Earlier last week, we did some exercises regarding physical movement. For those of you who are wondering what physical movement entails, it’s basically using the physicality of your body to communicate on stage. Sounds easy, but especially for me, it’s not. It’s a phenomenon I’m not quite used to, particularly when I have to explain a physical task or use my imagination in conjunction with physicality. I’m still not sure what the best way to work on this is, but combating this disconnect between mind and body is going to be a lifelong task, possibly without a complete resolution. That is to say, I probably won’t be a coordinated athlete anytime within my life but I can increase coordination of mind and body considerably. Right now, as it is, it takes a significant amount of energy to go through each and every step of something as simple as going through the action of opening a cupboard to get some ingredients to bake a cake. I mean, I can probably do the action in real life, but my mind doesn’t really register what my hands are doing. That is to say, if you ask me right now, “go grab the sugar and place it on the counter and put it into a mixing bowl”, I could do that, but I wouldn’t be able to show you how I did it if you asked me, “show me how you did that”. So far, I’ve noticed that doing some kind of physical activity helps, even writing in a hand written journal. By far the best exercises that I can do for myself though are the musical ones, like playing keyboard or drumming, both of which I did this morning and seemed to help awaken my brain, so to speak.
Enlightening Experience at Anodyne
Today has been an interesting day here at Anodyne at least on a personal level. While the women in our crew were engaged in Divine Feminine, which is broadly speaking a group where issues pertaining to women are discussed, I wrote some poetry about my experience as an Indian American trying to fit into the Indian community. (I will post this on Globalphreak, my other blog.) I also began writing the genesis of a anti hindu nationalist poem. (I will also post this on Globalphreak after some tweaking. I know it’s inviting some possible controversy but it’s all appropriate language, no crude inflammatory language or swearing…and it’s my honest opinion, one which I believe is shared by many.) I then got to share my poem, and my thoughts behind it. This was a most illuminating experience. I got to get down to the bottom of my identity issues and I realised that it was not so much about race, or even culture, but my status as a disabled person encapsulated within the context of culture. I learned a lot about the universality of humanity, which sounds so abstract as to be corny, but it really got me thinking about one critical thing: What does race and culture have to do with it? is there an exclusivity to the question of identity? That is to say, are race and culture the only things I should be judging my life by? How ‘white’ I am? how ‘Indian’ I am? Of course not! And as for some of the behavior exhibited by people I’ve met, I’ve no doubt there may be some cultural factors in some of it but after today, I’ve taken into consideration the fact that, say, getting the cold shoulder from someone after saying they are interested in being with you is of course a human thing. I was told, I’m giving this cultural stuff too much power. Not to say there aren’t barriers but it has more to do with the disabilities aspect than anything else…that being said, I also got some great advice after someone noticed I was in a weird mood. They said that when they get so wrapped up in themselves, they remember the things that are happening outside of themselves that are far greater than whatever it is they are worrying about and to feel gratitude for what they do have.
As a result, I feel that oddly enough, Anodyne has solidified itself within me as a true home away from home. I now know that this is a place where there is truly no judgement and everyone is there to support each other in art, and in life.
Things I am learning/relearning at Anodyne(how it is reshaping my life once more)
There comes a time in everyone’s life when they feel stuck, and eventually just have to face the music, so to speak. This can take a variety of forms and happens for a variety of reasons. As someone who considers themselves to be a an aspiring artist, this year, I”ve come to face the music and realise that I can no longer sustain being in a perpetual stage of aspiration. It’s just not going to work at any level, especially if i want to pass myself off as being someone of artistic value. There are many ways in which this is manifesting or will manifest but I’m talking about acting and the arts in this context. The realisation that I need to buck it up and recommit myself came to me this week after a particularly committed week of classes and development. The first push came during a round of company warmups, which is where we engage in physical and vocal exercises. I got schooled, to put it mildly, on my inability to recall, retain or implement the physical techniques that i have learned but for some reason have neglected in favor of being rather morose and obsessive. When I’ve been at this f or a little over three years and I sill have difficulty using my diaphragm….that’s a problem. So I’ve been slowly trying to integrate the levvel of physicality that is required. I say slowly because with the plethora of changes going on in my life, not to mention the weather and lack of a city bus card, it’s been difficult to sustain at the moment, but as long as I can commit to developing the physicality even a little bit things will go much more smoothly.
The second push, although not directly related to Anodyne, left such a lasting impression that I’m reconsidering how I view myself and my art. It came in the form of watching a child piano prodigy from Tamil Nadu, Lydian Nadhaswaran, perform astounding feats of piano technique. Now, I’ve made 11 tracks but that doesn’t make me an automatic prodigy.and even if it did I’d still have to work hard at it.
The third push, which did come from Anodyne, came today, when I realised that I’ve been looking at this business of art in the wrong lens. You see…when I was young maybe the glamour and passion of writing was enough to sustain me artistically. After all I was young, and very few people at the age of 17 or so can really think professionally. In the disabilities world, that mindset is even more enhanced. You have grown men in their thirties,,who are in wheelchairs thinking that they can’t have children and calling others who say otherwise a liar. I’m not making that up by the way. it actually happened. Someone actually said that and it broke my heart a little bit when I heard it. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t commit themselves or try. I’m fairly certain that I was meant for an artistic profession. SO now it’s time to take the logistical side of things a bit more seriously.
Developing “Treasured Alliance”
So at Anodyne Artists Company, we are working on a show titled “Treasured Alliance.” Technically it is the same show we did last year, but it is really more of a platform for us to develop our ideas within the themes of the show. This show focuses on relationships, and the dynamics of what we term “Treasured Alliances”, which are a very special kind of relationship that goes well beyond just the usual hum ho kinds of relationships that normally encompass our day to day lives. For example, there is the relationship between myself and a few select friends that I’ve been able to stick with for a long time through thick and thin. And I mean it when I say, “Through thick and thin.” There’s a lot that we’ve been through and somehow we’re still together despite being very different people.
In the past, this play has focused primarily on couples. However, most of us, in fact all of us, maybe, at Anodyne have never been coupled like that. I have never been a husband to anyone in real life, for instance. So we’re trying to diversify it with different kinds of relationships and also to go deeper into the characterization. We had some very interesting conversations on Friday about people’s internal experiences. For instance, we had a member who took a trip to Israel, through Birthright, the touring company. While I am not going to divulge details, I can say that it was very illuminating for him to share this with us and also illuminating for the potential development of our show. I am hoping to move forward with this and get back into a good groove.
Why acting?
Here’s a question I get asked a lot: why did I decide to become an actor?The truth is, I don’t have a grandiose story about how acting was my passion and so on. I never even took acting classes in high school. It’s all a very new territory for me, even after two years of doing it. So why do I do it? I could, after all, just sit in my room and write all day. In fact, that’s something I don’t do enough of. And yet, I find myself drawn to acting. It is a lot like writing, in terms of the development process, but is possibly fen more intimate than writing. You really have to know the characters and the roles you are playing, in a way that can really come off as convincing. Lot of people think that acting is just putting on a show for people, in a superficial sense. When I talk to people, I sense they have no idea what it is really like at all. It’s not just a matter of putting on a smile and belting out lines. In fact, that’s one thing that constantly we are reminded of at anodyne: “don’t just read the lines, you’re reciting the lines….” It is hard work. Really hard work. It’s oddly enough, one of the hardest jobs you can ever do, to get into another persons skin. Yet, It is precisely this that draws me to acting. To be fair, there’s been a lot of drama and conflict that has gotten in the way of perfecting the art of acting. And sometimes, that can really drag me down. Yet, to be capable of transforming into another role, another life, is really an eye opening experience. When I get into a performance, I feel elated, and refreshed at the end, an experience I don’t get very often. This is what happened to me last August. It also provides me a humanistic experience, that I simply don’t get with other parts of my life. This can really benefit me as a writer. After all, in writing, as in acting, it is the humanistic element that brings us into the worlds that are created. Even something such as Star Wars has a humanistic, character driven element. I believe in the power of world building but worlds have to come from somewhere. And when writing a play, especially thought provoking theatre, that character driven, humanistic element is at the very heart of it all.
Developing a character and many other aspects of acting
There are times when I wonder what ve gotten myself into regarding this whole acting business. Sometimes I’m kind of overwhelmed by all of it: the characterization, the intense engagement with life, the feeling of exasperation I get when I’m asked to repeat something over…and over. The intense physicality of it overwhelms me. I don’t know how to be somebody else, I tell myself. It is a lie, perhaps. While I may struggle with empathy and connection to people, I am more than capable of getting outside my own head. I have to be, I tell myself. There’s no other way for me to live because the way I’m living now isn’t working. So I guess that is why I choose to continue acting. Some people may only see this as a side thing, a delightful distraction that hovers around the edge of dicking around. Playing video games non stop is dicking around. Not showering-that is the height of mindlessness and carelessness with ones energy. Acting is taking me somewhere. Where? I don’t know exactly.
on more concrete terms, I struggle with characterization and spontenaity. I am an extremely inhibited individual. The only ways I could figure out not to be inhibited were the ones that got me admitted to the psych ward. So naturally, I struggle there. My conscious mind, this deranged Organ that can’t let itself go, that wants to feed itself constantly….it tells me that I have to be the absolute best or I’m a reject or something. That putting in effort to things other than rumination is pointless because it’s not going to make a difference anyways. As for characterization it’s a related task. I might be afraid to really be a different person. Or it could be that my rigid understanding of people needs to change. I don’t know. With jack, my character, I don’t even know the first step of being him, of knowing him intimately, or at least I think I don’t. Deep down I probably know him. But there again, that’s just another example of me being stuck in my head, in my own little box.
Talking about disabilities
Before I get started on this post, I want to point out that yes, I have a disability. But it doesn’t stop me from doing what I want to do. And that is what our theatre company is all about. We don’t do what other people do, which is try to romanticise the helplessness and the vulnerability of the disabled. “Oh look at those poor disabled people! Watch them put on a little show!” That is not what we do. Rather than emphasising that, we should emphasise the natural gifts and realities of the people who go out and do things in the world, which is what you would expect of anyone from any particular group, whether they are actors, lawyers, doctors, etc, whether they are white, black, gay, young, old, etc. We’re al people before we are anything else…Now that I’ve said that, let’s move on.
Currently, we are developing a show, Treasured Alliance. While there are many facets to this show, (will talk about them later), today I am going to focus on one particular facet of this show. We have at our theatre company, a person who for certain reasons, cannot communicate well, due to certain difficulties with processing information and verbalising, who is going to be in our show as a customer in our coffee shop. I am actually excited about having her in the show. While it may seem strange that a person who is primarily non verbal would be asked to participate in a live theatre production, it actually works out quite well. Think about the beginning of this post. We want people to see us…you know, the people that encompasses all these labels that are put upon us. So, with that in mind, as it so happens, this person is a good singer. She can sing extremely well, and we want to highlight that, and the kind of person she is. How we do that, is that we’ve come up with communication techniques and different ways of comprehending communication, even going so far as to have her mother come over to talk about her differences. These techniques and ways of understanding communication are going to play a role in the upcoming production. A simple example of this is, rather than layer questions of increasing complexity onto a sentence, we as company members can present a question as a visually aided multiple choice question. In other words, I might raise my hands up and say, “Would you like teriyaki chicken or beef stir fry”, indicating each choice with the hand that I raise. Then this person can say, “Stir fry”, or “Teriyaki”. I could also use my fingers to indicate more choices, or even use a simple yes or no question. But the point of this is simplicity and succinctness, so it would not be prudent to keep layering the question, which is something many of us are prone to do, I think.
So that’s something I wanted to share with everyone.
I have many more to follow.
Working on Developing characters for the upcoming show(and various other points of interests)
As I have stated before, we(my theatre company, Anodyne), has been working on an upcoming production for the summer, entitled, Treasured Alliance, or A Treasured Alliance, or some such variant of that name. There are a lot of different factors associated with this. One such factor is that I am tasked with developing the character of a lawyer, who frequents the coffeeshop, the Simmering Cup, where this play takes place. (There might be some scenes in the community at large, which is where the ‘Monarch Days’ parade/festival takes place. But for the greater part of the play, it takes place in the Simmering Cup.) Such a task, in general, regardless of who you are developing, takes a lot of commitment, more than I have allowed myself to give in the past. But I am welcoming the challenge/extra effort. I really cannot stand being locked up inside my head any longer, I’ve been dealing with a lot of obsessive/pressured thinking that really hampers my ability to just live and be happy, and I want it to end. So by developing my character I can get out of that zone in the grandest, most authentic way possible. How is someone like myself going to play a lawyer? Research, observation, introspection. I feel like these are the holy trinity of character building. If I had to rank them it would be observation as no.1, research as no. 2, and introspection coming into third place not because it’s the least important, but rather, because it’s what ties no. 1 and 2 together. Observation is what determines the actions of a character, or the what, if we are going by Who What Where When and Why. Research pretty much determines everything else that a character would be into or do. For instance, I learned from my lawyer friend that lawyers are often divorced. Ergo, my character could be divorced recently. My character would also be paranoid about other lawyers possibly. But introspection, that is what connects all of those other elements, helps it feel real. Let me put it this way: Have you ever seen a character on screen that looks so perfectly real, you would have never known that they were not like that in real life? It’s because they are connecting the role to themselves through introspection. As they say, Acting is Believing. But I digress. There is a lot to consider in this process. Things I have to ask myself,(introspection) things I have to learn(Research,) and things I have to imitate or adapat(Observation). It will be a challenge, sure, but it will be worth it in the long run.
I had more to write about in this post, but it is actually going to be more prudent on my part to write about it in other segments that I post here.
Acting in Traditions
This fall will hold a lot of treasures in store for me. In addition to going to college, there will also be a show coming up in November at Anodyne, called Traditions. It is an original production of ours, centering on a family that wishes to find it’s traditions for the holidays. It deals with pretty heavy stuff, such as loss, dying, and bringing together a shattered family. That being said, this isn’t merely a depressing tale. For that, I would easily turn to shakespeare, for he has wrought some incredibly depressing sagas. There’s lightness and humor in it as well, but it is not a ‘butterflies and rainbows’ story. Working on it is a welcome relief from a full year, practically, of not having any shows. With our new facilitator who has much experience in theatre across the board,pwe are off to a good start. I play the role of Gustav, or ‘Gus’, one of the principal roles. Gus’s conflict is that he misses his mother who died prior to the start of the play and wishes to start a new tradition for the holidays, amidst the drama and conflict that follows from his father and others. Speaking of Gustav’s father, Attila, the play mainly centers around him telling the story of what led up to his death and the ensuing rush to establish normalcy and…well, a tradition. (And yes, the name is derived from Attila The Hun.)
Since I wrote this last, the play has since come and gone. It went very well, much better than our last performance, It Could Be Worse or Love At Frostbite. And our facilitator for the show is still with us and has been working hard with us on developing as actors. We had a good run, with a slightly increased audience turnout. And it was an absolute thrill for me to be working as a lead role, one that I could relate to more. At the time, I was a little disconnected, however, but I learned a lot about acting from that play. Now the trick is to not get inside my head as I have been doing! There is absolutely no need for me to rest on my laurels and go further inside my head, even though I get pulled in that direction all the time.
(Please note: This post was originally written in november of last yea, with the last part added on today.
Ubu Rois
Ubu Rois is a french play from the late 1800’s (I think 1880’s or 1890’s) that our theatre company, Anodyne Artist’s Company, is possibly planning on doing. It is an unusual play because it mixes extreme(and I mean extreme) political satire with an intense dose of absurdity and vulgarity. We have never done anything like it, at least since I’ve been here. What I do know about this play is that it is very much apropos to our current times. The play in question revolves around a crazed, power hungry, greedy selfish idiot named Father Ubu, who wishes to seize the throne of Poland and take power for himself without even knowing how to govern a nation. Sound familiar? Yes, the play basically describes our current political situation in a nutshell. Even though, and this is the interesting part, it was written in the late 1800’s as I mentioned before. Intensely relevant, vulgar, and funny throughout, this is a play that is designed to shake heads, blow minds, and cause intense reactions. In other words, this is thought provoking theatre. As such, this play is not for everyone. Nor is it meant to be I don’t think. We are actually thinking of marketing this play to the college and university crowd, of which there is an abundance of in Minnesota. Although, one caveat I have regarding our potential audience is, I don’t know how it will go with the community college crowd. I have friends who go to Saint Paul College. I myself go to Century College, along with a few of my workmates. Those colleges seem to me to be a little too ‘pedestrian’ in their outlook. From what little I’ve seen at both SPC and Century, I can’t imagine that the people there would be very open to the idea of a play with characters that have names such as Captain Whorehouse, and a VERY trump like figure that regularly calls people ‘horny piglets’ and so on. I don’t know if the maturity or the understanding is there. But I don’t know entirely as I am extreme part time student. To engage in thought provoking theatre, one must be able to acknowledge the thought provoking processes within them. A question that comes to mind regarding this is, “What do we want to say about our lives through this play?” Such a question floors me. To think for a moment that anyone is interested in what I have to say about my life experiences is rather baffling to me. And also very risky. I am an eclectic person, with disabilities. I have a lot to say, but it is not within most people’s realm of experience, which makes it scary to really reveal myself. And to be honest, there’s a lot going on in the disability world that I am not aware of. I don’t even know the semantics or mechanics of what goes into my funding to go to Anodyne! I have a vague awareness of it but other than that I don’t have much knowledge or awareness of how it all works! Which is sad really. But the truth is is, there is a lot to say about the world, about my world, through this play and other venues. So I am willing to explore that and take the risks.
ACtors Rehearse: Acting with disabilities. 