Showman/Shaman

So there's been a phrase jumping around in my head since working on LEAP which I feel like writing. But I can't be sure if it's authentic or if it's just hyperbole to get a rise out of readers. The phrase is:

I have seen the future of theatre, and it is long-form improvisation.

After wrestling with this for a bit, I have refined it:

I have seen the future of my theatre, and it is long-form improvisation.

Over the last several years I have been exploring actor-generated theatre in a variety of guises. I have been creating it, studying it, performing it: meetings for theatre, commedia dell'Arte, long-form. A great deal of my professional life has been spent teaching actors to make artistically empowering choices. A great deal of the artistic friction in my life has come from my exploration of the actor/director relationship and my resistance to hierarchical power structures. All of this is rooted in family-of-origin issues which have made me who I am. My creativity as an actor has been an ongoing journey of self-actualization through the guise of theatre. I am most delighted and provoked when a role reveals something about my self to me. Sometimes this revelation is painful and sometimes joyful. Recently, it has dawned on me that the more solipsistic the journey is the more damaging to me. So in order for the journey to bring me to well-being the discoveries must be shared, must serve a purpose greater than my own betterment, and that purpose is service to my community.

This journey finds its apotheosis in long-form improv. Absent the dictates of the conventional theatre script and the conventional theatre director, the actor is left to find his way through an outrageous and spontaneous balancing act: on one side his own creative impulses and visions; on the other his complete willingness to follow someone else's creative impulse. In this - the central creative dynamic in long-form improv - the paradox of actor creativity is brought to life on stage. It's all about me and it's all about you, and we don't cancel each other out.

But what narcissistic crap it would be if it was all just a means to perform our own therapy. And so we must be conjoined with the audience, and it is their secrets and unspoken desires which form the foundation of what we make. The initial union is not between actors, but between actor and audience. This union binds the experience in a way that makes it uniquely personal for audience and actor alike. In doing so, long-form capitalizes on the essential feature which makes theatre distinct from film and TV: we are all in the same room together. What is made and witnessed over the course of a performance will never be made or witnessed again. Long-form takes this essential aspect of theatre and puts it in bold face with a line underneath it.

Don't get me wrong: there is something indisputably theraputic about long-form, especially for the performers. But I have always maintained that creativity in any form is theraputic, in that it focuses life-energy outward and assists the person in feeling useful. Long-form just brings the stuff to the fore: you know, all your stuff, your fears, issues, desires and wishes. And when all your stuff is heard and affirmed by a warm and supportive company of fellow artists, as mine was, you almost don't need to perform at all to be a little healed. But then, when you perform, and you sense your stuff being shook out and flapped around the stage in different ways by you and others, it stops having such a hold on you.

And don't get me wrong here either: we had a director. She gave us notes, provoked us forward, reigned us in, adjusted our impuses (or tried to), negotiated situations - in short, she functioned in all the ways a conventional director functions, except one. She had very little to do with the stories we told on stage, or the choices we made while telling them. Whereas a conventional director assumes a kind of ultimate responsibility for the thing presented, our director had almost no responsibility for the thing presented. She had responsibilty for the form it took and our training in that form. But on the night itself, we were on our own.

What do we crave in theatre? Well, the answer to that question will be different for each of us. Certainly, for those who crave the elegantly crafted two-hour story, the beautifully choreographed ensemble, the knock-out show tune or the gorgeous marriage of poetry and idea, long-form will come up short. And yet, I have seen and participated in moments in long-form in which each of these virtues was evident (well, maybe not the knock-out show tune). And the fact that everyone in the room knows it is being made right in front of them makes its genesis electrifying. But underneath the variety of theatre we crave, I think we each crave the same thing: the communal experience. It is simply this experience which has kept the theatre alive, I'm convinced: warm bodies together in the same big room, elbow to elbow, witnessing other warm bodies doing something fabulous. The same air being passed around. The same laughter being shared. The same Spirit being worshipped.

In this modern era we live in, in which we are in continual danger of being permanently attached to our digital devices, in which we spend more and more hours each day stimulating ourselves and our children with electronic media, in which we the time spent amongst each other shrinks each year until, sadly, we will only see people outside our tight little circle in emergencies. Even universities - once the the place where we met the rest of the world - are being offered now through computers, and some parents, convinced their children will be taught heresy in actual schools, or worse, gunned down by some cyber-depressed adolescent, keep their children at home and school them there. This is the age of isolation. No wonder so many young people are depressed. No wonder so many of us are on Prozac.

Communion is the antidote. Communion is the solution. Somehow, joy is created when we are together, even when the thing we see is sad. We are reassured that the world is safe, that others have feelings like ours, that we needn't be ashamed of who we are, or who you are. In the immediacy of of the theatrical experience, our isolation is melted and we soothe each other. This is why, after seeing LEAP, my friend Chris told me he felt like he been to church. It wasn't because he was made aware that he was seeing and hearing something holy being delivered to him by holy people. It was because he felt joined to the common everyone in the room with him, and the feeling of being joined reminded him of God. I say, it was God doing the joining. But that's just me.

Friday: much nerves and excitement, followed by a tentative show. Not terrible, just not risky. I think we were playing it safe in front of our first audience. We used very few devices (swinging doors, etc.), for fear of stepping on each other in front of the audience. The result was that some scenes went on too long. Writing this now, I can't remember who I was or what I did, except that I delivered the first personal monologue, inspired by a card that said "I want to have your baby". My story was about how one's life can be divided in two by babies: before baby and after baby. I was also in in a confrontational rodeo scene with Joe. Afterwards, Bobbi gave notes that chafed some in the company. I think we all knew we could have done better and were sensitive to criticism, even if delivered gently.

Saturday: I arrived pissed off and distracted. The company seemed spacy at check-in, but I wasn't one to judge. We warmed up on the stage which was good. Then, feeling the audience bearing down on us from the lobby, I think we rallied and focused. We changed backstage and committed to taking more risks and using more devices. As I passed into the theatre after "places" I felt the murmur of the audience like soft shove in the chest. I felt electricity shoot up my back. The air was charged.

Arriving on stage for the opening I could tell it was a full house. Sometimes you walk into the audience's smell when you walk on stage, on nights when they are packed in tightly and the humidity is just right. On Saturday, their scent enveloped us like a warm hum as we stood before them. As we began reading the cards (I had "I love unicorns" and "I'm not particularly fond of your singing"), their laughter was percussive, visceral. Again, I was led to deliver a personal monologue, this time inspired by someone else's card about having shoplifted as a child. So I told a "getting sober" story, in which I described confessing my own shoplifting to my first sponsor, who then buried my shame with his own shoplifting story. He liked to steal live lobsters from up-scale seafood stores in New York when he was ripped on coke. Top that. I dare you.

The rest of the night felt just magical. Meg and I did the "main scene" together - the story of newlyweds on the coast of Maine, with the hint of alcoholic trouble in the family. At the end of the night, Meg called it back 40 years later, with the two of us as an old couple, and me an old drunk. It was deep. In between, there were hilarious shoplifting scenes, poignant domestic dramas and one homicide. Joe and I had done a scene as car mechanics, in which it was revealed (through swinging doors) that I was sleeping with his wife. Then, during call backs, Joe whispers to me on the sidelines, "Lie down so I can drag you". So he dragged me on stage dead. The audience roared.

Afterwards, the lobby was thick with well-wishers. Bobbi was jumping up and down with excitement. We had clearly nailed . . . something. But what? Unlike a scripted play, there was nothing to take home as a "lesson learned" about this scene or that one. What was learned was learned about ourselves and each other - as people and performers. Could it be as basic as this? That we are best when we have faith in each other and ourselves and go for it? And something was learned about that intense bond between audience and actor, which on Saturday felt nearly erotic. They were horny, we gave them what they wanted and a good time was has by all. Maybe it's not exactly sexual. But for a magical night to happen both of those conditions need to be met: the audience arrives hungry and the company feeds them well. My friend Kathryn said to me, "I didn't want it to end. I felt like your were all making something just for me." And we were.

Sunday: the inevidible "how can we top last night" demon arrived with us. We went on stage Sunday afternoon for a less full and less hungry audience determined not to shoot ourselves in the foot by comparing what we were doing to the previous show. But it was inescapable. What we did was fine: creative, fun, serious. But we had tasted what we were capable of and, like all good performers, were left unsatisfied by the good show, having known a great one. Afterwards, we all agreed we wanted more. But when and how remains to be seen. We may be performing at Ursinus on Sept. 20th - still unclear as of this posting.

I want to tell you what my thoughts are about long-form improv generally, but it's late and I'm tired. Next time.

We've finished our second installment of long-form "training camp": two and a half days this past Labor Day Weekend. Saturday saw us back in the little rehearsal room at the Adrienne. Bobbi has settled on a form for us:

Cards/3 personal monos/snog/main scene/decon scenes/char. mono/cocktail party/snog/wordless scene/decon scenes (callbacks)/char. mono/main scene callback.

It sort of has this shape < > - < >.

Or maybe this } > - < { .

Or maybe " " /// < { } !!! { } >.

Fun with symbols! We practiced it Saturday morning, then 15 of my students from Ursinus came by bus in the afternoon and were our second audience. Having my students watch me act is always nerve-wracking, and in this case, in that little room, we were almost in their laps. But I've noticed that long-form, more than conventional plays, leads me to that island of focus Stanislavsky calls the "circle of concentration", in which my awareness of the audience dims as I become more and more captivated by the events on stage. I think the students were impressed.

Sunday we moved to Abington Friends School, to work on the main stage there courtesy of Meg, who is their director of theatre. It was good to be in a big theatre space, and be forced to make intimate choices heard in the back row. We each stretched gratefully into the size of it and allowed it to lead us into larger, more theatrical choices. We did the form twice there, and Bobbi told us our second time through was our best ever. Alex, my former student from UArts, is now fully our musical partner, and has learned the form along with us. His music, made with a giant Casio synthesizer, adds something wonderful to the work. He, and it, are our sixth player now.

Today, we met again in the little room, to do the form once for a small audience of invited friends. Bobbi had paid me a nice compliment before the form, and I think it made me a little cocky. I reverted to my impulsive over-initiating a bit, which was noted afterwards. Alex continued to grow as a collaborator, and is now editing scenes (beautifully) with music. I had to leave notes early to pick up Griff and Ella, who had spent the morning with Susan at the National Constitution Center where she performs in Freedom Rising.

Later, at home, Bobbi called me with more notes. I was tired from kid duty, and I bristled a bit at some of what she said, even though it was accurate. I recognize this trait as a sure sign that I am owning the work more now, and want to be left alone to find my way through it, mistakes and all. There is always this passage for me, with any director on any piece of theatre, during which I politely say a vaiation of, you can fuck off now, and they politely say a variation of, no Ben, I can't. There is nothing amiss. There are no hard feelings, only love for each other and the work. It's only the natural progression, like a child becoming a teenager and needing to individuate, wanting to stand on his own and find his own way.

One of our company arrived today in a state, upset and near tears over a troubling phone call they couldn't discuss. This work is so personal and we have grown so close, that I felt a major ripple flutter through our circle before we started, each of us wondering if and how this anguish might appear in the work. But again we were given a healing lesson in theatre, in which we were all taken away by the work; taken away from our troubles and uncertainty to that island I wrote of before, an island we create anew each time we meet. It's my new long-form query before we begin: I wonder where we'll go today?