Fear/Falling Blog

I said last night in the talk back (and in my director's note) that we are all influenced by culture and history as much as personal psychology. I said we go around quoting Jerry Springer and our parents and friends and politicians and heros, sometimes without even realizing it. We incorporate these quotes and beliefs into our own beliefs, and forget that we first heard them from someone else. Sometimes I come up with a mind-boggling epiphany, only to realize that someone else told me that exact thing a week or a year ago without me understanding it.

What I didn't say last night is that I was quoting beliefs I incorporated from Chuck Mee, Ann Bogart, Michelle Milne, Doug Liechty-Caskey, Bruce Hostetler and others. In fact, Michelle pointed out later one belief I talked about that I had heard from her and she had heard from Ann and quite possibly Ann had heard from someone else.

My point exactly.

I also believe this process of exploring ideas and beliefs in life - keeping some and abandoning others - is much the same as the process we use to create a show. We edit based on what fits the world we know.

What a crowd. Over 80 people on an opening night. Thanks to everyone who came, and congratulations to all of you involved. I had to watch from the booth. I hope that's true every night.

What really made my day was the talkback. Thanks to Grandma (MaryEllen) Meyer and Rose Byler for providing the refreshments. Nearly half the audience stayed for the talkback, and they had some great insights and questions. That type of conversation is what we exist for, it's why we do what we do at NWA.

it also brought up some interesting things for me in the difference between my experience and the actors' experiences. To me the piece has always had a clear spine, a clear purpose, a basic structure and a story holding it together. Far from trying to be artsy - I've spent the process trying my best to remain true to the original script, to honestly explore the questions that it raises for me and to let go and trust it to carry us through.

Continue reading "Talking Back" »

"Actors let go of fear, fall willingly into new play"
...in case anyone is interested..

Thank you, South Bend Tribune.

Tonight, in a few short hours, we will be doing this show for the first time in front of a full audience.

I'm glad.

I am incredibly eager to see what people think of this show - how they respond, how much they intellectualize (or don't), what they find memorable and what they don't like. I want to know if it makes sense. ...not that it's a bad thing if this show isn't the clearest, most linear thing in the world...but I at least want people to feel like they were able to connect to it.

And I guess I'm a little afraid. ...Not afraid/nervous in the way that I usually am on an opening night - I actually feel rather oddly subdued about the show tonight - but afraid/anxious.

I am afraid/anxious that I (we) will not be understood; I'm afraid that people will think we are trying to be too artsy and obscure; I'm afraid that people will try too hard to grasp deeper meaning; I'm afraid that I'll sound like a fool if people ask me, for example, what the significance was of me sitting on top of the TV and eating an apple after scene 1 and I answer "well, during rehearsal one day nothing was happening on stage except for Cisco flipping channels on the TV, and I thought it was too empty on stage and I felt like something needed to happen, so I went and tried to stand on top of the TV but got scared that I was going to break it so I just settled for sitting on it."; I'm afraid to admit that I don't really know very much about what this play means or why I do or say half of the things I do.

Is it bad that I haven't thought more about it?

Why am I worrying so much?

It's funny that after this entire process I still have all these annoying worried voices running around in my head.

I'm sure I just need to let myself go a little...

So interesting dream the other night. Probably half spawned by Michelle's description of cliff diving as an image that became the seed for this play. Possibly half spawned by the episodic chaos of this last week. "Where do I enter from? Wait, no you go there and I go here right? Right? (sounds of radio falling to floor)"

Anyway, here's the dream:

I'm hanging out with Ben and Mike and with their typical exuberance they decide to climb this huge wall. Only the wall is really like a vertical ladder. They talk me into it despite my fear of heights.

They get to the top much fast then me. (I blame the height difference) But I'm o.k. I'm just taking it one step at a time and I'm almost there when suddently they shift the wall out. I don't know why they're doing this but it terrifies me because now I know I'm definitely going to fall and not on the safe side with water but on the other side with rocks and nasty stuff.

I'm clutching to the top as the wall swings, trying not to fall but beginning to slip when Ben reaches down and grabs one arm and Mike grabs the other. They pull me up and into these really warm hugs and even though I'm shaking uncontrollably, I feel safe.

So, I mean you don't need to be a psychologist to figure this one out right?

It's scary. But we're going to make it. We just have to help each other up the last step. We're not in it alone. And I'm really excited to be climbing that last step with all of you.

By the way, thanks Ben and Mike!! Even dream versions of you two are awesome!!!

Comments (2)

A few days ago, Michelle asked the cast and crew to answer a few questions for the press release. Since I didn't answer in time to be used in the writeup, I thought I'd post some responses to the blog.

What is this show about?

This show is about the Tom and Jamie's relationship. Neither of them is crazy, but neither of them is quite sane. They are--like you and me--on the edge of what we consider normal (although, since no one fulfills this definition, it has ceased to be normative). Tom and Jamie's central story line is surrounded by other characters and visuals that directly and indirectly relate to some of the things they are thinking about or doing.

How has that process been for you? What has been challenging, rewarding,
surprising?

As always, the biggest challenge in "Fear/Falling" has been to stop acting--and to stop acting well. Some of the elements of this show seem to border on the absurd. For me, the easiest way to cope with these kinds of elements is to inflate them, make them large, theatrical, and silly. There is a significant place for comedy in this show, but I don't think the show is primarily about silly spectacle. I will do many things on stage that I wouldn't do off stage, because the stageiness makes it safely not me. But in this process, I haven't always had a stage personality to hide behind. This show is about all of us; I feel uncomfortable putting myself on stage.

I've also been challenged by the open-endedness of this collaborative process. On other shows that I've worked on, we candevelop all kinds of physical, emotional, spacial, relational material, but we kept the text relatively intact. There was always that central element to which I could refer. "Fear/Falling" is more collaborative than that. Michelle took things that we created--movements, dialogue, rants--and incorporated them into the script as we worked. At times, this was deeply unsettling.

The reward: I am always learning how to not act. (When I can remember,) I am this show. Play.

What will help audiences appreciate the show? What can they expect to see
and experience? Why should they care about this show?

I don't know. My hope for this show is that every moment feels like the first time that Cisco walked to the table and mirrored the "I Want" scene (Act 2 scene 9, I think. Photo). This moment was smooth (in no way, Eric, contrasting your affinity for "jagged"), exciting, surprising, and right. Right? It felt right. It felt like it always should have been. I want this to be what the audience sees.

Why should they care? Why should they care? Well, duh. Art is reality, people. This play is beautiful, live theatre that in many of its moments glimpses truth. What else could you want?

Talk about the part/character you play, specifically.

I play Evan and instances of Tom. In the initial script, Evan was in one scenee, in which he talked to Tom briefly and then watched Jamie arrange objects. With some of the additional material, Evan's character has developed a playfulness that I appreciate. He joshes with Tom, washes the dishes, bothers the sleeping man.

I also play several scenes as Tom. In general, my Tom seems friendlier and more romantic than Cisco's Tom (affectionately called "evil Tom" on a fairly regular basis). I like what this does for his character, especially when we play the exact scene but with our own interpretations.

I've noticed that Tom and Evan are often similar guys. This isn't to say that they're flat characters. Rather, they both possess a fundamental humanity.

Thanks to Hannah Gerig for these photos. They look great.

Fear/Falling Press Photos

thanks to michelle for helping me better understand this piece of wisdom.

i know how to start a rehearsal process, and i know how to end one - those are the easy parts - but in the middle there is always a time when i feel lost, stranded and hopeless. i often see actors struggling with the same issues around the same time. this play has been no exception. i think all of us have felt lost in a chaos of material at different times, unsure which direction would lead us out to a solid performance.

it is particualrly interesting in this play however, since the material is about exactly that feeling. in my last post i said what this play is not about - so now what this play is about. this play is about the struggle between our perfectionism and an acceptance of the chaos around us. fear and falling. the fear of failure and the yearning for freefall.

doing this on a regular basis, i've learned to trust the process. just keep working and trust that our instincts will take us through. but that doesn't take away the fear - you have to go through that every time. in the end, it is always our intelligence - our head and heart and neurons and cells, as chuck mee says - that leads us in the most honest direction. look at that quote again. throw yourselves into the ocean. trust your insticts. standards will fail you. approaching this script intellectually or pschologically or politically will lead you nowhere. trust the freefall.

according to michelle, if i wasn't getting lost in the middle of a production, i'm probably not trying. i'm doing boring theatre-by-numbers and not risking anything. i think she's right.

that middle stage is comming to an end, and i'm seeing a show emerge. it's a wonderful thing - and makes me horribly excited. all the pieces are fitting together (it doesn't hurt that michelle just made a chart, fitting them together, though it is based largely on structures that you created intuitively) with more power and humor and beauty than i ever imagined.

thank you all for getting lost with me, and helping to intuit the way through. now let's make it a show and bring in an audience.

Comments (2)

this play is not about OCD - this play is about jamie and the people around her. this play is also about the edge of normalcy - the line between normal and obsessive. this play is about our perceptions of that line.

i had a roommate in college who induced vomiting - but he wasn't crazy or obsessive or anything, he was feeling sick from eating a lot of chocolate. in college we all ate a lot of chocolate, but we weren't crazy or obsessive or anything, we liked chocolate. afterwards he felt better. he decided that was trick he should remember in the future if he ever found himself sick from eating too much chocolate again. i don't know if he has since or not.

jamie is on the edge. is she obsessive? i don't know. she shows signs, but so do tom, evan, wendy and myself. sometimes i will sit in front of my computer for an hour adjusting minute details in a line of PHP or CSS or XHTML code. i'm either crazy or i get paid to do it or i'm picky about what i produce.

as you approach you characters and fill them with life, remember that we're talking about people - not OCD people or NORMAL people or CRAZY people or any other classification of people. you don't have to play anything, or act like someone with OCD, or put on airs of anything other than being human. people sweep their floors and count and justify text and eat and don't step on cracks. those are all things people do.

i don't know if this helps. this is a quote or two from chuck mee who has an approach to playwriting and theatre-making that i really appreciate. this first quote is about Joseph Chaikin's theory of random emotion, from which he approaches theatre. this is a philosophy that i think is also central to some of the seemingly 'random' or 'fractured' emotions of michelle's characters.

I think there are things that everyone feels at least once every 15 minutes: embarrassment, for example, or humiliation, from no-where, without apparent cause; sudden grief, anxiety, dread, distraction - as though a spirit or monster of some kind had passed overhead; regret, impatience, hatred, and unreasoning rage. It's not the same for everyone. Some people I know feel none of those things, but instead, every 15 minutes they feel vengeful, jealous - they are immobilized by envy, a longing to possess something or someone, greed, lust, a wish to put something in their mouths.

My advice is probably useless. I think actors should throw themselves into the ocean of text in the same way that I throw myself into this ocean of material that comes into my plays, and just somehow trust that their instincts and thoughts will sort it all out for them. If you try to apply any one set of standards to understanding it, that's reductionist; you'll probably work against it. If you try to work intellectually, you'll lose; if you try to understand it psychologically, you'll lose; if you try to understand it as a political argument, you'll lose. But if you throw yourself into the middle of all those things that are at play, then your intelligence - which includes your head and your heart and your neurons and your cells - will work it through for you.

things are coming together in amazing ways already. i'm really excited to see where everything sorts out in the end. this is fun material and a fun cast.

Comments (1)

with danny and the deep blue sea officially under our belts, we've just finished our second week of all-out fear/falling rehearsals. i've never done this sort of collaborative collage theatre before, which had me nervous, but like all theatre i've worked on there comes a time when it begins to fall together. that time is now. suddenly, over the last few days, i've seen a play emerging out of all our hard work. the cast is entertaining to the last, and rehearsals are a blast - leaving me worn out and entirely excited to come back for another round the next day.

pieces of set continue to appear, and it's looking great. people are doing amazing things with potato chips, scrap paper and plastic cups - and deanne is keeping us (more-or-less) on task. and i need to go to bed.