The Forge

(For How to Stop Acting, Part II visit http://genialscribe.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/how-to-stop-acting-part-ii/ )

After acting class today, the professor pulled me aside. She said "I know where i need to get you to." I wasn't quite sure what that meant, and so she explained. "You are not the character. You are still Adam. And Adam is very smart." She told me i over-think. I'm constantly analyzing my performance as i'm trying to give it, constantly trying to imagine how i look and sound, and that until i break through that barrier and actually "enter the scene," i am not going to be able to pull it off. She told me that "happens a lot with smart kids."

To make matters worse--and it was funny, the sort of epiphany she had--i'm a photographer. It's how i've wired myself. I've learned to be ever aware of what's going on, what shots will look best, what composition is worth having and what might well be discarded. When she passed me at the football game over the weekend, she didn't recognize me at first. I was so intent on the game, looking so sharply at the players and trying to anticipate the action so as to be aiming in the proper direction at the proper time. Nothing else mattered.

That's the sort of concentration i need for acting. Except, instead of concentrating on what the scene looks like, i need to be concentrating on who the character--who I am. I need to stop thinking and start doing.

Recall what i wrote in a recent entry:

"I see myself in this situation," I said. "That's the problem. I see me." I'm stuck watching myself live life, rather than jumping out of the director's chair and actually playing my part. Like it's more worth my time to analyze my problems than to actually buckle down and fix them. What's funnier is that my entire problem--i've come to realize--is that i realize i've got a problem. Catch-22. Only way to fix my life is to forget it needs to be fixed.

So it's not just acting. It's my life. The whole problem is that i'm observing it rather than living it. And now it's not just me who has noticed this problem.

As i was leaving the building, one of the directors asked me how the scene rehearsals were going for class. I told her about what the professor had said to me, and then commented on how humorous it was that not too long ago, i'd been writing the same thing in my blog, except that had been about "real life" rather than acting.

I said "When one is a photographer, one learns to look at the world from that standpoint. Sometimes you spend so much time observing life that you don't take time to live it. I've often gone places and realized only afterward that i really wasn't there at all. But i've got pictures of it. One must step back from time to time..."

And i think to myself, Damn that pronoun, one. Damn all the essays i've ever written. They've become how i see the world; how i see myself.

I no longer do anything, notice anything, i am no longer subject to anything; I can neither cause an event nor be affected by it. Who i ought to be is replaced with the ambiguous one: one thinks, one notices, one is subject to; one causes things to happen or else one is affected by such things. In the meantime, I am reduced to a permanent literary character with as much control over my situation as a bullet over its trajectory after leaving the gun (an aside: i actually had to correct this sentence; i originally said "over his situation." If that doesn't prove the point, i don't know what will).

The director reflected on what i'd told her, and then she said "It's funny, isn't it? You're learning the most about yourself in a class that's about being other people."

I guess that is funny.

The question is, will I learn the lesson this time?

by Casting Crowns

(I just find that this song speaks so well to my position right now. I'm on my way up, but find my footing has gotten slippery):

Somewhere between the hot and the cold
Somewhere between the new and the old
Somewhere between who I am and who I used to be
Somewhere in the middle, You'll find me

Somewhere between the wrong and the right
Somewhere between the darkness and the light
Somewhere between who I was and who You're making me
Somewhere in the middle, You'll find me

Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender
Without losing all control?

Fearless warriors in a picket fence,
Reckless abandon wrapped in common sense
Deep water faith in the shallow end
And we are caught in the middle
With eyes wide open to the differences,
The God we want and the God who is
But will we trade our dreams for His
Or are we caught in the middle?
Are we caught in the middle?

Somewhere between my heart and my hands
Somewhere between my faith and my plans
Somewhere between the safety of the boat and the crashing waves

Somewhere between a whisper and a roar
Somewhere between the altar and the door
Somewhere between contented peace and always wanting more
Somewhere in the middle You'll find me

Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender
Without losing all control?

Fearless warriors in a picket fence,
Reckless abandon wrapped in common sense
Deep water faith in the shallow end
And we are caught in the middle
With eyes wide open to the differences,
The God we want and the God who is
But will we trade our dreams for His
Or are we caught in the middle?
Fearless warriors in a picket fence,
Reckless abandon wrapped in common sense
Deep water faith in the shallow end
And we are caught in the middle
With eyes wide open to the differences,
The God we want and the God who is
But will we trade our dreams for His
Or are we caught in the middle?

Lord, I feel You in this place
And I know You're by my side
Loving me even on these nights

When I'm caught in the middle
Caught in the middle

I let it go.

I let it all go. Poured out until i was sure there was nothing left, and yet it still kept coming. It's like one of those fountains with an electrical pump replenishing the water supply: I thought that maybe spewing forth everything within would empty me out, but the only way to stop the stream is to unplug the pump and let the water evaporate.

It's a timely process.

So yeah. I let it go. A good friend came by and i told him everything. Names, details, the enormous irony in my situation that, perhaps, we'll all get a good laugh at one day. But not today. This well runs too deep.

I wrote a word on my wrist today.

This evening i decided to sit in on play rehearsals. I'm only in the fifth act, and a very short portion of a scene, so i didn't need to go. But i wanted to. I like these people. They're fun, and good to talk with. Some are even my friends. I was telling a few people about some issue i'd had. At the conclusion, one of them said (and i couldn't tell whether this was a valid summation, or else a way to end my explanation) "wow, ---."

I lifted my wrist up and tried to show them the word i'd written. No one looked.

The last few days i've likened my heart to a thunderstorm. The climax came when a real thunderstorm deposited lightning right outside my window. It's been crazy. Hard to deal with.

Really, the word suits me well.

I needed to tell someone, after all, about what i was dealing with. I knew it couldn't go anywhere, but everyone kept asking why and i needed to answer, even if the person i told hadn't asked me. Believe me, i've got good reasons. It's under control. And i like the way i explained it all, because that was real, it was from the heart, it was raw energy. It was truth. But maybe i overstepped the boundaries.

Maybe too well.

Anyway, whatever i needed to do, i did. It worked. The writing maybe. Or the monologue i wrote. He said it was amazing. "You don't need to edit this or extend it." Stellar work. I'll believe him. Maybe because i like that idea--that i made something amazing. Or maybe just because it has to be amazing. Good literature is life. Some guy said that. He said few of us write good novels. But all of us live them. He was down to earth. He wasn't too ---.

But i am. Always have been.

Just need to calm down, you know? Like the Energizer Bunny. Someone needs to stop him. He's so busy beating that drum of his that he never gets a chance to sit down and just live. He's been all over the place, seen lots of people, maybe they liked him, even. But he never gave them the chance to love him. He just kept going and going and going.

Wow. I think i just called myself a pink rabbit.

Thing is i get too far into it. The grit and grime. I want so desperately to be understood, and i take so many pains to understand myself first. But no one really understands themselves. It's why shrinks can't fix their own lives. We're experts on everyone else's problems but blind to our own. It becomes an obsession. We can't stop til we've fixed ourselves. But it's too much.

My friends had a rabbit once. It died.

"I see myself in this situation," I said. "That's the problem. I see me." I'm stuck watching myself live life, rather than jumping out of the director's chair and actually playing my part. Like it's more worth my time to analyze my problems than to actually buckle down and fix them. What's funnier is that my entire problem--i've come to realize--is that i realize i've got a problem. Catch-22. Only way to fix my life is to forget it needs to be fixed.

If that doesn't prove it, i don't know what will.

Too much energy. I'm not unique. We've all been in these places, with these people, doing these things. Nothing new under the sun. But for some reason, i have to be. I imagine myself as standing out. I blow things out of proportion. "Mountains out of mole hills," he said. Yeah. Molehills.

This is so hypocritical. Go ahead. You know it is.

"I eat most of my meals alone." I told him that. I don't usually bother telling people that. Feel bad about it, because it makes me seem like i'm trying to drop a hint that i'm not trying to drop. He knows that though. Knows i was just making a point. Point is i've got lots of friends, nice people, people who think i'm a nice guy and who sometimes think to call me and ask if i want to hang out. 'Cept usually when they don't call, i get paranoid. Like i did something wrong.

Figure it out yet?

Last year i blamed me. Said i wasn't good enough for friends. Needed to fix something about me, make myself more likable. That's not it. Never was. I keep seeing it as them forgetting me. They see it likewise. Oh, he's in a group. They all wear the same shirts and go do things together. He doesn't need us anymore. Funny, really. they never gave me a shirt. Whole group goes out to do something, and i can't wear the shirt. I don't have one.

What are you laughing at?

So yeah. It's hard to say. I can't just call, and say these things. Yeah, please invite me to dinner. Otherwise i'll eat alone, because no one here will ask. Hard to imagine. I try not to. I just go and eat alone. I don't mind it, really. I like to think. Except then i think of myself, and how i'm eating alone again, and how wouldn't it be nice if someone knew, and maybe i'll tell someone one day.

Right.

So i did. Told all. Showed my hand, as it were. I've got a bleeding heart, and i can't stop it, because i've got psychosomatic hemophilia.

As in...mhmm...i told you it was the right word.

Well anyway, the point is that i figured out the problem. And the solution. And they're the same thing.

Wait for it.

We can't fix ourselves. We weren't meant to. You can spend your whole life mulling over the broken parts, the pieces that don't quite fit, the reasons why you're inadequate to love or be loved. And when it comes down to it, the only thing holding you back is yourself. You can love yourself, or you can choose to be so damn fascinated with yourself that you're unwilling to let the test subject leave. That's when you become unlovable.

-

The moment you're comfortable with loving yourself is the moment someone else can start loving you. Until then, you've allowed yourself to be your own idol. So shatter yourself. Break yourself into a million pieces, and then leave it like that, for someone else to pick up. Maybe God. Maybe a lover. Maybe some good friends who you take for granted. Just do what i did.

I let it go.

Introducing the Forge's companion site, "The Empyreal Emporium." The following entry here also serves as the first entry there.

“Forge.”

There’s something irrevocably harsh about that word. It implies all that it can ever hope to be: something hot, crude, and bright. It has been, and shall continue to be, most fitting for my forge to be the birthplace of heavily philosophical or severely self-searching entries. But i’ve come to recognize a need for a lighter place, one where we can forget about the things that make life so very hard to live, and dwell on those things that are, i believe, most reflective of what heaven shall be like.

I leave for my forge dwellings on sin, pain, and depression.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Although i've been somewhat outspoken in the past as to my views on the Roman Catholic church (more to the institution and its hierarchy than to the devout that follow it), i must say i've always found the concept of the Seven Deadly Sins to be, if nothing else, romantic, in much the same way that one appreciates medieval architecture or Gothic novels. There's something foreboding and utterly unforgivable in it--that is to say, the notion that any sin be unforgivable--and yet the concept is an attractive attempt to, in seven sins, encapsulate nigh all a man can do that is not perfect in God's sight.

To that effect, there is for every deadly sin a parallel virtue, a trait one must uphold so as to escape the grasp of its counterpart transgression or else, it being too late to avoid the snare, to take up fervently that virtue's practice as a form of penitence.

By way of casual musing i have come to the conclusion that i must be condemned of three of these seven cardinal sins: that i have, as i dare say any man has done (not that that alleviates the charge), lusted, and been consumed by such habits as shall necessarily follow unfulfilled lust; that i have for the great part of my life taken to consume whatever and whenever it suit my fancy, and in embracing such gluttony have caused much physical and social damage upon myself; and that i have spent far too much of my life in lethargy, whether it be induced mostly by my state of mind or my physical ability to sustain active exertion.

Lust. Sloth. Gluttony.
Thus fall the charges.

And in the interest of redemption, if i am to believe that willful acts of virtue might cleanse me of sinful habits, even if the actual redemption takes place only by the good grace and blood of my savior--well then, in the interest of redemption, i shall endeavor to embody the virtues that play rival to the sinful urges: wherefore lustful behavior had been my master, be it now replaced by chaste thoughts and actions; wherefore much drowsiness and procrastination have been allowed to rule, may they be deposed by routine of physical activity and well-budgeted time; and wherefore food had been consumed in gross portions and with little consideration given to the contents thereof, may there now be some semblance of control and intent in all repasts.

Chastity. Diligence. Temperance.
Thus falls the sentence.

Of course, there is a certain degree of irony in saying that a primary issue of mine is my inability to initiate, bear with, and complete any sort of plans, and then to say i've a plan to fix my issues, and that such irony is difficult to overcome even when the matters at hand are not of a spiritual nature.

In thus recognition, i ask for prayer support, and in addition to the prayers you may offer i would humbly request that, if you know any group that is taken to praying in an intercessory way, that my name be given them as well.

I mentioned, not long ere, that my first step to recovery was to get out, and to keep my chin up, and to be less socially inept. I've taken, i should say, strides in that direction, but in doing so have come to all the more despise those parts of me i deem least in keeping with a healthy being.

Also, if my manner of writing be formal (which, of course, it is) allow me to blame it on the profusion of Shakespeare and Hawthorne i've been (for lack of a better word) plagued with over the last week or so.

And so, without further ado, shall i attempt this trifecta of virtue.

Whether due to my presentation having had the semblance of potential or the number of male auditions being disproportionate to the number of male roles to be filled, i haven't the foggiest--either way providence has selected for me the role of William.

A quick read-through shows that William has only a handful of lines, and that his role is comically tragic, as he is in love with a woman who--zounds!--shall choose over him to be betrothed to a clown.

Anyhow, it's a small part, but a fun scene, and exactly what i was looking for when i said i wanted "a position that will get me used to being in front of an audience without giving me a chance to make a real fool of myself."

So, bravo.

William it is!

So that was audition number two in my scintillating attempt to get on a stage (that is to say, while the curtain is not drawn). We'll see, tomorrow, how that fares, but in the meantime, some observations.

I have notoriously been harsh when it comes to the acting demographic. The division i noted was and shall always be in existence, however not nearly to the extent that my paranoid self claimed in earlier, less experienced postings. In our first acting class, the instructor noted the great importance of not shunning technicians, something i know all too well from having worked nothing but (tech, that is) in previous shows.

But when it comes to auditions, i'm stepping into actor territory.

And although theatre ought to be a fun place for people of all walks to gather, i understand that there are many who either a. are terrified of never getting stage opportunities again after leaving college, or b. need as full an acting resume as possible in aspirations for a career in the field. In either case, there are a limited number of positions on a cast and everyone auditioning ostensibly wants in. Friends or not, the moments before stepping out onto the stage each person has one thing on his or her mind: i'm going to put forth my best, and i sure hope it's better than everyone else's best.

And i understand that such feelings are mutual among actors. Allow me to step outside my usually narrow viewpoint to make the observation that tension even between the seasoned veterans of the acting troupe is fairly high. And then you throw someone like me, the technician, into the mix.

I imagine it's a rather humorous circumstance to be in, for the actor, seeing me walk through the door and fill out a sheet. It's as if we're awaiting tryouts for the high school track team, and everyone else a runner. They recognize me as someone whose experience with running the extent of which, to date, has been running the stopwatch. This almost guarantees that i've no acting chops (something i'll fully admit--this is all about experience at this point) and, for the most part, stand little chance of acquiring their part. Which allows for some small talk, some joking around, because i pose no threat whatsoever.

I like the idea though. The play we're doing this year is Shakespeare's "As You Like It," and from what i understand there are 20 male roles. Assuming that this includes fringe characters, i see myself not after any sort of leading role but simply a position that will get me used to being in front of an audience without giving me a chance to make a real fool of myself. You don't become CEO at a major corporation upon entering (unless you're Eisner)--you enter as the janitor, and maybe advance from there. Yet there's no clear way of suggesting your intentions when you audition--no mop and bucket to make clear what you're here for--and as such you must appear at least somewhat audacious as you take the stage and, in my case, fumble.

Let me clarify, before you jump on that word--fumble. I have never acted, and my last audition attempt was half-hearted (i'd like to think of this as more 3/4-hearted). Therefore i have no standard of comparison to judge my performance by, except that of the more seasoned performers. So when i say i fumbled, i mean only to say that the bit of practicing i did before a webcam in my dorm room this afternoon was tighter and a little bit more entertaining than what happened when i stepped before Ketler Auditorium this evening. Granted, i'd not planned to audition (i only signed up today around 2 p.m.) and as such i can't be expected to have prepared as diligently as those who've had their eyes set on a role since the day they stepped foot on campus this semester. Not really an excuse, but more of a slight reprieve for me.

As to the others auditioning, i indicated that my key reason for attending was to watch what i considered successful auditions (or not so successful, depending on your experience, i'd guess) and, either way, take notes on what struck me as well-done, something that i could try to emulate in the future (like, say, tomorrow when i audition for the one-acts). The list i compiled was somewhat short (there were not very many people left to audition after me) but here it stands:

Location-specific accents are a great way to showcase your abilities, if you have any. One performer had a great Southern drawl (far more developed--and, i should think, more oft-used--than the British accent i slobbered over during my take) and, despite the fact that this was a Shakespeare role, demonstrated her willingness to toss aside the normal speech patterns if her character had no use of them. I suppose my best accent is Aussie, so i ought to have gone for that (or maybe something French?).

Movement with purpose. That's it. Despite a minute amount of blocking i'd attempted in my dorm rehearsals, i remained almost frighteningly still on-stage. Hm... i guess that's stage fright, huh? I wasn't afraid to move, i simply forgot to. Speaking of which...

I also forgot about verbal pacing. The point of a good delivery versus a poor one is that the same words are presented in a different way. It's almost funny in hindsight that all of the pauses i took on-stage were supposed to be lines and all of the hurried lines i delivered were supposed to come after well-mimed pauses. No one prepares everything he is going to say ahead of time, and thus neither would any well-played character. This, i noticed, is perhaps the best mark of a good performer: the ability to speak in a way that allows you to forget they are reciting someone else's words.

Universal humor is another thing i ought to have considered. Granted, i had limited resources, but even then i forgot about the option to use film/television as subject matter for my comic piece. Desperately i scanned my bookshelf for something amusing and found a Bill Bryson book--a type of humor i find subtly hysterical--and selected a passage. The issue is that most people don't appreciate British humor, and Bryson's is usually drawn-out (thus impossible to fully demonstrate in a 60-second snippet). Which reminds me...

What was up with the time limit? I guess it was a frame of reference, but it seems that (based on the several-minute monologues delivered un-impeded by the director) the 60-second parameters were "more like guidelines than actual rules." In the future, i'll try to remember that time is not my master: it's better to have a longer piece with a bigger punch (and be prepared to stop if asked) than to be succinct and then awkwardly stop where the writer never intended you to do so.

That was pretty much all that i gathered from the other performers, although i noticed in reflection a major problem with my approach today. I made, it seems, the mistake of thinking that just because i like to (and often succeed at) making people laugh, my character doesn't necessarily need to be the jester. I find i am also drawn to violent, sinister characters, and so perhaps in the future i will attempt a villain rather than a hero.

Well, i just figured i'd let everyone know that i went out for another audition. In the excitement, i forgot to call home, which is kinda crappy, but there's always the weekend.

In the out-on-a-really-long-and-questionably-firm-limb event that i get a part, i'll update tomorrow (Friday, for those of you who aren't up til all hours of the night) with that info. Otherwise assume what i'm assuming now--that this has been naught more than a learning experience, and a good one at that.