Standing Ovations

"The Subject Was Roses" is playing here in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Form. The play was written in 1964 by Frank Gilroy, won the Pulitzer, was on Broadway where it won a Tony Award for Best Play and was made into a film.This particular mounting was put in motion by it's star, Martin Sheen. Sheen was in the original Broadway production and nominated for  Tony and Jack Albertson won the Tony for his portrayal as the father -- the role Sheen inhabits today. It's a homecoming of sorts for Sheen.

Two things need to be said right off the bat: I'm a huge fan of both the Taper (It's great space and I am rarely disappointing in the productions) and of Martin Sheen. Pound for pound he is one of My favorite actors of all time. Missiles of October, Apocalypse Now, The Execution of Private Slovak, Da, That Championship Season. Those films alone put Sheen in my books as one of our best actors. Then, of course, there's The West Wing. Not just a masterpiece of television drama by Aaron Sorkin, but a brilliant cast lead by Martin Sheen as President Jed Bartlet. Sheen's President Bartlet spoiled me for any other President in my lifetime. But I digress....

Liz and I always love going to the Taper. We'll usually have dinner and drinks al fresco at the Pinot Grill just outside the Taper doors. We'll saunter in with the other patrons, take our seats and let the play wash over us. All of this we certainly did on this evening. The play was good enough. Just good, not great. Most people probably came to see Martin Sheen live and in person on stage. fair enough. And Sheen was fine. Frances Conroy as the wife and mother was fine. Brian Geraghty (from the Hurt Locker) was obviously green and needed a firmer hand from the director, but serviceable enough considering his relative lack of theatrical chops. The set was fabulous! Later, our ride home would be filled with an intense discussion about why this play was chosen, how we would have addressed some of the problems we saw, etc. You know, the kind of stuff all theatre folk tear apart and chew on when we go see a play. But, all in all, a pleasant enough evening at the theatre. We enjoyed it.

Then the play ended. The applause started and everyone stood up. Not to leave, but to applaud. A standing ovation.

Now I can count on one hand the number of times I have been in the midst and a willing participant in a true heartfelt standing ovation. A performance so enthralling or so fabulously moving no one present would have even known they were rocketed to their feet by some unseen force of the theatre. Antony Sher as Richard III at the RSC in 1984. Kenneth Branagh as Henry V that same year, same place. Ian McKellan in his one-man show Acting Shakespeare at the Westwood Playhouse (now the Gefffen). No question: Standing O. Brilliant, moving, tours de force, passionate, exquisite, nonpareil. Whole theatres on their feet in a flash, knowing they had seen something truly special.

Since then, however, and particularly over the past ten or fifteen years, I've noticed that audiences will bestow a standing O on anything they pay money to see. Liz and I have been the only one's seated at some of the most mediocre plays and performances of the last millennium. We have seen dreadful celebrity performances bring the house down. We have witnessed $100 a seat musicals receive standing ovations, yet not a single tune was whistled fondly on the street afterward. What gives?

Has the sheer price of tickets made us believe that what we are seeing is spectacular? Have we become so enthralled by celebrity that we will always stand for star because he or she is in the movies? Do we just not go to enough theatre to know good from bad? Are our expectations just so low that we are simply amazed that poeple can learn that many lines?

I'm worried. The standing ovation at the Taper could not have been for the performance that evening. It was fine. It wasn't fabulous. It was journeyman work. It wasn't transcendent. The only explanation must be that Martin Sheen is famous. So we should stand for the famous guy. 

I rarely agree with reviews. But for once I agree with a review in the Hollywood Reporter. It is a fair assessment of this production. Some of it is the fault of a dated play that just doesn't mean what it once did. Gilroy's play has become a period piece. Some of the fault should fall at the feet of the director for not doing more to address the play itself and for not guiding a young actor better through the minefield that is live theatre. But most of the fault lies in the clapping hands and standing bodies of audiences that demands nothing more than a nice evening out.

I hope to see a play soon that will force me to my feet without a second thought. Indeed, I long for the rush that fills my head and face as I stand in awe of a massive display of talent and words and collaboration to powerful that my very being is catapulted from my comfort. Until that show comes around, however,I will continue to enjoy my play going with my wife and friends. I will continue to work in and support the theatre and the artists who work in it. I'll just do it from the comfort of my seat.

Award Shows: They're Kinda Like Crack -- Only With Commercials

I watch all the awards shows. Well, not ALL the awards shows. The big ones that have to do with movies and theatre. Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, SAG Awards (my new favorite), Golden Globes. I'll also tune into the Grammys for a few minutes here and there. Awards shows are the ultimate guilty pleasure. Oh, sure, I could be watching a great re-run of Law & Order: SVU or trying to catch up on Burn Notice or making sure that the episode of Bones isn't the One that my wife keeps telling me about but I can NEVER find..., but awards shows are just too much for me to miss. The drama, the beauty, the ego, the BS, the ridiculous clothing, the bad hair, the unshaven masses, the terrible local coverage. I love it.

Things never work out the way I think they should. Of course, the movie I thought was heads and tails above the rest is always slighted somehow. The one film I didn't see always wins something huge. The actor I thought just sucked out loud is guaranteed a trophy of some kind. Someone will always say something rude and stupid. And, thankfully, something nice and good and kind and maybe even inspiring will eventually occur. At least once. Maybe twice.

I'm still amazed, though, at how an industry who's sole purpose is to entertain us can't put together a better 3 hours of entertainment. With few exceptions, the opening numbers are labored. Getting presenters on and off stage takes forever. They have to walk FAR! The writing is a little heavy handed at times. Oh, and why does everyone have to be announced in? Don't we know who these people are? They are famous after all. If we know Kate Gosslin and Chloe Kardasian, sure we know who Matt Damon and Charlise Theron? Don't we?

Someone or something is always forgotten or flubbed. Leaving Bea Arthur and Farah Fawcett out of the "In Memorial" piece really was inexcusable. I sit through the end credits of every film I go see and I'll bet they don't forget anybody. How does that happen? You remember to put in Michael Jackson AS AN ACTOR but NOT Bea Arthur or Farah Fawcett? Hum. Don't get it.

Then there are the speeches. I have a love/hate relationship with the speeches. I so want them to be inspired oratories on art and dreams. Usually, they are frantic attempts to be sure to thank an agent or publicist. Vapid lists of names no one watching has ever heard of. So you just won an Oscar. What's your agent gonna do, drop you if you don't thank him? Thank your agent at the party. Thanks your manager at the hotel bar or in the limo on the way home. This is YOUR award. YOU did the work. Inspire us with your dreams, fill us with the journey of creating the role, regale us with exotic locations. Don't thank the valet for parking your car close to entrance.

Oh, and for the sake of film and theatre people not as fortunate as you, show some class. Don't cop major attitude when accepting the award as if it actually means something to the rotation of the Earth. More than likely, you weren't the only one considered for the role. More than likely, you don't have the body of work that other more talented nominees in the category have. More than likely, you don't have the training or the experience that your colleagues have. More than likely, your performance struck a cord in the culture and wasn't all that terrific anyway but the the film you were in made an impact that couldn't be ignored. So really, your award is less about YOU and more about the ROLE you played. I'm just saying....

Every year on every show there's gonna be one. At least. One moment that makes you squirm in your La-Z-Boy. One out of place political statement (Oscars/Remember the Brando and Sasheen Littlefeather affair?), one amazing display of ego (VMAs/Can you say "Kanye?"), or one moment of total grandstanding (Oscars/Michael Moore). Hey, it happens. We can't control ourselves.

We show biz folk do have large egos, but most of us also realize that we don't do what we do all by ourselves. Sandra Bullock certainly didn't NEED to be self-effacing and funny. She could have been bitchy and arrogant. She could have told us how awesome she was in the The Blind Side and how all the other nominees were there by the sheer fact that their schedules allowed them to go on talk shows. But she didn't.

See, this why I love awards shows. Other than waiting for Brett Favre to retire and un-retire again, when does a fella really get a chance to this worked up? Now, what's playing at The Bridge tonight?

Robert Prosky

You might not know the name, but you certainly know the actor. Robert Prosky is one of those actors whose career I have always respected... and coveted. First of all, he was a gifted actor. Second, most people would not recognize him if they bumped into him in the produce aisle. Some might do a double take thinking he was a distant uncle or former school teacher. If you were to ask me to "type" him, I guess I would say he is like a softer version of Ed Asner. He generates the same power with less bombast. 

Prosky died in 2008 at the age of 77. He was an actor that did everything: Stage, films, television. "Either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light." I had the pleasure of seeing him in A Walk in the Woods. Sometime ago Actors' Equity sent the following Robert Prosky missive in the mail to all its members. (I came across it while catching up on some filing I promised my wife I would get around to back in 2009.) I have shared it just as Equity had sent. I'll bet the capital "A' in Actor was Prosky's.


"I love Actors and by extension, the theater. I love the minutia that surrounds them both. I love listening and telling Green Room war stories. I love the onstage triumphs and yes, I love even the disasters. I love the adrenaline that shoots thru every Actor onstage when something goes wrong, and the relief that sweeps thru when some heroic Actor saves the day. I love performance. That time when the human beings on stage interact with the human beings in the audience and together they create the event of performance. It's one of life's most civilized experiences.


It has been said that an Actor must have the hide of a rhinoceros, the courage and audacity of a lion, and most importantly, the fragile vulnerability of an egg. It also has been said, and I'm not sure by whom, that the moment of not knowing is the moment that has the greatest potential for creativity. The professional and private lives of most Actors are filled to the brim with moments of not knowing. Actors are survivors and will continue to strive because they have the need to celebrate, in performance, that sacred communion between Actor and audience."


Amen.

I am NOT a writer.

Just needed to make that perfectly clear. Occasionally, I write things down but that doesn't make me a writer. My grammar is horrendous, I rarely complete a thought and I wouldn't know pronoun from an adverb.

Most of the time I just need to log a thought or make sure that some genius idea that just flashed in my brain gets captured in a way I can take credit for later. But a writer? No.

Writers are special. My wife is a writer. She can take a concept or a story or an idea and translate it through the written word that is engaging and funny and exciting and clever and thought-provoking. She can tell a story. I can tell a story, too, but I actually have to TELL it. Can't WRITE it. If I tried, it would come out like a really long nonsensical limerick.

Here in Hollywood there are about 187,295 writers. There are probably only around 2500 actual writers. The others are just like me, but can't face the fact that they suck. Me? I can face that fact very well. There are other things I am very good at, so the fact that writing is not once of them bothers me not in the least.

Just because I cannot write myself, however, does not mean I do not recognize good writing when I see it. I do. Kind of a dick about it, too. Nothing bothers me more than when I see a movie or a read book where the writing is worse than anything I could produce. I can fume for days. Just won't let it go. "How did that get made?" "Who publishes this drek?" "What knucklehead executive green-lighted that POS?"

Blame the internet, blame education, blame Congress. I know, blame Hollywood. That's it. Maybe if the popular culture that Hollywood creates would be a little more discriminating about what it churns out, there might actually be more reason to expect good writing.

The End.*



*What did you expect?

An Acting Coach Prepares

A student recently asked me why I don't "write more about acting" in this blog. I sighed. I have failed. [Hanging head in shame.] Apparently, my sessions are not hitting home. At least for this young thespian.

As if the art and craft of acting is like learning your times tables, young actors continually look to people like me for secrety secrets that will make them famous. Coded formulas that will make them "good actors." Let's just memorize some lines, the rest will just manifest itself once in front of the camera or on stage. As if there are little pills they can take that will transform them into theatrical superheroes able to leap tall verse in a single soliloquy. Agents, seeing their new found prowess will sign them, send them on the perfect audition for the next big time and -- viola -- they are living in Beverly Hills with a chihuahua and a Bentley convertible. Or at the very least, a black lab and a Lexus SUV. Sigh.

Young man, you gotta do the work. What is the work? Life. Life is the work. There. I said it. Save your money, quit your acting classes. You now have the knowledge that all great actors throughout time have known before you.

As a young actor, I too, wanted a fast track to fame. Impatient. Ambitious. Arrogant. "I was PERFECT for that role, I nailed the audition, whatdya mean I didn't get a call back?" The fact is, not everyone can do this acting thing. Not everyone has the patience or the intestinal fortitude (never used that phrase in a written sentence before!) to study acting. Study, I said. Actually, you don't really "study acting." If you did that you might more readily be considered a critic. Actors study life. By applying their observations they become actors.

Like some cosmic soap box derby, most humans coast through life. For some the road is steep with treacherous turns and uneven surfaces. For most, the journey is straight, even and flat with hedges and soft shoulders lining the way. Maybe the occasional bump or pothole. The actor's job is not just to coast on whatever his path may be, but to constantly stop and start. Survey the landscape, test the wind, smell the flowers, change cars, crash, steer into the ditch.

Even more, the actor's job is to pay attention. To everything. One of my most important mentors when a gentleman named Don Richardson. When studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Don would always assign the most ludicrous reading assignments. Articles on social anthropology, biographies of Nazi war criminals, psychology, weird shit that had nothing to do with ACTING. Or so thought a young impatient, ambitious, arrogant acting student who had yet to really pay attention in class.

While I certainly am still rather full of myself, I do know (or rather have come to know) that teaching the art and craft of acting is more than creating a stable of young people who hang on my every word. It's not about becoming a guru. It certainly isn't about the money -- at least for me. It is more than tweaking a line reading or cleaning up a goofy double gesticulation that could seriously poke someone's eye out. It's about trying to lead human beings through their lives with their eyes open. It's about helping to sift through the chatter of the insignificant and realize when it's not. It's about getting them involved in the world, in history, in culture, in art, in politics, in food, in sport,...in others.

I can't "write more about acting" any more than I can teach more about acting. I think acting coaches should be like psychiatrists. We should be in the business of putting ourselves OUT of business. We should prepare our charges for the day when they will boldly and bravely leave us. Armed with with the tools we have given them and taught them how to use.

I wonder if this will count as "writing more about acting."

Americans Have Become Lazy and Self-Righteous

Okay, well, maybe not all Americans. Maybe just me. I suspect there are many like me, but I should really just use myself and hope others will get the message.

I've been watching "Faces of America With Henry Louis Gates, Jr." on PBS. By tracing the ancestry of specific famous individuals, Gates illuminates some larger and very truths about American assimilation. He also makes me feel bad. Gates doesn't make me feel bad, but the stories do. Not bad, really, but certainly guilty. And lazy.

We all have stories in our family, some apocryphal some true, that make us realize that our ancestors we a unique bunch of humans. The adventures, the journeys, the dangers they faced are romanticized in mind and in movie. The fact of the matter, though, is that life was hard for them almost across the board. Unbearably hard by the standards of the 21st Century. The stories that Gates uncover are just a small sampling of the countless immigrant tales that we all have somewhere long ago.

When I hear about Kristi Yamaguchi's ancestors, their arduous journey to America, 12 hour days - 6 days a week of backbreaking labor in the sugar plantations of Hawaii for 12 bucks a month, interment in a concentration camp during WWII in the Arizona desert, the death of an entire young family due to disease, the resilience of the once successful patriarch of the family to go back to work in the fields of California when he was close to 70 years old...well, it makes me feel almost unworthy or their legacy. And I'm not even related!

Bigotry and racism aside, poverty and famine not-withstanding, most Americans have no idea what it truly means to "work hard." No, I mean WORK HARD. No unions to safeguard the work place, no regulations to protect the laborer, no laws to get in the way of productivity. Granted, time and progress should make conditions improve. Indeed, they have. Yet, through those filters, I sometimes think we have come to take their sacrifices for granted. Rather than learning from the lessons of history, we as a people tend to repeat them. Skin color and country of origin change, but the hardships for the people on the bottom persist.

From the Irish and Asians in my ancestors time, to the African-Americans and Mexican-Americans in my youth, to Arabs of today. If you don't share my skin color or my religion, you must be, somehow, less than me. How does that happen given the fact that we are all here because of somewhere else? How does it happen that in a country so proud of our diversity, so proud of our heritage, so proud of our accomplishments -- that we still segregate, isolate, stereotype and hate? We hate those who were just like our ancestors.

Nothing new here in this post, I know. Others have been far more eloquent about the subject. Hell, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. just made some shows about it. Maybe I need to write a letter to a Congressman or a Senator. Maybe a phone call to make sure my representatives watch PBS. Or maybe I should take the "Think Globally, Act Locally" idea to heart on a micro level. Maybe it will be enough if I try to be the person my ancestors would be proud of. Someone who will get back on the horse time and time again, broken and bloody, and not blame someone else for my getting bucked off. Someone who's not afraid to work hard, be tolerant of others, keep on open mind and an adventurous spirit.

May be harder that it sounds.

Girl Scout Cookies and the Fall of Western Civilation

There always someone to blame. Or some company. Lately, we've been blaming Wall Street for everything bad about America. I blame the Girl Scouts.


There was a time when the whole idea behind the selling of Girl Scout Cookies was admirable and maybe even valuable. The Girl Scouts even have a little explanation on their website that talks about all the good things that can come about through the selling of over-priced cookies. 

The problem is, the program doesn't work that way any more. I cannot tell you the last time I actually bought Girl Scout Cookies from a Girl Scout. For over 15 years or so I have only purchased my delicious Samoas  from the PARENTS of said Girl Scouts. The parents bring the paperwork to their place of employment and, literally, just pass it around for their co-workers to commit to purchasing the cookies. Occasionally, (on rare occasion, I might add) the young ladies will deliver the purchases. More often than not, however, the moms or dads will just bring the boxes in to work and leave them on the appropriate desks.


How do these girls "practice useful life skills like planning, decision-making, and customer service" when Mom and Dad do all the work? The past few years or so, organizations like the Girls Scouts have been in  trouble. They, along with the Boy Scouts and other like minded youth organizations are fighting to remain relevant in a world. In fact, many youth based organizations are struggling to survive in the 21st century. From sports stalwarts like AYSO to the venerable scouting programs, membership numbers are plummeting.

Of course, I know the reason why. I also know the solution. Let me share the secret. Now, realize, the people running these programs will blame the membership retreat on technology, drugs, globalization, the media, and a host of other plaques that the world is facing now. You have head that video games and MySpace are the enemy. Complaints that cell phones and PDAs are contributing to the de-socialization of our children. Bull shit. 

The reason for the decline is two-fold: First, parents are doing all the work. Second, parent volunteers run the organizations and refuse to evolve with their children.

Proof is in the pudding to the first point by way of the cookie example. How can a young Girl Scout possibly benefit from the lessons, indeed the MISSION, of selling cookies if they don't actually do the work. Parents, listen up. You are not helping. In fact you are cutting the legs out of the program.  You are teaching your children that they don't have to actually in order to meet their quota. "If Mom and Dad sell enough cookies for me, I'll get my badge." (Don't even get me started on the whole every-child-should-get-a-prize-just-for-participating thing!)

The second part is the hardest to address because the volunteers will deny it. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you got. Parents, volunteers, administrators listen up: YOU must change the way you view the organization. YOU must allow it to grow beyond your historic perception of it. YOU must be the ones to let go of age old, tired, worn out ways and traditions. YOU must be willing to let the brand evolve with the times -- and yes, maybe even change the logo or the uniform or the rules to reflect that evolution. Remember, your logo is NOT your brand. YOU are not the organization. You may run the organization, but you are not the reason for it, the mission of it, the essence of it.

The solution? Give these all of these organizations back to the kids that define them. Allow the kids (the actual members in the title) the power to be mentors and teachers. Let them be the ones who are the ambassadors for the good things done, the events, the games, the lessons, the fun. The only way you do that is to give them ownership of the organization.

AYSO has been struggling with this for years. The volunteers who run the programs, from the National Board of Directors down, actually view themselves as the most important piece of the puzzle. All company communications are directed at the volunteers. All training is focused on the volunteers. The rules and regulations are so complicated and convoluted that growth cannot occur organically because there is some worn out belief that "the way we've always done it" is sacrosanct and cannot be tampered with. The result? Kids stop signing up. Oh, sure, there's a lot of smoke and mirrors as these volunteer groups dance around problems and run-in-place while they try to convince other volunteers they are trying to do something. but the results are obvious, your membership numbers are declining.

On the AYSO front, I speak as someone with some specific knowledge as I was it's director of marketing for several years. I've seen first hand the stagnation that comes from very well-intentioned adults failing to let go of traditions and policies that just don't work any more. Not because they are bad, but because the world has evolved and the organization has failed to change the way it pursues its mission. A mission statement isn't an end point. A mission is something you must always be in pursuit. You must always be trying to figure out new ways to fulfill it. Because it is always in front of you, you must adapt with the road. If it's bumpy, either fill the bumps or steer around them. If it's hilly, know when to accelerate and when to take your foot off the pedal.

As a consultant that deals with local chapters of many of these other youth-based organizations, I can also tell you, they all are facing these same troublesome times. The causes and solutions are the same. Give the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts back to the girls and the boys. Give your local soccer and baseball leagues back to the kids. Let them have a say in how things are run, what the company looks like, what they want to hear and who they want to hear it from. You will be surprised at how smart, savvy and adaptable kids are. You'll also be surprised at how fast the membership slide will stop. You still have to help run the programs as volunteers. Just get your egos out of the way and understand that you volunteer for the kids not for your own personal and social satisfaction. Although, if you do your job right, with selflessness and humility, those will come. Empower the kids and thrust their judgement and your organization will grow. Yes, you may have to change a  logo, or a uniform, or an attitude. But the brand will remain stronger for it.

So, until I actually have a Girl Scout approach me to buy some cookies -- I'm just gonna have to learn to live without my Samoas.

The image is from http://ninethreestudio.com/