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October 31, 2004
Letter to Paul
My friend Paul has been offered a role in a show in Vermont. He's thrilled about going. But he's also struggling with the theatre company in Portland of which he's a member. Paul's a talented guy, a self-titled "Theatre Marine," which means he can and will do pretty much anything to get a show going, including hanging lights, building sets and printing up and distributing flyers.
But at heart, he's an actor. He does the other stuff so he can act. And this gig in Vermont will give him the opportunity to be an actor and simply an actor for one production. His trying to work through the emotional upheaval was so moving to me (and so indicative of my own feelings about theatre in PDX) that I felt moved to send him the following email. I reprint it here, because it is my manifesto.
Paul,
To be perfectly honest, that's exactly the thing that has led myself and a number of "grown-up" actors to leave Portland and strike out for new opportunities. Specifically, the "anti-professional" part.
After speaking with a number of former Portlandites, and after analyzing my own experiences, I've come to realize that, while I believe struggle is necessary, that art that doesn't require serious, hard work and self-revelation by the artist isn't really art, I do believe that thumbing one's nose at the establishment just because it exists isn't really art either. And that's what much of Portland theatre does.
I strongly believe there is a need for new, exciting, dangerous works, for deconstructive recreations of classics, for a trio of clowns performing MacBeth. But I also think, no, I feel, from the very depths of my being, that there is a need for the established theatre. That audiences need to be educated into the place where the new, exciting, dangerous works will appeal to them rather than scare them off.
The problem, in Portland, at least, is that there are two camps: the new, exciting, dangerous theatre camp (Defunkt, Hand-2-Mouth) and the establishment that's not risking anything camp (I'm sure you know who they are, you've seen non-risky productions all over town). These two camps are pretty much mutually exclusive, they don't tend to work together, and they don't tend to hire any of the same people, for obvious reasons. And the companies that are trying to do good, serious but approachable work (for the mainstream theatre-goer) are few and far between, though they do exist (the Greeks, for one).
Unfortunately, I think this has led to a community in which the only people going to see theatre are theatre people.
My dream is to be a part of the establishment someday. But an establishment that recognizes its contract with the audience and the community. I want to be part of an establishment in which we work to educate, to provide the classics, to provide the dangerous, new works, but in each case, to provide theatre that makes people think, that makes them sit up and take notice, that makes them go home talking to themselves and each other because something they saw triggered a response which sparked a whole chain of thoughts, hopefully new, provoking, unexpected thoughts which insist on being considered, voiced, maybe even acted upon.
So that's my dream. But your dream of being a respected, valued actor is no less important. Why shouldn't you take a chance to do work you want to do and expand your horizons further while being paid to do the thing you really love to do most? Grab hold of that opportunity with both hands.
Because that's the other problem with the whole anti-professional ethic: actors in Portland are afraid to stretch themselves, and so they resent artists who decide to go do other things without them. Not all actors in Portland, just many of them. Which is why they speak so disparagingly of Seattle, and why they look down on people who go away to school or seek further training in their craft, and why they do the kind of theatre that takes no risks.
Theatre is about change; it's a pretty ephemeral thing, when you think about it. Like life. And it should also be about representing the human condition in the truest, most honest way we possibly can. New and varied experiences will always make you a better artist in the end, a better representative of the human. To that end, individual artists should be embraced when they choose to break out on their own and try new things.
Yes, it sucks for the people left behind who now have to do the work they were hoping you'd do, but they're the ones embracing the "hardscrabble, anti-professional, DIY ethic," and your choosing to try something new is no reflection on them. It's about you. It's about you being the best artist you can be, and in the end, that only benefits theatre in the long run.
Done now. Got to catch my breath after that long-winded sermon. Ah well, it's Sunday, a day for sermons. And also Halloween. With that in mind, I've decided to go to tonight's costume party as the Gardener of Eden.
Peace to you, and honor, as you fall headlong into this new experience.
Much love,
Sally
Posted by sally at 10:35 AM
October 30, 2004
Changeable
Wow. It's hailing. Hard. In relatively large bits. Not golf or baseball sized bits, but larger than a BB bits. (I clearly live in Idaho; I'm using a gun metaphor for the weather.)
I'm glad I came inside. I got the eremerus planted, and spread 5 bags of steer manure on the bed that needed it most. I'll plant the daffs tomorrow, get some more manure (for the bed) and compost (for my rose collars) and a couple of truckloads of dirt.
Now, I'm going to study. For a change.
Posted by sally at 01:11 PM
Late on a Saturday Morning
Okay, it's probably actually Saturday afternoon at this point, but I'm still enjoying my oatmeal. Mmmmmmm... Oatmeal in autum, on a day when I don't have to go anywhere... With the sun shining and the leaves blowing around in the wind... And I'm sitting in a new kitchen. Inside, everything's warm and brown and white and green, and outside it's colder, but everything's bright yellow and red and white and green and blue blue blue. I do love this season.
I still have 15 bulbs to plant (they came in the mail on Thursday): 3 eremerus and 12 narcissus stainless. After my marathon 80+ bulb-planting days, 15 seems like nothing. That's probably why I'm still sitting here in the kitchen, eating oatmeal. That, and I let myself sleep in today, to help make up for only getting 4 hours of sleep on Thursday night/Friday morning.
I realize I haven't posted any pictures in a while, and I was afraid people would be concerned about how lonely staying up on Thursday to write must have been. I want you to know I wasn't alone. I had two very helpful assistants:
Quickly always helps me study. And she loves having the table again so she can watch me work.
Poly is sleeping on a dishtowel he just killed. He spent quite a bit of time harrassing and taunting it before it died. Can you believe how HUGE he's become? He's still less than 6 months old (we think).
Posted by sally at 11:03 AM
October 29, 2004
Election Frenetics
I cannot believe the race is this close. How can anybody but the rich, powerful and selfish believe George W. Bush is a good idea for President (again)? He's done a number of things to make life in the short term better for David and me, but in the long term, it will suck for all of us.
I hate this sense of absolutely no control over my own personal future. I mean, I could vote six times here and it still wouldn't make a difference. If Kerry loses Oregon, I will hold myself personally responsible.
Posted by sally at 04:44 PM | Comments (2)
Well What Do You Know?
That wasn't so bad. Four pages just sort of flowed out of my hands, as did some corrections and some padding here and there. (And some useful cuts.) I've still got 3 pages and change to come up with, but three pages is not much, in the grand scheme of things.
Toddling off to bed now.
Posted by sally at 12:32 AM
October 28, 2004
Late Night Ahead
I am sitting here at the kitchen table, working on finishing my play. That's right, the kitchen table. It's a table, and it's in the kitchen. I don't think it could get much better, since I can now drink coffee in the kitchen, at the kitchen table. And I can make this coffee by getting water from the sink, which I can boil on the stove. The coffee I can get from the freezer, and after I'm done, I can put everything into the dishwasher, except for the coffee grounds, which I will be able to put down the garbage disposal. That's right, it's a functioning kitchen. And it's beautiful. I think I'm in love...
In the meantime, however, I have to finish my play. Because the first draft is due tomorrow morning at 8:30. I was so proud of myself last week because I was halfway done and it was roughly halfway through the semester.
And then I found out that my first draft was due tomorrow. I've written 7 more pages (which is the most I've managed so far in a week). I have roughly 8 to go. Which would be fine if I knew how to end it. I haven't decided, or it hasn't decided itself, and I don't want the last part of the play to suck just because I don't yet know how it's going to resolve.
Wish me luck. I think it's going to get ugly.
Posted by sally at 09:36 PM
October 21, 2004
Things Are Better Today...
No classes. And, as it turns out, no rehearsal. In response, I worked really hard and have Act I pretty much solid. Then my voice got tired. I'll do the same with Act II tomorrow. I should be golden by the time we have rehearsal again on Sunday. I feel so much better now. I was really beginning to despair.
I also got my new glasses and contact lenses today. I think my vision has been overcorrected again. This happened once before. I hate the part of the eye exam where you have to pick between 1 or 2 and 3 or 4. I mean, what if I get it wrong? What if they're really close and I inadvertently select the wrong number? I get terrible performance anxiety at the eye doctor.
Posted by sally at 10:30 PM
October 20, 2004
A Post-Modernist Theory of Wanking
I adore that title. It's a review from the Journal of Social History about some book on the medical establishment's changing attitudes towards masturbation in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Someone wrote a book about whacking off and what society thinks about it. You've got to love America.
Mind you, I was looking for something completely different.
Posted by sally at 09:31 PM
October 19, 2004
Bad Actor
I didn't know my lines tonight. And we're supposed to be off book. Of course, we only found out a week ago that we were supposed to be off book as of Sunday (because the stage manager was waiting to give us the schedule until she had tech week ironed out and hadn't thought of giving us the rest of the schedule when she got it). But I should have known my lines anyway.
It doesn't help that the scene we worked is one in which I have a number of non-sequitirs and repetitions (with slight variations) and monologues from nowhere. Lines are so easy to learn if I know why I say them, and this scene, for the most part, has always seemed to come from Mars, as far as my character is concerned. So even working the lines over and over had done nothing to make them stick. We spent a lot of time tonight trying to figure out why I say what I say. And, of course, as soon as those things were clear, the lines just tumbled out of my mouth, no problem.
I always need to know why I say my lines. What I want. And when it's completely unclear to me (because I'm well-adjusted and a thinker, not a crazy, dysfunctional reactor), I can repeat and repeat and repeat my lines and they won't mean a fucking thing.
So I come home from rehearsal feeling guilty, because I wasted everyone else's time because I didn't know my lines. And I'm the professional. I'm the graduate student. Everyone should be able to rely on me and trust me and look to me as an example. And I failed them. Just as I will fail them tomorrow evening when we cover the other scene like this one. Big chunks of page that are all me with pointless monologues about my childhood and craziness and random thoughts. Fortunately, the director and I are meeting for lunch tomorrow, to talk that scene through so I'll have that information before rehearsal. But still. I'll have to find time to go over and over and over it sometime between then and 6:30, and that time is all pretty much booked.
Why is Shakespeare so much easier to memorize than modern prose? The meter, I suppose, for a start. And the fact that nobody hides anything. It's all perfectly clear. You know why a character is saying what they're saying. They tell you why. They don't play Scrabble and talk about their childhood and sleeping in "a heaven of white sheets" on the living room floor when they really want to say something else. What else they want to say is, of course, never made clear, so I have no way of knowing what the subtext should be. GAAAAAAAAH!
In other news, Poly was weighed at the vet on Saturday (and oohed over and fondled). He weighs 8 1/2 lbs. That's what Quickly should weigh. He's HUGE.
Posted by sally at 10:06 PM
October 17, 2004
Hack Hack Cough Wheeze Hack drip drip drip
I have a cold. And I'm currently transitioning from the my nose runs and runs and runs without stopping, pouring nuclear yellow snot everywhere phase to the nuclear yellow stuff is coating my bronchial tubes, filling my larynx and working its way out of my lungs phase.
Yummy.
But at least I got all of the informative speeches graded and the midterm grades calculated and posted. There are going to be some unhappy students on the morrow, I suspect. Not many, but some. But if you don't do the work, you can't expect to get the good grades. Of course, it will still somehow be my fault.
And a part of me wonders if it is. Though how I could assure good grades for my students short of doing the work myself, I don't know. I will still feel guilty if they fail. Am I not explaining things clearly? Am I expecting too much? Am I not putting enough into my teaching? If they don't all do brilliantly, I'm certain that it's me. And if they do brilliantly, I'm equally convinced that it's because they took speech in high school. What a mess. I need to get to bed.
Posted by sally at 09:51 PM
October 14, 2004
The Kill Is Over
I survived. Passed even. Passing out now.
Posted by sally at 09:46 PM
October 12, 2004
Should Be Working
But I'm not. I'm writing in my blog.
Should be working on my play. But I'm stuck, and everything I've written so far is, well, lousy. (Not for the whole play, mind you, just the stuff I've written in the last week. I just can't figure out how to get out of the place I'm stuck in now.)
Should be prepping for tomorrow's class. Oh. Already did that. Should be grading speeches, then. Nope. Not interested.
Should be reading for Jazz History. Wow. I so don't want to do that either.
And I don't want to work on my lines for Independence. And I don't want to learn any music for my voice lesson. And I don't want to work on my stuff for next semester. And I don't want to learn any new monologues.
I'm just a big, ole bundle of bad attitude. I need to get over that.
Posted by sally at 09:14 PM
October 09, 2004
Um. Correction 160 Grape Hyacinths
Yep. I had 50 more of the blue ones to plant than I remembered. All 160 are in the ground now, but because there were 50 more than I thought, and because it took longer than I had anticipated, I only planted those bulbs. And it was dark when I finished.
Which gave me ample time to listen to yelling of the motorcyclist who was pulled over about 1/2 block away. I don't think he had his lights on, because I only heard the motorcycle, I never saw it. I did see the flashing lights of the cruiser. And of the 2nd cruiser, which showed up about 10 minutes later. A good rule of thumb for life in general: Never yell at the policeman who has pulled you over.
Considering that 3 UI students have died in the last 2 1/2 weeks from alcohol-related motorcycle accidents (none of the deceased wore helmets, but the one survivor did), I have a hard time understanding why anyone would be speeding up Hayes St. after dark with their lights off. Unless they were hoping to be number 4...
But back to the subject at hand. It's an early start tomorrow to get 30 tulips and 50 daffodils planted under the birch, and then 40 aconite and countless crocuses and allium planted in the beds and the lawn. (Yes, that's right. I underestimated the numbers of all the bulbs I ordered. I wonder if I'll ever learn.) And I have to get all that done before the 6:30pm Independence stumble-through.
Posted by sally at 06:48 PM
Ugh. It's a Brand New Day
I woke up this morning with a cat curled up on the pillow around my head and one tucked under my arm. Very sweet. Too bad they were forcing my neck into an unnatural and highly painful position. I snuggled with them for about half an hour anyway.
And now I get to plant bulbs. About 350 bulbs, if my rough estimate is correct. 110 grape hyacinth (100 blue, 10 white), 20 winter aconite, 50 tulips (red and yellow, for Dave), scores of daffodills, lillies and allium. And then I get to cover the whole thing with manure and/or topsoil. Except for the grape hyacinth and aconite. Those go into the lawn. I'm stoked for what it will look like in the spring. Not so interested in doing it now. Though the rain has cleared up.
Posted by sally at 11:33 AM
October 03, 2004
Angels in America
Saw Millennium Approaches this evening, the HBO version. It's good. I'd probably have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been in a room full of theatre people. We're so good at behaving in a theatre, but so bad at watching movies without discussion. I'd like to see it sometime when there's not a margarita blender running and people discussing various aspects of the movie that aren't really relevent to the storytelling.
And I painted the kitchen. So that's done. Except for the door and windowframes, which will not be painted until everything else is finished and I figure out what color to make them.
I also spent a lot of time watching the Mount St. Helens webcam to see it erupt, which it hasn't yet. Very disappointing. I feel much more comfortable about that whole thing now that we no longer own property in Portland. (I am such a pig.)
Took two benadryls because the house where I saw Angels in America has a dog. I'd forgotten, or I'd have taken them sooner. Had to wait until I got home instead. And now I'm beginning to fade. Can't. Fade. Must stay awake to watch Dead Like Me. It's a weekly date with David. I may be a super cheap date and sleep through it, drooling on his shoulder.
Posted by sally at 07:20 PM
October 02, 2004
Today I Will Finish Painting the Kitchen
Really. As soon as I go for a run and get cat food and change the cat litter and take a shower and...
I promise.
Posted by sally at 10:36 AM
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