Wednesday, June 04, 2003
New York:
1. In front of the building where I work, the red, double-decker tourist buses stop to pick people up. Once when I was out there for an extended period, waiting for my friend Darrell so that we could have lunch, there was a fairly long line of people waiting to get on the bus and a large group of people sitting on the upper level of the bus, which is uncovered. Every time someone would give the driver his or her ticket and climb up the stairs to get to the top, everyone sitting up there would cheer & yell & clap, like the person had just made a strike in bowling, or something. And, they did this over and over again for, like, 5 minutes.
2. The other night when my boyfriend Joe & I were riding home on the subway, there was a lady on the train cursing and yelling at the top of her lungs at another passenger. It was hard to understand what had happened, but Joe said he saw them have some kind of altercation before they got onto the train. She was calling him "bitch" & saying she "knows all of his secrets" and all kinds of things, slurring her words pretty badly. It was very uncomfortable. They both got off after one stop.
3. My friend James, who is a drama teacher, was invited to attend a songwriting workshop in conjunction with the Broadway show, "Thoroughly Modern Milie," which won the Tony award for best musical last year or the year before. The intention was to show teachers the workshop so that they would, perhaps, hire the teacher, who was a songwriter for "Millie," to come give the workshop to their students. He said she started out by asking the group to think of a phrase that describes how they felt when they first moved to the city. For instance, she said, when she moved there, she felt like "the smallest building on the block." The group of people shouted out lots of things, and someone came up with the phrase, "I wish I had a better pair of shoes." Everyone in the group liked that phrase, but the teacher insisted that it wasn't the best phrase, but that they should use "the smallest building on the block" instead. So, they wrote a song using that phrase. And, through the process of "writing the song," James realized that it was a scam, that the teacher always uses the same phrase with every group of students, that she has it set up so that the activity cannot "fail," that they are not really taking any risk or doing anything creative in the workshop. He then went to see the show & found that all the songs in the show were "formula songs," and that there was nothing really risky or creative in the show.
4. Similarly, I recently worked sound on a play festival. The last performance of the first play was completely different from all the other performances. Every performance of the play had been EXACTLY the same before that point. It was like watching a videotape. Then, for some reason, this last performance was different, especially the lead actress. She "played" more. She got angrier. She sort of lost control. She awakened her scene partner & so he was more aware and better. It was, of course, their best performance.
At intermission, I overheard her talking to the director, who had come to the last show. He said, "You see? Wasn't it better to not know what was going to happen?" She was beeming. She said, "It was dangerous."
I love acting because it is so dangerous. Your instinct to look for the safety net, the crutch, the "way to say the line" is the instinct you have to avoid. There is no "final answer." You know your lines. You know your blocking. You have to be there, in the moment, telling the story, playing it out. You have to trust. To trust is the most dangerous thing in the world.
I want to be in a play again soon.
--mk
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1. In front of the building where I work, the red, double-decker tourist buses stop to pick people up. Once when I was out there for an extended period, waiting for my friend Darrell so that we could have lunch, there was a fairly long line of people waiting to get on the bus and a large group of people sitting on the upper level of the bus, which is uncovered. Every time someone would give the driver his or her ticket and climb up the stairs to get to the top, everyone sitting up there would cheer & yell & clap, like the person had just made a strike in bowling, or something. And, they did this over and over again for, like, 5 minutes.
2. The other night when my boyfriend Joe & I were riding home on the subway, there was a lady on the train cursing and yelling at the top of her lungs at another passenger. It was hard to understand what had happened, but Joe said he saw them have some kind of altercation before they got onto the train. She was calling him "bitch" & saying she "knows all of his secrets" and all kinds of things, slurring her words pretty badly. It was very uncomfortable. They both got off after one stop.
3. My friend James, who is a drama teacher, was invited to attend a songwriting workshop in conjunction with the Broadway show, "Thoroughly Modern Milie," which won the Tony award for best musical last year or the year before. The intention was to show teachers the workshop so that they would, perhaps, hire the teacher, who was a songwriter for "Millie," to come give the workshop to their students. He said she started out by asking the group to think of a phrase that describes how they felt when they first moved to the city. For instance, she said, when she moved there, she felt like "the smallest building on the block." The group of people shouted out lots of things, and someone came up with the phrase, "I wish I had a better pair of shoes." Everyone in the group liked that phrase, but the teacher insisted that it wasn't the best phrase, but that they should use "the smallest building on the block" instead. So, they wrote a song using that phrase. And, through the process of "writing the song," James realized that it was a scam, that the teacher always uses the same phrase with every group of students, that she has it set up so that the activity cannot "fail," that they are not really taking any risk or doing anything creative in the workshop. He then went to see the show & found that all the songs in the show were "formula songs," and that there was nothing really risky or creative in the show.
4. Similarly, I recently worked sound on a play festival. The last performance of the first play was completely different from all the other performances. Every performance of the play had been EXACTLY the same before that point. It was like watching a videotape. Then, for some reason, this last performance was different, especially the lead actress. She "played" more. She got angrier. She sort of lost control. She awakened her scene partner & so he was more aware and better. It was, of course, their best performance.
At intermission, I overheard her talking to the director, who had come to the last show. He said, "You see? Wasn't it better to not know what was going to happen?" She was beeming. She said, "It was dangerous."
I love acting because it is so dangerous. Your instinct to look for the safety net, the crutch, the "way to say the line" is the instinct you have to avoid. There is no "final answer." You know your lines. You know your blocking. You have to be there, in the moment, telling the story, playing it out. You have to trust. To trust is the most dangerous thing in the world.
I want to be in a play again soon.
--mk
