner)

One of these things is not like the others.

Suddenly, I was across the country, isolated, with only a single person or two to rely on for society.

I will not lie, I was miserable.

I could barely get out of bed (still have trouble, but at least I do)

I didn't eat.

I didn't exercise.

I produced nothing for weeks.

I pretended to be a struggling artist.

Instead I was just struggling to find or do anything.

I applied everywhere except the art community.

Auditions came and went. 

I waited for the spring.

I was unhappy.

In the worst possible sense.

I was angry and embittered towards everyone and completely inconsolable.

And then, I remembered why I moved out to Seattle.

The community.

A place for friends to fall back and find a place to recoup after the hardships inherent in our artistic life.

I was living that hardship.

I needed that place.

I needed to either make it or find it.

So I started messaging people.

I have gotten very adept at the Facebook Messenger app.

Creating groups of friends, now labelled "10 Altin" and "Trumbull House" helps me feel connected to those places.

Those spaces.

It tells me that those mythic places aren't gone, the people are now separated, but they still exist because it is our relationship to one another that created those spaces.

Digital mediums are able to replicate the feelings.

Though it does not replace them.

So I work actively to reconnecct with the people and places where my artistry flourished.

That was a very important first step.

But, the actual, physical living arrangement was also important.

So I started talking with local artists.

Seattle has some of the best art walks I have ever seen.

We went to one with our friend Mark and found out about Georgetown, a local artist area.

Went to Georgetown and met Tenaya.

Who no world of a lie lives in an artist space.

Now, I had started looking into them that week.

An artist space tends to be a community area, similar to a dormitory.

You live with other artists, in an apartment building in subsidized housing, with large community areas to display/showcase your work.

There are several in the Seattle area and one opening up in Detroit.

We are applying to the ones in Seattle and are moving to the one in Detroit.

Young Fenix House.

I am very excited and if everything goes through, we will be among artists contributing to theatre for social change in the heart of Detroit producing year round.

Because when I was a young lad and my teachers asked me what I wanted out of this life, I just wanted to produce art.

Live comfortably and make things.

That was really the beginning and end of my ambitions.

I want recognition for my artistry.

I was recognized for it in undergrad by being cast.

I was recognized for it by being invited to attend graduate school.

And now I am being recognized for it by being invited into one of the art spaces that I have always dreamed of being a part of.

I could not be more excited.

The road is hard.

It does not get easy.

Your life is a story, if it is easy you are in stasis and that means the boom is coming.

So enjoy a little mayhem, a little chaos.

And work towards your dreams.

You may not get them right away or in the way you expected.

But, if you keep an open mind and a strong community, you will be happy to weather the storm and find exciting adventures on the other side.