This blog has been silent for a couple of days, giving those of you who actually read this thing (and you amaze me, by the way) a chance to catch up if you wish. Meanwhile, it was a very busy weekend.
For The Rain It Raineth Every Day
It began with an evening spent with Shakespeare Orange County, to see their performance of Twelfth Night. As is often the case when I see theatre, I found it simultaneously inspirational and heartbreaking. At times, the play very much came to life in the hands of this company; and at other times, the play went to sleep as some actors slogged through passages without knowing what they were saying. They had a very good Malvolio, a frightfully pretentious status hag and puffed up Puritan who is cruelly punked.
A Long Night In Hollywood
Saturday was spent on a long, long film shoot. At one point, well after the clock had passed 2:00am, I turned to one of the extras and said, "I think it's time to explain. You died this morning. This is purgatory. We will be filming this scene for ten thousand eons."
My duties as the Production Elf included emergency runs for art supplies and refreshments for cast and crew; risking life and limb on a rickety aluminum ladder, stringing lights on the roof to bring a modicum of extra light to the patio; wielding bare 75-watt bulbs on lamp cords, sometimes holding them up over my head, as instructed by the camera man. Eventually he gave up using my lights, either because they were inadequate or he was too tired to care. At 3:30am I started cleaning up, and when I couldnÃ?t clean any more without being in the way, I broke out the ukulele and sat with Mr. Schark on the trunk of his car, playing softly to lyrics he improvised: "It's 3 a.m / And I'm not asleep... "
Indeed, we were in full swing shooting the climactic Hollywood Hills party sequence for Hollywood Heights, on location on Sunset Plaza Drive, high over the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. If you have occasion to watch the movie, check the background. You'll see me chatting with other crew members (who were dragged in front of the camera by our manic director) as well as Mr. Schark's roommate.
"That's what you get when you use improv actors," is a proud comment I heard more than once. As mentioned before, this film is being scripted by the ensemble via improvisation. At least, in theory. During photography, there is still an impulse to improvise and make new discoveries rather than define the scene and consent to repeat that. This is a talented bunch of people and they can keep going and going.
Case in point: the married couple who host the party. The actors have created a hilarious pair of characters, a high-strung Hollywood couple, young and rich, who have a Buddha shrine in their house and resolve their marital tensions with a hodge-podge of pop mysticism and therapy babble. They kneel on mats, turn their palms "toward the solstice," and engage in a pretentious and ineffective ritual of "dialogue" and healing as they await their guests. Take after take, they expand the universe of their characters, the actors picking up each other's offers beautifully, and the ritual gets longer (and funnier), yet the story isnÃ?t moving forward: Chris needs a 45 second scene to establish who, what, and where, yet the improvisation goes on for minutes.
Ah, editing. It's such a rigorous and disappointing stage of the process. Writers know it, and so do successful improvisators. You can script a wonderful piece of drama through improvisation, but there is no escaping the editing stage. Improvisation is about saying "yes," and editing is about saying, "no." Still, they are not incompatible. The improvisator must be an intelligent storyteller; she cannot disappear entirely into the character's needs, but be willing to move the scene toward resolution, to establish choices and repeat them.
The drugs in the scene are fake, but the alcohol is real. Cast and crew work into the night, keeping their spirits up with beer and whiskey. It makes for a peculiar evening. And morning.
A Business Meeting On The Beach
It was a bleary-eyed sort of day on Sunday following our marathon in the hills. Mr. Nelson and I were late for our business appointment with the great yoga-theatre lioness, Ms. Swain. Our tardiness was partially out of a need to rest, and exacerbated by me getting us good and lost on our way to meet her.
Finally, we convened on Venice Beach. (Gee, I wish I were there right now.) Sitting in the sand by the ocean, we talked and played a little bit and established what our three "specialities" (tai chi, yoga, and zazen) had in common relevant to theatre practice. We all view theatre work as a practice of self-discovery (and self-deconstruction to some extent) and began discussing a business platform and curriculum. At our next meeting, we will establish a "basic" practice that incorporates our three approaches, and teach each other what we practice so that our teaching may incorporate it all, and so we can substitute for one another when necessary. (We plan to finish that workday by soaking in a hot tub together. Hell, if we must do business in California, we may as well do it California-style.) We parted feeling reassured and excited about teaching theatre together, using an approach that is unique and would have appeal, and would offer something more than conventional actor-training. Theatre, we say, is a practice that can help us become intimate with our life itself, and use that awareness to do wonderful things.
Yet I also left with a sinking feeling. I had been keeping myself going with the hope of leaving California, including a nationwide job search. None of these hopes have prospered, and I have felt like an exile in this land of smog far away from my friends and family. Am I now going to admit that I'm here for a while, admit out loud that Trinity isn't going to bring me back (Swain calls that my "Trinity vigil"), and commit to starting this expressive-arts dojo and give it a shot at life?
Do I have to buy a bathing suit?