a poor player

Dunkirk NY – The past few days seem to be crammed with some very interesting experiences. For reasons that I cannot put my finger on, my students have been making unsolicited statements that have been leaving me at times speechless. There is always an intensity about late April, as so many things come rushing to a head as the academic year approached its conclusion. Perhaps it’s the pressure, perhaps it’s the lack of sleep, but it seems that this time of the year bring more personal discoveries to students than at any time.

I have had no less than half a dozen students stop into my office in the last week to talk. They talk about many things, but the common thread tends to be their attempts to try and discover what they are best at doing and where in the scheme of things do they fit. Often it’s the very beginnings of what I think many actors go through – finding the balance between the reality of the profession and the hope for their dreams. The first major questions are beginning to be asked, and it’s a tough moment for a lot of them.

I am no different. This evening I went to the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival for a screening of Drawing With Chalk, a movie made by two Fredonia alumni who graciously asked me to play a role in their movie. They bill it as a “mid life coming of age story” wherein two men in their 40s try to make one last-ditch effort at becoming rock musicians. One is married with a child and, as the story progresses, finds out another child is on the way just as he both loses his job and begins to try to make a new album. The other is single (I play this character’s father) with not much ambition who questions whether or not he’s too old to become a rock star. It’s a story of how dreams and reality mix it up to produce a life that you cannot predict or control – “sometimes your life is just drawn out for you.” And the metaphor of sidewalk chalk is important, because you can use that chalk to draw out your dreams on the sidewalk, only to have the washed away with the reality of the next rain.

After the screening was over and we were talking in the lobby, two show let out from two nearby theatres. Both shows had been final previews and had audiences of theatre people. As I was standing there, the lobby filled up with a bunch of people I have worked with in many theatres in Buffalo, and next thing I new I was saying hello to a whole collection of Buffalo actors. I instantaneously felt in my element, talking with actors, talking with people doing theatre in the city, talking with friends. There was even a crossover, as some of the theatre people were also Fredonia alumni, and I realized there were five of my former students in the room as well as theatre and professional colleagues.

On the drive back to Dunkirk I began to feel that old tug – the need to get to Buffalo and audition and get into a show. I will be in Shakespeare in Delaware Park this summer, but that urge to get back in the game like I was 10 years ago when I was doing two or three shows a year in the city just became overwhelming. But my reality is that I will become the next chair of my department, and that commitment precludes having the freedom to run up to Buffalo and perform. I still am facing that same dilemma that my student face – finding the balance between dealing with the realities of my life and trying to fulfill the dreams that yet remain.

Shakespeare speaks of the insubstantial quality of dreams in that famous speech of Prospero’s from The Tempest. If you’re in the theatre, perhaps you’re simply more susceptible to the allure of these dreams. Certainly I think that is true of myself. What is the right mixture of dream to reality? Perhaps that is only something best answered by each person in the silence of their soul.  -twl

Dunkirk NY – Today’s NY Times featured a small piece in the ArtsBlog written by Charles Isherwood entitled “Odd Man Out Syndrome.” It describes that feeling you have when you believe you’re either the only one who gets it, or who doesn’t get it. In his case, Isherwood talks about that feeling he gets when he’s at a show and he realizes that the response of the audience is in direct contradistinction to his own.

I get that feeling quite a bit these days as a teacher. Quite often I am seeing something that I know is off, but the students all feel it’s first-rate. Also, I get this feeling when talking about what’s good on Broadway. There are very few musicals on Broadway I have enjoyed in the last 15 years, but these are the same musicals that my students grew up with and got them interested in theatre. When it comes to talking about the great book musicals of the 40s-60s, most of the students find them old, corny and creaky. I am the odd man out either way.

These seems to be a life theme for me. I was a late 1960s draft and tax resistor; odd man out. I was critical of my NYU training; odd man out. I was critical of my UNL graduate training; odd man out. I am critical of the current state of theatrical training at the university level; odd man out. I am an actor who blogs in a blogosphere dominated by directors, playwrights and critics; odd man out. I always wanted to be a classical actor in a musical theatre world; odd man out. In fact, I even like live theatre in a world dominated by film and television; odd man out.

I really wasn’t thinking about this at the time, but the other day I was out on my scooter taking “the long way home,” when I found a road I could not remember ever traveling on. I took the road slowly, as it was clear it was not the best road in the world. As a scooter driver, once again I am “odd man out” since I don’t drive a conventional vehicle, but as I drove further down the road I passed a collection of young Amish children in a buggy. A boy of about 12 was driving, with his sisters in the carriage behind him. I waved, and they waved back, as is common in these parts with the Amish. It was an interesting juxtaposition of “odd people out:” me in my high tech scooter gear, they in their 19th century buggy.

The feeling of being the “odd man out” is what keeps that nagging thought of retirement active in the back of my brain, a feeling I would like very much to subdue. When you step into that classroom every day feeling like you’re the odd man out, that what you like and what your students like are so far apart, that they think so many things are good that you believe suck, is that the first sign that it’s time to go? Buggy rides – they look like such fun.  -twl

Craig Noel

Fredonia NY – Here’s the obituary of Craig Noel, the founding director of the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. You can also read an appreciation article about him at the San Diego Union Tribune. I always envied his career and life. He was all I ever wanted to be; no more, no less.  -twl

Dunkirk NY – One of my classes is an independent acting studio that I created when a few senior students came to my office asking if they could have an acting class dedicated specifically to better understanding how language operates and works in acting a scene and creating a character. Currently we are working on two Eugene O’Neill scenes: one from Anna Christie when Matt Burke first comes on the barge, and a section of act 3 from A Moon for the Misbegotten. My attempt in this class is to reduce them to as still a character as possible physically, forcing them to play the scene with only the power of the words at their command, and the connection they can make with their scene partner.

The work has led me at times to the edge of having to “speak the mysteries” of acting. O’Neill will do that to you. His work has a mystique all its own in American literature, as he is the most autobiographical and vulnerable playwright we’ve ever produced in this country, in my estimation. The sheer intensity of deep feeling and faith and love that comes pouring out of the lost souls of all his characters can bring an actor to their emotional knees when played correctly. I know full well that my actors working on these scenes are 21-22 years old and in some ways will never be able to play these roles (and I think O’Neill is way beyond the capabilities of undergraduate actors), yet occasionally I think I am catching in their eyes the recognition that there is something to these mysteries, even if they can’t fully grasp them yet.

“Speaking the mysteries” of acting to me means speaking about the deeply personal nature of the art form. If there is one truly noticeable sea change in the realm of teaching acting at the college level, it is the removal of the personal from the training process. I know that I cannot teach acting without getting personal about it, and yet quite often I do my best to shy away from that, not because I want to, but because social conditions are such these days that making acting training a personal matter is no longer acceptable. Teaching acting has become a dry, mechanical process, and often I find myself reducing my approach to something that students come to expect.

But O’Neill demands this personal approach – I don’t think it’s possible to act O’Neill unless as an actor you’re willing to dive right into the personal nature of the material. Loosing your own broken heart and soul upon the audience is all that will make O’Neill make sense. I am forcing them to look into each other’s eyes and find that broken part of each other that they can connect with. It’s been good. I have hope that speaking the mysteries will make them richer actors.  -twl

Dunkirk NY – It’s been a long week. My days have begun at 8-8:30 in the morning, and stretched until 6:00 in the evening. I could have had an easy semester this spring, as I had only three classes, and each day ending at 12:30 (and no Monday classes). But I took on an independent studio class for some seniors, the broadsword class, advising and coaching senior recitals, the Middle States accreditation, and now the transition work to the new College of Visual and Performing Arts set to begin in fall 2012. Not to mention looking at Statements of Qualifications for the proposed addition to the Rockefeller Arts Center (an addition I think I will not actually get to work in, as it will probably not be completed before I retire). Last week was also advising week, where we use our “free time” as appointments for students to guide them in their choices for courses next semester. Some days last week I never ate lunch, or had to take the 20 minutes of open time to run to the student center and grab a sandwich and bring it back to the office.

This kind of stress also shows on the students. By about this time in the semester I begin to see a higher degree of absenteeism. In my acting for non-majors classes, the rate of interest and attendance usually begins to go down, as the starting time for these classes – 9:00 and 9:30 – begins to feel early to students. The days are growing warmer, and that “cabin fever release” feeling creates a desire to enjoy other things in life beyond education. Theatre students are feeling the pinch of a lot of assignments beginning to crunch their time – I gave my entire senior studio the week off next week from class so they can do the final polishing on their recitals.

By the time I get home between 6:30-7PM, I am quite tired. My body may be aching a bit from broadsword class, or I just may be fatigued from not eating as well as I should. Dinner becomes another chore. All I want to do is sit in a chair and listen to some silence, particular any sound that does not include my own voice. Getting up to blog feels like a chore as well, and so as a consequence I have things that are piling up in terms of ideas, but no energy to write. And on top of that, I got my notification the other day that the first day of rehearsals for Much Ado About Nothing in Shakespeare in Delaware Park this summer, in which I am playing Leonato, begins rehearsal two days after this semester ends, so no week off between ending classes and going to rehearsal.

This weekend I actually have three days off with no obligations to attend to, although I could find a lot of little things I could do to clean up unfinished business (like write a decent post). But I think I may instead find a way to shut everything down and ease off the limits a bit. The final five weeks will be sort of intense, so it may be wise to gather up all the sunshine and energy this nice weekend will present.  -twl