Homage to Joseph Chaikin

You may never have heard of him, but Joseph Chaikin was arguably one of the most important US theater creators of the 20th Century.  His book 'The Presence of the Actor' should be required reading for anyone who wants to even stand near a theater, though many people have not read it.  It is the core text for my Acting class at Hunter and is the book that changed my life back in 1983 when I directed The Serpent.

Chaikin was an actor making it in NYC, then got a job with the very political Living Theatre, which challenged his ideas about theater.  From that experience, which enlightened him politically but frustrated him artistically, he went on to found a lab that became The Open Theater.  That company created some of the first ensemble-created work in the US in the mid-late sixties.  He wanted to explore the presence of the actor as it could relate to the world in which the actor finds herself.  He was looking for ways to bring about new worlds within this one.  Quite utopian in some ways, but deeply practical in others.  If you don't know about Joe and you are interested in any type of theater that wants to be more than diversionary, check it out.

I don't have the time or energy to talk about all the reasons why he was so wonderful, but do suggest you read his book.  A few important quotations in it include "The question is not what do I want but what makes me want what I want."  Another favorite insight, slightly paraphrased, is that our self-hatred is a direct reflection of the success of the oppressiveness of the society in which we live.

The line yesterday that saved my life (the book somehow keeps doing that - it is the rare kind that you can read and re-read and find sentences you swore were inserted by elves the night before because it wasn't there before, was it?)  was about their work on the play Terminal, which was about the cheery subject of death and dying in America.  He writes about how a doctor has to have the discipline to move past his depression at losing his first patients and is also referring to the collaborators creating the new piece:

"If we stop where we are depressed, or even where we're satisfied with simply expressing our depression, we are dilettantes."

Amen and tell it.  This was Exactly what I needed to read, because as I have mentioned probably a tedious amount of times in this blog, working on my grandmothers book sometimes sinks me into a swamp of almost - but not quite - paralyzing depression.  I have begun to doubt my sanity in taking on this project, since this very depression I feel now is reminiscent of the depression I felt when focussing on my painting when I was a teenager and at times my writing - depressions that diverted me back to the theater - where I got the jolt of working with others.  When I've written my stage texts, I've never felt anything like this depression.  It is tempting to believe if doing something makes one feel this way, it may not be the right thing to do.

Then along comes Joe with the exact right words at the exact right time.  He's talking about a theater project and a doctor learning his trade, but no matter.  The fact remains, I need - as I thought at the outset - to walk through this depression because if I walk away from this project to avoid it, I am indeed a dilettante.  I'm not condemning my past work as dilettantism, but I can't keep playing the same old song.  Well, I guess I could, but I don't want to do that.

Yesterday I worked for 4 1/2 hours on the book, in the form of finalizing the transcription of grandmother Jani's 'obit' and today I worked on it in the form of getting cork board to tile a wall in my study so I can finally put up photos of Dick and Jani from when they were babies to their last days.  By grace and some crazed determination, I am in possession of photos of them from most all periods of their life.  I need to see them in all their ages in front of me.  Let that wash over and through and see what happens.

I am surrounded.  Even when prepping my acting class, Chaikin reminded me of what I am doing.  So I am incredibly grateful to him for that.  FYI, my students seem to love him, too.  This book written very specifically in the early 70s still resonates today.

Speaking of which, had a great class with my students on Tuesday.  I do love teaching acting - using Chaikin, some golden oldies and my own stuff.  This relatively new experience continues to astound.

New apartment beginning to feel like home....and teaching at Hunter rocks again

While the study is still filled with boxes and Ivar shelves are only half-way constructed (because books not all yet unpacked...etc.), the living room/bedroom/dining room is shaping up and Ugo the Cat and I are feeling at home...so all else seems possible.

A good friend showed up on Friday and helped me hang pictures, pictures I haven't had up on a wall since London.  She also suggested I start writing my book before study all the way done for 15 minutes a day.  This was genius, because 15 minutes isn't even real time, so it's of course do-able.  And I did it, yesterday.  Tonight, I plan to do the same.  Yesterday, the 15 minutes became 45 and then I had to leave for a meeting.

Another friend said I could contact her before and after I start and stop writing, because the material - about my grandmothers - is so fucking dark.  It's deep sea diving and it's nice to think there will be someone there at the surface aware I just went under.

I love my friends.

I am blessed with a number of unbelievably great friends.  Just a moment of gratitude for them all:

________________________________________ (that is a blank space of gratitude where no words can express what these folks mean to me - you all know who you are)

In terms of the shelves: I thought I had put all my theater books up and then thought the total looked smaller than I remembered, then found more books, so my clever shelving scheme was totally fucked.  I have too many options here: Ivar shelves are like Legos.  All those damn Scandinavian option-givers.  So, while I can make it "however I want it" I am in the Devo (80s band for anyone too young to know who the hell I'm talking about) dilemma of "Freedom of choice is what you've got, freedom from choice is what you want."

So my head almost explodes and I stare catatonic at boxes of half unpacked boxes that friends helped me pack (bless you each and every one...) but so I don't know what's in the them....

But....and this is the most important news: it is moving forward.  Not on MY schedule, but it's moving forward.  And because of my friend Katie's suggestion, I did indeed start writing on September 1, even if on the 'sub-optimal' dining table in a less than ergonomically correct set up because my desk and desk chair are now firmly established in the Room of Chaos.

Had a lovely walk today in the Park getting to know someone new, which was a delight.  I love sharing Inwood Park with folks and it is always a privilege to be allowed into a new person's universe, especially someone with whom I have a lot in common.  Long may it continue.

Ah and lest I forget to mention: started teaching acting again this week at Hunter and LOVE it, again.  I am so happy to see that - so far - it wasn't that last semester was a fluke.  The Hunter student body - at least the folks who decide to take theater in the early evening - are kind of great and it's like teaching a NYC subway car in terms of diversity - even if that subway car may be a little younger and smarter than the average.  So many students have never taken acting in their lives, so are curious and open.  The conversations about Chaikin's 'Present of the Actor' (the core text in my class) are great and if I've done nothing else, I've hipped them to this brilliant theater artist/philosopher who was wildly under-appreciated in life. I'm happy to do whatever I can to keep his good name alive.  That and teaching my own stuff, which is a privilege...Just so, so happy I get to teach this class.

OK, time to do my '15 minutes' of deep sea diving.  Wish me luck.  And let me say again: Inwood is the best.

Uplifted today by teaching at Hunter

Today started in a miserable fashion emotionally.  I was contemplating writing a whole post about the loneliness of loneliness.  That kind of awful after a night of difficulty sleeping.

Two things turned around my day, one was going to a meeting of folks like me and remembering what I should feel grateful for in my life and talking with a good friend who re-grounded me back into my life and reminded me why some issues involving my separation in the past few days have been so difficult.

The other was teaching my acting class at Hunter.  To be able to teach basic acting skills as I have discovered them over the Many years I have been directing and, more importantly, working with incredibly talented actors in labs, and see that this works in a college class, is an incredible high.  To listen to their response to the first chapter of Joseph Chaikin's The Presence of the Actor and their understanding that the listening, tone and space exercises we had just done relate to that even better.

I began the class the way I had wanted to but was not sure I would be able to do properly, but it worked: with breathing.  How to breathe.  Basic yoga stuff, 3 part breath conflated with up and down the body register vocal work.  Then I took them through a yoga sequence an actor taught a group of us ages ago when I had a theater company in NYC, which I have been doing myself for years.

Usually, when I teach this stuff it's in the context of a workshop or a class related but not just about this, so I have to teach it quickly.  To be able to take it all apart in a leisurely way and relate it to the class-long discussion on Monday was just great.

This I could get used to doing for like a while.

The students are a great mix from teens to 30s, many races and backgrounds, and - delightfully - only 16 of them.  This means I can give individual attention and we can play as a group without losing each other.

Also, much to my amazement, many of them had bought the book and done the reading.  They are thoughtful and - again to my astonishment - care as much about the ideas as the acting.  Jackpot!

So, a thank you to Hunter for hiring me, a prayer for more of this kind of the work in the future and a posthumous thank you to Joseph Chaikin who rocked my world.  First in 1983 when I read his book after my friend Veronica handed me a copy of The Serpent telling me I had to direct it (so thank you Veronica for that - and so much more...), then in 1988 in person when I took his directing tragedy workshop, quitting a job, selling my bicycle and hitch-hiking from SF to Marin to do so (and never regretted it even though I was quite literally starving for lack of funds) - so I could listen to him speak in post-stroke aphasia (a precursor to 7 years communicating with my father before he died), thinking I had landed at the feet of the Oracle at Delphi.  I directed a scene from Seneca's Oedipus, rehearsed in a corner of my room with the furniture (I mean milk crates and futon) pushed to the side - while we all smoked too many cigarettes.  Not exactly Grotowski to be sure.

My work has of course moved on from then, and I'd like to think I've kicked the can up the road a bit in my own labs, but if it weren't for Joe's work with The Open Theater, his encouragement of me as a director in the workshop and taking the time outside the class to show me old tapes of the Open Theater's shows, I know I would not be the artist I am now.

Which answers the whole sorry tale of woe in my last post - yes of course teaching is worth it.  I just hope and pray I can continue to find opportunities to teach not only what I love but what I have well over 30 years doing and close to 20 years doing in an original way.  It is a revelation.  While I have taught the workshops and loved that (I always love teaching my workshops), there is something special about having a whole college course to introduce young people to a fresh way of approaching one of the oldest and most deliciously impure art forms.

Finally, thank you, my lovely students today, for being open, receptive, ready to play.  Many of them said the class reminded them of being children, that they noticed stuff they'd never noticed before or had forgotten since becoming adults and and the class allowed themselves to get lost, look silly, play.  Music to my ears.

Hallelujah.