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Apropos of nothing, here is a list of published plays that I have read recently (in addition to those in which I have performed):

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
November by David Mamet
Hurlyburly by David Rabe
The Water’s Edge by Theresa Rebeck
‘Art’ by Yasmina Reza
God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza
Travels with My Aunt by Giles Havergal / Graham Greene
On Golden Pond by Ernest Thompson
Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekov

The last of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet evokes a pleasant feeling in me. True, the entire volume is cherished because of the good feelings it brings to the modern reader, but this letter ends on an unexplained and inexplicable up note. It is the day after Christmas and Rilke is responding to something good the young poet had written. Further, Rilke is glad he hasn’t ended up in a profession that denies or attacks the existence of all art. Isolation in a lonely soldier’s outpost is better than a job in journalism, criticism and three quarters of what if called literature. I’m not at all sure I technically agree with this, but I can’t argue with the sentiment. The letter warmed me, that is all.

In this my final post on the topic, I link to an online version of them that I have found. Enjoy. It’s a resource to be read again and again.

Find more brief posts on Rilke here.

Just gotta respond to what Ryan Basham wrote on Facebook:

If I never see another webseries/short/indie film about actors and their pursuits, that’d be totally cool. Seriously, take your experiences and put them in any other setting. I say this with love!

Yo Ryan,
Totes agree! But I’m sure you don’t really mean that about *my* web series. It IS going to be different! It’s going to be called An Actor Pursues (get it?) and we’re in post right now. We just took the plunge, didn’t even worry about what the world wants or any of that haters gonna hate stuff that just slows you down, man! With the brilliant, and I must say, deftly inscrutable acting choices being made by my friends who totally didn’t even have to audition, with its amazing real writing about things that really happened to me and to some other actors I heard about, so you know they’re really real and really amazing, with its in-your-face sound quality that we got in this total bargain from this guy on Craigslist who also knew this director guy who was just awesome, and — this is the real key — with its editing that actually slows … things … down and lets the user spend meaningful time on each and every moment of what it *really* takes to be an actor — I mean, nothing happens in the first 5 episodes, and I really hope you GET that, man — well, I’m sure you’ll eventually see that AAP is really going to totally take off and prove you wrong once we get it set up with our new Tumblr account! So no hard feelings and thanks in advance for the “likes”!! And for watching!!!!!
Kevin

In the ninth of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, he addresses the endless doubting and disharmony of his recipient. It is a short letter because his “hand is tired” because he’s “had to write so many letters” to others, too. But a portion of it resonated with some actorly experiences I’ve had.

And about feelings: All feelings that concentrate you and lift you up are pure; only that feeling is impure which grasps just one side of your being and thus distorts you. Everything you can think of as you face your childhood, is good. Everything that makes more of you than you have ever been, even in your best hours, is right. Every intensification is good, if it is in your entire blood, if it isn’t intoxication or muddiness, but joy which you can see into, clear to the bottom. Do you understand what I mean?

The italicization is mine because I’ve been trying more and more to do good acting work with my entire body. Good acting is often seen as concentrated in the face, or the voice, or the heart. The greater truth is that, more often than not, a truer experience for both actor and audience is achieved when the actor is having a full-body physical experience. That came to mind as I read Rilke speak of one-sided feelings versus something that is in your blood.

Find more brief posts on Rilke here.

The eighth of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet is long, dense, hard to follow as I read it. Rilke writes about the sadness his recipient has had. (And his own sadness, of course.) One part struck me as lovely, where Rilke writes of the value in not blocking out all the pain we might experience:

Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change.

If you’re hoping for some change in your life, I hope this helps. Find more brief posts on Rilke here.

Forensics update: Saliva analysis can now be used to estimate the age of the saliva contributor to within five years. At least, this is what I heard on Scientific American’s podcast 60-Second Science on June 22.

I wonder how long it will take from the time of hearing the news that saliva analysis is a possible CSI tool till it shows up on an episode of a certain forensics-heavy TV show? Let me know if you see age-by-spit in a plot.

In the last seven weeks, I’ve seen seven plays. They span quite a diverse spectrum of good, contemporary American playwriting, including three world premieres. I’m glad I saw all of them! In reverse chronological order, with links to those still running, they were Extraordinary Chambers, No Word in Guyanese for Me, Pursued by Happiness, Re-Animator: The Musical, The Prisoner of 2nd Avenue, Burn This, and A House Not Meant to Stand.

My highest recommendation of the lot goes to No Word in Guyanese for Me because of the strong performance by Anna Khaja in this one-woman show written by Wendy Graf. You want to see good acting? See her. (Disclaimer: I know Anna pretty well.) I’d recommend the performances of Brooks Ashmanskas and Adam Rothenberg, too, but Burn This has closed.

As for the writing, I loved Neil Simon’s comedy as expressed through the spot-on anger of Jason Alexander starring in The Prisoner of 2nd Avenue, but the biggest gut-busting laughter came from a few wonderful moments in the crazy, gory, out-there spectacle that is Re-Animator: The Musical. It needs some small rewrites, if you ask me, but it really knocks home some great laughs — and gross grimaces. I haven’t had such a full-body reaction to theater in a looooong time. On the serious side, I’m glad I got to see Tennessee Williams’s last play, though I didn’t “get” its ending. The chance for reflection on personal tragedies that I got from Keith Huff’s writing in Pursued by Happiness and the reflection I got on personal and global tragedies from David Wiener’s writing in Extraordinary Chambers leads me to recommend these shows and their fine performances and directing wholeheartedly.

Another note. In three of these plays, there’s a role I’m very right for that I tried to audition for or that I actually did audition for. Seeing those actors perform something I’d hoped to perform was interesting. At two of these shows, as I scrutinized, I admired, and that’s that. In one, however, I believe I would have been better, and it was at one of the most prestigious venues on the west coast. What the?

So, with a little luck and a little discrimination, I’ve seen good-to-great performances at a nice little clip lately. You go out and see a good show, too!

That’s the end. The final episode of Big Love aired on March 20, and I watched every episode. Thank you for Big Love. Thank you to creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Sheffer, thank you to HBO, thank you to the writers and cast and crew, thank you one and all.

Watching BL, I frequently gaped, laughed or sighed. More than once, I bawled heavily. There were some missteps, as with most every TV show, and there were some mistakes central to the topic at hand. One minor character who was very active in her LDS faith would have said “Oh my gosh,” there. One major character mispronounced “Melchizedek” and “temple recommend” both. And, as I said, a few times it wandered in ways had nothing to do with its unique topic and drifted into unfortunate cheesy melodrama. But not very often. More significantly, it was well-made, gripping and pretty damn good. I will miss it.

Some Mormons are opposed to Big Love, whether they’ve seen it or not. I hope there aren’t too many like this, but I know of more than one who, because they’ve been told to be offended by it, by golly they are. Perhaps they imagine every episode over there on HBO is filled with nudity, cursing and wanton mockery of things Mormons hold dear. Nope. There’s a very small amount of that spread over 53 episodes. You could cut 2 entire scenes and 2 seconds of 2 other scenes and all that would be gone, so that’s not really much to get up in arms about now, is it? If it’s not for you, it’s not for you, that’s cool, but if you’re opposed to the message of this show, it seems to me you are opposed to good drama and opposed to a strong message of family, of faith, of being different, of love. Consider the irony.

Back to the motivation to write this post — which is that I will miss it. I’m going to miss seeing things on TV you don’t see on TV all that much. Multiple wives, yes, but also sayings like, “It’s good to have an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out” (Nicki was always my crazy favorite), and references to “those GD protesters.” Sigh, sigh and sigh. With big gratitude, I bid you a big, fond farewell, Big Love!

Another quotation from Letters to a Young Poet, a compilation of letters by Rainer Maria Rilke. From the seventh letter:

Most people have (with the help of conventions) turned their solutions toward what is easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must trust in what is difficult … that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.

If you’re dealing with something difficult, I hope this helps.

Rilke was writing about solitude and love in this letter. Find more posts on Rilke here.

I’m a long time listener to Coverville, a podcast of cover songs. Just recently I heard etgilles’s cover of “(Nothing But) Flowers” and it really struck me. The Talking Heads were smart and the writing was powerful, but this version really brought home the ironic lyrics of this song. You can download this song plus many other Talking Heads covers here, or listen below. Good stuff.

06 (Nothing But) Flowers.mp3