Reconstruction

In 1987, Will Eisner wrote, “I came to feel more keenly about the disappearances of people and landmarks. Especially troubling to me was the callous removal of buildings. I felt that, somehow, they had a kind of soul…barnacled with laughter, stained with tears, are more than lifeless edifices.”

Two days ago, I went down to the WTC site around 5pm. It was so different than it was in ’02. On that first anniversary, there were people there being respectful and mourning. The only irritation was the media shutterbugs being nuisances and snapping pictures right in your face as though you were a car or a piece of cake or some other inanimate object.

At 5pm on the 6th anniversary, there was a lot of buzz and anger. People were out shouting about how it was a conspiracy. How there was another building, 7 WTC, that went down that same day. You can’t really see into the site anymore. Now it is officially growing like a pot of boiling water. I don’t know if they moved the piece of scaffolding that was shaped like a cross. The Deutsche Bank building is finally coming down. I won’t argue whether all this is good or bad.

Being there on the 11th, I feel like it should just be a memorial. The economy seems to be doing better without buildings there. I would feel like I was on sacred ground were I to do any kind of business on that site. It seems like we are moving more rapidly into breaking the promise of “never forgetting”. I am troubled by the fact that no one has taken responsibility. I am worried we are tipping the world and messing ourselves up over something that we may never know the truth about.

As I wander around the city, I am astounded by the buildings that go up at the speed of a sneeze. The contrast between these high-priced mega towers with their glass edifices and the small, almost sad but charming older buildings is unsettling. Everyone is going real estate crazy and it seemed to get jacked up after 9/11. Like people lost a bit of themselves with those buildings and now they going out and getting one of their own. Or many. We are getting obese on real estate along with fatty foods. We will be moving back to a time of landlords and serfs before you know it. I saw that The Onion made a joke article about the widening gap between the rich and the super rich. It’s funny because it’s true.

Solo Harvest

Last night was a good night for me as a teacher and solo performer. My solo performance students did their short pieces at the Gene Frankel Underground, where Groove Mama Ink currently resides. It’s a lovely black box theatre just north of Houston kind of smack dab in between the East and West Villages. It’s been an interesting process. I’m a bit concerned that people don’t care about this unless it has some cheap sexy title but last night restored my faith somewhat. Mariah Freda, Laura Mannino, and Josh Kauffman all got up and gave some thrilling performances that were quite moving.

Getting There

I don’t know if I would ever go back to enjoying use a car to commute. I love riding in the subway. There are, of course, things I don’t like about it but for the most part it’s great. I use the F train in Brooklyn and can get to most the places I need to go rather efficiently with it. I understand the G will come out past my stop so going up to Williamsburg or Queens will be a lot easier.
Lately things have been getting a little weird on the trains. I guess you never know what will happen when those doors open. Since the beginning of the year I’ve noticed a lot more people smoking down on the subway platforms or in the cars themselves. Once, a train came up and I notices this one car was rather empty. I stepped in to find a man surrounded by newspapers and plastic bags laughing this gothic bluesman chortle and speaking incoherently as he smoked in the train! A few days later, I saw an older woman who was quite old. Like she was from another era. She had a scarf on here head like Betsy Ross and 4 big plastic bags. She obviously had been taking care of whatever was inside of them. There were a couple of younger women chatting away in sorority delight about trivialities much to the old woman’s chagrin. I noticed her ankles were swollen and blue and her feet through the holes had something gangrenous happening. When the girls left, she spit on the ground and cursed about them. She got out at her stop 2 stops later.
My day started a couple weeks ago with a large man wearing a sweat suit under a blanket with a hole cut out for his head barking in gibberish. He had a nice voice but didn’t make any articulated consonant sounds. No one gave him any money. My gut said he was a Julliard actor doing research for a role. That, I think, happens sometimes. I saw a guy claiming to have cerebral palsy from some accident and he gave this big story about how his electricity was going to be shut off if he didn’t turn in funds by 7pm that night. My BS detector was screaming at me but I gave him a buck anyway. I saw him a couple weeks later in a train station way out in Brooklyn near Coney Island talking nicely to a boy. He had no disability.
Last night, I was heading up to see my friend Robin’s play debut at the Emerging Artist Festival. The train was held by police in the East Broadway station. An undercover cop in a flannel shirt ran past my car with his badge out. “Close ALL the doors!!” Uniformed police trolled up and down for several minutes. I don’t know what it was but it was scary. What if the person was in my car? I never worried about that before. I wondered if the person was in hiding in my car passing off as a regular citizen.
Today a 20-something man kicked his soccer ball off the side doors in my car as I came back from my callback. I switched at Jay St. where weekends are going to be a mess for the foreseeable future. A man and a woman got into a shouting match. He was angry but not crazy. I don’t know if I could ever have that much public privacy. I get quiet in cab rides home. I’ve seen the hidden camera shows.
Oh, on my way home the day the gibberish guy hit me up on my ride in, he plunked down in the seat near me. He obviously put in a full day. He had the smell of several sweat cycles. I hope he gets the part.

Monday Monday

Had my second rehearsal for Core Theatre Co’s new series of short works based on the seasons called SPRING. We’ll be reading them on April 16th at 7pm at Center Stage, which is at 48 W. 21st St. on the 4th floor (pay what you will). It’s the old LABrynth Theatre Co. space. Vampire Cowboys are ending a run there this week. My piece is called THE THREE-MONTH FREAK OUT. Tim Flynn and Lisa Bruno are reading it and they do a bang-up job of getting the broken psychology of this pair of people trying to decide whether they should be together.

It was funny at the first rehearsal when I said to Lisa, “It’s like when it’s easier sometimes to let the other person break up with you.” She responded with a “YES!” before she had a chance to think about it. I’ve never done that but I’ve certainly had it done to me. I don’t know why some people would rather let something good fall apart than face it and deal with it. I guess it’s less messy.

It’s been good writing short plays for other people. I’ve been learning my own sense of dramatic structure. Revealing action and character through dialogue rather than monologue, which is what I am more used to doing with solo performance. It’s also nice to sit in the back of the house and take in an audience’s reaction to what you wrote rather than having to keep pumping through the performance. I’ve learned a lot about being clear for the actors. I think if the actors can get what I am writing in the first cold read of a piece then I’ve done my job well enough that the audience will be hooked and go for a ride rather than struggle their way through it. I like making my audiences think, feel, and make connections so they stay alive through a performance but I don’t want them to have to labor. I also like hearing an audience laugh. Usually that lets me know they understand what’s going on.

the winter/spring continuum

I heard yesterday that there are over 200 million blogs on the internet that have been abandoned. This was one of them and now I am hoping to make up for lost time. Since my last post, I’ve written several short plays, performed a revamped version of my solo, ANHEDONIA ROAD, started a solo performance workshop, taught a few hundred kids/teens, and started a run of a play from 1798 called ANDRE. Tonight I felt I was beginning to get sick so I took an Airborne, a Cold-eeze, and 2 Sudafed. Carolyn was kind enough to make me some peppermint tea with honey. If I didn’t have a head cold, that would taste nasty. My body must be throwing in the towel after the stress of opening the show and gearing up for the Times coming out on Monday night. We had a nice full house of allies. My neoroses were getting the better of me as I was doing a New England accent for the first time. More of an historic New England accent with more leanings on the Scottish. I wanted to give the feeling this soldier I play was second or third generation in this country and that he worked hard and had a strong moral center. You don’t get that from the text and our director was pushing for something unique from me. It was birthed rather late in the rehearsal process but I only rehearsed 4 or 5 times. I also have a limp from a wound from a bayonet. If I’m not careful, I can seem kind of pirate-like. Johnny Depp squeezed one Oscar nod out of that and pretty much plumed whatever riches can be found from that.

It’s been a cold couple of days and we were blessed with a little snow today. Last Saturday was in the 50s and I was wearing a light jacket. I bet I got this from Kara Tyler the other day. She is one of the Groove Mama’s in whose space I run my solo performance workshop. I met up to give her back her key and she gave me this nonsense. I’ll get you yet Kara Tyler!! I’m used to having spring come in by now and not getting sick until November. I don’t know about you but I got through most of this winter without a cold and now I’m rambling like some Civil War soldier in a Ken Burns doc. Feel free to add your own violins underneath as you read. It’s blissfully warm in this apartment. The only place I’ve lived in New York without the nefarious chill sneaking in through cracks and enveloping me in a nasty shield of pain. As I was crossing 9th street, I was thinking how I have to sit down and pop out a 10-minute play about spring for Core Theatre Co. I am rarely not inspired but this weather is really busting my chops here.

And what about Captain America dying? I don’t get that. I don’t have much of a relationship with him but still….

post FringeNYC

So no more Fringe. I’m a little numb from the whole experience. This year’s festival was much better than the first year I was here. I didn’t do it very well then. I should have gone out and met more people because I had a good show back in ’03. This year was a success for me. I did not sell out, get an agent, or a review in Times (although they did get tix for the show but did not come out). But I did have very good shows with nice houses and 4 great reviews, including the Village Voice. My second show was a little shakey but still ok. I did the shows without passing out or freaking out so I guess my endurance is getting better for this work. I did learn more about where to take my postcards. Boy, aren’t they a funny thing. No one wants them but you have to have them. Next time, I’ll go with posters to off set the number of postcards. I got 10,000 and really only used 8,000.
There were a lot of great shows at the Fringe this year. I enjoyed Tuesdays and Sundays, Lulu, Never Swim Alone, In Transit, A Show of Force, Minimum Wage, Billy the Mime, Park ‘N’ Ride, and I’ll Sell the House in Which I Can No Longer Live. And I had a great time at the Fringe Club podcasts. My girlfriend, Carolyn, introduced me to lots of people that work with Fringe. I met cool peeps from LA and Canada. Overall, the people in the festival were affable and kind.
Now I am going to do 2 weeks at the Gene Frankel Theatre. It should be a good time. I’d like to start teaching people about doing solo performances soon. I think I could help a lot of people make their shows into something. After all the excitement, stimulation, and entertainment, I need to regroup and figure out where to go next with things.