On the Theater of Violence

I have observed that there is some popularity in producing theater that emphasizes negative aspects of the human condition. And yes, that was an intentionally obvious statement.

I find that often, such theater is enjoyable, humorous, or enlightening. It creates a positive result out of something negative--we'll call it the 'badness'--it might mock the badness until we can laugh at it, or perhaps it hyperbolizes the badness in a comical way. The audience may go away thinking this badness is ludicrous and laughable in addition to being bad. This is a positive result because it lets people cope with the badness.

Perhaps it satirizes the badness. Or perhaps it shows a particular badness in all its horrifying details in hopes of shocking the audience into questioning themselves about it. The hope being that audience members might avoid that badness in the future, might ask new questions that might lead to a better life. Again, a positive result.

But this note is called "On the Theater of Destruction," and so I must now define Theater of Destruction as any piece of theater that creates an overall negative effect. If at this point you're asking, 'what kind of theater creates an overall negative effect?' I'll give an example: A play that, in essence, is saying that life is shitty.

There seems to be a common error in some thinking where people equate life being difficult to life being shitty. Difficult does NOT equal shitty. I can agree that life is difficult, but I will never agree that life is shitty. In fact I will vehemently oppose anyone who makes such a vile and, in my opinion, grotesque declaration. And my big question when I go to a play that tells me that life is shitty is--why on earth would anyone put on a play about this? Why would anyone PAY to see a show like this? Why would anyone expect other people to pay to be told that life sucks???

It is destructive to tell people that life is awful: that life is, in itself, a 'badness' both overwhelming and inescapable (except, in some cases, through death).

It is infuriating to go to a show and come away with nothing but "life is difficult and therefore it sucks," or to go to a show and be told that "people are animals [in a base and disgusting way]." It is not only a waste of my time it is an ASSAULT upon my consciousness. And the only conclusion I can draw (since I assume that the director, actors, and playwright are not actually suicidal) is that the creators of the show are doing it to be controversial or something. As if it were bold or brave to say that life sucks. As if it were taboo territory or an experimental horizon of theater to be explored.

It's not taboo territory. And it's not bold or brave. It's just a meaningless violence committed against your audience.

And I can only speak for myself, but I wouldn't want that on my conscience.

Icons - Final Round

I don't want to say anything specific about what round three of Icons entailed, since this is a public blog and part of the strength of round three is that it takes you by surprise.

I didn't know what it was going into it and I'm so glad I didn't. As it was, it was one of the most engaging, demanding, and fun exercises I've done all year.

I'm going to write simply that sometimes you have experiences with acting that remind you of why you fell in love with it to begin with. Today was one such day for me.

To describe this feeling, simply because I don't want to forget it: it was like without having to think at all I embodied the text and communicated it with ease and passion. I connected to the words effortlessly--it was in my body and in my voice and every move I made was made on natural impulse. Emotion wasn't summoned--it just flowed through me--another result of my simple committal to getting my point across.

Anyway. It felt great. And I know it was compelling. Today was a good day.

Perspectivism

I'm posting my essay on Nietzsche's theory of perspectivism for anyone who's interested.

I myself don't know that I can fully endorse everything that Nietzsche says, but I do think that his concept of human nature is one of the most interesting, cohesive, and coherent views I have ever heard of. And I think even if one doesn't fully buy into the sort of ultimate statements Nietzsche makes about human nature and reality and stuff, there are still a lot of really important things to take away from his writing and incorporate into your own personal philosophy. His thoughts on the will to power are not only fascinating but highly useful ideas in understanding how people (including yourself) work. And I think his whole view of individualism is a pretty healthy and life-affirming take on what it means to live a meaningful life.

Anyway: Perspectivism.

Nietzsche’s Perspectivism and the Freedom to Risk Everything

Nietzsche is not known for being direct and to the point, but there is a method to his madness. His philosophy of perspectivism is never explicitly detailed but it can be discerned, and though it often seems to contradict itself it actually makes a circular sort of sense; it is arguably no more or less circular than the standard Lockean view of reality, which maintains that there is an external reality and that we have access to and can gain veridical information about that reality through experience. Nietzsche diverges from Locke by supporting a standard monist view of reality, where there is no separation of self from reality, and therefore there is no singular “truth” of reality that can be accessed. In Nietzsche’s view, experience does define our perception of reality, but as Nietzsche points out that experience itself is necessarily conceptualized, and therefore our individual experience is all there is to go on. As he says in section 36 of Beyond Good and Evil, “Suppose nothing else were ‘given’ as real except our world of desires and passions, and we could not get down, or up, to any other ‘reality’ besides the reality of our drives,” (237). There is literally no distinction between empirical perception and reality; they are one and the same. But that is only the groundwork for Nietzsche’s perspectivism. There are a couple possible problems or seeming contradictions that arise with Nietzsche’s perspectivism which might cause one to doubt its credibility, but I argue that there are solutions that make it believable.

One such potential problem is raised early on when Nietzsche denies the necessary validity or superiority of truth. It is important to note, in this case, that what Nietzsche is doing is not saying “no statements are true” or “all statements are false,” which would clearly be a paradoxical thing to assert (if the statement “no statements are true” is true, then it is false). Importantly, such a statement still confines itself to vocabulary and assessments based on the existence of truth and falsity. What Nietzsche is really doing is throwing into question the entire valuation of truth vs. falsity as an example of questioning the popular perspective. Rather than assert that all truth is actually false (which is where the paradox would lie), Nietzsche simply suggests that there might be alternatives to the standard “faith in opposite values,” that ideologies such as truth vs. falsity and good vs. evil might be rendered meaningless in a perspective that eschewed them, and therein lies the logic behind the title of Beyond Good and Evil (200). So can perspectivism be believed? If you accept what it rests upon: the theory that not only our reality but our entire evaluative system is a matter of personal faith and perspective, then it becomes very difficult not to believe its validity. After all, the very concept of validity vs. invalidity implies an evaluative system: an evaluative system which is entirely subjective and therefore not an effective rationale for definitively disproving or disbelieving in perspectivism. Therefore perspectivism is at least as believable as standard realism, which contends (as an equally faith-based foundation) that there is an external world and that therefore our evaluative system might not be subjective.

To return though, to the core of perspectivism: If every individual’s experience of reality is different, and if there is no external reality or separation between reality and individual experience, then the logical conclusion is that each person’s reality is different. If each person’s reality is different because of their concepts then it follows that an individual should be able to alter their own world by altering their concepts. In fact, by altering one’s own concepts one should be able to alter one’s world to be optimal: specifically defined in such a way that is ideal. In essence, this is the core tenet of Nietzsches’s perspectivism: If you are strong enough you may undertake the overthrow of popular norms or dogmas in search of a perspective that is specialized to your own needs, and thus is comprehensively life-affirming and allows you to “discharge your strength” in a way that the popular dogmas never could (since they are not tailored specifically to you). The “will to power” is what Nietzsche observes as the explanation of “our entire instinctive life,” to exert control over ourselves and others and so discharge our strength (238). This is the valuation Nietzsche argues (I think, persuasively) that should be used in assessing a particular perspective, for what could be a better measurement of quality than the measurement of how well it embraces and encourages your life and your “will to power.”

Thus, the creation of one’s world is the core of perspectivism. Nietzsche argues though, that to do so is certainly not easy; in fact it is dauntingly difficult and dangerous. In section 1 of Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche writes “for it does involve a risk, and perhaps there is none that is greater,” (199). This is because as a necessary precursor to creating one’s own perspective, Nietzsche argues that one must first reject the predominant dogmas or beliefs of the current widely held perspective. Clearly, the current popular perspective works to some degree, since not everyone kills themselves right away. There are certain life-affirming components to the popular perspective that help us operate from day to day. In section 121 of The Gay Science, Nietzsche writes, “We have fixed up a world for ourselves in which we can live—assuming bodies, lines, planes, causes and effects, motion and rest, form and content: without these articles of faith, nobody now would endure life,” (171). So as you begin to reject certain dogmas of the popular perspective, you risk getting rid of something life-affirming with nothing to replace it, and thus place yourself at a sort of psychological peril, and thus a more complex picture of perspectivism begins to develop. The core tenet of perspectivism, as stated above, is to attempt to create a perfect perspective of reality for oneself, but there is no safe way to do so and in fact the very process must begin with dangerous experiments in the rejection of popular dogmas—dangerous because to do so automatically places one’s psychological struggles “so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it nor sympathize,” (232). Yet this is the task of the “free spirit,” who has not yet created his own perspective, but must as a necessary precursor experiment with liberating himself from certain aspects of the popular perspective.

The free spirit is a person who eschews the dogmas of the popular perspective, and is thus free from those dogmas. However it is not quite that simple. As Nietzsche points out, most accepted dogmas are on some level interrelated and interdependent. For example, dogmas of truth vs. lies, good vs. evil, commonly accepted social morality, and the concept of free will and accountability are all meshed together. The idea that there is truth justifies that there could be a higher good and a corresponding set of “wrong” actions (evil), which in turn justifies commonly accepted social morals, ethics, and norms, while the concept of free will means that people are responsible for their actions and can choose between right and wrong, and therefore can be punished if they choose wrong. Everything connects. Therefore, the free spirit is faced with a difficult quandary. The free spirit cannot deny all dogmas at once, for the free spirit is not yet capable of forming a new perspective, and cannot live without perspective because as stated earlier all of reality is perspective. Attempting to reject all dogmas—or attempting to live with some sort of dogma-free perspective—would simply not provide for any comprehension of the world, and thus would inevitably result in the free spirit collapsing back into the popular perspective in order to function. But without denying all dogmas, how can the free spirit deny even one, when they are all interdependent and give rise to each other? This is one of the possible internal contradictions of perspectivism, and one reason it might be argued that it is not a cohesive or coherent philosophy: If the core tenet of perspectivism relies on one’s ability to break from popular dogmas to create one’s own perspective but there is no sustainable way of breaking from the popular dogmas, it is a self-refuting philosophy. But in fact, while it might not be possible for a free spirit to reject all dogmas at once, and it might not be possible to reject one or two dogmas for any extended period of time without them all falling back into place, it is possible for a free spirit to reject a few dogmas at a time while changing frequently. With enough willpower, a free spirit may be able to consciously accept some dogmas and deny others for a moment and so on from moment to moment and day to day. In this way, a free spirit may experiment with rejecting dogmas and perhaps reject all of them in time, but never all at once (at least until ready to forge a new perspective as a philosopher of the future). In this way, they free themselves from certain dogmas of the popular perspective through self-experimentation.

The concept of self-experimentation is important because there is no other way to create a new perspective. You cannot describe a new perspective to yourself, or think in the hypothetical, for as long as you operate with the terminology and psychology of your current perspective you cannot possibly escape that same perspective. The only way to discover a new perspective is to adopt it fully, to live it. Nietzsche says in section 41 of Beyond Good and Evil, “One should not dodge one’s tests, though they may be the most dangerous game one could play and are tests that are taken in the end before no witness or judge but ourselves,” (241-242). For these same reasons, Nietzsche felt it was futile to communicate a new perspective to a person (since they would only be able to misunderstand it as long as they remained within their own perspective). And this is one reason why Nietzsche never explicitly details his argument with any direct specificity. Nietzsche is conflicted because he himself is describing a phenomenon that he clearly hopes may guide people to a new perspective, but by the very nature of perspectivism one cannot guide someone to a new perspective. They must discover it for themselves. So Nietzsche attempts to point to the path without describing the destination too precisely, thinking that this is the most he can do to inspire people to experiment. This goes so far as to explain why Nietzsche does not attempt to present a fully developed alternative perspective of his own, but his reasons for writing in such an arcane manner go even further than that. In section 40 of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche illuminates why he does not even clearly define the nature of perspectivism itself. He states, “Whatever is profound loves masks; what is most profound even hates image and parable. Might not nothing less than the opposite be the proper disguise for the shame of a god? …Every profound spirit needs a mask,” (240-241). In this section, Nietzsche seems to imply that as a bearer of profound thoughts it is a natural necessity that he cover up his true meaning with ‘a mask,’ with ‘cunning’ and even with apparent contradictions and opposite meanings in order to “guard something precious and vulnerable,” (241). Nietzsche must have had a desire that only those truly devoted to understanding his work would ever be able to pierce the veil, while casual readers or those who might skim his work without any real commitment would only ever misunderstand him and collect superficial and inaccurate meanings.

It is a difficult thing to describe the potential for radically altering all the things one naturally holds to be true in the world without also offering up clear, concrete alternatives; but indeed this seems to be a great deal of what Nietzsche is trying to do in Beyond Good and Evil. His philosophy of perspectivism is at first difficult to wrap your head around simply because much of it relies on the fact that the way we currently define things may not be the only way or the correct way according to any external objective assessment, which Nietzsche argues is nonexistent, and a matter of faith. Nonetheless, perspectivism is coherent and cohesive when one resists judging it according to the dogmatic truths it seeks to reject. It may be a dangerous endeavor to reject the popular perspective, but the possibility of somehow redefining your own perspective in alignment with your individual needs and natural behaviors is undeniably exciting. And arguably, that’s exactly the feeling Nietzsche wanted to instill.

Works Cited

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Walter Arnold. Kaufmann. Basic Writings of Nietzsche. New York: Modern Library, 2000. Print.

Friday, 3-25-11

Friday, 3-25-11

Today in Acting we finished beating out the script.

For play projects, the students playing Jason and Jack share that role with other students. For instance, Kyle Selig and I are the two Jasons, and Chris Douglass, Michael Reep, and Michael Campayno are the Jacks.

But we're doing something interesting with how we divide up the parts. Instead of a clean break where one actor leaves and the other takes its place, multiple Jacks may be on stage at a time, but perhaps just one of them is speaking the lines. Kyle and I share Act 2 Scene 1, and Matt suggested that we meet to divide up those lines ourselves, based on which lines reflect Kyle's Jason and which reflect mine. Kyle's Jason is the one primarily in control for Act 2, remorselessly forcing all the secrets out into the open. My Jason is the one who still feels connected to his family, still hopes that they can solve his problems.

In fact, we're thinking about working it so that I never leave the stage, and when Jason shoots himself at the end, Kyle shoots himself, and we both die.

I really like this division of Jason's character. It makes a lot of sense both in light of the play's spine and in my analysis of Jason himself thus far.

The Jacks don't make quite as much sense to me yet, but then I'm not giving that division as much thought as the actors actually playing Jack.

One question that has danced around my mind for a while is this: Does Jason like Uncle George? George is a really important character. He is the only non-blood relative that is still a relative. He has an in to the family but he will forever be an outsider. He is the ultimate peace-keeper but cannot keep his own peace. As we've been going through the script, I have gained more and more respect for this character. He faces his wife's family with remarkable bravery and aplomb, all things considered, and he seems goodnatured and reasonable up until the hostage situation arises. At that point his claustrophobia takes over.

But just because George is one of the better (and by that I mean, 'morally, psychologically, and emotionally healthier') characters in the play doesn't mean Jason would like him. Matt was talking about how people tend to distrust things that are different, especially in family circumstances. So the fact that George is less mean than everyone else in the family might just serve to make him more of an alien than he would otherwise be. He does seem to try and fit in and takes up some of the petty, vicious tactics of the family, but not with any real degree of seriousness or consistency.

The reason I think it's important whether or not Jason likes George is that it's a very important endowment, especially considering that midway through Act 2 he shoots George.

My current theory is that perhaps my Jason likes George but Kyle's Jason does not. That way we can react differently to accidentally shooting him and that's a contrast that will be very apparent and cool. I'll have to talk to Kyle about that.

Today we also played a new Matt Gray game. He threw his keys down on the floor, and then one of us would stand on the other side of the room and be blindfolded and we would have to walk directly to the keys, bend down, and pick them up. No hesitation, or groping around. Obviously this can be tricky. I myself wasn't very good at it today, but the rest of the class was actually quite successful. More than a few of my classmates got the keys, and Ashley even managed the advanced version of the game where, still blindfolded, you walk to the keys, pick them up, and then walk on to a chair, turn, and sit in it. This exercise is supposed to get us in touch with our non-visual senses, as well as increase our awareness of our physical instincts which know better than our intellectual instincts where everything in the room is. The better one is able to trust one's physical instincts, the easier the exercise becomes.

On a writing note: I have failed my deadline. I'm about 30 pages into "Bare" and there's no way I'm cranking out another 30 pages tonight. I'll try and have it finished over the weekend though, and I'm not letting myself off the hook for my next deadline because of this. I'll just need to write that much more. Which is, if nothing else, a lesson I could take away from hearing John Wells talk today. (John Wells just donated a ton of money to the Directing program here and he's been speaking the past few days.)


"You just have to write. It sounds obvious but it isn't."

Wednesday, 3-23-11

Wednesday, 3-23-11

Today in Acting we spent all of class beating out the script. We didn't quite finish, but we made it to the end of Act 1 and Act 2 should go quickly on Friday.

Matt thinks that Jason has come to the barbecue with a preconceived notion of what's going to happen; at least as a plan B. I'm not sure that's true.

I think that Jason comes to the barbecue genuinely hoping his family can solve all his problems by welcoming him back. A naive hope? Oh god yes. But I think the more naive the hope, the better-sounding the crash when it gets shattered. And it does get shattered. Very quickly.

But even then, I don't think he knows there is no avoiding drastic action until the beat-change where Jack completely rejects the worth of Jason's becoming a shellback in Scene 2. When it's clear that even that will not buy his father's respect--and in fact it only increases Jack's hate-ridden fear of his own son--he decides that he must do something to try and rescue his family from their vicious cycle of denial and violence.

I think it's on the next page, when Irene suggests charades again, that he solidifies the idea for the sordid game of charades that ends the show. His objective for the entire play hasn't changed, but his tactics have drastically shifted. He still wants to be accepted by his family, to be seen as greater than the crime he has committed, to be redeemed--but instead of relying on his family to provide these things he has resolved to extract them by force. By charades, if necessary.

On Icons: Icons is proving to be... very difficult! But we'll see how the first round of presentations go tomorrow and Tuesday. I know I'll have something to show--I just don't know how mind-blowing it'll be. I'm trying to apply the Laban vocabulary to analyze the Icons' movements so that I can have certain key effort-qualities in mind when I get into each one.



On writing: I'm supposed to be finished with "Bare" by Friday at midnight. I haven't made much project in the last few days, but I believe I can do it!

Tuesday, 3-22-11

Tuesday, 3-22-11

Day late again on this one. In my defense, yesterday was pretty rough, what with recovering from food poisoning and everything.

Anyway, yesterday in Acting we did an improv exercise as our characters getting together for the barbecue. I came late, because I was at Health Services, but when I showed up everyone was already working and Matt just said, "Oh look who just came in!" and everyone rushed me. "Jason, my baby!" "Welcome home, Jay," etc.

So that was a nice way to get thrown into the action. I liked this exercise a lot because it didn't give me time to think--I felt like walking into that room and being treated like Jason was nearly all I needed to get there. All the other characters were giving me all the information I needed. The Jacks were a bit distant and formal, Irene (Jason's mother) over-enthusiastic, etc. I myself (though some of this may have been the exhaustion and dehydration) was closed-off and wounded, purposefully preventing myself from allowing myself to be drawn wholly into the family's party. Perhaps recognizing too much of its falseness, or simply with the knowledge of what he has done hanging over him as he struggles to figure out what to do next.

Matt said that he liked this effort of self-control that Kyle and I exhibited as the Jasons, and suggested we go further with it. He also said to look for strong, vertical energy, which I think works well with my idea for the stag.

We spent the rest of class continuing to beat the script. I find it's useful while beating out a script to look at all the other characters for clues to see if a beat has really occurred yet. If even one of the characters is still following the same line of thought as they have been, the beat change has not happened yet.

On Wednesday we're bringing in more costume pieces and we'll do some more on-our-feet work before we finish beating out the script.

Saturday, 3-19-11

Saturday, 3-19-11

So, yesterday Matt was in New York, so for Acting class we began by going to the Motion Capture Lab and watching our recordings from the week before break. No models had been attached to our recordings, but a rough skeleton had been drawn using the marks to make it easier to see how we were moving.

It was pretty damn cool. We could slow down or speed up the recording to hone in on particular moments, and it was neat to see the moments that most clearly captured the movement of the animal, such as when I twitched my head back and forth on its side or when I stretched out on one leg and spread my 'wings.' Zanny's recording was also really neat because you could so clearly see how her shoulders were thrown back and moved with an undulation that was unmistakeably that of a big cat's.

After this, we returned to Purnell to get some coaching on the Queens dialect from Natalie. That'll be a challenge--but I'm looking forward to it. One thing that came up though was the way we pitch our voices based on a character's age. Taylor, who plays 15 year-old sister, Jeanann, was talking to me about how she has to raise the pitch of her voice to play younger. This is something that I've thought about considerably, though in my case, I often feel as if for most parts I should be raising the pitch of my voice.

My natural speaking voice is unusually low, and I sometimes feel like that is... well, inappropriate for many characters. In high school I got cast as villains and fathers a lot, but as I look to the future, I'm not sure that's the shape I want my career to take. Should I be practicing putting my voice in a different place for characters my age? Frankly, any male ingenue is expected to have a higher voice too. Taylor said that actors all have signatures, and mine is my voice, but I worry that while, yes, it's certainly a signature, it may also be a limitation.

I was talking to Sam French about this and he was saying that he, as a director, is very conflicted about actors changing their voices for a part. He says that with the exception of clearly stylized pieces, he feels that a dramatic vocal adjustment always sounds forced or alien to him--though he also admitted that this may just be because he is usually familiar with how the actor normally talks.

This is one of the things in my growing understanding of personal acting technique that I am still very unsure about. I should talk to Professor Feindel about it, probably.



As for Jason's animal work, I've been watching videos of stags and I find this one (though very simple) quite telling. The stag notices the camera and positions itself to face it, and then lifts its neck and head to make itself taller and more imposing. When it finally turns and walks away, the head drops. I think that could be a very useful thing to incorporate into Jason's physicality. It strikes me as appropriate because of the power-play he's constantly engaged in with Jack.

Another stag video:


Another animal that could work and I might play with is a big dog, like a German Shepherd. I'm just worried about choosing a domesticated animal because "domesticated" is really not the best word to describe anyone in this family. But there's lots of animal imagery in the show and specifically concerning dogs (the family has a long history with Jack brutally mistreating one pet after another), so I like the idea of tying back to that with a dog.

This is a fascinating guard dog attack-training video with a German Shepherd.



For Icons I think I've found a monologue from "Man and Superman" by George Bernard Shaw. We present our Icons for the first time on Thursday, the first of three rounds of presentations.

Wednesday, 3-16-11

Wednesday, 3-16-11

Today we spent the entire class discussing the nature of objectives and interactions in “Pig” as we began to go through marking the beat-changes in the script. Matt’s definition of a beat-change is when something occurs or information is revealed that immediately causes every character on stage to shift their objective.

One of the things we discussed at length was the nature of abuse in this family… and generally what is commonly observed in the majority of abusive families. Matt noted in particular the way that characters often project their own personal fears onto others, as well as turning tactics commonly used on them back on other members of their family, causing just the sort of cannibalistic deterioration that we see so much of in the play. People also tend to take on established roles, as described by Karpman’s drama triangle.

Karpman’s drama triangle depicts an interrelationship between three classic roles: the Victim; the Persecutor or Oppressor; and the Rescuer, Hero, or Pacifier. These roles have generalized guidelines for behavior associated with them—not as strict parameters, but as empirical generalizations about how these roles tend to be filled: The Victim appeals to the Rescuer and acts defensively towards the Persecutor. The Persecutor attacks the Victim and either attacks or ignores the Rescuer. The Rescuer defends the Victim and attacks the Persecutor, or else simply tries to defuse the conflict altogether.

What is interesting about the drama triangle is that each role is dependent upon the others. A Victim cannot exist without a Persecutor, nor vice versa. A Rescuer depends on both a Victim and a Persecutor to exist. Thus these roles tend to sustain each other in any given abusive situation, all the persons involved naturally taking these roles according to habit or personality.

Also interesting is that if one person shifts places in the triangle, such as a Victim becoming a Rescuer or a Rescuer becoming a Persecutor, it causes all the other people involved in the conflict to shift their positions on the triangle accordingly (beat-change, anyone?)

Much of this is stuff we discussed in class, but it bears repeating. This to some extent at least works as a good model for the behaviors of people in a conflict, especially a contained and ongoing abusive situation.

Jason is an interesting character because for a large part of the show he seems to be trying desperately to extricate himself from the drama triangle. He several times refuses to respond to Jack’s (his father’s) insults, and is clearly doing his damndest to remain mostly neutral for the entirety of his first scene. By neutral, of course, I must clarify that he still has opinions about everything. He’s just keeping them to himself. He’s struggling to keep them from exploding out of him. They nearly do when Jack reacts so unimpressed by his official induction into the order of the Shellbacks (a Navy honor for those who have crossed the equator and survived a ritualistic hazing).

That doesn’t mean he isn’t a part of the power-play. Quite the reverse. Removing himself from the drama triangle is very much a tactic—and a highly successful tactic at that—for gaining power and significance. Refusing to play the game according to Jack’s rules and not rising to Jack’s bait is what makes Jason so very threatening to Jack in that first scene of theirs (Scene 2 of the play). But it’s also something that Jason becomes unable to maintain once Santos enters the picture in Scene 3 and begins questioning Jason’s tribute of the pig.

That’s when Jason snaps. The outsider comes in and threatens to topple the empire of respect he has built in Scene 2, and in order to get it back he pulls the gun and—as Matt has so eloquently observed—becomes his father: Holding the family hostage in the backyard. Of course… Jack did it figuratively. Jason does it with a gun in his hand and in order to prove a point.

So that’s where I’m at right now. For Jason's animal I've come up with the idea of a stag, a male deer. Something with a lot of vertical energy and power but flighty enough to justify his nervous break-down when he pulls the gun.

On a different topic, we’re beginning Icons next week in Movement. So far I think I want to do Bugs Bunny from “1001 Rabbit Tales (1:09:15??)” (long strides, hugely animated gesticulations, and casual style of speech), Jessica Rabbit from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (undulating, lots of Laban ‘wringing,’ smoky, sensual vocal quality) and for my third I want to find someone really light and flitty. Someone that carries all their weight upward and is less smooth in their movement. That’s something I definitely need to work on, and I think those three then present a good contrast.

As for my writing, we workshopped “Time and Time Again” today in Playwriting and I’m going to be making huge changes. I’m cutting the base scene down to 12 pages and adding repetitions so that there are a total of 5 scenes, each with one of the major landmarks of the scene changed. “Bare” is also coming along. Have to finish that by next Friday.

Monday, 3-14-11

Monday, 3-14-11

Today in class we warmed up and then talked about Matt’s definitions for text-work: super objectives, scene objectives, beat objectives, activities, tactics, and actions.

Matt’s rules for objectives are that they must: 1) be phrased in terms of what you want from the other person(s), 2) be phrased as a positive, 3) have a bull’s eye or target with an implied moment of achievement, 4) excite you, and 5) be physically capable of being done but be more than a chore.

The reason I restate these is that to my mind these rules are extremely useful in text work that will support interesting acting. Rule number 1 makes sure that you are always engaged with others on stage, either your fellow performers or the audience. That makes you dynamic, involved, and constantly active. And yes, I believe you can form objectives that involve you directly with the audience. Either the audience represents the audience, in the case of many one-man shows and any monologues that break 4^th wall, or the audience could represent some external or internal entity, a sort of model of the dualist self with which one may interact (I would posit this would be handy in a Shakespearean soliloquy, where one is not necessarily breaking the 4^th wall but one still wants an active, externally engaging objective).

Rule number 2 is to keep us heading towards something instead of away from something else. Not only is this stronger, but as Matt said today: often focusing on a negative just causes you to collapse into the thing you’re avoiding. For instance if you tell yourself not to do something, your brain has no alternative to focus on and so ends up doing it anyway.

Rule number 3 keeps you on track so that you know exactly where you’re going at all times. Perhaps there are multiple ways a character could achieve a given objective, but depending on the one you’re pursuing at the time, your tactics will change. Having an exact and concrete notion of what you want from moment to moment keeps your actions specific.

Rule number 4 is possibly the most important. Choosing an objective that is intrinsically exciting to you as a performer ensures that your performance will not be boring; it will instead be exciting! Something that excites you will excite higher stakes and higher energy in the pursuit of that objective. High stakes and high energy is what the audiences pay the big bucks to see.

Rule number 5 ensures that your objective is not so abstract or spiritual that it cannot be pursued effectively or specifically through physical choices and our interactions with others.

Another thing we discussed in class was how to choose objectives in such a way that they are never achieved. Though this sounds counter-intuitive, the reasoning is simple. If I choose an objective and it is fulfilled at any point in any scene, even the final scene, for the remainder of that scene I have nothing left to do. I can only smile. I literally cannot continue to act because there is nothing to act upon. And the performance flat-lines and becomes boring until the merciful blackout occurs. This makes sense to me, since if you choose your scene objectives carefully in such a way that you always have something more to strive for, it will produce a more consistently interesting and thrilling performance. On the other hand, this worries me because it seems as though it might be possible for a play to have an arc where a character’s journey is defined by his finally achieving contentment. Obviously contentment is not particularly interesting, but the way it is achieved might be, and in that final moment of the play it seems as though the pursuit of an objective is almost in definitional opposition of ‘contentment.’ This is just one hypothetical example I can think of where I wonder if there might be an exception to the rule. And probably there are others. Or maybe I’m wrong about this. I would be interested to discuss it with Matt sometime.

Certainly though, I agree that if a character’s objectives are ever met, even temporarily, either they need to get off stage or the show needs to end immediately.

For Jason, I’m leaning towards thinking that his super-objective could be something like, being seen as redeemed in the eyes of his family. I’m not sure if that is as exciting as it could be though. But I’m also not sure how to hyper-charge it, and maybe it doesn’t need to be. Redemption is a powerful thing to strive for, and is thus a powerful motivator.

As for the spine of the play, or the overarching super-objective that all of the characters may share, I feel that it must have something to do with wanting a sense of permanence, a recognition of their lasting significance and efficacy by everyone they encounter. I’ll keep thinking about that though.

The Bi-Weekly Challenge

So I've been on Spring Break, hence the lack of updates with my Acting Journal. But I'm sitting in an airport in Vegas and thought I'd blog.

The next thing up in Acting is Play Projects. Each class chooses a play and then each student gets cast in a role; some of them often having to share their role with another student or two. Then it gets rehearsed and put together for presentation by the end of the semester. We're supposed to incorporate the work we did with Animal Projects (obviously, since we're supposed to be incorporating everything we've learned as we go along) and our class is keeping a Research Blog for the play as well.

"Pig" Research Blog



The play Matt chose for us is "Pig" by Tammy Ryan, which is about an extremely dysfunctional American family having a barbecue when their son suddenly returns from the Navy after 4 years of absence. Secrets, grudges, and past violences all emerge and return to wreck this family during the 5 scenes that occur consecutively with little break.

I believe I'll be playing Jason, the returning son, but it hasn't been made official yet.

Also, I want to briefly announce something I want to do this semester. I'm challenging myself to write a first draft of a new play every two weeks for the last 8 weeks of the semester. This is the Bi-Weekly Challenge. I'm currently working on "Bare," and after that I have a myriad of other ideas that I just really need to get onto paper. That's why I think this will be good for me. Giving me deadlines will make sure that I'm writing consistently and producing new stuff, and finishing what I start.

So we'll see how that works.

Monday, 2-28-11

Monday, 2-28-11

Today we went to the motion-capture lab in Wean Hall to do some work with the guys there (who are actually on Pixar’s payroll). We took turns having little reflective marks stuck all over our bodies, and then were recorded moving around as our animals in front of the 16 infra-red motion capture cameras.

This was really cool because motion-capture is being used increasingly often with special effects in film and television… and video games and animation and so on. It’s going to play a big part in our careers. It’s important to remember that we’ll have to be comfortable with that to get work. But it’s also important to know that it’s not going to take our jobs away.

There’s a growing fear (and to my mind a largely unfounded fear) that technology and animation is going to completely replace and render obsolete actors. As computing power rises exponentially, theoretically hiring technicians and animators will become more and more feasible. Eventually, the question is asked, wouldn’t actors just be left out of the process? Once animation is no longer distinguishable from live-action, wouldn’t actors be left out of the digital film world?

Well. No. And here’s why:

1. Technicians and animators like working with actors. They prefer it to just coming up with stuff on their own, and they’re happy to admit that in interviews. They get a lot of good ideas from actors (as happened with Andy Serkis’s work in Lord of the Rings), and it makes their jobs easier. Any time collaboration is preferable to working alone, you know that the people who are collaborating won’t be out of work.

(This is from King Kong. Notice the marks on his Serkis's face)

2. Even if hiring technicians becomes less and less expensive, and hiring actors for huge sums of money becomes less and less attractive, it still doesn’t make economic sense that an actor would ever be paid less than a technician or animator. If anything, the technology rise may just equalize the paychecks, as actors and animators become more closely tied in importance and in the process.

3. Even if you somehow denied my first two points, audiences like having names to attach to faces. Or at least names to attach to voices. Something purely synthetic, a hypothetical movie created by a design team and director without any actors, would have less “character appeal” in the media. I’d imagine, at least, that because individual characters can’t be tied to individual performers, there would be less identification and a corresponding loss in fan-base, which isn’t good for business. So there would still be a financial incentive to at least hire a few voice actors.

So those are a few of my thoughts on the digital revolution in technology. It’s a really interesting shift that’s going to be changing the business quite a lot, but not in negative ways. And it certainly won’t endanger my future career so long as I stay flexible and mindful of the technological nuances of the job at hand.