Let the Dog Drive*

I'm breaking the seal on the August blogging moratorium. I'm not procrastinating by posting this, I'm relieving pressure, and feeling nostalgic, and to be quite honest - a bit down. I've been feeling very isolated lately - artistically and personally. The personal part has never really bothered me much before (or if it does, only sporadically), I guess because I've reached a state of acceptance about it and also, because I had the artistic thing going with the theater company so both needs were served. At any rate, as a remedy, I'm going to post.

So.

In June, I read And Then, You Act. If anyone is keeping score, I said I would reread the book and post about it the second time through. Instead I've been obsessing about a couple of chapters - Intention and Attitude. Starting with Intention (30 - 50).

Who Are Your Colleagues?
Look around you right now and see who is there.

These particular people around you at present are the key. They are your collaborators for now.

They will serve as mirror, engine, necessary resistance, and your inspiration. They are your material and your means. With them, you begin to generate work. Without them, you are nothing.

(How can you go wrong with a girl in a party hat?)

In the process of working with these people in your present circumstance, you will meet other people, and the circle around you will expand, alter, and redefine itself again and again.

The temptation to wait until the perfect situation and the right people are in place before you make your best effort is simply avoidance.


Do not wait. Your dedication to the given circumstances, right now, will eventually bring you closer to others who share your own belief and commitment. If you do not commit fully to the people with you now, like-minded others will never show up.

Learn to love, admire, respect, and appreciate the people with whom you work. These colleagues, partners, and coworkers provide the necessary keys to your own development and growth. An attitude of respect will prevent the specter of neediness from raising its ugly head. Neediness is never attractive and rarely productive. - Anne Bogart, And Then, You Act

Okay. So maybe Anne's not being literal when she says to look around you right now. Or maybe she is. Either way, this is what my territory looks like. And that's not even considering the construction going on in my house.

Regardless. This is a difficult statement to come to terms with. I think one of the most challenging things about being in a theater company is wrapping your head around this one. At one point or another it comes up. How you deal with it determines the direction of the company.

It also comes up when working on a single production. There's always someone who treats the group as if they're doing everyone a huge favor just by walking through the door. Usually late. This person creates huge drag. And drag asserts itself upon the group in insidious ways. Scenes for some reason are difficult to stage. It's hard to keep momentum going during rehearsal. Yes. Because a huge black hole has opened itself up and is sucking the entire creative process into its deadly maw. But I' m getting off topic - into Attitude, yes? I think these two things - Intention and Attitude - are linked. But it's not my intention to go there today.

I went to a talk-back with Paula Vogel at Berkeley Rep when they produced How I Learn To Drive. She talked about finding your people. The people - five at the most - who are your collaborators. For years, I've been trying to cultivate that group of people. But it's a difficult thing. Because while you may recognize those elements that make a person your ideal collaborator - the feeling may not be reciprocated. Rejection must surely figure prominently in the heartbreak that Ariane Mnouchkine talks about when she discusses working with her company. It hurts when people leave you. It hurts when people reject what you have to offer.
But like any relationship, risking rejection is necessary. How else will you find your people?

That's tricky. Maybe you have to work with a lot of people and get rejected over and over again. Maybe it's like Stephen King's rejection nail in On Writing, you just have to keep slamming them on there. Each one gets you closer to yes. Or maybe you toss in the towel on the whole thing and when people stop smelling your desperation maybe they can bring themselves to stand a little closer to you. Or maybe you don't focus on the rejection or the potential rejection. Instead you focus on what's in front of you. Which is the work - Jetzt fängt die Arbeit an, as George would have it.

Bob: It gets a whole lot more complicated when you have kids.
Charlotte: It's scary.
Bob: The most terrifying day of your life is the day the first one is born.
Charlotte: Nobody ever tells you that.
Bob: Your life, as you know it... is gone, never to return. But they learn how to walk, and they learn how to talk and you want to be with them. And they turn out to be the most delightful people you will ever meet in your life.

- Lost in Translation, Soffia Coppola

The work for this particular writer and director must also be balanced with motherhood. My kids are my collaborators in a very essential way. Probably the most challenging people I've worked with in my life. Yes. They provide that necessary resistance. But they've also exposed my own. My resistance to going with the flow - following their rhythms, not mine own. My resistance to being constricted in terms of time - with each child the time I have to myself has gotten less and less. I mean it should be obvious, right?

So what's up with the resistance? I've been thinking about this for several years - since my daughter started walking. I've been watching how she sits, stands, walks, and changes direction She can squat for an endless amount of time on her little legs, then spring up and run off without so much as a huff of effort or apparent discomfort. I've been studying Suzuki for ten years and so these particular movements are of great interest to me. Around the same time, I saw the Grand Kabuki Theater of Japan (stick with me, I really am going somewhere).

I was watching Bo Shibari (Tied to a Pole), a kyogen comedy, about two servants who whilst - you guessed it - tied to a pole manage to get into their master's sake - hilarity ensues. The piece showcased the two actor's (Nakamura Kanjaku and Nakamura Kikaku) agility and versatility. I could see some of the same movements that we do in Suzuki marches and walks - side kicks, brushing the floor with the feet, stamping, and squatting - all done with ease and grace and humor. So I asked myself why I put so much effort into Suzuki? Or more precisely, why so much effort into making it look difficult? If you take as a given that it is hard, why show the difficulty? Why waste time showing how hard you have to work? Is this effort useful? Is it entertaining or enlightening in anyway? To anyone? It's not like I hadn't been told this before. But observing my daughter and watching the performance demonstrated the concept.

Another example. A friend of ours died recently. He went to bed and never woke up. So far the doctors have been unable to determine the cause of death. He was reasonably healthy and in good shape. He just didn't wake up. His wife went into the bedroom eventually and found him. I can't begin to imagine what the loss must be like. But here's the thing - whatever private agony she's going through, she is still happy and breezy and engaged. And not in a soldiering-through-it-so-that-we-all-feel sorry-for-her way. She's just navigating through her given circumstances with grace and ease. I'd like to get myself to a place where I could have that kind of equanimity.

This resistance to the given circumstances, to the necessary resistance of one's life or one's art is an ineffective use of energy. It undermines your intentions. So just stop it, 'kay? I'm having a hard time doing that lately and I'm trying to find my way through this, trying to let go, stay present, and allow my collaborators to lead. Like I have a choice.

* By David Bowman