X’treme Improvisation
I don’t know when this idea of labeling risky behavior as “Extreme” came in, but far be it from me to flout convention… well, sometimes I do. What am I saying? I CAN’T STAND CONVENTION!!! But I digress.
I did a ripper Improvisation tonight. Even surprised myself! The risk of this sort of “extreme-ism” was that of performing the task with no or minimal injury to others. I’m happy to inform you that no animals (and that includes human beings) were hurt in the production of my Improvisation. I can’t really go into it here as there are certain restrictions, suffice to say that I’m fairly sure I was truthful, clear and very believable.
I have to say, I was very anxious tonight. And after the performance, I went home and tried to relax… by watching the television news, of all things. Read more
Writer’s block
Sometimes when I sit in front of this screen, I can create exactly what I want to say, just like you were in the room with me and I was dictating to you. I have been trying to come up with something that speaks of experience, strength and hope, but nothing comes up at the moment.
I could talk about work, but who would want to do that, or perhaps I could talk about you. That might be fun. For example, I’ve written quite a bit, it seems, on what I think, but if you were to read this, or any other entries from the ten categories I have on this web site, and tell me what you think? How would that be? I’ve had some people comment on some of the things I’ve written, and I am very grateful to you, and I would be interested to know what your friends think. Truly, I would.
To tell you the truth, sometimes it feels like I’m something of a castaway, a Robinson Crusoe type writing notes, putting them in bottles and throwing them out into the frothy brine. I’m not complaining, mind you… no, not a bit of it. In fact, just between you and me, I’ve rather enjoyed putting my thoughts down and sending them out. It’s just that I hope someone else might get a little something from them.
I used to keep a journal. In fact, I have boxes of them. This was something taught to me by the wise elders at the National Theatre Drama School. I have mentioned to young Actors that they might want to have a go. It’s a good idea, because the thoughts and ideas that are awakened when practicing your art can be quite startling, and if you don’t capture these flashes of inspiration, they’ll flit away as easily as they came, like Angels whispering in your ear when you’re sleeping – they don’t tend to hang around.
What do you think of Chekhov? Or Ibsen? I like Synge and O’Neill very much. Tennessee Williams, how wonderful. I watched the film Baby Doll last night and I just loved it.
I really don’t mind if you sit there stone-cold silent, it’s just nice to have you around.
Monologues can sometimes seem such one-sided conversations, don’t you find? – Geoff Miethe
Very
As I write, there is a wonderful documentary on television, and I’m so disappointed that I missed the start of it. It’s called “Cinema Exiles: From Hitler To Hollywood”. All I can think of is how these wonderful, wonderful people struggled to keep their dreams alive. If you get a chance, have a look. Great stuff.
Partly because of some of the themes covered in this doco, I started thinking about my roots. I know next to nothing about my German heritage. My father came from Berlin – he was born there in 1933. Many years later, he told me that his mother’s mother, I believe her name was Augusta, was an Actor. Could this be true? I don’t know. I love the thought that perhaps, just maybe, an Actor-gene is imprinted in my DNA.
Unity
I walked into the Actor’s room, and there was only one person immediately recognizable to me. Today, I was hired by the Department Of Correctional Services of Western Australia to perform the role of the prisoner. This is to help new Prison Officer recruits in their important work.
Walking into this establishment was of no small significance to me. My father and one of my step-brothers had spent almost their entire adult working life as prison officers, with my father attaining the rank of Superintendent. Their combined years of service to the department and to the state was more than 60 years. And here I was, an Actor, continuing the service by helping young recruits.
There were numerous photos, shields, memorabilia, artifacts of uniforms and insignia, but there was nothing of my father. When I asked if anyone knew George Miethe or Neill Jones, I drew blank looks. Some seemed to recall a guy named Neill, but that was it. I left it alone.
I suppose I felt a sense of unity. To my father, being a Prison Officer was a real job, whereas trying to eek out a living as an Actor must have seemed at best, absolute folly and at worst, lazy and irresponsible. I think my father died with this disappointment, and I’ve often felt guilty about that.
Yet here I was, doing what my dad did. Yes, we were using different methods, but perhaps not as dissimilar as they may have appeared after all. I think he would have finally approved. I’d like to think so.
Tetrahedron
I’ve learned that sometimes it just ain’t worth it. You try and see all sides at once and it just doesn’t work. That’s what I’ve done all my life. If I say the sky is blue, and some smart-ar$3 says it ain’t because … blah, blah, blah, I try and see it their way.
It’s just too bloody hard and I don’t want to do it anymore. I can only see one side at a time. If it ain’t your side I’m seein’, too bad.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell? – Anonymous
Vaughn
The phone rang. It was quickly picked up by mum. Phone calls were always quickly answered, and never by a ‘kid’, unless the ‘grown-ups’ were out. If that was the case, the eldest had the privilege, and the order went from eldest to youngest. I was the third youngest. I was about 8 and the phone was never for us. I held no resentment or any other ill feeling. To me, answering the phone was something grown-ups did, like driving a car. We were at the table when mum came into the kitchen to answer. I remember there being a long pause, then mum’s voice got happy. It was a surprised voice, the type you might hear if the local radio station called you up to win a prize.
I’d heard about Vaughn maybe once before – that I’d had another brother who was living in a place called Victoria. At first I didn’t connect the person on the phone with this ‘brother’. If someone had asked me before the phone call “what is the name of your brother in Victoria?”, I would have struggled to answer. Read more
Spurned
I love the action, “to spurn”. It is something that has such… volume. Working with actions (for more on “Actions” see entry “Stimulate This Package!”) is such a good way to keep the Actor relevant to the task at hand. By that I mean it keeps it simple and this makes for clear, believable playing.
the spurns / that patient merit of th’unworthy takes; Hamlet III.i.73
I have been contemplating lately very hard subjects. I have felt spurned but what is hard is that I have not actually been spurned by people. If I could explain it, I could understand it – and vise versa.
Tonight is Sunday. What Monday holds, I do not know.
Rampallian
rampallian (n) ruffian, villain, scoundrel. From Shakespeare’s Words – A Glossary & Language Companion
I have been reading Shakespeare’s works lately, and enjoy it very much. I have the bad habit, however, of skipping past words I’m not clear on for fear of getting bogged down and thus risking losing the thread of the story.
Since starting this website, I have endeavoured to improve my vocabulary, so I purchased the above volume. I wont be able to eat for the next week, but c’est la vie.
Shakespeare began, for me, in 1990. I was living in a dingy little bedsit in Brown Street, Newtown, Sydney, New South Wales.
Quality
When does Acting become more about Quantity than Quality? If you get hired more than any other Actor, is that the benchmark of success? Are these the wrong questions entirely? I think the focus that any Artist worth their sodium chloride (I had to look that bit up) would always say “It’s Quality over Quantity, silly”.
I was thinking about the working Actor and how we maintain freshness and vitality in something done over and over again. There have been reams written on this subject, but I was alerted to the problem after meeting a small group recently who’d resisted the impulse to work and strive for Quality. As they’d been working for quite a while, they seemed quite secure, or more accurately, apathetic. Their clients (the people who were paying head-office for which the Actors received a cut) didn’t really no about Actors and their work, and were satisfied with what they were given, and the Actor’s head-office weren’t watching the Actors work, so unsupervised, the Actors could cover up a multitude of professional sins. Read more
PTSD
There have been times, too many times, when I’ve crashed into a kind of dark place that is so very difficult to come out from under. I am struggling at the moment. I know why, yet knowing why doesn’t free me from this murky miasma.
Most times when I am down, I have to hide it, and this takes a form of fraudulence that is, I’m quite sure, not believed by anyone. But the option is to appear as you are, and be avoided like the plague, or as someone to be quickly dispensed with, like a banana skin.
Very often, I stumble into terrible moments ( I had such an event this evening) where I can neither comprehend nor act quickly upon, and for hours after suffer with the thoughts of what I could have / should have done. These thoughts fold and flip over and over and over and my confusion and despair becomes unbearable. Yet bear them I must, for they will not be denied, and my sense of solitary humiliation, shame and injustice is so intense that there is simply no escape.
