I'll defer that note to my wig and glasses

continuing work on this role that i didn't audition for, nor am i technically right for.  whatever.  we can all find one hundred excuses why a role isn't working but i'm putting my energy into how to make it work.  and i'm succeeding.  i'm sure i'll look back at these posts/this role with a dismissive tone, chalked up to gum-shoeyness and inablity to get sea-legs quick enough.

that being said, i'm on page 260 of infinite jest and it is, bar none, the most engaging, challenging, rewarding tome i've ever fingered through. (fingered).  myself and others have had trouble expressing just how to write about this book so i'm going to wait until i'm done.  i haven't been marking my favorite quotes in the book, but i just usually come about some and text them to my good friend sabrina (who is concurrently reading the book with me)

me. yorick. dfw. we all are truly fellows of infinite jest.

the continuing story of bungling billy shakes

'why do i fall in love with every woman i see who gives me the least bit of attention?'
-eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

'i fall in love with someone new practically every day/but that's ok that's just the price i pay/for being a man'
-the divine comedy (band not book)

as with every production i do, i reach a point where i just have no idea what i'm doing.  no idea about anything, supremely no confidence, and supremely serious anxiety about everything that i do.  without fail. every production.  since college.  nothing helps.  nothing can be done.  it's a supreme flaw in my professionalism and personality.  it goes away eventually.

anyway, the 'removal' of gratiano from myself is going poorly.  so so poorly.  trying to plan choices and be someone else from out of the gate is proving disastrous.  i'm going to clean house.  start anew.  tomorrow.  it's scary, but i have to.   i have to work on this role the way i'm best at, not the way someone outside of the process tells me to.

pleading temporary insanity

eight days into 'othello' rehearsal and it is far and above the best shakespeare show i've ever worked on.  here's the proverbial thing:  my AD asked me to create a character that is more removed from who i am; wanted to see something different than he's seen.  this got me thinking about the benefits and drawbacks of working in an ensemble. 

 theatre is a very temporary art form: what you create lasts for only a firing of a synapse: (interesting thought: you could exponentially increase your enumerated moments based on the scale of time. is the whole play your one moment?  is that one vowel sound just a portion or your art?)  it is that (unfortunately) all too rare time when the audience is left with a section of time from a play that sits like an afterimage in their brain.  in my years of seeing theatre, i can probably remember only a handful of great 'moments' on stage.  but what i do remember are great work as a whole, great balance, and great stories.  so, what is the pressure we have as actors to create this individualistic art?  is this our ultimate selfish goal, to be personally remembered in a fleeting medium?  i'm talking about feeding the artist beast in this instance, and not the more objective principles of what constitutes good acting (intentions, objectives, listening, etc...)  i want to leave an impression for something that is inherently instant.  that doesn't make sense to me. so what do i want out of it?  how is this selfish desire satiated?

i can't be.

this is where the 'ensemble' becomes so important.  it can never be about your moments, about how clever you are, about your walk, your voice, your choices.  don't strive for this or that, because it's more about cohesion, and creating a unifying story.  try to leave behind the antiquated notion that you will be remembered.  you won't be.  but your show can.   i think sometimes we as actors all need this remember, to take the importance of the self, and put it toward everyone else.  because, frankly, you're about to be stricken from the record if you don't have an ensemble underneath you to lift you up.

in reading this, this sounds a little pedestrian and a little obvious to anyone who's ever taken a class in acting, but let me tell you that remembering that this profession is not about you is a hard thing, an any actor who tells you otherwise is lying through their teeth.  and it's something i (we) need to always be reminding ourselves of.   it's not about you.  it's not about you.  it's not about you. INAY!

which brings me back to my request from my AD.    to properly synthesize this request based on my current opinions on the craft would probably make me fall apart*.  but my insecurities about character work fall directly about my above manifesto about theatre.  but change is good.

 so my goal throughout the next couple of weeks to to continue to share the process of this character that is "removed" (sic to pretty much every acting lesson ever)  from me.  will it enmesh with the rest of the cast?  will i stand out like a copy of finnegans wake in the 'young adult' section, so incomprehensible and byzantine when all i really want to do is read about are sparkly sexy vampires?

right now, i have a different vocal placement (like scottish but with hard american r's) , horned rimmed glasses, a limited gesture index, a wig, a snappy suit.  dir. wants me to be late 30s.  stillness, pre-occupied, and incredibly well-educated.

IN OTHER NEWS

I got my tickets to joanna newsom.  theatre once again thwarts my attempts to see a real rock n roll show (my morning jacket).  i could go up to pittsburgh to see the hold steady.   i'm considering it.  here's a tribute the the band i can't see.

*i don't know if i'm shedding my skin as a rebirth or being peeled away like an onion toward a finite end.  either way, i'm literally falling directly apart.  my fake tooth came unhinged and my fingernail was ripped off due to another rogue fingernail trying to escape out the side of my right index finger.  i've had dreams where all my teeth fall out recently which all signs point to severe insecurity

i wasn't born of a whistle or milked from a thistle at twilight

Joanna Newsom.  lets talk about her .



there are few bands here on this earth that can create a 16 min spinning folk epic fueled by a harpist with a voice that sounds a little like a 7 year-old joan baez (or a 70 yea- old joan baez).

there are few bands that can use the word 'thou' and 'thee' (save possibly Dragonforce) without me rolling my eyes completely out of my head.

t.a.f.b. that can conversely created lovely little pop songs that defy definition.  it's not that she sings about the minutia, but the makes the tiniest noun sound Proper.  that's her drowning bell, that's her wool, that's her bean sprout, that's her belfry, that's her journal that she recorded mnemonic devices to tell the difference between a meteorite, a meteor, a meteoroid  (ok that last one probably is Proper).   never is she vague about her images... she paints a pastoral musical portrait which is like walking through a rusted and wooden consignment shop, overgrown with antiques and trinkets, filled with lone woodland creatures and non-sequiturs.

i only write this to show my love for her, and my excitement for her new album 'have one on me' coming out in 3 weeks.  a 3 cd set.  i just can't wait.

my morning jacket is playing with the preservation hall jazz band in columbus.  i will be there.

i just did a reading of "boy gets girl" by rebecca gilman.  that play is just flawed, as is i think her other play "spinning into butter".    she has very intelligent views on perception of women (former) and race (latter) but presents her characters as cut-outs that only develop through passive stories.  it's frustrating to actually try to act: "this one time i found this rock and it meant so much to me and this is why you should care about me know and i hope i opened a door for you to the inner chamber of my beating heart."
or something like that.
though:  this reading was a huge giant awesome step into hopefully filling monday night with rich readings of plays and hopefully paul leiber and i playing some songs in that room.  i'd love to get some original scripts read , too.  who's got one?  send it my way.

othello starts tomorrow, which is possibly one of the best plays ever written.  and i get to be in it, playing lodovico/gratiano (melted into one super senator).  it's one of those times where i really am blessed to have this job.  it's a work in progress, this job is, but man do i love the work.