Showman/Shaman

It must be said: sometimes it works. Sometimes, a group of people who call themselves Quakers, or at least "people who go to a Quaker meeting once in a while", sometimes such a group can be led collectively by a Power greater then the sum of their parts. Such was the sensation I had when my meeting united last week in supporting a program called Quaker Quest.

Of course, I wax eloquent about Quaker discernment when it goes the way I want it to. In other words, when submitting to the will of God feels like a gift and not an obligation. It felt like a gift to last Sunday, mostly because I am so enthused about Quaker Quest, and, vainly, because it is a program I brought to to the meeting's attention.

Quaker Quest (QQ) is a comprehensive Outreach program developed originally by Hempstead monthly meeting in London, England in 2002. Born from a leading felt by members of that meeting, the program was so successful that now there are many monthly meetings in Britain offering Quaker Quest. The program comes with a printed action plan developed through experience.

In brief, QQ are a series of stand-alone information, discussion and worship meetings held around specific and repeated Quaker topics, and offered at the same location on a sequence of weeks. Each session presents three speakers to talk on the given topic, and each session is a mix of speakers, discussion and hospitality. There is always literature available for seekers to take away with them, and there are always experienced Friends present to guide discussion and answer questions. Possible session topics might be “Quakers and Worship”, “Quakers and God”, "Quakers and The Bible”, “Quakers and Peace”. The Core Group will choose the topics. They may chose a series of individual topics, or three which repeat once, etc. In London, there are Quaker Quest sessions offered 50 weeks out of the year.

An essential aspect of any Quaker Quest program is the creation of a “Core Group” within the meeting offering it. These are Friends and attenders who are committed to Quaker Quest and ready and willing to attend all the sessions and do whatever is necessary to make Quaker Quest a successful experience for the meeting and for the seekers who come to the sessions.

Another essential aspect of Quaker Quest is well-organized and high quality advertising. The bulk of any Quaker Quest budget will be spent on banners, flyers, ads and other innovative means the Core Group can think of to spread the word about Quaker Quest. QQ PR is built around a marketable slogan, such as “A Spiritual Path for Our Time”.

This is the part that makes most old-school P.Y.M. Quakers queasy, mostly because of the mistaking of advertising for proselytizing. But also, I believe, because so many of us are afraid of change. How ironic this is to me, that in a religious society founded on the belief that God is present so much than past or future, in other words, a society fused to the ever-changing, always transforming now, that we in this society should be so stubbornly attached to forms and feelings from the past. But this is human nature. We fear the new; we are comforted by the familiar. And so often we seek to make our spiritual nourishment comfort food. But in my experience God is not always comfortable.

Quaker Quest, with its commitment to 21st century P.R., well designed glossy posters and brochures, and assertive marketing is a way to draw new and "frightening" people to us; people with novel ideas and a lot of potential energy, energy they may use to assist in that continuing revelation I was describing before. People who may ask difficult and inconvenient questions. People who may want to become close to us, and so we may have to open ourselves to them. QQ is a direct affront to the Quietest pall which has been hanging, smog-like, over my Yearly Meeting for too long. It is, in my opinion, a breath of fresh air.

But it is also an enormous challenge to those of us committed and enthusiastic about our society. For what will do with these new people who may appear and be quite alarmingly interested in how we worship and what we stand for? How will we welcome them? And what will we tell them of our expectations, our testimonies, our principles? Will we be able to invite them into something we have already created, and witness their transformations into Quakers, as we also allow them to transform us?

In other words, will we be able to move from us and them, to just us? And will that "us" still be something powerful, Spirit-led, transforming . . . Quaker?

Two events brought me closer to my two main communities last weekend: theatre and Quaker.

LINC was a gathering of Philadelphia "teaching artists" - which too me means people who make and teach art, but which I found out is a controversial term. A large group of us gathered at the Moore College of Art, and the day kicked off with a presentation by Eric Booth, an inspiring speaker who didn't have enough time to really dig into his ideas with us. Eric has broken down arts education into several categories as a way to help explain what we do to others. I was too busy listening to him to write them down. He offered hope and admonishment together. He said we are a woefully disorganized and under-recognized professional group, but he said the pendulum is swinging back and soon, teaching artists will find our voice collectively in the U.S. Later in the day, I jammed one of my books in his hand and was delighted to hear him say, after her read the jacket description, "Oh! I'm a Quaker too!"

The rest to the day was taken up with smaller workshops and gatherings, and a lunch thrown in the middle. The best part of it to me was the being together with others like me, but of different disciplines and levels of experience. My frustration was that I wanted to get to know them better, and felt like there wasn't enough time for it. Still, I came away having made some new friends, picked up some news exercises and abuzz with the sense that there is something really, really cool about opening up students of all ages to creativity of all kinds.

The next day, after worship, I joined a group of men from my meeting in carrying large planks of wood from the sheds outside to the basement beneath our meeting room. I was struck again by how much we Quakers enjoy each other's company when we do things together. Many of us wouldn't naturally spend time together away from meeting, and usually only see each other in worship or social time after. But carrying wood together, we were put into a simple activity requiring cooperation and mutual assistance. We had time to check in with each other, make jokes, enjoy being outside. It occurred to me that we spend too much time talking and not enough time doing. Here's to more doing, and less talking.

Things Tuna Taught Me (this time):

1. It is a privilege to make people laugh. Usually the shine begins to tarnish on a show as I go along, till by the end of the run, I'm ready to move on. But with Tuna, I felt a swelling sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. I was deeply touched by what we shared with the audience each night. Some will say, shared what? Stupid silliness? Well, yes. I am reminded of the passionate lecture Lillian Groag gave us before we began rehearsing The Imaginary Invalid. It had to do with how comedy is not honored properly in this country, how it is a vital part of the dramatic literature of any great civilization, and how it is not only fun, but necessary. I am reminded of Antonio Fava, who has dedicated his life to stupid silliness, executed with marvelous courage and precision. I am reminded of William Shakespeare, who I suspect would hold A Midsummer Night's Dream next to Othello and say "Equals". But more than anything, I am aware of how comedy has healed my wounds, and how deeply committed I am to the notion that it heals the wounds of those who come to laugh.

2. Edmund Gwynne was right. Comedy is hard. This show drew on every skill I possess as an actor. It was demanding physically, vocally and mentally - the concentration required to get from A to Z each night was daunting. It took a full week of performances before I knew who I was becoming next from scene to scene. I wonder: should we begin by teaching our students comedy, and save dramatic realism for last? Comedy is such a demanding master that it obliterates the self-indulgence dramatic realism can provoke. Self-indulgent comedy isn't funny, only embarrassing, and so kills itself except in the most egregious instances. And so I learned that the joy experienced as a result of Tuna was the result of hard work - on all of our parts, on stage and off.

3. I act to connect to people. There I was backstage, every night, watching the audience enter the little house from a choice hiding spot behind the middle door. More clearly than ever, I became aware of how important this ritual is form me. I need to see the people I am about play for. I want that relationship to feel as intimate as possible. I want it to be nearly familial. This clearly comes from my wounded beginnings as an actor, when acting for me was a dysfunctional replacement for family. That need is still alive, but in the light of my awareness, and subject to the transformations I have undergone in other ways, that need is now in service of the play, not my wound. Some play lend themselves to this audience/actor bond. Our production of Tuna was one of them. Played in a tiny theatre (80 seats), and directed to take advantage of that intimacy, John and I were in the audience's laps by the second act, sometimes literally. My peeking was really the next to last step of my preparation. I was beginning to create that bond.

I needed that bond in Shrew, and peeked awkwardly from the upstage right and left curtains. Kate's relationship with the audience began adversarial and ended intimate. I needed it during Crucible, when there was little chance for peeking, but I did so anyway, gently pulling open a seam between two great hanging blacks down right. I felt Hale channel the audience's witness of the play's atrocities.

It's personal, acting is, for me. And I want it to be personal for you too, if you come to watch me.

4. Each character is a universe. Even towards the end of the run, after I had done it 32 times, I would reach the end of the breathless act one change into Pearl, which had me leaping around backstage in my underwear and jumping into her costume and wig in under ten seconds, and I would wonder, how can I possibly do this? Then I would be onstage, usually 12 inches away from someone in the front row, padded out the wazoo and clucking softly like a chicken. And I was Pearl. And I'm still not sure how it happened, every night, so fast.

Part of it must have something to do with rehearsal. I must have began the run with something Madi and I felt secure about. There was a foundation there I could trust. Part of it is what I call my "anchors" - very specific vocal and physical choices which I can execute technically and which don't require any level of psychological "belief". I had these for every character and they were absolutely essential: Pearl's voice and posture with her cane; Leonard's pace and voice (oppositional to Pearl and Bertha, so in act one sequence it went: Bertha-high/smooth, Leonard-low, Pearl-high/scratchy); Elmer's twisted face and bad-motorcycle-accident gait; Bertha's hips and fingers; Thurston in my nose; RR wobbly; Sheriff vocally close to me; Hank's swagger and belly; Yippy, well, yippy. The one character which didn't have any specific anchors, but was somehow a mosaic drawn from Elvis, Bill Clinton and The Farting Preacher from YouTube, was The Rev. Spikes.

But belief plays a part in it too. There could be no room for doubt that I was Pearl. The play requires an immediate leap into character, no second guessing, no regrets. So I was marvelously forced into the present with each new character. More and more, I believe it is this experience of being fused with time in the unfolding present which makes us hopelessly in love with acting.

5. Groping is essential. Only two or three of the nine characters I played came to me fully formed at the outset (Thurston, Pearl, and maybe Bertha, except that she had to pass through a bizarre Blanche duBois phase). The rest I had to grope for. This means I had to begin rehearsals not having a clue what these characters sounded or moved like. So I had to make an ass of myself trying a bunch of different things that didn't work. The Rev. was originally much closer to what ended up being Leonard. Leonard sounded like a deranged talk-show host for a while. RR was more addict going cold-turkey then town drunk. But this is at the center of creativity - the permission to explore all the things that don't work. This is how we learn. And it takes a skillful director to create a warm and welcoming environment for this kind of comic exploration, which makes you feel really, really vulnerable. Great students of acting are able to tolerate this vulnerability. Great teachers invite it and protect it.

6. Let the costume be your guide. Man, did I learn about working a costume with this show. Item A) Bertha's ass padding. As soon as I put that costume on, I knew the first thing I had do on stage was bend over and show that ass to the audience. Which is just what I did. Item B) Hank's tank top. It just begged to be adjusted grotesquely, and it was. Item C) Pearl's cane. It created her physicality. Item D) Thurston's hat. It led me to a subtle understanding of a Western man's relationship to his own head. I know that's a bizarre statement, but I'm sticking to it. Item E) Leonard's chaw. I know, not really a costume piece, but a design feature which led to a cementing of his voice.

Anyway, thanks Tuna. I can't find no place better, so I'm not movin'. Oh, and I just might see y'all next year . . . around Christmas time . . .