Potluck

Didn't get the job. "Too green at marketing." Well, that's true. Onward.

Great sesh with the housemate today. First in a while, I've been needing one.

This first week of July is traditionally my most introspective -- and depressive -- of the year.

I made a fruit salad, green salad, and steamed vegies. My housemate made tuna casserole, spaghetti, and mac cheese & kielbasa. Our fridge is full of self-care. Same old ingredients we've had for a while. But somehow when they're prepared in advance, it feels different.

Picked up a mag I'd never seen before, What Is Enlightenment? Great issue on the collective unconscious, with articles on the Grateful Dead, Beatles, and one by Lakers coach Phil Jackson.

I feel like the Stay-Puff marshmallow man.

Wrong answer

My last post made me think of Dr. Adele Goldberg, famous for her work on the Smalltalk language. She was head of a lab at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where I was editing my manager's book on human-computer psychology. He suggested I also offer my services to Adele.

She was red-haired, slim, the mother of young twins, a twin herself. I was 21, she maybe 30. I knocked on her door. "I wanted to see if you have any papers I could edit."

"For free or for money?" she snapped.

"For free," I stammered, "Until you see how good I am. Then for money."

"Wrong answer," she snapped again, turning back to her screen. "The right answer is always, "For money.""

I edited both her books, and all ACM Computing Surveys Journal papers for the three years she was Editor-In-Chief. For money, all the way.

Ironically, much of my theatre training has come only because I was willing to do it for free. As assistant-director, your job is to watch. Watching is, as Jim Rapson would say, how you educate your intuition.

Like all great helixes, both sides are true at once. Of course you only do it for money. Of course you don't.

Not the one you'd normally dance with

My interview went well. Not a slam-dunk, but a solid connection. The guys have been fulltimers forever at Microsoft, as have I, off and on.

They would not normally consider me for this job. It is only being contracted out due to budget cuts. In better days, they would have many qualified marketers to choose from, and I would not have applied.

Those days are gone.

Now, we eye each other doubtfully, hopefully, trying to translate unfamiliar signals. Not the one you'd normally dance with, but at least someone who can dance.

"Suppose you were preparing two TV series," asked one interviewer. "One for developers, one for business managers, to train them on Microsoft technologies. How would you approach it?"

I gazed at the ceiling.

"Well," I said, "If I'm a dev guy, I don't want a TV show. I want docs. If I'm a biz guy, I don't want a TV show either; I want a real person standing in my office, talking to me." I paused. "So, I wouldn't do either of these shows. Instead I would make a show that made MS technologies sexy. I'd put a hot biz guy as the leader, and a dev guy who always saved the day. So basically we're headed for... Star Trek."

I dragged my gaze back down. He was leaning back, pleased. "That's good," he said. Overall, though, I didn't have that "aced it" feeling. I just had the "solidly in the running" feeling.

Downtime

A slow Sunday. Slept in, had the house to myself. Green leaves, a red-headed woodpecker, three baby squirrels in a squealing clump on the branch as I type, Galaxy Quest and a dance movie, a salami sandwich, barbecue chips, orange juice. Now it's cooling off (7pm) and I'm waking up.

What's under that -- longing for movement. I'm missing dance company, windsurfing, the men's ice hockey league, suzuki training, swim-training at dusk. I miss my body.

For now, off to do laundry, sort clothes, and prepare for my interview tomorrow. If I get hired, there will be plenty of movement soon.

Oh, and I love the new car. Heavy and fast. A 1988 Acura Legend. I named her Merryweather.

Great play -- Life X 3

Life X 3 is playing at the Bathhouse Theatre, an in-the-round theatre in Greenlake Park, built in what used to be the old bathhouse changing rooms. Walk out the door, you're looking at the lake.

Four great actors -- or rather, three great actors and one decent one who, though, was so perfectly cast for her type that she easily held her own -- with a wonderful director. The script is okay, engaging but nothing special. It shows the same scene of a couple having another couple for dinner, in three different ways. I like that kind of thing, so knew I'd enjoy the evening.

I felt like I was seeing the best-of-breed of traditional theatre. Real, warm acting, showcased in an intimate setting, so you're right up next to this gloriousness. True chamber theatre. I hope I learn to block as well, as unobtrusively, as this director; Daniel Wilson, a Carnegie-Mellon MFA guy. He knows when to let them stand still, when to swirl them into new arrangements.

The ACTORS made this a night to remember.

Watching actors this skillful play together is a treat that comes along far too seldom. I left feeling inspired, rejuvenated, redeemed, hopeful.

The script is written to kill standing ovations -- it peters out, rather than ending with a bang -- but I stood anyway. Right away, the only standing ovation, and glad to give it.

Good news, bad news

Things went in pairs today -- stuff that went well, stuff that didn't.

1. Got money together in time to get a cashier's check to buy my new car -- that "dad car" I talked about.
2. Forgot we'd changed our appointment from tomorrow to today, and stood the seller up completely. He waited at Starbucks for an hour.

3. Saw Dangerous Liaisons, a play I've always wanted to see.
4. Wore a heavy hooded sweatshirt to the boiling theatre.

5. Two different people said, "Hi Rachel" and talked to me at length.
6. Couldn't remember either of their names or how I knew them.

7. My beater car started like a champ.
8. Its dash lights all went out at midnight, 15 miles from home.

Time for bed.

A spine of routine

On Monday I audition for Marketing Manager of Webcast Communications, a contract position. I hope I get it. I have a lot to do. I would like a spine of routine, companionship, and financial solvency, to build around.

This medieval strangeness

In Brzezinka, Poland, we rode in a bus for an hour out into the cold night. We stopped at the edge of a forest. A man with a kerosene lantern was waiting for us. He led us through the trees, to an old brick flour mill. Inside was a small vaulted cement hall. A fireplace taller than a man burned sixteen logs. On a plywood table were laid olives, feta cheese, bread, and wine. After an unhurried time to warm ourselves, we were led into a wide low-ceilinged room dotted with more than 90 slim candles. "Curtain time," in this scenario, meant "What time the bus leaves town."

As we entered, we passed seven people in a huddled circle, singing. On the far side of the room, we sat on long low wooden benches like first-graders. Still singing, two of the women broke away and began calmly blowing out candles. Gradually the room darkened as only sixty, twenty, six, three candles were left. Blackness.

In the middle of the forest, in the middle of the night, surrounded by brick walls three feet thick, invisible voices lamented to us in Polish.

This medieval strangeness is theatre.

The work was Teatru ZAR's Ewangelii Dzieciństwa (Gospels of Childhood), from Dostoyevski. Teatru ZAR works out of the Grotowski Center in Wroclaw, if you find yourself in Poland.

In Seattle, the only theatre that sings to you like that is another Grotowski descendant, Akropolis Performance Lab. Co-artistic director Jennifer Lavy is the reason they sing. Grotowski said their singing was the most remarkable thing about their theatre.

For more details on Brzezinka, see also this post.

With the baby on his lap

Our Seattle auditions are a small tribal ritual. Karen is the artistic director of this twice-yearly rite. Like most good theatres, there is a family at the heart of it. The accompanist, Mark, played bouncing ragtime tunes with the baby on his lap, the baby's hands resting on his.

Outside, many of the same actors we've just seen audition, are now sorting headshots, making coffee, and joining us in the audition room to watch, a privilege for the volunteers. In theatre, no one wears just one hat.

The auditors are as glad for the breaks as for the auditions. It's a time to congratulate each other on shows, catch up on careers, and meet new folks in town. The ACT became friendly, to my mind, because of their casting director's beaming face. Stone Soup Productions became intelligent and warm, because their artistic director gave me so many good actor recommendations. Jennifer Lavy, an amazing singing director with whom I've had little time to visit due to her PhD workload, sat gracefully under the trees in late-afternoon light, reflecting on how theatre theory is, at its heart, spiritual.

Now THAT is worth all my time.

Theatre is homey. So is opera. No matter how grand the finished product, or how big the house, our rehearsal rooms are small. It's a close-knit world, and we all know each other -- gypsy makers of a sweaty, ephemeral ware.

Auditions are not what you think

I'll often have a music director or assistant director work with me, in auditions. We work with a group of actors as an ensemble, in a 2-hour workshop. Sometimes we work as one big group, sometimes we'll break into two rooms and work separately. It's more fun and more stimulating. It also gives the actors a way to bow out, if they don't like this way of working.

I have them do their monologues, but give them other actors to flesh out the scene. This removes that weird competitive vibe. It stops being "your" monologue, and becomes "our" scene. Everyone works. And the chances increase that the work itself will catch fire.

THAT's why we do this -- to ignite, transubstantiate, burn to ash.

I gave a Titus two dead bodies of his sons, a beautiful daughter with her mouth bound and hands clasped behind her back, a jar, and a black leather glove. In these fertile surroundings, the giant 6'6" actor had, finally, a vessel capable of channeling Titus-sized force.

I had a Portia from Merchant of Venice stand on a silky teak Swedish dresser. Below her to the left, stood a statuesque blonde Danish woman holding a sheaf of tall pink gladiolas (Mercy). On the other side stood a tiny indomitable Irish redhead raising an iron sword (Justice). I had Mercy and Justice be living statues. When they heard text that affected them, they were to morph to a new statue position. Portia could use the statues however she wanted, and to go anywhere on her small dresser-top stage. "The quality of mercy is not strained," she began, and the gladiolas rustled.

I cast the Mercy actor from this scene, not from anything she did in her own monologue.

I glimpsed, in the Titus actor, a Viking berserker capable of razing Rome, and cast him as Octavius. Not the usual flaccid Octavius, but a force greater than the conspirators had reckoned with, a chthonic Caesar. On his own, Octavius began to paint his face and arms, growing more motley by the night.

Auditions are not what you think. They are an immersion in the divine, a chaotic glimpse of your unborn play, and possibly some of the most beautiful acting you'll ever see.

Headshots

The first four notes I make on an actor's resume are:

- physical -- or not
- smart -- if they are
- on ground/in their body -- or not
- in their voice -- or not

Danger signs I note:

- weird monologue -- if they chose a racist or torturing piece
- not present -- not even in their entrance, intro, questions
- trouble -- they'd be trouble in rehearsal. Although, if they are also smart, I put them in the Smart/My Type pile. I bet on the smart ones.

Afterwards, I sort my headshots into piles:

- The Anthony Project -- actors for a specific project
- Fantastic -- only saw 5 of these, out of 300 actors
- Smart/My type -- improv, writing, & directing are big clues
- Maybe -- worth an interview
- No -- although, I still may cast if the project needs it
- No Never -- actors who had a weird vibe as people
- Pro/Out of my league/Will get cast -- good at the mask
- Musician -- actors make great musicians
- Connected -- people who work all over town, know everyone
- Tech/Stage Mgr/Design -- useful; often includes Connected folks
- International -- actors who have lived in other countries

Once I have a project in mind, I never forget it. I want to do a piece with Elder Women someday, so for four years I have noted on any resume of an older woman, whether she'd be good for this piece. Actors, themselves, often inspire me. Like this year, I saw so many good black actors in the morning Equity session that it gave me the idea for the Anthony Project. (Which I think will be an oratorio, some traversal of the line between death and rebirth.) Or, a few years back, there was a baritone who was so smart, I hired him as music director and assistant director, and grew the project together.

It is not random, the people who appear in your life.

Audition moments

A gifted solemn 10-year-old boy, dark hair in his eyes, has just done two fantastic pieces. Film director: "Can you look up and have a strong emotional reaction?" Boy, confidently: "Yes." Huge laughter. We've all been in that classic conversation -- clueless director fumbles toward what he wants, while gifted actor cooperates. Film director, trying again: "Can you look up as if something has just scared or surprised you?" The boy instantly does it, animated, perfect, then gazes at the director, unselfconscious as a pony.

Another great moment: An interesting actor has just finished his monologues. "Can you tell us a joke?" asks one auditor, looking for improv ability. "And, while you're at it," adds another, aware of time running out, "Can you do it in a German accent?" We all laughed. When he finished I asked, "Do you have any Shakes? Like, just four lines or so?" He reels off a great O that this too, too solid flesh would melt. Spontaneous applause. He's walking out, knowing he just had a great audition. The kicker is -- he did terribly in his actual monologues. Lots of pauses in the first one, and actually stopped midway through the second, saying, "Sorry. I can't remember the rest." But he was so self-posessed and calm about it all, we wanted to see what else he could do.

It ain't over till it's over.

Burning through the mask

I realized, watching 300 actors audition, that the American acting style is a mask. Like all masks, you must learn how to surrender to it. The skillful ones use it as a lens, burning through it.

I once saw Dan Donohoe, the great Shakespearean actor, use commedia text in rehearsal as a mask. He was so used to surrendering to Shakespeare's text, that he flung himself into the flimsy commedia text the same way. It was like wind bellying out a sail. Because of his belief, his surrender, and his trust, even that paltry text illumined. THIS is a master of the mask.

Maybe all acting needs a mask -- the text, the physical score -- something to scrupulously protect you in your abandon.

Like stones dropped in water

Last fall I auditioned for grad school to get an MFA in Theatre Directing. I applied to University of Washington -- number 4 in the country, slow trees, cloistered windows, vaulted 40-foot-high rooms, and a revitalized faculty who had combined forces to team-teach. I also applied to Yale -- number 1 in the country, smaller, grimier, built on a city street with no trees at all, but containing a white-hot ethical engine which made theatre in three great circles.

Although my heart yearned for the trees, Yale felt more like me.

Without having to write the Statement of Purpose and Directorial Analysis for those auditions, I would not now be writing this blog. Something happened to my voice when I had to explain why I do theatre. It kept getting plainer. The first draft was 13 pages. The final draft was 4. I worked on it every morning for months, and mourned when it was done.

That led to writing this blog, which I suspect is the bridge to my books and plays -- which is how I've always assumed I'll support my theatre, old age, and desired lifestyle.

But I'm still nervous around you. I'll know I'm ready when these posts become like stones dropped in water, as thoughtless as my morning pages. Right now, I imagine you are all actors. When that time comes, I won't be imagining you at all.

Every theatre has a ghost

Today was the first day of Theatre Puget Sound auditions. We saw Equity (union) actors today, non-union the next two days. This year we had fewer Equity actors, and less solid ones, than in the last five years. Dunno why.

I want to do a lab project in summer or fall. I have been leaning toward working with Equity actors, but I'll wait to see who else auditions. Today I got inspired to put together an all-black cast. Sitting in the Centerhouse Theatre for auditions made me think of my friend, Anthony Lee, a black actor who was shot at a Halloween party in 2000, by the LA police.

Eight months later I was directing Medea here. In a back room of the theatre, I found a small trunk of Anthony's, full of his stage mementos -- programs, first-night notes. I left it there. Every theatre has a ghost. This one has Anthony's.

Here's how good he was.

We were doing Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. Leonid Anisimov was directing for Art Theatre of Puget Sound. Anthony had flown up from LA -- where he moved when his movie career took off -- to play Astrov. He hadn't worked yet, but had come to all the rehearsals. This was the first time on his feet. His scene partner, Nanny, was being played by a heavy, relatively inexperienced actor. She was surly, snappish, nervous, and disapproving of the Russian rehearsal process.

Anthony had the lines, "There is no one I love, except you perhaps. I had a nurse like you when I was a child." He did the first line from across the room, gazing at a picture of flowers. Then he walked around the big dining-room table, came up behind her, laid his arms on her shoulders, and rested his cheek on her head as he said the second line.

And then -- he inhaled. A big breath, deep in her hair, just to know what she smelled like. And there he stayed, for a long unhurried time.

Her shoulders relaxed... her face softened... and for the first time, we could see her. Really see her, the kind one we'd never glimpsed before. And rarely glimpsed again -- she came out only for Anthony.

Leonid would say, THAT is an ethical actor -- someone who makes his scene partner more Talented.

Anyway, that's my cloudy impulse toward a piece -- my dead friend, his trunk left behind when he went to seek his fortune, auditioning in his theatre.

"I'm going to write a play for you someday, Anthony," I said once as we walked along a lake filled with screaming splashing kids. "That'd be great," he said, scratching his stomach, speaking in that perfectly polite tone that meant he knew it was a lie. He would laugh at me writing it after he's dead. "Like they're gonna cast me NOW." And then that slow laugh, huh huh huh huh.

The house, the bomb shelter, the graveyard

My niece came down from Alaska. She's 13. I hadn't seen her in years.

She, my mom (her grandma), and I went to visit the house I grew up in. My dad built it from an old Weyerhauser bunkhouse. It was on an acre of land, on a lake, surrounded by what used to be fields and forest. I remember the house as dark and cold. The livingroom was a great arc of windows. It had more lights outside than in, to see the trees and wildlife at night. I would mash up against the window, holding my book as to a streetlight, to read by the outside light.

My dad shot himself there when I was 16. I hadn't been back since I left for college, except once when my brother was working on it. Thirty years ago, we sold it to one of my high school teachers.

It was surreal, how fantastic the house looked. The field, the 30-acre forest, the boat camp, old Mr. Kelley's house and farm, were all gone. It's all houses now.

But the house was open, airy, surrounded by flowers. Amazingly light. The owners have painted, remodelled, gardened, and loved it for years. It was like a sister of my house. Similar bones, but a woman I didn't know. Tucked in the bank, our old cement-block bomb-shelter still stood with its rusted iron door. It looked tiny.

I felt like I had walked into the Secret Garden.

It was as if the universe was showing me my alternate future. A lifeward path. A path of caring, integrity, kitchen gardens, mint, and great creamy lilies. This small house, so beloved, contained almost everything I love about Poland, Denmark, Russia; people who live like this are respected the world over. It was not important to this couple that I might be directing in Denmark. Compared to their house, I'm not sure it's important to me, either.

For the first time, it occurred to me to just find a job, build a rehearsal studio in my backyard, and settle in.

From there we went to the graveyard.

We called it The Statue Park when we played in it as kids. My father is buried halfway back, near some tree I can never recognize. My mother could, though. She trundled toward it, her army-green raincoat hood over her head, like a hound on the scent. Now I can find it too.

I lay down on the grave, looking at the sky. "This is what I do," I said. "I lie here for an hour or so and talk to him." I got up.

We stood looking at the small square granite stone. PFC Rutherford, a military-paid burial. I felt bad we didn't bring flowers. "Perhaps we could relieve some of the over-flowered graves nearby?" I suggested. "No," said my niece, shocked. "Those are souls."

I picked a handful of wild clover blossoms, and dropped them in the circular hole on the gravestone. "I'll water them," said my mother, pouring the last of her water bottle in unintentional gangsta homage. My niece, who never met my dad or heard much about him, picked her own small bouquet, bound it neatly with a clover stem, and set her tiny fairy-size bouquet on top of my scatter.

For the first time, my eyes were pricking.

When he died, I didn't cry for two months. My mother didn't cry for two years. My brother cried as soon as he heard. All the policemen patted him and looked at us like we were weird. Like Shirley Jackson's characters, we have always lived in the castle.

How nice to find it covered with roses. A house from another fairytale entirely.

Ethics at the pearl heart

I went to see an improv musical last night by Jet City Improv. Fantastic. High stakes, singing, dancing, an on-the-spot story from audience suggestions, live musicians... wonderful. Plus, they are using more women than normal, having borrowed some music theatre veterans to bolster their ranks. Again, beautiful.

Anyway, watching them swirl through their dance call, I realized, Jet City's energy and ethics is very similar to the Odin's. For the same reason -- Andrew McMasters, like Eugenio Barba, is a leader of integrity, who has built a company of integrity, which is doing work of integrity.

I found it eerily comforting to be sitting in America, in my friend's theatre, surrounded by those same clean energies. It means it's possible anywhere.

Waiting is

Eugenio is in Italy until August. The Odin wrote today to say they had received my fax, and would send it on to Eugenio with the rest of his correspondence. "Who knows..." said Rina, "We wait on Eugenio."

Sex and sausages

I signed up with a contract agency. I chose ArtSource because I have hired lots of their artists in the past, and like their integrity.

The thing is, ArtSource mostly reps illustrators, animators, modellers, web-designers... you know, ARTISTS.

Being none of those, I'm kind of in a niche by itself.

Boys and girls, I have to say -- I LOVE having an agency. Every few days, I get a phone call or an email offering me some job I would never ordinarily have found, or think of taking. But, they all look sweeter when someone else is out there chowing for you.

Do I want to edit 50 web articles fast? (Sure.) Join a mondo-tech-frobbing blitz team? (What the hey.) How about Marketing Manager for a frooble-jack? (Absolutely.) So far, only the Marketing Manager position has called back, but you know... it only takes one.

Contract positions are pure commedia dell' Arte -- each is Very Important, with One Big Idea, which is Frantically Urgent to do, without mussing My Beautiful Costume.

A commedia character only wants one or two things. Harlequin, for example, the scheming servant, only wants SEX and SAUSAGES. And the most important of these is, SAUSAGES.

ArtSource, baby -- bring on the sausage.

Knocking on the monastery door

I wrote Eugenio today, and said I was ready to join the Odin.

There is a Starbucks at the corner of Main and 148th. It has high ceilings, windows, and wide chairs. A huge glorious digital painting covers one wall. From the day I first walked in, I wanted to make a play in front of that painting. For three years I have looked at its complex beauty, and wished I could make a play as good.

On Monday I realized, I have. I sat there for half an hour sipping my mocha, relishing the painting's great incomprehensible play of organic forms and light, mapping it to Nanda Devi.

Tiger on no leash

Tectonic grief -- first
sharp release, thunderstorms at
last. Scorched ions, sleet

Archaic grief -- the
lonely child unfed for years,
tiger on no leash

Alchemic grief -- phoenix
fire, destroying to create
its feathered self

A play is a prayer

Our play had its performance yesterday. There is something incredibly satisfying about making a piece that is only shown once. Theatre is an ephemeral art, and a single performance gives it all to the gods.

I have seen something even more rare and beautiful. I was assistant-directing for Akropolis Performance Labs' Jeanne The Maid. We had this old vaulted space, the Seattle Mime Theatre. But our run fell during an August heat-wave. People stayed away in droves.

One Sunday we found ourselves, at matinee curtain-time, alone in the building. Not one spectator.

This is not as uncommon as you may think in fringe theatre, who bravely perform for 4 to 10 people. What was unusual was Akropolis's reaction. Most theatres would be frantic, frustrated, blaming. But at Akropolis, whose rehearsals are great pools of silence, it was... a relief.

"I think," said Joseph Lavy, co-artistic director and director of Jeanne, "That we could use a run for ourselves." Ahhh. A rustle of assent. Like having the cathedral to yourself.

So, on that dim and drowsing afternoon, we ran the play. At performance intensity. For ourselves. Jennifer had left to work on her paper. Joseph and I watched from the audience, as the judge, priest, and monk gibbered and burned the girl. Pater noster qui es en celis.

A play is a prayer.

Sometimes you do it for an audience, sometimes you do it just for god.

The summer month of Chaitra

This is the last week of rehearsal for our show. The tree-raspberry bears fruit in the summer month of Chaitra.

I can't wait for the play to coalesce. I can't wait for people to see it. I can't wait for it to be over. It's like a bowstring, being pulled to tautness, readying for its single release.

My unconscious keeps telling me it's got it all figured out. But I can't tell WHAT it's got figured out.

For now, off to rehearsal. Let's work on the threesome and the yaks.

The tides of rehearsal

Well.

My goal for today's rehearsal was to build all the transitions in the first half. We ended up only building the prologue, a series of 6 transitions.

So, what happened?

It was a perfect rehearsal. Chekhov's and god's perfect rehearsal.

The actors came in like winds. Alive, soft, taking care of their own costumes and props. An easy organic first hour. An uphill vocal training, followed by a divine lunch. Our heads said, "Make it short, just 10 minutes!" But our bodies and souls were deep in some sweet groove. Erika had made homemade Hungarian cheese bread and lentil salad. Sal brought cherries, strawberries, bananas, and grapes. I kept thinking, "Rehearsal is going very well." Even though my head was screaming about how behind we were on our to-do list for today.

The next time I came in, the actors were standing in a circle doing a rap-style improv game, Boom-Chicka-Boom. Again, a glorious sign -- creation is happening easily. And, it's the RIGHT creation -- a laughy, sexy, playful, releasing kind of energy for our tense drama. One of the best moments of the day. This leads to limbo dancing which leads to Erika walking with her hands behind her back in high yoga-position -- a brilliant discovery you ONLY get out of flow zone, that goes instantly into the play as our final image.

PJ sang, for her Moment of Beauty, in a high quiet voice, the song her dead mother used to sing to her. Another perfect moment; into the play it goes as well. We can do anything when actors are in this state.

Except, apparently, my to-do list.

"Chekhov and god, they wanted their rehearsal," said Leonid once, of a day like this. "I very wanted mine.

You just can't fight the tides. I tried. We swam upstream, floundered our way to an opening. But all the good stuff was flowing downstream, effortlessly, from Chekhov.

The question is: When the gods are giving you a gift, why fight it? (Because I very wanted my rehearsal, dammit.)

The task of the director

Commitment is the first prerequisite. Having even one person who is not in this state not only slows, but stops everything. It is dangerous to go any farther. The director, the group, and the work stop, right where that invidual is uncommitted. It's "in-ness," the commitment, that is the first imperative, not ability.

People do not know how committed they are until they begin to walk the path. Make the path. Enforce it. See how they walk. When the last uncommitted one drops away, your spine will know it. If even one uncommitted person is in the room -- even if they are all saying they are committed, and they mean it -- your spine will know it. Obey your spine.

THE TASK OF THE DIRECTOR

A primary responsibility of the director is to

1. Commit.
2. Prevent uncommitted people from entering the room
3. Create structures which reveal any remaining lack of commitment in people in the room
4. Get uncommitted people out of the room, fast.

A director who can perceive lack of commitment in others, yet does not take these actions, is -- through lack of courage -- modelling and inviting a lack of integrity, and condemning the results to mediochrity.

Such refusal to protect the sacred space is a betrayal of ethics.

"Affect the space first."
--Leonid Anisimov

Affecting the space first is the most fundamental task of the director.

1. Affect your own personal space first. Body, health, physical surroundings, enough money, time, sleep, friends, car, whatever you need.
2. Do your self-care. If you're in deficit, you're just spreading your pollution. (And, by the way, self-care expands limitlessly; the better you get at, the more you can see.)
3. Affect the space of the theatre. Get space, the more beautiful and clean the better. Get money. Get time. Get Nature. Get anything YOU know improves the experience and the work. Like Jim McCarthy says, “Never do anything dumb on purpose.”

The task of the director in early rehearsal is to create the environment and structures which will most efficiently 1) educate the conscious, and 2) stimulate growth from the unconscious. Truth is mandatory. Beauty accelerates. Awaiting the Mystery is a good attitude. You need a very clean pure space to do this. After a good rehearsal, everyone leaves cleaner than they came.

"A clean theatre and a clean yard
is a loved theatre and a loved yard."
-- Eugenio Barba, Odin Teatret

Leonid Anisimov, when entering a much-used black-box theatre, looked around and said, “This space is full of lies. First, we must clean.” And his whole company, who had just flown all the way from Vladivostok to Seattle, set to work. They would not leave, to go to their host families' houses, until the theatre was thoroughly clean.

It is difficult to work in space which is full of lies. It is like having a strong river pushing against you. If you are the director, or the actor, or the designer, or anyone in the theatre – you must tell the truth. The practice of theatre is a practice of integrity.

“Only the truth can cure.
Only the truth can heal.”
--Anton Chekhov

In your productions, you must make a space for the actors which helps them be truthful. Nature helps actors on stage. Leonid says, "Always put Nature on stage."

Next tasks of the director:

1. Begin training
2. Begin creating a performance. (This is a whole set of things, itself, including how to crack the work, and crack the ensemble.)
3. Begin connecting to the community.

In tibetan buddhism, we take refuge in 3 things: the buddha, the dharma, and the sangha. The buddha = a regular person has done this transcendental work before, so it can be done. The dharma = the teachings. The sangha = the community of like-minded fellow seekers. Directors need these same three things -- models, masters & teachings, and fellow seekers.

What you must do, you must do - Barba

It is not important at all what you do -- Gandhi

It is not importat at all what you do
But it is very important that you do it.

--Mohatma Gandhi

Making rainbows: Flow and rehearsal

Ahhhhhhh. Great rehearsal tonight.

After weeks of building scenes in people's living rooms, we finally put them all together in the space. They're hot. The work you build in people's homes has an unconscious realness to it. Ed Okolovitch says, "That's how we bring the universe into the theatre." Transplanted, they ricochet off each other and greedily expand to fill the space.

We did our first stumblethrough. Two-thirds of the play is built; a couple scenes and many transitions to come, plus tightening & transcending. It's Golden Time.

GOLDEN TIME

You can build things in Golden Time easily, which you could not even attempt at other times. Miracles flow like white bloodcells to this site of luminosity.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalhyi, who wrote Flow: the psychology of optimum performance studied characteristics of people when they were “in the zone.” In Flow, our unconsciouses and intuition are finely educated, so the quality of decision becomes precise, profound. There is individual flow, a person in the transcendant state of grace. There is also that more rare and precious fruit, team flow.

Golden Time is the period in rehearsal where Flow is the norm.

At the Odin Teatret, an ensemble regularly in a deep state of Flow, brilliances appear in a flash. I saw a song arise with no rehearsal and little discussion. The actors thought the play needed a song here, so bam -- suddenly there's a 2-verse-with-chorus song, in 3-part harmony and 3 instruments, in less than ten minutes.

The divine form of work is sacred play.

MAKING RAINBOWS

The Dalai Lama and his monks often create rainbows at the end of their kalachakra sand-mandala ceremonies. They always schedule the kalachakras to finish on the day of the full moon. In Sydney, the cloudcover broke and we got a double-rainbow, just as we all walked out the door. "Yes," said the Dalai Lama, "You did that." It was as matter-of-fact to him as your car running cleaner after an oil change.

(Oh, THIS is funny -- I went to get the link to the Dalai Lama's official site. When I clicked on it, it said, "Under Construction." Talk about a teaching in impermanence.)

Bart Sher, head of the Intiman Theatre, uses the Grateful Dead as a model of Flow. "In the first set, they warmed up. In the second set, they just headed OUT there." "This is pretty second set stuff right now," he said at Seattle Opera rehearsal one day. The power had gone out that morning, so on a wooden rehearsal stage the size of a ship's deck -- with the same creaks and silences -- a soaring diva pleaded with a baritone from across the world. Masters at play, children at work. It was absolutely medieval.

I notice all kinds of things about Flow in the theatre. You know you're in it when:

- no one wants to leave the space where this great thing just happened
- everything looks extra-brilliant, colors are heightened
- things are soft and slow, even the really fast or hard stuff
- you can’t remember who thought of an idea, it grew out of everyone
- the room sounds like a river: gurgling, silence, roars of laughter or argument
- everyone’s a genius all the time
- there's lots of time, great pools of time
- everything's getting done with no fuss
- people just do what they do, lightly and well
- trust is infinite, fun is high, even the control freaks are giggling
- if you're rehearsing in a place with kids, the kids want to play
- if you're rehearsing in a place with cats, the cats come and lay right on your script, or right in the middle of the floor (cats stay away when you're in any other state)
- even more amazing greatness starts happening at the edges

Like, last night, we went out to eat after rehearsal (not wanting to leave the space). Driving back afterwards, we started to whistle a song from the play -- four tuneless, giggling whistlers. Then, "I'll sing, you whistle," said Erika, a girl from Rumania. So we have three harsh whistlers over one sweet low soprano. It sounds fantastic. "The YAKS should whistle!", I said, having a flash about our play. "NOOO!" they all groaned and yelled at once, and then we broke up laughing. Sal turned on the soundtrack to “Chicago” really loud and we all sang along. When we got to the parking lot, he swerved in big S curves in time to the music. Some got out of the car and danced, others stayed in and talked.

Golden time.

Wedges of gold

I have outgrown my beater car. I mean, I'm driving it all over. But I bit the bullet and bought an old (OLD) meticulously-cared-for dad's car instead. I'll sell the beater. The dad's car is an 88 Acura, the beater is a 91 VW Fox. Both are sticks.

I want a life filled with abundance. Starting now. Like, giving myself a dependable car. Asking for help. Loving and caring for what I have. Looking for jobs while I still have money. Writing this blog like I will write books.

I'm selling the Fox, but I bought it a battery and spare tire anyway, and will check its fluids/register/insure it. It will leave as it came, cared for.

I practice theatre by running a year-round lab at BCC where we "ship" (show) four times a year. I thought today of starting a Wealth Lab, where we would each "ship" a business. Wealth work. I bet it's just like theatre at its dark-bright heart.

Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea:

Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
Which woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.

-- William Shakespeare, Richard III, 1:4