Progress

I’ve always appreciated professionalism. This is not surprising. What is surprising is that, more often than not, I’ve encountered it working with amateurs, not professionals. I dislike intensely the word “amateur.” It has such a mocking, negative connotation. What is a “professional?” Let’s take theatre students, for instance. While they’re taking classes, learning how to act, learning tricks, really, are they not a bunch of amateurs in training? The label (theatre department) assures them of the opposite. And yet so many professional actors are stuck in a rut. They have their bag of tricks and, having reached a certain level of ease on the stage, they stagnate. There’s no more learning, no evolution and, the deadliest thing of all, no curiosity. No fear. The amateur is curious, terrified, receptive. Ok, so they can’t do a hundred shows and sustain the same intensity, but I take curiosity over stamina any day.

I was thinking about this yesterday during a longer rehearsal. (I have developed this strange schizo-capacity to do one thing and think about another, like direct a scene and talk to the actors while thinking about professionalism, for instance. It’s odd, but lucrative). C. had a headache; had been to the doctor only the other day, had laryngitis and a virus of some sort, and yet she didn’t miss a beat. I’m not saying there isn’t work to be done – we still have to work on almost every other sentence because there are nuances I want and because this play is pretty static, and depends strictly on the precision of the dialogue and mood. So I’m not saying C. didn’t miss a beat because everything was perfect. What I’m talking about is professionalism, the fact that despite all of that she was there, on time, prepared, inhabiting the character a little more with every reading. C. has excellent comedic timing which is great because it can’t be taught. There is a good portion of the play where she has little to say because Death just made an appearance and Night is mesmerized like a little boy with a new toy, so C. has the occasional line (bitter, resentful, funny) which is meant to interrupt the growing connection between Night and Death. She does that perfectly.  Because of that niceness I was mentioning a few entries ago, a genuine kindness, I believe, that exists under the polite surface, her voice can acquire incredibly soothing tones. In the last scene in which she says good bye to Night after discovering his first name, there is a tenderness and a sadness in her voice that almost kills me. It’s exactly what I had imagined and it makes me terribly, terribly happy.

After rehearsal, on the way home, E. said, “You know, I have to really work for this one. In all the other plays, I was a little bit myself, versions of myself. This is completely different. I have to find a voice, a pitch, a rhythm, even a new way of moving.” She was right and, for the first time, I thought I found an explanation for her multiple deaths all these years on the stage, a death at the end of each play. Perhaps I tried to teach her something in every production without even realizing it. Like “don’t date losers, baby.” “Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not good enough.” “Don’t hesitate when there’s something you want.” Believe me, I realize how incredibly obvious these statements are, but put them on the stage wrapped inside a flawed (hence human) character and they acquire importance – even magnitude. And perhaps E.’s character died in every play because I was – again, without realizing it – eliminating that part of her character I thought might harm her in the long run. Whatever her age, E. is my child, and sometimes I believe that what I do is simply rearrange the world in an attempt to prepare her for it. 

Toward the end of the rehearsal yesterday I sent everybody home but E. and K. to work on Death’s entrance, on her outer-worldly walk; on E. and K.’s Western impulses. The difference (at least on the stage) between East and West is colossal. It’s mostly a difference of rhythm and perception (the perception of one’s body and its possibilities) that needs to be internalized. I will have to spend hours teaching E.and K. to slow down, to practice slow motion, to understand what happens to time and space when the body is still. I have to teach them the importance of a ritual performed with conviction. The meeting between Death and Night is a ceremony. Night meets mortality face to face and is attracted to it. Death is curious. Curiosity needs to be satisfied so she studies Night without touching him. Her hands glide over his face, his body, without ever making contact. She learns his shape. She gets very close. She terrifies him. To do this physically, on the stage, with public seated two feet away and without lights that emphasize the strangeness of the movement is extremely risky. One false move (one unconvincing, self-conscious move) and the whole thing collapses. Laughter would be deadly here.

I’m terrified of working without lights. I’ve relied on their capacity to produce awe on the stage for so long, that this is my way of fighting my own demons. I don’t know how anything will look. If I want magic it can’t be “fabricated,” it can’t be tricky: there has to be magic in the physical encounter between E. and K. The connection has to be there so intensely, the public must feel it developing.

It was strange (a little earlier in last night’s rehearsal) to dissect K. before everyone else, to explain to him his own coping mechanisms so visible from a distance, to see him blush or burst into uncontrollable laughter (another coping mechanism). I always wonder (usually after I do it, never before) if I’ve gone too far, if this is the time when he’ll tell me to back off, to leave intact at least one portion of his being. It hasn’t happened yet but I am afraid because I have to push him much harder from now on.

We’ll see…For now, this is progress. Slowly, slowly, people are coming together, getting used to one another, getting used to the internal space I have created for them, subjecting themselves to my harsh comments perhaps knowing that, underneath it all, lies my immense gratitude for the fact that they are the only people who can bring to life the world in my head. For that, I am immensely, impossibly grateful.