Make Believe

I remember the hours I spent as a child in my “Make Believe” world seemed more real to me than the many places/schools/zip codes I lived in. 

In this video from TED a magician –  Marco Tempest (what a great name for a magician) spins a story of what magic is, how it entertains us and how it highlights our humanity :

http://www.ted.com/talks/marco_tempest_a_magical_tale_with_augmented_reality.html

I especially like his use of fairy dust.

Comedy = Poetry and Lies

Maggie Smith. 

I admit to being a Maggie Smith fan for her current character in Downtown Abbey – her double takes, her tsking, her rolling of the eyes.  I love it.  It communicates all the impatience and intolerance of one’s elders, but done with a childlike emotional stance.  I especially love the Downtown Abbey paper doll set that is now available as well.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/02/print-out-vultures-downton-abbey-paper-dolls.html

 But I do like what Chris Bliss has to say abou the “translation” of comedy.  It reminded me of Maggie Smith and the cut out paper dolls of Downton Abby.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/chris_bliss_comedy_is_translation.html

John Cleese on Creativity

I was sent this video yesterday and it is 36 minutes long in English but with Danish subtitles.  (?)And it is hilarious, insightful and really gave me some much needed oxygen.

John Cleese on Creativity:

“Play is distinct from ordinary life both as to locality and duration. This is its main characteristic: its secludedness, its limitedness. Play begins and at a certain moment it is over, otherwise it is not play.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VShmtsLhkQg

Embeddedness

Maybe it’s because I’m not writing now – not writing now – now writing now…(this is my brain hearing me say this over and over again) – but I seem to be finding these messages from the universe about critical thinking (and feeling).

Mostly the critical feeling part. I’ve been reading reviews of new shows opening on Broadway, and marveling at the subjective experience of what theatre critics share.

http://theater.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/theater/reviews/peter-and-the-starcatcher-with-christian-borle.html?ref=theater

I confess to have a vested interest in this show and I was quite sure that the New York Times would dismiss it.  But instead it’s a rave.  So my radar is off on what I am afraid of versus what can really happen out there in the theatrical universe.

And then I found this article by Andrew Haydon, which in part says: “Obviously, there’s an initial massive, potential problem with the “embedded” critic. And that is the problem of readers’ trust. At root, before knowing anything about theatre, before being able to write, before even having anything like “good taste”, the one thing a critic needs is the trust of his or her readers.”

I found the rest of his article very insightful. 

http://postcardsgods.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/embedded.html

And now my brain is full.

The brain versus the spirit

Years ago I worked at MIT in the psychology department.  I was working as a secretary to a neuroscience team working on brain research – particulary – a new procedure called a cingulotomy. This is a  form of psychosurgery which involves lesioning all or part of the brain’s cingulate gyrus.   

This is the location....

This surgery was developed as a lobotomy alternative, and its used today to treat severe cases of chronic pain or obsessive-compulsive disorder.  At the time I was working at MIT, I was also doing musical theatre (Guys & Dolls, The Apple Tree) and it was a surreal experience to be delving into the mysteries of the brain and neural pathways and to try and make sense of musical comedies. I don’t know if I’m making the connection clear, but I was reminded of this when I came across a recent TED article on brain research.

The fascinating part of this brain research, for me at least, was the capricious character of the neural pathways.  (rather like the rehearsal process).  You could alter the neural pathways of the brain (rather than removing the brain matter as in a lobotomy) but the brain would sometimes recreate it’s own “freeway” system of connections, often individualized in a way that couldn’t be anticipated.

I remember conversations with some of the scientist about the “location” of the brain – was the intelligence of the body a wholistic content – was the spirit of the person able to determine where/how the brain located its memory? 

So here is the article on TED that made me think about MIT/The Apple Tree/and the dancing girls in “A Bushel And A Peck” today.  My neural pathways are tingling.

http://www.ted.com/conversations/10581/how_does_virtuality_translate.html

The courage to say things out loud…

This reminded me of moments onstage when someone says something that changes the temperature in the room.

I want to remember the expressions of their faces as they talked about this on camera.

I want to remember how powerful a personal truth is – even as it has its detractors.

http://www.urbancusp.com/newspost/viola-davis-and-octavia-spencers-mustsee-debate-with-tavis-smiley-video/

The Interview with Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer

Watching Meryl Streep…

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/06/146362798/meryl-streep-the-fresh-air-interview

This interview reminds me of what an inspiration Meryl Streep is to me:  how she has forged her own way through middle age in the limelight of celebrity and movie making.  Even though I wasn’t offered the role of “witches” when I was in my forties – I remember the feeling that the only thing left for me was getting old.  And that didn’t seem very powerful.  Now I know better.  (At least I’m trying to know better.)

On the roles she was offered in her 40s and 50s

 ”I remember when I turned 40, I was offered, within one year, three different witch roles. To play three different witches in three different contexts. It was almost like the world was saying or the studios were saying, ‘We don’t know what to do with you.’ … I think there was, for a long time in the movie business, a period of — when a woman was attractive and marriageable or f- – -able, that was it. And then they didn’t know what to do with you until you were the lioness in winter, until you were 70, and then it was OK to do Driving Miss Daisy … [and] things like that. But that middle period — the most vibrant of a woman’s life, arguably, from 40 to 60, no one knew what to do with them. That really has changed, not completely, not for everybody, but for me it has changed. Part of it has to do with, I wasn’t that word that I just said that you bleeped before; when I was a younger actress, that wasn’t the first thing about me.”

Collecting vocabulary…

Visual images are part of my creative process.  Unless I get obsessed with the visual images and they get in the way.

Research. Gathering. Hunting.  I’m in a collecting mindspace as I’m trying to reshape/re-image some of my writings.  Unfortunately, I was sent an invitation to Pinterest.  Now I have a place to create bulletin boards of images online – rather than in my multiple file folders crammed with torn out pictures from magazines.  And like a squirrel jamming nuts in my cheeks, I’ve gone over board with my “collections”. 

http://pinterest.com/magicwands/my-love-of-very-large-and-overwrought-hats/

We’re told to fix our scripts to make them producible…

This article about Paula Vogel in today’s New York Times reminded me of a bad landing I once had at the Burbank airport.  Bumpy, breathless, frightening, annoying, and ultimately , I was just grateful I got through it.  Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit.  (Or “embroidering” as we like to say in my family).

I thought it was wonderful that this successful playwright was such a champion of big ideas/actions/visuals for plays.  But then, this is Paula Vogel.  Who”… led the playwriting program at Brown University, and since 2008 she has been head of playwriting at Yale. “  So when she says ” Why are we in theater if we’re not forming something collaboratively?”    – it has a bit more punch, than say, when I say advise my cats in the office.  “No, put your claws in and really shred that paper napkin in the third act.”

And then I thought -  wait a minute.  These weren’t just playwrights at this boot camp. These were:   “playwrights for a day, many of whom were donors to Second Stage. (Invitations were extended to those who had given $3,500 or more to that nonprofit theater company.)”  Oh.  So they had to come up with $3,500 as a fundraiser to participate in this exercise.  That’s when the reading of the article became a little bumpy for me. ($3,500!  $3,500? Really? Oh. But it’s not really for playwrights – its for donors.)  So it wasn’t really a boot camp for playwrights.  It was a boot camp for donors.

And here’s the part of the article that made me annoyed, frightened and breathless, not necessarily in that order:

“Ms. Vogel explained that silence can be a stage direction of enormous power, not only to heighten tension among characters but also to provide a cathartic moment for audiences. She encouraged her writers, in their scripts, to consider leaving half a page blank to underscore the importance of wordlessness to directors and actors.

Such a heavy authorial hand drew heated complaints, however, from Nicholas Gray, a young theater director who had been invited by an associate. Mr. Gray railed against lengthy stage directions, saying he crossed them out in scripts before he would begin rehearsals with his actors.

“It’s the playwright being tyrannical over all of the other artists who will ever work on the play,” Mr. Gray said, adding that even “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” would not escape his pen.”

Well, at least I know that some young theater director, like the Mr. Nicholas Gray, wouldn’t hesitate to cross out any stage directions in a script of mine.  Even if my name was Eugene O’Neill.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/theater/paula-vogel-leads-a-playwright-boot-camp-at-second-stage.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&smid=fb-share

Different voices – gifts from other writers

I’ve been working on a novel for the past several years – and this is a piece of fiction based on family stories. In this novel I have many kinds of characters: children, men, women, grandparents, dogs, a Maine Coon Cat. And a female slave trying to get to Canada in the maze of the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. I’ve just recently started re-writes on this – and in the past few weeks the universe (or the online writing community) has had some amazing articles by writers dealing with the issue of writing in different voices.  I have lots of thinking to do…

http://www.howlround.com/why-am-i-afraid-to-write-african-american-characters-by-marshall-botvinick/

http://www.howlround.com/the-benefits-of-slavery-by-timothy-douglas/

 http://www.howlround.com/a-response-to-timothy-douglas-by-winter-miller/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HowlRound+%28HowlRound.com%27s+Journal%2C+Blog%2C+&+Podcasts%29