We're Coming to Phoenix

I touched down late last night in beautiful Phoenix and am so excited to meet the wonderful local dancers who have been preparing to join me in this production!

Although Blood on the Veil is a monologue, in early 2013, I added some segments that could include other performers.

So now I am joined in every show by between four and as many as twenty local performers!!

The show begins with a dynamic emcee (Dayna, in Phoenix) who introduces the audience to the event, and then brings up two pre-show acts, showcasing contrasting styles of bellydance. These can be solos or group acts -- the only requirement is that they be of different styles.

Cane Dancers Adrienne, Mahin, and Melisula,
sporting the new Blood on the Veil Tank Tops!

The local producer (in  this case, Mahin, pictured in the center) chooses from among the local talent, and will usually look for a Tribal act and a Cabaret act, though in some shows we've had other interesting pairings such as folkloric/oriental, shaabi/American cabaret, gypsy fusion/pop cabaret fusion, and so forth.

The Phoenix show will feature Adrianne (at left) performing American cabaret, and Divine Chaos, performing their unique blend of world fusion tribal style.

At the end of the first act these and other guest performers join me in a special showcase of the various props used in bellydance (made possible by the local stage manager -- who will be TC, in Phoenix), which culminates in a riveting Egyptian cane dance (raks assaya). The Phoenix show will feature Adrienne, Mahin, and Melisula, pictured above.

At the start of Act 2, the audience is treated to a performance by a Master Teacher -- this is a dancer who is over age 45 and has been performing/teaching bellydance (any style) for more than 30 years.

For audiences new to bellydance, this is a rare treat that quickly dispels any notion of bellydance being about young girls wiggling for men's pleasure.

The Master Teachers -- in Phoenix, we are honored to be joined by the phenomenal Jazmine -- demonstrate the profound depth, skill, and magic of bellydance at any age.

Every show, I am so honored to share the stage with such powerful talent and warm hearts.

Thank you, Phoenix, for bringing the production here!

See you tomorrow night!!

Casual Racism--It's Not OK

In my early 20s I joined several NYC theater companies, happy to be a part of any group that would have me as a member.

One group was particularly small and was most focused on "collective" work. We met every week to read plays, to discuss vision, to vote on prospective members.

And every member of the group was white (yes, I count Ashkenazi Jewish as white).

Toward the end of my short year with the group I remarked to a member -- a West Virginian native -- that maybe we should try to bring in more racially or culturally diverse members. He shrugged and asked why. 

I thought this would be self-evident, but gave him the usual reasons about inclusiveness and representing at least some of the many cultures as New York had to offer. Or, more importantly, NOT excluding people for superficial reasons. 

He argued that we had no control over who applied to be a member. I suggested that we could advertise in less homogenous communities. 

He shrugged again, saying it wasn't important, then added, "Yeah. I don't know. I don't really care. I don't think it matters." My jaw dropped. 

He read my expression and added, "I guess I'm kind of racist. I don't know. It was just the way I was raised. You know, that like they just aren't as good as us? It's just how I feel. It's the way I was raised." My jaw welded to the floor. 

Seriously?!?!?!

It was like he was saying, "So, big deal if I'm a bigot, it's not my fault, and it doesn't really matter." But it was his fault. And it absolutely did matter!

Did he ever consider that any non-white prospective member just might pick up on this attitude and react accordingly? Did he ever consider that just maybe this was a heinous belief system that was responsible for some of our culture's most hateful acts??

No. 

To him it was just "how he was raised" -- in the same way a person might be raised to eat with a fork, or to love football, or to say please and thank you. But instead of being raised to have good manners, he was raised to have contempt based on skin color; and contempt is a close cousin to hatred and oppression.

Yes, racism was his "family value" -- which he embraced with a shrug of defiant indifference: If it doesn't matter, why should he bother to change it?

But racism isn't a "family value". I'ts not a "tradition" any more than child abuse is: Just because parents do it doesn't mean its OK to abuse the next generation!!

Racism is a destructive belief system -- even when it's latent -- that affects everyone in a culture: We may not be acting directly on destructive and hateful beliefs, but those beliefs influence other aspects of our behavior, as well as those around us ... who may be more inclined to act directly.

And that is important -- something for our all of us to care deeply about. 

As we have seen.

Regardless of "how we are raised" we must not unconsciously absorb the beliefs and values surrounding us.

As adults, we have a responsibility to test those values against our developing conscience. If we find ourselves holding a hateful belief, at least question it; don't chalk it up to it being "just how we feel." 

Because, while we may not be able to control how we feel, we might examine those feelings and the needs behind them. 

More importantly, evaluate how much these feelings affect our attitudes and actions, and ask: Do these beliefs harm others or ourselves? Do they cause us to hold others in contempt, to consider them less-than? If so, why would we cling to such a belief? 

To start, just ask the question... 

It is not OK to blindly perpetuate harmful attitudes as though we have no choice in the matter, as though it's "just how we're raised". We need to care and we need to choose our values.

But the only way to truly have a choice is to recognize that the beliefs we are hold are chosen, to look at why we have chosen to hold them, and acknowledge that we have the ability to un-choose them if they are harmful.  

But to do this takes honesty, introspection, and a willingness to change.

James Gandolfini, Peter Jensen, and the Importance of Acting from Wholeness

Ten years ago, James Gandolfini was interviewed on Inside the Actors Studio. He spoke candidly about emotional honesty both onstage and off -- particularly dealing with intense and taboo emotions like rage.

And although it took a few years to sink in ... his words changed my life.

I have found myself revisiting those words over the years, in daily life and in my performing work -- most recently in my current scene class at the esteemed T. Schreiber Studio, with my teacher Peter Jensen. (Yes, I'm totally psyched to be working with this studio again!)

Here is the full quote (the first part can be seen here starting at 7:50, and the last bit is continued here) but I've highlighted the sentences that stuck with me:

James Gandolfini on "Inside the Actors Studio"

One of the major things in an [acting] class... is to get up in front of people and just start to be able to make a fool of yourself. ... I remember one thing [my first acting teacher] did for me that ... got me to a new level was--  I had such anger back then... When you're young ... everybody does. You're pissed and you're not sure why. That's probably why you're all sitting here [at the Actor's Studio], because you want to express something and you don't know what it is. And she kept telling me, "Go ahead, go ahead." And I never wanted to. ... Something happened ... 

I think she told a partner to do something to me, and he did it. And I destroyed the place, you know, just all that crap they have onstage. And then she said at the end of it -- I remember my hands were bleeding a little bit, and the other guy had gotten off -- and she goes, 'See, everybody's fine ... nobody's hurt. This is what you have to do. This is what people pay for. If you don't want to do it, get off. But this is what people pay for to see. They don't want to see the guy next door...'  And that was a big step for me because then I could start to go to where my anger was ... and realize that I could control it.

Although I had not done theater for a while -- and didn't plan to as I'd started bellydancing -- I thought of this interview again and again. It became a heartening refrain for emotional, psychological, and creative integrity:

"Be able to make a fool of yourself."  Go ahead and lose it, because "this is what people pay to see."

Years later, when I returned to scene study class, Peter echoed this refrain, encouraging us to allow those behaviors and qualities most repugnant to us, because "the character is basically yourself under certain circumstances."

James Lipton of "Inside the Actors Studio"

In acting, we often forget this.

We get so involved with "creating" a character, that we forget that all we have to work with is ourselves.

Even if we are portraying a character that is wildly different from us -- so wholly anathema to the person we'd like to be that it frightens us -- onstage and off we are still always ourselves.

We must reach inside ourselves to find an authentic seed of the character, or we'll end up faking our way through each line, hoping the audience doesn't catch on.

Even if they don't notice or don't care because we've turn in an entertaining "fake" performance, it won't be satisfying  because we know it's fake. And we know the audience deserves better than that.

So this is what I've been working on in class -- finding those uncomfortable "seeds" in myself and letting them be felt and seen.

A few weeks ago, Peter assigned a scene from Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind between a man who had just beaten his wife to the point of brain damage, and the man's mother ... me.

Like much of Shepard's work, it's a twisted comedic melodrama that nests disturbing emotional truths within extreme characters and interactions that stretch plausibility. In our scene, my character is spoon-feeding her grown son "your favorite [soup]... Cream of Broccoli I made it special in the blender ... just how you like it!", as he lies tight-lipped in his childhood bed.

She babies, then bullies him, then goes on about her own life, and babies him again until he explodes. And she explodes right back. And it becomes very clear very quickly that she made him into the monster he is.

This woman combines the dark, needy manipulation of Livia Soprano with the saccharine maternal cooing of a Mommie Dearest who will do anything to get what she wants -- and what she wants is to make her Golden Son stay with her forever and ever and ever and ever.

In short: she is everything I hate about women.

Peter, I think, knew I was less than comfortable with this character; plus the scene started with a massive page-long monologue that would take me a while to memorize, so he suggested that my partner Adam and I improvise a scene that occurs sometime before the action of the play.

Peter Jensen in the indie film "A Memory"

So we went about six years back, to the evening Adam's character decides to announce to his mother that he has asked his girlfriend to marry him. This, we figured, would hit every button for the mother.

As the scene began, I had no idea how I would react to this news, and I was surprised to find my/herself simply choosing not to hear him (this, I later realized, was my grandmother's strategy -- if you hear something you don't want to hear, just block it out and continue with your own narrative).

And the scene became a nasty little comedy -- of him trying to tell his mother how much he loves his finaceé ... and of her going on about Wheel of Fortune, and how he should find himself a pretty girl like Vanna White. In short, invalidating -- annihilating -- him with each exchange.

And when he finally gets upset, she/I innocently asks why he is upset, "and maybe this is why you can't find a good woman!" At each turn she forces her own reality down his throat until he threatens to leave.

And then her threats came out:  "If you leave, don't think about coming back" -- anything, anything to get him to stay.

When finally, through sheer, brute force, he slams his own reality (as in the real reality) down her throat so that she has no choice but to hear it ... I felt a desperate, searing, percolating rage ... I bellowed like a beast and raised my hand to strike his face.

His eyes flashed wide and the other students held their breath. And in that moment I felt a rush of power. He had backed down!! ... But then I saw my partner, Adam -- not my wayward strikeworthy son.

And immediately, I realized, "Whoa ... so that's why people do this -- bullying, intimidating -- anything to control the other person." And then an impulse to rein it in reached up inside me, not wanting to hurt, not wanting to control ... And my hand stopped.

But then I realized that this is what made me not her. We all have these rages, these screaming, struggling infant needs to make the world into ourselves -- but most of us have the impulse not to hurt, while this character does not.

And I needed to let go of that part of myself if I was going to be true to her.

So as my hand was raised to hit him, I felt an inner hand release control. And I ripped into him again.

And his eyes flattened back into his character's cold defiance. He battered me with maelstrom cruel truths and stormed off. I wailed for a moment and then, realizing he was gone, true to character calmly brushed myself off and went back to Wheel of Fortune.

Of course the moment the scene was over, and I was myself again, I was teary and shaken through the feedback session. After a breath, Peter began, "Both of you ... went somewhere new here."

We glanced at each other, nodding "yes."

Tears slid from my eyes as we continued -- partly because I had frightened myself by losing control (even though I hadn't fully lost it), partly because I had never consciously allowed myself to experience that level of destructive rage, but mostly because I finally understood this character and felt her icy echo in myself.

And although I have seen this behavior in others, I had never understood the impetus behind it -- never felt it fully from the inside.

So to be able to say -- "Yes, I have this in me too" -- was a blow to my ego, because I would like to believe I am for the most part kind and goodhearted and well meaning, that I would never do what this woman does.

And yet, as an actor, I must do those things; I must truthfully allow those forbidden parts of myself.

I must be my whole self.

When we perform, our audience needs that -- anything less and both they and we are gypped.

Part of the reason we prize actors like James Gandolfini so highly is that they reach those hidden, forbidden parts of the self; they express what we can't, fully and without reservation. They both express extremes cathartically for us, and reassure us that such powerful emotion can be erupt fully, truthfully, and safely -- invoked within the containment of a theatrical play, and deeply humanized through a character with which we empathize.

And in this way, a great performance opens something in us, gives us access to those parts of ourselves that we dare not see, much less express -- allowing us, perhaps, a path towards those uncomfortable emotions that we try to deny, granting a sliver towards our own wholeness.

Because when we deny uncomfortable emotions, attempting to crush their very existence -- that is when they do become dangerous, looking for breaks in our armor through which they can erupt with with all the vengeance of a repressed creature. And we become afraid of ourselves (and, consequently, afraid of others).

Theater -- great storytelling of any kind -- expresses, metabolizes, and humanizes what seems most foreign to us, and in so doing brings the performer and audience to a greater understanding and wholeness.

Why Bother?

"I don't know why you even bother with these people. There are better uses for your time."

It's the mid-90s and I've just gleefully read aloud my letter to the editor of the NY Press which had been printed that day. It was a satirical response to the prior issue's horrifyingly racist essay bemoaning the "influx of brown people" and subsequent decline of Western Civilization.

My letter was a good piece of writing and I was proud of it. But my roommate just sneered and shook his head: "Why on earth do you bother?!"

I was crestfallen, shamed, silenced.

At that time the NY Press was a free alternative weekly newspaper that became so popular it forced the venerable Village Voice to forego its cover price.

The Press was the conservative answer to the liberal Voice -- and even though I'm a dyed-in-the-organic-wool liberal ... I guiltily had to admit I enjoyed the Press more. It was what Jerry Springer was to Phil Donahue -- mad, incendiary, argument-for-argument's-sake trainwreck entertainment. And I adored it. And it liked me back.

For about a year I wrote letters poking fun at some of the racist, sexist, homophobic rantings of its various conservative authors. Stuff like:  "It was the tone of voice your father used when he told you what girls were for." Or, "How can a man use another man the way he would use a woman," or, in this most recent diatribe, "Masses of brown washing up on our shores" (or something to that effect -- this author quoted liberally from the execrable racist tome The Camp of the Saints.)

Nearly every letter I sent was selected for print! It was exhilarating! 

For years after college I had been blocked as a writer. Even doing stand-up, I was afraid of writing anything down because I was afraid of how it would look in print. It took years of acting in plays before I culled the nerve to write even short plays and monologues, most of which I was afraid even to submit for production.

But now, thanks to the Press, I was beginning to feel bolder and considered pitching a column to the editors ... but after this devastating exchange with my roommate, I went back to questioning myself -- what I wanted, what I felt, what I enjoyed.

To make it worse, he followed up with stuff like, "I'm only telling you this because I care about you and I don't want to see you waste your time."

With a decade of hindsight, I realized that he may simply have been jealous. Whatever else the Press may have been, it had a hell of a readership.

And even if its entire mission was to be one big fat hardcopy pre-internet troll, the conversations it stirred -- about race, sexuality, class, bigotry -- were worth having. And I LOVED having them. And I was good at it.

But that one sentence -- "You're wasting your time" -- deflated my enthusiasm faster than the harshest insult. It was a stealth blade, carving through my defenses with the claim of good intentions.

It echoed my sister, when I told her I was trying stand-up comedy:  "Ugh! That's so stupid. Why would you even want to do that??!"

Or my boyfriend when I wanted to start a fan club for my favorite band, "Why are you even bothering with that? You should do something real!"

Again and again this happened. I'd want to do a thing and make the mistake of telling someone whose opinion I was foolish enough to value, and I'd get: "What for? Why do you care? Why bother??!?"

Needless to say, not one of them had any thoughts about what was "real" or "smart" or "productive" or "worth bothering" over. And if they did, would their suggestions truly have been more "real/ smart/ productive/ worthwhile" than the things I wanted to do?

No.

Because the very fact that I wanted to do these things, that I enjoyed and was drawn to them -- that fact in itself -- made them worthwhile to me!

And that is what counts.

Knowing what we want, what we care about, what interests us is part of who we are. This, and only this, is what makes life fulfilling for us -- whether it's mastering an art or playing video games or getting a degree or getting laid -- if we do what makes us happy, and are able to make a living because or in spite of it, and aren't hurting innocent people -- whose business is it to judge one way or the other??

If we are able to pay attention to, honor, and follow our small, immediate joys, we become able to form larger goals that will be genuinely rewarding for us. That is the only way to avoid the trap of hollow ego goals which, once fulfilled ... tend to be unfulfilling.

Now, we might find an immediate enjoyment in conflict with a larger goal -- like if I want to run a marathon but stay home watching TV every day rather than running. Then a friend might point out that there was a conflict between what I am doing and what I say I want which would need to be dealt with.

But even there, the choice is:  "What makes me happier?" not "Which is more real/ smart/ productive/ worthwhile?"

Ask:  "Do I truly enjoy the TV I'm watching, or am I just staying in my comfort zone? Do I really enjoy running or do I just want to say I've run a marathon to puff up my ego?" (There is more to be said on "authentic goals vs. ego goals," but that is a topic for another essay!)

So the next time you tell a friend or family member about something you want to do, and with irritation they respond: "Why on earth would you want to bother with that??"

Tell them:  "It's no bother to me. Now, why does it bother you?"

The Best of Times

I am exhausted.

From Thursday through Sunday -- 9am to 7pm -- I went to a stage combat intensive and did more falling, rolling, punching, kicking (fake and not fake), sword- and knife-fighting, than I have ... probably ever.

And then Sunday night, I had my solo show -- which isn't quite a solo show anymore; three dancers now join me in certain parts, but within the mammoth two-hour performance time I am alone onstage talking, dancing, and even singing -- in Arabic!

So it's a tad tiring.

And on Monday, it was back to my full-time day job.

It usually takes a full day to recover from doing the show -- but that's without the four days of crazy workshops beforehand.

So, yeah, every part of my body hurts.

I am indeed completely and wholly exhausted -- deliciously exhausted -- and have never been happier in my life.

This Shaw quote from Man and Superman is pinned to my cubicle wall, and it has become my credo:

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

In other words:  The very source of my exhaustion is also recharging my battery!

Joseph Campbell said: "I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be."

And my experience of working on this show -- of pursuing all of the different crazed combinations of performance arts from stand-up to Shakespeare to bellydance to Bollywood to mime to stage combat and beyond that have congealed to form this work, and are even now conspiring in the back of my mind to create new and wonderful projects -- has borne that out in more ways than I can count.

The path towards it was never clear; in fact, I had been flat-out told to give up on performing altogether by teachers and colleagues alike during the course of my circuitous path through the theatrical world. (When one teacher "compassionately" told me many years ago that I should "consider other aspects of the business" a fellow student said, "Well aren't you glad to learn that now...?")

I was in misery for a lot of years knowing that there was something inside me screaming to be put onstage, but what and how and where ... ?? I had no idea, and no one to guide me, and was mostly discouraged along the way by those in "the business." (Thankfully I did have the enduring support of wonderful friends and family, but when one is discouraged, it is difficult to feel love and support.... )

That was The Worst of Times.

During those times I suffered from exhaustion too -- but that was the exhaustion of depression, of spinning wheels going nowhere, of confusion, doubt, and despair.

But I kept Campbell's words at the back of my mind and fine-tuned my bliss-sensors.

As I attended classes in improv and sketch writing, lectures on Jung and archetypal analysis -- and even went back on the stand-up stage -- I kept close watch on my Level of Joy. Where did I feel "tuned in, tapped in, and turned on"?

I kept asking:  Where do I find myself seeking the approval of others? And where is the endeavor its own reward?

Bellydance class was an earshattering clarion.

Even though all rational sense told me I had no hope of dancing professionally -- EVER -- the level of joy I felt in those early classes surpassed everything. I felt compelled to practice every day, increasingly feeling more and more to be my True Self.

I practiced to exhaustion, and often to frustration, as I struggled with each new movement.

From the outside, it was a hopeless, unrewarding endeavor. But from the inside, something deep and powerful was being explored and expanded and expressed.

I could say it was like an addiction, but an addiction implies an easy, ephemeral high with a destructive aftermath; this bliss was solid work, and the work itself was pure joy and passion.

It's here that I begin to lose the words to describe what happened next... perhaps I'll find them in a later blog entry ... but the best I can say is that, having honed my sense of what James Hollis calls the "tuning fork of the soul" with this dance, I was able to return to theater with an ability to speak in a voice that was wholly mine.

And so came the show -- almost of its own accord -- fashioning itself from my life experience; and all I had to do was let it emerge. At least that was the first step. :-)

Then, of course, came the rough and painful work of building a compelling and cohesive narrative -- but even that was a joy, as people and opportunities appeared at exactly the right moment to give me the help I needed.

Take, for example, my dear director, Jeff, to whom I'd whine and moan for half of our allotted rehearsal hours about how much I hated a particular part of the script -- or sometimes I'd complain about some ridiculous and unrelated personal problem. But he, being a gifted writer who was all too familiar with the Creative Process, knew that even my wildest diversion would lead to the A-Ha! moments of finding the right words or movements or intentions.

Everything began to fit together, becoming clear -- like pulling back from a pointillist painting and finally seeing the image you had sensed existed all along.

And so The Worst of Times became The Best of Times ... and now I am realizing the one could not have come without the other.

Had it not been for what seemed to be rootless, frustrated searching -- for what seemed to others to be procrastination and wasted efforts -- had it not been for the very ability to endure confusion and despair that developed during that time, I would not have culled the very resources that are making this show and the intense efforts behind it not only possible, but absolutely, unambiguously, wholeheartedly, exhaustedly and exhaustively joyful!

How could I possibly ask for more?

Mixed Tapes

"When you get home, Carol, listen to the tape."

I am in my early 20s crying my face off in acting class. For the past few months I have been working on a monologue, struggling with it ... a deeply emotional piece, raw dialogue that is so foreign to me, my mouth contorts to form the sounds.

In this class, we "work" every other week: The class is divided in half. Each session, half the class presents a monologue as though it were for an audition, with no feedback from the teacher or class aside from possible applause. The students in the other half of the class present their monologues, and then get a half-hour to explore it textually, emotionally, applying various techniques from the teacher's eclectic background.

We all bring cassette tapes to record our work.

This is my "audition" week. No feedback.

The week before I had worked into tears (and this was the kind of class where, if you didn't cry, it wasn't "good work"), but it still felt wrong. I could not find the character, the voice. It was strangled and dead. The tears were more for myself, my inadequacy, rather than borne of the character.

Over subsequent days, I said the lines again and again, embedding the language in my tongue, just reciting them blandly. Then I did emotional work, finding a parallel situation, bringing myself through a meditation to reach directly into the memory. Gave me nightmares.

When it came time to present the monologue in class, I was sick and shaking. I don't even remember starting. I barely remember a word coming out of my mouth, but I remember feeling OK. I remember feeling ... something. And I remember ... when I stopped....

There was silence.

No one clapped or even smiled, just nothing. I was devastated.

I went back to my chair, still shaking and holding back tears. I kept them back for two hours, until class ended, and as the others gathered their things, I collapsed in a puddle.

"What on earth is the matter?" the teacher asked, putting an arm around me. I squirmed away. "Nothing. It's nothing." I cried harder.

"Now I will not let you leave until you tell me," the teacher demanded.

"It's just... it's just," I gurgled, "I worked so f*cking hard on that monologue... you have no idea."

"I know!" she beamed, "It was wonderful!"

"What?" I blurted, "Well you're the only one that thinks so!"

"What do you  mean?"

"Well, when I was done -- the class, they just ... they just sat there! And don't give me some crap about 'stunned silence' -- if you like something, you clap, right?"

"Um... Carol ... You need to listen to the tape. That's all I'm going to say." She handed me the cassette with one last pat on the shoulder and walked off.

For three days I could barely look at the tape, much less listen to it.

But finally I shoved it in my boombox and gritted my teeth.

The voice was mine, but different. The character sounded .... real. I knew the words by heart and had listened to all the tapes from the other times I'd worked on it. But this time, it was almost like I'd never heard it before. Very strange.

And at the end. There was silence. For about 5 seconds you could hear a pin drop.

And then ... there it was.

Applause.

Lots of it. For maybe a minute. A few little cheers too.  And I had heard none of it.

Stanislavsky says that when an actor delivers a good performance s/he usually won't remember much in detail, only a general feeling of "rightness." I had heard actors say that very emotional roles can create an "out of body" experience -- an altered consciousness akin to being on drugs -- but this took the cake!

And it frightened me a little.

I was glad that I did good work, that I had finally brought the piece to where it needed to go. But how was this possible? How did I space out on a full minute of applause?

The strong emotion of the piece probably had a lot to do with it, as well as my anxiety over having worked on it fruitlessly for so long. But lurking underneath all that were, I realized, very deep, rancid feelings of unworthiness: I did not deserve applause, appreciation, kindness, warmth, and so I could not receive it; I could not even perceive it.

In the New Age world, much is made of the "Law of Attraction": that you get what you focus on. But even if you don't believe New Age hocus-pocus about mystically attracting to ourselves whatever is in our minds (I sort of do, by the way, but that is for another essay), here was proof positive that at the very least our thoughts can effectively filter our realities to be what we expect them to be.

It is daunting and humbling to think that our perceptions are so fragile, but they are -- and if you show me someone who thinks they aren't, I will show you someone who is in powerful denial.

In Signs of Intelligent Life, Lily Tomlin says, "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch."

And I like that definition, because it allows each of us to have our own realities (which, in my case, was one where I was unappreciated), but also begs us to open our reality, be flexible to the perceptions of others.

Now, in this case, I had a tape recording, which offered pretty irrefutable proof that my perceptions were off. Stuff on video or in writing is equally valuable for this, but even in those cases, there can be differences in perception -- or in the meaning of what is perceived, since two people might agree on the facts of an event but assign completely different meanings and motives. And the assignment of meaning and motive will generally come from our underlying belief system, whether we are aware of it or not.

So awareness is key.

In this particular case, I did not realize how strong my feelings of unworthiness were. But by learning irrefutably how they had affected my perception, I began look for when and how they were coming into play, to constantly question whether or not my perceptions were valid.

Now, this can leave one feeling out-to-sea -- because even a disheartening view of one's self and the world is "safer" than an uncertain one (which is probably why we are often unwilling to challenge our belief systems). But in the end, it has served me well.

I've come to look more squarely and honestly at what really happened in experiences that seemed to support my negative feelings. And I have been very lucky to find friends who have helped me in this, who will tell me their perceptions honestly regardless of what they think I want to hear.

And while, often enough, I will perceive rejection or lack of appreciation when it isn't there, other times it will be there (heck, even paranoids have enemies!), but my friends help me put that in perspective too. And I do my best to return the favor to them.

Most important, though, is to retain a measure of self-doubt, and pepper it with optimism; try to focus on those encounters and experiences that are more encouraging, give less weight to the other stuff (but be careful not to ignore it altogether).

And always, always be open and flexible to new versions of reality. It is not the easiest or "safest" way to live, but it can prove the most rewarding.

The "Should I Talk to Him?" Moment

In early 2007 I had gone to see a play with George Grizzard in it.

He was one of my favorite actors when I was a kid, mesmerizing as John Adams in The Adams Chronicles as well as the lead in one of my favorite hourlong Twilight Zone episodes, In His Image. Although he was primarily a theater actor, originating the role of Nick in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, he invariably showed up in many, many 60s, 70s and 80s TV shows, always lending even the silliest show great integrity and presence.

After the play in 2007, I saw him smoking a cigarette outside the theater and had one of those, "Should I talk to him?" moments.

I decided, "Yes!"

So I gingerly approached. At first he was a bit standoffish, but when I told him what I knew of his work, even quoting lines he'd no doubt long since forgotten, he smiled and said, "You know, I'm really glad you came to talk to me. That was very nice to hear."

He died a few months later.

Pay No Attention to that Woman Behind the Curtain! (Thoughts on Directing, Part 2)

The theatre director's hand should be invisible, as though the playwright's words are flowing effortlessly from the page to the stage.  Throughout the rehearsal process, a good director must nudge and inspire the actor from within, rather than domineer and control from without.

This invaluable credo is central to the excellent book A Sense of Direction, by William Ball, which I mentioned in my earlier blog entry on theatre directing. Indeed, the Wizard of Oz quote graces the very first pages.

So, from the beginning, I understood that a good director must not be a puppeteer -- and must not hold too tightly to whatever initial vision he or she formed upon first reading the play. What appears on the stage must arise organically, a product of the director's unfolding vision and the actors' intuitive creativity.

The director shapes and prunes, and always keeps faith in the actors, no matter how awful things get in rehearsal. And, when this is done gently and seamlessly, sometimes even the actors are not entirely aware of the director's work, and can find themselves believing the finished performance would have emerged all on its own.

*  *  *

"What did you make of that last play?" I asked a fellow theatre company member as we headed out of an evening of one-acts.
"Which one?" she asked, searching her mind for images that she had seen less than 10 minutes before.
"The thing about the woman in the bar... in Scotland? She meets this weird drunken guy...?"
"Oh right!" she said and paused.  "Not much!! I mean, what was that?"
"That was Life and Death -- the same play I directed a few months ago. Which you liked..."
"It was? No fucking way."

But, yes, it was. It was. In every fucking way.

Earlier that year, I had been given this spare, tense script about a vulnerable American tourist who is beset, seduced, frightened and charmed by a tortured charismatic Scottish nobleman in Edinburgh.

My two actors: Lee, a slight young woman with a hint of toughness, and Greg, a stocky, good-natured 30-something guy from Staten Island.

Lee immediately had a sense of the character's vulnerability and curiosity.

Greg, on the other hand, had no clue whatsoever. In the initial read, he started overacting, hunched over like a slightly deranged Jack Nicholson with a hint of Peter Lorre.

"Um... Let's try it again," I said, "And just sit up straight in the chair. And don't worry so much about acting. Just read the words for sense."

Now he gave me a more straight-backed Jack Nicholson.

"OK," I said afterwards, "That's getting there. And it's good that you're getting a sense of the dangerousness of this character. But remember, she's not running away, so he is charming her, right?" Greg agreed. "So, once again, don't worry so much about acting, just put in the back of your mind how you might talk to a woman you're interested in."

Now he stared at her relentlessly and even seemed to be salivating a bit.

"OK, let's take a break," I said.

Greg went for a cigarette and Lee pulled me aside, shaking her head, "This is really creeping me out!" "I know, I know," I sighed, "Give him a chance."

"Have you ever seen My Favorite Year?" I asked Greg after rehearsal.

"The thing with Peter O'Toole and the Jewish guy?" he asked.

"Yes. Yes, that's the one. Before our next rehearsal, can you watch that and pay special attention to Peter O'Toole's performance? Because, remember this character isn't American, so he should be..."

"You mean kind of faggy-like?"

"Um... yeah...."

"Sure. No problem."

So Greg watched My Favorite Year and came back with a respectable embodiment of an upper-class Brit. We tamed the creepy leering and punched up the properness and things started to work.

But he was still having a hard time with the character's many transitions.

As he is charming and seducing the woman, he delves into increasingly angry and resentful diatribes about his brother being killed in "The American War" (i.e. Vietnam). Then he switches in to charming-mode, and then into dangerous seduction (OK, we kept a bit of the initial creepy leer after all :-> ), and then he goes back into Vietnam-War-anger, then he wistfully reflects on his life in Scotland and then back into charming, and then seduction, and around and around...

And Greg couldn't tell one beat from the next.

So I bought a box of crayons and color coded the script: pink for charming, red for seduction, light green for the early stages of the Vietnam diatribe, and darker green as his anger intensifies, then light blue for the reflective bits, and so on.

I had him monologue about the brother and about the war, about sex and love. We went through the script and found active, riveting verbs for each beat, layering moments of tension and suspension which gave the whole thing a beautiful roller-coaster feel.

In short, I practically breast-fed the guy.

And through it all, there was Lee....

She did well enough responding to what he was now giving her, but since I had to focus so much on him, I was not able to help her develop her character.

Even on opening night, she was working with generalities like, "I'm in Scotland to escape..." From what? Why? What do you want?? We never figured it out. She did well enough because she was a good actor, but I did her a disservice....

The upshot?

The playwright LOVED him -- and hated her. (And she didn't care much for me either.)

It turned out that the piece was semi-autobiographical, and the playwright made the mistake of expecting to see an onstage re-enactment of her own experience with some real-life Scottish weirdo.

She expected to see her own anguish, frailty, desire, frustration, confusion, etc. played out in Lee's eyes. To the playwright, this was a story about the woman. And, perhaps because she was telling her own story, she believed the vividness in her mind's eye would come across in the text, but it didn't.

As the play is written, the woman is just a foil for this bizarre man; to artificially make it her story would only dilute the drama.

Anyway. Everyone loved it. And everyone LOVED Greg.

Lee and I stood aside as exiting audience shook his hand and slapped his back. He continued to receive praise -- and additional roles -- for weeks and months after the show.

And the theatre company loved it so much there was talk of entering it in the Samuel French festival for Best One-Act Plays. And they decided to remount it a month or two before the festival. But this time, without Lee -- and without me.

The playwright cast herself in the woman's role and got some friend of hers to direct the incomphrehensible mess that appeared on the mainstage that summer.

The result was bad. It was worse than bad.

It was instantly forgettable.

But What I Really (Didn't!) Want to Do ....

... is direct.

When actors whine that "what they really want to do is direct," they are talking about film -- where, in these days of the auteur, the film director is seen to exercise complete control in realizing his or her vision.

Indeed, an auteur -- as a director of signature-style films -- (Jim Jarmush, Woody Allen, Tim Burton, the Coen Brothers, etc.) can be more of a star than any given actor in his (yes his, more often than her) films.

Not so in the world of theatre directors.

"im in theatre class," [sic] pleaded a student on Yahoo's message board, "and i need a famous theatre director and i cant find anything......so please help me........."

Needless to say, the Wikipedia list of theatre directors provided by a thoughtful respondent yields very few recognizable names -- at least to those who aren't in theatre. And the few notables belong to directors who famously crossed over to film: Orson Welles, Mike Nichols, Laurence Olivier, Bob Fosse, and the like.

When I first joined a Manhattan theater company, in my early 20s, with little training and questionable talent, I had less of a clue about exactly what a director did than our young Yahoo poster. Like much of the average audience, I was quick to assign the finished product on the stage entirely to the actor and writer.

As far as I knew, the director made sure everyone knew their lines and didn't trip over the furniture.

And even in my first few one-acts, it didn't seem like the director did much -- other than the lines-and-furniture thing.

This, it turns out, was because those few directors just weren't very good.

This particular company did not actively seek directors; their bread-and-butter was young out-of-towners hungry for any -- and I do mean ANY -- NYC stage experience. So we all auditioned, paid $100 and were guaranteed a role.

If we wanted more roles, we had to do stuff for the company: stage manage, run lights and sound, build sets, clean the theater, run the box office, create flyers and programs -- and direct.

So many of the directors were just actors who were grudgingly putting in hours so they could get their butts back onstage.

And then I was cast in a sensitive, two-person drama about a jilted wife reuniting with her fanatical ex who had run off with a cult.

I was completely lost.

Thankfully, I had a director who had actually studied directing, and who wanted to pursue a career in directing. And she was brilliant!! She helped me understand the meaning and intention of each beat, to clarify and solidify my performance, and create a moving drama.

Slowly, it became clear to me how crucial good directing was -- and how very difficult it was, first to grasp the meaning of the play, and then to guide the actors towards the fullest, richest telling of the story.

About a year later, I was given my first one-act to direct. And, happily, I came across ACT director William Ball's outstanding book A Sense of Direction, which not only gave me essential tools for directing; it changed my understanding of acting as well.

It also seared into my brain the maxim that The Director is Always Responsible -- no matter what, with no excuses; the finished product is the director's responsibility. You can never, ever blame the actor. (Admittedly, a few times I've wanted to blame the writer, but even there, a badly written play can be directed into something worth watching... more on this in another entry).

This uncompromising acceptance of responsibility at first seemed daunting, but ultimately I embraced it as both a challenge and even an act of unconditional love.

I had once heard that to truly love a thing, you can fully -- without delusion or denial -- see it in its current and perhaps flawed state, and you can also see its most beautiful, most fully realized potential. In short, you can see what it wants to be. And through love (and more than a little sweat and tenacity), you can guide it to that fruition.

And I think that many of the actors understood this about me... that no matter how hopeless things sometimes seemed in rehearsal, they knew I had faith in them, in the play, and in the creative process itself, and so they had faith in me.

I soon began to love directing (though, diva that I was -- and still am -- still sought the spotlight when I could), and within a few months I was given my first full-length play.

To this day, the playwright -- who has been produced throughout the US -- considers that production among the best of his work.

He recently wrote, "Some things about that little production I’ll never forget -- some things you don’t even know about -- like my sister’s reaction. She’s passed away now. She came up from Florida to see it. She had no idea what I was up to. I can still see her leaning against the wall afterward, across the room from me, mouthing the words, wow, wow, wow -- blown away."

And many other playwrights have felt the same. Even after I left the company, I had been sought out to direct more work for satisfied playwrights.

And even though I know -- and they know -- exactly how much the director's hand is responsible for what the audience sees... sometimes I forget.

And so do they....

Sometimes, even as the audience cheers, and friends are slapping their castmember pals on the back... I can't help thinking, "Could this have been done without me....?"

To be continued...