The Art of Sacrifice

Most young actors are told early and often that this profession is impossible.  That you need to find something to fall back on.  That this industry will eat you up and spit you out.

That was not my experience.  I was encouraged to pursue this thing.  I was told that I would have no trouble being a working actor.  I had talent, they said.

Well, they weren't wrong about most of that.   But they left out the part where I'd make a living doing this.

This week, I had to drop out of a play for purely financial reasons for the first time in my career.   In one sense I'm sick about it because I've disappointed someone that I dearly love as well as many actors that I am friends with.  In the other, I'm relieved that my practical sense and love for my family made the best decision.  Hell, I've saved $120 in babysitter fees this week alone. (That number will rise to over a grand next month).  I also have a job opportunity that I really enjoy in October that I wouldn't have been able to do, that will earn money, save babysitter fees, and give feedback to high school actors.  So, I feel good about the decision...as a practical manner.  But a little bit of my soul died.

So, here's the thing.  I was to play Banquo in my dear friend Renee's, Macbeth.

Renee O'Connor is easily one of the top five human beings I've ever encountered.  She was my Lady M. the first time I played Macbeth way back in 2002.  There was a performance when I learned my mom not only had lung cancer, but had a lung removed an hour before the show.  She literally pulled me into the play and carried me through every moment of that performance.  It was such a generous gift and masterful performance from her that it fully engaged me in every moment.   She is, also, maybe the most intuitive person I know.  (Damn that Meisner training).   I've learned that hiding anything from her is a fool's errand.  She sees through all the bullshit and just knows.  And that night, even though I said I was good to go, she knew I wasn't.  And it was amazing.  Her big, beautiful heart held us up and we delivered a very different, yet well executed performance.

We have worked together a few times since then.  We did Dinner with Friends a couple of years ago at Little Fish where we played old friends, which wasn't hard.  Earlier this year, I directed a reading of "Uncle Vanya" and played Astrov opposite her Yelena.  And being a fool in love with here wasn't difficult either.  

I had been looking forward to her Macbeth for months. Not just because I love her, but I like the company model she is creating by bringing young actors into a professional environment.  I was also excited about playing yet another role in this masterpiece.  In fact, I turned down the opportunity to perhaps play my dream role of Astrov in New American's upcoming "Uncle Vanya."

But, my brilliant and wonderful wife, Annie, booked two plays before the end of the year.  Because she's amazing!  We met playing Petruchio and Kate (how adorable is that?) and she's crushed every role that has come her way.  We are accustomed to saying yes to art, even when it overlaps.  We do the thing and figure it out later.  But we are fucking broke.  It's nobody's fault... least of all hers.  We used to be middle class, but now we are the working poor.  This is what income inequality looks like.  We are their poster children.  And speaking of children, we have two of them and they cost money.  Dentistry for one and Orthodontistry for the other has us practically begging on the streets.  (She will hate that I'm writing this, because she is bred of that proud midwestern worker stock, but it's a fact).  We have been trying to make ends meet for years now and failing.  It's only a matter of time before we have to pack it in and move somewhere else to survive.

But I'm so happy that Annie is working in theatre.  She has been so supportive of my journey, and taking projects here and there when she could fit them in between my gigs and also wanting to be home with the girls.  It's her time, and she is going to be wonderful in these plays!  I will be posting like crazy to get you all to see "Chills and Thrills," and "Embridge" at Little Fish.

So, my "in-between" (see previous blog) is stretching further than I thought it would.  And despite my shame in backing out of a play and my grief being super prevalent this time of year (all covered in previous blog), I'm ok.  Surprisingly ok.  There is literally nothing I wouldn't give up for my family.  This is mathematical.  We have x amount of dollars, and every time we are gone costs y amount of money, and I can make m money from another job.  This is the mathematics of survival.  The art of sacrifice.

I hope you all go see Macbeth at the Grand Annex in San Pedro in October.  I'm sure it will be wonderful.  If they will let me in, I'll be there cheering them on.  And, I am sure you will all join me on opening night of "Chills and Thrills" and "Embridge" at Little Fish.

And for me, I am going back to class.  I don't have a lot of free time, but I am excited to get back into studio with Jack and refresh myself on what this craft is.  My screenplay has a second draft and I'm anxious to see what Booey and Matt have to add to that before we have a table read.  And surprisingly, I feel ok right now.  I was expecting to spiral. But with the love of my family and friends, I am fucking surviving like a beast!

Check back with me in a month, and I might be a mess.  But for now, I am playing with my daughters, getting ready to adjudicate some high school plays, super thrilled for Annie, and hoping that my friends in Macbeth can forgive me.

Also, if California could better fund the arts, that would be great!

Part Two

I could give a master class in compartmentalizing.  I am the master of it. 

Compartmentalizing is the ability to put things in different parts of your brain in order to achieve the task in front of you.  (That's my definition.  I think it's good).

In the three weeks I was in Ventura doing "Moonlight and Magnolias" my dad was dying.  I didn't really realize he was dying until the final week, but I knew he was in bad shape.  The folks at the theatre were great.  They told me to go home if I needed to.  I told my dad that, and he told me to stay where I was.  He'd be there, or he wouldn't, but I couldn't do a damn thing for him anyway. 

So every night, I'd put on my Selznick suit and glasses and play with my dear friends onstage and delight audiences to standing ovations.  And the only times I would think about my dad were in those moments when Selznick talked about his father dying and losing everything.  There were some moments when my given circumstances bubbled up into the play and it became quite dramatic.  But I was able to put that back in its compartment and get on with the play. 

Then the play would end, and I'd be alone. 

David Selznick was dead, and my father dying.

I drank a lot. And if there were people around, I'd lose myself in their stories.  I'd escape my reality by crawling inside theirs.  Denial and deflection were my armor. 

When there was nobody around.  I was alone to imagine my dad in terrible pain hoping for  his own death.  And although I'm devastated that he's dead, I'm relieved that he is not longer suffering.  He was healthy his whole life, and to experience that sort of pain 81 years into life just isn't fair.

And I thought a lot about compartmentalizing.  And about denial.  And about acting. 

Here are my thoughts:

Trained actors...ok, I don't want to speak for everybody, but I expect most trained actors have these same skills...

I am very good at being "in the moment."  This is a phrase actors use to describe living truthfully onstage with given circumstances provided by the writer.  I wasn't always great at being in the moment, to be honest.  (I'm a smart guy, and liked figuring it all out...but that can be super boring onstage).  It's a skill I developed when I studied the Sanford Meisner technique at Playhouse West in the late 90s. 

The Meisner technique is based on repetition and observations in working with the people opposite you.  I love/hated my time there.  It broke down a lot of my habits and got me out of my head (which is ironic, considering it enabled me to block out the part of my head that I didn't want to deal with last week).

A schooled Meisner actor is the master of compartmentalization.  But if you tell them that, they will just repeat it back to you until you get into a fist fight. 

That's funny and true.

When I left there (grateful and a better actor, able to be in the moment) I found Jack Stehlin.  He became my artistic father.  My dad would even talk about Jack in that way. My other father.  (Although he's too young to really be my dad). Jack teaches his own spin on pure Stanislavski.  Stanislavski is the father of all modern acting.  Everything else just takes an aspect of his teaching and highlights it.  Meisner, Adler, Strasberg, and others all owe their work to him. 

And emotions are like acting principles.  Believe me, I spent a lot of time thinking about it.

I called on all my Meisner powers, limited as they may be, to get me through this past week.  I was able to compartmentalize only the moment in front of me.  I was David Selznick in a room making a movie.  That was all I came onstage with.  All I was able to come onstage with.  I was in that room, and was able to be alive in that moment only.

Except...every once in awhile I would talk about my dad.  (Selznick's dad).  And my Stanislavski training would assert itself and demand to be heard.  Thanks god I am not a devotee of Strasberg, or we never would have made it out of there, and there would be a lot of unnecessary crying.

So I came to the understanding that denial is a part of compartmentalizing loss.  If you are able to put the focus on somebody else's problem, you are better able to compartmentalize.  If you are good at improv...just saying "Yes and..." you will thrive and compartmentalizing.  But mostly, if you love what you are doing and who you are doing it with, you will be able to compartmentalize.  Otherwise there's no fucking point. 

I'm restless because I don't know what to do now.  I don't have any lines written for me.  And my dad died a day before I was able to get home to see him.  But, truth be told, I am glad I don't have that image of him in my mind.  He is vibrant and loving with an easy laugh and a ponytail in my mind.  I think that's how he'd want me to remember him too. 

Part one

When I thought of this title, I almost didn't want to write the blog.  Because if you were in my head, you wouldn't need to read anything else.  But, you aren't.  Thank your lucky stars for that.  So I will write.

My Dad died Saturday.

If you were in my heart, I wouldn't have to write another sentence, because there's nothing else to say.  But you aren't.  (Or maybe you are, but my heart just had a seismic event and we're going to need you to check in before we recognize you).

I don't want to talk about it.  I was incapable of talking about it as of yesterday.  Today I simply don't want to.

But I do want to write about it.  Or if not it, my process of dealing/not dealing with it.

My dad told me he was experiencing some stomach pain in May.  I told him to see a doctor.  My dad hates doctors, so we got in a fight.  But, by the end of the fight he agreed to go get some tests done.  In the end they determined that he had severe constipation and needed to be put on a special diet to increase his weight and have enough fibre to get better.  What they didn't notice was the mass on his spine indicating some kind of cancer.  My sister, the saint, went down and made him some good food and tried to help him out.  But he didn't get better, because although spaghetti is delicious, it's not a cure for UN-diagnosed cancer. 

Meanwhile, I was visiting all the parks in Southern California as Iago.  Thinking I was making a difference by bringing Shakespeare to the masses.  And maybe I did.  I certainly wrote a lot about it.  As you can read elsewhere in my blog. 

After the summer, I was lined up to play David O Selznick in "Moonlight and Magnolias" at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura.  It's a part I had played before, with the same director and most of the same cast.  It was an amazing experience when we did it before...and, with the exception of heartbreaking personal loss, an even better one this time. 

My dad told me that he thought he had cancer three weeks ago.  I was home from Ventura for a couple of days before our very quick run.  I asked him why he thought that.  He told me that Dr. Baker had done an X-Ray and seen a mass on his spine. He was to have a follow up with a surgeon in a few days.  (That never happened, because Baker sent him to a doctor who no longer practiced, further sending my dad into distrust of the medical profession).  Meanwhile, I was opening a show at the Rubicon.  (A really lovely theatre in Ventura.  Filled with wonderful, caring, nurturing, theatre professionals).  It wouldn't be stretching the truth to call this the best professional experience of my career. 

The following week, my dad tells me he's ready to die.  Aside from his spine being messed up from a fall, and the mass seen on one X-ray, he has had a death experience.  He told me that his heart had stopped and he had become one with the Universe, and only came back to get his affairs in order before joining my mom in eternity.  I asked if he had gone for a second opinion.  He let me know where I could stick the second opinion and all of western medicine.  But that was fine.  I knew it was coming.  I told him that I could be home by the 20th.  He told me he wasn't dying on my schedule.  We both laughed.

A week later, he was in hospice.

When we talked last Sunday, he told me that he didn't think he could wait for me.  I told him that was fine.  He told me that he loved me and was proud of the life I lived.  I told him that I loved him and was grateful to have him as my dad.  I told him that I was sorry (again) for not being there.  He told me (again) that there was nothing I could do for him and that he was proud that I was making theatre. 

I had two shows on Saturday.  After the first, I learned that he had died.  I cried a lot.  I pulled myself together and did the second show for him.  My castmates were amazing.  My director pulled herself out of a sickbed to be on hand.  I did that show for him.  To honor him.

I wasn't with him when he passed.  I'm glad Christy was. 

He told me that we were together, even though I was a thousand miles away.

Doing that show was the hardest thing I've ever done.  But I was able to put on the suit and glasses and lose myself in David Selznick.  Maybe it was denial.  But I honored my dad that night and blew him a kiss at curtain call.

That's the backstory.  What I learned comes in part two.