Whatever Helps You Sleep At Night

Fresh off of arguing the inaccuracies of "the best actor for the role" and another in a never-ending chain of discussions about representation and questioning the idea of "default" and all of the entitlement that comes with it, Creatively Independent posted this essay on meritocracy and bias, merely by coincidence. Afterward, I reflected on a recent experience in which the veil was lifted on the notion of acting being nothing other than a meritocracy.

I recently auditioned for a commercial for an amusement park in the greater Twin Cities area that featured a father and a son. Maybe I was too animated for a television commercial. I'm more of a clown and physical actor, and without direction, sometimes I can play a bit too big for the camera, so that is a possible factor. Maybe I'm not fatherly enough or don't look old enough for people to buy that I was a father and I can buy that. Maybe my shoulder-length dreads would have made it too much of a problem-solving issue for hair and makeup to make it look like I was stuck upside down. It could have easily been for any one of those reasons I almost didn't get the callback in the first place. That happens all the time, but this audition was different. My agent clearly explained the client wanted to schedule a callback, but it might not happen because they didn't have any Black kids.

While not getting a callback or not getting a job is typical in the business, sometimes the reasons behind the outcome can also be more frustratingly, disturbingly typical than we want to accept. Even if I had not been the "best actor", I was nearly denied the chance to prove it on the field of battle as an equal, even after passing the first test. I also might have been the best actor and didn't get the job, but I won't ever know. I can always improve, but when the issue became the color of my skin and the existing reasons in society why I wouldn't have worked out, that's notably bigger than a one-man job.

By extension, it was also a statement on the composition of families in the United States of America. I almost didn't get a callback because mixed families apparently aren't a thing or obviously blended families due to remarriage isn't a thing or adoption isn't a thing. Having a kid that didn't obviously spring from the loins of this man wasn't a leap they wanted to make and because it's a business, was likely not a leap they were willing risk trusting or expecting their intended audience to make. You have to match because at least in matching, you don't have to ask the more conservative members of your audience to consider the idea of a "nontraditional" family as being valid and worthy of consideration. Remember: we live in a country where a Cheerios commercial depicting an interracial family was considered groundbreaking and controversial — in the second decade of the 21st Century.

If the world of theater truly were a meritocracy, colorblind casting might not be as much of a thing, and representation might not be as much of an issue. If acting were truly a meritocracy, one might have to look at how representation repeatedly shakes out on stages across the country and then admit that when one says "the best actor" one usually just means a white actor, and is at peace with all of the messiness holding and supporting such ideas might contain. Or maybe we just need to be more forthcoming about admitting the cultural factors that add up to the need to cling to the idea of a meritocracy to make us feel better.

Confessions of a Klingon Curmudgeon: Middlin'

We are in the thick of it. I am in the thick of it.

During this process I have closed one show. Since my last post, I have rehearsed and performed in another show, conducted an apartment search, moved most of my stuff into said apartment, have been looking for work to apply for, applying for said work, auditioning, doing a one-day shoot, and working a couple of small, short-term jobs.

I'm having a difficult time figuring out if Life is getting in the way of my passion or if it's simply the struggle of the juggle. After all, I did just spend the last two years of my life living where I work, doing something I love doing with a person I enjoyed doing it with.

This process of reacclimating to so-called real life has been throwing me curves aplenty.

The lines started to freak me out a bit. One of the original creators of A Klingon Christmas Carol is still involved with its production in New York and he made the effort of sending out an APB to former and current SQuja's to form a support network. The most important piece of advice: "You will hit that point of saturation and panic." The second most important piece: "We'll give you support when you need it."

The first wall was being off-book for Act I. I was panicking and had no idea how it was going to happen. The load of nannying I have been doing for temporary work means that I have not been able to dedicate as many daytime hours to working lines. But it happened. I plowed to make it happen, things happened that gave us an extra day. And I passed!

But then this week we were supposed to be off-book for Act 2. Lots of lines. A lot more lines. I was not off book. Cue next wall, enter stage everywhere. [note: one week later, at the time of this editing and posting I am still not off-book, but I have one more scene to go. I'm not perfect on the other scenes yet, but I'm off book. That's something.]

I've been growing out a VanDyke for the show and I've made it through the first wall with that. It didn't start to look decent until after week four and I'm going on week six right now. I was worried that it wouldn't come in very well at all. Instead, I have learned that it's growing beautifully and evenly and I even have these cool individual grey hairs growing along the chin; the last time I grew out any part of my facial hair, I didn't have that. Going grey is an adventure to me.

It still looks a little funny. Not only because I usually shave, but because it's not as neatly sculpted on the sides. I wanted to make sure that I have enough to play with for Klingon Christmas Carol, but it also turned out that after years of applying and modifying clown makeup, I happened to subconsciously determine the borders of my face bush using principles of lines of facial movement.

Look for humor hard enough and you will find it.

Confessions of a Klingon Curmudgeon: Toddling Along

I'm nearing the one-month mark for the Klingon Christmas Carol rehearsals and I'm neck deep in the mixture of excitement and concern that I won't have enough time. I'm already two pages off book. Or is it "only two pages . . . "? I have no way to gauge, so I'm simultaneously feeling good and feeling jittery. I've begun spending more stolen moments learning lines and running them under my breath at many given moments throughout the day. My housemates (the short way of saying "married home-owning benefactor friends who have let me stay in their spare room for low, low rent since I've returned from Japan in June") have even become subject to the results of this casting. Sure, they're both familiar with the theater and rehearsal, with running lines and such, but sometimes the wife quips about how the guttural sounds of Klingonese make her think some demon is huddling in a corner of her house. #NotAllKlingons

I can understand her interpretation. The Klingon language is a harsh-sounding language in which one must mind glottal stops, enunciate the tlh, and distinguish the Hs and ghs. The q and Q distinction is not as challenging, but a cold or a sore throat can turn simple attempts at speech into a battle of wills against the small muscles in the back of the throat. Three days of rehearsal and a rescheduled voice lesson turned into a uvular crossfit session after which not-talking felt more delightful than usual. It still remains a bit of a challenge not to make everything sound angry, even if I am Scrooge. That tone and sense is coming more easily through dissection of the words, where the root noun or verb can be smothered under a dogpile of suffixes (suffices?) and object-subject reflexive prefixes. These are things you grow accustomed to ignoring in everyday use of your mother tongue.

Linguistic challenges notwithstanding, this undertaking is packed with moments of pride. For the first time ever, I — a regular shaver and baby-faced, angular-cheeked daywalker — will be growing out facial hair for a role. Even as I've aged, I have never truly shown a natural talent for growing facial hair. Shaving was as much of a preference as it was a professional convention, but every so often, I become curious about how well I could grow it out if I tried again. My hope is that by the time the show opens, I will have sufficient facial hair to live up to the Klingon norm of adult males having facial hair. That way, I won't have to deal with spirit gum and I can also have another small victory to boost my ego: "I grew out facial hair for a role! I have now done the physical transformation thing!"

I've even taken to the pedantry of referring to my growth as a Van Dyke instead of a goatee. What's the difference? Glad you asked! A goatee is just on the chin. A Van Dyke is the one that's commonly called a goatee, but it's a goatee with a corresponding mustache element, as explained here. My girlfriend isn't too crazy about it and I'm having a heck of a time dealing with the itchiness. I just have to keep reminding the both of us that it's for a good (read "marvelously geeky") reason and it'll be gone before Christmas. I even offered to begin a "BeardBeGone" countdown just for her. It's tough enough with the distance, I don't need facial hair to come between us. We shall overcome. *sniffle* In the meantime, I've gotten to surprise people with the new look and it's a lot less jarring for them (and for me) than if I showed up without my dreads. I'm not ready to part with those yet.

The theater space is coming together and all the cast is working hard. Fight choreography has been set and we have regular language sessions. Blocking and scene work have begun and we're actually making this thing happen. I wish I could go back in time and tell younger me that this is happening, but I'll just have to experience for him.

Busting Old Ghosts That Haunt Me

This weekend I received a reminder that failure is only temporary if you let it be. Instead, it can be only a pause, maybe a setback, or a building block for a success. I focus on results and often get lost in the shame and disappointment I equate with failure.

I'm currently in rehearsals for a show/experience that will run in October. We're starting our second week of rehearsals, so we're in the exploratory and workshop stages for the moment. In rehearsal Saturday, I made a specific choice of character with the aim of challenging myself in one of the exercises/experiments. I made other choices regarding that character that went opposite of what I felt would have been the obvious or easy choice. I started to feel like I made a bad choice and performed horribly even though I stuck to my choice in an attempt to hash it out. I felt the exact opposite of success and felt myself begin to slide down into the trap of comparing myself to others.

Everyone else around me seemed to be doing better. They made better choices. Why the hell did I avoid the obvious choice? They were in the world and I was floundering — committed to my choice and trying to make it work, but I was floundering. In my character interactions, I was making it easy for everyone else. What even makes me think that I'm actually an actor? 

The change happened on Sunday while sweating in the Merchandise Mart at the Minnesota State Fair. I realized that adding one element could make my choice 100% valid without negating my other choices, if given another opportunity to run with it. That one element would have tied in with another choice I made in an earlier experiment with a different character. It makes more sense now and feels less like a complete failure, but a gut/subconscious step toward a bigger success, hinging on character and subtlety more than the obvious and subsequently easy.

Or rather, what I thought would be easy for me.

Despite being a clown and improviser, I often have difficulty trusting my gut. My brain — goofy as it may be — craves logic and reason in choices and situations, even in making a choice not based in reason at all. My heart cries out for certainties and is frequently left to cry it out in a corner instead.

From this vantage point, I can't tell for sure if it was my gut or my brain that led me, but at some point, they started working together without my knowing it. Now I'm starting to see how the choice that first felt right, then horribly wrong and reputation-ruining in the midst of my peers and cast mates, actually weaves together with what can make a more interesting choice. That choice might not seem to fit at first, but can start out as an itch in the back of the brain, then as a feeling, then finally as a reveal that can tie in with the context of everything else in one, important detail saved for the perfect time. Ultimately, it's the director's job to determine that and to decide if it's worthwhile to pursue, but at least I have something to bring to the table other than self-flagellation and social/performance anxiety.

Not all of the webs a spider weaves have to be tangible.