Imagination and Fantasy

It's 5AM, and I've been joyfully playing a computer game.  It's a text-based multiplayer game called Avalon.  By text-based, I mean it feels like an interactive book.  There are no graphics.  It is all imagined.  The world of this game is over 20 years old, crafted meticulously by people who clearly love it.  I am in love with this game.  It does not cater to the lowest common denominator of gamer, like most modern games.  It instead assumes your intelligence, while guiding you and easing you into its world.  It doesn't feel so snobby as to have created a vast world and expecting you to research it in order to understand what's going on.  That's a purist approach.  However, the world is there.  They've just made it accessible, player-driven, and fun.  When I say player driven, I really mean it.  Not in the gimmicky way that games have today, but the governing figures of those decades-old world are actual players who have worked their way up.

What I love though is the whimsically described locations.  Every screen is a different location, and of course it must be described to you in order to get a visual in your mind.  The great thing about these word pictures, is it looks different in my mind than yours, yet we are in the same world.  Exactly like a book.

This got me to wondering, as I often do, if such an amazing world can be created in theater.  If there is an acting/play development technique buried in there.  I love the medium of theater, as it is alive and raw and beautiful and moving and organic.

What if....

1) A company of actors developed and honed their improv skills together, so that they could give over to the "improv gods" and easily create scenes, characters, worlds together.

2) The actors wore the characters of "Gods" and came together to create a world together.  The improv exercise would be one in which the gds in charge of creating new worlds held a God Council meeting to decide what world they wanted to build.  At the end of the meeting they will have created a setting for the next explorations.

4) The world is honed.  A cumulative world history is created.  A geography is created.  A vibe is created.  All through impovs of various means to tap into the world - which already exists, just needs time to unearth.

3) That world is zoomed in on and honed down smaller and smaller until an agreeable setting for a scene is achieved.

4) Characters are adopted by actors and embodied in scenes together.  Improvs are done to get to know these characters until the actors feel they can wear them as easily as a coat.

5) With the world and its people created, a plot is necessary.  Playground time.  Improvs around "what if this happened" "what if this guy decided he wanted to marry this other guy's wife" "what if the Wormham tribe chief ran out of batwing dust and had to go on a quest for it?"  Perhaps a rapid-fire what-if game in which a dozen are thrown out, written down, selected at random to play with.

6) The juiciest improv is expanded upon.  What happened before and after it?

7) A play is born.  But the play is merely a story of a fragment of a world and characters created by US.  

I'm sitting here churning the idea in my mind to mine it for more specifics.  I'll resist that urge for now, and let it lie.  Rather, let it bubble.  I have to resist the urge to perfect it instantly.  It's a new idea.  At its heart, I think, is the idea that a group of people can create worlds together.  Just like this game.

THE DIRECTOR: I see the need for a "head God" to act as a guide.  Akin to a head writer, but less cerebral.  Further in the process, this may translate to director in the traditional sense.  But this "head God" has the power to summon any member of the council, or any citizen of the world in order to clarify any bit of history, or explore any potential scene.  The head god brings the focus in when necessary.  He is a Weaver, patching the quilt of the world together, using the other actors as conduits of creatures.

CEREMONIAL ITEMS: The "head God" should have a throne.  A more fun version of a Director's chair. In an ideal world, we would have a fixed, set rehearsal space with a permanent throne.  Whichever actor is the HG would take that throne.  Each actor would have some ceremonial t-shirt, hat, or something to denote, ceremonially, that they are entering this space to give over to the power of their imaginations in creating worlds.  The space (temenos, perhaps) would be sanctified, and marked out by an always-used rope.  Or ritual circle created with a march.  Calling upon the powers of the universe to allow the space to be holy ground in which the world shall live and the story shall be told.  Oooo!  I love the idea of a ceremonial "Creation Kit" that we ritually set up each rehearsal.  Maybe it's tiki torches, maybe it's everyone wears our special pendants that we only bring out for rehearsal, maybe it's that rope.  Maybe everyone dons tribal paint.

Wow.  I'm jazzed up about this.  I keep hearing a voice in my head, saying "yeah, but isn't that just, a director?"  and "isn't that just collaborative writing?" etc.  Voices that do not see this as revolutionary and rife with possibility.  I anticipate that being the response to colleagues I put the idea to.  They'll say "I don't get it, what's different from what you've done before?" I think the difference is in working organically, through characters, for the entire creation process.  Playing with a whole new process!  Calling things different names, inspiring names, to avoid our own pre-conceived notions about theater.  I want to purposefully avoid using theatrical convention.  What if the space was not on a stage?  What if the lights were not run from a booth?  What if the costumes were different every performance?

Maybe this summer I can work at Sterling, as a director, and experiment with this idea while I'm there, on the off time.  Just got a funny vision of a news team recording our rehearsal while a show of ours is running.  Rehearsal clips are mixed with interviews of me, talking about what we do, while dressed in some ridiculous looking getup.  With tribal paint.  Saying "I know to outsiders this looks cultish, ridiculous, childish... but look at my face.  I'm having a fucking blast.  This is a sacred space where we can look like fools and not care.  I mean that.  Legitimately only caring about this grand scheme of ours to pull forth characters from the ether and see what they have to show us."

Hmmm... what if different actors snapped into the same character at different times during rehearsal.  Would be interesting to see the meld of one actor embodying the character, then flip it on its head for another.  Maybe they could be in the same scene!  These things are making me giddy with possibility.  I picture myself giggling in awe, watching it unfold.  Also, it's 6AM now and I haven't slept.  The dreams of tonight may need a dose of reality tomorrow, but for now, let the dreams come!  I believe they are the true heart and soul, the rest is just to facilitate them happening in our current world.  The world in my head is not this one, but when they combine, it will be magic.

See you on the other side.

Still Night

Ok, so I had something of an epiphany on the train.  I saw two Indian (racist/ignorant description, perhaps) sitting next to each other.  Usually two guys sitting next to each other on the train would have a seat between them.  No, they were comfortably right next to each other, yet showed no sign of being disturbed.

My epiphany came as I walked on to the train after a long night of work, and an abnormally long closing procedure.  I sat there alone after everyone had left work in a quiet corner, and heard the voices in my head.  It became crystal clear in that quiet space how much the voices in my head chatter.  Most of the time they're not even my voice.  My inner voice is drowned out by the chatter of others.  I sat looking at a stage in a dark theater, hearing all these opinions of what I should be thinking, or what theater should be... and I stopped.  And I imagined each of those individual voices as a little capsule burdening my mind.  I imagined it breaking off like a chunk of glacier and falling away, still encapsulated.  And an awesome thing happened.  That voice actually stopped.  I proceeded to continue doing that with every voice I could pinpoint, until I was close to quiet in my head.  Then I saw and felt the space for what it is.  And from there I could reverberate through my soul how I felt.

Every person on earth has a different soul.  They have different eyes (the windows to the soul) with which to see.  Different experiences which distort or color what they see.  But beneath that, there is their soul.  The unchanging, still waters that are only theirs.  What good are we if we shut that up in favor of the voices in our head.  Our mind says, "try to think of things this way."  or "try to see things this way"  Why try?  Ok, trying to think or see things a different way is like trying on shoes.  Or it should be.  Shoes for the soul.  Soul soles (oh man... I'm gonna be RICH!).  Anyway, I mean, you're just trying something on to see how it catches you.  You and your mind are the observer.

So sitting on the train, I began to translate that into everyday experiences.  Why should anyone be afraid of anyone else?  It is fear that keeps me from talking to strangers, even when I  desperately want to start a conversation.  Imagine a world where we all just threw off the voices in our head, the ego, the voice of the society, the voice of our parents, the voices of our friend's opinions, and spoke from the soul.  Reconnect to the source.  In other words, imagine if everyone allowed themselves to be themselves.

Yet, there's a problem.  We get bogged down.  Who am I?  What am I doing with my life?  Am I living my dream?  How do I get there?  How do I take my dreams and manifest them in the real world?  What about money?  I don't have enough money to do that.  I need a better job.  I need a girlfriend.  I need a better apartment.  All of these hit me.  Every day.  Except it's all backwards.  All of those thoughts are distractions from my still soul.  I know what to do.  Everything I say, everything I do, if it came from a true place deep within, would automatically make me A) happier, and B) closer to where I think I want to be, and C) the person I really am.  The person I'm destined to be.  The person I've always been, who's been buried, hiding, unsure of how to surface.  But always there.  That's the key.  It's always there.

Every man is a prism.  Experiences shine in, through the soul, and get blasted out in rainbow light from the mouth, hands, to do thing and say things.  The mind is your sidekick.  The mind is there to help analyze.  But it may only go so far, I believe.  The truth is deep within.  It's what reverberates when you hear that song.  It's the chord of truth. 

Love

Good morning.  It's nearly 6AM.  I took a long nap earlier, and now, here I am.  I just stayed up and watched the Christmas episode of "Downton Abbey."  I am, officially, in love with that show. 

Everything in my life now seems very makeshift.  I look around my room now, which I have yet to really assemble and arrange since I moved in a few weeks ago.  I do not feel at home here exactly.  My heart has been in strange places recently.  It jots back to childhood happiness, when my mom and dad were together, and we laughed as a family.  We had a house, a home.  They were never a strong foundation for it, since their love was wrong.  They were wrong for each other.  I am burdened with worry for them both, that they won't allow themselves real happiness.  Or that they won't risk real happiness.

My heart stops off at each past relationship and tonight, finds the joy in it all.  I loved and love every girlfriend I've had.  With my last 3 year relationship, I'm feeling the loss and the joy now.  I know that it was wrong, but the fact that we shared love makes it hard.  Especially in those late-at-night, early-in-the-morning moments of stillness.  There was a beautiful love shared there.  There's a character in Downton Abbey, Matthew, who is entirely loved by his fiancee, and for that he is grateful, but doesn't truly share the same love.  I feel that way.  Yet sometimes, it's not so simple.  I miss her.  Someone else will grace my life, but I do still miss her.  I want, very much, for at the end of it all, to come together with all the women who hold a place in my heart.  Including my mom, my sisters.  They all mean so very very much to me.  I have gained a huge deal of wisdom from each of them, and feel undeserving of it.  That is why I cherish my relationship with Meagan, because I loved her, and she is still in my life, and there is no pain in that.

Yet, they are there, in my heart.  Christine, Meagan, Megan, Shayla, Kristie, Rachel.  There is bitterness, there is pain, but it doesn't change.  I am sad that I have had to let them go away.  It's the price for having loved them.  They wouldn't necessarily believe that I loved them truly, but I did.  I do.  Grateful.

I suppose the key is remaining grateful for what we did share, and letting that be enough.  I want, so much, to hug them, hold them, tell them they are loved, and that they will be happy, and that they are beautiful.  And for the pain and bitterness to vanish in the bright light of love.

Hi Life

I'm in an inspired state of mind, and guess what?  IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!  As of 3 hours ago, I'm 27.  Yes.  Yes I am.  Funny how I feel my age, as soon as I turn it.

That reawakening I was hoping for?  It's coming.  I'm thawing.  Life is being shaken up just a bit, in a good way.  The wheels are turning, and I feel suddenly tonight like I have something to say, something to give, something to share, something to love.  I have the ache of old love, the hope of new love, the need for more love, the trust in all love.  I saw a hip hop documentary tonight.  Lots of folks talking passionately about rapping.  Many of them found their bliss there.  It was so clear in their eyes, in their spirits.  My turn.  I want to speak with that fire about everything I do.  Time to create shit.  Get recognition.  Inspiration -> Confidence -> Fuck the haters -> Recognition -> Love.

Let's do it.  Do the thing. What's the thing?  Art.  Singing, performing, grabbing the mic, grabbing the guitar, grabbing the world, and shaking it.  Making my mark, leaving a scar.  Acting transcendently on stage.  Letting life course through my blood.  Another source of recent inspiration?  The guy who played captain hook in Peter and the Star Catcher.  He clearly works hard.  He's 38, and won a Tony, and is on a TV show.  His career's taking off, and he is keeping up the pace.  I saw him perform on a Tuesday night, and he was giving it every bit of himself.  He merged with the character.  He was not egoic.  Someone told me recently that she was a fan of a role she saw me in because of my commitment.  Despite awkward costumes, less-than-perfect set, she believed me.  She believed me!  That is all I want when I play a character.

Whew!  27.  Closer and closer to the man I'm becoming.

Hopefully, A Reawakening

I've felt trapped lately.  I've felt stuck.  I've felt not myself.  I keep pinpointing things in my life I wish would change, so that I could be the full me.  I started reading more Campbell, a book called "Pathways to Bliss."  It's a collection of his writings and lectures, discussing using mythology to point us toward the transcendent.  I keep having images of myself, with this fountain of Bliss inside to guide me, but what is it?  It's not enough to say, "I wish to follow my bliss.  I will quest for it."  I haven't done any questing, really.  Just thinking.  Sometimes good, most times overwhelming.  Most times, removing me from this world and into my mind.  It gets me down.  Off-center, is a good term Campbell uses.

How to re-center?  Mythology is designed to lead us.  However, in our society, we are taught to be individuals.  Which is great, but it also reduces us to a lowest common denominator.  The shows, commercials, ads on TV and everywhere make me mad sometimes, because they are telling me to react to something as if it's funny.  Or as if it's clever.  Like they're pulling a fast one on me, and I'll be brainwashed into buying something, or believing something.

I think we are all individual.  Yet we, collectively, are all the same (humans with souls).  If we individually follow our bliss, follow our hearts, be the best and only person we can be, we will simultaneously become a community.  Actor friends of mine chase money, fame, recognition, love... but sometimes the key element is missing.  The joy is missing.  There is no flow, it's just them being a plug, trying to plug in to any socket that will fit.  Trying to book any job that will come.  Yet, the energy doesn't flow through once they're plugged in.  It feels good, it feels comfortable, it feels right  for a time, but it can't persist.

It's the same with relationships.  I've felt good, I've felt right, I've felt comfortable... but that current isn't there.  There is no free flow of energy.  It gets stopped up, on both ends, and sometimes wells up on both sides, but can't connect.  Can't free-flow.

When will I wake up? 

I will keep reading.  This "what's the point" funk I've been in was shaken a bit, just by reading Campbell.  I know it's not the be-all, but he is like a religion.  He's the guru.  He's the teacher.  Or maybe he's the guy at the door to a guru.  The guy that sits next to you, listens to the guru, and says "Huh.  That's fascinating.  Don't you think?"

I keep thinking about a road trip, in which I wander.  A wander trip.  I like that better.  No responsibilities, no pressures, except to do what feels right, as a rule, at all times.  To explore, to free-form, to CREATE!  I am a creative person.  I have a crazy imagination.  It's been sleeping.  I can do this wandering in New York City, but I feel pressured, for no good reason.  I let other people's stresses and personalities affect me.  I feel like I'm letting people down lately.  Letting myself down too.  Guilt and pressure are USELESS!  And extinguished in the light of my bliss.  If I am sticking close to my bliss, I will be forgiven by those who love me.  End of story.  It's infectious.  But moping around is a deteriorating scourge.

Right now, I'm juicing my mind too much.  I'm squeezing out thoughts, answers, musings.  Useless.  It would help me to meditate on what, in my life, has felt like bliss.  And track it.  Use a little logic, like a tool, to approximate somewhere or some direction.  Head toward that, and let my heart take over.  I'm an actor, blah blah blah, I'm disillusioned by that right now.  The joy of it is wavering.  I'm an artist before that.  Absolutely.  I like to create.  I love to inspire, to have fun, to bring out a light in people and myself through some art. To appreciate any and all attempts at art, and expression of humanity.

"To try when your arms are too weary.  To reach the unreachable star."

The first time I listened through the entire story/soundtrack of Man of La Mancha, I cried.  I was driving on a long trip, and I cried tears of love, joy, sadness.  The truth of that legend hit me.  Don Quixote BELIEVES he is who he says he is.  A noble knight in love with a chaste maiden.  He sees the world for its beauty, despite its ugliness.  And his whole life has been spent that way.  In the end, he is dying, and relenting.  He says, "No, I'm an old fool after all."  But the people around him rally, and say NO!  You are Don Quixote!  Don't listen to them!  And he's BACK!  Booya!  Back in the dream that is his beautiful reality.  I love that.  It's not delusion.  It's magic. 

I'm patiently awaiting my re-awakening.  I shall be Don Quixote.

A Happy Birthday

I hit it.  It's a familiar feeling, one that I cherish.  The one that says, wait... maybe you're not living your life yet.  The one you're meant to live.  Maybe being an actor isn't the end game.  Maybe being in NY isn't the right place.  I got excited at the prospect of doing anything that makes people this united and happy:

In Denmark, a bus-and-street full of people wished the bus driver a happy birthday.  It was important enough for them to stop their day, coordinate something, and do it.  I want to be a part of stuff like that.  Always.  The NY Theater scene gets me feeling uncomfortable, like the wrong things matter.  Wrong for me.

Good to note.  I'll listen to my bliss (of which this is a part) and do my best to follow it.

Joseph Campbell on Art

He speaks my LANGUAGE!  Well, he speaks a super scholarly, hard-for-me-to-entirely-understand version of my language.  In any event, here's what he has to say about the phenomenon of experiencing life, as reflected through art, and the moments that follow:

One moment later, and we have classified the experience and may be having utterable thoughts and describable feelings about it--thoughts and feelings that are in the public domain, and they will be either sentimental or profound according to our education.  But according to our life, we have had, for an instant, a sense of existence: a moment of unevaluated, unimpeded, lyric life--antecedent to both thought and feeling; such as can never be communicated by means of empirically verifiable propositions, but only suggested by art.

I have those moments watching movies, hearing songs, THAT is the Chord of Truth.  That's Campbell's description.  And Art exists as the guitar player.  He doesn't always exactly strike that chord, but that's the reason he plays.  That's the reason he practices.  That's the reason art is a practice.  A thing to dedicate energy to.  When watching a play on stage, and the actor feels it, really lives that transcendent moment, it instantly reverberates amongst the audience.  The audience is a participant in the journey.  Some talk of the sense of having the audience in the palm of your hand.  A step above that is for you and the audience to be in the palm of something greater.

Shakespeare's verse hacks away, poetically, chiseling toward the heart of human life.  It is why he thrives today, and always will.  It resonates.  He was trying with his soul to make it so, and, sometimes, pure gold.  Sometimes, pure tripe.  Sometimes, pure unabashed comedy.  Couple that with human beings--actors--bringing their souls to the work already in place, and you not only have one writer attempting to hit that Chord of Truth, you have an entire ensemble, plus director, plus (ideally) stage crew, painters, production team.  The odds that that many souls working and living in the same field, the same world, the same wavelength. will reach that transcendent place are huge.  That's fucking why we do it!!  That's WHY!!  And it can't even be described!  How fucking crazy is that.  We do it to be alive.  A SENSE OF EXISTENCE, says Campbell, that is gone as soon as we try to catch it. 

Slings and Arrows nails it.  Final episode, final season, director and ever-at-odds friend stand backstage, mesmerized by the performance on stage.

"This isn't about us, is it."

"Nope.  Never was."

The Singing Dillema

Singing.

I've been a singer all my life.  I love to soar on a song.  When I gain "technique" I lose soul, and vice versa.  How how HOW do I maintain both?  I think technique is what you use to not blow out your voice.  I think soul is what you use to fucking really sing.  I have trouble doing either.

Central Park

It occurred to me, sitting here in the early evening in central park, how we are all on the same journey. If I didn't know better, I would think the runners, bikes, pedicabs whizzing by are all a parade. There's a Central Park loop that provides space for all to exercise. Everyone thinks they're alone on their own workout routine, journey, etc. But we're all running the same route. It's hugely symbolic. We are all playing the same game. We may think we're competing, that our personal physical conditioning makes us better than our competition, but look around. We're all playing together. When I look directly in front of me, I see individuals, groups, ans couples. But then I look toward the oncoming foot traffic, and I see a grand parade. To think you're a part of anything else is nothing but illusion. The truth is, we're all the same. "Fellow passengers to the grave as opposed to other creatures bound on other journeys," as Fred says in A Christmas Carol.

The thought relaxes and inspires me. Its implications scare me too, since it's easier, comfortable, and familiar to keep us separate.

Feed the Fire

Wonder wonder wonder.  Life is at a strange crossroads for me now.  My relationship just ended, my theater company is at a precipice, I am consciously tackling things that have remained up in the air.  I have been voraciously reading Joseph Campbell.  He has provided a beacon of hope and inspiration for me in this uncertain but profound time.  His wonder at the mysteries and fascinations of living as a human being propelled him through a life-long quest for understanding.  Although, maybe it wasn't a quest.  Maybe it was just a journey of understanding.

I just finished playing the Half Life 2: Episode Two.  (SPOILER ALERT) An important character unfairly dies at the end.  But before he does, he says he loves his daughter.  It's the last thing he needs to say.  At the end of my life, at the end of my time, it will be known who I love and how grateful I am for this life, and I will have nothing weighing on my mind.  Just love.  Love Actually is in my mind.  "When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love."

Practicing what I preach is tough, for some reason, today.  Hence, I've got inspiring quotes spinning in my head.   Dickens said we should

"Tenderly cherish the light of Fancy which is inherent in the human breast; which, according to its nurture, burns with an inspiring flame, or sinks into a sullen glare, but which (or woe betide the day!) can never be extinguished.  To show to all that in familiar things, even in those which are repellent on the surface, there is Romance enough, if we will find it out."

 Dickens and I are kindred spirits in this.  I seek to be as one who has found God.  Those religious folks who are poor of wallet, rich of infectious spirit.  However, it is not God Above that I seek, but God that is within us all.  Campbell has taught me that "God" is a symbol of something transcendent.  God is in us, god is all around us.  Our word for it is god.  I don't claim to understand it, or live it, but it is fun for me to think about and enriching to explore.

I am an artist.  That word, artist, is a symbol.  I suspect we are all "artists."  The book I'm reading is a collection of Campbell's ideas, and is called "Reflections on the Art of Living."  I'd never heard that before - The Art of Living.  But I love it!  Life cannot be lived by the book.  By any book.  Everyone's life is different.  Learning to live YOUR life is an art.  Not a science.  In art there are no rules, there are truths.  And even when you've got it figured out, you're wrong.  I'm wrong.  Even if I communicated my truth brilliantly, it will never be heard in the way I feel it.  And that is okay.  A life spent living as close as possible to the flame of those truths will keep me warm, and warm those around me to it.  Neither of us will completely understand the fire, but maybe we can feel its heat together.  The only way to communicate is to attempt to put words (symbols) to the truths of my soul.

Now, as ever, I am seeking the fire's heat, knowing it will nurture me.  Did I take that metaphor too far?  Maybe!  I was impressed with myself that the fire image popped into my head.  Had to hold on to it!

JGL

I'm a little late on the Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan boat, but I just saw 50/50 and he's definitely a role model for me.  I see nothing put-on about his performance.  He's similar to Shia LeBouf in my mind, but with an extra dose of truth.

Dissolving Bullshit

"I just want to feel something when I go to see theater."  When my mom talks about plays, tv shows, music, dance performances, movies that move her, I believe she feels that chord of truth deep down.  She values truth like I do, in its purest sense.  I am here on this earth to pursue and show that truth through art.  "This is my quest, to follow that star.  No matter how hopeless, no matter how far."  Sometimes we feel sad, depressed, bleak, to where we want to be who we were, instead of what we've become.  But the truth is, we've never changed.  It's always there, that chord of truth.  That which springs eternal within us, and is ever-nourishing if we allow it to be.

These ideas have been coming to me while reading The Power of Myth, and the whole "follow your bliss" philosophy of Joseph Campbell.  I've always known it, but he put it very eloquently, and excitedly.  Those things which strike a chord of truth within you - hold on to them!  Pay very close attention, and never let those go.  I had an acting teacher my Freshman year of college who made us all say out loud when it was we first fell in love with theater.  When we'd finished, he implored us to hold on to it.  There will be bullshit.  But in those moments of love, joy, elation, truth... there is no bullshit.  It is pure.  Those have the power to dissolve the sadness, the bullshit, the worthlessness.  Joseph Campbell calls that your bliss.  Your untouchable bliss.  You could be poor, you could be fighting with your mom, you could be alone, or worse, feel alone, you could be hungry, but the closer you let your bliss be to you and your heart, the better you will be.  The richer, the more peaceful, etc.

I am still learning what this all means, but it's there inside us.  The meaning.  Art, performance, theater, that is my bliss. Something in there holds the key to my pure joy and rapture.  I am grateful to be given permission and opportunity to pursue it.  I'm lucky.  But if you're not so lucky, fight all the more.  It is God-given, it is our reason for being, it is holy, it is pure.  It is truth.