Thursday, April 10, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Curtain
We closed the show last night. I am of the opinion that the whole cast did this final performance justice. Up until the very end, actors were finding new things and the exploration did not end until the lights went out. It was beautiful like that.
After the applause died down, it all ended quietly. Much of the cast and crew met for drinks, and talk, and cameraderie. There was no single goodbye. Everything drifted apart a bit at a time, organically, over the course of the entire evening and into this morning. We struck the set this morning and, even before we had finished, the next group for the next production was waiting expectantly in the house, watching us erase a world that we had created and that will never be seen again, awaiting their turn to build their world.
Maybe poetry on paper is superfluous when it exists all around us all of the time. Maybe there is something redundant to the point of vulgarity when it comes to art when, in everything, it lives. For hundreds of years in Japane, the preparation of tea has been held as almost divine. Chop wood, carry water. We built a world, that world ended, and we helped to dissipate the rest. The stage is empty, the props are gone, the lights are out, and the actors have left.
Even the giant ocean evaporates into the sky and falls to Earth in a million different pieces.
I have been very lucky to work on such an amazing show with such colourful people. The audiences were generally smaller than I might have liked and I am not sure if we ever received a standing ovation. I like to think that this was not the sort of show in which one should ever receive a standing ovation. I like the idea that people were too busy digesting things to stand up. I talked to a man last night who had seen 'The Tulip' weeks before and he exclaimed that he was still trying to figure it all out. A man came to the show and, two weeks later, he was still pondering it. To me, that is success. People saw it, and left, and took it with them. It has stayed with them in one fashion or another.
I have a strong dislike for listening to artists explain their works when they are not asked. One of the foremost examples in my mind was at a poetry reading where, before every poem, the poet explained to us, the audience, how she came up with the poem. She told us the story of the birth of every poem she read. It made me irritated. There seems to me to be something counterintuitive about a person explaining their art. Once you make something and the world sees it, then it becomes the world's and any meaning that you may have attached to it ceases to be. It belongs to the world and the world will makes its interpretations. The individual artist grows old and dies, and all of his mysteries and secrets eventually parish with him but, if he is lucky, his art remains. It remains without stories, without the handicap of explanation or defense by its creator. It simply is and develops its own history, its own legends: the Mona Lisa, La Guernica, the Venus de Milo, ad infinitum. Intent gives way to truth?
And so the world premiere of Kevin Lawler's 'The Tulip' at the Blue Barn in Omaha, Nebraska has ended. But, as grace allowed me to discover last night, it is going to stay around this city for a long time to come.
After the applause died down, it all ended quietly. Much of the cast and crew met for drinks, and talk, and cameraderie. There was no single goodbye. Everything drifted apart a bit at a time, organically, over the course of the entire evening and into this morning. We struck the set this morning and, even before we had finished, the next group for the next production was waiting expectantly in the house, watching us erase a world that we had created and that will never be seen again, awaiting their turn to build their world.
Maybe poetry on paper is superfluous when it exists all around us all of the time. Maybe there is something redundant to the point of vulgarity when it comes to art when, in everything, it lives. For hundreds of years in Japane, the preparation of tea has been held as almost divine. Chop wood, carry water. We built a world, that world ended, and we helped to dissipate the rest. The stage is empty, the props are gone, the lights are out, and the actors have left.
Even the giant ocean evaporates into the sky and falls to Earth in a million different pieces.
I have been very lucky to work on such an amazing show with such colourful people. The audiences were generally smaller than I might have liked and I am not sure if we ever received a standing ovation. I like to think that this was not the sort of show in which one should ever receive a standing ovation. I like the idea that people were too busy digesting things to stand up. I talked to a man last night who had seen 'The Tulip' weeks before and he exclaimed that he was still trying to figure it all out. A man came to the show and, two weeks later, he was still pondering it. To me, that is success. People saw it, and left, and took it with them. It has stayed with them in one fashion or another.
I have a strong dislike for listening to artists explain their works when they are not asked. One of the foremost examples in my mind was at a poetry reading where, before every poem, the poet explained to us, the audience, how she came up with the poem. She told us the story of the birth of every poem she read. It made me irritated. There seems to me to be something counterintuitive about a person explaining their art. Once you make something and the world sees it, then it becomes the world's and any meaning that you may have attached to it ceases to be. It belongs to the world and the world will makes its interpretations. The individual artist grows old and dies, and all of his mysteries and secrets eventually parish with him but, if he is lucky, his art remains. It remains without stories, without the handicap of explanation or defense by its creator. It simply is and develops its own history, its own legends: the Mona Lisa, La Guernica, the Venus de Milo, ad infinitum. Intent gives way to truth?
And so the world premiere of Kevin Lawler's 'The Tulip' at the Blue Barn in Omaha, Nebraska has ended. But, as grace allowed me to discover last night, it is going to stay around this city for a long time to come.
Monday, March 17, 2008
The Beauty of Community Theatre
Our last three performances of 'The Tulip' are coming up this week. I like to think that the cast and crew have really bonded. The mood, the good feelings, have been building as if to reach a climax before we all, to one degree or another, go on our separate ways. This show, whether by design or not, has brought together some very old friends and those reunions have had a ripple effect on the lives of those previously estranged individuals. For some of us, we have been granted community by way of new relationships but, for others, community has been granted by old ties. It has been a very beautiful thing to watch.
I do not know the minds of the others; I do not know their thoughts. At the get-togethers where we will have collected the majority of cast and crew, I often like to sit back briefly and process this collection of personalities. Sometimes-- and often during this show-- that is so very rewarding. We all take what we will from times like these. Very often, perhaps more often than we truly acknowledge, the radiance of these special times shines long after the event has passed to memory.
I do not know the minds of the others; I do not know their thoughts. At the get-togethers where we will have collected the majority of cast and crew, I often like to sit back briefly and process this collection of personalities. Sometimes-- and often during this show-- that is so very rewarding. We all take what we will from times like these. Very often, perhaps more often than we truly acknowledge, the radiance of these special times shines long after the event has passed to memory.
Friday, March 14, 2008
The Paradox of the Mortality of Theatre
Every night, the audience takes on a different character. The variations in response from one night to another must assuredly be one thing that makes this sort of work rewarding in ways that movie work could never be. That is, we have the luxury of witnessing that response. We also have the luxury of using that response to discover new things. How do you communicate with one audience in comparison to how you communicate with another? The variation exists. Recorded media have the distinct advantage of being passed down to posterity as, for over seventy years, Charlie Chaplain has been putting on the same exact act, night after night, week after week, for an amount of time that long ago surpassed the end of his life. These media are remarkable; however, every person who ever watches Charlie Chaplain eat his boiled shoe will be seeing Charlie Chaplain eat his shoe in exactly the same way.
In stage theatre, in live media, every performance offers its own particular quirks and, whereras there is beauty in the seventy year lifespan of Mr. Chaplain's work, the lifespan of each performance lasts only as long as the lights are up. The next night, the performance is a different animal. Every night, you are bearing witness to something that will never again happen just as you saw it. Despite their fidelity to the script, the cast and crew will never put on the same show twice: timing, timbre, movement, body language, cues, and even certain set dressings will always be ever so slightly different. Part of this is the result of trial and error-- of discovering small problems and adjusting to them. Another part of this is the human factor, be it mistake, or exploration, or even just the particular mood of the particular actor or crewmember at that time.
Most often, except in extreme and rare cases, the variations are not large and they might not even necessarily be noticeable to an audience but, still, each night, the play, the piece, comes alive in its own way, its own incarnation, and never again in exactly the same way. It is, in a sense, alive in a way that recorded media, by their very nature can not be. It is born, lives, and dies all in a single night, only to be reborn the next night. And, should a script thrive and be produced months, or decades, or even millenia later, it again takes on new life. Maybe it connects us all, actor and audience, crew and critic, in a way immeasurably human and, for now, potentially immortal.
Forty years ago, people were also watching the plays of Tennessee Williams.
Four hundred years ago, people were also watching the plays of William Shakespeare.
Two thousand five hundred years ago, people were also watching the works of Aeschylus.
People have died; cities, nations, and even entire civilizations have crumbled to dust in those two and a half millenia but you can still see actors-- live, breathing, feeling actors-- performing stories that have outlasted the Soviet Union, the Aztec civilization, and the Roman Empire. And, each night, each of those stories in each of those performances is told in a way that never, throughout all of time, will ever be told again.
In stage theatre, in live media, every performance offers its own particular quirks and, whereras there is beauty in the seventy year lifespan of Mr. Chaplain's work, the lifespan of each performance lasts only as long as the lights are up. The next night, the performance is a different animal. Every night, you are bearing witness to something that will never again happen just as you saw it. Despite their fidelity to the script, the cast and crew will never put on the same show twice: timing, timbre, movement, body language, cues, and even certain set dressings will always be ever so slightly different. Part of this is the result of trial and error-- of discovering small problems and adjusting to them. Another part of this is the human factor, be it mistake, or exploration, or even just the particular mood of the particular actor or crewmember at that time.
Most often, except in extreme and rare cases, the variations are not large and they might not even necessarily be noticeable to an audience but, still, each night, the play, the piece, comes alive in its own way, its own incarnation, and never again in exactly the same way. It is, in a sense, alive in a way that recorded media, by their very nature can not be. It is born, lives, and dies all in a single night, only to be reborn the next night. And, should a script thrive and be produced months, or decades, or even millenia later, it again takes on new life. Maybe it connects us all, actor and audience, crew and critic, in a way immeasurably human and, for now, potentially immortal.
Forty years ago, people were also watching the plays of Tennessee Williams.
Four hundred years ago, people were also watching the plays of William Shakespeare.
Two thousand five hundred years ago, people were also watching the works of Aeschylus.
People have died; cities, nations, and even entire civilizations have crumbled to dust in those two and a half millenia but you can still see actors-- live, breathing, feeling actors-- performing stories that have outlasted the Soviet Union, the Aztec civilization, and the Roman Empire. And, each night, each of those stories in each of those performances is told in a way that never, throughout all of time, will ever be told again.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Harder Better Faster Stronger
Our run is half-way over. Kevin's talk with us is still strong in my head: there are only a few more times that we will be performing this play. The cast and crew know it. With each performance, everyone is discovering something new. Without deviating from the director's intent and direction, we have hit upon a moment when, having to decide to settle into what is comfortable or to attempt to push ourselves beyond where we were the night before, we mostly decided to push. New discoveries are made nightly.
'The Tulip' lends itself well to this sort of exploration. The arching messages are abstract, almost Campbellian in their nature, and to convey them in two hours is a challenge. Without a more conventional, linear flow, each scene-- and maybe even monologues within scenes-- is its own island of message, all of which make up an archipelago of meaning.
'The Tulip' lends itself well to this sort of exploration. The arching messages are abstract, almost Campbellian in their nature, and to convey them in two hours is a challenge. Without a more conventional, linear flow, each scene-- and maybe even monologues within scenes-- is its own island of message, all of which make up an archipelago of meaning.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Late Night Ramble
I've spent a good deal of time these last several weeks discussing 'The Tulip' with different people. They all ask me what it is about. I tell them loss but then I am quick to expound. It is important to me, you see, because we, as a culture, take loss to be something negative. In a play in which the main character loses two or, ostensibly, three people, then the amount of negativity seems pretty great, prejudicially speaking. But, to me, it is more than that. I infer a lot, I think. The ending of the play, and several monologues, as well, all reinforce, in my opinion, that loss simply happens.
But maybe that is not a fair word to use: loss. It is, I think, the most succinct. It might be difficult, without writing, say, a long-winded blog entry, to articulate my perceptions of the play without using 'loss'. The wrench in the gears is the implied cycle, perhaps. If we see despair as being the result of personal loss, then, before loss, there must be happiness. So, to have is to be happy, to lose is to be sorrowful, and to have again is a return to happiness? Linearity seems, to me, to better fit with the physical. When it comes to the... abstract, say, then, often, a cycle seems a more appropriate condition.
Perhaps that is simply me being the optimist. I was the same way with 'Pan's Labyrinth'. I will insist to this day, regardless what the director may or may not say, that that little girl was, in fact, a fairy princess trapped in a human body. The death of the body allowed her essence to return to the kingdom and, whereas on Earth, we are left feeling decimated by death, cruelty, and the worries of a cause being lost to the facists of Franco, in the underworld, we have the return of the pure and radiant princess. Maybe that is why we apply 'happily ever after' to fairy tales and not to, well, mortal tales-- because they can be happy.
Everything mortal, it seems, ends one way or the other in loss: loss of life, loss of love, loss of energy, loss of this, loss of that. And what of it? In the grand scheme of things (and not withstanding an argument regarding reincarnation), we spend most of eternity quite dead or, for the sake of somantics, prior to birth, quite not-alive. If the universe has, indeed, been around for billions of years, then, up until now, we have spent billions of years very much not alive and, arguably within the next one hundred years, most everyone who is alive on Earth right now will again be not alive. So, if we spend most of existence not alive, then this, right now, is the cosmic aberration. It makes one feel sort of guilty, this existential and universal rebellion.
Of course, if certain Christian creationists are correct, then the Earth is only in the order of six thousand years old and there has always been life (because I am sure they would say that God counts as life). I find that comforting. It is nice to consider that, maybe, this is the correct order to things and that, upon death, we all head off to someplace infinitely nicer and fluffier. But, even then, speaking pragmatically of the living, we have each spent, up until the moment of our births, not alive and, upon death, from a strict Judeo-Christian point of view, you die and stay dead. The soul goes somewhere else.
Either way, it seems like we each and all spend most of eternity quite not alive. I think the religious types have a point up when it comes to the reassurance of a deity of one form or another, a sort of cosmic safety net, a patronly (or matronly) force to reassure us from the fears that, yes, the universe really is that damn big and that, if you stare long enough at it on a clear, summer night, you will gradually understand that, yes, you are falling into that and that we all are. I had that happen once. I stared at the night sky so long that I felt compelled to grab onto something, lest I fall forever into the night sky.
But I've digressed for paragraphs. This play, it is about loss. But it is also, in many ways, about the opposite of that loss. Something I wrote a while back and with which I am quite in love is this: the world loves you; the world is not kind. Maybe that love is everywhere but that does not mean that things do not hurt and that there are not good reasons to feel sad, or angry, or scared. It is one realization of Hamlet's dilemna and that is, I think okay. I have had some slendid dreams.
But maybe that is not a fair word to use: loss. It is, I think, the most succinct. It might be difficult, without writing, say, a long-winded blog entry, to articulate my perceptions of the play without using 'loss'. The wrench in the gears is the implied cycle, perhaps. If we see despair as being the result of personal loss, then, before loss, there must be happiness. So, to have is to be happy, to lose is to be sorrowful, and to have again is a return to happiness? Linearity seems, to me, to better fit with the physical. When it comes to the... abstract, say, then, often, a cycle seems a more appropriate condition.
Perhaps that is simply me being the optimist. I was the same way with 'Pan's Labyrinth'. I will insist to this day, regardless what the director may or may not say, that that little girl was, in fact, a fairy princess trapped in a human body. The death of the body allowed her essence to return to the kingdom and, whereas on Earth, we are left feeling decimated by death, cruelty, and the worries of a cause being lost to the facists of Franco, in the underworld, we have the return of the pure and radiant princess. Maybe that is why we apply 'happily ever after' to fairy tales and not to, well, mortal tales-- because they can be happy.
Everything mortal, it seems, ends one way or the other in loss: loss of life, loss of love, loss of energy, loss of this, loss of that. And what of it? In the grand scheme of things (and not withstanding an argument regarding reincarnation), we spend most of eternity quite dead or, for the sake of somantics, prior to birth, quite not-alive. If the universe has, indeed, been around for billions of years, then, up until now, we have spent billions of years very much not alive and, arguably within the next one hundred years, most everyone who is alive on Earth right now will again be not alive. So, if we spend most of existence not alive, then this, right now, is the cosmic aberration. It makes one feel sort of guilty, this existential and universal rebellion.
Of course, if certain Christian creationists are correct, then the Earth is only in the order of six thousand years old and there has always been life (because I am sure they would say that God counts as life). I find that comforting. It is nice to consider that, maybe, this is the correct order to things and that, upon death, we all head off to someplace infinitely nicer and fluffier. But, even then, speaking pragmatically of the living, we have each spent, up until the moment of our births, not alive and, upon death, from a strict Judeo-Christian point of view, you die and stay dead. The soul goes somewhere else.
Either way, it seems like we each and all spend most of eternity quite not alive. I think the religious types have a point up when it comes to the reassurance of a deity of one form or another, a sort of cosmic safety net, a patronly (or matronly) force to reassure us from the fears that, yes, the universe really is that damn big and that, if you stare long enough at it on a clear, summer night, you will gradually understand that, yes, you are falling into that and that we all are. I had that happen once. I stared at the night sky so long that I felt compelled to grab onto something, lest I fall forever into the night sky.
But I've digressed for paragraphs. This play, it is about loss. But it is also, in many ways, about the opposite of that loss. Something I wrote a while back and with which I am quite in love is this: the world loves you; the world is not kind. Maybe that love is everywhere but that does not mean that things do not hurt and that there are not good reasons to feel sad, or angry, or scared. It is one realization of Hamlet's dilemna and that is, I think okay. I have had some slendid dreams.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
We're open!
trying to put all the details in place. It is everything that I had hoped for
in a production of the script. The material is very difficult to bring to life
properly and his cast and crew has done the hard work to pull it off
beautifully. A friend mentioned to me how exciting it would be to
have "The Tulip" done in New York. It would be exciting, but I am so
happy to have had it premier here in Omaha and at the Blue Barn.
Nothing will top that. I would not have it any other way. Here's why:
Last night at the cast party, Pearl came up to me and said, "I want to
show you my bathroom." Being an admirer of fine decor, I agreed.
When I looked in the bathroom I was amazed to see large plastic sheets
hung on all the shower walls. Her lines were written in colored markers
across the shower walls so she could study them before she went to work.
Every cast and crew member made a similar effort.
That's why I love making theatre here.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Costume update
I have the costume plot up on Google Docs. Finally......
If you need it, I'll see that some are printed out at the theater. If you have questions on it, then call me, or write, or carrier pigeon would work. But if you want my undivided attention, then giving me coffee helps.
Great working with you all, this play is amazing.
If you need it, I'll see that some are printed out at the theater. If you have questions on it, then call me, or write, or carrier pigeon would work. But if you want my undivided attention, then giving me coffee helps.
Great working with you all, this play is amazing.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
With every work, each individual involved both leaves a part of themselves with it and also takes something away. A trade is made, a transaction. Somewhere, at some moment, a secret is laid bare. For the creator, be it playwrite, or painter, or architect, the entire work is rife with secrets but those other collaborators leave things, as well. There have been a number of coincidences when it has come to this work.
My coincidence, my secret is within the small monologue I give. It trips me up a bit. I've been where the character is but not so much in a metaphorical way. There weren't any speeches or confessions when I looked upon whom I looked upon. I looked upon a lot. I held a few hands. I carried someone important to me to a waiting helicopter.
There are things that you can not give up. There are also things that you will not give up. Some things sprout from us as from the soil and those roots are so intermingled with us that they will never be pulled out. Others are carved, or burned, or etched. Some are simply locked away and, maybe, not even we, the possessors, know where they are to be found. Some things are ours.
I was planning on saving this picture until the show had run. Sometimes, I think, we are afraid of changing things.
I took this picture on March 28, 2005 while I was driving in Diyala province, North of Baquba. Field after field of yellow flowers. That is the surface of my secret. That surface is what I have added to the play. It is this.
My coincidence, my secret is within the small monologue I give. It trips me up a bit. I've been where the character is but not so much in a metaphorical way. There weren't any speeches or confessions when I looked upon whom I looked upon. I looked upon a lot. I held a few hands. I carried someone important to me to a waiting helicopter.
There are things that you can not give up. There are also things that you will not give up. Some things sprout from us as from the soil and those roots are so intermingled with us that they will never be pulled out. Others are carved, or burned, or etched. Some are simply locked away and, maybe, not even we, the possessors, know where they are to be found. Some things are ours.
I was planning on saving this picture until the show had run. Sometimes, I think, we are afraid of changing things.
I took this picture on March 28, 2005 while I was driving in Diyala province, North of Baquba. Field after field of yellow flowers. That is the surface of my secret. That surface is what I have added to the play. It is this.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Rehearsal Photos
Neither sleet, nor hail, nor broken heater . . . Our SM Liz
The women who are The Women!
Kelcey and Nils in the first attempt at figuring out Scene Five, and Liz in her monkey hat wondering why she signed on to be a part of this.
The women who are The Women!Jenny, Pearl, and Reo
Kelcey and Nils in the first attempt at figuring out Scene Five, and Liz in her monkey hat wondering why she signed on to be a part of this.
The empty space.
How much of the universe do 100 people hold inside them? What happens when these people gather together in the same place to bear witness to this?
Friday, February 15, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
wings
The Women watched the Wings of Desire this weekend. We are all deeply moved by this experience. I wrote a little poem about it:
from where I am
I
Imagine you
we are the same
there is no meaning
only love
the source
time is a tool
the material world is a fantasy
we participate
by observing
creating
this dance of light
from where I am
I
Imagine you
we are the same
there is no meaning
only love
the source
time is a tool
the material world is a fantasy
we participate
by observing
creating
this dance of light
Monday, February 11, 2008
'The Velveteen Rabbit' Scared Me as a Child
So... little, wooden birds... I've been finding them but, for some reason, there is a dreaful preoccupation with little, wooden ducks. It is as if there is really no reason to make any other sort of bird out of wood except ducks-- and not simply decoy ducks, mind, but ducks in general. And, if not simply that, then, well, basically waterfowl. Maybe there is something about a wooden hummingbird that just does not mesh with the average person's sensibilities. I'll not know, I'll not delve. The mystery is the art of life and, on the great gastronomic scale of things, solving the riddle of the little, wooden ducks is hovering somewhere between generic maccaroni & cheese and soydogs.
Yes, today, life is beautiful for the delicate and trite mystery of the little, wooden ducks and, in general, waterfowl.
And, were I to come across a life-size, wooden albatross, I would, I like to believe, hang it from the living room ceiling of every place I might ever live. But you never ask about it-- or, well, at least, not too seriously. It is well enough that it is free of termites and suspended by strong cables.
Aside, as a kid ignorant of those philosophies that delved into such things, I fancied that all things, even manufactured things, were possessed of a soul. It made the world rich and it made materialism fatally sorrowful, the throwing away of so many things with soul, and purpose, and emotions. Although rather emancipated from this idea by now, I was fiddling with it on my quest for more little, wooden birds today. I pondered the meaning of things. For example, if this thing was made to be used like this and, when used like this, its purpose is to make people happy, then to use it in any other way would be to deny it of its destiny. Being an inanimate thing, bereft of mobility and sense, it is incumbent upon the owner to use it properly so that it fulfills its manufactured destiny.
So, if the purpose of a little, wooden bird is to serve one particular function, to use it for anything else would be tantamount to sin-- the murder of purpose. To sidestep this, we could posit with the same conviction or proof, that the mere creation of the little, wooden bird is, in fact, its purpose and that any use thereafter is moot because its purpose was, simply, its creation. But I am sentimental and ridiculous and there will be, for several reasons (mostly pragmatic), two separate groups of little, wooden birds. That and I spent a good deal of time looking for the group that will not, as it were, 'get it'.
Yes, today, life is beautiful for the delicate and trite mystery of the little, wooden ducks and, in general, waterfowl.
And, were I to come across a life-size, wooden albatross, I would, I like to believe, hang it from the living room ceiling of every place I might ever live. But you never ask about it-- or, well, at least, not too seriously. It is well enough that it is free of termites and suspended by strong cables.
Aside, as a kid ignorant of those philosophies that delved into such things, I fancied that all things, even manufactured things, were possessed of a soul. It made the world rich and it made materialism fatally sorrowful, the throwing away of so many things with soul, and purpose, and emotions. Although rather emancipated from this idea by now, I was fiddling with it on my quest for more little, wooden birds today. I pondered the meaning of things. For example, if this thing was made to be used like this and, when used like this, its purpose is to make people happy, then to use it in any other way would be to deny it of its destiny. Being an inanimate thing, bereft of mobility and sense, it is incumbent upon the owner to use it properly so that it fulfills its manufactured destiny.
So, if the purpose of a little, wooden bird is to serve one particular function, to use it for anything else would be tantamount to sin-- the murder of purpose. To sidestep this, we could posit with the same conviction or proof, that the mere creation of the little, wooden bird is, in fact, its purpose and that any use thereafter is moot because its purpose was, simply, its creation. But I am sentimental and ridiculous and there will be, for several reasons (mostly pragmatic), two separate groups of little, wooden birds. That and I spent a good deal of time looking for the group that will not, as it were, 'get it'.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Time travel
Four degrees outside today and the main heater for the theatre is down. Wear coats for work call - bring heavy sweaters for rehearsal. Just so everyone knows, the power sometimes fails in the middle of a performance - everything plunges into a liquid darkness except for the opaque beam from the emergency light. But we keep going. It doesn't matter how broken anything is, we keep going. Telling stories. Exploring what it means to be here. Nineteen years now.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Abbaaaaaaaahtt!!
One of the selfishly fun things that I will take with me from this show is betwixt doctor, priest, and constable-- those particular, and icreasingly rare, moments when, deep in the cogs of dizzying dialogue, all three of us can only feel like, at the same time, we have all dropped the ball. The motion stops and we look one to the other, a sincere question in all of our eyes:
"Who's on first?"
"Who's on first?"
Friday, February 8, 2008
Women Kulning
This is hauntingly beautiful. Although it's Swedish of origin it's so much of the spirit of the Women's chorus in the play.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Empathy. I think that it is empathy. Those tiny points at which, while... journeying through some piece of art, be it a book, or a play, or an exhibit, the onlooker finds course to remark with a marked, "ahh!" "Ah, yes," "ah-hah," "I know this moment!" "This moment is present in my life (or, "my past," or, "my heart")." And, then, the art stops being something foreign preaching to them, the art is no longer a brimstone Spanish missionary shouting at the Aztecs. The art becomes something alive. The art can become a revelation... an evolution?
"This is where I am (she must know it) and that which follows? Maybe that is something, also." And a hundred little worlds move.
"This is where I am (she must know it) and that which follows? Maybe that is something, also." And a hundred little worlds move.
Friday, February 1, 2008
The silent fields
Where do loneliness and aloneness bridge each other? We each have these wild gardens of life growing inside our lives. How much of our inner lives never leave our heads or hearts? How large and complex a universe lives inside you that others will never know?
Staring out the skylight in the middle of these frozen nights - the stars are so intensely bright. Staring up through the skylight running scenarios of worry, or failure, or victory, or tiny, green islands of nirvana. All the silent movies that are made each night across the world, fueled by the heart and the mind, the stillness, the darkness, and the exhaustion. Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I try to imagine how much silence there is out there.
For the past few nights we have been slowly constructing scene three. It begins with monologues, and in a somewhat realistic setting, but gradually turns into movement and sound and rhythm, and ends in a full blown, poetic world. Again, the ideas emerge as everyone labors together, pressing into the uncreated fields of space to find out what might be there. There is nothing more lovely in the world than that.
Staring out the skylight in the middle of these frozen nights - the stars are so intensely bright. Staring up through the skylight running scenarios of worry, or failure, or victory, or tiny, green islands of nirvana. All the silent movies that are made each night across the world, fueled by the heart and the mind, the stillness, the darkness, and the exhaustion. Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I try to imagine how much silence there is out there.
For the past few nights we have been slowly constructing scene three. It begins with monologues, and in a somewhat realistic setting, but gradually turns into movement and sound and rhythm, and ends in a full blown, poetic world. Again, the ideas emerge as everyone labors together, pressing into the uncreated fields of space to find out what might be there. There is nothing more lovely in the world than that.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Heads like mushrooms
Last night, while working on scene two, we decided to have Nils' head floating in a wooden box high above the stage. You will not see the rest of his body. Just his head floating in a box. In the box, his head will be surrounded by miniature trees and a sky. Hopefully, these trees will grow as he speaks.
Ideas pushing up like mushrooms out of the dark, muddy earth.
Ideas pushing up like mushrooms out of the dark, muddy earth.
Confessions of a Theatrical Hack
I took one acting class in college. As a broad and religious rule, I do not go to theatre. I do not like to watch it. I like to do it. Watching it eventually makes me irritated in the same general way it made me irritated back in grade school to sit in class and watch other kids out at recess.
I generally do not 'do' theatre. There have only been three occasions on which I have not worked specifically for Kevin. The first time was back in sixth grade so, maybe, it does not really count. The second time was for Nick at the (now defunct) Dundee Dinner Theatre. The third time was for Susan and 'A Piece of My Heart'. There have only been two occasions on which I have not worked specifically at the Blue Barn. Back when I was doing a lot at the Blue Barn, I received small number of offers to do things at other theatres in town. I declined all of them. The reason, for the larger part, has to do with sentimentality.
I did not learn how to do theatre in any sort of... well... structured way. Whereas other people may have experiences of classes, or grids, or systems, or what have you, I don't. I love the idea of hanging lights (I only know them as lights) from beams and rafters, I love the idea of a house that can maybe only seat one hundred (including the folding chairs). After a week on the job as the stage manager for 'Night of the Iguana', Carol came up to me and, point blank, asked me if I knew what my job was. Kevin had given me some good pointers to get me through but I was feeling rather honest when I told her, "I have no idea." She sat me down and told me a few things and anything else I picked up was rather ad hoc.
After having been involved with the Blue Barn for a little over a year, I think that my experiences culminated in a practical way in putting on 'Nocturne' as part of the 'Round Midnight Series. Thom was in town at the time from New York and brought the one-man-show script with him. Out of pocket, we secured the rights for the show for that weekend. Thom built the two amazing pieces we needed built for the set. The rest consisted of a bench and a chair. We did the lighting and sound together. He acted and I directed. I ran the house and the stage (old hat from earlier, busier days). I ran the lights and the sound. Susan and Hughston were very patient with us.
So that's kind of where I get it. I don't like the idea of working in spaces where there are proper places from which things should hang. Monday night, I went on a short and quiet tirade about how much I would love to do a play in a bathroom. No, I mean, like, in a bathroom. I do buy and read scripts for fun but only from the nauseatingly lofty and entrepreneurial angle of whether or not I would want to do the show. The general questions that decide that are:
"Can I do this show with twenty or less lights?"
"I don't think I can handle more than four actors. Are there more than four parts?"
"Do we really need a set?"
"What if I told everyone that we had no budget?"
"Costumes?!"
"Can we fit the whole cast and crew inside one automobile?"
"Does anyone have an automobile?"
It is a very small collection of scripts...
I'm not sure if this comes across as positive as I mean it. Well, what I took away from the Blue Barn when I left Omaha five years ago was all of the idealistic stuff about theatre and that, in the core of all of those ideas, and dreams, and realizations was, simply, that we can make magic.
We can make magic. We make magic.
That's my ideal of the art, still unsullied by the harsher realities of the business. It is part of what keeps me ignorant, it's part of what keeps me away from productions, and it is what keeps me smiling all the way through every rehearsal and every meeting we have:
We are making magic.
I generally do not 'do' theatre. There have only been three occasions on which I have not worked specifically for Kevin. The first time was back in sixth grade so, maybe, it does not really count. The second time was for Nick at the (now defunct) Dundee Dinner Theatre. The third time was for Susan and 'A Piece of My Heart'. There have only been two occasions on which I have not worked specifically at the Blue Barn. Back when I was doing a lot at the Blue Barn, I received small number of offers to do things at other theatres in town. I declined all of them. The reason, for the larger part, has to do with sentimentality.
I did not learn how to do theatre in any sort of... well... structured way. Whereas other people may have experiences of classes, or grids, or systems, or what have you, I don't. I love the idea of hanging lights (I only know them as lights) from beams and rafters, I love the idea of a house that can maybe only seat one hundred (including the folding chairs). After a week on the job as the stage manager for 'Night of the Iguana', Carol came up to me and, point blank, asked me if I knew what my job was. Kevin had given me some good pointers to get me through but I was feeling rather honest when I told her, "I have no idea." She sat me down and told me a few things and anything else I picked up was rather ad hoc.
After having been involved with the Blue Barn for a little over a year, I think that my experiences culminated in a practical way in putting on 'Nocturne' as part of the 'Round Midnight Series. Thom was in town at the time from New York and brought the one-man-show script with him. Out of pocket, we secured the rights for the show for that weekend. Thom built the two amazing pieces we needed built for the set. The rest consisted of a bench and a chair. We did the lighting and sound together. He acted and I directed. I ran the house and the stage (old hat from earlier, busier days). I ran the lights and the sound. Susan and Hughston were very patient with us.
So that's kind of where I get it. I don't like the idea of working in spaces where there are proper places from which things should hang. Monday night, I went on a short and quiet tirade about how much I would love to do a play in a bathroom. No, I mean, like, in a bathroom. I do buy and read scripts for fun but only from the nauseatingly lofty and entrepreneurial angle of whether or not I would want to do the show. The general questions that decide that are:
"Can I do this show with twenty or less lights?"
"I don't think I can handle more than four actors. Are there more than four parts?"
"Do we really need a set?"
"What if I told everyone that we had no budget?"
"Costumes?!"
"Can we fit the whole cast and crew inside one automobile?"
"Does anyone have an automobile?"
It is a very small collection of scripts...
I'm not sure if this comes across as positive as I mean it. Well, what I took away from the Blue Barn when I left Omaha five years ago was all of the idealistic stuff about theatre and that, in the core of all of those ideas, and dreams, and realizations was, simply, that we can make magic.
We can make magic. We make magic.
That's my ideal of the art, still unsullied by the harsher realities of the business. It is part of what keeps me ignorant, it's part of what keeps me away from productions, and it is what keeps me smiling all the way through every rehearsal and every meeting we have:
We are making magic.
$20 an actor?
It occurs to me that this costume budget is the size I was used to at the Rose. Assuming I had a room full of fabric, a costume rental department that I could plunder at will, boxes and boxes of trim, and all the patterns, shoes, and notions you could wish for. This design is turning into less of 'what can I afford' to 'what am I willing to design to have for myself.' I think I'll have to invest in full bolts of gauze and/or lawn so what I use for this build is affordable. I had another project or two for which it was needed, so I can start to justify it. The main black overcoat will have to be a personal project, or else it will never look as good as I want it to. I had an awesome idea for the women's shoes, but two of the actresses would have to also have a lolita/westwood fetish to want to buy their own pair.
Anyway, I started to put together an excel document of items, starting with shoes, that if anyone already has, can find at a thrift store, or is willing to buy for themselves, will make my life easier. Pictures and sizes and names. I'm going to share it with anyone I know who goes to thrift stores regularly. It's also going to be my way to slowly leak my costume ideas to everyone, including Kevin. So if anyone has a different idea about something I post up, tell me quickly.
I spent the last 36 hours mostly sleeping. I thought it was just my narcolepsy, but then my throat started hurting, and the nose filled up. I just got over being sick a few weeks ago! But that's always been my lot in life, coming down with anything that comes along. So I gave up on my regular wakey wakey rx, and did what I had to to get the design for the black coat done for the Rev so he could get started. It's going to be a picky piece for him, knowing how much he loves a good dramatic black coat; if it wasn't needed for the photoshoot, I would have used Sherri's trick and given it to him at the end of the build.
So, the prospect of 'legitimate theater' has lured me in to obsessing over this new project. Possibly actually reviewed? Really? There are plans to incorporate our costume shop into a real company, but we started out collaborating on spankcandy costumes, then derby uniforms, then burlesque outfits. While I'm absolutely sure that there's decent money to be made with the right business plan with any of these, this is a chance to do the conceptual work that is an artist's dream. Kevin let me in on this project, and I don't want to let it just pass by without making a (positive) mark on it. I treasure my awards and reviews. I don't do the work for them, but I was raised to treasure a cheap printed ribbon for artistic glory. There's no judging table out there for the person that makes the sexiest outfit for a size 14 girl.
I want to show everyone what I'm capable of. I love designing. The other day, I got sidetracked and drew up a rockabilly line in an hour. So I'm going to make this good. I'm going to make it me. And If Kevin likes what I'm going to give him, bonus. It's funny how I can spend time around so many different people, and they all say the same thing around strangers. 'Pope doesn't do anything half-assed.'
This show is about folk costumes and angst up the wootwoot. I can do grief. I can do alienation. And I can definitely do a folk costume. I am my mother's daughter. I just worry that the wardrobe will be considered an afterthought in the conceptual process. To me, there is no part of the acting and tech evolution of a play without the costumes. How does one move or dance? Do you know what your character's clothes says about them? How are you going to light a monochrome, multi-textured item that has to be blown to the sky? How much music do you need between scenes to cover the changes? I've been a part of every aspect of theater except lighting unless totally necessary. Costumes will never be anything but the main pivot point to me.
And what kind of laundry do those girls have to hang up?
Right. Well. It's after 5am. I think I'll snot some more, try to make one or two more sketches, fill out another column in my costume want list, and attempt to not rue my blathering.
Anyway, I started to put together an excel document of items, starting with shoes, that if anyone already has, can find at a thrift store, or is willing to buy for themselves, will make my life easier. Pictures and sizes and names. I'm going to share it with anyone I know who goes to thrift stores regularly. It's also going to be my way to slowly leak my costume ideas to everyone, including Kevin. So if anyone has a different idea about something I post up, tell me quickly.
I spent the last 36 hours mostly sleeping. I thought it was just my narcolepsy, but then my throat started hurting, and the nose filled up. I just got over being sick a few weeks ago! But that's always been my lot in life, coming down with anything that comes along. So I gave up on my regular wakey wakey rx, and did what I had to to get the design for the black coat done for the Rev so he could get started. It's going to be a picky piece for him, knowing how much he loves a good dramatic black coat; if it wasn't needed for the photoshoot, I would have used Sherri's trick and given it to him at the end of the build.
So, the prospect of 'legitimate theater' has lured me in to obsessing over this new project. Possibly actually reviewed? Really? There are plans to incorporate our costume shop into a real company, but we started out collaborating on spankcandy costumes, then derby uniforms, then burlesque outfits. While I'm absolutely sure that there's decent money to be made with the right business plan with any of these, this is a chance to do the conceptual work that is an artist's dream. Kevin let me in on this project, and I don't want to let it just pass by without making a (positive) mark on it. I treasure my awards and reviews. I don't do the work for them, but I was raised to treasure a cheap printed ribbon for artistic glory. There's no judging table out there for the person that makes the sexiest outfit for a size 14 girl.
I want to show everyone what I'm capable of. I love designing. The other day, I got sidetracked and drew up a rockabilly line in an hour. So I'm going to make this good. I'm going to make it me. And If Kevin likes what I'm going to give him, bonus. It's funny how I can spend time around so many different people, and they all say the same thing around strangers. 'Pope doesn't do anything half-assed.'
This show is about folk costumes and angst up the wootwoot. I can do grief. I can do alienation. And I can definitely do a folk costume. I am my mother's daughter. I just worry that the wardrobe will be considered an afterthought in the conceptual process. To me, there is no part of the acting and tech evolution of a play without the costumes. How does one move or dance? Do you know what your character's clothes says about them? How are you going to light a monochrome, multi-textured item that has to be blown to the sky? How much music do you need between scenes to cover the changes? I've been a part of every aspect of theater except lighting unless totally necessary. Costumes will never be anything but the main pivot point to me.
And what kind of laundry do those girls have to hang up?
Right. Well. It's after 5am. I think I'll snot some more, try to make one or two more sketches, fill out another column in my costume want list, and attempt to not rue my blathering.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Gratitude
This is from writer Kevin Kelly. It's not directly connected to the rehearsals, but it makes me think of Joost's telling about the journeys that he makes everyday, and of his remembering the details of his life with his wife and daughter.
We had a lot to be grateful for this year. My brothers and sister and parents are all well. Gia-Miin's mother moved from Taiwan to a house near our neighborhood. To keep her mom company, another of Gia-Miin' sisters lives with her. There is now a critical mass of Fuh family in Pacficia. We all returned to China for second adventure into remote villages. There were 9 of us, including my mother-in-law (80) and my brother's son, Rhy, who came to keep Tywen (11) company. We ate a whole lot of strange food (even for Gia-Miin), got snowed in Tibet, climbed to a high-altitude Yi mountain village, and strolled along the canals beside the Grand Canal. Missing from this trip was Ting (16) who was visiting colleges on the East Coast accompanied and chauffeured by my sister Colleen, and Kaileen (18) who was at school at Pepperdine. This past autumn, Kaileen spent a semester abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She's reluctantly home for the holidays, wishing she was still in BA, as they call it.
I'm traveling a bit more this year, and writing more as well. I'm writing about what technology means, as in, what is the role of technology in our lives? There's more and more technology, but where does it fit in the cosmic scale of things? That philosophy sounds as airy-fairy to me as to you, which is why I am having trouble actually writing it. Just to keep my feet on the ground, I also continue to review tools for my web site, Cool Tools. To relax I made a few new photo books. I'm working on one about Burning Man, which I've been photographing since 1995.
And I am working on being more grateful. I'm aiming my thanks at the thousand of things we take for granted, things that would be a miracle if they only happened once. I noticed a pigeon the other day. It had fantastical colors, incredible bearing, and shimmering feathers. I feel sure that if there were only one of these specimens alive in the world, we would all agree it would be the most beautiful bird in the world. We'd push and shove to see it. Almost every moment in our lives is a pigeon overlooked. May we notice and be grateful. Sometime in the past, our lives intersected in real life (not on the computer!) and I wish we'd intersect again that way soon.
Peace,
Kevin Kelly
Kevin Kelly's 2007 Christmas Card
Kevin Kelly's This I Believe essay was adapted from a Christmas card he sent to family and friends in 2007. Below you can read his essay in full:
Dear Friends and Family,
Before the news of this year, a little personal story. When I was in my twenties I would hitchhike to work everyday. I'd walk down three blocks to Route 22 in New Jersey, stick out my thumb and wait for a ride to work. Someone always picked me up. I had to punch-in for my job as a packer at a warehouse at 8 o'clock sharp, and I can't remember ever being late. It never ceased to amaze me even then, that the kindness of strangers could be so dependable. Each morning I counted on the service of ordinary commuters who had lives full of their own worries, and yet without fail, at least one of them would do something kind, as if on schedule. As I stood there with my thumb outstretched, the only question in my mind was simply: "How will the miracle happen today?"
Shortly after that rare stint of a real job, I took my wages and split for Asia, where I roamed off and on for the next 8 years. I lost track of the number of acts of kindness aimed at me, but they arrived as dependably as my daily hitchhiking miracle. Random examples: In the Philippines a family opened their last can of tinned meat as a banquet for me, a stranger who needed a place to crash. Below a wintry pass north of Gilgit in the Pakistan Hindu Kush, a group of startled firewood harvesters shared their ash-baked bread with me when I bounded unannounced into their campfire circle one evening. We ended up sleeping like sardines under a single homewoven blanket. In Taiwan, a student I met on the street one day befriended me in that familiar way to most travelers, but surprised me by offering me a place at his family's apartment in Taipei. While he was away at school, I sat in on the family meals and had my own bedroom for two weeks.
One remembrance triggers another; I could easily list thousands of such gestures without much trouble, because – and this is important – not only did I readily accept such gifts, but I actually came to rely on them being offered. I could never guess who the messenger would be, but kindness never failed to materialize once I put myself in some position to receive it. As in my hitchhiking days, I began my days on the road in Asia and elsewhere with the recurring question: how will the miracle happen today?" After a lifetime of relying on such benevolence I have developed a theory of what happens in these moments and it goes like this. Kindness is like a breath. It can be squeezed out, or drawn in. You can wait for it, or you can summon it.
To solicit a gift from a stranger takes a certain state of openness. If you are lost or ill, this is easy, but most days you are neither, so embracing extreme generosity takes some preparation. I learned from hitchhiking to think of this as an exchange. During the moment the stranger offers his or her goodness, the person being aided offers degrees of humility, dependency, gratitude, surprise, trust, delight, relief, and amusement to the stranger. It takes some practice to enable this transfer when you don't feel desperate. Ironically, you are less inclined to be ready for the gift when you are feeling whole, full, complete, and independent!
One might even call the art of accepting generosity a type of compassion. The compassion of being kinded. One year I rode my bicycle across America, from San Francisco to New Jersey. I started out camping in state parks, but past the Rockies, parks became so scarce I switched to camping on people's lawns. I worked up a routine. As darkness fell, I began scouting the homes I passed for a likely candidate: neat house, big lawn in the back, easy access for my bike. When I selected the lucky home, I parked my bag-loaded bike in front of the door and rang the bell. "Hello," I'd say. "I'm riding my bike across America. I'd like to pitch my tent tonight where I have permission and where someone knows where I am. I've just eaten dinner, and I'll be gone first thing in the morning. Would you mind if I put up my tent in your backyard?"
I was never turned away, not once. And there was always more. It was impossible for most folks to sit in their couch and watch TV while a guy who was riding his bicycle across America was camped in their backyard. What if he was famous? So I was usually invited into their home for desert and an interview. My job in this moment was clear: I was to relate my adventure. I was to help them enjoy a thrill they secretly desired, but would never do. My account would make an impossible dream seem real and possible, and thus part of them. Through me and my retelling of what happened so far, they would get to vicariously ride a bicycle across America. In exchange I would get a place to camp and a dish of ice cream. It was a sweet deal that benefited both of us. The weird thing is that I was, and still am, not sure whether I would have done what they did and let me sleep in the backyard. The "me" on the bicycle had a wild tangled beard, had not showered for weeks, and appeared destitute (my whole transcontinental trip cost me $500). I am not sure I would invite a casual tourist I met to take over my apartment, and cook for him. I definitely would not hand him the keys to my own car, as a hotel clerk in Dalarna, Sweden, did one mid-summer day when I asked her how I could reach the painter Carl Larsson's house 150 miles away away.
The many times I was down or dazed, and a stranger interrupted his life to assist me is a less perplexing mystery to me that when, for no reason I can comprehend, an impoverished legendary Chinese painter I had met only 20 minutes previously insists that I take one of his treasures. I'd like to think that I would, without hesitation, drive way out of my way to bring a sick traveler to the hospital, but I am having trouble seeing myself emptying my bank account to purchase a boat ticket for someone who has more money than I do. (Yep, that happened to me.) But this kind of kindness happens when you travel with an openness to the gift.
Yet while I rely on miracles, I don't believe in saints. There are no saints even among the gentle monks of Asia, or I should say, especially among the monks. Rather, generosity is rampant in everyday lives, but no more in one place, race, or creed than others. We expect altruism among kinfolk and neighbors, although the world would, as we all know, be a better place if neighborly and family kindness happened even more. Altruism among strangers, on the other hand, is simply strange. To the uninitiated its occurrence seems as random as cosmic rays. It seems like a hit or miss blessing that makes a good story. For that reason the kindness of strangers is gift we never forget.
But the strangeness of "kindees" is harder to explain. A kindee is what you turn into when you are kinded. Curiously, being a kindee is an unpracticed virtue. Hardly anyone hitchhikes any more, which is a shame because it encourages the habit of generosity from drivers and nurtures the grace of gratitude and patience of being kinded from hikers. But the stance of receiving a gift – of being kinded — is vital for everyone, not just travelers. Many people resist being kinded unless they are in dire need, or life-threatened. Since I have had so much practice as a kindee, I have some pointers on how it is unleashed.
I believe the generous gifts from strangers are actually summoned by a deliberate willingness to be helped. You start by surrendering to your need for help. That we cannot be helped until we embrace our need for help is a law of the universe. Receiving help on the road is a spiritual event triggered by a traveler who surrenders his or her fate to the eternal Greatness. It's a move from whether we will be helped to how: how will the miracle unfold today? In what novel manner will Good reveal itself? Who will the universe send today to carry away my gift of trust and helplessness?
When the miracle flows, it flows both ways. When an offered gift is accepted, then the threads of love are knotted, snaring both the stranger who is kind, and the stranger who is kinded. Every time a gift is tossed it lands differently – but knowing that it will arrive in some colorful, unexpected way is one of the certainties of life.
We are at the receiving end of a huge gift simply by being alive. It does not matter how you calculate it, our time here is unearned. Maybe you figure your existence is the result of a billion unlikely accidents, and nothing more; then certainly your life is an unexpected and undeserved surprise. That's the definition of a gift. Or maybe you figure there's something bigger behind this small human reality; your life is then a gift from the greater to the lesser. As far as I can tell none of us have brought about our own existence, nor done much to earn such a remarkable experience. The pleasures of colors, cinnamon rolls, bubbles, touchdowns, whispers, long conversations, sand on your bare feet – these are all undeserved rewards.
All of us begin in the same place. Whether purified or not, we are not owed our life. Our existence is an unnecessary extravagance, a wild gesture, an unearned gift. Not just at birth. The eternal surprise is being funneled to us daily, hourly, minute by minute, every second. Yet, we are terrible recipients. We are no good at being helpless, humble, or indebted. Being needy is not celebrated on day-time TV shows, or in self-help books. We make lousy kindees.
I've slowly changed my mind about spiritual faith. I once thought it was chiefly about believing in an unmeasurable reality; that it had a lot in common with hope. But after many years of examining the lives of the people whose spiritual character I most respect, I've come to see that their faith rests on gratitude, rather than hope. They exude a sense of being indebted, and a state of being thankful. When the truly faithful worry, it's not about doubt (which they have) but it's about how they might not maximize the tremendous gift given them. How they might be ungrateful. The faithful I admire are not certain about much except this: that this state of being embodied, inflated with life, brimming with possibilities, is so over-the-top unlikely, so extravagant, so unconditional, so far out beyond physical entropy, that is it indistinguishable from love. And most amazing of all, like my hitchhiking rides, this love-gift is an extravagant gesture you can count on. No matter how bad the weather, soiled the past, broken the heart, hellish the war – all that is behind the universe is conspiring to help you – if you will let it.
My new age friends call that pronoia, the opposite of paranoia. Instead of believing everyone is out to get you, you believe everyone is out to help you. The story of your life becomes one huge elaborate conspiracy to lift you up. But to be helped you have to join the conspiracy yourself. You have to accept the gift.
Of course in the daily grind giving is always more holy than getting. That's what a Christmas season celebrating the gift of redemption is all about. Please share your abundance, while you can.
But I've only slowly come to realize that good givers are those who learn to receive with grace as well. None of us deserve what we have; all of us need help. From my perspective, the origins of this Christmas season lie in this eternal offer: although we have done nothing to merit it, we have been offered a glorious ride that will transcend the ills, failures, hates and destruction of this existence, if only we accept it. To accept the gift requires we surrender to our need for the gift, and to the truth that we don't deserve it. The outreach to this charity begins in the same humble position a hitchhiker gets into when he stands shivering on the side of the empty highway, cardboard sign flapping in the cold wind, and says, "How will the miracle happen today?"
I'm traveling a bit more this year, and writing more as well. I'm writing about what technology means, as in, what is the role of technology in our lives? There's more and more technology, but where does it fit in the cosmic scale of things? That philosophy sounds as airy-fairy to me as to you, which is why I am having trouble actually writing it. Just to keep my feet on the ground, I also continue to review tools for my web site, Cool Tools. To relax I made a few new photo books. I'm working on one about Burning Man, which I've been photographing since 1995.
And I am working on being more grateful. I'm aiming my thanks at the thousand of things we take for granted, things that would be a miracle if they only happened once. I noticed a pigeon the other day. It had fantastical colors, incredible bearing, and shimmering feathers. I feel sure that if there were only one of these specimens alive in the world, we would all agree it would be the most beautiful bird in the world. We'd push and shove to see it. Almost every moment in our lives is a pigeon overlooked. May we notice and be grateful. Sometime in the past, our lives intersected in real life (not on the computer!) and I wish we'd intersect again that way soon.
Peace,
Kevin Kelly
Friday, January 25, 2008
Somewhere there is a well
I actually wrote this first in another blog. Don't tell Kevin but I was not thinking about the play at all... but, going back and reading it, I do not feel remiss placing this here, too. In some
places at some times, people sit in a circle and pass a thing around-- usually a bottle of booze, or a rod, or a staff-- and whoever has that thing in their possession has to say something.
The world is simple: there is a house; there is not a house. There is building and then there is not building. Life and then not life. People who believe happiness is dependent upon a larger, metaphysical good will never be happy. People who need everything to be good will never find peace. Peace is in the silence between crashing waves. Peace is in the silence during the shortness of breath between sobs.
If the world was benevolent, then every five year old girl would befriend every animal she tried to pet.
But.
The world doesn't hate you.
You are. And it is. And anything more that you could want is selfish. Life is building and destroying what was built. Even the pyramids will one day crumble to dust and something beautiful will grow out of that dust.
I was watching a forgettable movie a long time ago and a dreadfully sad song was being played on a record player in the scene. The woman remarked, dreamy-eyed, "that is so beautiful." That is so beautiful. If all we do is count the 'happy' moments in our lives as the beautiful moments in our lives, then we will always feel short-changed, cheated, and deprived.
Happiness is waking up and maybe finding food to eat. Happiness is walking through a dream, a ringing in your ears, and you wake up one day and discover that you are married, and that you have beautiful children, and that you have a photo album full of smiles and wrinkled shirts. You can not help but live every minute of your life. Choosing to engage it, though, is something else.
There were two towers in New York and now there are none. The sadists in New York want to build a tremendous monument to the fact that people died. But people die every day. I went to Ground Zero (no, I do not mean Nagasaki, or Hiroshima, or Dresden). I went to Ground Zero and it was beautiful because it was the only place in lower Manhattan where the sky opened up. The din of the city had nothing to bounce off of and the echoes were lost in the sky so that silence, for a moment, came down and gently held you, and there was peace there.
Ground Zero is a clearing violently cut in the forest and now flowers can grow. In one hundred years, nobody will care about this ground zero. Nobody will care about monuments and 'never forget'. We always do. It isn't sad. Those people touched other people and those people will touch others. This is the only eternity granted to us mortals, these deeds we do. And we'll pass, and others touched by us will touch others and those others will touch others and an abstract piece of us will live on, having touched the Earth, and the sea, and the trees. And echo slowly fading. That's okay. All songs end.
I drove by a house and there was a family there. I drove by later and there was no house and there was no family. I do not know where they went or if they even escaped from the house.
Life is beautiful because it is fragile and only five minutes long. What do you do with those five minutes? Who are you? How loudly do you call up to the stars and to the immortal sky, "I am here! I am alive!" Will they remember you when you are gone?
In Pakistan, they still use as a highway a portion of the road cut by Alexander the Great on his quest to India.
He was twenty eight when he died.
Scientists and adventurers are discovering cities and roads in the sea off of the coast of South America, places where people lived, and walked, and loved before the sea rose and slowly and gently swallowed them.
When I was at a beach on the Northern tip of the Washington Penninsula, as the tide was coming in, I wrote my name in huge letters in the sand. I dragged my foot like an enormous wedge and wrote it so that even birds in the sky could read it. I sat down and watched the waves patiently rise and erase it. I watched myself die and be forgotten. It was the most liberating thing I have ever experienced.
Nothing you love will ever be taken from you because nothing you love is yours. Everything you love is something the world is sharing because the world loves you.
It is not sad. These are the truths that we know at that exact moment when we fall asleep when we are five years old. We die every time we fall asleep. We may never wake up but we trust something. We do not even trust that we will wake up, but we trust something.
Many people say nothing and pass into death quietly.
Oscar Wilde made a joke.
Ludwig Van Beethoven kept his fist raised in the air as he died. It did not fall until he was dead.
The universe is not beautiful because it provides for us, or takes care of us, or lets us believe we are forever. The universe is beautiful because it allows us to experience it for a moment and that moment, this delicate moment, is worth death and, this life, worth all of its pains, and sorrows, and miseries. To be exultant is not to be happy. To be exultant is to be alive.
'I sound my barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world'.
Lovers, and philosophers, and murderers-- they all contribute to the song, they are all part of this choir and every voice, no matter how 'sweet' or how 'terrible' adds something.
Without villains, we would have no heroes. Without sorrow, we would have no hope.
We would not have God if we did not need God.
This. This life. It is so beautiful.
One moment, there is a house. The next, there is no house.
It is so beautiful.
places at some times, people sit in a circle and pass a thing around-- usually a bottle of booze, or a rod, or a staff-- and whoever has that thing in their possession has to say something.
The world is simple: there is a house; there is not a house. There is building and then there is not building. Life and then not life. People who believe happiness is dependent upon a larger, metaphysical good will never be happy. People who need everything to be good will never find peace. Peace is in the silence between crashing waves. Peace is in the silence during the shortness of breath between sobs.
If the world was benevolent, then every five year old girl would befriend every animal she tried to pet.
But.
The world doesn't hate you.
You are. And it is. And anything more that you could want is selfish. Life is building and destroying what was built. Even the pyramids will one day crumble to dust and something beautiful will grow out of that dust.
I was watching a forgettable movie a long time ago and a dreadfully sad song was being played on a record player in the scene. The woman remarked, dreamy-eyed, "that is so beautiful." That is so beautiful. If all we do is count the 'happy' moments in our lives as the beautiful moments in our lives, then we will always feel short-changed, cheated, and deprived.
Happiness is waking up and maybe finding food to eat. Happiness is walking through a dream, a ringing in your ears, and you wake up one day and discover that you are married, and that you have beautiful children, and that you have a photo album full of smiles and wrinkled shirts. You can not help but live every minute of your life. Choosing to engage it, though, is something else.
There were two towers in New York and now there are none. The sadists in New York want to build a tremendous monument to the fact that people died. But people die every day. I went to Ground Zero (no, I do not mean Nagasaki, or Hiroshima, or Dresden). I went to Ground Zero and it was beautiful because it was the only place in lower Manhattan where the sky opened up. The din of the city had nothing to bounce off of and the echoes were lost in the sky so that silence, for a moment, came down and gently held you, and there was peace there.
Ground Zero is a clearing violently cut in the forest and now flowers can grow. In one hundred years, nobody will care about this ground zero. Nobody will care about monuments and 'never forget'. We always do. It isn't sad. Those people touched other people and those people will touch others. This is the only eternity granted to us mortals, these deeds we do. And we'll pass, and others touched by us will touch others and those others will touch others and an abstract piece of us will live on, having touched the Earth, and the sea, and the trees. And echo slowly fading. That's okay. All songs end.
I drove by a house and there was a family there. I drove by later and there was no house and there was no family. I do not know where they went or if they even escaped from the house.
Life is beautiful because it is fragile and only five minutes long. What do you do with those five minutes? Who are you? How loudly do you call up to the stars and to the immortal sky, "I am here! I am alive!" Will they remember you when you are gone?
In Pakistan, they still use as a highway a portion of the road cut by Alexander the Great on his quest to India.
He was twenty eight when he died.
Scientists and adventurers are discovering cities and roads in the sea off of the coast of South America, places where people lived, and walked, and loved before the sea rose and slowly and gently swallowed them.
When I was at a beach on the Northern tip of the Washington Penninsula, as the tide was coming in, I wrote my name in huge letters in the sand. I dragged my foot like an enormous wedge and wrote it so that even birds in the sky could read it. I sat down and watched the waves patiently rise and erase it. I watched myself die and be forgotten. It was the most liberating thing I have ever experienced.
Nothing you love will ever be taken from you because nothing you love is yours. Everything you love is something the world is sharing because the world loves you.
It is not sad. These are the truths that we know at that exact moment when we fall asleep when we are five years old. We die every time we fall asleep. We may never wake up but we trust something. We do not even trust that we will wake up, but we trust something.
Many people say nothing and pass into death quietly.
Oscar Wilde made a joke.
Ludwig Van Beethoven kept his fist raised in the air as he died. It did not fall until he was dead.
The universe is not beautiful because it provides for us, or takes care of us, or lets us believe we are forever. The universe is beautiful because it allows us to experience it for a moment and that moment, this delicate moment, is worth death and, this life, worth all of its pains, and sorrows, and miseries. To be exultant is not to be happy. To be exultant is to be alive.
'I sound my barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world'.
Lovers, and philosophers, and murderers-- they all contribute to the song, they are all part of this choir and every voice, no matter how 'sweet' or how 'terrible' adds something.
Without villains, we would have no heroes. Without sorrow, we would have no hope.
We would not have God if we did not need God.
This. This life. It is so beautiful.
One moment, there is a house. The next, there is no house.
It is so beautiful.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
It's freezing outside and very cold inside the Barn. The kind of cold that creates its own silence. Everyone is wearing scarves and jackets and hats at rehearsal. Chilly toes. That takes me back to the very first year, the darkest part of winter of 1988 - one floor above where we are now. Our first show opened right around now and it was one of the coldest weekends in Omaha history. Huge, thin warehouse windows from the 1890's, where the icy wind actually blows straight through the glass, it seems. And we were young then. Really young. Just a couple of seasons ago. It does feel like it in the strangest way. Is Omaha the midwest Brigadoon? Everything here resonates so much that it's easy to have time vertigo. Tonight we launched into scene one. All these things begin growing from some invisible soil. Some sort of really lush winter garden. My nose is like a long frozen moon orbiting above my face. Nils said he is having very vivid dreams from the play. Mine have been strongly affected, too. More around working with everyone. How many are having dreams colored by this? Still waiting to hear the train whistles at night. One of my favorite parts of this town. Trains wailing deep in the bitter night.
Hey! Forced honesty!
So, it's not like I've never costumed a show before, but at the moment, I'm kind of intimidated. After doing Vieux Carre (sp), I took myself out of costuming at the blue barn. Having to search through every thrift store in town for the most boring clothing was just tedious. But I'm back at it now, although with a whole new set of tools at hand, the foremost being the Reverend. You know, Steve. The guy who actually has to do the work. Best friend. Yadda.
But this show is so darn conceptual, I just don't have a grip on it. I need to read it on paper. Somehow, trying to read this play on my computer feels as though it's keeping me from understanding it. Perhaps I'm trying to read it too quickly. I can't write myself notes on the side. And it's hard to grasp how far things are progressing without having so many pages in front, and so many behind.
And then there's Bill, who seems to not only have a full grasp of the show, but has come up with Great Ideas. I don't have Great Ideas yet. I have the ideas that will not embarrass the actors to be on stage. It feels like forever since I really put the work in on a 'legitimate' theater piece. Just yesterday, I finally started unpacking my scripts and designs from the Rose. It's been a year since I had looked at it, and it felt comforting to page through my sketchbook. Dear lord, how many costumes have been cranked out of my shop last year without even a design? I'm a gut costumer, and this play is going to need more than instinct.
So, I'ze going to cancel my afternoon appointment, head for the nail salon, and get to reading. Some may suffer for their art. I prefer to do mine while getting a pedicure.
But this show is so darn conceptual, I just don't have a grip on it. I need to read it on paper. Somehow, trying to read this play on my computer feels as though it's keeping me from understanding it. Perhaps I'm trying to read it too quickly. I can't write myself notes on the side. And it's hard to grasp how far things are progressing without having so many pages in front, and so many behind.
And then there's Bill, who seems to not only have a full grasp of the show, but has come up with Great Ideas. I don't have Great Ideas yet. I have the ideas that will not embarrass the actors to be on stage. It feels like forever since I really put the work in on a 'legitimate' theater piece. Just yesterday, I finally started unpacking my scripts and designs from the Rose. It's been a year since I had looked at it, and it felt comforting to page through my sketchbook. Dear lord, how many costumes have been cranked out of my shop last year without even a design? I'm a gut costumer, and this play is going to need more than instinct.
So, I'ze going to cancel my afternoon appointment, head for the nail salon, and get to reading. Some may suffer for their art. I prefer to do mine while getting a pedicure.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
The end of solitude
Just getting started here in Omaha on the premier of The Tulip. Last night I met with the design team - a wonderful, eclectic group of talents, and tonight I meet my cast and have the first read through. This is the point where years of desperate, solitary work begins to have life breathed into it by other human beings. All their hearts and minds and bodies, the bottomless reservoirs of their lives, pour into every curve and cranny of the flat, black letters on the page, and upward it begins to grow, kicking its way into the flesh and blood. It's a wildly strange and wonderful experience. Tonight will be the first time I hear others read the words. What a rare blessing - to be able to explore life like this.
Posted by Hobo K at 10:03 AM 0 comments
Just getting started here in Omaha on the premier of The Tulip. Last night I met with the design team - a wonderful, eclectic group of talents, and tonight I meet my cast and have the first read through. This is the point where years of desperate, solitary work begins to have life breathed into it by other human beings. All their hearts and minds and bodies, the bottomless reservoirs of their lives, pour into every curve and cranny of the flat, black letters on the page, and upward it begins to grow, kicking its way into the flesh and blood. It's a wildly strange and wonderful experience. Tonight will be the first time I hear others read the words. What a rare blessing - to be able to explore life like this.
Posted by Hobo K at 10:03 AM 0 comments
The Tulip Play
Hello and welcome!
This is a blog by the cast and crew of the premier production of a play called The Tulip at the Blue Barn Theatre in Omaha, NE. We are just beginning rehearsals as the blog begins. The hope is to get a great multi-perspective journal on the process of creating a new work for the stage, and this new work specifically. Please enjoy and feel free to comment.
This is a blog by the cast and crew of the premier production of a play called The Tulip at the Blue Barn Theatre in Omaha, NE. We are just beginning rehearsals as the blog begins. The hope is to get a great multi-perspective journal on the process of creating a new work for the stage, and this new work specifically. Please enjoy and feel free to comment.
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