Ash Wednesday

From T.S. Eliot, my man on the scene:

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is
nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgment not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

Acting is hard

Only because of the persuasive charm and unrejectable kindness of Chris Morse, I find myself "acting" in a Superheroes this week. My presence isn't doing much for the show, but it certainly is a nice remedial course in acting is hard.

Tonight's lessons:

1. When I am directing, I often wonder why actors can't just sit still and disappear when they aren't acting. Answer: because they are human people. It's *boring* sitting there while other people do stuff.

2. When you are on the stage part of the stage, facing out, you have no idea what you look like. I had completely forgotten that.

I hope the detriment to this show will end up paying dividends for actors I work with in the future.

Also, 3. Props are fun.

米少一点， 跑多一点

Walking back from a field trip on Friday, Kim YongChel came up to me, earnest as a Mormon and asked, "Teacher? Do you know fat?"

He informed me that fat "makes pieces in your organs and affects your body shape." And all of this was going somewhere, too.

"So, I think you should give up snacks."

I can always count on my friends from Asian countries to point this kind of information out to me. Less rice, more running.

I asked Kim what would give my life meaning if I didn't have snacks, and he suggested friendship, which, what can you do with that? Since his plea is coinciding with Lent, I'm going to give it a go.

OK, Plays

Daniel Student asked me to ask some plays, ideally before the end of the week. That was about a month ago, and I have only read the first 20 pages of each of the plays, so I am a bad friend, bad colleague and not in any position to criticize, all at once.

But I just have to say. That plays need action. I just read four plays, and in two the first twenty pages were characters addressing the audience with paragraphs of exposition. Saying who they were; what their backgrounds were. What they wanted.

The "wright" part of "playwright" is not "write," as in, to put words on the page. It's "wright" like in "wheelwright." It means maker. Making a wheel is a skill, and if you don't have the skill, the thing won't carry people.

If build your play skillfully, your characters won't need to *tell* me who they are and what they want, because your story will tell me that.

I know that creating a script is very difficult work. I wish more were going on to help writers develop skill and virtuosity. I would love to see less play writing, and more playwrighting.

Yes, I do.

"Heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill, but what you want is passionate virtuosity."
— John Barth

Do be do be do be do.

Continually, teaching language brings me back to theatre.

Let’s learn the verb “to be.” “Be” is what we call a “stative” verb. Stative verbs are the opposite of action verbs, and that means they describe things that “are,” rather than things we do. As an English student, you need to know the stative verbs because you can’t use them in the progressive form (the one we use to say what is happening right now) the way you can for action verbs. For example, you can say “I am running” but you can’t say “I am having a car” because “to have” is a state. You can’t choose it (you can choose to try to get, but you can’t choose to have.) You have it or you don’t.

Sometimes we use “be” in the –ing form. Like “stop being stupid, Yoon.” But it’s understood from the form that Yoon is choosing to be stupid. If she simply were stupid, we wouldn’t ask her to stop.

Some actors use be in the –ing form, “I am being a king,” “I am being angry,” but in theatre we understand that that’s not ideal. So we instruct actors not to “be” but to “do.” We understand that the nature of “be” is that it isn’t chosen, so we ask “what are you doing?” A beat is about completing an action, not “being” a thing or feeling.
All of this grammar and theatre nerdery matters for the only reason that anything matters- these approaches point to truth. When I accuse Yoon of being stupid, I am accusing her of not being true to her nature and capacity. When an actor is “being happy,” she is not delivering a truthful performance. And truthfully, in life we cannot choose to be, only to do.

On Shit

One of my favorite playwrights in Philly, and someone whose work and ideas I admire a lot recently presented a play which ended with a character throwing a bucket of shit on the audience.

I'm not sure what to feel about the play itself, but I can say with certainty that throwing a bucket of shit on the audience is the exact and polar opposite of anything I ever want to do.

Doesn't the audience get a bucket of shit thrown on them enough? Just kidding. But actually not just kidding.

Why do we do this?

"Hold a mirror up to the audience,""Force people out of their complacency" these phrases and their most misused cousin "tell the truth" come up a lot in our discussion of our role as artists.

I know that I am not qualified to do these things, and I don't like being theatred at by people who think they are. As a person who lives it, I can report that life is scary and difficult, and that holding a mirror up to yourself is one of the scariest and most difficult things you can do in it. That's the *truth.* To hold an audience captive, and then try to force that mirror in their faces would border on violence if it were ever successful. Thankfully it's not. Mostly audiences just leave with the vague notion of having been mean spiritedly patronized. You're welcome.

Telling the truth is an act of humility. Otherwise, it's a lie going around with a pious name. That's my least favorite kind of lie because it diminishes people's capacity to offer or receive any actual honesty.

We call that part of the theater "the house." Don't invite someone into your house because you think they need to be taught something about themselves by you. Would you like that? Would you go there a second time ?