Triangle Offense

So after a good discussion with my smart and lovely wife, I think I have a way of organizing the class/writing around the Making Connections idea, and also of engaging with form and content a bit.

1) The first thing is to look at the practice of making connections.  This part will try to establish a model for making connections, and examine the people who do it really well: Hyde, West, etc.

2) The second part will be to follow the model we define and start to make the connections myself.  This might include: the NY Giants idea, Black-Jewish stuff, head/heart/guts, dynamic rehearsal and collaboration (The Third Thing), etc.

3) The third piece is to find a way to argue or prove that it is one’s ability to make wonderful connections that actually manifests one’s creative self/identity.  (Everyone from parts 1 and 2 can be used to back this up.)  The person who makes the connections is the actual connective tissue that makes the new thing happen – otherwise it’s an idea/possibility that wouldn’t exist.  You are the triangular point, the thing that puts it together, and the conduit for an artistic and intellectually new moment.

Make sense?  That’s as organized as I’ve felt about it so far  Possible title = Making Connections: Interdisciplinary People and Practice.

Making Connections

This is a large topic which I will, no doubt, return to often.  The phrase “making connections” seems to be the best one I’ve found so far to describe meaningful, exciting, powerful, and pleasurable learning and teaching.  It also relates to the “interdisciplinary”-ness question, which I’ll deal with later on.

My own connection to this idea today came from a brief portion of an interview on Leonard Lopate I heard in the car.  Didn’t hear the whole thing, but it was yet another person talking about connections between obesity, hunger, the local foods movement, classism, etc.  What’s getting me excited about recent trends in public intellectualism (and something that Obama seems to really get) is that people are starting to base their thinking on making connections.  For example, at the highest levels, the incoming leaders of government seem to recognize the connections between the environment, energy, economic policies, national security, etc.  Likewise, authors, thinkers, and academics (at least those interested in the actual world and not just “theory” {thank you, Trofimov}) are now thinking and writing about the radical connectivity of the world.  This applies to everyone from Gladwell and Barber (economics, behavior) to Tricia Rose (hip-hop, culture). Needless to say, I haven’t read any of their books yet, but they’re all great interviews.

I recognize that to have published a book, or have a column in the paper, or be interviewed on TV about what you’ve “discovered” can often be seen in the “serious” intellectual community as the first sure sign of charlatanism and a rejection of the communal values and efforts of those in your field.  (Again, Hyde talks about this in “The Gift” using the science community as an example.)  But surely it’s good news that a trend toward making connections, the goal of this blog, after all, is being explored and received with passion.

It will come as no surprise that my favorite thinking folks (Cornel West, et al) are the ones who like to make connections.  And that some of the artists I find most inspiring are the ones who have seen the connections between genres and modes.  Bernstein, Marsalis, McFerrin, Meyer, O’Connor (they’re easier to find in music, aren’t they?!?)  This relates more specifically to the large topic of “boundary-crossing” which I’ll get into more down the road.  But for now I’ll just say that when Leonard Bernstein was teaching Bobby McFerrin how to conduct an orchestra, he stopped at one point and said, “You know, it’s all jazz.”

Character Acting

One of the things that always frustrates and confuses me is how fascinated most people who evaluate acting (especially in films) are with “character” or “transformation”.  Obviously these are important aspects of the alchemy of acting, and have been since the Greeks.  But “becoming the character” is not what leads to great acting or great theater.  When I teach acting, I always try to put our work in the context of answering the question “what makes great, exciting, interesting, compelling, honest, joyful theater happen?”  Let’s put our attention as actors on that.  So often acting students are told implicitly and explicitly to pursue “what would a genius do in this situation?” or “how can I be this character more?”  But great theater is what’s what’s sorely lacking in most productions (professional and educational), and learning how to make it happen is what acting students can actually work towards every time they get up to act.

Another way of thinking about this is to look at what films and which actors win Oscars.  [I do this with the full disclosure that I don't enjoy watching the Oscars, and I think awards for artistic achievement are terrific, and that the Oscars often don't recognize that kind of achievement; they recognize something else.]  Actors like Jamie Foxx, Reese Witherspoon, and Phil Hoffman all won Oscars for their acting in the last few years for portraying “real life” (a strange phrase if ever there was one) people.  They were lauded for how much they resembled the people they played, and for the ostensible depth of their work.  (Think of how many times we were reminded that these actors stayed in character all the time on the set.  I always feel like I’m supposed to feel sorry for them, or admire their sacrifice, but I always just think it sounds nutty.)  But the films these performances happened in did not win.  Why?  One reason is because filmakers (playwrights not as often) tend to make the mistake of thinking that someone’s life, even a very interestesting or dramatic life, is the story.  More often the effective and great biographically based dramatic works are the ones that ask what that person’s interesting or dramatic life says about the rest of us.  “Amadeus” is a great example – a sensational play and a wonderful film.  (This is what I’m trying to remember as I begin work on the Joe Papp show.)  “Amadeus” is ‘about’ Mozart, his life and work, on one level.  But the play is actually about what it’s like for those of us who want to be good at something to encounter a genius who is the best.

Another reason the films that produce Oscar-winning performances tend not to win Best Picture is that many times these performances happen in their own dramatic world; they’re not actually a part of the fabric of the story they’re contained in.  They seem to have been created whole-cloth (perhaps while “in character” in the trailor or at the food table) and inserted into the film, regardless of what anyone else is doing, what story is being told, etc.  You can also see this happen on stage (especially in rehearsal), when actors who are too preoccupied with character start to seal themselves off from the rest of the play, the other actors, the director – they can’t really let/take anything in because they’re automatically on the defensive; they have to protect their choices.  This is what leads to saying things like, “I don’t think my character would do that”.

This didn’t really come out quite how I’d hoped, and it may seem snarky, so sorry about that.  But I’m pretty sure it’s true.