Find a Body...Yours (Why Smoking is Killing your Soul)

Let us talk about health.

This is one of my favorite books on the craft:

An Acrobat of the Heart

If you haven't read it do and are interested in physical theatre, do.

We will touch upon one of the stories from the later chapters conveniently called A Stradivarius in the Rain

If your friend, the concert violinist, were to leave his precious instrument out on the porch during a rainstorm, what would you think? And what would you think if every time clouds gathered, he went out to the porch and put the violin there?

And a violin can be replaced. 

This story haunts me.
Because, as the author Stephen Wangh, later describes, there is a willful disregard for the only instrument an actor will ever own: their body.
It all comes back to this over and over again.
The willful choice to abuse one's body.
This can be done any number of ways.

( I won't say it.)

But it is actually foolish the way...I will say some...actors treat their bodies (I do not have PEW research to back up any numbers).
Because it all comes down to body.
Voice is a physical mechanism tied to the body.
Emotions are tied to neuro-chemicals in the brain.
Mind is made manifest by physical reactions and processes in the body.

Some may be familiar with this picture; it is a representation of data collected from subjects on where certain emotions manifest themselves in their bodies.

So what does this mean?
Voice stems from body, mind from body, emotion comes from it.
What happens when we maltreat our body?
What message are we sending to ourselves?

I find we often treat our bodies as separate, something to be contended with.
But over and over again I have found in my research our body manifests our psychic hindrances.
A person afraid for their mind has neck tension; someone shouldering the world has back issues.

Embrace the pain, live healthfully, and I guarantee you will find your art flourishing.
Too many of my teachers will say: I book more when I am in better shape.
We ascribe this to surface matters like aesthetics and beauty (which may play an important factor), but it is the deeper well of the mind and emotions that when taken care of, rewards us with their bounty.

A Little about Method (Mostly about Shia)

Let us talk about method.
And by that I mean Method.
Capital Muh.
(Preface: I am not talking about the true Method Acting as professed by Lee Strasberg. That is a school, which, while I don't appreciate, is a valid form of training and the art.
What I am driving at is the audience and young actor response to the more sensational aspects of the Method and how it seems to be impacting a younger generation of actors)

For those who are curious:
Method is what all your favorite actors use.
You know the ones.

Daniel Day Lewis...

Heath Ledger...

And Shia the Beef. 

No. Really.

Now, to be fair truly disturbing and vibrant performances have come out of these professionals.

Daniel Day Lewis is particularly prolific in harrowing performances that leave the viewer questioning,

"How does he do that?!"

We get countless reviews and articles that discuss their process:

Daniel Day pulls this. 

And we, as audience, fall in love with him for it.

So what do young actors learn?

That they too can do it.

This Vanity Fair article discusses to what lengths Shia LaBeouf was willing to go in order to prepare for his roles.

And to be fair, it is not all that different than what Daniel Day Lewis does.

Mr. LaBoeuf refused to shower for weeks while filming for WWII trench combatant.

Mr. Lewis had people carry him for the entire shoot and spoon feed him!

So what is the difference?

Is it that Daniel Day Lewis is just an icon at this point? Beyond question?

Maybe.

Is it that he is just a better actor?

Maybe.

It is difficult to say unless we have a data pool to draw on that experienced both their performances and their backstage personae.

However, if the crazy stories are the same and the critical acclaim is totally different, then, I am left wondering, does it have to do with the method at all?

Maybe.

Everyone's process is their own and who am I to infringe on process?

Nevertheless, I am left questioning the validity of something that drives an entire ensemble to separate you from it as in Mr. LaBoeuf's case.

“He didn’t heed any of their warnings and found himself staying in a small bed-and-breakfast hotel away from the rest of the cast.”

It must be incredibly isolating.
Recently, I dealt with an instance of similar behavior.

An actor was described as hurting his scene partner whilst onstage.
I was asked to intervene on behalf of both.
Within moments the conversation turned defensive in terms of work ethic and process.

We talk about creating reality onstage.
Reality is a dangerous thing.
I am going to perform Macbeth in a couple of hours, I would be in dire straits if my scene partner decided to portray reality and behead me.

Ergo it is not reality what we do.
It is made of different stuff.
But, we still deal in reality because we have no other medium in theatre.
That means respecting and limiting ourselves to the reality of our situation.
So we do not behead one another, we simulate fight choreography, we simulate pain because we, in theatre, cannot slap someone repeatedly eight times a week.
No one would survive.

I am left with this sobering quote from Mr. LaBoeuf in one of his more recent articles entitled
Shia LaBoeuf says method acting led to his recent troubles:

“I was reading about performance art of the ’60s and ’70s and so I thought . . . we’re all involved here. It’s not just your stage. We’re all in here and we’re all part of this,” he said. “I was wrong.”

We are all the protagonists of our own lives.
But every life is vibrant and filled with hard work and dedication.
Particularly in this art form where no one is paid enough for the amount that they do.
To treat everyone else as less than and to determine that your performance and your process is more valid is the height of folly.

I am comforted by Mr. LaBoeuf's latest remarks.
They seem genuine.
Or maybe this is another performance.
Only time will tell.

I encourage everyone to treat their life as life and their craft as craft.
Not to say do not let them mingle for it is in life that we deal every day.
But, do not confuse the two.
That way madness lies.

Freud Critique (I mean Film...I meant Film)

Let us speak about film...
No, not films, but film critique.
Now, I know everything has its place and time and merit.

So, I am not lambasting all film critique.
But this film critique.
And others like it.

I am so tired of the pseudo-Freudian approach to acting/directing.
You know what I mean.
The phrases:

The bra represents the repression of Scottie's sexual drive (his id impulses)

his basic ''id'' impulses (Oedipal complex, necrophilia, dressing her up, his voyeurism, etc.)

If you think necrophilia is a basic impulse, we are having a different discussion.

Now, are they wrong?
No.
All of these things are there if you are looking for them.
No, they did not invent this out of whole cloth.

However, story is created by an audience.
Literally.
Show an audience images in series and they will find ways to connect them.

Any good story discovers ambiguity enough for many interpretations.
That is why people can get so fired up about the ends of 2001: A Space Odyssey  and Inception 
For those who didn't figure it out there are spoilers involved in those links.

A lot of vitriol follows and everyone is convinced they are 'right'.
That there is an 'objective' truth to the story.
And they are.
All of them.
What you perceive, what you get out of a story is real.
That interpretation may change, but your interpretation is valid (and sometimes more fun).

Now, what does this all mean?
I dislike the film critique that treats their view as objective to the point of dogma.

We fight for an objective truth in every day life, why shouldn't we in film/theatre?
Fair.
Dogma, I believe is too constricting a vessel for story and therefore wrong for it.
Any sort of belief structure like Freud must be annihilated.
Any dogma relating to the interpretations of what [insert favorite auteur] intended is simply silly.
We can never know what another intended with a work, no more than what Shakespeare or Sophocles "intended."

So go forth.
Critique film all you like.
Find critics whom you admire and enjoy them.
Personally I think this is the best film critique:

It even comes with funny voices!

How (not) to Direct

Quite simply: don't.
Do not.
Do not direct.
End stop.

Seriously though, the more the director is able to get out of the way of the actors, the better off we will all be.
Because the director's job is to provide avenues of expression.
Possibilities for the actors to create and collaborate imaginatively in the most exciting ways.

Now, that is only necessary when the actors are not doing it for themselves.

So the first thing I learned as a director was to stop directing.

My first show was a little number called Tongue Tied.
About two people meeting in a doctor's waiting room that have this beautiful affliction of voicing their inner monologues through sock puppets.
By the end the sock puppets are highly 'compatible' and the two of them decide to give love a shot one more time.

I put the actors on a couch, had a single light, and still messed it up.
Working inside of those microscopic limitations proved to be a wonderful sandbox.
I suggest everyone try it for their first play.
Or anything similar.

However, I directed it into the ground, talking about theory, wondering what each line meant, choreographing the hands until no one knew what was happening.
It was a pretty spectacular failure on my part.
And yet the play came together opening night and I wondered what I did to make it work.

I did not get to direct again for a number of years.
Then, I sunk my teeth into Three Sisters.
And I loved it.
We played for hours.
Ensemble building for days.
When we did run the scenes, I let it run its course.
When it died, we stopped, I asked what went wrong, we tried it again this time with me leading people through physical space and creating dynamic action all the while.
It felt like orchestration; I could see bodies in space, placing the actors, and letting them react off one another.
The playing created the attitude, the specific blocking created the vessel.
By opening night, the play happened.
Again, I wondered.

Midsommer's occurred immediately after Three Sisters.
This time there was some twenty hours of rehearsal.
We had no time for play or anything else.
We blocked, staged, and lit that show in no time and...
The play happened.
It was rough, rather unpolished, I was still giving notes closing night.
But it happened.

We arrive at Faust(us), my latest endeavor.
I took my observations for the past few shows and I learned a lot.
(I will relate more once it closes).
So I did a thing.
The first hour of every rehearsal was spent playing games.
Any game.
Just playing.
No acting, no directing, just play.
Why?
Because that is what I have discovered about plays.

If you can play together, if you can relate on some other level than line readings, you will succeed.
Not even can succeed, will.
Because you trust that the other person will not break.
You trust your impulses because you suspect how they will respond.
You suddenly are aware of each other in space, time, and story.
It becomes a game, another game.

And it has nothing to do with directing the play.
Telling a clear story.
Or making it accessible.
It only has to do with the nature of why we do this in the first place:
We call it a 'play'.

The Witches (Put them everywhere and you have a story, if not, you are dead to me)

The Witches...
The Weird Sisters.
Gah.

So all I ever hear about them is they are the embodiment of pure evil.
But what does that mean?
Well, for starters they worship Hecate.
For those not in the know, she is the most badass pagan goddess of magic...ever
They also curse a woman's husband, wracking his ship with storms so that he cannot sleep for weeks and (almost) never sees his destination.
Why do they do this to him?
Because his wife refused to give a witch a nut....EVIL

So these are the ladies/men (they have beards) that kick off the whole shindig.
But why?
Why does Shakespeare start with the withces?

I will lay some pretty heavy literary/story ideas on you.
In most things there is a what we call "PROTAGONIST"
(https://youtu.be/FxKtZmQgxrI?t=2m7s)
Watch Red Letter Media's video for reference here.
A protagonist is the main character, the one we ask the dramatic questions of, and illustrates the ideas of the story.
Now in Macbeth, we go on a wild limb here and say Macbeth could be the protagonist.

Now, who is the antagonist?
...............
I have seen/read/talked about this play for years and no one has satisfactorily answered this question.
(It is the witches)

The play starts with the antagonists: the women of wyrd, of fate!
Now some may argue it is Lady Macbeth. You're ignorant. It isn't your fault, you were lied to by your high school English teacher who also taught your professional director.
Lady M does not show up until the end of Act I, she kills herself by the middle of Act V (spoilers). She does not even enter the equation as far as antagonists.

You might say it is Macduff.
And you could make a case for it; I have.
But Macduff does not appear in the play until Act II; he is not even foreshadowed as far as being important until Macbeth sets his sights on him in Act III.
Until the murder of his family (spoilers) there is nothing setting him up as the righteous avenger that we need to kill the treacherous Macbeth.

Who does that leave? Banquo? Lennox?
Hint: It is the witches.

Now some are clamoring: what about the final climax?
What now?
The final climax? There is always a boss battle between the villain and the hero!
That is Macduff!
Except Macbeth totally whoops Macduff.
Seriously, read it.
Macduff is not even a problem.
In the middle of the fight Macbeth has a monologue:

Thou losest labor. As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air impress as make me bleed; let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests, I bear a charmed life which must not yield to one of woman born.

He is winning!
It is not until Macduff reveals he is not of woman born, skating by on a technicality that Macbeth is foiled and ultimately killed.
And who does he damn? The witches.
This is a move against fate against the witches that Macbeth is fighting against.

So now we have our villains for the piece.
What makes them so villainous?
They appear in like three scenes?
Wrong. So wrong.
They are in every scene.
What did he say?
EVERY SCENE.

The witches are always there.
That is how they know everything.
They move like the air, they should be everywhere.
Listening.
That is how they make prophecy.

How did they know he would be Thane of Cawdor? They heard it.
Why did Macbeth see a floating dagger? They held it.
Whose voice did Macbeth hear say "Sleep no more"? Theirs

They manipulate the information and therefore the people.
But how could they?
They aren't there during the big scenes!
They are the murderers.
Yeah, the guys who murder Banquo and miss Fleance.
Oh they murdered one of the best fighters in the world of the play, but miss his hysterical son?
They let him go to alienate and make Macbeth more paranoid.

In Act IV Macbeth travels to the witches and asks if Banquo's children will reign.
They show him a line of kings and then vanish.
Macbeth asks Lennox where they went and he says

I didn't see them, but two or three men showed up to tell you Macduff has fled to England.

Hint: witches.
They kill Macduff's family.
They kill Lady Macbeth.

That is why they are pure evil.

Why do they do this you may ask.
For the thumbs.
I am not kidding.
In almost every incantation they need blood, body parts, entrails from murderers, thieves, traitors, etc.
Where do they get that?
From war.
Bloody, civil war.
WAR with a capital WA-

My theory is they are parasites, living off the detritus of conflict and whenever one comes to peace, they begin a new one.
The original Thane of Cawdor was probably theirs, Macbeth was certainly theirs, and soon Banquo's little Fleance will be too.
The witches man.
If they are not the highlight of the whole show, you are doing it wrong.

I should say that all of this is my opinion and none of it grounded in an objective reality of the text.
But if you want me to say that, then you have no business being in theatre.

A Play that Rhymes with Heath (Hint: It is Macbeth)

This week we have Macbeth as the show.
What can be said about Macbeth?
An awful lot.
Which is surprising as it is one of his shortest plays.

The count:
Hamlet: 3834 lines
Othello: 3323
Lear: 3216
Macbeth: 2082
source

Of the four great tragedies it is the shortest (beating its closest rival, King Lear, by more than a thousand lines).
For those not in the know, one thousand lines translates to in excess of an hour of real stage time.
Hamlet at four hours.
Lear/Othello at around three.
Macbeth at an itty bitty two (if you are dogging it).

So it goes faaaaaaaaaas--oops, it is done.
Don't blink or you will miss it.

Now, if you have not seen one of the greatest works of English drama.
Go forth. Do that.
For those who do not have time (you do) read it.
For those still quibbling here is the roughest of outlines so we can all be on the same page:
MACBETH
That physically hurt. Here is an actual summary:

1. The play opens with three witches: "When shall we three meet again?" (Already doing something and now they are leaving. What are they doing? Where are they going? we wonder.)
2. "Upon the heath/There to meet with Macbeth" (Prophesying a meeting with the title character)
3. Next, the present king (Duncan) is told of Macbeth and Banquo's bravery, bestowing the title of the treacherous Cawdor upon Macbeth (!)
4. Then, the witches meet Macbeth (their predictions are accurate!). They prophesy him as Thane of Glamis (which he is) Thane of Cawdor (which he already is) and King hereafter.  The thanes arrive and tell him that he is Cawdor (confirming the witches' power for Macbeth).
5. Duncan names his son as successor (in Macbeth's way)
6. Lady M decides to kill Duncan hearing of the witches' prophecy.
7. Macbeth sees a floating dagger that points towards Duncan's sleeping body.
8. Lady M drugs Duncan's guards. Macbeth murders Duncan. Lady M covers up.
9. The following morning Duncan is discovered by Macduff and Macbeth murders the guards in a 'fit' (Macduff suspects).
10. The blame falls on Duncan's successors as they were most immediate to his throne (motive/opportunity). They flee.
11. Macduff does not go to Macbeth's coronation.
12. Macbeth is named king, but fears the accuracy of the witches and enlists murderers to kill Banquo and his son.
13. Banquo is murdered and a great feast is held.
14. The Ghost of Banquo appears before Macbeth and everyone knows he is crazy.
15. Macbeth goes to see the withces once more to determine his next action and whether Macduff is an enemy.
16. The witches confirm his fears and that Banquo will have succession to the throne for generations (bit of propaganda for Shakespeare's patron)
17. Macbeth murders Macduff's entire family.
18. Macduff returns to Scotland with Duncan's successor and an English army.
19. Macbeth is overthrown and beheaded by the virtuous Macduff.
20. Malcolm is seated on the throne and all ends happily.

(Oh and Lady M suicides herself.)

Woo! That was a bit much.
But those are the plot points.
Now this may just look like a wall of text, but it is the major plot points for each scene in Macbeth.
If you hit these, you have told the story.

The point of this post is to describe how quickly everything happens.
Again, this play takes place over ninety minutes.
For anyone who has sat through four hours of Lear/Hamlet you know that brevity really is the most important thing about theatre.

In the first act, the FIRST ACT we see Macbeth commit regicide.
The whole second act deals with the horror of that moment.
By the third Macbeth has everything he could have dreamed of at top of show: love of his wife, praise of his fellows, winning a war, more land, jewels, respect, power, even the kingship.
And yet...it is not enough.
The rest of the play is an unraveling at ever greater speeds of that motif:
Never safe, never enough, never, never, never.

Within the span of an hour and a half play we see a war hero devolve into a homicidal, hallucinating, deranged tyrant.
That is some drama.

But how does Shakespeare do it?
Why do we care?
And how does a theatre maker/audience make it better?
Because that is the trick.
Shakespeare gave a framework; a sturdy one albeit, but nonetheless, a bare framework.
It is our job to flesh it out and give it life.

Next up we will start at the beginning: the witches!

Making Solitude Work For You (The poor man's vacation)

Today we talk about what to do with artistic solitude on both sides of the creative fence (inside and outside the bubble).

TERMS:

Loneliness is the brooding thing that Hamlet does.
Solitude is a useful tool for creativity.

Loneliness is the action of wishing you were somewhere else.
Solitude is often the active process of keeping the universe at bay.

See, we, as a society, do not seem to understand solitude; we confuse it with loneliness.

Not all those who wander are lost.
Not all those alone are lonely.
Because creatives cannot create all of the time around all of the people.
We get situations like the one above.

In my previous post I mentioned carving out a portion of the day for time to be creative.
You may need to defend your space as well.

And when others see you playing or plying your craft alone (not lonely) they will fear for you.
Or they may just care and want to hang out. Play with you. Make a thing. Share a thing. Have dinner. Do chores. Do 'real' work.
Why?
Because the creative process can be incredibly internal.
Because it is personal, explaining process to someone else is meaningless, and so others do not understand.

Don't relent on something as important as one's creativity.
Fight for it.
Explain that what you are doing is important.
That it matters.
Make them believe.

The cruelest thing we ever do is convince children that play time is divorced from work.
It is not.
They are closely interrelated.
Allowing time to play, and I mean really play (Netflix and video games do not count), allows for avenues to explore.

So when we see someone at a writing desk, tumbling in a park, or staring at a wall, we want to engage them in "useful" activity.
Don't.
Let them be.
Ask if what they are doing is important.
Doodles to some are works of art to others.
We need space and time to create works of art.
And if we don't start somewhere, then we will go nowhere.
Practice.