Construction/Deconstruction: On and on & on + on...

What good are the advanced skills of contraction when the needs of “Now” require expansion? This was one of my hardest lessons. Kristen Linklater’s “Freeing the Natural Voice" was new and shiny in 1976. I had a college degree in speech and took all the parochial speech pathology classes. Speech, like wrestling was a matter of muscular control; contraction, according to those teachings. What Kristen was saying; simply put, let go. Just, let go.

Lucy Seemore, the female subject of my Anatomy Lab teams dissection efforts, taught me that deconstruction can only reveal parts remaining. Lucy was undeniable experiential proof that death, if nothing else, is the absence of life. Lucy no longer resisted decay into equilibrium.

Dr. P. W. Anderson, an early researcher in information technology at Bell Laboratories taught putting parts back together doesn’t net the same result that you started with, prior to deconstruction of any holistic systems. Anderson point is we discover new phenomena arise at each jump shift in scale. Reductionism is not necessarily in conflict with "more is different." Reductionism misguidedly believes, if only we could understand the parts, we could finely understand the holistic living being. 


Bell Laboratories deconstructed the human being, just like my team and I did; however, they were after a way to package and sell human communications. You're reading this post throughout the results of their work. It is the secrets of ourselves that Bell Labs discovered and packaged for sale. Bell folks found that humans parse into measurable bits called information. Bits are observed in the act of communicating within each of our 50+ trillion cells, within our holistic singular being and how we communicate between each person, one to the other. Collectively, these bits become the flesh and bone of our highest knowing.

If I wanted to study and understand life, I had to focus on what life is, not on what life was. This search progressed from artist/athlete to zoology/histology to communications/acting and on to directing-producing. I went off in a thousand tangents as well. Alway that singular question: How is “Now”  constructed?  

So, why not just become a doctor, lawyer or engineer? That was not how I needed to help myself and it was not how I wanted to interface with the rest of the universe. My path continually taught and required I find the answers to breathing free. Living joy. Separate information from knowledge. Allow the wisdom of my 50,000,000 bits/sec non-conscious wholeness prevail over the limitations of my 50 bit/sec  consciousness.  

Theatre Art hopes to manifest the broadest bandwidth environment possible and adding life to tell a story. As far as I can see, there is no way to expand the bandwidth beyond this art form. If someone has an idea, please let me know.

So, theatre became my laboratory. If I were to find the answers I sought about the composition of “Now,” the behavior laboratory of theatre would provide the environment holding my answers. Acting seemed to free my mind of the stories that defined and plagued me. If the continuity of these stories  could be broken by adopting a character, maybe it wasn't a very good definition for who I was/am after all. 

It took a couple of years to release my speaking voice and a few more years to release my singing voice. It took another forty years to release the burdens of my perception about myself, others and the world around me. The last to let go was the story I was playing myself to be. I could have tamed the beast of my talking head years earlier, had I known what it was......... I felt it, but didn’t know what “IT” was. My story seemed unbroken in my mind. The sum of these  memories must be what I judge it to be, right? Oh, I added my perception of everyone else’s judgement of me to my own, whether it was true or not.

“From the many become one.” Its cool enough to study what one actor does, but not far from the one are all the other participants. Understanding how the individual works is imperative to play a part, but  does not replace the doing.

I had recently been too caught up in my own stories and tried yet again to drown them in Old Bushmill’s, my old friend. I knew better, but in the moment I did not have a better solution. “Go juice” made the nonsensical stories in my head hurt not quite as much and I would sleep, blessed mostly quiet sleep. Do you know what calmed these raging perceptions? Not all this high knowing neurology stuff, no.

Deeds must first live as desire in the awaked heart. I remembered the ugliest, gruff voiced, dog faced cross between a bit bull and a bull dog, bar tender ever to roll out of Montana.  His name is Troy Evens. Troy’s stories about his path to clarity came back to me. More importantly was his lessons about relationships. Its nothing he said. It was in the doing. I’ll tell you:

I met Troy in a production of “Hamlet” at PCPA Theatrefest; circa 1979. I think Troy played the grave digger. His friend Danny Davis played Hamlet. As part of Troy’s nightly preparation for performance, made it his responsibility to reminded Danny Davis to get over himself. It was a different tactic every show. I think Danny really appreciated these acts of kindness. Finding this picture broke Bushmills as a useful crutch.

The above picture shows Troy on his way to visit Danny before a performance. On this day it was Genie Swami Troy. What is blurred due to 1997 flood damage, is the sheep in tow and plastic bejeweled neckless adorned with a tube of KY Jelly. Look at the Angel of Joy in his eyes.

That night was the least pretentious performance of "Hamlet" ever performed and not just Danny. The entire cast was laughing inside the entire evening. With our 50 bits/sec conscious selves filled with the Angel of Joy, all of our 50,000,000 bits/sec non-conscious selves seemed fully immersed in Hamlet’s environment. The story was told in a special way that night. Our actor selves were transparent to each other and the audience, revealing the characters as the perfect reflection of the environment in the moment. If you were there that night, it's a moment you are likely not to ever forget. 

Troy taught a valuable lesson that night. Relationships matter. You have no choice but to  trust a fellow player who would go to such lengths. Without that trust, the art form would not exist. 

“Now” is such a frightening stage on which to play, without trusted friends.

In the moment on stage, there are two levels that must be played. First is the relationships between the actors and secondly the relationships between the playwright's characters.

The above photo shows New York Times best selling author Nevada Rae Barr as Peter Pan, circa 1974. As Peter, she and Hook we were mortal enemies. I was not only Captain Hook, but more importantly to Nevada's well being, I was also fly master under the direction of the inventor of stage and movie flight, Peter Foy. I got to fly Nevada in the ariel ballet, then shove my hook back on and run on stage to try to eviscerate the "little boy" with said same hook. 

Do you see, there are at least two levels of story going on in a play. It's the hat trick of theatre. Its called “Willing Suspension of Disbelief.” First among them must be the actors themselves. When the house lights go down, the audience enters into the “ticket contract.” By sitting down in that seat, the witness agrees to believe the exposition as real, including the environment and the characters there in. This perception is directly effected by the qualitative nature of the continuum.  

Some actors use this as a vacation from their own baggage. Some actors get so lost in the drama, “Now” self gets lost in the confusion of that drama. Some get so lost, the drama physically hurts them. They forget it's all a simulated illusion happening no less than 1/2 second ago and most simulated from memories far older.  

Sometimes the author of "Now" is willing to resort to radical extremes, even sacrifice the lead character to assert continuity. I have noticed actors that do not possess a centered clear state of being to come and go from, when taking on a character. Eventually the actor gets lost. Don’t do that. Veto!

Educators that are following this blog, Apply this to the analogy of the classroom. Can your imagine why mutual respect is such a very important layer of the environment in a school day?

Experience is not what happens to you, but rather what you do with what happens to you. Each of us write and play out those choices. Let's write a play worth playing.