Wanderings

Director Anne Bogart says that "disorientation is good for art."
 Her directorial technique, called Viewpoints has become for me this summer both a metaphor and a guide.

Recently I've been a tad disoriented.  Like a gypsy, my personal belongings scattered in satchels, suitcases, and moveable crates, I wander from place to place seeking equilibrium, grounding, home. Uprooted and mobile, my adventure has spurred moments of surprise, insight, and the occasional sore back. Emotions ebb and flow by the hour sometimes. Frequently frustrated by not being able to find something, I realize that habit and comfort are twins.  When forced to change our habits, we are uncomfortable. But it is in that very discomfort that discoveries are made. The looming question about whether the risk outweighs the gain takes on greater significance with each passing day. Patience and trust still tipping the scale while fear and uncertainty hang in the balance. Risk is a choice, sacrifice a by-product, and freedom a result if one can hold on long enough to see it through.  This is the inner dialogue that runs through my head. What life and loss have taught me is that there is no one to rescue you.  You must rescue yourself.  Resilience is everything.

I spent nearly a week cast a drift in New York,  walking the neighborhoods in the East Village, SoHo, and Chelsea. I elbowed my way through Times Square a midst hundreds of sticky, hot tourists, and found relief under an umbrella in Rockefeller Center as I massaged my aching feet and nibbled on overpriced hummus, while gulping an Arnold Palmer. Alone in the world, anonymously, I sat in on a talk by a casting director at the Atlantic Theatre Company in a studio full of young, aspiring actors hoping to become directors themselves.  With no skin in the game, no delusions of discovery, I observed the speaker, wearing shorts and the casual confidence that accompanies one whose stories are laced with the names Bob De Niro and Sharon Stone.  I left the room after the 75 minute talk, feeling better about myself as a director and teacher - a quiet, personal moment of acknowledgment that my life and experience in the theatre have added up to something.  I may not be able to drop the names of famous stars, but I know I could have taught those kids a heck of a lot more about directing than what they got as they  hung  on to every word, digesting the "wisdom" of a guy who had little to give.

I crossed the street to the Chelsea Market and took in the sights of the beautifully designed space. My walk led me out the other end and up a flight of stairs to the High Line.  At 7:30 at night, the air had cooled enough to make it a perfect summer evening.  Romance was palpable. Lovers nestled and kissed against the panorama of a dramatically textured sky at sunset while jazz floated along the walkway scoring the scene like a Woody Allen movie.  I don't think I've felt as much joy in discovering a place in my life. My heart soared, my spirit lightened, and I thought that without a doubt, I had found the happiest place in New York City.

The discomfort of a life in New York sans doorman, air conditioning, and lots of money is pretty tough to handle. Blocks to walk to the subway. The blast of hot air as you move below ground, the blast of cold air as the doors of the train open, the hassle of carrying everything from groceries to laundry up five flights of stairs to a hot apartment on the fifth floor, make daily life challenging.  Not for the faint of heart to be sure.

But discomfort is good for art.

 I took myself to A Streetcar Named Desire with Blair Underwood. An all African American cast was just too enticing for me to ignore even though my money might have been better spent on a Tony- winning production. My curiosity was too great for me not to go see how this classic Williams play that I teach every year was reinterpreted with a black sensibility.  I was struck by the very startling discovery of humor found in lines that I had always read as pathetically tragic. Subtext obliterated, the text came through with astonishing clarity. Somehow, it worked.  Not in every moment - but for the most part, I was able to accept what I was seeing.  Interpretation, risk, and boldness of choice - daring to take on a play with the ghosts of giants hovering over the boards - Tennessee Williams' words came to life for a whole new audience. I got what I came for.

Flying home to not going home, I continued my journey of detachment.  Tethered only to friends and family and a belief in the potential for small business and entrepreneurship, my adventure simmers deep within me.  Punctuated by A Conversation with Stephen Sondheim at the Segerstrom Hall, my theatrical muse continued to be inspired as I listened to his sage words and basked in his quick and clever mind.  Again, the take away for me was the willingness to risk.

Sondheim, on stage,  quoted the late Oscar Hammerstein, "You must be willing to fall off the top rung of the ladder, not the bottom."

I'm not sure where we are on that ladder - so often a metaphor for "success". When the top of that ladder is still out of reach, there is no choice but to keep climbing rung by rung on the way to somewhere. One step at a time. Holding on. Risking the fall.

It's good for art.

Thank You, Mr. Sondheim

I have been slowly making my way through FINISHING THE HAT, Stephen Sondheim's instructional memoir about musical theatre. I say slowly, because each chapter is an in depth analysis of a different musical, complete with lyrics, anectdotal stories , biographical information, commentary, confession, and cautionary tales. I'm reading this book one chapter at a time.

Now this is less a review of the book (I'm only half way through - having just finished DO I HEAR A WALTZ? ready to jump into COMPANY) as it is a reflection on what I've learned thus far. I figure, as an aspiring writer, former musical theatre performer, lover of musicals, and all out musical theatre fanatic who has thus far failed to successfully create one of her own, I might as well learn from the best, right? Each chapter of FINISHING THE HAT feels like a master class taught by Mr. Sondheim.

There is much to be learned about rhyme scheme. He has strong feelings about what he calls the "sin" of the misplaced stress in lyrics. But, the one line in the book that hit me between the eyes, made me close the gigantic blue cover, sit back, desire to argue, and then force me to face my own conceit, was that writers "should not direct their own work."

He uses his experience with ANYONE CAN WHISTLE, the show that he and Arthur Laurents created, and Laurents directed as the basis for his warning. While arguably the first "absurdist" musical, it was by all rights, a commercial failure with some great songs.

Sondheim says that a writer, "creates." A director, "interprets."

"Yes," I thought. "That is exactly right. I am more of an interpreter than a creator." Now grant it, my directorial experience has primarily been in the field of educational theatre, thus it comes with the many layers of "teaching" along with interpreting. In fact, getting to the interpretation is itself an educational process. Through my directing, I teach how to analyze. Because it is my job to encourage young artists, my work with them is often their first collaboration.

There is so much for them to learn. I have never been a director who spoon feeds. At the point I'm forced to spoon feed, I have become desperate. It has happened only a couple of times in my career as a theatre educator.

No, my way is the way of digging, questioning, working with the actor to come to some understanding of the playwright's intent. It is my job as the director to make that clear - moment to moment -through physical and inner action, stage picture, pause, and delivery. As a theatre educator, each one of these aspects of an actor's performance includes teaching - the degree to which depends obviously on the innate, intuitive ability of the student. Sometimes the job requires a lot of "undoing" particularly with the "highly experienced" student whose background includes a lifetime of children's theatre.

More often than not, students come with no training, only performing experience. Moving them from "performer" to one who appreciates the "craft," is a process that requires immense patience and an understanding that the awakening of the artist may not occur until long after the rehearsal and performance experience is completed.

The young, new, actor is blindly trusting me to mid-wife their own artistry without realizing that that is what is happening. Through a uniquely individualized, nuanced process, the student, grows to understand that in acting, he is the instrument. A musician learning to play the violin must know how to read music, commit to a discipline of practice, and develop the technique of bowing. These skills ultimately move the player into the world of interpretation and artistry.

It is the same thing for an actor, only in his case, the instrument is himself.

Interpretation of a musical includes understanding the plot, characters, and story - "the book", the lyrics of songs, and the orchestration of the score. The role of music in a musical may seem the obvious distinguishing feature of the genre - but as a director, I spend as much time listening to what story the music is telling me through its style, melody, tempo, rhythm, crescendo, decrescendo, and structure as I do analyzing lyrics. The music often conveys a character's motivation, decisiveness, uncertainty, and feeling. How the lyrics fit with the music and how they interweave with the book are also part of the interpretation.

In FINISHING THE HAT, I have learned that the process of creating what, as a director, I interpret, takes enormous skill. It's not that I didn't know that. Nothing in art comes easy. But it is important to recognize in one's self, where one's expertise lies.
A writer "creates." A director "interprets."

The desire to create may be a driving force. Whatever the motivation to do so, wisdom, and Mr. Sondheim, dictate that there be someone with some aesthetic and emotional distance, to interpret what you have written.