This is our last weekend of The Interlopers, the play I've been doing by Gary Lennon the past six weeks or so in downtown LA at The Bootleg Theatre. I've enjoyed myself with this one. For one thing, I have a rather smallish role in it. So, and this probably sounds awful, the pressure was off. Instead it fell upon two wonderful young actors, Diarra Kilpatrick and Trevor Peterson, to carry the piece. Remember those names. You'll be hearing them again soon, mark my words.
It was also a great experience because of the level of talent involved. To the layman this might not sound so important, but trust me, it is. Working with like-minded professionals is far rarer than one might imagine and it is pure bliss. (Did you say bliss?) RD Call (who will be doing one of my pieces in the future, I have no doubt), Tara Karsian (the anchor of our production...hm...maybe not the ANCHOR...that sounds...well...anyway, she's been delightful), Leandro Cana, Paul Elia, Daryl Stephens and Ralph Cole, Jr. I really can't say enough. Consumate pros, one and all. And very, very good at what they do. And of course, our fearless leader, Jim Fall, who took the script and breathed life into it with some deeply felt direction. Outstanding work.
But it's time to move on to the next adventure, which appears to be a writing project. A new play we'll be workshopping at The Old Globe next month. More about that as it unfolds. I will say this, however...it's gonna be a barn burner. And personally, I love a good burning barn in my life.
It's always a little sad to close a show that's so much fun to do. And, as I've said before, it's not a common sentiment. I've discovered over the last 100+ plays I've done that the opposite is usually true. By the time the show closes everyone is chomping at the bit to get on to the next project. This one, The Interlopers, is the exception to the rule. We, all of us, love doing this piece and what's more, we love working with one another. I shall be a little glum to see it's passing.
Next week I'm part of a talented cast of actors doing an invited audience reading of a new screenplay called USED BOOKS at Elephant Stages here in LA. The script is from Jeremy Dylan Lanni and it stars the perrenial actor Powers Boothe (I've long been an admirer of his work) and Edie McClurg (one of the funniest actresses working today). I look forward to it. It's a gentle and funny script. A quirky piece, sort of along the lines of the film SIDEWAYS in terms of the style of humor.
After that, Angie and I are heading down for the GALA OPENING of my buddy Hershey Felder's new show BERNSTEIN about, well, Leonard Bernstein. He's opening it at The Old Globe in San Diego so Angie and I will kill two birds and also catch up with her brother, Kenny, and his family while there. I love San Diego so it should be fun. Who knows, maybe we'll even get the time to go to the zoo. The last time I visited the San Diego Zoo (one of the best in the world) was 1984. I'm due for another visit.
And some filming coming up when I get back. More on that as it unfolds.
"There's nothing more satisfying than a good plan," as Gus McCrae says in one of my favorite books, Lonesome Dove. Well, we gots some good plans. It's all good, Dude.
See you tomorrow.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
'Wait for Father to get Home.'
Over the years I think parents, particularly wily, scheming, plotting parents, have learned that for a child, waiting for punishment is infinitely more effective than actual punishment. It's a tried and true old behavioral adjustment technique used the world over by parents who well might have trained with the CIA's Black Ops Division. It's also a trick used by millions of grade school teachers over the centuries.
It's a simple, yet singularly savage, approach to punishment: simply make the child wait for his or her consequences. For example, let's say a dish is broken by careless behavior at nine in the morning. Okay. Instead of punishing the child at that time, tell the child he's going to have to wait for 'his father to get home' at five in the afternoon to receive his or her punishment. It's worse than waterboarding.
Anyone in the recorded history of time who has had to wait for his or her 'father to get home' knows the anguish involved. It's utterly terrifying. Impossibly nerve-wracking. A long, seemingly endless walk up the gallow steps. Far, far worse than actual punishment. For the mind embellishes. Oh, yes it does. It conjures up ghastly images of a come-uppence so severe, so shockingly inhuman, as to incapacitate. An entire day of imagined horror to come. If the Spanish Inquisition had discovered this technique, the entire world might be Catholic right now. All they had to do was arrest a non-believer, a heathen, strap them to a table and lean down and whisper quietly in the religious renegade's ear, 'wait till your father gets home.'
This past weekend we had what came to be called 'Carmageddon' here in Los Angeles. The city was tearing down some old bridge that crossed the 405 (LA's most populous freeway) and the road was going to be shut down for some 60 hours or so. The local press and television channels (LA's local television news is like watching a high school assembly - it's just shockingly unprofessional) were predicting a catastrophe of epic proportions: cars backed up for 20 or 25 miles on the other freeways trying to get to where they were going. Our smarmy mayor, who would feel right at home on a used car lot, was all over the television warning of massive backups, half-day travel times, crazed commuters running naked and bleeding in the streets, car pool travelers throwing themselves off waterfalls, arrogant drivers, refusing to stay at home but instead out driving around for no reason at all, causing a system-wide breakdown of civilization itself. We, the sensible few left in the City of Angels, held our breath all week, making incredibly complicated plans as to how to get out of our driveway, hoarding water bottles for the long and dusty hike over the Hollywood Hills that we might have to make to get to the dentist.
It was the large-scale version of 'wait till your father gets home.'
Well, as everyone knows by now, it was a bust. Nothing happened. People traveled normally, without any fuss whatsoever. Streets were, if possible, even less crowded than usual. No one was disturbed in the least.
And that's the way it is. Waiting for the consequences has always been far worse than the actual consequences. It's the story of my life. And it usually takes years and years for someone to come to grips with this age-old truth; it certainly did me.
I have learned (I'd like to think, anyway) a valuable and stress-solving maxim as I morphed slowly, ever so slowly, into an adult: deal with problems as they come. Don't wait until they become so large, so impossibly gargantuan in my mind, that they are virtually overwhelming. My mind is my worst and most treacherous enemy a lot of the time. It's a dangerous place to go sashaying about alone. It has the ability to make monstrous mountains from the smallest, nearly invisible molehills. It lives forever in that childish terror of waiting for father to get home.
For people like me, the 'immediate apology technique' is not only helpful, it is sometimes life-saving. It has become my ace-in-the-hole for stressful situations. And it's so easy and simple that the logic flies in the face of reality. Try it. It costs absolutely nothing, and what's more, you don't even have to mean it. Sincerity is helpful but not necessary. "I'm sorry." That's it. That's the long and short of it. That's the secret to a sane life, possibly the first step to wisdom. "I'm sorry." Doesn't matter what it is. Some moron slams his cart into yours at the grocery store: "I'm sorry." Your boss, in a fit of unreasonable fear, yells at you in front of your co-workers: "I'm sorry." Your daughter or mother or best friend or colleague doesn't talk to you for several weeks because of some imagined slight: "I'm sorry."
It is the unwritten commandment. "I'm sorry." And here's the cool thing: it costs nothing. Nothing at all. An expulsion of breath. A quick muttering. A blip of honesty. And the truth is, we usually ARE sorry. Perhaps not for what we did but for what we caused, however minor, however insignificant.
And another added benefit is this: it makes you popular. People love to be apologized to. Makes their day. Gives them a lift.
Today I'm going to try and slip it into every conversation I have. "I'm sorry." No matter where I am, what I'm talking about, who I'm talking to..."I'm sorry." I'll let you know how it goes.
See you tomorrow.
It's a simple, yet singularly savage, approach to punishment: simply make the child wait for his or her consequences. For example, let's say a dish is broken by careless behavior at nine in the morning. Okay. Instead of punishing the child at that time, tell the child he's going to have to wait for 'his father to get home' at five in the afternoon to receive his or her punishment. It's worse than waterboarding.
Anyone in the recorded history of time who has had to wait for his or her 'father to get home' knows the anguish involved. It's utterly terrifying. Impossibly nerve-wracking. A long, seemingly endless walk up the gallow steps. Far, far worse than actual punishment. For the mind embellishes. Oh, yes it does. It conjures up ghastly images of a come-uppence so severe, so shockingly inhuman, as to incapacitate. An entire day of imagined horror to come. If the Spanish Inquisition had discovered this technique, the entire world might be Catholic right now. All they had to do was arrest a non-believer, a heathen, strap them to a table and lean down and whisper quietly in the religious renegade's ear, 'wait till your father gets home.'
This past weekend we had what came to be called 'Carmageddon' here in Los Angeles. The city was tearing down some old bridge that crossed the 405 (LA's most populous freeway) and the road was going to be shut down for some 60 hours or so. The local press and television channels (LA's local television news is like watching a high school assembly - it's just shockingly unprofessional) were predicting a catastrophe of epic proportions: cars backed up for 20 or 25 miles on the other freeways trying to get to where they were going. Our smarmy mayor, who would feel right at home on a used car lot, was all over the television warning of massive backups, half-day travel times, crazed commuters running naked and bleeding in the streets, car pool travelers throwing themselves off waterfalls, arrogant drivers, refusing to stay at home but instead out driving around for no reason at all, causing a system-wide breakdown of civilization itself. We, the sensible few left in the City of Angels, held our breath all week, making incredibly complicated plans as to how to get out of our driveway, hoarding water bottles for the long and dusty hike over the Hollywood Hills that we might have to make to get to the dentist.
It was the large-scale version of 'wait till your father gets home.'
Well, as everyone knows by now, it was a bust. Nothing happened. People traveled normally, without any fuss whatsoever. Streets were, if possible, even less crowded than usual. No one was disturbed in the least.
And that's the way it is. Waiting for the consequences has always been far worse than the actual consequences. It's the story of my life. And it usually takes years and years for someone to come to grips with this age-old truth; it certainly did me.
I have learned (I'd like to think, anyway) a valuable and stress-solving maxim as I morphed slowly, ever so slowly, into an adult: deal with problems as they come. Don't wait until they become so large, so impossibly gargantuan in my mind, that they are virtually overwhelming. My mind is my worst and most treacherous enemy a lot of the time. It's a dangerous place to go sashaying about alone. It has the ability to make monstrous mountains from the smallest, nearly invisible molehills. It lives forever in that childish terror of waiting for father to get home.
For people like me, the 'immediate apology technique' is not only helpful, it is sometimes life-saving. It has become my ace-in-the-hole for stressful situations. And it's so easy and simple that the logic flies in the face of reality. Try it. It costs absolutely nothing, and what's more, you don't even have to mean it. Sincerity is helpful but not necessary. "I'm sorry." That's it. That's the long and short of it. That's the secret to a sane life, possibly the first step to wisdom. "I'm sorry." Doesn't matter what it is. Some moron slams his cart into yours at the grocery store: "I'm sorry." Your boss, in a fit of unreasonable fear, yells at you in front of your co-workers: "I'm sorry." Your daughter or mother or best friend or colleague doesn't talk to you for several weeks because of some imagined slight: "I'm sorry."
It is the unwritten commandment. "I'm sorry." And here's the cool thing: it costs nothing. Nothing at all. An expulsion of breath. A quick muttering. A blip of honesty. And the truth is, we usually ARE sorry. Perhaps not for what we did but for what we caused, however minor, however insignificant.
And another added benefit is this: it makes you popular. People love to be apologized to. Makes their day. Gives them a lift.
Today I'm going to try and slip it into every conversation I have. "I'm sorry." No matter where I am, what I'm talking about, who I'm talking to..."I'm sorry." I'll let you know how it goes.
See you tomorrow.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Last Tango in Los Angeles: That Way There Be Dragons.
Last Tango in Los Angeles: That Way There Be Dragons.: "Sometimes I think it helpful to step back for a second and look at things. A blog, by its very nature, is somewhat egocentric, I think, so ..."
That Way There Be Dragons.
Sometimes I think it helpful to step back for a second and look at things. A blog, by its very nature, is somewhat egocentric, I think, so I thought I'd try and take a clear-eyed view of things for a second. It is easy in this town to lose sight of the strides forward one makes and just as easy to self-flagellate and get frustrated. I had a conversation with a young actor yesterday and he was very concerned with the lack of what he perceived to be his 'inability to get noticed.'
I guess it is important to be 'noticed,' although I'm not altogether sure what getting 'noticed' means. Does it mean people with greenlighting (a term I often hear in LA) abilities see you? People with the wherewithal to snatch you from obscurity and place you in a spotlight like a latter day version of what's-her-name being discovered in Schwabb's drugstore sipping a malted? I don't know. In fact, I'm not even sure what a 'malted' is.
But I do know this. Some people exude, simply radiate, good 'energy' and others, well, don't. When I first got to LA, I got involved, somewhat accidentally, with a couple of people who ran a 'pay to act' theatre company. In the end, it all worked out quite nicely for me because I got a much needed chance to get my writing seen in LA which otherwise would have been a bit more difficult. LA is like NYC in that many are of the mind that if you didn't do it in LA...you didn't do it. Nothing to get all sassy about, it just is. So best to embrace that rather than resent it.
So I got involved with this 'pay to act' company and immediately got a false impression of the artistic climate of Los Angeles. It was (and I imagine still is) a rather creepy and autocratic way to get things done and seen. The theatre company was tied up in a strange way with religion, a skewed kind of religion, but religion nonetheless. And the more loyal one was to the religion, the more apt one was to become a mover and shaker in the theatre wing of this 'pay to act' company. Of course, I had no other experience to compare it to in Los Angeles, so I thought, well, maybe this is how it's done. It IS LA, after all. That was over a year ago, though, and the other night I had dinner with my buddy, Joe, who has been in LA for about 20 years, slugging it out in the trenches of theatre and film, and he said, "You know, I was a little scared for you at first 'cause you got involved with those guys and everyone knows they're not 'quite right.'" My friend, Joe, is diplomatic.
Now, I've always held organized religion, ANY religion, in the lowest possible esteem. I see virtually nothing positive about it. It is, in my view, simply a way to widen the gap between 'us' and 'them.' A way to fill a lack of self worth through a mob mentality of exclusion. All religion, even the wacky kind often glorified in Los Angeles, fits snuggly into the clinical definition of a cult. And there I was, in the very midst of it, seconds away from purchasing my ticket to Guyana. Now, of course, I'm being sarcastic, but you get my drift. Religion and theatre are, by their very nature, enemies.
So it took me awhile but I managed to grasp a low-hanging branch and pull myself out of that spiritual quicksand. Now I look back at it and shudder with the knowledge of my own ignorance.
And I harbor no animosity toward the experience. Maybe a little amused at my own naivety, but no animosity.
It was unfortunate that that was my introduction into the performing world of Los Angeles, but ultimately a good thing, I think. Because after that everything else seemed simply glorious.
The thing is, and I was thinking on this after my conversation with the young actor yesterday, ultimately the truth wins out. The metaphorical cream always rises to the top. All great truths are simple, as Tolstoy wrote.
It is best to see the signs and heed them, I told him. See the signs the mind posts, the signs saying, 'That way there be dragons.' In other words, best to rely on the instincts and good judgement one learns in life before one gets to this skewed world of Los Angeles. In the end, regardless of what one might hear, weird is still weird. But it is easy not to think something is weird if enough people tell you it is not. And even though I tried very hard to think of that first theatre experience as 'not weird' I couldn't silence the small voice inside that kept demanding that it was. And of course, it was. I was just too eager to think it wasn't. I wanted to be 'part of something.' I wanted to 'fit in.' I wanted, very badly, to think someone else's opinion held more gravity than my own. And that, always, always, always, is simply not the case and never will be; my opinion may be unpopular, but it is ultimately mine and mine alone. So, incredibly, the suggestion I 'join the church' so that I might be able to be a part of the theatre did not at the time so odd to me. Astonishingly, I almost did it.
But, as I said, it's a year later now and I've moved on to working with actual artists, people doing work for the sake of excellence, aiming toward telling new and soul-searching stories because the story deserves to be told and not because the story prepetuates the 'message' of the church.
Even today I still chuckle at the sheer lunacy of that.
So my advice to this talented young actor was to say simply 'beware.' Trust your instincts. Recognize the shams before you. They may be dressed up as opportunities, but in the end, LA is no different from anywhere else in the world - weird is still weird. Listen to that small voice inside telling you, 'this is not quite right', there is something akimbo about all of this. My work onstage and in front of a camera should not be tied in any way to someone's psuedo-spiritual journey. If it is, the work immediately ceases to be pure and becomes, in the truest sense of the word, propaganda.
Beware. That way there be dragons. Trust yourself. Trust your instincts. All great truths are simple.
These truisms are just as valid in Los Angeles as they are in Detroit or Chicago or Louisville or Dallas or New York or Mokane, Missouri.
As the play I'm doing now, The Interlopers, illustrates, all subjects are on the table and there is only one rule - redempton. Redemption in all its myriad meanings. Singular redemption, social redemption, inner redemption, moral redemption, pureness of quest, work for work's sake, truth for truth's sake, redemption inside the story itself. And, much like the founding fathers of this country understood, church and state cannot mix for one will eventually suffer and die, theatre and church also cannot mix, for one will swallow the other and the work will, inevitably, become tainted. The one thing theatre can never allow itself to do is preach to the choir. Otherwise it, too, becomes just another Wednesday night PTA meeting, another breakfast with The Rotary Club, another Sunday School class with a narrow agenda. It is the beginning of the death of creativity. And, most horrifying, it is the end of original thought.
The theatre should exist unto itself, never bowing to those intent upon using it as a newsletter, a sermon, an outlet to propagate pre-esisting, premeditated philosophy. The theatre is the great question, not the great answer. And if it ever strives to be otherwise, well, that way, indeed, there be dragons.
See you tomorrow.
I guess it is important to be 'noticed,' although I'm not altogether sure what getting 'noticed' means. Does it mean people with greenlighting (a term I often hear in LA) abilities see you? People with the wherewithal to snatch you from obscurity and place you in a spotlight like a latter day version of what's-her-name being discovered in Schwabb's drugstore sipping a malted? I don't know. In fact, I'm not even sure what a 'malted' is.
But I do know this. Some people exude, simply radiate, good 'energy' and others, well, don't. When I first got to LA, I got involved, somewhat accidentally, with a couple of people who ran a 'pay to act' theatre company. In the end, it all worked out quite nicely for me because I got a much needed chance to get my writing seen in LA which otherwise would have been a bit more difficult. LA is like NYC in that many are of the mind that if you didn't do it in LA...you didn't do it. Nothing to get all sassy about, it just is. So best to embrace that rather than resent it.
So I got involved with this 'pay to act' company and immediately got a false impression of the artistic climate of Los Angeles. It was (and I imagine still is) a rather creepy and autocratic way to get things done and seen. The theatre company was tied up in a strange way with religion, a skewed kind of religion, but religion nonetheless. And the more loyal one was to the religion, the more apt one was to become a mover and shaker in the theatre wing of this 'pay to act' company. Of course, I had no other experience to compare it to in Los Angeles, so I thought, well, maybe this is how it's done. It IS LA, after all. That was over a year ago, though, and the other night I had dinner with my buddy, Joe, who has been in LA for about 20 years, slugging it out in the trenches of theatre and film, and he said, "You know, I was a little scared for you at first 'cause you got involved with those guys and everyone knows they're not 'quite right.'" My friend, Joe, is diplomatic.
Now, I've always held organized religion, ANY religion, in the lowest possible esteem. I see virtually nothing positive about it. It is, in my view, simply a way to widen the gap between 'us' and 'them.' A way to fill a lack of self worth through a mob mentality of exclusion. All religion, even the wacky kind often glorified in Los Angeles, fits snuggly into the clinical definition of a cult. And there I was, in the very midst of it, seconds away from purchasing my ticket to Guyana. Now, of course, I'm being sarcastic, but you get my drift. Religion and theatre are, by their very nature, enemies.
So it took me awhile but I managed to grasp a low-hanging branch and pull myself out of that spiritual quicksand. Now I look back at it and shudder with the knowledge of my own ignorance.
And I harbor no animosity toward the experience. Maybe a little amused at my own naivety, but no animosity.
It was unfortunate that that was my introduction into the performing world of Los Angeles, but ultimately a good thing, I think. Because after that everything else seemed simply glorious.
The thing is, and I was thinking on this after my conversation with the young actor yesterday, ultimately the truth wins out. The metaphorical cream always rises to the top. All great truths are simple, as Tolstoy wrote.
It is best to see the signs and heed them, I told him. See the signs the mind posts, the signs saying, 'That way there be dragons.' In other words, best to rely on the instincts and good judgement one learns in life before one gets to this skewed world of Los Angeles. In the end, regardless of what one might hear, weird is still weird. But it is easy not to think something is weird if enough people tell you it is not. And even though I tried very hard to think of that first theatre experience as 'not weird' I couldn't silence the small voice inside that kept demanding that it was. And of course, it was. I was just too eager to think it wasn't. I wanted to be 'part of something.' I wanted to 'fit in.' I wanted, very badly, to think someone else's opinion held more gravity than my own. And that, always, always, always, is simply not the case and never will be; my opinion may be unpopular, but it is ultimately mine and mine alone. So, incredibly, the suggestion I 'join the church' so that I might be able to be a part of the theatre did not at the time so odd to me. Astonishingly, I almost did it.
But, as I said, it's a year later now and I've moved on to working with actual artists, people doing work for the sake of excellence, aiming toward telling new and soul-searching stories because the story deserves to be told and not because the story prepetuates the 'message' of the church.
Even today I still chuckle at the sheer lunacy of that.
So my advice to this talented young actor was to say simply 'beware.' Trust your instincts. Recognize the shams before you. They may be dressed up as opportunities, but in the end, LA is no different from anywhere else in the world - weird is still weird. Listen to that small voice inside telling you, 'this is not quite right', there is something akimbo about all of this. My work onstage and in front of a camera should not be tied in any way to someone's psuedo-spiritual journey. If it is, the work immediately ceases to be pure and becomes, in the truest sense of the word, propaganda.
Beware. That way there be dragons. Trust yourself. Trust your instincts. All great truths are simple.
These truisms are just as valid in Los Angeles as they are in Detroit or Chicago or Louisville or Dallas or New York or Mokane, Missouri.
As the play I'm doing now, The Interlopers, illustrates, all subjects are on the table and there is only one rule - redempton. Redemption in all its myriad meanings. Singular redemption, social redemption, inner redemption, moral redemption, pureness of quest, work for work's sake, truth for truth's sake, redemption inside the story itself. And, much like the founding fathers of this country understood, church and state cannot mix for one will eventually suffer and die, theatre and church also cannot mix, for one will swallow the other and the work will, inevitably, become tainted. The one thing theatre can never allow itself to do is preach to the choir. Otherwise it, too, becomes just another Wednesday night PTA meeting, another breakfast with The Rotary Club, another Sunday School class with a narrow agenda. It is the beginning of the death of creativity. And, most horrifying, it is the end of original thought.
The theatre should exist unto itself, never bowing to those intent upon using it as a newsletter, a sermon, an outlet to propagate pre-esisting, premeditated philosophy. The theatre is the great question, not the great answer. And if it ever strives to be otherwise, well, that way, indeed, there be dragons.
See you tomorrow.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Last Tango in Los Angeles: New Trails.
Last Tango in Los Angeles: New Trails.: "My wife took Simon the horse out for a ride yesterday. Simon is the new horse in our backyard. He's the culprit responsible for eating my ..."
New Trails.
My wife took Simon the horse out for a ride yesterday. Simon is the new horse in our backyard. He's the culprit responsible for eating my carefully tended corn right to the ground a couple of weeks ago. Somehow he got out of his stall and went right for my corn that I'd planted some two months ago. It was the middle of the night and his stall hadn't been secured and the corn was right there and...well, he was hungry.
Simon is a gentle horse. He's been smacked around in the herd quite a bit and has lots of bite marks around his neck (that's how horses keep each other in line, apparently...they bite each other on the neck). I know how he feels because I've got a lot of bites around my neck, too, remnants of a lifetime of getting out of line. Anyway, Simon tried at one point to buck her while crossing the swinging bridge that leads into the trails behind the equestrian center near our home. He wasn't used to being alone (without our other horse, Petrone, that is) and wandering into uncharted territories. Again, I know just how he feels.
Yesterday, I turned down a beautiful role in a very complex, intense play called 'Way to Heaven' at The Odyssey Theatre here in LA. It's where I did 'Adding Machine.' It was a tough decision, but one that had to be made. I don't like turning down roles that I like. But, as my manager pointed out to me, it is a bad time to tie myself down to a long run at this particular moment. Things are heating up considerably in the film and TV world and to take myself out of the game right now would be a very bad decision, financially and otherwise. Still, it irks me.
I have so many irons in so many different fires right now to comment on them all would be exasperatingly premature so suffice to say, the decision to not do the play was definitely the right one. Although, I must say, the play's subject matter - the Holocaust - is one particularly important to me. Back in the mid-nineties in NYC I adapted the writings of Primo Levy into a play called 'If This is a Man' which ran for quite a while at The Kraine Theatre in the East Village. Primo Levy was a Jewish, Italian chemist who survived Auschwitz and wrote several books about it subsequently.
Later this month Angie and I are heading down to The Old Globe in San Diego to workshop a new play of mine. Also we're catching our good friend, Hershey Felder, and his opening night of his new one-person show about Leonard Bernstein. Not coincidentally, Hershey is producing my new play.
But back to poor Simon and that journey over the swinging bridge into the undiscovered country of new trails leading into the bowels of Griffith Park.
I've never liked change of any sort. It's part of my chemical make-up. I like things to stay exactly the same, always. Which is an odd character flaw for a guy who has spent his life in the theatre. Everything begins and ends quickly in this business. People float in and out of my life like shadows at dusk; best friends for three months and then not a word for years. It's part of the lifestyle. Nothing to be done about it.
But I don't like it. Like many, I've discovered, especially as I get older, that I'm a creature of habit. Anything that disrupts my carefully negotiated little schedule and I begin to feel adrift. I've often thought I might have made a very good assembly line worker. I would have been, if nothing else, comfortable with that line of work. Getting up at the same time everyday, doing the same work, coming home at the same time, only now and then, perhaps on the weekends, would I venture into the world of the unplanned, the vicarious, the unexpected. And as Sunday night approached I would feel the safety of knowing that Monday would bring a re-entry into the mundane. Change, for all its brew-ha-ha, makes me nervous.
It's a Rainman kind of streak in me that I've grown satisfied with through the years. And oddly and weirdly I find myself now, at the grand old age of fifty, in a position of not having any of that premeditated comfort of sameness. I hardly ever know what's going to be my life focus from one month to the next. My passions are scattered often and relentlessly.
Fortunately, and possibly life-saving, I have my base, my home, my family (and when I say 'family' I mean the one I chose, not the one I had thrust upon me like a practical joke in particularly bad taste). No matter what swells I have to endure on that fickle ocean outside my front door, once I'm within my chosen walls, all is well again. Like Simon, I don't like swinging bridges leading into a bunch of mysterious, dusty trails that I'm not familiar with. I don't like taking roads less traveled. And I don't like knowing I have to. I want to buck a little, like Simon did, and dig my heels in and demand the same trails I've always walked. I don't like looking ahead and seeing all the different ways I might go and not having the slightest idea which one is right.
So Angie got back from her ride and told me about Simon's little episode of bucking. I asked her how she dealt with it. Did she fall off? Did she turn back? Was she scared? No, none of the above. You know what she did? She talked to Simon gently and quietly and had him walk in a circle for a little while, just a few minutes, and let him know everything was alright. Just walk in a circle for a bit and get his bearings back.
And I realized suddenly that that is exactly what she does with me. She brings me back to a place of safety and has me sofly tread about in a field in which I'm comfortable. She takes me back to the meals I like, the couch I sit on, the home and hearth I've come to know as mine. Fortunately for me, my wife understands that, like Simon, I don't like change. So she dresses change up and makes it look like something I might like. She disguises the peas and mixes them in with the potatoes. And she does it so subtly, so naturally that most of the time I don't even know I'm in the middle of change until it's nearly over. And like Simon, my fears are allayed before I have a chance to dwell on them. When I'm frightened of the unknown I am guided into a well-known emotional and mental circle all the while listening to soothing and practical advice, quietly given. And again like Simon, after a short while, I'm ready to try the new trails, the roads never traveled, the unforseen future.
I think everyone needs to do that now and then. Just slow down and maybe walk in a thin circle for just a few minutes. Be reassured that although the bridge might be swinging a bit, it's still a bridge and it still holds us up. Hear whispered encouragement about the myriad choices before us. Because those trails are not so scary, really. Not at all. We just haven't been on them yet.
See you tomorrow.
Simon is a gentle horse. He's been smacked around in the herd quite a bit and has lots of bite marks around his neck (that's how horses keep each other in line, apparently...they bite each other on the neck). I know how he feels because I've got a lot of bites around my neck, too, remnants of a lifetime of getting out of line. Anyway, Simon tried at one point to buck her while crossing the swinging bridge that leads into the trails behind the equestrian center near our home. He wasn't used to being alone (without our other horse, Petrone, that is) and wandering into uncharted territories. Again, I know just how he feels.
Yesterday, I turned down a beautiful role in a very complex, intense play called 'Way to Heaven' at The Odyssey Theatre here in LA. It's where I did 'Adding Machine.' It was a tough decision, but one that had to be made. I don't like turning down roles that I like. But, as my manager pointed out to me, it is a bad time to tie myself down to a long run at this particular moment. Things are heating up considerably in the film and TV world and to take myself out of the game right now would be a very bad decision, financially and otherwise. Still, it irks me.
I have so many irons in so many different fires right now to comment on them all would be exasperatingly premature so suffice to say, the decision to not do the play was definitely the right one. Although, I must say, the play's subject matter - the Holocaust - is one particularly important to me. Back in the mid-nineties in NYC I adapted the writings of Primo Levy into a play called 'If This is a Man' which ran for quite a while at The Kraine Theatre in the East Village. Primo Levy was a Jewish, Italian chemist who survived Auschwitz and wrote several books about it subsequently.
Later this month Angie and I are heading down to The Old Globe in San Diego to workshop a new play of mine. Also we're catching our good friend, Hershey Felder, and his opening night of his new one-person show about Leonard Bernstein. Not coincidentally, Hershey is producing my new play.
But back to poor Simon and that journey over the swinging bridge into the undiscovered country of new trails leading into the bowels of Griffith Park.
I've never liked change of any sort. It's part of my chemical make-up. I like things to stay exactly the same, always. Which is an odd character flaw for a guy who has spent his life in the theatre. Everything begins and ends quickly in this business. People float in and out of my life like shadows at dusk; best friends for three months and then not a word for years. It's part of the lifestyle. Nothing to be done about it.
But I don't like it. Like many, I've discovered, especially as I get older, that I'm a creature of habit. Anything that disrupts my carefully negotiated little schedule and I begin to feel adrift. I've often thought I might have made a very good assembly line worker. I would have been, if nothing else, comfortable with that line of work. Getting up at the same time everyday, doing the same work, coming home at the same time, only now and then, perhaps on the weekends, would I venture into the world of the unplanned, the vicarious, the unexpected. And as Sunday night approached I would feel the safety of knowing that Monday would bring a re-entry into the mundane. Change, for all its brew-ha-ha, makes me nervous.
It's a Rainman kind of streak in me that I've grown satisfied with through the years. And oddly and weirdly I find myself now, at the grand old age of fifty, in a position of not having any of that premeditated comfort of sameness. I hardly ever know what's going to be my life focus from one month to the next. My passions are scattered often and relentlessly.
Fortunately, and possibly life-saving, I have my base, my home, my family (and when I say 'family' I mean the one I chose, not the one I had thrust upon me like a practical joke in particularly bad taste). No matter what swells I have to endure on that fickle ocean outside my front door, once I'm within my chosen walls, all is well again. Like Simon, I don't like swinging bridges leading into a bunch of mysterious, dusty trails that I'm not familiar with. I don't like taking roads less traveled. And I don't like knowing I have to. I want to buck a little, like Simon did, and dig my heels in and demand the same trails I've always walked. I don't like looking ahead and seeing all the different ways I might go and not having the slightest idea which one is right.
So Angie got back from her ride and told me about Simon's little episode of bucking. I asked her how she dealt with it. Did she fall off? Did she turn back? Was she scared? No, none of the above. You know what she did? She talked to Simon gently and quietly and had him walk in a circle for a little while, just a few minutes, and let him know everything was alright. Just walk in a circle for a bit and get his bearings back.
And I realized suddenly that that is exactly what she does with me. She brings me back to a place of safety and has me sofly tread about in a field in which I'm comfortable. She takes me back to the meals I like, the couch I sit on, the home and hearth I've come to know as mine. Fortunately for me, my wife understands that, like Simon, I don't like change. So she dresses change up and makes it look like something I might like. She disguises the peas and mixes them in with the potatoes. And she does it so subtly, so naturally that most of the time I don't even know I'm in the middle of change until it's nearly over. And like Simon, my fears are allayed before I have a chance to dwell on them. When I'm frightened of the unknown I am guided into a well-known emotional and mental circle all the while listening to soothing and practical advice, quietly given. And again like Simon, after a short while, I'm ready to try the new trails, the roads never traveled, the unforseen future.
I think everyone needs to do that now and then. Just slow down and maybe walk in a thin circle for just a few minutes. Be reassured that although the bridge might be swinging a bit, it's still a bridge and it still holds us up. Hear whispered encouragement about the myriad choices before us. Because those trails are not so scary, really. Not at all. We just haven't been on them yet.
See you tomorrow.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Last Tango in Los Angeles: A Lesson in Humility.
Last Tango in Los Angeles: A Lesson in Humility.: "Yesterday I had a long rehearsal for a short film I'm shooting soon, tomorrow, in fact. It's an odd little script, but quirky and amusing. ..."
A Lesson in Humility.
Yesterday I had a long rehearsal for a short film I'm shooting soon, tomorrow, in fact. It's an odd little script, but quirky and amusing. Something I don't get to do too often on film: absurdism. It's being directed by a very nice, polite to a fault, young graduate student. He had seen another film of mine at some point and asked me to do a role in his film. We quickly got the business stuff out of the way (it's just a short film, not much time involved, so I didn't even bother to forward anything to my agents - besides, I was flattered) and set the time for filming.
But then, much to my mild irritation, he called a rehearsal. At first I said no. I hadn't agreed to a day of rehearsal. For a short film? Nah, I thought, not worth it. But he persisted. Very politely. So I finally said, okay, I'll give you a couple of hours, but not all day as he originally wanted.
So around noon yesterday I traveled over to Pasadena and sat and did a table read of the piece. I was clearly the 'ringer' for the project, brought in to play the part of the loopy, silly, antagonist in the script, the 'working pro' around the younger, fellow graduate students also asked to do the piece, being treated with entirely too much cautious respect.
And as I sat there going through the eight page script, I realized how important this was to all of them, how passionate they all were about it, how grateful they were of my participation. And I had a very clear flashback of my days in school. I had written a one-act play, not a very good one but I didn't know that back then. I was directing it myself and had obtained permission to present it one-night-only in the studio theatre at college. I cast my buddies Robert Fiedler, Jeff Cummings and Dwayne Butcher in the play, all good actors. The play was about a half hour long. I rehearsed them hours and hours for it, days in fact. We poured over it. We discussed it. We placed every line under a microscope. We dissected it. We treated it as though it were Lear, Hamlet and Othello all bound together in one play. We wore our passions on our sleeves like undisguised war wounds.
And I remembered all of this and suddenly I felt very arrogant for being such a prick about reluctantly agreeing to their rehearsal. After a bit, the young director (who also catered lunch and had sent me several emails asking what I did and didn't like so he could get exactly the right thing) said, well, I guess we've taken enough of your time. They were going to keep rehearsing, continuing to go through the script, find every comic beat, over and over. I thought about that play, that little one-act that Bob, Jeff, Dwayne and I had done back in 1983, and I said, nah, no worries, let's just keep working till we get it the way you want it. And we did.
I wish I had one tenth of the single-minded devotion these young guys have for their craft. I envied them their naivety and confidence about what they were doing. They were making Citizen Kane, The Searchers and The Godfather, they were writing the final word on films. The fire flared in their eyes as they set shots, laughed at timing, brainstormed ideas, tried different camera angles, all as if none of it had ever been done or tried before.
I finally did have to leave after a few hours, but the truth is, I would have stayed all day if I could have. To be in the center of that unbridled pureness of intent, completely devoid of cynicism, clear-eyed and certain, not ashamed to show how important this was to them. Well, it was a dose of humility. And I was the one grateful in the end. Because it made me remember when I was that age and unafraid to wear my passion openly. I had not yet suffered the slings and arrows of the oft-repeated word, NO. No one had yet to say to me, 'you can't do that.' So I didn't know I couldn't.
In my blog yesterday I lamented the idea of 'working for free.' And yes, sometimes it is necessary to say no, I'm sorry, but I don't do that. But sometimes, sometimes, as in yesterday, working for free pays for itself. It pays for itself by being allowed to breath in that idea of work for work's sake. Excellence for the sake of excellence.
Now I haven't the slightest idea if this little film will be worth anything. Doesn't matter to me. The point is we're trying, me and these idealistic, young graduate students. We found ourselves believing in something, even if for a few hours. And most importantly, I found myself transported, quite unexpectedly, back to a time in my life when the work, the work itself, was the goal, not something to 'get through' so as to justify the paycheck.
Well worth it. Indeed, a welcome and humbling trip back 28 years or so when I, too, thought nothing was impossible.
See you tomorrow.
But then, much to my mild irritation, he called a rehearsal. At first I said no. I hadn't agreed to a day of rehearsal. For a short film? Nah, I thought, not worth it. But he persisted. Very politely. So I finally said, okay, I'll give you a couple of hours, but not all day as he originally wanted.
So around noon yesterday I traveled over to Pasadena and sat and did a table read of the piece. I was clearly the 'ringer' for the project, brought in to play the part of the loopy, silly, antagonist in the script, the 'working pro' around the younger, fellow graduate students also asked to do the piece, being treated with entirely too much cautious respect.
And as I sat there going through the eight page script, I realized how important this was to all of them, how passionate they all were about it, how grateful they were of my participation. And I had a very clear flashback of my days in school. I had written a one-act play, not a very good one but I didn't know that back then. I was directing it myself and had obtained permission to present it one-night-only in the studio theatre at college. I cast my buddies Robert Fiedler, Jeff Cummings and Dwayne Butcher in the play, all good actors. The play was about a half hour long. I rehearsed them hours and hours for it, days in fact. We poured over it. We discussed it. We placed every line under a microscope. We dissected it. We treated it as though it were Lear, Hamlet and Othello all bound together in one play. We wore our passions on our sleeves like undisguised war wounds.
And I remembered all of this and suddenly I felt very arrogant for being such a prick about reluctantly agreeing to their rehearsal. After a bit, the young director (who also catered lunch and had sent me several emails asking what I did and didn't like so he could get exactly the right thing) said, well, I guess we've taken enough of your time. They were going to keep rehearsing, continuing to go through the script, find every comic beat, over and over. I thought about that play, that little one-act that Bob, Jeff, Dwayne and I had done back in 1983, and I said, nah, no worries, let's just keep working till we get it the way you want it. And we did.
I wish I had one tenth of the single-minded devotion these young guys have for their craft. I envied them their naivety and confidence about what they were doing. They were making Citizen Kane, The Searchers and The Godfather, they were writing the final word on films. The fire flared in their eyes as they set shots, laughed at timing, brainstormed ideas, tried different camera angles, all as if none of it had ever been done or tried before.
I finally did have to leave after a few hours, but the truth is, I would have stayed all day if I could have. To be in the center of that unbridled pureness of intent, completely devoid of cynicism, clear-eyed and certain, not ashamed to show how important this was to them. Well, it was a dose of humility. And I was the one grateful in the end. Because it made me remember when I was that age and unafraid to wear my passion openly. I had not yet suffered the slings and arrows of the oft-repeated word, NO. No one had yet to say to me, 'you can't do that.' So I didn't know I couldn't.
In my blog yesterday I lamented the idea of 'working for free.' And yes, sometimes it is necessary to say no, I'm sorry, but I don't do that. But sometimes, sometimes, as in yesterday, working for free pays for itself. It pays for itself by being allowed to breath in that idea of work for work's sake. Excellence for the sake of excellence.
Now I haven't the slightest idea if this little film will be worth anything. Doesn't matter to me. The point is we're trying, me and these idealistic, young graduate students. We found ourselves believing in something, even if for a few hours. And most importantly, I found myself transported, quite unexpectedly, back to a time in my life when the work, the work itself, was the goal, not something to 'get through' so as to justify the paycheck.
Well worth it. Indeed, a welcome and humbling trip back 28 years or so when I, too, thought nothing was impossible.
See you tomorrow.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Last Tango in Los Angeles: Fun and Astonishment in Hollywood.
Last Tango in Los Angeles: Fun and Astonishment in Hollywood.: "www.cliffordmorts.com 'What's hard is simple. What's natural comes hard.' A lyric from Sondheim's song 'Anyone Can Whistle' and proba..."
Fun and Astonishment in Hollywood.
www.cliffordmorts.com
"What's hard is simple. What's natural comes hard."
A lyric from Sondheim's song 'Anyone Can Whistle' and probably as good a phrase as any to have carved on my tombstone.
Couple of interesting projects coming up. One is a one-night-only, invited audience to a reading of a new, comedic screenplay by Jeremy Dylan Lanni's 'Used Books.' I'll be reading about eight or nine roles in it and will share the stage with Powers Boothe and Edie McLurg, both actors I admire. Also Bruce French, Peter Jason and my buddy, Larry Cedar. Should be fun. It's a very funny script.
Powers' work as Jim Jones in a 1980 TV movie called "Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones" is still stamped permanently in my brain. Powers won an Emmy for that one and deservedly so. And Edie's work as the principal's secretary in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" still makes me laugh out loud all these years later.
On the 30th Angie and I are heading down to The Old Globe in San Diego to see our friend, Hershey Felder, open his new one-person show, 'The Art of Leonard Bernstein.' Big to-do with a formal, sit-down dinner afterwards. Angie's brother, Kenny, lives there with his family so we'll kill two birds with one stone and hang out with them for a bit, too. And being the sucker I am for a good zoo, maybe I can convince her to make a day out of that, too. The San Diego zoo is one of the best in the world, I'm told. I was last there in 1984 during a long, fun, chaotic, nihilistic trip to the west coast with a buddy of mine.
I'm shooting a short film on Monday and today get the rare opportunity to actually rehearse it for a couple of hours...a rarity when doing film. So I'll take a jaunt over to hot and beautiful Pasadena today.
Another full house last night for 'The Interlopers,' the play I'm doing for a couple more weeks at The Bootleg Theatre downtown. I must say, this cast and crew have thoroughly spoiled me. I adore them. I've mentioned this before, but it's one of those very seldom moments in the theatre when everything came together and clicked. Great actors, funny people, sensitive direction, great script, good space, satisfying experience. It just doesn't happen that often, unfortunately. I have a small role in the piece and I couldn't care less. I'm having too much fun.
I recently learned (I'm always the last to know anything) that Chaz Bono, perhaps the most famous transgender in the country at the moment, came to see the play the other night. He left quickly after the play and had some problems with the language, I'm told. Said to someone that the term 'pre-op' is not used anymore. Huh?
Other members of the transgender community have seen the play (a lot, in fact) and have had the exact opposite reaction, weeping by play's end and testifying to its authenticity. So, who knows?
Tuesday I have a callback for a Sci-Fi film that could be a lot of fun should I land it. Fingers firmly crossed. I would get to shoot a scene in a helicopter. That would be one for the diary.
I had an interesting conversation with one of my cast members last night. She told me she's 'getting itchy to do some real work again.' She was talking about film. I'm always a little surprised to hear sentiments like that. I've always felt exactly the opposite. The 'real work' for me has always been the stage. The money work has always been film. Granted, I'm a walking anachronism.
A buddy of mine, a guy who works constantly in film and TV, a very recognizable face, once took me to task for a blog I wrote over a year ago about the difference between film and stage acting. He said, "Don't slight film work, it's very, very hard. You'll realize that someday."
Well, I've done quite a bit of film work since that conversation. And I stick by my earlier assessment. Film work is a hundred times easier than stage work (gasping and wide-eyed disbelief from the peanut gallery). I realize it's very unpopular to say that in Los Angeles. Whatever. It's still true. I maintain that the difference between stage acting and film acting is tantamount to reading a novel or reading a comic book. One requires a commitment of time, thought, care, premeditation, interpretion, stamina and grit. The other requires a certain amount of luck that what you're rehearsing (essentially all film acting is rehearsal caught on camera) gets captured on celluloid (or digitally). And yet...and yet, to say out loud that stage acting is the 'real work' is met with undisguised reactions of horror not unlike saying something critical about the Catholic Church in 14th century Europe. It's just not done. It's out and out heresy. Los Angeles worships at the altar of the Great God Cinema. And rightly so. It's big business. And, to be fair, every now and then it is art. No other word for it. I defy anyone to watch, say, The Deer Hunter or Citizen Kane or The Searchers or Jaws or Cinema Paradisio or Magnolia or On the Waterfront and say that's not art. It's a group effort, yes, but the final product is art. Movies like that, as rare as the Hope Diamond, transcend the human experience. They move and provoke thought and demand opinion. They leave you a different person, for good or bad. What better definition of art? And continuing to be fair, at its very, very best, the theatre can't really even compete. But films like that are almost accidental, it seems to me. They very nearly fall under the category of the monkeys and the typewriter. Eventually, given infinity to do it, they'll write Hamlet.
Again, a very unpopular assessment in this town and one that will probably someday bite me in the ass. So be it.
I got a call yesterday, out of the blue, and this producer guy wanted me to come in and do a quick scene for a film he was doing. One scene. 'Very quick,' he said. 'No more than five minutes,' he said. No money involved. And this is a budgeted film with a few major stars attached. He just needed a pick up scene. I have no idea how he got my number. Anyway, I forwarded the request to my management company. They quickly called him on my behalf and asked about the money. He said he had none, that he was 'at the end of his budget.' He just needed a small favor.
My manager wished him luck and said no. He got agitated. Said, "I don't want to work with him anyway." What the hell? What are these guys thinking? Try that with a plumber. "Hi, listen my name is Bob and I need my plumbing fixed. It's not a big problem. Just a little toilet issue. Won't take you more than five minutes. Just a quick job. As a favor. But I can't pay you anything. I've used up my plumbing budget for the month. So if you could just take a few hours out of your day and come over and fix this toilet for free, I'd be grateful."
And THEN...and THEN...when the plumber says no, this guy gets upset. "What?! You won't fix my plumbing for free? Why, you bastard!"
Good Lord. Hollywood.
See you tomorrow.
"What's hard is simple. What's natural comes hard."
A lyric from Sondheim's song 'Anyone Can Whistle' and probably as good a phrase as any to have carved on my tombstone.
Couple of interesting projects coming up. One is a one-night-only, invited audience to a reading of a new, comedic screenplay by Jeremy Dylan Lanni's 'Used Books.' I'll be reading about eight or nine roles in it and will share the stage with Powers Boothe and Edie McLurg, both actors I admire. Also Bruce French, Peter Jason and my buddy, Larry Cedar. Should be fun. It's a very funny script.
Powers' work as Jim Jones in a 1980 TV movie called "Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones" is still stamped permanently in my brain. Powers won an Emmy for that one and deservedly so. And Edie's work as the principal's secretary in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" still makes me laugh out loud all these years later.
On the 30th Angie and I are heading down to The Old Globe in San Diego to see our friend, Hershey Felder, open his new one-person show, 'The Art of Leonard Bernstein.' Big to-do with a formal, sit-down dinner afterwards. Angie's brother, Kenny, lives there with his family so we'll kill two birds with one stone and hang out with them for a bit, too. And being the sucker I am for a good zoo, maybe I can convince her to make a day out of that, too. The San Diego zoo is one of the best in the world, I'm told. I was last there in 1984 during a long, fun, chaotic, nihilistic trip to the west coast with a buddy of mine.
I'm shooting a short film on Monday and today get the rare opportunity to actually rehearse it for a couple of hours...a rarity when doing film. So I'll take a jaunt over to hot and beautiful Pasadena today.
Another full house last night for 'The Interlopers,' the play I'm doing for a couple more weeks at The Bootleg Theatre downtown. I must say, this cast and crew have thoroughly spoiled me. I adore them. I've mentioned this before, but it's one of those very seldom moments in the theatre when everything came together and clicked. Great actors, funny people, sensitive direction, great script, good space, satisfying experience. It just doesn't happen that often, unfortunately. I have a small role in the piece and I couldn't care less. I'm having too much fun.
I recently learned (I'm always the last to know anything) that Chaz Bono, perhaps the most famous transgender in the country at the moment, came to see the play the other night. He left quickly after the play and had some problems with the language, I'm told. Said to someone that the term 'pre-op' is not used anymore. Huh?
Other members of the transgender community have seen the play (a lot, in fact) and have had the exact opposite reaction, weeping by play's end and testifying to its authenticity. So, who knows?
Tuesday I have a callback for a Sci-Fi film that could be a lot of fun should I land it. Fingers firmly crossed. I would get to shoot a scene in a helicopter. That would be one for the diary.
I had an interesting conversation with one of my cast members last night. She told me she's 'getting itchy to do some real work again.' She was talking about film. I'm always a little surprised to hear sentiments like that. I've always felt exactly the opposite. The 'real work' for me has always been the stage. The money work has always been film. Granted, I'm a walking anachronism.
A buddy of mine, a guy who works constantly in film and TV, a very recognizable face, once took me to task for a blog I wrote over a year ago about the difference between film and stage acting. He said, "Don't slight film work, it's very, very hard. You'll realize that someday."
Well, I've done quite a bit of film work since that conversation. And I stick by my earlier assessment. Film work is a hundred times easier than stage work (gasping and wide-eyed disbelief from the peanut gallery). I realize it's very unpopular to say that in Los Angeles. Whatever. It's still true. I maintain that the difference between stage acting and film acting is tantamount to reading a novel or reading a comic book. One requires a commitment of time, thought, care, premeditation, interpretion, stamina and grit. The other requires a certain amount of luck that what you're rehearsing (essentially all film acting is rehearsal caught on camera) gets captured on celluloid (or digitally). And yet...and yet, to say out loud that stage acting is the 'real work' is met with undisguised reactions of horror not unlike saying something critical about the Catholic Church in 14th century Europe. It's just not done. It's out and out heresy. Los Angeles worships at the altar of the Great God Cinema. And rightly so. It's big business. And, to be fair, every now and then it is art. No other word for it. I defy anyone to watch, say, The Deer Hunter or Citizen Kane or The Searchers or Jaws or Cinema Paradisio or Magnolia or On the Waterfront and say that's not art. It's a group effort, yes, but the final product is art. Movies like that, as rare as the Hope Diamond, transcend the human experience. They move and provoke thought and demand opinion. They leave you a different person, for good or bad. What better definition of art? And continuing to be fair, at its very, very best, the theatre can't really even compete. But films like that are almost accidental, it seems to me. They very nearly fall under the category of the monkeys and the typewriter. Eventually, given infinity to do it, they'll write Hamlet.
Again, a very unpopular assessment in this town and one that will probably someday bite me in the ass. So be it.
I got a call yesterday, out of the blue, and this producer guy wanted me to come in and do a quick scene for a film he was doing. One scene. 'Very quick,' he said. 'No more than five minutes,' he said. No money involved. And this is a budgeted film with a few major stars attached. He just needed a pick up scene. I have no idea how he got my number. Anyway, I forwarded the request to my management company. They quickly called him on my behalf and asked about the money. He said he had none, that he was 'at the end of his budget.' He just needed a small favor.
My manager wished him luck and said no. He got agitated. Said, "I don't want to work with him anyway." What the hell? What are these guys thinking? Try that with a plumber. "Hi, listen my name is Bob and I need my plumbing fixed. It's not a big problem. Just a little toilet issue. Won't take you more than five minutes. Just a quick job. As a favor. But I can't pay you anything. I've used up my plumbing budget for the month. So if you could just take a few hours out of your day and come over and fix this toilet for free, I'd be grateful."
And THEN...and THEN...when the plumber says no, this guy gets upset. "What?! You won't fix my plumbing for free? Why, you bastard!"
Good Lord. Hollywood.
See you tomorrow.
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