Mortal Coil

We all suffer and suffering is relative.

I wish that weren't so. I wish suffering were on a scale that we could all agree upon. Like, "Surviving a tsunami" - 1000 points. "Getting home from work and there's no wine" - 10 points. Under that arrangement, those who have never survived a Tsunami or any other kind of 1000-pointer are off scot-free.

But, no. I've never survived a tsunami. And though I would categorize the no wine thing as a mere disappointment (annoying, but easy to get over), it seems I agonize over things that are really really insignificant to, say, everyone else.

Looking at it from the outside, it's easy to rate these things. But when we're going through it, it's amazing what can keep us up at night.

Some years ago, I read a book by Alfie Kohn called NO CONTEST: The Case Against Competition. Kohn is a  bit of a radical - not everyone would agree with his extreme perspectives on parenting and education, but I'm not everyone, so I dig him. In the book, he identifies a phenomenon he refers to as MEGA - Mutually Exclusive Goal Attainment. Simply put, it means "My success equals your failure." In order for me to be good at something, you have to be less good, at least a little bit. There is a best and only one person can be that best. He goes on to pulverize that mentality and urge his readers to consider a world where we can all be stars.

And I agree with him. When I go to a show that one of my peers has written or directed, I arrive with a twinge of "I kind of hope this isn't good, so that whatever I do will look better by comparison." I would like to be a better person, but I'm not, so that's how it goes. However, I am always overjoyed when it's good. I'm glad my time wasn't wasted and that I could be inspired, or be brought to learn something new. So, I do think that we can all be stars and that there can be an infinite amount of excellence in the world.

But. When it comes to teaching, I have to be the best. As in, it's not cool if someone is better than me. Correction: it's not cool if someone is not better than me but is perceived to be. Full disclosure: I have to be the favourite.

Ugh, right?

Most of the time, this is not an issue. I'm a busy gal, so I go about my day just trying to get 'er done. And I love the work, so it's all good. But we're leading up to course selection for next year at school right now. Where kids decide what classes they're going to take. I'm telling you, it's having its way with me. The other day, we had to stand up in front of everyone and talk about our programs and why they should take our classes. I hate doing stuff like that. Kids should take my classes because Drama class is the best thing in the world and I, for one, would die without it. And I want them to feel the same way.

And in situations where there may be external limits on awesome, like the timetable will only allow for so many classes, or in the case of theatre production world, there may be only so much grant money or roles or audience appeal; competition may be inevitable.

My agony was over the question, "What if they like some other teacher or class or program better than me/mine and don't take my class?" I get bent out of shape about that stuff. As in, can't sleep -feel like my soul is being crushed by a vice grip- kind of thing. Wake up in the morning with my stomach in knots. A mortal coil, if you will. Sounds about accurate.

A mortal coil. Because, "What if kids don't want to take Drama next year?"

So, I need to remind myself that there is enough awesome for everyone. We can all be stars. To me, this is like, 500 points, but to anyone else it could be as few as 0 points. And I'm glad that as humans, we all understand affliction to one degree or another and that people have written about it so we can buoy each other up with our shared experiences of what it means to suffer.

And the mortal coil is easily sloughed off when I get back into that classroom and beam with joy because some kid did something awesome.  And, it's okay if they like something/someone else sometimes. Sometimes. I'm working towards being okay with it ;).

It's okay, I don't need a tsunami to teach me a lesson. Let's be stars, you guys. All of us. At anything we want to be.

Courting Danger

Sometimes I like to do something stupid, just to see what will happen.

I don't have occasion to go on solo road trips very often, but a few weeks ago it so happened that I drove home from Banff by myself. I had been at the Paddy Crean Stage Combat workshop (reflections found here) for a week, where I had basically been coddled and treated like a child (didn't have to go anywhere, all the food was provided - didn't even have to make my own bed!), so even just something simple as driving home (I live 3.5 hours away, which in Western Canada is nothing) was enough responsibility to really have to adjust to.

The Arts Centre is up a hill and around a corner in the town of Banff. It seemed like it was easy enough to get there, so I figured it would be easy enough to get out. It wasn't. I stopped for gas, got all turned around, had to ask for directions, etc. Maps? What? I'll intuit my way out.

I intuited my way on to the freeway headed for Calgary. I did that for a bit when it really started to feel like I was going the wrong way. So, I looked for a turnaround spot and went the other direction. No big D. Lots of time.

"Castle Mountain (or something). That sounds familiar. I'll turn off there. When I start seeing signs for Radium, I'll know I'm on the right track." After about 15 minutes of that, nothing looked familiar. So, I pulled over, pulled out my iPhone and called my husband to confess that I was lost in the mountains and didn't know what to do. He told me to use Siri. I didn't know how to use Siri. I tried. I got confused. I called back, "I don't know how to use Siri, now what?" At which point, he was like, "Look, if you don't figure this out, you're going to run out of gas and freeze to death. Figure out your damn phone." The asshole-ish quality I've conveyed here isn't accurate. He was feeling very helpless at trying to navigate me out of where I didn't know I was.

So, I did. I figured it out and I was on my way. Then, Siri said something about turning off. But there was no real turn off. Then, she recalculated the route to say that it would be a lot longer before I was to turn next. At which, I panicked a little. "What if it turns out I have to circumnavigate the globe to get where I need to go unless I just turn around and try to turn where she said I was supposed to in the first place?" So, I turned around. I didn't see what she was talking about, so I saw a turnoff point (for hiking or something) and decided to pull off there.

But Siri was talking and she distracted me, so I turned too wide and got stuck in the snow. Stuck stuck. I saw some parked vehicles close by, and went up to them, but no one was there. Out all day for a hike, I assumed. I grew up on a farm and have experience in getting stuck in the snow in the middle of nowhere, so I went old school. I stood out there and started waving people down.

Not for long. The first people to pass by stopped. An older couple, very nice. Together, we did what we could do (pushing, digging snow out), but ultimately we realized we needed more help. We flagged down another vehicle. This time a young couple. We tied some cables between the vehicles and tried to pull. Not quite there. So, a middle aged guy and his young adult son stopped to help us, too. And then I got unstuck and there was joy in all the land.

Oh, and the older couple had just come from Radium. I was going the right way. I don't know what Siri was talking about. Sometimes Siri just fucking makes things worse.

But the aberrant part of all this? I kind of liked it. I had a bit of a premonition before I made that turn that I was going to get stuck, but I ignored it because I wanted to see what would happen. I enjoyed seeing the problem play itself out to the solution. If no one had stopped, I would have been hooped, but I liked seeing if anyone would.

In this case, I enjoyed being taken care of. I love my life and wouldn't trade it for anything, but I spend my days making sure that people get dressed and brush their teeth and get to rehearsal and have everything they need for their film projects. In a deep part of my soul that I don't like to admit is there, I was thrilled to be revolved around (I'm always thrilled to be revolved around. So, this was a great opportunity to indulge). And in a life that plays itself out with a fair amount of predictability, it was cool to wonder what would happen next.

It happened again, just yesterday. I had a moment of, "The smart thing to do would be to 'x' but I don't want to bother, so I'll do 'y'" and the undercarriage of the car ended up stuck in the ground. Everything is okay, the car is fixed and it didn't cost anything, but again, I went with the thing I knew would get me in trouble and potentially eff up my life for a bit.

As I relayed this part of my nature to my teaching partner ("I court danger, it's something I do," I said.), he all but snickered at my idea of recklessness. But such a thing is relative, just like suffering or victory. And it's always a big deal to me at the time - "Why did I just do that?" But we need to get stuck and to solve our way out, don't we, we writers (or any of us theatre practitioners)? Otherwise, what would we have to say to anyone?

But, I'll keep doing it. I know it. Not on purpose, but because of my insatiable curiosity. And though I wish I could be smart, capable and responsible, there's a part of me that hopes I'll never learn.

Perfection

In which I confess my passion for art galleries and museums.

About this time last year, my family and I were getting ready to head out on a big trip to Europe. Mostly English-speaking Europe (and many folks don't even consider that to be Europe), mind you. But. Mimosa season in Provence - that was pretty extraordinary. You should go sometime.

I wanted to soak it all up, every minute. And the best way I knew how was to spend as much time in as many museums and art galleries as I could. I mean, that's where they put all the stuff that means the most to them, those nations and cities. The stuff that represents what they think of themselves and how they want the world to perceive them. And I went to most of the places I wanted to.

I was alone in my devotion. My family amused me for a time. At about Dublin, the whining started (but you should have seen! Irish peasants fending off the British army with these little makeshift daggers. The nobility and poetry of it all). In Paris, I was just about kicked out of the family (Umm . . . it's Paris. We could sit around the hotel, or we could go out and seize us some world class culture. Given a choice, I'm gonna seize. Even if I have to do it by myself). When we talk about it now, it's kind of like, "Ugh. Mommy and her (sigh) museums."

However. Early in the trip, before I exasperated everyone, we hit the V&A Museum in London and stumbled on to an exhibit that we unanimously agreed was outstanding. I was recovering from my disappointment at the closure of the costume exhibit (that always happens to me!), and was, admittedly, slightly bored of viewing Samurai uniforms and Japanese furniture (I do have a limit to my interest in museums. I draw the line at spoons and bowls - which was where we were kind of at by this point) when we saw it. This. Spider silk. Silk made from the spiders themselves, not boiled up cocoons. You can read more about it here. There was this beautiful cape:

This was just one piece. (I would totally wear this, bt dubs.) There were other things, including spools of threads of the stuff. And a big shawl (or large placemat, depending on what you wanted to do with it). You guys. We've all seen raw silk and dyed silk. Chiffon, duppioni, charmeuse, satin - you name it. All of it chump change compared to this (and I love fabric). It took 1.2 million spiders from Madagascar to make that cape. That's its natural colour. Every strand of it uniform (how rare - uniformity in nature!). Every strand of it strong and light and perfect and golden like what one might imagine the breath of God to be.

So, perfection in art exists. And that can be at once inspiring and crippling. Inspiring, because wouldn't we all love to hit that mark? Crippling, because what if we do all that work and we don't? Or worse, it doesn't land anywhere at all, but dematerializes into the oblivion of who the fuck cares? But think of what we could do if we gave it a good, honest shot.

But 1.2 million spiders. That's a lot of spiders.

My writing mentor, Elise Forier Edie (I wonder if she knows she's my mentor), has been on Twitter a lot lately (I'm becoming increasingly addicted to Twitter), urging us writers to "Dispense with ego. Write the worst crap in the world, but keep writing anyway," and "Let the draft be crappy. Write now, fix later." 

I can do that.  A far cry from the breath of God, but any start is a step toward something. It's better than nothing (and that's something!). And for those of us who are compelled to create, for whom not creating is hell on earth, this is the perfect advice. It precludes me, personally, from the excuses I manufacture to get myself out of writing ("No one will care" "This isn't going to go anywhere" "If I don't write, the world will be the same - days will continue to give way to nights which will give way to days again whether I write something or not"). It gives us permission to fail, so that in failing, we might have a chance of success. Some day. With something. Maybe even golden, breath of God success. 

What's your equivalent to 1.2 million spiders?


PS: I still haven't seen the British Museum and the Pompidou Centre. What are your favourite galleries/museums?

Why Wouldn't I?

So, I've returned from the Paddy Crean Stage Combat Workshop in Banff. It was awesome. Different in many ways from the FDC Nationals, but awesome nonetheless.

In several of the many conversations I had with people there, I was asked why I was there. As in, I'm a teacher (I haven't been writing much lately, so I left that detail out), and not a stunt performer or an actor, so what would possess me to come to a Stage Combat Workshop?

The quick response was, "It's nice to be a student." Lots of nods and, "Sure, that makes sense."

I would then be asked if I would take any of what I learned back to my students. Not really. I don't really have the skill to teach a room full of teenagers what these master instructors are teaching to a room full of adults with varying degrees of skill. There are definitely some skills and tricks I will put in my back pocket for directing shows when they're called for. Mostly approaches to physical comedy.

The workshop is a series of 90 minute classes on a variety of topics for a number of different skill levels over the course of six days. So that's a big chance to learn a lot of things from a lot of different people. By the end of Day 1, I stopped trying to master the skills and focussed on what it felt like to be in the room with those teachers. What was it about what they were doing that made me feel excited, or bored, or successful . . . stuff like that. Also, how did time move? Did it seem like it whipped by? Was I wondering what would be for lunch? Would I like to see more from this person? These are things that matter a great deal to students. And the stuff is fun. And do-able (sidenote - one of the biggest necessities in learning anything is a teacher's belief that the student can do the thing being taught. A quality which was present in spades at the workshop.)

I also watched how the instructors interacted with each other and how they made the quality of the participants' experience their top priority. And they succeeded.

Conflict is hard to write. In my world as a wife, mother and teacher, my job is to prevent conflict. "Be nice." "Don't fight." Don't say that comment that might incite a reaction, just suck it down and move forward. I have decent communication skills, so I don't run into as many conflicts as I used to. Plus, it's not socially acceptable to start conflicts and act like an ass, like we do sometimes when we just want what we want and we don't care how we get it. But nobody wants to see a play where everyone just plays nice.

Many of the classes talked about the nature of fighting. What causes two people to lose it and go at each other? Why may they choose not to? How close do you need to be on stage for something to happen? What is the dynamic when there are more than two people in a fight? How do we maintain tension and when do we let go of it? I don't think this just applies to plays with fighting in them. Every playwright needs to grasp how one stabbing remark differs from a series of cutting comments. And the ensuing reactions. I actually can't see a better way than on your feet, putting it all into your body and having it at the ready when you need to write a scene.

So, in my brain, the question isn't "Why am I here?" It's "Why isn't every teacher and playwright at something like this?"

The Work of it.

I like working on things. You know, mucking around. I love rehearsal. I love reading plays and picking out scripts to direct. I love auditions (though I hate cutting people). I like writing drafts of plays and thinking about how I would rewrite them. Mulling over characters and the things they might do.

I love all of this so much, the work of the theatre, that I would trade it for the finish line.

You see, by the time a show that I'm directing reaches the polishing stage, I start to lose interest. I've accomplished most of what I wanted to and the actors have to start to make it their own. And I fuss over details, yes, but in a kind of forced "it's my responsibility to point this out" kind of way. For me, the fun is in discovery - helping groups of young actors figure out how to work together, pushing them toward different ways of interpreting their work. Performance, to me, is almost a necessary evil.

Isn't that awful? Isn't performance what it's all about? Yes, it is. All that work is for naught if, ultimately it doesn't mean something to an audience. The audience is who it's for. They determine the true value of a given work by their presence and precious attention. But audiences freak me out. I love them, I do. But I fear them, too. When a production goes up, it's out of my hands, and it feels like I (and more importantly the work I've done for the previous three months or so) meets its maker. Judgement ensues.

I'm fortunate to work in educational theatre. Everyone loves kids and wants to see them do well, so the audiences I have the fortune to work with are always willing and supportive. But, I don't believe that in the theatre, "everything always works out" as they say. Sometimes things aren't ready. Or they just plain suck. I have a mortal fear of that scenario, something I've worked on sucking. Mortal. It's happened, bt dubs. Not always, but I'm aware that it's possible. And that possibility lurks over every show.

So, I think I walk around with this "I'm process-oriented" label I've placed on myself in part as some sort of excuse to not see things through all the way.  In terms of my writing, I wonder if I avoid reaching completion and pushing for production. Do I like playwriting limbo? Is my residency there due to mortal fear or a love of mucking about in development/discovery stage?

It's worth thinking about, anyway.

Let There Be Dogs!

So, today I was chatting about my play with a dramaturg (Michelle) from Alberta Playwrights Network. A few years ago, I developed a relationship with APN (love them!). Tooth Sized Holes is the second play I've sent there.

I was expecting her to bring it up. She totally has a point. "So, you have two dogs in this play . . ." (the ellipses being code for " . . . and how do you expect this to ever be produced?" - but in a kind and supportive way).

She began the conversation by asking how I felt about the play - where it was at, etc. I was thrilled to be able to respond by saying that my life has taken a U-turn of sorts and that though a couple of years ago I was quite ambitious about playwriting, I have the luxury now of writing for the joy of it and for the unadulterated thrill of discovering the layers and possibilities of a story. And I think I believe that. Production isn't as much on my mind as it used to be, but I still feel the drive to write plays. Anyhow, it ends up that I am in a good place in my feelings towards this latest draft of Tooth Sized Holes and let 'er rip. Tell me what needs doing.

Hence the dog concern. Yes, there are two dogs in the play and although one of them takes more of a principal role, they are both on stage at the same time for one scene. I realize that rare is the theatre company that will to take that on when they could go for something that, say, doesn't have dogs in it and would be much easier to produce. There was some subtext about theatrical ways of including dogs in the story without actually having dogs on stage.

I responded by saying, "I wrote the play I wanted to write. It has dogs in it. Some people go to the theatre because they want to see something in particular, some people go to everything, some people are dragged there. People have dogs." And then I said something about the fact that maybe Shakespeare and his colleagues wondered about presenting his audience with a severed head, but it doesn't seem so weird now. And maybe it wasn't then either, but it was the first idea that popped into my head.

As I relay it, it seems like the tone of the conversation was much more snarky than it was. It was not snarky at all - I just think sometimes that playwriting in this day and age has become highly limited. That's probably a really great thing. Limitation gives way to creativity. I know that. But is there room to think outside of such strict limitations? What if someone were to take a risk and produce this play and then, suddenly, dogs become all the rage in plays? To the point that everyone spends their time trying to figure out how to put a dog or two in their scripts?

I don't know. Just something I'm thinkin' about.

What You Do

Have you ever met someone, and got to know them a little bit and been so impressed with the fact that they are doing (job wise) exactly what it is they're supposed to be doing?

I'll give you an example. I know a lighting designer/professor at one of the universities I used to attend. She is a brilliant (pun!) lighting designer and also a fabulous teacher. She is interested in student learning, and makes it her business to make students better (and feel better about their work) when they leave her class.

I've also met people -talented, smart people - who have just never seemed to land where they were meant to. A case in point is an old friend of my husband's. He didn't graduate high school, took a number of jobs, made a lot of money, lost it all, is divorced, has had trouble with the law and from what I can tell, has no place to go. And yet, you should listen to him speak! Gorgeous speaking voice. He has a gregarious personality and relates really well with people. He could easily be some kind of radio talk show host, or even television host for that matter. When we spent a little bit of time with him this summer, I couldn't help but think, "If only he had a good drama teacher, who could have encouraged him . . . "

I've never ever really wanted to be anything but a high school drama teacher. I have a distinct memory as a teenager of thinking to myself, "I just love drama class. I want to be in drama class all day." Which led me, quite naturally, to go down that road. I've been in and out of the drama classroom - I had kids, I taught strictly academic courses for a year and, of course took time off with my recent sabbatical. I often wonder if it's what I'm supposed to be doing. Does everyone wonder that about themselves?

I went to Kidprovisers at the Edmonton Fringe this past summer. Basically, the adult professionals carried the young folks through all of the scenes, but I was so happy to see young kids doing drama and being apprenticed in the craft. I think that was a telling moment: "Kids doing drama. What could be better?"

I love writing, of course. I have precious little time to do any these days, but I hope to do more soon. I hope to have more to say about that next time.

Cheers.