When on a Journey, Keep a Journal

For some 40 years now, I have been following several lines of research, exploring how we humans perceive and experience our own existence. I've been trying to understand things from the inside out.


The acting profession requires of its practitioners, the ability to manipulate the levers of control within their human instrument they experience as "now." I guess we all pursue this on some level, in our own area of expertise; however, in theatre that "now" is premeditated and replicated. Or is it?


I was a freshman in college and the Theatre Dept. was doing the play "The Women." For some unexplained reason, I was drawn to the theatre that quarter. I discovered that my technical capabilities could be used in the theatre. Thanks dad, for teaching me to use tools.


After a career ending injury in wrestling, I lost my wrestling scholarship. I could not afford to continue and had only one quarter left on my scholarship.


Swallowing enormous fear, I auditioned and was cast. I began to focus on understanding the act of communicating. This was in the mid 70's.  This course has continued down a road of discovery lasting more than 40 years. It was my great fortune to have performed, using these tools from time to time. I never tried much to share what I found. It's now time.


New discoveries have blended with old knowing, igniting a desire to share. All of human knowing up to 1900, doubled in the next hundred years. Soon, it will be doubling every eighteen months. What good is the knowing, if it doesn't help in the doing. Integrating the new into my old head has been a joy I want to share a bit. So here we go!


As an undergraduate, I did my senior project studying the integrated holistic nature of the environment, field or physical context on stage. I produced a play. Part of the craft of theatre is to manifest the playwright's prescribed environment in the black abyss of the stage. The play was "Oedipus" by Seneca. 


Taking a general systems approach, I individually evaluated each of the variables of the whole experience I was able to isolate. I attempted to understand how to articulate each of these aspects, its constants and variables. At that point, I had not considered the actor as part of that environment. The costume: Yes. The "being" of the actor: No. I had a complex view of the relationships between characters. I just didn't have the perspective to see how it all fit together. I kept looking. I'm still looking.


I made my way to graduate school to study acting and scenic design. It was a three year MFA program and what a ride.


I found myself in a class taught by Dr. Jim Polidora, Chair of the College of Neurology at the School of Medicine at U.C. Davis, CA. The class was titled "Biology of the Mind/Body." It opened a window into a world I had experience in, but for which I had no words. The class dealt with holistic and integrated living beings. We explored the relationship between individual bodily systems and the body as a whole living being, operating in space through time.  


This work was cutting edge in the Neurology  Department in 1977. In the Department of Dramatic Art however, it was heresy. The Newtonian - Cartesian model of the world was completely unshakable. When none of my graduate advisers chose to attend my presentation, I was branded a heretic.


I did complete my MFA; however, I quit trying to share my findings with the established theatre scholars. Prof. Ruby Cohen was far less than supportive and convinced me scholars were not where I would find help discovering the right words. We are not conscious of what we are not conscious of. Ruby didn't get it and I didn't have the right words to tell her my perception or they were the right words; just not for her. No judgement.


I went on my way. Professionally acted for a while. I directed from time to time. I never lost my curiosity about how people do, what people do. The question to be answered: how do we perform the act of?


I see the craft of theatre art as the artful manipulation of human and contextual variables, rendering a script with the fabrics of life. I have not stopped searching for a better understanding of these variables and how to better articulate them.


From an actor's perspective, the variables I refer to are the qualities of our existence that we share in common. The macro-state of human existence. Everyman, not any specific man. That's the stuff of all actors. 


Then there is what makes each one unique in all the universe. This is the land of characters. How can the actor manipulate his or her "variables" to articulate a specific character? Big question. That same question is asked by the 10 year old boy when he gets up in the morning. What character do I need to put on to make it through the day or play? 


I intend to share. I won't spend much time on exposition, just enough to set the stage for the message I want to share and talk about. 


In the creative process there is no right or wrong. There is only what doesn't work, what works and what works better. This has been a creative journey and I invite you to drop in from time to time. What I've found is cool and might interest you.