Sunday, October 31, 2010

1985

Angie and I watched, strangely, Back to the Future last night.  I haven't seen the movie in twenty five years or so.  And, of course, it got me thinking on my favorite and most recent obsession, the passage of time and aging gracefully.

The movie takes place, as nearly everyone knows, in 1985.  The Michael J. Fox character then does a little time travel thingee and ends up in 1955. 

1985.  I had just finished a year with an Equity theatre in Iowa, of all places, and had moved to NYC in May of that year.  For the first few months I stayed with a couple of friends in Jersey City and then in the fall moved to a small studio in Washington Heights.  Actually, more accurately, to Inwood.  I think the street was 201st street.  Something like that.  Seemed a long ways up, but on the A train it was only about 15 or 20 minutes to midtown.

That first summer in New York was a blur.  Out nearly every night and up early working.  Oddly, through a temp agency, I had landed a job at Working Mother Magazine as a receptionist and typist (even then I was a very fast typist).  Later, in October, I think it was, I started waiting tables.  My friends Jeff Wood, John Bader and Rober Fiedler and I were having a non-stop party, it seemed.    Ah, youth.  Frankly, I don't know how we did it. 

New York had actually been my second choice.  I had attempted to move to Los Angeles a couple of years earlier but my car died in Oklahoma effectively aborting that trip.  Funny how things work out for the best, sometimes.  Los Angeles would have been, for me at that time anyway, disasterous.  New York, on the other hand, was precisely the place to be.

That first summer I actually ran into Woody Allen and Madonna.  Both very briefly, Madonna jogging in Central Park and trying to hail the same cab as Woody Allen in Chelsea.  Today, neither of those chance meetings would mean much to me, but as a midwestern boy straight from the trailer parks of Missouri, I felt like I was in Oz. 

That first summer I also did my first play in NYC, a short stint, only one weekend, down in the east village.

'Twas a heady time for me.

Interestingly, the thing that kept me from being eaten alive by that city was my sheer naivety.  I didn't know from nothin'.  I wasn't afraid of anything because I didn't know enough to BE afraid.  New York was a very dangerous city in 1985.  Midtown alone was nearly unrecognizable then.  Nothing like it is today.

Nonetheless, every day was an adventure.  I wouldn't give that summer up for the world.  Absolutely nothing of consequence happened that year, really.  Except the personal experiences still resound in me to this day from that time.  It was a fearless. arrogant time. 

Later I started waiting tables at a restaurant on Fifth Avenue.  Money was pouring in from that gig.  Who knew a kid could make so much money just by bringing food to a table?  It was a new thing for me and, in retrospect, nearly derailed me.  I've seen it so often with young actors, in NY and LA.  They get so wrapped up in their 'day jobs' that the actual reason they moved to the big city is suddenly forgotten.  That is to say, to be an actor, or an artist, or a musician or whatever.  It nearly happened to me.  I got so wrapped up in the day to day workings of the restaraunt, I don't think I even auditioned for anything for a full year.  And, being from the midwest, I moved up the chain of command quickly...waiter, head waiter, bartender, head bartender, corporate trainer...my innate work ethic from the midwest was highly desirable in that place.  And it wasn't until 1987 or so that I finally took inventory of all that was happening and said to myself, "Is this why I moved to NY?"

I think the one moment that saved me was stumbling into Michael Moriarty's professional acting class in 1987.  After that first night in Michael's class I suddenly realized how futile and meaningless my existence was in NY up to that time.  Everything suddenly came into focus.

Plus, my other friends, Robert, John and Jeff, were also putting their career on hold to work tirelessly at 'day jobs.'  Robert was also a waiter over on 3rd Avenue at a place, now defunct, called Lily Langtree's and John and Jeff were with NBC news heading up the polling division.  We were all making money hand over fist and none of us were really pursuing our work in the theater.  This is an age old story, I'm afraid.  I see it even today in LA with young actors and artists.  It's a tremendously dangerous pitfall.

But, like all great stories, it came to an end.  I remember going to a 'cattle call,' that is to say, a massive audition for actors.  I think it was called 'Straw Hat.'  I had, incredibly, not been off the island of Manhattan for nearly 18 months.  I was going just a tad bonkers.  So I threw myself into these auditions and ended up getting about 11 or 12 offers to do Summer Stock theatre up and down the East Coast.  I remember pulling out an atlas one night in my apartment up on 178th street and finding all the spots where I'd been offered jobs.  I literally took a ruler and measured the one farthest from New York.  It ended up being a job I'd been offered in Kentucky, of all places.  I called them the next morning and accepted the job.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

1985.  What a wondrous year.  New York spread before me like a 7-course meal.  And I gorged myself.  I went back for seconds and thirds.  I nearly drowned from the hedonism.  Danger, excitement, love, loss, glory, money, drugs, booze, a hundred midnights.  All of it absolutely necessary, every single moment of that high wire summer needed, all of it pointing strangely toward the exact moment in time that is now.  Honestly, I wouldn't change a thing, not a second, not one instant of that time.  I probably wouldn't do it again, but I love pretending I would.  I have to say this, though, I wouldn't mind doing about six or seven hours of it again.

See you tomorrow.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

The Staged Reading.

Monday we start rehearsals for Bachelor's Graveyard in earnest.  And I sincerely hope Earnest doesn't mind.  Ba dump bump. 

It will be the very first public viewing of work mounted by theGathering.

Anyway, staged readings are an animal unto themselves.  Far different from directing a play.  I can trace my knowledge back to creating staged readings to the late Leslie Irene Coger who, quite literally, wrote the book on oral interpretation.  Oral Interp, as we called it, is fast becoming a lost art in academia.

Dr, Coger was a giant among the oral interp crowd in the country.  She took a number of us to several 'festivals' during my two years with her (before she retired).  It was enormously exciting.  In essence, taking great literature and turning it into performance.  But the ideas incorporated in oral interp work perfectly for staged readings, chamber theatre and reader's theatre.

Staged readings are sort of the PBS of theatre.  If done properly they can be really a lot of fun.  If done badly they can be tantamount to watching grass grow.  I have seen and been involved on both ends of that spectrum.

One thing I've discovered about staged readings is this:  regardless what the purists might say, there are no hard and fast rules.  I plan on using music and economic lighting.  I think this elevates the reading to something else, something between full production and 'sit and read.'  It changes the dynamic of the evening and pulls the audience in.  The other thing I know is this:  it must be theatrical.  Stage cannot hope to compete with other forms of entertainment unless we rely heavily on the theatrical.  Once the imagination of the audience is engaged, the theatre is a world of vast possibilities.  Even larger than, dare I say, film. 

There is a sense of explosive energy in the theatre when the imagination is tapped.  The ephemeral quality, often maligned, can be our greatest strength if harnassed correctly.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in the usually misused art of 'the reading.'

I remember, years ago, one of the most exciting moments I've ever experienced in a theatre was at an 'oral interp festival' in, of all places, Terre Haute, Indiana.   An actress, older lady, did about forty five minutes of Flannery O'Conner, a southern, darkly comic, almost gothic, writer.  It was mesmerising and excruciatingly funny.  My sides hurt from laughing so much during that reading.  The actress, herself a teacher as I recall, played all the characters, expertly dividing them by a simple slight turn of the head and change of vocal tone.  Absolutely riveting. 

One of the difficult things about staged readings (and if done correctly, most exciting) is the employment of economy of movement.  It is paramount to keep the actors tightly focused.  It is taking what could be a performance liability and turning it into a performance asset.  The actors (in this case, four young and, quite probably, inexperienced reader's theatre actors) must be made aware of this and the importance of it stamped indelibly on their psyche.  Every gesture, every vocal choice, every nuance is a piece of lightning in a setting like this.  Complete control over the material must be exercised.

In many ways, it's much more difficult than acting in or directing a full production.  What's more, very few people understand it.  I have seen far, far too many deadly boring staged readings because of this.  Just a shocking degree of ignorance on the part of the director about what can and cannot be done in a staged reading.  On the other hand, once in a blue moon, I see one that's in capable hands and am absolutely transported. 

The upshot of all this is that staged readings can be, in the right hands, some of the most exciting theatre one is ever likely to see.  And I have every intention of making this one precisely that.

See you tomorrow.

Friday, October 29, 2010

The Least of Me.

It seems I have spent a good many years saying things that inadvertently hurt people's feelings.  Back in the day, it happened a lot more often.  Mostly because I really didn't care.  Here's a section from my play, Praying Small:

"Once something is said, once it passes the lips and mouth, once it spills out into the air like toxic waste in front of us...well, that's as permanent as it gets, folks.  You can't go home again and you can't ever take nothin' back."

I guess as we get older it becomes more important to be on constant alert as to how our words are guaged and weighed by others.  Now, strangely, I'm not talking about myself.  Yesterday someone very dear to me was inadvertantly hurt by someone else's words.  It bothered me all day and all night.  Even though I wasn't (this time) the cause of this hurt, my empathy button was pushed and I obssessed over it a great deal.

The things we say, offhandedly or not, carry so much power, it seems.  They are misunderstood or taken to heart or just plain given way too much importance.  I sort of know how this works.  On the recieving end, I mean.  With critics.  I can't really say too much about the nice things that have been written about me over the past three decades onstage...but I can quote, word for word, the bad things written about me.

Approval is a tricky thing.  Regard is a tricky thing.  It's all tied up in self-worth.  And regardless what the Hallmark cards say, it is important what others think of us.  Despite the American platitudes of self-confidence we hear from every money hungry, self-help, self-appointed guru that dodges and slithers his or her way through life on the way to the bank, gossip and malicious backroom talk hurts.

I grew up in a family that didn't give a whit about the awful, stinging, scathing words that were spit out all over my childhood house.  As Sondheim so perfectly wrote, "Children will listen."  Indeed.  And adults.  And they leave scars, sometimes tiny ones, nearly unseen, and sometimes large ones, gaping wounds we carry around in our id from day to day for years on end.

We can forgive sometimes, that's a gift from our better angels.  But we can't forget.  That's just being human.  And when bad things are said about good people, it sticks in my craw.  When I was in high school, the most significant time for develpment, I was a walking dichotomy of this.  On the one hand, I think in many ways I was a bully.  I had been so stripped of self-worth by a drunken family life that often times, quite unaware, I belittled others in a vain search for acceptance.  I don't think this is terribly unusual.  On the other hand, I was keenly, if not painfully, aware of someone's inability to defend themselves.  Through sheer instinct I only picked on the pompous and arrogant.  And I was never afraid of physical consequences.  I had a fistfight almost every weekend, it seems.  In those formative years, odd as it sounds to an adult, there is that element: fear for one's safety.  That fear didn't exist for me so I wasn't the least bit afraid of verbally attacking someone twice my size.  But I drew the line at the timid and the meek.  Not only that I championed their cause.  Attacking someone that didn't deserve it was always my pet peeve. 

Anyway, the gist of this, I suppose, is to be nice.  Be kind to one another.  Be empathetic.  Do unto others, and all that. 

I have a few friends that truly inspire me in this regard.  They never, under any circumstances, say something, even in private, that might hurt someone.  I can't say that about myself, although I wish I could. 

For the most part I really disdain religious services, especially Christian services.  This from a lifetime of witnessing the jaw-dropping hypocracy from so many insincere Christian zealouts.  But long ago I found myself in a Christian service and the pastor did something interesting.  Upon entering the chapel, he gave everyone a white sheet of paper and a pen.  He asked us, during the sermon, to draw a picture of the person we hated the most in our life.  The person who causes us the most pain.  The bully in our life.  The boss.  The landlord.  The cop.  The banker.  The ex-wife or ex-husband.  Then he pinned them all to a board and asked us all, one by one, to come up and throw a dart at the picture, get all our anger out, be done with it, leave it in that chapel, on that dart board, stuck on that person causing us pain.  And when we had all done that and were all feeling in fine fettle, he peeled away all the pictures.  One by one.  And the last picture was of Jesus.  And he had about 300 holes in his face.  The pastor said simply, 'What you do to the least of me, you do to me.'

I think that's from Luke, but I'm not certain.

Anyway, I liked that service and I liked that message. 

Let's be nice to one another out there. 

See you tomorrow.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Plays and Chairs.

I recieved word that Sam French will be going forward with my play, Praying Small.  For my non-theater, gentle readers, Sam French is the publishing house for plays and musicals.  Delightful news.  A little soft money never hurt anyone.

Plans, decisions and support for theGathering Theatre Company are exploding.  Our Advisory Board is in place now (quite impressive, too, if I don't say so myself), our core ensemble is in place, our first public appearance (Sunday, November 7) scheduled and booked.  It's all good.

I had the young Turks over for a reading of my play, Bachelor's Graveyard, this past Tuesday.  Perfectly cast and very talented.  Couldn't ask for a better cast.  And remember, these four were whittled down from about 200 submissions.  Again, it's all good.

Jim and I are meeting with our web advisor today.  Looking forward to that.

And in other, and far more important, news, Angie and I are buying a new chair tomorrow.  Yes, a new chair.  This is the first the public is hearing of it.  The chair has been selected.  The date and time of the purchase confirmed.  The chair is waiting patiently.  All that remains is for us to actually, physically gather up the chair itself.  It's a fine chair.  The kind of chair to write home about.  As chairs go, you might even call it the Michael Jordan of chairs.  It's a chair's chair.  The type of chair other chairs refer to when they talk about the all-time great chairs.  I won't go into details about the chair, I'll let the countenance of the chair speak for itself.  I will say this, however; this chair, if I were on a desert island, would be the chair I would pick.

See you tomorrow. 

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Bachelor's Graveyard Cast

The show is cast.  A foursome of fearless, young, fine actors and, of course, the amazing Rob Arbogast.  First read-thru here at the homestead tonight.

We've pushed one of the plays back to December because of scheduling problems (with both actors and the theater).  So on November 7, we go up with a one-night-only, invited audience, reading of Bachelor's Graveyard.  In December we go up with The Promise.

I agonized over casting.  I am speechless at the number of really fine, talented young actors that auditioned for BG.  But after careful and brain-wracking deliberations, we decided on the cast:  Rob Arbogast in the lead role of Chip and four young, wonderful actors, Carmine Dibenedetto, Benjamin Burt, Adam Silver and Otniel Henig.  All four of which have exactly the right look for the play.

So, for the moment anyway, all is right in theatre-land.

The public read will be an exclusive, invitation-only event.  We've decided to start slow and exclusively. 

See you tomorrow.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Callbacks: Where the Rubber Meets the Road.

So the auditions yesterday were quite successful.  Jim, Larry (Larry Cedar, a fine actor and director at the helm of my new play, The Promise) and I saw a whole gaggle of very fine actors.  We were especially delighted to see some of the extraordinary talent from the younger actors that came in...ah, to be 18 again.  Some of those guys were on fire.  I was terribly pleased.

Part of our strategy is to use the readings of the two, new plays as fundraisers in addition to gauging how they work in front of an audience.  Personally, I'm looking forward to them.  Especially Bachelor's Graveyard, which is a piece that, shall we say, has a lot of 'adult' content written into it. 

The theatre itself, located in a stretch of Los Angeles called NoHo (North Hollywood, sort of the 'Chelsea' of LA), is perfect for our plans.  It's small and clean and has great lighting and sound, a nice little lobby, dressing rooms, and an easily accessible location in a safe neighborhood.

I've called back 20 or so young actors to actually read from the script today.  My good bud and whizbang of an actor, Rob Arbogast (for my readers who saw my play, Praying Small, they'll recognize Rob as the edge-of-ruin character of Roman) will be in today to read opposite all of the young actors.  The play is a memory piece, the memories of a mid-forties man looking back on his halcyon and reckless final days as a teenager and the clear juxtaposition in age will be readily apparent as Rob and the other actors are seen side by side on stage. 

After the all-day auditions yesterday, Angie and I had dinner with some old friends from our Missouri days, Brad and Nelia Southwick and our old friend and favorite photographer, Jerry Hinkle.  I believe Jerry works for the A.P. these days and Brad is a busy producer out here in LA...he's done tons of films.  Nelia, always one of my favorite people back in my college days, devotes a lot of her time to saving animals, cats, dogs, whatever, from inhumane shelters around Southern California.  She has one of the most contageous smiles I've ever come across.  Really terrific people, both of them.

So today we continue the auditions this afternoon and this morning is devoted to re-working Act II of The Promise.  One of the problems with staging a new play is the unavoidable fact of having to actually WRITE the new play.  Bachelor's Graveyard is ready to go.  I'm very happy with every single line of it.  But The Promise has some work to be done on it.  The idea, the theme itself, is solid, but the words, ah the words, must be sharpened.  As George Kauffman once said, "A play is never finished, only abandoned."

Yesterday, as I suspected, found Jim and I giggling all the way through the auditions.  Not at the actors, of course, but at the ridiculous history we have together onstage.  Neither of us could resist telling Larry, between auditions, about our days together in "outdoor drama," causing both of us to periodically dissolve into immobile laughter.

Angie kept things moving along smoothly and only occasionally reminded us to 'keep it short.'  I think she's pretty much surrendered to the idea that Jimmy and I can't help but regress when we hang together.  She's a remarkable human being (and not a bad wife, too).

But today the rubber meets the road.  Today we see who actually has some chops.  Sides (snippets from the scripts themselves) will be read aloud and that's an entirely different ballpark than watching a prepared, exquisitly planned monologue.  Today we see who can or can't make 'choices.'  And 'choices,' ultimately, is what it's all about in this silly, little game of acting.

See you tomorrow.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Auditioning: the lesser of all evils.

The job of narrowing down over 300 submissions for theGathering, our new company, has been nerve-wracking.  Generally speaking, after awhile, I just skipped all the TV and film credits on the resumes and looked for the theatre experience.  And of course, looked to see if the actor was physically in the ball park of what we're seeking.  Not surprisingly, the younger actors flooded the Actor's Access notice.  Older, firmly established actors, are reluctant to submit to a non-paying gig.  I know I am.

Having said that, I'm pretty happy with the 80 some actors we narrowed it down to.  And I'm sure we'll have actors simply show up that didn't bother to confirm and we'll also have actors that did confirm and for one reason or another, not attend.  Personally, I always try and confirm and if, at the last second, I can't make it, I'll reply again and say so.  But again, for a non-paying gig, some probably won't even do that.

But that's okay.  We'll make do. 

There will the three of us in the room today; myself, Jim, and Larry Cedar (who's directing my newest play, The Promise).  Angie has stepped up to the plate admirably and volunteered to keep the whole enterprise running smoothly.  Which is good, because as a former casting director for over twenty years, she has more experience at this sort of thing than the rest of us combined.  She is constantly reminding me, "No chit chat, just see them and move on.  You can chit chat at the callbacks."  She knows me well and she knows that I'll probably do everything possible to put the actors at ease including pleasant chit chat.  As a casting director, she is used to whipping the actors out the door like a herd of lathered, wild horses.

Jimmy, computer wizard that he is, has made a remarkable, little booklet that will be in the lobby outlining our mission statement, advisory board and founding producing directors.  There will be three of them in the lobby to be perused while actors are waiting to come in a do their thing.  I saw it last night and it's just terrific.

I'm taking a small table in for us to have in front of us and a thermos full of Armenian coffee to keep me from zoning off after dozens of monologues.  I've always maintained to my students that decisions are usually made about callbacks within the first ten seconds of entering the room anyway.  But courtesy demands we give them at least a minute to do their thing.

In the audition notice there was one tricky fact we had to diplomatically navigate around: in Bachelor's Graveyard, personally my favorite play I've ever written, one character has to strip down to his undies in the final moments of the play.  It is unavoidable to the plot.  So I said that very clearly in the breakdowns for that character.  I don't know if that helped or hindered the amount of submissions. 

Both in NY and Chicago I've found myself on 'the other side of the table' many times.  It is always an education and it has helped me in my own auditions throughout my career.  The main thing I've learned is the people behind the table are unabashedly on the side of the actor.  They  WANT  to be away.  The WANT the actor to be brilliant.  It makes their job a lot easier.  And it has helped me a lot throughout the years knowing that.  It keeps me from thinking of them as 'the enemy.'

I remember once, years ago, auditioning hundreds of actors for a couple of roles in a play called 'The Relative Importance of Jeri,' a really fine play by Jim Uhls, who later went on to write 'Fight Club.'  My close friend and, not incidentally, the best director with whom I ever worked, Jeff Wood,  and I were in the room with a couple of other people.  I was just there as an advisor of sorts because my play, Golden Eggs, was also being mounted in tandem with Uhls' play.  I think that was the first time I was ever on 'the other side of the table.'  In any event, we saw some good people.  Really good actors.  We also saw some undeniable whack jobs.  One guy started bouncing around like a gorilla at one point and threatened to leap on the table in front of us.  In fact, I think Jeff even actually got up and moved back a step or two, much like David Letterman did years ago when that strange actor from 'Back to the Future' started doing karate kicks during the interview. 

Another actress started simulating a very loud and realistic orgasm during her monologue.  While kinda fun to watch, it was still a little disconcerting.  Although it did command the conversation later that night at dinner as we flipped though all the resumes.  That's the thing about sex scenes...whatever the actor or actress is doing in a sex scene, I've always thought, is a pretty good barometer of what they actually do in bed.  I mean, they have to get their inspiration from somewhere, right?  But I digress.

Another guy, I remember, did a really fine monologue for us, very smart, underplayed, intense, quite nice.  And as he left the room said casually over his shoulder, "Fuck all of you."

So auditions can be enlightening.  I still think they are the worst possible way to cast a play, yet there aren't really any alternatives.  They are the lesser of all evils.  Ideally, I'd like to see every single actor in a play, actually in front of an audience, under fire, in the midst of real combat, and make my decision that way.  Of course, that's impossible.  Another thing I've noticed over the years is that very often the reading you get in the room is exactly the same reading you'll get on opening night.  And there's simply no way of predicting that.  So I try to keep a keen eye out for actors that possibly don't audition well but indicate a hidden level of explosive talent.  After all, Robert DeNiro was a notoriously bad auditioner.  The stuff of lore.  He is dyslexic and doesn't read well.  And Brando simply came to audions early in his career and made up monologues on the spot.  In one famous and often re-enacted audition for the lauded and snooty Lunts, he stared at the dark theatre for a long time and then finally said, "Hickory, Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the clock.  There are people fucking starving in India right now, you pricks."  And walked off stage.  He didn't get the role.

So I'm looking forward to the day.  Undoubtedly we'll get some stories from it.  My concern is, Jimmy and I have a terrible tendency to make each other laugh over the stupidist things.  It's one reason we had so much trouble working together onstage long ago.  We just start giggling over shit that only we find funny.  So, I'll probably try not to look at him too much today during the proceedings.

Tomorrow we'll have the callbacks and the actors selected will be reading scenes from the plays.  We'll give the sides as they leave the room to avoid having to make dozens of phone calls tonight.  Also, Angie and I are having dinner with a group of Missouri friends tonight so I don't have time for that anyway.

One of my favorite audition stories.  Guy comes in, gives his name, pauses importantly, finally starts:  "I'll be playing Gloucester from Richard III...another solemn pause...NOW IS THE SUMMER...stops...pause...I'll come in again.  Leaves the room, shuts the door and walks back in.  Pause.  I'll be playing Gloucester from Richard III...NOW IS THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT..."

See you tomorrow.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Upcoming Auditons for theGathering Theatre Company.

Big weekend coming up, professionally speaking.  Our first steps toward making theGathering (the name of our new theatre company) a reality. 

Starting a theatre company here in LA (or anywhere for that matter) is a massive undertaking.  So many things to do in prepararation.  I'm in awe of people who have done it before me.  Most fail, of course.  The first five years are brutal.  Having been in on the start-up of Actors Workshop in Chicago I know just how tough it is.  The only thing that kept that company afloat in the first couple of difficult years was the sheer determination and grit of the artistic director, Michael Colucci.  That company is now in it's seventh year and one of the most respected small, professional theatres in Chicago.  In fact, my play, Praying Small, opened that theatre.

One of the things we're trying to prove is that new companies don't need a 'pay to act' clause in its membership.  This seems to be a very west coast thing.  Personally I find it deplorable.  That's just me, though.  Out here it seems to be accepted as 'the way it's done.'  Well, we (and by 'we' I mean James Barbour, John Bader and myself) don't buy into that.  We think it can be done without having company members pay dues to be involved.  But then again we don't expect to make money off our endeavor.  It will be a not-for-profit venture in the true sense of the word at first...there will be no profit.  Any and all monies made by and for the theatre company will be dropped back into the organization.

Saturday we're holding auditions for two new plays to be done as staged readings:  Bachelor's Graveyard (which I'll direct) and The Promise (helmed by the very fine actor Larry Cedar, schedule permitting).  The response to our post on Actors Access has been nothing short of astonishing.  We've had close to 300 requests for auditions.  We have time for about 80.  So the selection process has been nerve-wracking.  The first day, Saturday, will only be a one-minute monologue.  We'll call back from that day into Sunday when we'll start reading from the scripts.

The three of us, the founding directors of  the company, Jim, myself and John, have our plates full, to be sure.  Organizing the many details for just the auditions is a challenge, much less the actual company responsibilities.  But the good thing is we're forming this thing based solely on talent, not the ability to pay $75 a month to act.  I certainly understand why other companies do that, but I still find it a bit smarmy.

We made the decision to have three artistic directors so that when one of us is busy with a film or some other endeavor, the other two can pick up the slack.

One of the really bright spots of the new company is the list of high-powered, recognizable names we're assembling for the Advisory Board.  I'm a little stunned at some of the people that have lent us their names for use on our website and letterhead.  It lends the entire enterprise a huge level of gravitas and legitimacy.

I have an audition for another film today that would take me to the mountains for a bit to do the shooting.  Not a terribly exciting part, but as usual, great money.

Angie, poor thing, has been sick as a dog the past day or so.  Flu season, I guess.  And she caught it with a vengeance.  I finally convinced her to take some medicine for it last night and it promptly knocked her out.  Hopefully all of this sleep will help.  This is part of that whole 'in sickness and in health' thing, I guess.  He says, smiling.

All is good.  Every day is fun and challenging.  The new company is exciting.  Lots of plans in the making.  I really couldn't ask for more.

See you tomorrow.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Matching the Medium Shot...

I finished my last day of filming yesterday with this new film.  I had one last interior scene to be shot.  I play a very smarmy, dismissive, asshole of a guy, an office boss, the kind of guy that doesn't even respond to 'good morning' because he thinks it's beneath him to talk to underlings about anything except work.  I've had bosses like that in my life, probably most of us have.  Really unhappy, miserable, soul-sucking people. 

Working in film is relatively new to me.  I've done fillm and television work periodically throughout my life, but it was always incidental.  It was never something I sought out.  Of course, that comes from a general way of thinking prevalent in both NY and Chicago.  But LA is not NY or Chicago.  Film is what people do here.  Theatre is incidental.  God knows the money is a helluva lot better for film and TV work.

I was chatting with a buddy of mine late last night after filming all day.  He's done quite a bit more of it than I have.  And I confessed to him that I really love it.  And I do.  I am, however, really, really ignorant about it.  I like to consider myself a fast learner, though, and I'm learning a great deal about it every time I do something new.  And I learned something new yesterday.

Now, when I say 'I love it', I'm talking about the actual filming.  As one might guess, it's all about conserving one's energy until the word 'action' is shouted.  Sometimes hours go by between shots.  Yesterday was no different.  We were shooting in an office in downtown Burbank all day.  Myself and another guy in the scene and dozens of extras.  Technicians were scurrying around doing technicial stuff.  The principal actors (me and this other guy) were parked in a plush room by ourselves and the extras were in a big, break room on the other side of the offices.  The continuity person and the Second AD were coming and going throughout. 

But anyway, back to what I learned. 

In this particular case, and I don't know if it always works like this, the 'medium shots' were done first and then all the close-ups, over the shoulder shots and coverage shots later.  In the first 'medium' shot, I'm in a conference room with a group of young executives and I"m being an asshole at the front of the table.  Being generally negative and saying things like, "If you wanna keep your jobs..."  They are all brow-beaten and a bit anxious because I'm the kinda guy that likes to make everyone feel inferior...again, I've known so many people like that in my life.  It wasn't, to say the least, an acting stretch for me.

But I was using glasses in the shot and put them on and took them off three times.  Reading glasses. 

After that shot we started on the coverage shots.  The continuity person (a very nice woman with an incredible eye for detail) was on me like white on rice.  Everytime, for the rest of the day, that we did another shot of that scene she was right beside me telling me exactly where I took my glasses off, on which word, when I put them back on, with what hand, which hand I used to pick up a folder, etc.  My, oh, my.  While not exactly distracting, it did give me a whole new level of things to think about. 

So what I learned, that I suppose I already knew but hadn't given a lot of thought to, is that whatever I do in the first 'medium' shot, I'm locked into for the all the other shots.  It's really just common sense, but I'm a sort of a 'let's just turn on the camera and see what happens' kinda guy.  Even though it obviously behooves the actor to know exactly where the camera is and what the frame looks like, I tend to get focused very quickly and then ignore all that to the degree that it's possible.  Eventually, I treated it all as a sort of intellectual exercise.  And rather than be annoyed by all the constant reminders of when I did what and on what word, instead I found it utterly fascinating. 

Also, as I mentioned earlier in this blog, the old adage, 'save it for the close-up' is so, so true.  That is the moment when absolute, precise, exact concentration and honesty is demanded.  For this project, the director (and I know this isn't always true), a veteran of many films (I can't say his name until the film is released...I signed a legal document saying I couldn't publicly discuss the director, plot or production company), was a really easy going guy that trusts actors.  His focus was about 90-10: 90 percent on all the technical stuff and 10 percent on molding the performance.  At the end of the day he never invited the actors to see what he filmed.  But for some reason he and I really hit it off.  We ate lunch together and chatted about films and plays and whatnot.  He told me something interesting.  He said if he's casting a film and looking through a resume, he skips all the TV and film credits and looks for extensive stage credits.  Why?  Because he says those are the actors, generally speaking, he's not going to have to baby-sit.  Stage actors are trained to do it alone.  To immediately swallow themselves in the work itself and not worry about the camera and the crew watching and all those other things that jerk an actor out of a scene.  And, as an added compliment, when the final, 'let's print that one' was uttered, he asked me to come back and look at the scene.  He told me he never does that, for the most part, but he knew I didn't have a huge background with the camera and wanted me to see what I had done.  When we finished watching all the 'rushes' he said, "You're going to be doing a lot of this.  You're completely natural in front of the camera.  I wanted you to see that."  And while not terribly comfortable watching myself work, I have to admit, it looked pretty good.  That is to say, I wasn't watching with a critical eye of what I did, but rather was watching to see what 'that guy on the screen' was doing.  And I didn't like that guy, that character.  I wasn't critically watching me at all, but rather some nefarious, suit and tie guy, being an ass.

So despite all the tedious waiting and standing around, I really loved the actual spurts of filming.  And, as I said, when all is said and done, the money ain't bad.

I'm off today to audition for a stage play in Redondo Beach.  Big, big theatre.  Great contract.  A play I've done many times before.  It plays right up until Christmas which is perfect because then Ange and I are flying back to Missouri for the holidays.  The timing couldn't be better.  The day after I would close (assuming I get the part, and egotist that I am, I always assume that) we fly out to the Ozarks.

And Thursday I'm called back for a small, supporting role in a film that would require me to fly to the mountains of Utah to do some work on location there.  The trick these days is to keep juggling all the balls in the air and hope there aren't too many conflicts.

Plus next Saturday and Sunday we're auditioning abour a hundred actors for two of my plays that are going up in a staged reading capacity.  The name of our new company is 'The Gathering.'  These reading will be our first venture.  It's all very exciting, actually.

LA is in the sixties these days, gloomy and overcast.  Native LAers are treating it like a blizzard, all bundled up and wearing sweaters and uggs and trench coats.  I'm treating like good sleeping weather.

See you tomorrow.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Two New Plays Going Into Production: Bachelor's Graveyard and The Promise.

It's been a whirlwind week.  I love whirlwind weeks.  Nothing beats a good whirlwind week.

I'm doing rewrites on a new piece called 'The Promise' today.  It came about rather odd.  About six months ago I was having lunch with a buddy of mine at my favorite 'sit around and chat and smoke cigs and kvetch' diner here in LA called Sittons and I was despairing the fact that there were no plays that a whole group of my 40-something actor friends and I could do.  Unlike NYC and Chicago, LA is a place that uses theatre to stay sharp between 'real' gigs.  Actually, I was having lunch with Jim Barbour and John Bader.  Jim said, "You're the damned writer.  WRITE something for us."  So I did.  And it's called 'The Promise.'

There are several themes in my life I seem to be obsessing over these days: aging gracefully, forgiveness, emotionally driven, spiritual paradigm shifts, and reliance on a higher power.  The latter of these themes is a sure way to get my dander up.  There is a plethora of spiritual ideas concerning this.  All of which I summarily dismiss.  The most prevelant being that if one only 'surrenders' one achieves a semblence of a 'state of grace.'  I'm utterly confounded and annoyed by this line of thought.  AA, perhaps the most altruistic social movement of the twentieth century, bases it's entire existence on this train of thought.  It has always seemed purposely elusive to me.  I do not deny it's power, however, and I'm all for doing what makes one a better person.  I mean, it's difficult to argue with success.  Nonetheless, the sheer ambiguity of it always leaves me cynical.

Therin lies the premise for 'The Promise,' alliteration intended.

So I began writing the piece.  It's finally nearing completion and will be done as one of two, full-length staged readings that will launch our new company in early November. 

Personally, I've always preferred a more 'hands on' higher power.  You know, the kind that parts seas and feeds thousands with a loaf and a fish and strikes down invading armies and gets pissed off and floods the world out of childish pique.  The 'absentee landlord' higher power has always sort of bored me.  I don't believe a word of it, however, but it makes for good drama.  The Jeffersonian thinking now called 'classical deism' has always been my pesonal way of sorting through life's hurdles.  Also, I have an inordinate number of friends that subscribe to the science of mind teachings.  Wayne Dyer, those kinds of guys.  I'm all for it.  But to be honest, that stuff bothers me, too.  I find it to be insufferably optimistic.  Nonetheless, some very smart people I know are neck deep in it.

A couple of my friends are unabashed Scientologists, an organized teaching religion that has gotten a very bad rap in the press, undeservedly so, as far as I can tell.  From what I've read, it's really rather altruistic, too.  Although they do tend to hammer home the money part of it a lot.  And L. Ron Hubbard was a little too Norman Rockwellish for me in his writings.  Very Republican, this guy was.  However, having said that, if one is able to approach the teachings with a clear and unbiased mind, it's pretty cool stuff.  At least it's practical, which is more than I can say for the Christian guys.  As Salinger points out in nearly all of his writing, Jesus was one smart F-ing guy.  Just a bit deluded.  Updike also has a great book out there on this subject called 'A Month of Sundays' if you're so inclined to search it out.

But I digress. 

The very foundation of Christianity is the idea that God forgives us.  The guys that thought this up weren't just whistling Dixie.  It's an enormously smart thing to base a belief on.  Because if all I have to do to make that happen is join the team, well, I'm joining.  The Catholics, those wily Vatican plotters, took it a step further:  they added guilt to the mix.  Of course, it's a lot more complicated than that, but in the final analysis, that's the upshot.

So I started with that idea.  Suppose the simple act of surrendering to a notion of thought that, once adhered to, releases one from the bondage of sin is possible?  That's a corker, that is.  And more, suppose one man had the power to do this?  And suppose that man were with us today?  Let's, for the moment, forget all the trappings and myth that go along with that line of thinking.  Let's dismiss all the miracles and harps and angels and demons and flowing, white hair, and whale swallowing.  Let's just put the whole scenario on a back porch in rural Missouri.  And then let's borrow a page from GB Shaw and play Devil's Advocate for the whole story.

Well, that's what the new play is about. 

Yes, yes, a little esoteric, but fascinating nonetheless, I think.  So I've created five characters, all smart, educated guys, all seeking peace of mind, all gathered together to finally clear the air so as to allow a little grace to enter their lives.  Cast it with five really, really fine actors.  Make it real.  Don't airbrush the warts and scars.  Give them a contemporary language to use.  Focus on their ability to choose free-will over antiquated, paranormal beliefs, and see what happens.  It is so much more interesting to write questions than answers, I've found.

This Saturday we're holding auditions for a couple of the roles for the initial staged reading in NoHo.  A few of the roles are cast with the actors I had in mind when I wrote it:  Jimmy Barbour, Kyle Puccia, Rob Arbogast and John Bader.  All enormously gifted actors. 

We're also casting four of the five roles in Bachelor's Graveyard, my homage to growing up in the small, King's Row-influenced town of Fulton, Missouri.  For those of you who don't know, King's Row was sort of the test run for Peyton Place, a novel that came out decades later.  But King's Row, written by Henry Bellamy, was actually written and set in small town Missouri.  I think that's his name, anyway.  It's not a very good read, but it's claim to fame is that it was later made into a movie with a very young actor named Ronald Reagan. 

Bachelor's Graveyard, a play I wrote in 2004 and worked on periodically through 2009, is set in a graveyard outside the very small, rural town of Bachelor, Missouri, a town that actually exists, as does the graveyard itself.  When I was a senior in high school it was an exclusive place that only the 'in' crowd knew about.  And on some weekends we would go there and drink a ton of beer and tell lies and sometimes unspeakable trutths to each other as the evening wore on and the beer did it's work.  Bachelor's Graveyard is about the last night these blessed and cursed young ne'er-do-wells, these goofy scofflaws meet there before real life swallows them up and they all leave their homes and lives to embark on a world of harsh realities.  It is my favorite play.  It is not my best play.  But it is my favorite. 

We're casting that this Saturday and Sunday, too.

So...rewrites today on 'The Promise,' meeting with my business and artistic partner, Jim B., taking my wife to lunch, learning a song for a big audition I have on Monday and memorizing a couple of short scenes I have to shoot tomorrow for this little film I've committed to.  A good day.  They're all good days, really. 

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a walk and think.

See you tomorrow.

Friday, October 15, 2010

October Tenth, Two Thousand Ten...One of the Best Days of My Life.

I apologize for my lack of blogging.  Our old, circa 1947 computer had a hard drive crash and we had to put it down.  It was sad, of course, but it had a long and good life.  It wrote a couple of plays, in fact, with a little help from me.  But it finally gave up the ghost and we brought in a Science of Mind preacher and gave it the last rites.  He told it to 'visualize' a beautiful computer heaven and it will happen.  Life is so easy for those guys.  Today I'm going to visualize a Big Mac and hope for the best.
Oh, and I got married.

We found this guy, Reverend Chuck, on the internet.  In addition to being a Notary that marries people he's also the Vice President of his local Harley Davidson Club.  Perfect.  Actually, the big reason we chose Reverend Chuck is because he offered a 'one stop' deal...marriage license, ceremony and chapel.  He had a 'first come, first serve' deal on 10/10/10 so we just did it.

We were pleasantly surprised, to say the least.

We got to the small office/chapel about 9:30 with our bridesmaids and best men.  It wasn't early enough.  There were four other couples ahead of us.  So we sat and drank Starbucks and laughed a great deal while waiting next door.  Finally, our names were called and Angie and I went in and filled out all the pre-requisite papers, etc.  Then we brought in the rest of the gang and commenced.  Now, I had every intention of treating the whole thing with a certain amount of levity.  I mean, come on, it's not like we were in the Sistine Chapel.  But I was caught off guard when we saw what a lovely little chapel it was and Reverend Chuck turned out to be a soft-spoken, sincere, gentle little man with the best of intentions.  He lent the whole scene a surprising amount of gravitas.  I had written our vows beforehand and we opted for the non-religious ceremony.  It turned out, much to my delight and surprise, to be a really beautiful and thoughtful ceremony.  I'm sure Angie will be posting pictures today.  One of my best men, Jim Barbour, is one of those guys that has every cool gadget known to man.  And one of them is a camera that costs about ten million dollars.  So he acted as the unofficial photographer throughout the day and the pictures, which I saw yesterday, are incredible.  He took about three hundred, all told, including the ceremony and the party, which we had later that day.

Again, I was prepared to treat the party with as much cynicism as I could muster.  And again, I was pleasantly foiled.  Tammy Jackson-Lipps, one of Angie's dearest and longest friends, is a world-class caterer.  She did the whole shebang for us.  As soon as we got home, all married up, we began to work.  My other Best Man, John Bader, and I began setting up.  We had carefully selected 30 people to attend the wedding dinner.  And every single one showed up.  I somehow had it in my mind that we would have a bunch of chairs scattered about the back yard with maybe some 7-layer dip and that would be that.  Oh, contraire, my dear.  Angie and Tammy had something else altogether in mind.

It was an 'Italian Country Dinner' complete with a long table we stretched out endlessly into the back yard complete with exquisite dinner settings, elegant decorative touches and absolutely astonishing food; filet mignon, stuffed chicken breasts, arugala salad with goat cheese, tons of appetizers so fancy I didn't even know their names, dozens and dozens of bottles of top-notch wine, all kinds and shapes of incredible desserts.  It was a beatiful and moveable feast.  Again, pictures forthcoming, I'm sure.  Toasts were made deep into the night.  Our horses were just a few feet away, neighing happily.  Franny and Zooey were in heaven.  They got lots of attention.  White, gleaming table cloths, all my oldest friends in Los Angeles there, may from my NY days.  And Angie's, too.  It turned out to be, and I apologize for sounding corny but, a magical night.  The kind of night we will talk about when we're in the 'home' together many years from now. 

John and Jim and Tammy and Angie's other 'Best Woman,' Glenna Norris, all gave beautiful and enormously touching speeches, glasses raised, profundity galore, deep and heart felt speeches, tears and laughter.  I was very moved and I know Angie was, too.

Both Angie and myself were, quite simply, overwhelmed.  So much so, in fact, that I kept trying to break into 'The Theme From Ice Castles' at every opportunity, only to be shushed into silence.

Then our computer died and I was cut off from the civilized world.  But we have a new one now and all is as it should be.

Jim and I finally decided, few days ago, to not only go forth with our acting workshop on November 6 and 7 but also to produce two staged readings of my plays, Bachelor's Graveyard and The Promise.  The former had been scheduled for full production with the last theatre company in which I was involved but after the very difficult rehearsal process of Praying Small with that company, was discarded.  The latter is a piece, a murder mystery of sorts, that I've been working on for a long time for several close friends and wonderful actors: John Bader, Jim, myself, Brad Greenquist, Kyle Puccia and the remarkable Rob Arbogast.  We plan to include both plays in the debut season of our new theatre company and just decided to get the ball rolling with both of these world-premiere plays.  They're both pretty good, if I don't say so myself.
So we posted the auditions on Actors Access and now I am inundated with actors looking for a slot to audition.  I love it.  I'll say this much, it may take Jim and I awhile to make a decision about something but once it happens it goes forth like a dam breaking.  Every second of my days are filled with preparations for the workshop and the readings now.  Plus I still have one more day to shoot on the film I'm doing.  They've called me in for more interior scenes on Sunday. 

My wonderful agents at Schiowitz, Clay, et al, have sent me up for an audition on Monday for the prestigious Civic Light Opera Company of South Bay Cities...quite possibly the longest name for a professional, Equity theatre in history.  They're doing 1940's Radio Hour, a show I've done six, count 'em, six times in six different venues.  Suffice to say, I know that show fairly well, so I think I might have a good shot at it.  It's a terrific Equity contract and the timing is perfect. 

We also posted a whole gaggle of new shots on LA Casting, a website for commercial actors, and picked up new pictures from a cracker-jack photo-guy in Burbank.  They look great.  As I told Angie, I don't want anything special out here in LA as an actor, I just want to compete on a level playing field.  Well, that's about to happen. 

So there you have it.  Optimism has always been a strain for me.  I don't trust it.  But it is upon me.  So much to do and I am incredibly fortunate to love every moment of it.  To quote Mr. Sondheim, "So many...possibilities."  Ah, in love and working.  What more can anyone ask for?  But I'm still 'visualizing' that Big Mac.

See you tomorrow.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

...Get me to the church on time...

Angie and I are getting married this Sunday, October 10, 2010, at 10am.  Yes, that's right, 10/10/10 at 10.  Initially, we had planned to wait till November, but the idea of all the tens was just too inviting.  The rings are on the wash table in front of me as I write.  Angie has a beautiful, understated, diamond-studded, petite and slim ring that perfectly matches her engagement ring (a re-set ring from her grandmother) and I have a black, silver-lined ring with pure silver lines through it.  I confess to not being a ring wearing kinda guy.  I don't know why.  I've just never liked wearing rings.  So it will take some getting used to on my part.

We're having a private, very small wedding in a little chapel in the exclusive Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles.  We've decided to be ultra-casual about it.  We've both been around the block a few times and neither one of us is interested in a big wedding.  On Angie's side will be her dear and lifelong friends, Tammy Lipps and Glenna Norris.  On my side will be my old and close buddy's Jimmy Barbour and John Bader. 

I met Jim in Kentucky, of all places, back in the summer of 1988.  The show was that old warhorse, Camelot, and I was playing King Arthur to Jimmy's Lancelot.  We were instantly close friends.  I had just pulled up to the parking lot out in front of the theater and was standing beside the car yapping with some other actors in the show that I knew.  Jim was up by the box office and someone told him, "That guy getting out of his car is your King Arthur." So he came down to meet me and as I stood there chatting, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder.  I turned around to see Jim, all 6'4" of him and he said, "Hi, I'm Jim Barbour.  I studied with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London."  He claims I said, "Hi, I'm Clif Morts and I don't give a shit." I don't remember it that way, but Jimmy swears that was the exchange. 

Between us we have about a thousand stories of that summer and that show together.  We still laugh about them today.  We went on to do a whole gaggle of shows together at a number of professional theatres up and down the east coast:  Funny Girl,  Drood, West Side Story, 1776, 1940's Radio Hour, Hello, Dolly, a couple of others.  Eventually, it became difficult to work together because we both had a niche for making each other break on stage.  Very few people can make me break on stage, Jim is one.  For some reason we got to the point where just looking at each other on stage put us both in danger of dissolving into laughter.  I don't know why.  Doing 1776 with Jimmy was almost painful every night because of it.  If you've ever tried to keep from laughing in church, you know exactly the kind of pain I'm talking about.  I sort of moved into writing a lot of plays and Jim, of course, became a few years later one of the most sought after musical theatre leading men in the country, doing mafor roles in Broadway's Carousel, Jane Eyre, A Tale of Two Cities, Assassins, Beauty and the Beast and many others.  And somehow, without planning it, we both ended up in Los Angeles, 22 years later, living about five minutes from each other.  In fact, we're co-teaching a workshop this November in NoHo. 

John Bader has been a close friend even longer.  Right after I graduated undergraduate school in Springfield, MO, I travelled to Iowa, of all places, to a little dung hole of a theater called The Old Creamery, run by a psychopath of an artistic director.  John and I were both doing our Equity Internship there at the same time.  That was October of 1984.  We ended up going on a bus and truck tour of the show The Fantasticks, with me as El Gallo and John as The Man Who Dies.  We both ended up moving to NYC at approximately the same time and over the course of the next fifteen years drinking most of the beer and tequila in that city.  In fact, John ended up directing my first produced play in New York called Changing It To Brando. He moved to Los Angeles in 1999 and lives about ten minutes from me now in the other direction.  John went on to do about 100 commercials out here, a few films, some TV shows (most notably a long stretch on the network series, The Practice) and a couple of plays.  He, like Jim, is a very, very good actor.  One of the best I know, in fact.  It's funny, but I seem to be incapable of being close friends with bad actors.  All of my best buds are really good at what they do.   I'm sure that says something about me, just not sure what.

So those are the two guys standing up with me in Sherman Oaks this Sunday.  And I couldn't be happier about it. 

John has organized a Bachelor's Party of sorts for this Friday night.  Seeing how neither of us drink anymore, we'll probably be in bed by ten that night.  We're heading over to a bowling alley with a group of my closest friends out here on the west coast, John, Jim, Brad Blaisdell, Brad Greenquist, Joe Hulser, Jim Petersmith and Rob Arbogast, all incredibly talented actors.  It's shaping up to be a fun night.

Afer the small ceremony (yes, I've written the vows myself) we're heading back here to the cottage to have a big dinner party, about 25 people or so.   Angie's friend, Tammy Lipps, a professional caterer here in LA, is doing the whole spread.  She's been written up in lots of magazines and stuff for her work and it promises to be a very tasty afternoon.  Lots of old friends are coming over and a few new ones, too.  It seems I was nearly the last of my generation of actors to make the move to LA.  We all started out in NY years ago, and one by one made the journey west.  I guess I sort of did, but I had a decade-long, pit-stop in Chicago.

I have to teach this workshop and finish filming the little movie I'm doing now, so our honeymoon is going to have to wait a bit.  But when we have the time our plan is to simply rent an RV and take out on the open road for a couple of weeks stopping off at places like The Grand Canyon (Old Dean Martin joke:  Í went to the Grand Canyon yesterday and it was closed!) and Vegas (oddly, I've never been).  We decided on this because we wanted to take our dogs, Franny and Zooey, with us.  Plus, I've always had a sort of obsessive preoccupation with RVs.  Don't know why.  I just like the idea of a mobile "fort," I guess, like when I was a kid.  We went to look at some awhile back and we think we've found the perfect one:  a 28 footer that looks like a small, upper west side apartment on the inside without the great view.

So after nearly a year of talking about it, we're finally doing the deed.  Getting married. 

How do you make God laugh?  Tell him your plans.

See you tomorrow.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Ali - Part VII...What He Meant.

ALI

It's difficult to convey what Muhammad Ali meant to me as I was growing up.  There are three figures in my life that have captivated my imagination throughout many years.  Muhammad Ali, Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra.  I have a theory about them and their respective genius.

This is the theory: all three of them didn't display their genius until AFTER they lost their original gift.  Brando, although a shockingly talented actor, didn't give us his masterpiece until he'd lost his beauty, his startling physical physique.  It just wasn't acceptable that someone so beautiful could also be so talented.  Not to mention unfair.  And yet it wasn't until he became, yes, fat, balding and crusted, that he let us see inside his soul in Last Tango in Paris.  I believe it to be, arguably, the finest performance on film I have ever seen. 

Sinatra had a voice to make nightingales jealous and yet, it wasn't until he'd lost that gift, in the mid-fifties, and was forced by practicality to sing in another style, that we finally enjoyed his real genius.  When he teamed with Nelson Riddle and Gordon Jenkins we finally were introduced to the one thing that stood him apart from hundreds of other melifluous crooners:  his determination, his arrogance, his swaggering vulnverability, his reluctant sensitivity. 

And the same is true of Ali.  It wasn't until after he'd lost the one thing that set him apart from every heavyweight on the planet, his nearly inhuman speed, did we see his brilliance as a fighter.  It wasn't until after his forced lay off from 68 to 71, that we saw the real Ali gifts emerge.  Suddenly, like Thor stripped of his deity by Odin, Ali was forced to fight like other mere mortals.  And then, and only then, did we see his other gifts show themselves.  His ability to always, always, find a way to win.

Angie and I were having dinner the other night and I was yammering on about the crap my agent was submitting me for.  She said, "Oh, come on, you're never really happy anyway unless you have something to prove, something to overcome, someone to shock."  She's perceptive sometimes, I'll give her that, Dancing with the Stars notwithstanding.

I think, on some deep and unexplored level, she's absolutely right and I also think, in some high falutin' way, I learned that from my fascination with Muhammad Ali throughout my life.  I'm not at my unadulterated best unless I find myself, in my mind, at least, cast in the underdog role. 

I spent nearly a decade in self-exile as I privately battled inner demons.  I'm not alone in this, nor am I the only one to follow this undesirable path.  Some never stop battling the forces of chaos that keep us from being who we can be.   Some refuse to acknowledge that the original gifts the great traffic cop in the sky gave us are gone.  I was fortunate enough to meet someone that, through sheer kindness and acceptance, pointed all of that out to me.  Once I'd reached the point where I could honestly say to myself, 'The battle is over and I lost.  Time to take up a new battle,' was I able to move on.  Angie did that.  Singlehandedly.

Watching Ali from 1962 to 1968 was tantamount to watching a fixed race.  His skills as a fighter were so overwhelmingly superior that the only drama occurred in wondering when he would win, not how.  But watching Ali from 1971 to 1979 gave us the 'how.'  And that is the only way for true drama to exist. 

Who would have thought he'd finally recapture his golden crown not from once again exhibiting his remarkable gifts as a fighter, but rather from his willingness to take the hardest shots ever thrown from another heavyweight and then spring off the ropes from obscurity and fire the last and unexpected volley?

His 'second period' fights were almost all like that.  Enigmatic forrays into the drama of winning.  Forever wearing the mantle of underdog.  Seemingly unable to rise to the occasion unless he was surrounded by doubt.  His later fights were all like Greek Tragedy without the fatal flaw. 

I met him once, you know.  In a little diner on the corner of 36th and Lexington Avenue in New York City in 1989.  It was early, about eight a.m. and I'd just gotten out of bed when the phone rang.  At the time I was living on the Upper West Side near Amsterdam and 74th.  A buddy of mine called and said, "I'm standing at my window right now watching Muhammad Ali walk into a diner."  He lived across the street.  He knew, of course, of my lifelong fascinaion with Ali.  I didn't hesitate.  I threw on some jeans and a t-shirt, ran out of the apartment and grabbed the first cab I could flag downtown.  By the time I got there, word had already spread and there was a small crowd of maybe ten or twelve people sort of standing in line to meet him.  He was at a table with two other Black Muslims, complete with fez and colored outfits, eating some scrambled eggs and chatting amicably with the next person in line to meet him.  The owner of the diner wasn't too thrilled to have people just standing around not eating in his little joint and was sort of trying to shoo everyone out.  But after a couple of minutes I got to close enough to Ali to say something.  Parkinson's Syndrome had not yet had a chance to entirely rob him of his physical dignity.  His hands shook a little and he spoke very softly, but he was not incapacitated by any means.  Like most people, I was startled at his sheer size.  Because Ali had impounded himself in the collective mind of the public as a jester, a humorist, yes, an underdog, I think people expect him to be smaller than he is.  He's a big man with very big hands.  I intended to ask him about George Foreman's comeback (George was just beginning his long march back to the title, at the time) but instead surprised myself by saying, "I wanted you to know how much you've meant to me over the years.  I grew up in an abusive home and you were a way to escape that." To this day I have no conveivable idea why that came out of my mouth, even though it was true.  My voice had cracked a little at the end.  I didn't plan it.  It just came out that way.  He stopped eating for a moment and put his fork down and turned to look at me.  He, too, somehow intuitively realized I was experiencing a watershed personal moment.  He didn't say anything, just looked at me.  I said, "You were really something, Muhammad."   And then the twinkle in the eyes, the hint of a smile.  "I was, wasn't I?  I was really something."  So softly I could barely hear it.

I smiled at him a second longer and then turned and left. 

You were really something.

You are really something.

It has been a privilege to watch your life unfold.

See you tomorrow.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Ali - Part VI - The Last Image.

Muhammad Ali versus Ernie Shavers - The Final Statement.


Muhammad Ali was at last through the fires of 'The Fight of the Century' and 'The Broken Jaw Fight' and 'The Rumble in the Jungle' and finally, 'The Thrilla in Manilla.'  He now found himself in an odd position:  there was no one left to beat.  It was early 1976 the Frazier saga was over and, if one goes back and looks at The Ring Magazine Top Ten listings for that time, he had soundly and definitively beaten ALL ten of the fighters listed except for Ernie Shavers.  But Shavers was listed number eight on the list.  He was what is called a "spoiler" in the boxing biz.  A guy that fighters don't want anything to do with.  Not because he was such a great fighter; he wasn't.  But he had a rocket of a right hand and the highest knockout percentage in the heavyweight division.  Other fighters, like Jerry Quarry and Ron Lysle, tough, rough fighters, claimed Shavers had the hardest punch in the division, even harder than Foreman.  But he also carried a whole gaggle of losses on his record.  By 1976, at the age of 32, Shavers had already lost ten fights.  But he was a slugger.  A guy that could end a fight at any time.  His right cross was legendary in boxing gyms around the country.

So Ali's handlers decided to give him some easier pickings first.  He casually ran through fighters like Richard Dunn (former British Champion) and Alfredo Evanglista (Latin American Champion from Uruguay) and Jean-Pierre Coompan (Belgian Champion), beating them all without too much effort.  In fact, looking back on those fights, watching them on DVD, they allowed Ali to do what he does best: be Ali.  They're more like exciting exhibitions rather than actual contests.  Even though none of those fights are ever in doubt of who might win, they're enormously entertaining simply to see Ali show, like a magician displaying a whole trunk full of old tricks, all of his greatest hits.  One moment we see the storied left jab, right hand dangling at his side, then we see the Ali Shuffle, then he shows us the impossibly quick combinations, then he plays with his opponent, joking, talking to the crowd, playing possum and then slapping the man at will, and incredibly he seems to win the fights as good-naturedly as possible.  There is never any anger, no focus, no drama.  It is Ali on tour, saying, in effect, "Remember this one?  Here's one you might recall.  Oh, yeah, and don't forget this old trick..." 

I don't see the need to recount the 76 rubber match with Ken Norton in Yankee Stadium.  And here's why:  Norton was only a good fighter on his best day.  His great moment came in 1972 with that early shot that broke Ali's jaw.  He was not and never would be in the same league as Formean and Frazier and Ali.  While all of his fights went the distance with Ali, they were not epic fights.  Yes, they were all very close, but not because Norton was remotely of the same calibre Ali was, but because he quite simply had a style - that cross-armed, crab-like, forward shuffle - that confounded Ali.  In their trilogy of fights they faced each other over 42 rounds.  Ali won 28 of them.  And not one moment of real drama occurred.  Norton never once took the fight to Ali.

So Muhammad Ali finally faced Ernie Shavers, if for no other reason than he was the last man left to fight.  Even at 36, Ali was clearly the best fighter in the division (although there was a young, up-and-coming, straight jab artist by the name of Larry Holmes who was looking awfully good, but he was still a few years away from being taken seriously). 

The Ernie Shavers/Muhammad Ali fight itself is not one for the diary.  Ali was comfortably ahead on points going into the 15th round.  Shavers had landed some great shots (in fact, later Ali was to say, "Everytime Ernie landed it felt like a mule had kicked me." Fortunately for Ali, Shavers didn't land that many shots).  The champion had fought a smart and conservative fight.  Clinching when necessary, pulling Shavers head down when he could, staying at long range and stinging Ernie with the jab and occasionally launching those famous flurries of combination punches too fast for Shavers to get away from.  Another win from a coasting Ali.  The novels had been written, these were just short stories.  But then something inexplicable happened.

It's as if Ali knew somehow that this would be his last moment of glory in a career filled to the brim with glorious moments.  All he had to do was stay away from Ernie in that last round, coast through it, just keep him off and take the fight.  Instead, following the uneventful 14th round, he refused to sit in his corner between rounds.  He stood and stared at Shavers across the ring.  He clearly seems to be ignoring the yapping advice from his corner.  He is in his own world.  Looking back at the tapes of that fight, Ali seems to be a little disgusted with himself at that moment, although he was way ahead of Shavers on points. 

When the bell rang he went straight at Shavers, flat-footed, planted, weight forward.  And he doesn't back up.  Unbelievably, he has chosen to go toe to toe.  And so he does.  Shavers starts throwing bombs.  He lands several shattering punches to Ali's head.  He drives him across the ring.  He throws and lands a right cross that has Ali wobbling.  And instead of grabbing Shavers and clinching his way out of trouble, Ali uncharacteristically fires back.  And suddenly, halfway through the round, both men are standing stock still in the exact middle of the ring trading cannon shots.  Ali throws one and then takes one, throws one and then takes one.  Shot for shot.  No dancing, no moving, no angles, no quick, peppering jabs, no head movement, no combinations.  Just tit for tat.  And then, as the entire arena stands and screams in disbelief at the unexpected development, Ali begins to beat Shavers back.  Ernie starts backing up, he takes massive shots to the head, one to the mid-section, another to the temple, a hard right hook to the jaw.  He stops trading blows and starts covering up.  Ali is overwhelming him.  He is, amazingly, out punching the puncher.  And these arén't typical Ali stinging shots.  They're the big guns, the Howitzers, these are shots thrown from the hips, not the shoulders.  At the bell, Ernie Shavers is leaning on the ropes, gloves up, eyes glassy, head down.  He is moments from being knocked to the canvas.  He is beaten.  Beaten at his own game.  The bell rings.  Ali stays in the middle of the ring and looks around the arena.  The full house of on-hand spectators (22,000) going bat shit nuts.  He glares at the media in the first row.  He raises his arms above his head and simply stands there.  It is as though he is saying, "This is it.  This is the last of me.  I am and always have been the greatest." A look of stern defiance on his face.  This is not a portrait of the smiling, joking, poet-king of the past fifteen years, this is an unforgiving, rageful stance, a tableau of the best fighter of the era silently telling the world, 'I have beaten everyone.  There is no one left.  There is only me.'

It is the image I often think of when I picture Muhammad Ali in my mind.  His final, wordless statement to the world, a statement not about what he stood for as a political, social, historical figure of the times, but rather his final declaration of who he was as a fighter.  The best in the world.  Possibly the best there ever was.  He is, conciously or not, stating to all, you can take away everything else, you can add all you want, you can turn me into any symbol you might conjure, you can even make me the lightning rod for all that America wants in this generation, but what you can't do is say I can't fight.  

Shavers was the last of the top ten fighters left to fight.  He had beaten them all.  Sometimes twice.  He had dominated every heavyweight alive for two decades.  He stood alone at that moment in 1977 as the best fighter on the planet.  There was, literally, nothing left to prove.  In my mind, it was his finest hour.

See you tomorrow.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Ali - Part V...The Thrilla in Manilla.

Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in Manilla, October, 1975.


The most brutal, back-and-forth, kill-or-be-killed, non-stop action, nail-biting fight I've ever seen is the 'Thrilla' in Manilla' between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in the Phillipines on October first, 1975, exactly 35 years ago today.  It was Ali's last great fight, his final miracle and marked the end of Joe Frazier's fine, noble and heroic career as well.  Frazier went on to fight a few more times, but this was really his last hurrah.  And Ali had a number of challenges in front of him, too, most notably the rematch with Kenny Norton in Yankee Stadium, the loss and comeback victory to Leon Spinks and one of his finest hours, a 15th round slugfest with Ernie Shavers.

But it is the fight in Manilla that both men gave their last ounce of courage.  And, oddly, at the time no one expected it.  Both men were past their prime.  Ali, while still the fastest heavyweight in the division, was not nearly as lightning quick as he was a few years earlier.  And Frazier had taken a savage beating from George Foreman a couple of years before and hadn't quite gotten over it.

But the world wanted to see one more Ali-Frazier contest.  They wanted, one last time, to see these two men battle for heavyweight supremecy.  They wanted the rubber match. 

Frazier, as I outlined in Part II of this series, had beaten Ali fair and square in their first encounter in Madison Square Garden in 1971.  He'd ended the night and the fight with a left hook from the ninth circle of Dante's Hell and deposited Ali flat on his back.  He'd taken the fight to the old poet-warrior as no one before.  And he'd done it without doubt, without second-guessing.  He'd won that fight.  Yes, Ali had gotten up, but the moment had passed.  He'd lost the fight to a better fighter that night.

In the second fight, both men were contenders.  Mighty George Foreman was the champion and both were scrambling for a title fight.  But Ali had learned his lessons well in the first battle and fought a fight specifically designed to beat Frazier.  Hold, clinch, move, circle, long range jabs, quick, end-of-round combinations.  He refused to fight Frazier's fight.  He adapted to Frazier's tank-like style and won the unanimous decision.

Following that he'd beaten the unbeatable George Foreman (See Part IV) in one of the most unusual and exciting fights of the century, The Rumble in the Jungle.  So here it is, 1975, and Ali is once again at the top of the pile, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.  And the truth is, as Ali later admitted, he didn't want the third fight with Frazier.  He'd already had 27 brutal rounds with him and didn't relish the idea of 15 more.  Frazier had the perfect style to confound Ali.  Head down, no retreat, get in close, hammer the body, stay low.  That's why I think the oft-asked question about Tyson in his prime and Ali in his prime is so interesting to me.  Tyson was essentially a bigger, stronger, faster, more savage version of Joe Frazier.  He would have given Ali fits.  I still think Ali would have found a way to beat him, that was Ali's remarkable gift as a fighter - much more so than his speed - but it would not have been easy.  It would have been a war.  But I think the deciding factor would have been psychological.  Tyson never took pre-fight banter very well.  His temper nearly always got the best of him.  And having said that, can you IMAGINE what Ali would have said to and about Tyson leading up to the fight?  Tyson would have been too enraged to fight a smart fight by that point and I truly believe Ali would have picked him apart because of it.

But back to Frazier and Ali.  The final battle.  The Armegeddon of boxing.  The Holy War of pugilism.  The last and final measure of these men.

In the pre-fight build-up Ali was even more caustic than the first time.  He called Frazier every name in the book, 'gorilla' being the one that stuck in Frazier's craw the most.  He called his children ugly.  He berated his wife.  Ali had an impish, almost evil side to him and it came out now.  As Red Smith, the great sports writer wrote, "Frazier didn't want to just win the fight, he didn't just want the title back, he wanted Ali's heart."

As I said, no one really expected the fight to be great.  Ali was 33 and Frazier was 31, ancient by boxing standards.  Ali had clearly lost his god-like speed and Frazier was not the juggernaut he once was...Foreman had taken that out of him.  It didn't figure to be too exciting.

From the opening bell, Ali took the fight to Joe Frazier.  He knew from experience that Joe was a slow starter.  History indicated that if Frazier could be caught early, before he had a chance to really get warmed up, he could be stopped.  And Ali, contrary to his usual style, tried to end it at the outset.  He went out and tried to knock Frazier out before he could find his range. 

So, not surprisingly, the first five rounds belong overwhelmingly to Ali.  He sets his feet, comes down off his toes, plants his 6'3", 218 lbs, and throws every shot in his arsenal.  In those first five rounds he hit Frazier with shots that would take a barn down.  He hammered Frazier's head and eyes relentlessly.  And in the third and fourth rounds it looks like a mismatch.  It is a startling display of organized fury.  Frazier can't find his pace, he is off guard, he can't get to Ali, and he takes bomb after bomb straight on the chin.  Ali seems to be channeling his younger self at times.  He throws some of the most perfect, pin point accurate shots of his career.  In short, he seems to be pummeling the hapless Frazier.  It is frightening to watch.

But in the sixth, Frazier finally finds his rhythm.  And all of a sudden, we have a real fight.  He begins to cut the ring off (the only way to fight Ali when he's on his game), to land crushing left hooks to the body, to set the pace.  He starts making Ali fight his fight, trading shots without fear or quarter. 

And it is then that the two men dig inside themselves and refuse to lay down.  At that moment, the sixth round, both fighters make a silent pledge to themselves to either die or win.  The next 8 rounds are magnificent, the finest display of boxing I've ever seen.  At one moment Ali appears to be in trouble as Frazier bludgeons him all around the ring.  A minute passes and Ali tees off at long range, stinging and cutting Frazier with impossible combinations.  I have never seen anything like it before or since.

But in the 13th round things begin to change.  And the reason is simple: Ali is blinding Frazier.  Literally.  Joe's eyes are shutting from the ceaseless pounding around them.  He's having trouble seeing Ali.  And if he can't see Ali he can't get away from the punches.  Both men are beyond exhaustion.  Ali later said, "It's the closest to dying I've ever come."  Even Frazier, after the fight, says uncharacteristically, "Lawdy, Lawdy, Lawdy, he's a great champion."

As the 13th wears on, Ali begins to punch with impunity.  Nearly every shot lands.  Frazier has had to stand up and fight, a posture he's not familiar with, because he can't see from his usual crouch.  He thus becomes a perfect target for Ali's style. 

The 14th round is almost painful to watch.  Ali is picking Frazier apart.  The blinded Frazier keeps coming forward, never retreating, never backing up, and Ali treats him like a training bag.  Blood is flowing freely from cuts around Frazier's eyes.  His left eye is completely shut and his right is a mere slit.  And he keeps coming.  He keeps walking straight into Ali's sniper fire.  It's beautiful and tragic and ugly and perfect and inhuman. I have never seen more 'heart' from a fighter than Joe Frazier exhibited that night in the 14th round in Manilla 35 years ago this month.

Between rounds 14 and 15 will go down in boxing lore.  In the films of the fight, one can clearly see Ali holding his gloves out to Angelo Dundee, his trainer, and mouthing the words, "Cut them off." Dundee refuses to do so.  Later, Ali says he told Dundee, "I can't go back out there.  I can't fight that man anymore."

In the other corner, Frazier's corner, Eddie Futch, Frazier's long-time close friend and trainer, is moving his index finger around in front of Joe's face.  Frazier can't see it.  He tries to get up, to rise off his stool and move toward Ali.  Futch stops him.  Physically pushes him back on the stool.  He says, "This is over.  No one will ever forget what you did here tonight.  But it's over."

Literally moments before Ali can quit, Frazier's handlers toss a small, white towel into the middle of the ring signalling the end of the fight.  Frazier is blind and Ali is spent.  But the contest was over.  Frazier had lost by TKO.  And that's what's listed in the record books: Ali - W - TKO - 15.  But it doesn't begin to tell the story.  It doesn't begin to tell the story of 42 minutes of the most astounding boxing ever witnessed.  Ali had regained his title.  The two men never fought again.  That was the last sound of the cannons.

Ali said, later that night, "If I ever have to fight a Holy War, I want Joe Frazier at my side."

Frazier said, "I hit him with shots that would take down the walls of Jericho.  He just wouldn't fall.  He's the greatest fighter I've ever seen."  Frazier, who still today hates Ali, would later deny he said that.  But cameras recorded it minutes after the fight in his dressing room.  He said it and he meant it.

Joe Frazier spent ten days in the hospital.  Muhammad Ali spent six days in the hospital.  Ali couldn't walk for two weeks, actually used a wheelchair privately, because of the massive and damaging blows he took to his hips and kidneys.  Frazier wore two eyepatches for four days.  His vision never fully recovered.   Ali's hands were so swollen he couldn't even feed himself for days.  Frazier was officially diagnosed with a concussion.

A terrible and awesome night.

The best fight I've ever seen.

See you tomorrow.

Friday, October 1, 2010

First day of shooting.


Setting up a shot.  Tedious.


I just finished doing some of the exterior shots for a new film called "Solution."  Unfortunately, I'm not at liberty to say more about it because of a paper I signed saying I couldn't.  And they take that very seriously, I'm told.  It's fairly SOP.  Which is fine.  This weekend we start on some of the interior shots, most of the dialogue stuff I have, etc.  Also knocked out a couple of close-up shots.  And when I say 'close up,' I mean close up.  Wide lens, about five inches from my face, REALLY close up.  But having done that much on it, I have some thoughts.

I'm doing a large supporting role, a bad guy (which is always more fun), and, everything being equal, I'm always shocked at what film and television pays as opposed to live theatre.  I guess I shouldn't be by now but for some reason it always catches me off guard.  "You wanna pay me HOW MUCH to do WHAT?"

As most actors know, the ones that have done both film and TV, that is, camera work is just tedious, for the most part.  The greatest asset a film actor can have is the ability to muster his concentration very quickly when it's needed.  One sits around waiting for the light to be right, or the cameras to be moved, or the APM to move the extras around and give them their marks, or continuity to remind one of what just happened, or the director to see the shots he just did, or the wardrobe and make-up people to get an actor physically exactly right after the last take, or any number of things and then all of a sudden one is back to 'one,' that is to say, the first position of the shot, and then, very quickly, one is in the middle of the scene again.  The trick, I'm discovering, is not to waste concentration on the shots that don't require it.  The old adage, "Save it for the close-up," is very true, indeed. 

I had a conversation with a friend of mine, someone you'd recognize instantly from television if you saw his face, about camera versus stage work a little while back.  Like most people who do almost excusively camera work, he insisted it was 'the hardest kind of acting.'  And for a certain type of actor, I suppose that could be true.  I'm treading on a delicate subject matter here for some actors, so I'm choosing my words carefully, but I think if an actor has the ability to immediately immerse himself in his imagination, it's not so demanding.  If the actor, on the other hand, has to work himself up to a fevered pitch before the word, 'action,' I suppose it could be really difficult.  A buddy of mine did a film with the late Jason Robards, an actors' actor if ever there was one, and he said Mr. Robards was once listening to the director go on and on about a scene he was about to start when Robards cut him off and just said, "Oh, for Christ sake, just tell me what you want, the happy face or the sad face."

So yesterday I had about five hours of filming right smack dab in the middle of downtown Los Angeles in front of a seedy hotel.  We were really only trying to nail one shot, that of me rounding a corner with a large group of pedestrians (the film is set in NYC), breaking off from the crowd, walking to a newstand, telling the old guy in the kiosk to give me a newpaper, being a bit snotty to him, glancing at the paper, seeing something I don't like, and then moving on.  For something like that, which will take about 15 to 20 seconds, probably less, in the film, we did 'coverage' shots, 'medium' shots, 'two angle' shots, two 'over the shoulder' shots and finally several close-ups.  The camera was following me closely, but there were still somewhere between 50 or 60 extras in the shot, too.  The streets were closed off and the LAPD was redircting traffic.  Once, right in the middle of a long 'tracking' shot, that is to say, the camera on a dolly and moving backwards while I walked down the sidewalk with about thirty extras carefully choreographed to pop in and out of the scene all around me, a car about a block way crossed the intersection, slowed down a bit, and the driver stared curiously at what was going on.  Cut.  Do it again.  The PD talked to the cops a block away, instructions were re-given, the extras all had to do it again and again to make sure they had their exact marks, I stepped back inside the seedy hotel to have a bottle of water (remember it was about 105 yesterday in LA), and after an eternity, was called back out to do it again.  And again.  And again.  And again. 

There was a crane there, too, so the director could get one quick shot from above me.  So every time they did the 'from above' shot or whatever it's called, the crane had to be carefully choreographed. 

Anyway, none of this is new stuff to anyone who's ever been on a film set.  Personally, I haven't been on a lot of film sets, a few but none as large-scale as this one, and I was reminded all over of how easily it would be to simply stop caring.  I've heard stories of early DeNiro never breaking character over a two month shoot, of other actors sitting off camera and working themselves into a silent, angst-ridden frenzy for the next shot, of all sorts of tricks to get 'into the moment' before the camera rolls.  I'm a little in awe of that sort of behavior.  One, because unless the scene is really, really emotionally demanding, I don't see the point, and two, because they rarely are.  Yes, of course, if you're Meryl Streep and you're filming the 'choice' scene in Sophie's Choice, by all means, yes, do what needs to be done. 

In any event, after getting the coverage shots that were needed, there was a close-up that had to be shot.  In this particular case, it was a non-speaking close-up, just a reaction shot, really, and the director simply put the camera, quite literally, in my face and said things like, "Look slightly to your left.  Now right." And that was that.  Then he would go inside and watch those shots, come back out and do it again.  As I said, tedious.  Very tedious.  Mostly, in cases like this, I am concerned with making the extras do it again, knowing how tired they must be.  A friend of mine called me yesterday and said, "to hell with the extras, they're getting good money to stand there."  Perhaps so, but not if it's 105 in the shade.  That's not good money, regardless of what you're doing.

So this weekend we move to a studio in the Glendale/Burbank area for a scene in an office.  I have to get a bit angry and contemptuous in the scene and, most likely, will be told to shout.  Fine.  I like to think I'm fairly adjustable as an actor, generally speaking, and won't have a problem finding the why's and wherefor's of the directed anger in the scene.  Motivation, most of the time, is another word for, 'Í'm not very good at this'.'

In any event, the upshot of all this is to simply say, I disagree with my friend.  Cordially so.  I admit, I'm not a camera actor by training.  It's not what I've spent a lifetime learning to do.  But what I HAVE spent a lifetime learning to do is quickly and totally envelop myself in my imagination.  Regardless what acting teachers may say, the primary difference between doing it for film and doing it for stage is the amount of time involved.  There is no such thing as 'over acting' and 'under acting,' there is only honesty and dishonesty.  For the camera it takes total concentration and focus for seconds, sometimes minutes at a time.  For stage it takes two hours plus, with no break.  For the camera, one has only to ignore that it's even there while at the same time remembering that it IS there and for the stage the same is true of the audience (unless one is doing a comedy and then all rules are off, but that's another story).  The trick, for either venue, is the ability to immediately grasp the inner life of the character instantly and not just 'pretend' something is happening.  Rather employ the mind-set that it IS actually happening at that very second, that very instant. 

This probably sounds like a lot of gobbledy-gook to the non-actor.  And I'm sure it sounds like that to some actors, too.  And maybe, just maybe, some day I'll be on set and discover that I'm completely and absolutely wrong in everything I've just written.  If and when that day comes, I promise to admit it immediately.  But here's the thing, I think a lot of actors that make their living exclusively from camera work actually feel bad that they're making so damn much money doing it.  So they invent scenarios about how difficult it is to 'get inside the character,' or to 'emotionally' rake themselves over the coals to find a moment.  All of that is fine and honestly, I do respect it.  And I also have to admit to times when that would be true.  For example, watching Brando in Last Tango in Paris, where so much of the dialogue was deeply personal and improvised, THEN I can imagine the work being almost impossibly emotional.  But 99 percent of the time, Spencer Tracy was dead on target when he said, "Just remember your lines and try not to bump into the furniture."

In the final analysis, there's a reason, aside from the astronomical amount of money involved, that most camera actors don't do stage work.  And it's not popular to utter it.  The reason is this:  it's too hard.

On a personal note, Angie and I are getting married on October 10. 2010, in a little chapel in Sherman Oaks.  A private ceremoney with a few very close friends.  After that a catered dinner at the old homestead for a lot of people we both know out here in LA.  Since I'm so busy these days, our honeymoon will most likely be a night at the bowling alley down the street.  That's a joke.  Yes, it is.  It's a joke. 

When things slow down a bit, maybe we'll take Franny and Zooey and just head out in an RV and see some sights.  Who knows.  Life, unlike film and stage acting, has no rules.  We can do anything we want.  Just don't take it so seriously.  That's a pretty good thing to adhere to whether it's acting OR living, I think.

See you tomorrow.