Showman/Shaman

Mid way through our second ten out of twelve. The company is in good spirits. The zany energy of the play has infected us all, and even the ridiculous six-second costume changes don't get us down. John and I frequently come off stage and look at Jess and Angela in a panic, having no idea who we're supposed to be changing into. The girls tend to steer us into our next costumes and position us for our entrances. John is finding some comic gold, especially with two of his drag performances: Charlene and Vera. I struck my own gold as R.R. yesterday, when I chased a "U.F.O" lighting effect around the stage like a deranged house cat. Leonard Childers is so fat I resemble a Macy's Day parade blimp, and Bertha's buns are padded right down the backs of my thighs. I display said buns prominently at my first Bertha entrance. For the first time today, I got through the Rev. Spike's eulogy without calling for a line. I'm not saying I got 'em all right, I just didn't ask for 'em.

Greater Tuna is the kind of play looked down on by the theateratti. It is low-brow comedy in the best American tradition: populist, self-effacing, uncomplicated in its message. There is barely a plot - it's really a series of comic sketches loosely strung together through the conceit of a day at the local radio station. Its value lies in the performance of it, and so it claims its place as pure comic theatre along the lines of commedia dell'Arte, successful only if a talented enough company can bring it to life, meeting the transformational challenges it presents with brio. I hope we are up to it. I sense we are, but we will learn a lot as we add audiences in previews next week.

The Walnut Street theatre, which is producing this production, is Philadelphia's great populist theatre. Long sneered at by our local theateratti, it has never-the-less maintained the most robust subscription base of any local theatre. It thrives by knowing who its audience is, giving them what they want and doing it well - at least well enough that the theatre remains fiscally sound. I sneered at the theatre myself when I arrived I arrived in town some thirteen years ago. I raised my nose at its consistent menu of American musicals and "old chestnuts". But as I have matured, my nose has lowered and my perspective has shifted. I now admire this theatre for being what it is unapologetically, and am grateful for the work I have been offered here (three shows in four years). Interestingly, Greater Tuna is a collaboration between one of Philly's most outrageous theatre artists (Madi diStefano, our director) and its most conservative theatres, in terms of play selection. Madi is founder of Brat Productions and well-know for both her direction of gritty, site-specific Conor McPherson plays in local bars, as well as her theatrical performances in her own plays, Popsicle's Departure and Sweetie Pie. But she has made a useful alliance with Walnut Street, having appeared in at least one of Neil Simon's Broadway Bound plays here. Bernard Havard, the artistic director here, has taken a shine to her, and I remember being in auditions watching the two them - Bernard in tweedy British jacket-and-tie style and Madi in post-punk black leather and bleached white hair - and laughing inwardly at the pair they make.

Tonight, peering out from backstage during a break, I took in Madi and our designers sitting in the dark house, their faces lit by the pale ambient light of computer screens and small note-taking lights. Each is doing what they love, I thought, and isn't that a measure of success? I am particularly fond of Elisa's costumes (all 20 of them) and Christopher Coluccci's sound design. He's picked some great southern rock for accompanying music, and given us a variety of goofy sound effects to use as Thurston and Arles in the radio station. Turning my head, I saw Jess and Angela scurrying around and getting the next change set up, and John dressed half in Petey and half in Arles. I felt proud to count myself one of them: an artist at work, hell-bent on making people I don't know laugh as much as possible.

I long for an end to the snooty judgments. But as I have written here before, I fear our academic institutions are too deeply invested in passing judgments, and they pass on that tendency to the students they instruct. And so we get a division along an ancient fault-line: on one side the academic intellectual aesthetes, on the other the populist, pragmatic workers. For years I have been trying to live on both sides of that line simultaneously, and the result has been a certain amount of stress and academic professional disappointment. It's as if I am being led again and again away from colleges and universities, led backstage and into costumes and out in front of audiences. But I am stubborn and head-strong. I refuse to leave my students. I refuse to believe I can't have it both ways. There must be a way to lift up Greater Tuna next to Antigone and say "both/and" rather than "either/or".

Making people laugh is serious business. Indeed, in this wounded war-torn world, one might argue it is more urgent than the business of making people cry. So just watch it if you lift your nose at me about Greater Tuna. I just might poke it.

Tech looms. We are working through the insanely quick costume changes in the rehearsal room. It's both fun and demanding, taking an enormous amount of patience and preparation, and utilizing the skills of the ASM (Angela) and the dresser (Jess) to help us backstage. The two of them have a "costume change playbook" that would make some NFL coaches proud. They are the kind of unsung heros the theatre doesn't recognize enough. This play would not be possible without them. I suggested, aloud, that Angela and Jess should take a curtain call.

Madi is deeply involved in the process, having acted in Irma Vep in this slot in this theatre last year. It's another two-actor, costume change parade. We tease her, and she teases herself, about how many times she says something that begins with "It's like in Irma Vep last year . . . " I make a joke about not saying things like "Well, when I was in this play before . . . " Today, Madi was felled by a mysterious malaise which led her to direct us from an Equity cot, like some diva auteur, which, of course, she is. Madi is also eminently focused and clearly a theatre artist to her core. It's been great to get to know her better.

And everyone got to know John and I pretty well today, as we traipsed around the rehearsal room in our skivvies. Jess would turn to one of us in between changes and say matter of factly "Clothes off, please." It's another reason actors are held in suspicion by some. Stripping to our underware in front of people we hardly know is par for the course. But isn't really a sign of health? I often think that actors instruct in ways we are hardly aware of, as in, here's my body. I'm not ashamed of it so don't be ashamed of yours.

At the beginning of the second week of rehearsing my second go-round with the little comedy that could: Greater Tuna. In 1996, I appeared in the "Arles track" at the Gretna Playhouse in Lancaster County, PA. That summer, I acted in the play with Pearce Bunting, my best friend, and was directed by Ken Marini. The three of us were about to go to Scotland to produce my play Psychodrama at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with some others, one of whom would later become my wife.

Now, at The Walnut Street Theatre in Philly, I am playing the other 10 roles in the "Thurston track". Already it is clear that a great deal of my performance will be an homage to Pearce, especially his portrayal of Pearl Burras, which I have essentially stolen outright. John Zak is Arles and Madi diStefano is directing, and we make a jolly trio. We are doing "straight sixes" - six continuous hours of rehearsal a day, as opposed to eight with a lunch break. It's a more efficient use of time and it helps enormously with child care, but boy, am I feeling my age. The play is a high-voltage parade of quick changes, with both actors going from one broad comic role to another. Besides the line-learning required in the short time allotted us by the theatre, I have felt daunted by the energy expended slowly bringing these characters to life. Fighting off the cold Ella brought home from school last week doesn't help either.

I am also experiencing a curious ennui about acting generally. As usually happens when I begin a project, I am made aware of all the things I can't do because I am an actor: go to Quaker meeting, attend weekend events with my kids, participate in volunteer activities. More than ever, I am smarting at the strange professional schedule of actors, which eats up the weekends and gives us Mondays off. Mondays off? Sorry, I have to teach, and the do all the things I couldn't do on thee weekend because I was rehearsing. I am under-prepared for my week of teaching because by the time I get home, I am too spent to do anything but put the kids to bed.

But perhaps it is larger than that. Perhaps I am finally wearying beneath the endless insecurity of my profession. Now, at 45, I find myself fantasizing about managing a Starbucks, owning a franchise, or driving a bus. A regular schedule, with regular income, and no particular emotional attachment to what I do - it sounds dreamy. My domestic situation is in a state of flux, the swirl of which is stimulated by the unpredictability of my professional life.

Perhaps it is mortality. Perhaps the weariness is the weariness of middle age, and the ennui comes from a creeping sense that now is the time for doing what is essential, what calls to me, what leads me. The phrase "I'm too old for this" has meaning for me now. I'm not too old for Greater Tuna - it's actually great fun and requires comic bravery and precision which thrills and challenges me. But I sense the clock ticking away, and I wonder . . . how much longer do I have to do the things I really want to do? And what are those things?

This from the "life imitates art" file. Some of you know my book The Actor's Way deals with the connection between a younger, would-be Quaker actor and and elderly Quaker woman, his former teacher. Below is an exchange between me and Maggie Davis, who at 82 seems to be something of a Quaker dynamo in Florida. While the comparison is not exact, I have been struck again and again by how important these intergenerational dialogues are in the Quaker community. I have been deeply affected by older Quakers in my Yearly Meeting. When we had established Elders in our meetings, these dialogues happened all the time. They were, in fact, the way our Society perpetuated itself. I am moved to ask again: how long until we put our Elders back in their rightful place of leadership, honor and stewardship within our meetings?

What follows, with her permission, is an edited email exchange between Maggie and me. She refers to a pamphlet I wrote for Pendle Hill Publishing called Turnaround: Growing a 21st Century Religious Society of Friends.

**

Dear Ben -
 
As you know, I read your Pendle Hill publication "Turnaround" recently with great interest, especially the ending, in which you offer possible solutions for the problems being encountered by Friends and Quaker meetings today.
 
I hope you'll let me make a few comments, beginning with the ending of "Turnaround"  .
 
I'm glad you found a happy prospect in the numbers and activities of "young Friends" (apparently a 20-30 age group), who use text messaging and cell phones among other things to bond and generally stay in touch with each other in the Friendly spirit. 
 
I'm hopeful, too, that these young Friends are our future Quaker leaders and that the electronic age is going to be friendly to us (Quakers).  As you point out in "Turnaround," our numbers are diminishing and with them much of the spirit and sense of Quakerism.  Historically our numbers have always been small, but our achievements have been great . . . .

In his book "Beyond Majority Rule" Jesuit Michael Sheehan, writing  on Quaker decision-making, emphasizes how vital it is for Friends to base their thinking on respect and care for the group, which he considers essential and in some ways unique to Quakers.  He feels the focus on the importance of the Quaker decision-making process may be in danger, influenced by today's individualistic culture.
 
Certainly the shift, which Sheehan describes as "from communitarian to atomic" has been taking place in my meeting for some time.  Recently a committee member invited other committee members via e-mail to join him in a discussion of items of the committee's business before they met at the next committee meeting . . . .

[My] Meeting is mainly composed of two groups: the elderly (over 65), and a group in their thirties and forties.  Many in both groups attend for worship and some socialization, and are not involved in Meeting responsibilities. The Meeting has a chronic problem enlisting volunteers, and resorts to some paid positions such as "childcare," although there is currently not much need for this item, as we seldom see any small children.  Responsibility for the business of the Meeting is left to a handful of members and attenders who function as the Meeting "doers." . . . .

The Meeting, since building the new meeting house, has experienced a surge in attendance.  As with other meetings, many older, experienced Friends are no longer with us and the absence of their Quakerly guidance is felt.  A portion of our congregation appears to have become interested in Quakerism only relatively recently, and this group seems to lack knowledge and in some cases even curiosity of what Quakerism is about. As a result the Meeting sometimes seems to invent it's own "Quakerism" - often based on ideas from those "shrill voices" you refer to in your book "Turnaround."  This leads so some fairly odd interpretations of Quaker practice.  . . . .

The world needs to know about Quakers and what we stand for.  As you say in your [pamphlet], many of us feel bitter, defeated and disillusioned as our country has embraced policies at diametric opposition to our beloved testimonies. We ned to show ourselves.
 
But, I'd like to add, we also need to have recognition among Quakers, too.  The Religious Society of Friends In Truth exploded in the sixteen hundreds with thousands of preaching ministries, many of them women, that continued well into the eighteenth century.  Theirs was an ecstatic preaching of the Gospel that might more resemble that of modern day evangelicals, but the traveling Quakers were also carrying the message of Friends in many aspects  to other Quakers.  In the United States traveling, ministering Friends of the 1700's were a great unifying force for the movement, going up and down the east coast and visiting and speaking out in Meeting to other Quakers, and those interested, in the fashion of George Fox.  They penetrated parts even of the great American wilderness, visiting isolated Quaker families.
 
Since, as you say in "Turnaround," the majority of Quakers in this century will be convinced Friends, I believe we are in need of a revival of traveling recorded ministers speaking out to meetings.  Traveling Friends have never gone out of existence, but at least as far as my meeting is concerned they have been scarce in recent years. . . . .

There' s such a need and such a great message to be taken to people attending Quaker meetings today!  I hope you agree with me..  I am glad I could forward my support and ideas to you as my age, 82, prevents me from taking much of an active part in matters these days.
 
But I'd like to hear your thoughts in return.
 
Maggie Davis

**

Dear Maggie, 

Wow! That's the longest email I've ever received . . . I think!

We are indeed of the same mind about many things. I too have urged my meeting to hold latecomers in our forum room until the children leave, and met the same resistance. So we still have to sit through 15 - 20 minutes of doors opening and closing, etc. and our "hour" of focused worship really shrinks to about 45 minutes. 

And I agree about the source of this resistance: our cultural attachment to individualism. Much to my surprise, my Yearly Meeting asked me to speak at our Residential gathering in New Jersey last summer. My speech was called "Building Bridges" and a great deal of it was spent looking at our individualistic nature in the R S of F; at how there are aspects of the R S of F which draw such individualists; and how our future depends upon transforming our individualistic "transfer students" into members of a covenant community, in which our collective well-being comes first. That speech is wandering through the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting publishing process. When (if) it's published I will be sure to send you a copy. There's a portion of it on my blog

Your email reminded me of Howard Brinton's observation, in Friends for 350 Years, that in Quaker communities, the freedom of the individual must be balanced against the freedom of the group. I feel that there is a relationship between our nearly anarchic behavior sometimes, and the absence of meaningful authority in our meetings. We used to have such authority of course: they were called Elders, and they were charged with protecting the meeting and nurturing future leaders. I feel that we need to restore our Elders (who need not be "old", by the way) to a place our loving authority in our meetings. They might be people we could go to and say, help us have a quiet hour in which to worship each week. There are two good pamphlets on Eldering available through Pendle Hill, one called "Tall Poppies" and a recent one by Marjorie Larrabee [not yet available on line] . . . .

I am glad we have made this connection. My book The Actor's Way is about a young NYC actor who re-connects with his elderly Quaker grade school theatre teacher. So these inter-generational relationships resonate for me. Indeed, I believe they represent the future of our Society.

Yours in the Light, 

Ben

PS: Could I post some of our exchange on my blog? It's okay if not - but I have recently discovered that there is a great nation-wide Quaker conversation going on electronically. Check out www.quakerquaker.org

I sat crying in the Ursinus College parking lot to day. I had just listened to a pod-cast of an episode of my favorite public radio show, This American Life. This episode is called "Act V" and is about the work of the Prison Performing Arts project and the extraordinary Agnes Wilcox.

Agnes believes theatre can change people's lives. Not only those who see it, but also and especially those who make it. So - after racking up an impressive career directing professional regional theatre - she began working with inmates. That's right, the incarcerated. "Act V" describes Agnes's production of Hamlet in one of Missouri's maximum security prisons. Because prisoners are not allowed to congregate for any reason longer than one hour, Agnes decided to do one act every two months or so. She cast four Hamlets and had a full supporting cast. She could only meet with the prisoners for brief times, and each prisoner had to be strip-searched before coming into rehearsal and when leaving. Jack Hitt, the TAL writer presenting the show, was given a "screamer": he carried in his pocket a small black box with a string to pull if he was attacked, whereupon guards would descend from all directions.

She was rehearsing Hamlet with murderers, child molesters and rapists. Or was she?

One of the most compelling aspects of "Act V" is that it asks the question: are we forever defined by one act we commit, no matter how hideous? And do we actually believe that human beings can change for the better after committing such an act? And if we think someone has been deeply and profoundly changed, then what? And these men were deeply changed as a result of their work with Agnes. Acting changed them. Shakespeare changed them. And they changed themselves.

What is prison for?

If you listen to "Act V" I hope you will be convinced, as I am, that the ultimate purpose of prison must be rehabilitation. Another affecting part of the story is hearing the inmates talk about working on Hamlet, and with Agnes. Many of the comments are along the lines of "she made me feel human again". Even more astonishing is how this most high-brow of high-brow plays is illuminated by actors who have actually experienced violence, the giving and the receiving of it. The discussions they have with Jack about Hamlet, about character motivation, about the meaning of lines (an encounter with fog is "scarfed in my sea-cloak") are as deep as any I've had with students in my 15 years of teaching in higher education.

Many of us struggle with how to bring more meaning to our lives in the theatre. This was Agnes's solution. It might be mine too.