A Couple New Beginnings: Acting & Writing
I woke up with a nasty cold. I should have known. I generally get to feeling maudlin and more cynical when I am coming down with a bug. Maybe I should nuke my last couple posts.
I have been to two rehearsals for Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Yahoo! They are already pretty far along in the rehearsal process, just under two weeks from opening night. I felt immediately welcomed by the entire cast and crew, even though my incipient cold made me work to keep physical distance between us. What a difference an open and collaborative director can make. My offers and choices are not only being humored, they're being implemented. There is a totally different energy at work, demonstrated by the immediate warm welcome I was given by everyone. I am looking forward to trying out some more things in the next rehearsal.
Wow. I was carrying a little seed of doubt. After all, the actors and crew on the show where I was recast (sacked) were very nice folks too. Yet, I had to force myself into going to those rehearsals, and when the rehearsals for Liaisons are done I am already looking forward eagerly to the next one.
I have been pestering people with one of the scripts I wrote, a 35-40 minute one act play. I know a lot, over a dozen, professional theatre people whom I would like feedback from and who have offered to help me out. The problem is they are all as busy as I am. Now I have to ask myself, "Have none of them had the chance to glance at it?", which is probable. Or, "Have a few read it and found it so sucky they can't bring themselves to hurt my feelings?", which is possible. I've had a lot of friends and relatives give me very positive to exuberant feedback, and while they are very literate and some even write for a living, none are theatre folk. Thus, I figure the story is good, it's the implementation I worry about. I am currently working on a couple other projects, one a full-length piece and I'd like to avoid any pitfalls or lacks I may have in the already finished piece.
Last Friday I stumbled onto an idea for another full-length script, for which I feel an obligation to do right, or not at all. I was researching Tennessee Williams. I am working on a scene from A Street Car Named Desire for the Meisner Progression at Freehold. (It is an amazing class.) I ran across a reference to McCarthy and a book by Harvey Matusow, False Witness. A number of things struck me. First, were the newspaper articles of the period. The demagoguery, jingoism, and license with the truth were nearly identical to what we see today. It is like today's witch hunters took the transcripts of McCarthy and his crowd fifty years ago, and did nothing more than replace a few phrases before releasing them again.
Matusow was a paid witness for HUAC (House UnAmerican Activities Committee), who repudiated his testimony as McCarthyism was beginning to unravel. One of accusations he made, and recanted, saying it was made at the behest of Joseph McCarthy or Roy Cohn (I can't remember which at the moment), was that over a hundred people on the staff of the New York Times were communists. Less than an hour after I read this, the story popped up on Google News about the New York Times fessing up to lax journalism practices and ethics regarding the their reporting the existence of WMD's in Iraq, supporting the claims of the whitehouse. Sadly, after fifty years the 'liberal media' aided and abetted the reactionary conservatives. This was the second thing that struck me, that the apparent lesson the NYT learned from McCarthyism is that it is better to assist dangerous reactionaries than to oppose them.
A third thing was how it seems the paid witnesses who recanted their testimony went to prison, but all their employers walked, and almost all continued in public life. Roy Cohn and Richard Nixon being two of the better known examples. Joseph McCarthy faded quickly, becoming the minor player he had been prior to his wild accusations, dying by alcohol in 1958. This begs the question, will the repetition of history go so far, that the architects of today's scandals will also walk?
The bit I have read on Matusow so far is fascinating, and I have ordered all sorts of material for research, including a copy of his book. It appears he was amoral and actually reveled in providing false testimony. Oddly enough, it seems he devoted much of his energy to charities later in life. Was he seeking atonement? It seems hard to swallow at first, but he did recant his testimony. On the other hand McCarthyism was already disintegrating. Was bringing down "Tailgunner Joe" and company just another 'E' ride for Harvey, or was he actually cleansing his soul? I don't have a clue, and suspect I won't ever know for sure. It just feels like a great story, and may well be my next writing project. It is juicy, irreverent, and for me challenging and daunting in the research I'll need to do.
The Harvey Matusow character, and the backdrop to his fifteen minutes of fame seems so appropos today:
It is sh** today.
I have been to two rehearsals for Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Yahoo! They are already pretty far along in the rehearsal process, just under two weeks from opening night. I felt immediately welcomed by the entire cast and crew, even though my incipient cold made me work to keep physical distance between us. What a difference an open and collaborative director can make. My offers and choices are not only being humored, they're being implemented. There is a totally different energy at work, demonstrated by the immediate warm welcome I was given by everyone. I am looking forward to trying out some more things in the next rehearsal.
Wow. I was carrying a little seed of doubt. After all, the actors and crew on the show where I was recast (sacked) were very nice folks too. Yet, I had to force myself into going to those rehearsals, and when the rehearsals for Liaisons are done I am already looking forward eagerly to the next one.
I have been pestering people with one of the scripts I wrote, a 35-40 minute one act play. I know a lot, over a dozen, professional theatre people whom I would like feedback from and who have offered to help me out. The problem is they are all as busy as I am. Now I have to ask myself, "Have none of them had the chance to glance at it?", which is probable. Or, "Have a few read it and found it so sucky they can't bring themselves to hurt my feelings?", which is possible. I've had a lot of friends and relatives give me very positive to exuberant feedback, and while they are very literate and some even write for a living, none are theatre folk. Thus, I figure the story is good, it's the implementation I worry about. I am currently working on a couple other projects, one a full-length piece and I'd like to avoid any pitfalls or lacks I may have in the already finished piece.
Last Friday I stumbled onto an idea for another full-length script, for which I feel an obligation to do right, or not at all. I was researching Tennessee Williams. I am working on a scene from A Street Car Named Desire for the Meisner Progression at Freehold. (It is an amazing class.) I ran across a reference to McCarthy and a book by Harvey Matusow, False Witness. A number of things struck me. First, were the newspaper articles of the period. The demagoguery, jingoism, and license with the truth were nearly identical to what we see today. It is like today's witch hunters took the transcripts of McCarthy and his crowd fifty years ago, and did nothing more than replace a few phrases before releasing them again.
Matusow was a paid witness for HUAC (House UnAmerican Activities Committee), who repudiated his testimony as McCarthyism was beginning to unravel. One of accusations he made, and recanted, saying it was made at the behest of Joseph McCarthy or Roy Cohn (I can't remember which at the moment), was that over a hundred people on the staff of the New York Times were communists. Less than an hour after I read this, the story popped up on Google News about the New York Times fessing up to lax journalism practices and ethics regarding the their reporting the existence of WMD's in Iraq, supporting the claims of the whitehouse. Sadly, after fifty years the 'liberal media' aided and abetted the reactionary conservatives. This was the second thing that struck me, that the apparent lesson the NYT learned from McCarthyism is that it is better to assist dangerous reactionaries than to oppose them.
A third thing was how it seems the paid witnesses who recanted their testimony went to prison, but all their employers walked, and almost all continued in public life. Roy Cohn and Richard Nixon being two of the better known examples. Joseph McCarthy faded quickly, becoming the minor player he had been prior to his wild accusations, dying by alcohol in 1958. This begs the question, will the repetition of history go so far, that the architects of today's scandals will also walk?
The bit I have read on Matusow so far is fascinating, and I have ordered all sorts of material for research, including a copy of his book. It appears he was amoral and actually reveled in providing false testimony. Oddly enough, it seems he devoted much of his energy to charities later in life. Was he seeking atonement? It seems hard to swallow at first, but he did recant his testimony. On the other hand McCarthyism was already disintegrating. Was bringing down "Tailgunner Joe" and company just another 'E' ride for Harvey, or was he actually cleansing his soul? I don't have a clue, and suspect I won't ever know for sure. It just feels like a great story, and may well be my next writing project. It is juicy, irreverent, and for me challenging and daunting in the research I'll need to do.
The Harvey Matusow character, and the backdrop to his fifteen minutes of fame seems so appropos today:
Fifty years ago we were facing the insidious new threats of nuclear armegeddon and communism, so basic constitutional and human rights were justifiably abrogated because they didn't apply to these new and terrible threats to mankind.Find and replace:
In today's world we are facing the insidious new threats of Muslim extremists and terrorism, so basicIt was sh** then.
constitutional and human rights are justifiably abrogated because they don't apply to these new and terrible threats to mankind.
It is sh** today.
1 Comments:
Well said. Especially the last two lines.
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