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.