Showman/Shaman

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 . . .

It had been a long day. I didn't sleep well last night. Griffen woke me up twice. Once at 1:30 a.m. when he reported an "ear ache". That took an hour, between the administering of liquid Ibuprofen, settling him, re-settling me. Then, at 6:30, he and Ella were doing something that sounded like dodge ball downstairs. I staggered downstairs and quieted them with extreme prejudice. Maybe I got another hour of sleep after that. So today, I was sullen, tired and grumpy as we went to see the holiday toy trains at the Brandywine River Museum - an annual Christmas pilgrimage for us. Even though I slept for about a half-hour this afternoon, I still arrived for the show tonight feeling like I was dragging a 10 pound bag of sand behind me. Then I was transformed.

Here's the equation: Ben needs to escape (he had a bad day). Ben finds an escape (Greater Tuna). Ben meets people who delight in him there (the audience). Ben delights in them. Everyone's delighted. Everyone's transformed. This equation has happened over and over. It doesn't need to be a comic play either. Tragic catharsis can occur for the actor too. And sometimes, the worse the day, the bigger the catharsis - or comic release - and the higher the dramatic effect. This is the cycle of the Wounded Actor in microcosm - a cycle I describe in more detail in my book The Actor's Way. The actor uses the performance as an escape from his life, and creates a bond with the audience to do so.

It helps when you have an audience eager to play, like we did tonight. Especially fine was the elderly lady in the front row. Seated there propped up on her cane, staring at us from behind spectacles, she could have been the personification of my characterization of Pearl Burras. She got so into my manic Rev. Spikes routine, she shouted "Hallelujah!" during a pause in the proceedings. I had to stop and acknowledge the raucous audience response to her by sitting next to her and improvising something along the lines being so glad she could make it to church that day. And if you believe as I do that the Spirit is present all the time and everywhere, that's exactly where we were - in church . . . being transformed . . . by the Spirit.

Griffen's "ear ache" turned out to be a build up of wax, by the way, dealt with through the application of ear drops and a warm water flush later in the morning. He was fine, and had a great time looking at the trains, and throwing rocks into the Brandywine Creek.

It's started: "Dad, tell me about Jesus". So here we go, during the most appropriate season there is, advent.

The first conversation occurred while the four of us were on the way to Longwood Gardens a few weeks ago, to see the lights, trees and ice skating. Griffen asked about who Jesus was. Susan and I shared our similar belief that Jesus was very special and has a lot to teach us. But we both told Griffen that we didn't believe that Jesus was more of a child of God than he was. Then Griffen (age eight) and Susan and I talked for quite a while about what Jesus teaches us and why he was killed. Ella (age four) listened intently. Susan and I both stressed that Jesus preached about love and responsibility, and about the need to help anyone in need. We talked about Jesus hanging out with lepers, prostitutes and poor people, and how he threw "gamblers" (my on the spot translation of "money changers") out of the church. Susan and I parted ways around the idea of Jesus' presence in our lives today. I told Griff that Jesus made my worship very personal, and I've come to feel him in my life like dear, old friend. Susan and I both spoke about how his ideas are still alive and still challenging. We told Griffen that he was killed because the people in power were afraid of him.

The second conversation came a few days ago, just between Griff and me. Griff is fond of talking about Jesus "super-powers" (walking on water, etc.) and we both talked about how cool it would be to be able to do that. He asked if they wanted to kill him after he was born, and I told him the story of Herod killing all the male babies in Bethlehem as Jesus and his family snuck away to Egypt. Griff sat quietly for a minute. "What happened then?" So I told him that there isn't a lot of information about Jesus between the time of his birth and the time, about 30 years later, when he became the minister that changed the world. Griff and I speculated about his childhood, and I was reminded again of Ann Rice's novel Christ The Lord (see this blog post). We ended this conversation with an idea I was shocked to be discussing with him: "Maybe we'll read the Bible together some day", I said. "Cool", he said, and then the conversation moved on to other things, like football, Christmas presents and food. So I will read the Bible soon with my son. Holy Christmas, Batman.

These conversations were echoing in my head as I listed to two episodes of Speaking of Faith, in which host Krista Tippet interviews the "New Evangelicals", or the post-religious right Evangelicals. The first episode was with Jim Wallis, the second with Rick and Kay Warren. Some highlights:

- Wallis describing the exercise he did in seminary in which he and his classmates cut any social justice reference out of the Bible. He described the result as something comically "hole-y".

- Warren's observation that the split in Protestant Christianity between either social justice (ceded to the political left) and personal conduct (ceded to the religious right) is artificial and politically motivated. He observed that this split has not occurred in the Catholic Church, which remains committed to social justice causes and is deeply invested in issues of personal conduct.

- Wallis describing how the religious right is now being replaced by Jesus.

- Kay Warren's story of visiting AIDS orphans in Africa, then being joined by Rick. They witnessed a church which was nothing but a tent helping 25 AIDS orphans. "Like a knife in my heart," Warren said, "I asked myself, how many orphans have we helped. Not one. And I knew that had to change."

- Both the pastors were adamant about removing politics from Evangelical Christianity. And I resonated with that position, and recalled my own concern around the way Quakers use words like "liberal" and "conservative".

These are two committed, successful Christians trying to live the life they believe Jesus is asking them to live. They are deeply reluctant to pass judgments, and both have a sense of humor about themselves that, to me, has always been a mark of a great minister. They, and Griffen, have added a sense of import to this advent season. I hope it brings you joy.

Packed house tonight, and the late-comers were loopy. Several tipsy ladies sat in seats that were almost on stage with us. In the opening moments of the play, two of them chatted audibly before getting up and leaving. Good riddance, I thought, except they came back. When I returned to their end of the theatre as Leonard, I again heard them audibly chatting. I mean, they were three feet away from me. I had one of those extreme "split screen" experiences actors have, when half of you is executing the part - the lines coming out of my mouth etc - and the other half is asking myself, when do I tell them to shut up? Then, as if I had been possessed, I turn to them as Leonard and say something sweet like, "Now, ladies, your gonna have to keep it quiet 'cause we're on the air and the microphones are going to pick up everything you're saying." They looked at me shocked, then laughed and said sorry, and I continued. I learned later, though, that they picked up again when I moved away and other audience members were trying to get them to shut up.

At intermission, I saw what our stage manager is like when she gets steamed. Look out. She went out to the lobby to back up the house manager, who had told the ladies that they couldn't behave that way any more. Predictably, the ladies (and I am now using that word ironically), threw a fit and wanted their money back. When the second act began, they were gone. There was a palpable sense of relief in the house, like when a loud drunk is removed from a bar, and everyone is free to have fun again. Vera and the Rev. rocked. Then, at the end, when I usually ad lib a few things to cover John's final change, asking him about the "lost news", I said" "Maybe the drunk chicks took it." There was a moment of silence, then a collective gasp, then a roar of laughter, which required me standing still and John to wait off stage for it to subside before he entered. I turned to the audience and smiled and the giant laugh crested. When we came out for our bow a few moments later many in the audience stood.

Driving home, I was reminded of a performance of Taming of the Shrew last spring (see this blog post), when I had a less elaborate but equally comic connection to the audience. And it made me think about the pit in the Globe 500 plus years ago, when I believe the connection between audience and actor was this alive and spontaneous all the time. Have we - audience and actors - grown too fond of being so separate? I wonder about the emergence of the director in our art, who made the stage a place of gloriously organized images, which are witnessed best at a distance. It feels to me like my audience, for the most part, doesn't want to be at a distance anymore. They want to be connected to us, included by us. The want to be implicated in the event they are witnessing, giving them a more active kind of participation. And this active participation of audience, this inclusion - which is what Greater Tuna thrives on - is also what sets theatre apart from film and T.V., in which the audience can never be "touched" by a performer.

Susan is performing in the holiday panto at People's Light right now, which is another form which invites audience/actor connection. She has felt frustrated at times by what she feels is a directorial reluctance to give the actors the freedom they need to make spur of the moment judgment calls about audience interaction. Is it because this kind of spontaneous invention - like the one I had as Leonard tonight - cannot be directed that some directors fear it? Is it because it is at the center of the actor's power, the power to bring an audience more deeply into a collective experience? I watched Madi move from a fairly strong position against having us relate with the audience too much early on in rehearsal, to one where, by previews, she was encouraging us to look for opportunities during the scenes where it makes sense. She even gave me an ad lib to use as Pearl which gets one of my most reliable laughs now.

What is it that makes a theatrical experience successful? I submit it is the exquisite communion between performer and audience - almost erotic in explosive power sometimes - which defines that success. When an audience has been taken along by the actors, whether in comedy or drama, even flaws in writing are overcome. And it is only in the living event of theatre (or dance) that this can happen. But (and I risk tooting my own horn here, but it's my blog, so deal with it), it takes actors of skill and experience to pull it off. The only way the audience tonight could have a good time with us, was that they sensed John's and my confidence in what we were doing. Even with the chattering drunk chicks, which could have made everyone feel tense and un-funny, John and I managed to make everyone feel safe, first by acknowledging what was happening, then by playing with it.

Sort of lesson for life, it seems to me.

So I arrive at our last preview last night to discover Madi rummaging through a plastic bag full of cards and gifts. "Hey", I say, "you're a day early for opening night gifts!". Chris, the sound designer, standing next to me on stage says, "Oh, didn't you hear? They moved opening up a day."

They moved opening up a day?

Sure enough, sitting in the front row last night were three - count 'em - three critics, note pads and pens at the ready. Two things struck me as strange about this. Firstly - the front row? In a house that only seats eighty? When you are basically on stage with the actors because of lighting spill? In my experience, critics have tended to want to blend in and not draw attention to themselves (whether it's because of modesty or fear of stoning I will leave to others to guess). So it seemed weird to me that they essentially announced themselves that way.

Secondly, since when do critics sit together? From what I've seen, there's usually a stiff, professional distance between critics. I've never noticed herd mentality at work amongst them. But there they were last night, elbow to elbow in the front row. It was almost comical. It was if they were saying "We're here. We're weird. Get used to us."

Part of me - the grandiose part - thinks they were forming a united front in the face of my critical antagonism, in these virtual pages and elsewhere. The other part of me - the rational part - thinks they arrived late and sat in the only seats that remained. In any case, of course we had the lamest house so far, though they warmed up as we went. And we and a couple of costume and scenic malfunctions, including John and I improvising around a frightening wig pin he discovered in my Bertha wig, which i finally ripped out of the fake hair. Then I nearly obliterated the phone as Pearl, dialing with my cane. Earlier, I came on with my Pearl dress jammed into my underware, so I was flashing a sizable part of the house.

But all of this is the fun of this show. These kinds of "mis-haps" are going to happen a lot, and the warmest moments we had last night we ones in which the audience felt spontaneously included, either in a wayward wig pin, or in the second act, when Vera and The Reverend speak directly to them. The truth of the comic energy of Greater Tuna has been born out through the previews: it's the playing of it that's fun. The jokes, as written, vary in comic punch, and some of them are frankly dated (agent orange?). So what the audience delights in is me and John, whirling around in outrageous costumes and silly accents, with enough character precision and actor chops to lift it slightly above burlesque. And when we invite them into the fun, through ad libs or staged moments, they have obliged with gusto.

Some jokes that got reliable laughs in rehearsal are falling flat in performance. Two examples: my over-emnphasis of "ass" in the Sheriff's line "Yeah, I'm going to charge your ASS, boy." Gets a chuckle or two, that's it. And R.R.'s deranged cat U.F.O. chase is a chuckler too, not a belly laugh. I think it's because, in rehearsal, the gags were set up, and it was their invention which which amused. In performance, the audience has less information, and has to react much more immediately, and so the jokes lack the set up they had previously.

Looking forward to more fun in Tuna . . .

PS: The Inquirer critic liked it. To read her review go here.