All Access

Something that has always been a special and cherished experience to me in live has been when I was granted access to someplace exclusive. That's a natural thing, I think. Maybe people are perhaps eager to get into someplace like a nightclub where they are rather discriminating. For me, it need not be such a spectacular example of an exclusive place. I like just being able to be in the back room of a store, which employees of the store will probably tell you is not special.

The other day, I had a reasonable excuse to enter one of these protected realms. I had that sketch in the show on Sunday night, and I had props and costume items that people needed. My friend and I went into the bar area of iO West, which is how you get to the main theater where the show was to be. The guy checking IDs tells me that props have to go around back. I was not at all sure how to handle that, but I did know the way to the main stage and green room from the back.

Ramp-Up

I have lately been expanding my horizons a bit. For some time, I was just doing improv with my team in Monkey Butler. For that matter, it was the only comedy I was doing at all outside of personal writing endeavors. It could be said that I was getting into a rut and suffering for lack of numerous, varied opportunities to learn and perform. What I was doing wasn't bad, but it also probably wasn't enough. I have lately remedied that.

It began with a class being taught by a friend. I took the class, and found myself challenged by a different way of doing things, as well as by the new people with whom I was doing them. We bonded and grew together over the next weeks and had ourselves a nice graduation show. I thought then that it would end there, although I expected friendships to endure. It was not to be as I expected, I'm happy to say.

Kiss And Makeup, In That Order

It's a funny thing to wear makeup. For a man it's funny in any case, I think (although that's a less and less politically-correct viewpoint). For anyone it's a funny thing to do when it's the sort of makeup that you wear for performing on stage or onscreen. There's makeup to make you look as you should without makeup, for God's sake. Nixon eschewed it, and partly due to that lost the 1960 election. Kennedy had no problems with it.

I've had to wear makeup a handful of times in performance, and I expect that to become more common. It has so far been that sort of muted makeup,mostly. Once I requested unnecessary makeup from a makeup artist with nothing to do. I had to take the subway home from that shoot, and I worried that I might arouse unwanted attention of some kind, but it takes a lot to move the needle with people around here.

Outdoors, Outstanding?

I was able to do my one man show again the other day. If you have not heard or read anything about it from me, I should explain briefly. Some time ago, I was in a one person show workshop, and developed a piece that parodies the life of Mark Twain as well as the existing one man show based on him by Hal Holbrook, who is incredibly of no relation. Since then, I've had the opportunity to do it a few times.

So far, it's been successful with each staging. This most recent time would have to be the least successful, but by rights I can claim only partial responsibility. The thing is that the setting was a difficult one. There was a carnival at church, and a variety of booths were there for amusement purposes. People were just meandering around, and there was no real dedicated seating area for the small main stage where my performance took place.

The Moment Passes

It's a hell of a thing when you have the opportunity to perform. Most of what I do involves teamwork, and it's a beautiful thing to create something with people- to have that bond with someone. The attention is diffused, though. The audience sees you all, and some of you stand out less than others. In a scripted performance those will always be the same people, but in improv it depends on the prevailing nature of the performers who tends to catch the audience's eye most often.

When you do something that is exclusively your own thing, the audience only sees you and what you've done. That might make for the most intense experience from the perspective of the performer. Just yesterday, I did my one man show, and it was quite a feeling. While onstage, time just flew. I saw the audience, but they might as well have been faces painted on a wall for all that it meant to my brain at that moment. I heard them better, and tried to adjust on the fly a little according to their responses.

Moment Of Truth

When you do improv comedy, it seems to me that it's tough to get too emotionally invested in what you come up with. You come up with it on the spot, so why should you get attached? I know that I don't, and it seems reasonable to suppose that others have the same experience with it. You say to yourself, "I would have done this and this and this better had I time to prepare, had I opportunity to write the thing in advance. I didn't, and mistakes are part of the charm."

When you do someone else's prepared material, it's easy to detach yourself from it. Whatever the outcome, you can hang your hat on the assumption that any failure in it lies in the camp of the writer, not the performer. You say to yourself, "Had I written it, I would have been able to do it better in such and such a way, and the writer really screwed me up. I did my best, but the audience disliked it because the words were no good."

In The Big Time

I have had more and more opportunities for performance in recent times. Naturally, these performances have been of a humble nature, and so the venues and accommodations have likewise been rather modest. One becomes accustomed to relatively little in the way of stages, crowds and other things, so it's really something when it's anything more than the auditorium of a church. Just such an occurrence transpired lately, and I felt compelled to share it.

We had already performed a comedic sketch two times a couple of weeks before, both at conventional church locations. One was superior where such things as the backstage are concerned, but neither could hold a candle to one of the places we performed in the other day. This was a legitimate theater rented out for services, and it looked every inch the grand older theater. It was lavishly decorated and boasted an impressive balcony. I could have imagined the Muppet Show taking place there.

What Kind Of Show Is This?

It seems to me that there are three types of performances. I have had occasion to think about this because I have performed quite a bit by my standards in the last year, and have been involved in all three types. Each one has its unique qualities, and I don't quite know what could be the best among them. Now, there is of course the performance that you plan on giving. You want to do it and anticipate doing it, then you do it as you intended. I don't mean that this is a scripted thing as opposed to improv, as it easily could be that. I just mean that it's a predicted thing. That being the case, there is no good cause to believe that anything unusually surprising will happen.

There is also that fairly well-known thing, the command performance. Someone who wields power over you demands that you perform. It may be a malevolent type of power, such as a man with a gun firing at your feet and ordering you to dance, or it might be a softer, more pleasant type of power, such as that of an attractive woman using her wiles on you. In either case, one is left doing things they perhaps would rather not, so as to avoid a worse fate. It's better to suffer a loss of dignity singing a treacly pop standard than to get slapped, am I correct?

Remember

I have undertaken the weighty enterprise of live performance a good number of times in my life, and have now found myself the leased aggrieved by the form most likely to frighten others: improv. Not having the security of a script which they can cling to is scary, I understand. I find it to be the most relaxed kind of acting I might try to do, for there are no specific expectations for me to meet, and more importantly, no lines for me to memorize. Any attempt to prepare is basically useless except to warm up. You have practices that more resemble athletic workouts than rehearsals, because there's nothing to rehearse yet. I love that. I get to act cool as a cucumber, and when people inquire about the show's chances and how I feel, I can just shrug and say "We'll see how it goes".

That's improv. Scripted performance is something else again, and maybe those who do it find my alarm as curious as I find theirs in what I consider my area. I described the act of working with a script as something like walking around while carrying an anchor. What is comforting to others is oppressive to me- something that will tug on me endlessly until it brings me down. Now, I don't call that a reasonable attitude, exactly. It's just the one I'm dealing with. It so happens that I'm embarking on a scripted show now. I have my anxieties about it, not the least of which being that concern about mastering my script and not permitting it to master me. It's not so much that I feel stifled by the idea of having to do a show in a certain way and not getting to change it up in any respect. I believe I could be perfectly content to do the same show each time out, and would not get bored. That's not an issue here anyway, as there will be just one performance unless I take it upon myself to try and grant my show additional life.