Not Your Mama's Puppet Show!

I saw Basil Twist's Petrushka yesterday. Let me start off by saying I loved it - in case there's any question. It was brilliant. However...

Whatever made them think this was for children? With puppets or people, Petrushka is a very dark story with unrequited love, blatant sensuality and murder. Fortunately, these elements seemed to go over the heads of the many children in the audience, so overwhelming was the spectacle.

Petrushka was actually only one of the pieces performed. Petrushka being a fairly short ballet and a couple of "curtain raisers" had been added featuring Twist's famous abstract puppetry.

The main problem is that during this, we didn't know when to applaud - a problem I always have in a classical music performance. And it was impossible to break the spell that was progressively taking us over. The flower and the abstract shapes (squares and rectangles initially, yielding to semi-circles were beautiful if somewhat remote. The third piece of music - or third movement, I couldn't tell which - my ear isn't that good - the puppets became folkloric rather than abstract. Elaborate Russian towers, bouquets that grouped together and flew apart and chickens seemed to lead us into fairytale Russia. There was also a glittering silver cloth that seemed to represent the wind. The overall tone was lighthearted with a couple of hints at the conflicts in Russia - the two sets of towers confronting each other from above and below, the chickens upside down, their necks dangling on their last pass across the stage.

The initial challenge was letting go of any expectations and simply surrendering to Twist's artistry. Once I stopped thinking "OK, when do we see the puppets?" and realized they were all puppets, that it was a total experience and I was being led from the abstract to the folkloric, the enchantment of the experience took me over.

By the time the three principle puppets appear, I was totally enraptured. Twist uses a technique based on classic Japanese Bunraku puppetry. The puppeteers - in teams of three - are onstage with the actors, in black velvet. There were flashes of the puppeteers' hands or arms but honestly, we didn't care. The magic had completely taken over any technical considerations.

One surprising element was that the puppeteer character was absent - the puppeteer that first isolates Petrushka and who first brings the Ballerina into his room and then removes her. The confrontation is mostly among the puppets themselves. The puppeteer is present only as a pair of disembodied giant hands. Powerful, yet impersonal. Petrushka is thus deprived of his enemy and the confrontation is between him and the Moor, his romantic rival and the Ballerina's clear preference. Petrushka's interruption of their pas de deux leads to a chase with a fair bit of abstract filler - necessary because not only is Stravinsky a bitch to work with for a choreographer, it was necessary to show the passage of time and distance. Twist also throws in a very scary bear dancing on a big red ball at this point, very Russian, very period.

Ultimately Petrushka pays for his jealousy with his life, the Moor's scimitar in his back. Then he appears, alive again, first above the proscenium, then along the House Right seats (right where I was sitting).

It was the perfect touch of magic that Petrushka bounced back to life.

It's Been Awhile...Catching Up...

This is embarrassing to admit, as I consider myself rather tech-savvy for a lay-person, but I got a Mac in August and, since everything's a little different on a Mac, I couldn't find my way back into my blog. But here I am, at long last, and a lot has changed.

I am now at Emerson, in grad school, and time flies when you're getting educated! It's been very refreshing, after 20+ years in the corporate world - where I was frequently told "You're not being paid to think!" to be with people who actually care what I think. It's a very different experience than college -- partly because college, much as I loved Sarah Lawrence, was largely to please my parents ("We're paying - you're getting the degree WE tell you to!" -- my mother has denied this conversation took place, but then again, she thinks Norman Rockwell was a photo-journalist). I had wanted to take a pure Theatre program; they wanted me to take Liberal Arts. They were paying, so I took Liberal Arts. With a focus in Theatre, I was able to slip that in fairly easily. And my transcript - which was not as bad as I thought it would be(having had to submit it for grad school, I thought I'd get a copy for myself), shows me to be a student who thought that anything that wasn't theatre was a waste of time. Still, I managed an average that was between B+ and A-.

But grad school is different - not just because I am choosing my focus, now I am a different kind of student. Before, I was easily intimidated and wouldn't speak up in class, even in the theatre classes. I felt a tremendous sense of scarcity about the opportunities in theatre at SLC. Now, I'm less passive, more entrepreneurial. Having done several Off-Off Broadway projects in New York, not much frightens me. I admit, I get twinges of fear in class discussions (will they think I'm stupid?) but that's just me and I no longer let it stop me. I used to want to be the best, now I want everyone to win. It's a different focus.

So...a lot has changed. I incorporated my business: Outspoken! Inc. on July 14th (Bastille Day!) and joined BNI, a networking organization. I started my grad program at Emerson in September and am writing my first term paper. Ever.

(Don't ask me how I managed this, I have no idea how, but I got through high school and college without ever writing a real paper. Yes, even at Sarah Lawrence. Oh, I wrote papers, but they were not very good or very structured.)

This one is different. I'm different. I'm not leaving it to the last minute for one thing- even though it's not due till December 15 or so, I'm already eight pages into it. And I'm willing to admit I need help - I've been to the school's Writing Center twice.

So for my Drama Theory class I'm up to my ears in O'Neill. For my Directing: Theory and Practice, I'm directing Beckett's Words & Music as my semester-end project. And I've had two coaching clients through BNI.

Also - saw Basil Twist's Petrushka but I'll write about that separately.

The Time Has Come...

...the Walrus said, to speak of many things...

Like grad school. Cabbages and kings would be a welcome diversion but it's time to be a grown up. A task I still find difficult even now, north of 40.

Since my acceptance to Emerson in March, right on the heels of the early application period closing (yes, I'm bragging) but it hasn't seemed quite real. Even when I sent in my confirmation and tuition deposit. It was a huge step toward my dream but I felt stalled afterward. September felt very far away.

Volunteering for Timon at ASP this spring was a welcome distraction and I was grateful to be around like-minded, Shakespeare-loving people. It was a healing change from NYC, where many fledgling actors regard the classics as the vegetables that have to be eaten before dessert. I've said this before - has anyone else besides me noticed how many Broadway shows are based on movies? How many are Disney movies? I know, I know, I've said this all before - and the Lion King, one of the most popular, is essentially a puppet show. In Boston, many shows are based on Shakespeare - Donkey Show, Sleep No More, Best of Both Worlds.

And of course, we have lots of actual Shakespeare.

Volunteering for ASP kept me sane in the limbo period between acceptance and starting school. The dialogs I got to particpate in on dissecting the text and character were bonuses that helped me get back into a seeking-spirit frame of mind. Seeing the play evolve over several weeks also reconfirmed my passion for directing. Then, in mid-June, it was over. I got an e-mail from the department head about registration and FAFSA refused me tuition help because of an existing BA (at least that's what their letter said). And my tuition bill came.

This kicked the school issue into high gear.

So, the timing of Timon was perfect, it kept me busy this spring so I didn't go crazy and gave me a structure and accountabilities. The information on FAFSA and tuition came literally on the heels of the project's end. Along with a sore throat that was followed by a stomach flu.

Metaphysically, it was almost humorous - a sore throat is generally triggered by a block about speaking up for oneself and the stomach flu was probably a reaction to the bill -- I couldn't "stomach" the information. The sore throat was gone by Monday night and the stomach flu hit me Tuesday afternoon. Sickness always hits me quickly and leaves me quickly, so I was fine in a couple of days. By Friday I felt not only human, but actually quite good and I went into Emerson to get some clarity on the tuition issue.

So I knew I had to speak up for myself and had to assimilate the information. The counselor I met with was incredibly patient and detail oriented. My file had been "tagged" for additional information (which might actually be good, it could be they are taking me seriously), gave me three additional forms to fill out, a fax number to submit them to and answered dozens upon dozens of questions.

The meeting was well over an hour and at the end of it, I knew that the tuition issue was getting straightened out and who to talk to for the next steps. It was further confirmation that Emerson was a good choice for me.

It was too beautiful a day, and after the meeting I felt too good to go underground to the train, so I walked over to the Public Gardens. The swan boats are running - I rode them a few weeks ago. I might have ridden them again but the line was too long, holiday influenced no doubt. A little girl was jumping up and down, shouting to her mother about the actual swan swimming alongside of a boat.

"Yes," I said to her mother, who told me they were visiting from Delaware, "we have swans here in Boston." This is proof right there that Boston is better than NYC.

In fact we have an enclosure fenced off, since the swans are nesting. I went over to look at the nest - there had been about six eggs last time I'd seen it. I found Mrs. Swan standing over it, pulling feathers out of her chest. She might have been building a layer of down to help incubate the eggs. Or she might have been stressed over college tuition for six.

Pacino's Mind...

One of my students from my freelance class lent me "Al Pacino in Conversation with Lawrence Grobel". I'm sure there are mixed feelings about Pacino's work - there's mixed feelings about any prominent artist; I happen to be a fan myself. I saw him onstage twice in Boston, first in the '73 Richard III - which was also my first encounter with live Shakespeare - at a church and then later (I think it was later, my inner timeline gets a little fuzzy) in Arturo Ui at the Charles.

Any fan would enjoy this book, but taking it even deeper, this book is a wonderful look inside the mind of a serious, working actor. I don't agree with everything he says -- I will never like the Strasberg Method (as I've said, I lean more toward Meisner and actual Stanislavski) but I accept that many people swear by it. I also agree that Strasberg himself was an excellent actor. However, I will point out that many people we consider Method actors had other strong influences -- Brando had Stella Adler, Pacino himself studied at HB and was mentored by Charlie Laughton (not Charles Laughton, different person altogether).

This is consistent with my belief that it takes many teachers to create a master.

What is so wonderful about this book is the peek inside Pacino's mind - hints of his process and his values. There are insights about his characters and what he looks for when he's constructing them, what he aims to pull out of himself. It's a good book for any serious acting student. He is clear about his choices, good and bad. You may not agree with everything he does or chooses, but it will lead you to think about your own process, it will lead you to choose.

Also, I love that he freely quotes Shakespeare in normal conversation, he's not afraid to let his brains or his passions show. By the end of the book, I felt as if I'd been in a master class for actors.

This is a book that requires more than one reading - like Pacino himself, it reveals itself progressively.

Timon's Other Hero

Between volunteering as Actor's Shakespeare Project and ushering, I've seen the show about four times. For any theatre student -- and I consider myself an eternal student -- this has been a great education. The show has evolved and deepened -- my last time there was Saturday. There is a level of trust and cohesion among the actors that has expanded tremendously.

I want to talk about a supporting character today, Alcebaides, the soldier. He evolves and grows as Timon declines. Timon abandons Athens -- Alcebaides conquers it. Timon, in his rage, calls for destruction and Alcebaides in his triumph brings justice.

It's gotten to the point with this play that it has me in its teeth and keeps chewing at me. It annoys the hell out of me but it won't let me go. Each viewing gives me new realizations. I don't agree with everything I see but since it all makes me think, I'd say the director and actors have done their job well.

Timon is a play that clearly highlights the lead actor and it's probably one of the most text-heavy plays Shakespeare ever wrote. The danger of a tour-de-force play is that the central character is frequently the only one fleshed out --look at Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac for example. Cyrano is the only multi-dimensional character in the play - the other parts are more or less cardboard cutouts, woefully underwritten. Don't get me started on Roxane who only function is to be the unattainable romantic object! Even in the original French, it's a bitch of a part. I've seen about ten versions and only one actress - Anne Brochet, in the film - really brought the character to three dimensional life as an intelligent, willful and passionate woman. She, however, had the advantage of several non-verbal scenes. Sinead Cusack did very well - I saw her on stage in NYC in the 80s and she was the first Roxane who seemed to have a brain. So did Jennifer Garner in her Broadway debut but it's a badly written, disjointed part. For an educated, articulate woman, most of the time she - Roxane, not Garner - speaks in sentence fragments. As I said, don't get me started!

Timon on the other hand, fleshes out its other roles, which gives strong support to the lead. Flavius the steward, Apemantus the misanthope and Alcebiades the conqueror are all given depth and passion. This in turn brings out more nuance in Timon. It all works.

Timon is represented as a military leader and we first see Alcebaides as his servant/subordinate. From the beginning there is a deep affection bewteen them and a strong respect. They spar like puppies until Alcebaides gets in an unexpected jab that both winds and delights Timon, who is clearly mentoring him. They are at once mirrors for each other - both are betrayed by the corrupt government, both are enraged. They are also counterpoints - Alcebiades grows and advances as Timon progressively unravels. Alcebaides is activated while Timon self-destructs.

Alcebaides is played by Daniel Berger-Jones who is one of those actors that could, if he wanted to, simply coast by on his looks. However, as an artist, he has too much integrity. There is a depth to his work and a grasp of the character's inner life that he brings to this character. He has a tremendous attentiveness to the other characters - there is an alertness, a watchfulness toward them, especially in the scene where he is speaking on behalf of a condemned friend. His responses are mercurial, each giving way to the other, from earnest pleading to incredulity to rage. The court scene is both a personal disagreement bewteen the characters but also archetypal as a confrontation between idealistic youth and rigid, conservative rage At the end of the scene, as he cradles the body of his executed friend with unexpected gentleness, the first line of his monologue - "I'm worse than mad!" - escapes from him with a dangerous growl.

His biggest challenge is holding his own in his final meeting with Timon. I would say this is one of the hardest scenes, because it is very easy to lose the stage to Timon. But he an d Allyn Burrows play off each other with power, Berger-Jones holds his own. But the mock-sparring has turned to real conflict and we can see the injury that Timon's rejection causes him is more painful than the recent wound in his side. He plays the scene, he told me, as a final loss of an important father-figure, recognizing and grieving this loss but also grateful for what he has received.

In many ways, Timon of Athens is a play of extremes - from the lead character's extreme wealth to his fall to extreme poverty. From his overwhelming need to give to his ultimate need to reject. It is his symbolic son, Alcebaides that brings the healing. He does conquer Athens but instead of destroying it as Timon urged, he punishes only specific enemies. He is the new order, rational and balanced. In most mythologies the son comes into his own when the father dies. Loss of the father, either actual or symbolic loss, is part of a man's growth, of coming into his own destiny.

Timon Now On His Feet

The great thing about volunteering with a theatre company is you get a deeper look at their work than the average spectator. You go deeper into the text and make discoveries that you would miss by just seeing the show once. For a theatre student, this is invaluable.

Timon of Athens is now on his feet. That is, the play is on its feet, Timon himself falls apart during it.

It's really something to see the progression from running lines and hearing an actor's insights, to seeing the show on its feet. So far I've seen the dress rehearsal and ushered a preview performance and the show has developed in ways I couldn't have predicted. I've been chewing this text over and over -- for a play I didn' t initially like I now find it haunting me.

Once again I saw the importance of good casting -- each actor brought their part to life with nuance and elegance. This production seems to have more ensemble work than the others I've seen. The minor characters emerge from the ensemble and dissolve back again, with just touches of costuming to differentiate -- voice and body posture primarily signal the transformations. This gives a contemporary feeling to the show. At times it's like Shakespeare meets the Marx Brothers with the Three Stooges thrown in.

There's also an unintentional hommage to Buster Keaton at the end of Act One that triggers one of the most amazing scene changes I've ever seen in live theatre. I'm not one to go out "whistling the scenery" but I was impressed. And in a show as well done as this, it is not a reason to see the play, but it's a nice bonus.

John Kuntz, who was so brilliant as Peter Quince in Midsummer, was playing the poet, among other characters. He balances between mastery of the verse and total irreverence. He is clearly one of our sacred clowns, in his willingness to play he guides us into the text so we can understand it without being overwhelmed.

The tragedy of Timon is not that he loses his wealth, by this point I feel the core tragedy is he becomes incapable of recognizing the ones who truly love him. He loses his wealth, he finds new wealth. The money is not the point. And it illustrates one of my favorite prosperity points -- money comes from known and unknown sources. He finds enough of a fortune to restore his lifestyle -- and chooses not to. He seems to engage in a process of purification. He is harsh and unsparing in his hatred of the flattering courtiers who disappointed him. The three people who geniunely care for him show up - Captain Alcibaides, Apemantus and Flavius the steward (changed to a woman's role for this production) cannot break through his isolation. Flavius almost succeeds -- there is a genuine affection between the two. Timon appears to acknowledge it but ultimately sends her away. He gives her gold, which she rejects, throwing it back to him. He gives it to her again and she rejects it again.

Personally I think that's a mistake. I don't know whether it's the direction or the actress' choice. From the director's point of view (which is usually how I look at things) I honestly don't think that Flavius would/should reject the gold. I agree that she would put up an initial struggle. But the gold is ultimately a token of Timon's affection toward her and I would think she would accept it under those terms. She should accept it for Timon's sake, not out of greed. If nothing else, the wounded look on Timon's face should change her mind.

But nobody asked me.

It dawned on me -- it was not rejection, Timon is not about rejection, but purification. He is on the path of non-attachment. First he was at the effect of his wealth (his constant avoidance of Flavius' warnings shows that he never really mastered it) then at the effect of his bitterness. He suffers because he was attached to the wealth and flattery. Then, at the end, he is free - "Nothing brings me all things" -- he has attained an almost Zen attitude.

I was pre-disposed to enjoy Allyn Burrows' performance as Timon after all the work we'd put in. I thought - mistakenly - that it would hold few surprises. I had forgotten that the process of running lines is largely intellectual and a performance will take on a life of its own - especially with Shakespeare. It was a perfect counterpoint - the humorous, frequently manic ensemble provides a backdrop for Allyn's Timon to unravel against. And unravel he does -- from dignified affluence down to the depths of bitter madness. There are flashes of danger in his performance along with the Shakespearean attitude of joy through all emotions. Another lesson for me that acting is not about the words - even when the words are this important. That acting takes place through the words and in the silences.

The Italian for Window

Teaching Chekhov/Stanislavski at Brookline Adult Ed has forced me to revisit the works of both these men and I have tried to do so with "beginner's mind". I have found that Stanislavski has very little to do with "Method Acting" to the point where I consider "The Method" at worst a corruption and at best an entirely different technique. Method seems to go after emotions, grab them by the throat and shake them till they give over their secrets.

Stanislavski is more subtle -- focusing on one's tasks, on one's goals, the emotions are ignored until, like cats, they come to demand attention. I agree with his opinion that emotions and other elements of the psyche belong to the subconscious and cannot be controlled or forced. They must be wooed. I had a friend in college who was convinced that Chekhov was a comedy writer. There is a key moment in Chekhov's Three Sisters when Irina, the youngest, starts running around screaming "I've forgotten the Italian for window!"

"How can you take that seriously?" she asked me. I already had an issue with Three Sisters, finding the main characters rather whiney, and I readily agreed with her. Chekhov, played for laughs. I had no idea how to deal with this character, who seemed to enjoy a lot of advantages but somehow treated life like a huge crisis.

There was also my other, rather pompous friend who said with great authority, "It's not about three women who don't go to Moscow, it's about three women who fight like hell to get there."

He was quoting someone, I forget who. And I think he was mistaken about what the play means, but more on that later.

Returning to the texts after some distance has helped me understand them better. We are working with three of the plays: The Seagull, Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya. And, yes, we are doing the "I've forgotten the Italian" scene.

I understand now that my classmates were wrong -- Chekhov does not sit easily on one team or another. His works are neither deep tragedy or rollicking comedy. I think what makes them so modern, what makes them part of the foundation of modern theatre is their ambiguity. They are a series of truthful moments, some funny - some sad, like our lives. They can lead us to scorn or compassion depending on how we look at them. And, unlike Shakespeare where the characters tell the audience about themselves, these plays reveal themselves slowly. People speak indirectly and sometimes not very honestly.

Re-examining these plays I am amazed at their hold on us. I think initially a lot of us study these plays because we have to, a good theatre student knows Chekhov and Stanislavski. We frequently pretend to like them, privately wondering what makes them so great. We watch the productions with forced attention and then forget about them. I think it's because we don't really know how to study them. These plays reveal themselves slowly, you need to spend time with them. Working the scenes in class has given me a deeper perspective, as the students become more adept at creating the moment-to-moment reality of the characters. I see that what is written on the page is only a fraction of the communication between them.

For example, in one of our Uncle Vanya scenes, when Vanya took Yelena's hand, our Yelena said, "You're disgusting" - which was the line - and began to giggle. This was not indicated anywhere in the script but rang perfectly true. It revealed Yelena's ambiguity perfectly.

The most powerful lesson I've had about Chekhov was not in a theatre or classroom at all. I was working in the corporate world at the time, as a financial advisor and I was telling a colleague about a play I had worked on. I started to tell her that a character came on from "stage left" but was suddenly unsure which side stage left was. For the record, it is the actor's left, but in that moment I felt a sudden panic, a loss of what I'd always considered an intrinsic piece of information, a part of myself.

It was the same loss that drives Irina when she can't remember her Italian vocabulary. And in my own panic I suddenly understood her, understood her battle and her frustration. I suddenly knew I could direct the play, having had a gut-level understanding of it.

Looking at the play this year, it also revealed a new meaning to me, one that has nothing to do with Moscow. Yes, the sisters all whine about Moscow. But I think the truth of the play is in Irina when she talks about a sense of benediction she feels as she sits for her teacher's exam. And at the end of the play, when her fiance (who she didn't love anyway) is dead, she says,

"Tomorrow I shall go to the school and be a teacher. I will give my life to those who need it."

The core of the play is Irina finding her mission. Who cares if she makes it to Moscow?

The Trouble with Timon

For the last month or so, I've been meeting with Allyn Burrows at the Somerville headquarters of Actor's Shakespeare Project to run lines. He is opening later this month in the lead role in their production of Timon of Athens.

Timon of Athens has never been my favorite play. My first encounter with it was at age 10 in the Lambs "Tales from Shakespeare" where, after I finished reading it, thought, "huh?" put it out of my mind and avoided it whenever I could.

I'm way north of 10 now but I literally cringed when I heard that Actor's Shakespeare Project, my favorite place to volunteer, was planning a production of Timon. I had just ushered for Othello, their latest show. I was on the bus from Tremont, headed to the Hynes subway with one of the other ushers. Together we griped about this decision. He acknowledged it was one of Shakespeare's "problem children." But he pointed out that he'd never seen A.S.P. do a mediocre production of anything, so if anyone could bring out the best in Timon, it would be them.

I agreed with this point, but silently resolved to sit this one out. Then I was asked to help the lead actor run lines. In spite of my antipathy toward the play, I agreed. By this point (way, way north of 10 years old!), I've learned that if I dislike a play that intensely, I probably have something to learn from it.

Also, as a theatre teacher, having the opportunity to witness an actor's process has been a rare treat. Since I'm primarily a director, working with an accomplished actor has provided me with fresh insights. Allyn did not require me to like the play -- in fact he completely validated my initial reaction to it. But having the text under such focused scrutiny and hearing his insights began to change my attitude. It became like having a mini-tutorial on this difficult play.

Timon is a challenging character -- a wealthy, generous man who gives beyond his means and is surrounded by false friends.

I started to see some patterns emerge that related to my prosperity training -- Timon gives and gives, but never accepts anything in return, not even repayment that is due him. There is a sense of discomfort with his wealth - he's not happy unless he's feeding or gifting everyone. There are some disturbing declarations about desiring to be poorer so that he would be closer to his friends. As Catherine Ponder often reminds us our reality is created by our words. And when he does become poor, he himself warns his servant to hold a positive attitude. This is all in keeping with a prosperity practice.

Then, for Timon, it all falls apart. It's like a prosperity lesson gone horribly wrong. And more and more, I asked myself, what did he do wrong?

It seems that Timon's fall is not so much from his financial reversals but from his loss of faith. When his friends disappoint him, his trust in humanity is shattered. By the time he finds a fortune in gold, in one of the biggest moments of serendipity ever (literally, since serendipity means finding gold when you're digging for worms - or in Timon's case, roots) he's so far gone in bitterness, he can't even let it in.

And what's funny is that this is exactly how a prosperity practice works -- what we give out returns to us in unexpected ways. The challenge has always been to remain trusting and receptive. Not to man - which is Timon's error - but to the Universe, to Source.

And this is where Timon goes wrong - not just in his bitterness and curses, but also in being closed off from his fortune, not being receptive. Allyn had pointed out that this is a tragic play and I agree that the fatal flaw of the character -- the inability to receive -- is what brings his downfall. He puts his faith in his friends instead of Source and when they disappoint him -- as people invariably will -- he is heartbroken. To me the tragedy is not his bankruptcy but the rejection of his windfall.

At the end, Timon seems to achieve a kind of satori. Even the rage is gone. He has wisdom and detachment.

The production is shaping up nicely -- I went to an open rehearsal today. We saw the banquet scene with Timon at the crest of his wealth and then two monologues from the second half of the play. It was the first time I'd seen it on its feet and I have to say the work was excellent. It's different hearing the lines practiced and experiencing them acted, a revelation of sorts. To actually hear concern for Timon in the voice of his steward, actually witness the unspoken affection between Timon and his former war-buddy, the cynic Apemantus -- the play is taking on a richness for me that it didn't have before. And the unexpected, wild laughter of Timon when he finds the gold was shocking. While the scenes we saw were more or less a "tease-taste" of the production in the works, I could see a strong foundation had been set.

Timon, the Teacher

Timon of Athens is easily the most difficult of Shakespeare's plays. One gentleman I know has even referred to it as "one of the problem children."

So many times in the past I've gotten halfway through the script and closed it with grimace. But I've been revisiting Timon lately and have developed a new, if somewhat grudging, respect for it. Both Timon and Alcibiades, another major character, were actually historical figures. Timon was a philosopher noted for his misanthropy (Apemantus, a philosopher who appears in the play, foreshadows Timon's fall) and Alcibiades, another major character, was an Athenian military leader of rather mutuable patriotism. But it goes deeper than mere biography.

The play on one level is a depiction of Timon's fall from wealth and generosity to bitter, impoverished exile in the woods outside Athens. I initially found this storyline alienating so I had never really explored it in depth. Now as I review it, I see not just the objective process by which Timon lost his wealth but the thought processes as well.

On the esoteric level, I think Shakespeare was using the text of the play as a prosperity lesson. Timon behaves like a prosperity student gone horribly wrong. He starts out fine -- wealthy and generous, he shares all he has. But there are flaws and problems inherent in his thoughts -- he refuses repayment when it is due and expresses poverty thought throughout the beginning of the play. Toni Stone, my prosperity teacher, would point out that Timon is literally turning money away.

In prosperity training, we learn to manage our thoughts and words. In this light Timon's very words are suspect - to his friends he says:

"...more welcome are ye to my Fortunes
Than my fortunes are to me."

Later on he says to his friends,

"Why I have often wished myself poorer, that I might come nearer to you."

This is one of his fatal flaws -- he cannot be in relationship except when he is needed or when he needs. But deeper than that, he seems to wear his wealth with discomfort and there is an underlying anxiety to his generosity. This reflects in his words -- try as he may to manage his thoughts, saying, --

"...Never speake, nor thinke,
That Timon's fortunes 'mong his friends can sinke."

It's not even that his friends are untrustworthy, the problem is with his focus, it's way too narrow. He expects his generosity to come back from these very people, a score-keeping mentality, whereas in reality you never know where the answer will come from. This is where the problem frequently gets worse before it gets better, a process called "chemicalization" by Emilie Cady, a writer affiliated with Unity Church. Emilie Cady was a Christian theologian, but I find her ideas correspond well with any philosophy.

Chemicalization, as the prosperity teachers explain it, is actually part of the process, the problem working itself out, rather like a pimple that becomes bigger before it pops. This is the challenge, to stick to the action, thoughts and words that create value.

Timon, on the other hand, falls into poverty thought and vengeance. This is the fall from grace that destroys him. It's a complete and total loss of faith. He stages a mock-feast, raging against his former friends, then embraces a self-imposed exile. Before he leaves, he delivers a series of scathingly bitter curses outside the walls of Athens, full of imagery that disrupts the natural order.

Even when he finds gold later on, he's so destroyed that he cannot turn from his course of action. The gold he gives away to the enemies of his former home. Even in his misanthropy, he cannot keep anything for himself.

Timon has proven himself to be one of my deeper teachers. Even the "problem child" plays have something valuable to say.

Tooth Fairy, Othello and Dr. Shakespeare

I can say with conviction that the Actor's Shakespeare Project's current production of Othello is worth getting up early the day after a tooth extraction because I just did it. I was scheduled to usher for the 10 am performance and my dentist suddenly rescheduled my appointment. I couldn't say no to this dentist because God knows when I'd get a new appointment and I couldn't strand my house manager.

It was worth it, it was so worth it!

Part of it was my dentist and her team had done a great job so I had minimal pain and drama. The other part was that the production of Othello was so absorbing that it overrode every other consideration.

Othello is one of my favorite plays and I've seen it done several times. And we all know it, we know how it ends. It takes a great deal of craft to bring a classic play to life in a fresh way, in a way that restores its sense of surprise. Judy Braha, the director, made excellent choices so that many of the familiar moments took us unawares. Even the fight choreography, seamlessly folded in to the staging by Robert Najarian, was character-driven and appropriate to each personality.

Jason Bowen brought a stern sense of command to the title role within the first few minutes of his entrance. This was clearly a seasoned military man, not easily disturbed, a big-hearted, courageous man. Portrayed by Bowen, it is these vitues and his integrity that makes him a pawn for Ken Cheeseman's Iago who plays him like a fish on a hook. But it's like landing a marlin -- this Othello is not an easy mark. This Iago has to work for his prey -- the watchfulness in Cheeseman's eyes makes us wonder if maybe this time Othello will get away. And because Iago has to work for it, we lose our certainty of the outcome - it's like seeing the play with fresh eyes. The sense was not that we were here to see a great albeit well-worn classic, but rather to see something that has never happened before.

The craftsmanship in Bowen's Othello revealed the process of his destruction -- we could literally see the moment where he began to doubt Desdemona. His Othello spoke to the universal experience of jealousy and loss -- anyone who had every been betrayed in love could bleed with him.

For an Othello of this power to fall, the actor playing Iago must be equally strong and much, much subtler. It's no accident that the phrase "heart on my sleeve" comes from this play -- although the line belongs to Iago, this is exactly what Othello does. Othello is not a subtle man, he is a man of heart and action. Ken Cheeseman's Iago, on the other hand, seemed to be following the advice from another well-known play, appearing like the innocent flower while being the serpent underneath it.

There was a worn quality to this Iago, we could see a man who had worked long and hard then been denied in a way that fueled his rage. Standing in formation with the rest of Othello's officers he was perhaps a bit less crisp and polished than they were, revealing a weariness of long-standing discipline in his body language. His military mannerisms were deeply ingrained and the product of long habit. Another facet he revealed was an earthy glee reminiscent of a Dennis Leary, a bad-boy sense of delight. He could even be...likeable. He was dangerous, even to the audience, because he could enroll us in his cause.

The supporting characters are usually treated as an afterthought, pawns in Iago's game. Even Desdemona, who is so pivotal but has very little stage-time -- as most of Shakespeare's women. Here she was played with passion and a good deal of lively spine by Brooke Hardman. When Othello's affections suddenly turn, her shock and confusion is so truthful, she brings a truthfulness beyond the standard Shakespearean heroine and reveals a living, breathing woman who can understand why her relationship has suddenly turned abusive. But this is no delicate flower -- Ms. Hardman's Desdemona is playful, willful -- one kick-ass lady who fights first for her convictions, later for her life in the final confrontation. Between her spirit and Othello's moments of ambivalence, we think she might pull through. So again, an old story becomes suddenly new and when we see the choice, it comes as a shock.

Paula Langton was also a suprise -- it wasn't until I read the program that I realized she was cast in dual parts. As the Duke, she carried her authority with grace and held such polish, I didn't recognize her as the same actress when she reappeared as Emilia, Iago's wife. Where Desdemona is dealing with the shock of her man's behavior suddenly turning, Ms. Langton's Emilia shows us a survivor of long-standing abuse and neglect who somehow still hopes it will change. There is an undercurrent of sadness to her, a woundedness. Her theft of the hankerchief holds a sudden logic, it becomes something that could possibly earn her some emotional currency -- or at least attention -- from her husband. She is clearly caught between the remnants of her love for her husband and her protective affection for Desdemona. Ms. Langton walks the tightrope of loyalties with tremendous elegance.

Then there is Cassio, played by Michael Forden Walker. Usually Cassio is just a pretty boy. Walker's Cassio has a touch of darkness -- we sense he has a drinking problem, rather than a naive unused to liquor. In the scenes with Bianca (the sinuous Denise Marie) we see that he is feeling more than he would like to for a powerful, playful woman as well a touch of inappropriate attachment to Desdemona. Since he seems much more self-aware than the average Cassio, these blind spots give him more depth.

With these characers so well fleshed out, Iago's job becomes harder and he becomes more interesting. Ken Cheeseman definitely rose to the task. This is a play about shattered trust and its victims. The set echos Othello's splintered self and fluidly leads us from one scene to the next. It's playing till the end of this week and I recommend it highly.

Starting Stanislavski

It's official - I got the call from BACE today. My Chekhov & Stanislavski class is going forward tomorrow night with 5 students.

My goal in doing this is not to turn out perfect Stanislavski actors -- that takes semesters of intensive work. My goal is to give them a taste of the technique, to encourage them to explore this work in detail. I've had at least three or four solid Stanislavski-based teachers - all totally different - and learned a great deal from all of them. You can take the same technique, any school of acting you choose, hand it over to four teachers and they will each find something different in it. The Stanislavski system itself is a prime example - it gave rise to Meisner, Adler, HB and, to some degree, Strasberg. All different, all have their point of view and their value. I don't absolutely love them all. For example, I'm not mad for Method myself -- I much prefer Meisner -- but I have colleagues I respect who swear by it. And my attitude is, whatever works.

Of the four, I freely admit I'm most partial to Meisner. The best teachers I've had were Meisner-influenced and Meisner principles. Over the years I've discovered that most of the actors I admire studied with him.

The thing is, it takes many teachers and many ideas to bring a student to mastery. As I'm putting the finishing touches on my lesson plans, my overall question is - what is useful here? What will inspire them to go deeper on their own? How can they take these ideas and own them?

And there will be some who are shocked that I'm irreverent to this great master. I will admit I'm a fairly irreverent person. My second Estragon from my NYC production of "Waiting for Godot" quit halfway through rehearsals with the complaint that I wasn't treating Beckett with the appropriate reverence. I was lucky enough to replace him - and quickly - with absolute clone of Bert Lahr (the resemblance between the two was eerie) who was as irreverent as I was.

I'm almost done with Stanislavski's book and do not intend to follow it slavishly. My first goal is to create a safe environment for my class, so I will start with the exercises for physical awareness and set up a protocol for feedback. This is not just to safeguard egos, but to train them in observation. It may seem structured at first but I've had good results with it in other classes. Also, this process keeps the students in the audience invovled in what they're seeing. They know they'll be questioned at the end of each scene. What qualities does X have? What did you see? What did they do? What works?

These are important questions. And these are the questions we will all be limited to. The magic is not in the question themselves, but in how each student answers them, in how they hone their own process of observation.

I have tomorrow's class mapped out already - intros, presentation of each student onstage, then some exercises. Also, the prepared monologues. There will probably be some discussion about Stanislavski and why he was so important, but this will mostly be a class about doing.

We also have to create physical safety, so we will start with the focus on the Actor's Instrument which as you all probably know, is the voice and body.

After all, I don't want any would-be Kolyas breaking glass props in their hands.

An Actor Prepares - Stanislavskis's Continuing Drama

Remember, this book is written like a memoir, not a textbook. Be prepared for drama. Be prepared to dig to find the technique.

I have just finished the chapter where Kostya, the first-person character, has injured himself during an improv exercise. He had gripped something breakable in his hand when the emotion of the scene overcame him, cut himself, injured an artery, lost massive amounts of blood and had to spend several days in bed, missing class.

This triggers Torstov's lesson on physical relaxation, which his classmates come to report to him on their visits. It's actually a good lesson, with concrete exercises. Kolya enrolls the help of his cat, always a wise idea.

This chapter left me with quite a few questions, the first one being - do we really have arteries in our hands? Since the sight of blood makes me queasy and I find anatomy charts indecipherable, I e-mailed the best authority I could find: my cousin, the doctor. He assured me that we do in fact have arteries there, so I guess Stanislavski did his research.

My bigger question is why the hell did the teacher let a bunch of untrained, inexperienced, exuberant students loose on a stage with breakables?

Since there's no mention of "hold harmless" agreements being signed at the start of term, Torstov is lucky he didn't get sued. Perhaps 1936 Russia was not as litigious a culture as our own, or perhaps it just wasn't allowed. Either way, a modern student would have had Torstov's butt in court sooner than he could blink.

But back to my question -- students with breakables? You know that's a recipe for disaster. The instrument of the actor is the voice and the body - the purpose of theatre training is to develop this instrument to the point that it seamlessly does one's bidding. I understand that this incident in the book was created to illustrate a point and lead into the lesson on physical awareness and relaxation (which is actually quite good) but the issue is important.

Why didn't Torstov have his assistant remove the breakables, or remove them himself? How can fledgling actors experiment and make the mistakes they need to make, if they're concerned about potentially fatal injuries?

OK, so I'm exaggerating here but my purpose is twofold - first, it's an important thing to be aware of in any school. The first job of the teacher is to create safety, physical and psycological safety.

My other purpose is to take Stanislavski off of his pedestal, or at least shake him up a little. We can't learn from him if we handle him with kid gloves. We have to be willing to take his ideas and work with them, get our hands dirty, make mistakes -- see what works! We can't learn if we just swallow the ideas whole.

Incidentally, the exercise in this chapter, relaxing every muscle that is not occupied in doing something, is very good to do if you're having difficulty sleeping.

Money and Art

I have been grappling with the artist and money issue most of my life. It can be any art, not just theatre.

To be transparent and revealed here, I don't still have it solved either. I've made some progress,but everytime I think I have a handle on it, I see that I have a long way to go. We have so much conflicting programming about it, some of it good...some not so good. I made a list once, of the conflicting statements I'd heard, on the subject of art and money.

1. You should do it for free.

2. You shouldn't think about money, just be happy to do your art

3. You should only care about your art

4. You should put a price on your art.

5. You should give it away.

6. You're not a real artist unless you're making money.

7. You're a sell-out if you do your art for pay.

8. It's noble to struggle.

9. Have something to fall back on.

and of course -

10. Who do you think you are?

And we wonder why artists go crazy.

I'm not blaming anyone - I don't think it's anyone's fault, the thoughts are just there, the habit of thinking this way. Catherine Ponder and Florence Scoval Shinn, both well-known prosperity writers refer to this as the Adamic Dream. As in Adam. As in human. And illusionary.

People repeat these ideas to us for all kinds of reasons, not necessarily malicious. Some think they are being practical, some are uninformed - some jealous, yes. Many have given up the idea of earning their living doing work they love. But most of them are well-meaning, just perhaps a bit...unconscious. For a lot of people, earning money at their dream was never a possibility because they never allowed themselves a dream to begin with.

These messages have always been here. They slip in before we know it. From parents, teachers, rivals. We can drift along on this programming or we can choose what to believe. That's where our responsibility comes in.

It's our choice to assimilate these thoughts.

We should include this in an artist's training -- how to protect against detrimental ideas. It's challenging enough to be an artist -- it may look easy to others but we know different. We love it so much we don't see our learning process, we ignore the false starts and mistakes along the way. And because we love our art, we sometimes don't realize how hard we are already working.

This leads people -- and us as well -- to think getting paid for our art is taking the easy way out. And it really isn't - we just forget how much work creation takes, we love the process so much. And because we love our work, we do feel a bit guilty about getting paid for it.

In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand said all wealth is created by the human mind. So I'm willing to use mine to better advantage. I'm ready to let these thoughts go and choose some better ones.

One good exercise, for anyone who works with affirmations, is to take all the negative thoughts listed above and write a contradictory, positive thought, then take that as an affirmation. I'm partial to sets of 10, either written or repeated right after the alarm goes off, when the mind is nice and receptive. This is also a good way to fill "empty" time waiting for the T or an appointment.

We also need to affirm ourselves, to be in our own corner. Some of us are naturally self-effacing and the idea of self-promotion is a little...distasteful. This is a big one for me, I am by nature a behind-the-scenes creator. I don't like to be centerstage myself - I like to direct the "centerstagers". And I am finding the balance between self-effacing and self-awareness.

I think it's in how we talk to ourselves. For example...

There is a lovely scene in the beginning of "A Star is Born" - specifically, the original with Janet Gaynor as Vicki Lester. She wants to be an actress and is told, early in the film, "You have a one in a million chance."

And she says, "What if I'm that one?"

That's a start. We need to tell that to ourselves. The antidote to "Who do you think you are?" The answer to #10. "What if I'm that one?" A step toward healing this confusion.

Now this may sound contradictory but this is exactly why I'm such an advocate of volunteer work in the theatre -- although it is work we are not exactly paid for, compensation is happening on a very deep level. We are making a gift of our skills and that increases what my teacher would call our "deserving index." Any skills and time donated are treated with tremendous appreciation -- if you're volunteering with the right group, of course -- and you increase your community of like-minded people. I've talked about this before, I will probably continue to do so. It is a prosperity practice to give our work as a gift and this is a great environment to do it in. Giving prepares us for receiving -- we frequently screw it up by blocking the receiving. We think as artists we must give and give and give without receiving. Many of us distrust prosperity and refuse to allow success in. That's the false conditioning.

The fact is that we derserve to be paid for our work, to be valued for our work. But we must own this idea first, we must take the risk to value ourselves, as Stanislavski says, the art in ourselves. Even when we get paid for our art, what we give to that art is beyond the payment we receive.

Slogging Through Stanislavski

My Chekhov & Stanislavski class at Brookline Adult & Community Education (BACE) starts in a few weeks, assuming there are enough enrollments. I've been brushing up on Constantin Stanislavski's book, An Actor Prepares, in preparation. I have to say, it's pretty tough going.

Stanislavski was a gifted director, actor and teacher. Writer? Not so much.

It's partly the literary conceit of the book. It's written as a first person novel from the point of view of an eager young acting student, Kostya who idolizes his teacher, Torstov, the great master.

Kostya is short for Constantine - get it? That's how subtle he is.

Except that Torstov is the character that is based on Stanislavski. Kostya is there simply for us to identify with and follow through the storyline.

We follow the mishaps and progress of Kostya and his peers as Torstov holds forth with gems of theatrical wisdom. It's sort of like "David Copperfield goes to acting school." We're supposed to identify with Kostya & Co through their training but they're all so cardboard, they are there simply to demonstrate Torstov's theories. Ironic, since the lessons Torstov gives are geared toward creating well-rounded characters and believable reality onstage. Most of the students are just whiney. And Kostya just gets on my nerves, constantly piping up with the perfect question or the clever comment.

Yeah. It's that precious.

So why bother? Well, it's still Stanislavski and Stanislavski is the father of most modern acting techniques - Meisner, Adler, Strasberg. It's the source. The writing is pretty sad, but if you can get past the whining and the rhetoric, the acting technique is solid. And this is the Stanislavski technique in his own words. Maybe it's not as straightforward as a textbook or a memoir but perhaps this indirect approach could be talking as much to my subconscious as to my intellect.

I do know this -- much as the book annoys me I find myself returning to it periodically. And I each time I find something new, in spite of the writing. You just have to dig a bit. This time I'm planning to read it twice - scanning through the first time, then going through slowly, with a notebook at my elbow. The last time I read it was as a student, identifying with Kostya (and probably as annoying as he is) but now I'm following Torstov's character, looking for the purpose beneath the exercises. Later, I'll go back and note down the process in detail.

This will be the second time I've taught at BACE. That was the Shakespeare course (has anyone else noticed how many shows in Boston are Shakespeare or Shakespeare-inspired). The first time was a great experience and I'm still in touch with 7 out of the 8 people that were my students. After the class was finished, most of the students wanted to continue, which is how my freelance class got started.

I hope to give the students enough of a taste Stanislavski - and some good scenes from Chekhov - to encourage them to continue it on their own. I'll only have 8 weeks and, although I want them to discover something new, I want them to have fun. 'Cause if it's not fun, it's too much damn work.

Story Slams Hit You Where You're Human

I'd like for you all to meet Massmouth.

Massmouth produces story slams (similar to poetry slams) in and around the Boston area. These are at once competitions and celebrations of storytelling. There are ten contestants, selected from volunteers (names in a hat usually) in a mix of veteran and fledgling storytellers. There are guidelines to adhere to (time limit, theme) and the focus is on the story, not the personality of the storyteller. Anyone can win and in the last five months several newcomers have won.

Storytelling is not just for children. It's not just for experienced or professional storytellers -- it's for all of us. We all tell ourselves - and others - stories about ourselves, our families, our lives and decide what they mean to us. An event that focuses on Story enlivens this process for us, supporting the expansion and choice of meaning in our lives. Story is at the base of everything. The Slams are great fun, there is a wonderful sense of community and opportunities for the more courageous audience members to participate as well. In these days of high-tech living there is something truly magical in a live performance.

I've gone several times as a spectator. Then Norah Dooley, who had been my Shakespeare student last fall, invited me to be a judge - Chief Justice of the Cambridge Slam Court, to be precise. Learning their guidelines and what makes a good story helped me step outside my comfort zone and see the world in a different way. I had a blast, especially at the Valentine's Day slam. The theme was "The Errors of Eros" and since it was my first Valentine's Day as a "singleton" I found it very therapeutic to be with my friends and laugh at love.

The picture, above, is me (center) with the some of the other judges at Ryles in Cambridge on February 14th.

I highly recommend visiting Massmouth's webpage - they have info on the upcoming events and videos of past performances. I have a special interest in the next show on the 15th since Norah is one of the cohosts. Here is a link to check out her webpage: Norah Dooley.

Serving the Muse

There are many good arguments for volunteer work in any walk of life. It's recommended for career changers who want to experience a new industry, for the underemployed to beef up the resume and to learn new skills. There's the obvious do-gooder aspect to any kind of volunteer work and while I agree it's good to help any worthy cause, that's not what I'm talking about. Volunteering is an elegant and efficient method for expanding our own prosperity.

We can so easily get a little locked into ourselves - not just artists, but anyone. And any artist will tell you we don't necessarily do it deliberately. It can happen simply because it's big challenge for artists is to hold their own vision on a daily basis in the face of opposition. Volunteering increases our community of like-minded people and gives us a wider circle to hold intention with us. And a wider community increases our own prosperity as well - we can't establish prosperity in a vacuum.

Anyone familiar with prosperity practice knows that another big rule is that we can only receive what we are willing to give. Supporting another's dream through volunteering creates support for our own. To help a theatre group with their shows creates audience for ours. To go in as a volunteer is to make someone else's work a priority for the time you are there, an offering of time rather than money. There is a healing quality to this, an antidote to the tendancy to see so much of life as an exchange. It's a form of surrending, surrendering the immediate gratification of a paycheck to see a deeper result manifest in our lives.

I've volunteered a few times this year at The Actors' Shakespeare Project. They honor the plays as Shakespeare wrote them while exploring their relevance to the modern audience. I love their work - they did Midsummer Night's Dream a few weeks ago and are opening this week with Othello. I show up for a few hours and do what ever they need me to do, things I've done on any number of "B" jobs. I'm more than happy to offer these administrative skills in service of the muse. This is a group I admire and respect, one that resonates with my own passion for Shakespeare. I'm just grateful they took me on as a volunteer, just to be around their work -- beyond that they always make me feel so appreciated, I carry that feeling along with me into the rest of my life. I'm also looking at my (non-theatre) skills with more of a sense of value, because they've been "offered to the muse."

I think the most valuable lesson I've learned as a volunteer is about surrender. Surrender new ways of doing things, new priorities. Ideas that are not one's own. Trying on a different method. As a director and theatre teacher, it is too easy to hook into wanting to be in control all the time. Surrendering to another's lead shows me different points of view, making me a better leader as well. It keeps me flexible.

Noticing Ebb & Flow, New Cheese and In Praise of Former Students

Everything changes.

At this point, I've lost a total of four students -- all for good and proper reasons, like out of town moves and schedules. Tonight I have another one down with a sprained ankle. The weather's a bit dicey, but that by itself is not a problem. But, combining that with all the other issues, I have cancelled class for tonight.

I see that it would be easy to go a little crazy at this point. Losing students is usually considered "bad" from the business point of view. However, I recognize that the world (probably the Universe itself) is built on a rhythm of ebb and flow -- tide in/tide out, breathe in/breathe out, increase/decrease. Cycles. We humans are definitely not OK with change, as a species - have you read Who Moved My Cheese anyone? But change, inevitably, happens. The issue is not to avoid it, or to be afraid of it, the issue is to recognize that this is part of the universal rhythm and what it really means.

My weekly class grew out of a Shakespeare class I taught at Brookline Adult and Continuing Education last fall. When the class ended, many of the students wanted to keep going. So we just kept it going at one of the student's (actually two students, because it was one of two married couples in the class) house, once a week.

I can see that my class has been a good stepping stone for the students who have moved on. The very first one, Norah Dooley, from my semester at Brookline Adult and Continuing Ed, went on to a TV internship that conflicted with class. You may have heard of her - she is one of the founders of Massmouth and organizes the storytelling slams (similar to poetry slams) in the Boston and Cambridge area and has a busy performing schedule. She is also a published writer. Let's be blunt here: she is the Renaissance woman.

I can admit this freely now - I've even told her - I was actually a bit afraid of Norah when she turned up in my class. (OK, I was freakin' terrified!) She is an accomplished performer, well known in the Boston area and beyond. If she'd chosen to, she could have given me a very hard time and challenged me at every point. I know this because I've had a couple of students who have - they take a class to prove it wrong. Instead, she totally jumped into the class, participating full-out and became my strongest ally. Her interpretation of Lady Anne in the "courtship" scene from Richard III was fierce! Unlike the many I've seen who play Anne as a fragile weepy victim, Norah took a fresh take on the part, playing her with passion and outrage that gave Richard III a run for his money.

Another student was from the business world and had a tremendous breakthrough in self-expression. He's now back in his busy life of international meetings and clients, expressing his vision with more passion. The third was a young scientist, originally from China. She took my class to improve her English (after all, if you can do Shakespeare, you can pretty much do anything!) and made huge strides. All her friends, she told me, were jealous of her verbal improvement. For the record, she did not start incorporating archaic language into her daily life. Instead, the demands of Shakespeare trained her speech to a higher level of fluency in regular English. She's moving to Seattle to join her fiance.

My most recent departing student is Norah's husband, Robert Fairchild. Robert's theatrical passion is Improv and he is a seasoned performer. By his own admission, scripted acting was never his favorite, but he still brought a tremendous willingness to explore to our class. In the semester at BACE, he called us all to battle as Henry V (we would have followed him in a heartbeat!) and, with our Asian student as a delightful Ariel, he plotted vengeance as Prospero. We didn't know at the time that last week's class would be his last, but I'd say he went out on a win, with a blood-curdling interpretation of Marc Antony's "Cry Havoc" monologue.

I refuse to say this is "bad". I actually think it's pretty great. These four people played full-out in class, had their breakthroughs and are now on to new challenges. I have grown from working with them and now they are on to new dreams. I also know that they are no longer my students, they are my friends for life.

Toni Stone, of Wonderworks in Vermont, says "You get what you say you are getting." So I say that their leaving, although a bit sad, makes room for new students to come in. And if the freelance class does end, that just means the space is open for the next adventure.

I can't wait to see the good that comes out of this.

Joining the Late Bloomers Club...

Dreams still come true. They just take a little growing into, sometimes.

First, a little background. For those of you who don't know me all that well, things fell apart a year and a half ago. I'd been building a coaching business with my then-boyfriend, living in NYC in a fairly decent apartment share, working a fairly good "B" job and had been coaching actors and singers for years. Every few years, I'd have enough money saved and raised to do some Off-Off Broadway. It was not my ideal life, but it was workable. Compromises had been made on the dream, but fragments of the dream were still there.

Then it all fell apart.

I won't bore you with details. I might bore you with the result, but tough. It was about a six-month process. When the dust from various events settled a year ago -- almost to the day -- I found myself kicked out by the roommate, unemployed, back in Boston and suddenly single. Because of the economy, my quick-cash fallback skills were useless. The boyfriend had bailed without much explanation. I did not press the issue and refused to do the "let's be friends" nonsense.

Instead, I followed Gerald Murphy's guidance that living well is the best revenge. In my job hunt I noticed that every job I was interested in required an MA. So, I took the GRE exam. (Some women react to a break-up by shopping, others by drinking. I took the GREs.) And now - a moment to brag- my verbal score was in the top 10%! Math? Well, we won't discuss math. I have enough math to budget a show and pay my vendors. Enough said.

Then I applied to Emerson College. My choice was determined by several things. Yes, there was the recommendation of family and friends, but mainly you can hardly open a newspaper or look at a theatre program without seeing an Emerson grad. These people are serious about preparing their students for the working world. Emerson also owns several working theatres, showing their focus is on the professional world. Also, I felt a sense of consonance with their vision.

Drumroll, please! I have just received my acceptance for Emerson's MA program in Theatre Education!

I may turn out to be the oldest student in the classes -- I don't really care. There's a lot to be said for being a late bloomer. Deep in my life, I know I wasn't ready for this before -- big dreams especially take a lot of growing-into. My life simply was not big enough before.

Also, I wasn't clear on my own personal definition of success. It's very important to know what your own vision is. I'd been led by other people's opinions for too long. When it all fell apart, there was just me and my emerging vision. There was no one to be accountable to and gradually the path to grad school and teaching full time -- on the college level -- chrystallized.

At my age, I know it doesn't always go as we plan. But I do know that I have made more progress on my dream in this last year than I have in all the time I spent in NYC.

We Won't Melt...

Class is on for tonight, in spite of the severe Boston rain. We have two scenes scheduled for tonight: Antony & Cleopatra ("Seek no color for your going but say goodbye and go") and the infamous Scottish Play -- yes, MacBeth, that delicious post-murder scene ("MacBeth shall sleep no more!").

I found this here There were a number of well-documented mishaps though history that befell actors and technicians that were performing the play Macbeth. Some of them include...

"During the first performance of Macbeth, William Shakespeare himself was forced to play Lady Macbeth when the boy designated to play her suddenly became overcome with sickness and died. King James was so displeased with the play that it was banned for five years. In Amsterdam in 1672, the actor playing Macbeth substituted the blunt stage dagger with a real one, and with killed his co-actor playing Duncan right in front of the live audience. There was even an incident in 1721 where the army had to be called in. Some hecklers were annoying some of the actors on the stage. The actors responded by attacking the hecklers with their swords. During its 1849 performance at New York's Astor Place, 31 people were trampled to death in a riot that had broken out. In 1934, British actor Malcolm Keen turned mute on stage, and his replacement developed a high fever and had to be hospitalized. In 1937, a 25 pound stage weight crashed within an inch of him Laurence Olivier (who was playing Macbeth). Not only that, but his sword broke on stage flew into the audience, hitting a man who later suffered a heart attack. And if you think that was enough bad luck for one production, think again. Both the director and the actress playing Lady Macduff were involved in a car accident on the way to the theater, and the proprietor of the theater died of a heart attack during the dress rehearsal. In the 1942, three actors in another production of Macbeth died, and the costume and set designer committed suicide. Diana Wynyard sleepwalked off the rostrum in 1948 and feel down 15 feet. In Bermuda, 1953, Charlton Heston suffered severe burns in his groin and leg from tights that were accidentally soaked in kerosene. Rip Torn's seemed to be unable to get away from the curse no matter how many times he tried. An actor's strike struck his 1970 production in New York City, two fires and seven robberies plagued the 1971 version, and finally J. Kenneth Campbell, who played Macduff, was mugged soon after the play's opening in the 1981 production. And finally, it was Macbeth that Abraham Lincoln chose to take with him on board the River Queen on the Potomac River one afternoon. The president was reading to a group of friends passages of the play that happened to follow the scene in which Duncan was assassinated. Within a week, President Lincoln himself was assassinated."

There are also those who believe that hearing talk about MacBeth backstage meant the show would be cancelled and replaced with it, because it was supposedly such a moneymaker. (Personally, I believe that this rumor came from Elizabethan press agents trying to drum up attendence.)

Would love to see if there are other sources, ideas, for this superstition.

On a lighter note, here is a clip from the 1981 Antony and Cleopatra for you to enjoy. It features Jean Lapotaire as a rather western Cleopatra but she is captivating all the same. I'd seen her as a scrappy, rather vulgar Piaf in a video of that play and have always enjoyed her work. Although this is not the scene we are working on, a lot can be learned from watching the way she listens during the scene. She is alive in her silence, an important skill to have.