with a different hat.

Some of the things I love about theatre is the overlapping edges of each specialty within the discipline mixed with the openness, or encouragement for experimentation amongst practitioners. Although some people do like to specialise in one particular role, by no means is this a universal quality. Most of the people I know involved with theatre would label themselves under the general umbrella of being a “theatre practitioner.” They dabble in set design, lighting design and stage management. They explore acting and directing and maybe costume design on the side.

Which is as they should; the pursuit of theatre needs to take many different parties into consideration whilst creating the product (the set designer, for example, must take the actors into consideration because they’ll be the ones playing on it, the lighting into consideration as to work together to achieve the effects desired, the play into consideration to create the most faithful interpretation of the script’s world, and the audience for visibility, sight lines, and overall impression, etc.). Every aspect forces us to think differently and to look at something through an alternative pair of eyes. I find this to be absolutely necessary practice in, not just the arts, but daily life; keeping your mind thinking on one channel for too long is bound to close it (think Rick Santorum on women’s liberties or Rob Ford on subways).

A friend of mine introduced me to the Six Thinking Hats philosophy by Edward de Bono, a philosophy designed for the critical examination of basically anything (she finds it useful as a tool to get students thinking about assignments in different ways) using a different coloured hat to represent different aspects of reasoning within the human brain (informative, creative, emotional, etc.). While the actual aspects of reasoning I won’t concern myself with here, I do enjoy the image of different hats representing different ways of thinking (as I’m sure most of us in theatre have heard someone say, “Let me put on my director’s hat for a minute”).

Being trained in collective creation, or devised theatre, I often find myself concerned with every aspect of a show at all times. What I’ve realised within the past year is that narrowing my focus to one specialised aspect is astonishingly freeing.

But in order to do this, I actually have to tell myself to put on another hat (or walk a mile in a different pair of shoes… or see the world through different eyes… whatever image gets this to work for you).

The most common hats I try on, in order or frequency, are playwright, performer, dramaturge and director. This last one is my least experienced one but also the entire reason I’m writing this.

Performer and dramaturge are ranked very close together for me. Neither of them would I say I excel at, but I will say that with them I hit my mark every so often - enough for me to want to keep practising them.
In all of these roles I am often asked to give my opinion. It is when this happens that I find it easy to lose sight of the exact specialty I’m supposed to be, or of which hat I should be wearing. Because no matter what I tell myself, I do love to talk about my thoughts (case in point: this blog).


IN PROGRESS

Specifically talking as a playwright, or about a play “in progress,” it’s easy to realise that people look at a work in progress as being easily mouldable and/or something they can help influence. Often during the reception of this push-to-help, the playwright can easily become defensive, dismissive or emotional, even if the help is offered in the most innocent of ways. Sometimes these interactions are confusing for both parties, yet it’s really unclear why. It seems like a simple relationship: you’ve asked someone for their input and they gave it to you. They are doing exactly what you’ve asked. It doesn’t seem logical to get angry at someone because they’ve followed orders.

But that’s not it, is it?

At this point you’ve opened yourself up. Writers are notorious for wearing their emotions on their sleeves and, I mean, why shouldn’t they? They just spent anywhere from a few months to a few years by themselves working on the next Governor General’s winning piece of theatre. Of course they want the first people they show it to after leaving their dank hole of an office (read: cafe / basement apartment) to shower them with praise. But it’s not that easy, is it? Not only is it not that easy, that would probably be detrimental to the development of any future work coming out of that particular author (READER: It’s perfect! WRITER: Oh no, am I at the peak of my career? How can I improve on PERFECT???).

This is probably the most challenging part in the development of a play (in my opinion) because now you are not just concerned with your play, you are also concerned with what other people think of your play. While it may not sound it, this is quite the dangerous situation to be in. It’s during this time that it is all to easy for the playwright to lose sight of their own intentions as they are continuously bombarded with thoughts, ideas and viewpoints they themselves had never had. It becomes all to easy to concern yourself with appeasing your new audience instead of appeasing yourself (I am aware of how masturbatory this sounds). Now, this is not to say “fuck what they want, I’ma do what I want.” That won’t get you any fans, friends or, really, anyone to care about you. A play isn’t a play without an audience, after all. What I’m saying is it’s important to realise what feedback from your target audience will actually, legitimately help you as opposed to what was subjective to just one person. And that’s where it gets tricky and dangerous. As it goes, we’ll all develop our own methods of dealing with this in the most effective way possible. I’m still having trouble finding my own. The only one I’ve found to work 100% of the time is by giving the whole process time itself, however I am aware that distancing by a factor of time won’t always be in the equation. So the search continues.


THE DIRECTOR’S HAT WOULD BE A… WHAT? A BASEBALL CAP?

I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve recently put on my director’s hat to re-read a play (VIC HARBOUR by Peter Counter) I’ll be directing for this year’s Toronto Fringe Festival. Last time I read it I used this hat as well, but underneath it I still had my dramaturge’s hat on (I picture that one as a beret). Which was important for me at the time because that read was still about feedback and questioning choices. Even with this knowledge, however, I feel I still fell into the trap of just saying things because I like the sound of my voice (this is why I’m not a professional dramaturge). I still felt, like many of us do when asked to give feedback to a piece of art, that this is still mouldable, and that nothing is set in stone.

I’m going to guess that these ways of thinking are only possible when you personally know the artist. Physical distance and anonymity quickly disperse these thoughts, waving them away like the smoke from a stranger’s cigarette. It’s amazing how differently I approach something my friends send me through email compared to a printed, bound book or published play that was written at the same time. Something that gets lost all to easily when thinking with those two thoughts in hand (‘this is still mouldable’ & ‘nothing is set in stone’) is subtlety. I believe I found the subtlety the last time I read Counter’s script.

…once you realise this artist is not just living and currently re-writing the script but has created a piece of art because he has made choices long before your eyes ever laid upon the words and that the reasons for those choices are to be found all throughout the play, then I believe you’ve written off most of your subjectivity and can fully appreciate the work of art in front of you…

So instead of asking the writer why he made certain choices, ask yourself why the characters are making those choices. Just because the writer is alive doesn’t mean you should defer to them every time you run into a problem (unless it is horribly obvious or just completely missing). It’s the same way you’d approach something by a dead author (no matter how often you write him, Shakespeare will not answer your questions). Writers are clever and they like (read: love) to leave clues for you (it’s actually kind of sick the amount of pleasure it gives them). Approach the work as if you don’t know the person holding the pen. Because in all honesty, the author’s done their work. Unless they demand to be there every step of the way (which is a whole other topic of conversation) when rehearsals begin, the director, the actors and everyone involved should consider the script set in stone. It is time to stop moulding. It is time to let the script mould you.

a question for adults.

As a kid I had tremendous focus.

I remember spending hours outside, watching worker ants gather food for their families; trying to capture that elusive mantis; marveling at the metallic sheen of the various dragonflies my brother and I captured (though, in hindsight, the means of capture were rather unorthodox) and nursed back to health (case in point).

I remember the toys I had, LEGO and any sort of miniature figurine, preferably of the robot variety (Zbots, various dollar store finds, Reboot), and spending days, weeks, constructing worlds, storylines and games for each that usually culminated in some sort of epic, world-shattering battle that took over the entire basement rec-room.

My imagination, like most kids’, was untamed.

This even bled in to the literature I read, although only recently has it actually become considered literature. I was a very visual child and to a large extent still am as an adult. All throughout elementary school, and for the first year of high-school, I did not enjoy reading. Books. Novels. Words. Too bland. Boring. My mind worked so hard during the day playing with toys and learning in school that if I wanted to unwind with a book it better have had pictures in it. Comics. Or, better yet, movies (don't have to read those).

It wasn’t until Grade Ten that I could successfully pick up a picture-less novel and actually enjoy it. I have a sneaking suspicion the main reason for this is because I didn’t care about reading description. Why can’t I just see it? Hear it? All I wanted was the dialogue. The voices. That’s it. Even the old comics with that yellow box of description at the top drove me nutty. I couldn’t do it. Just voices please. I can see everything else, thank you very much. And that’s the key right there.

I wanted a picture. I wanted to live in that picture. To study it. To give it the time it begs for but rarely gets. And I had the time. I had all the time in the world. No job. No worries about providing for myself. No worries about feeding myself. Nothing except playing and exploring my imagination.

As a kid I had tremendous focus. Because I had tremendous amounts of time.

I remember reading and re-reading the first, maybe three, issues of Jeff Smith’s Bone, evoking the small-town innocence of the Barrel-Haven and the mystical woods surrounding it. I remember studying each panel until the forested valley was all around me. I escaped into this world. It was so real to me. And still is. I can still remember living so intimately with these characters who weren’t even my own but of another’s creation. When I read through it now (and I do, often) I always find it remarkable that the beginning, those first three issues, go by so quickly – they are just the beginning of the story, after all.

But wait a second. That can’t be right. How did I find such life in something so short? Same goes for The Lion King. It’s only a ninety-minute movie and, upon adult viewing, certain aspects (like Simba’s exile with Timon and Pumbaa) are so quick now when I remember them taking so much time as a kid (in a good way). How can this be?

Time hasn’t changed since I was a child. It still passes with the same frequency and regularity. Perception and experience modifies it as we grow old, however:

Research suggests a person’s perception of how much time has passed between two points and how well memories are recorded onto an individual’s brain are partially dependent on the amount of new experiences that person has during any given day.

The above quote is taken from the About page on Matt Danzico’s 2011 project The Time Hack. He’s attempting to lengthen his perception of time by trying something new and zany every day. The result is rather whimsical and inspiring.

Which brings me to the onus of this post. It is the question:

Are we actually hurting our experience of the world with how much choice is available to us at any given moment?

I’m reminded of one of my good friends, a few years back, stating at a party: I have no time to re-read anything. There’re too many things to read.

And this opposing quote from C.S. Lewis: I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.

As we grow up and transform into that wonderful and frighteningly awful word, adult, it seems we lose focus. I can say for certain I don’t allow myself the same amount of time I used to to live in a work of art. I look, consume, and move on to the next. Same with books (yes, I am on to reading actual, picture-less books now although graphic literature will always hold a special place in my heart. So will books that have drawings put at specific intervals throughout. I love this! Why don’t writers hire artists to do a series of woodcuts anymore? Is it too juvenile? All the classics have it. Maybe I’m just a fan of multi-disciplinarity. I love when a product of one medium inspires another). I, like my friend, rarely take the time to revisit my favourite books / plays / paintings / etc., and I’m not sure that I like this lifestyle.

I ask the question above not as a proponent of either side but with another question hidden firmly within the original:

How can we fully appreciate a piece of art without the appropriate time to experience it?

Art demands time. Why, as people at a particular phase of life, don’t we make the effort to spend time with something we like? Are we actually satisfied with reading / watching something briefly and then clicking the “Like” button and stumbling away? Is that enough to actually appreciate something? Or is it that we feel guilty spending too much time with any one particular thing when there are so many others awaiting us? It’s a mystifying conundrum and I’m as guilty as anyone for acting in this manner. I’d say about a sixth of the books on my bookshelf I haven’t read yet. And I keep adding to this because I keep finding books I’d like to read. But how many times have I said to myself that I’d like to read that again (“I’ll probably catch so much more the second time around!”)? Too many.

It's a thought that's been on my mind most of this year. And I think I’m going to work towards improving it.

It’s been too long since I’ve explored the woods around the Barrel-Haven.

time for a little self-exploration.

I am alive. Just drowning.

Seems I’ve needed to occupy my brain with amusements instead of puzzles recently.

I don’t want to say Act Three is overwhelming or scary. It is. That shouldn’t have to be said. They always are, aren’t they? What I do want to say is that my drive is... muddled. As my mind fills up like an unskimmed, neglectfully chlorinated swimming pool, I find the need to resort to the many other things I have seen as not worth my time, namely time-wasting.

As much as I pride myself on using the internet for productive means (watching TED lectures, keeping abreast with the theatrical blog-o-sphere, and the next art and design developments) I can sure as hell use these to no productive end as well as the next man (if not better because “I’m learning”).

And while exploring my own creative imagination requires intense focus, a focus I’ve come to love and welcome with a lover’s embrace, I find myself opting for the less regimented realm of another’s.

After all, how can I become a good writer if I don’t know what else is being written?

So I occupy my time with stories, with books, with images and music. Anything to overcome that bubbling voice drowning in my pool telling me I’m only hurting myself by postponing the inevitable.

And yet I can’t be too harsh on myself because I have been productive. I have seen theatre. I have seen movies. I am reading literature. And most importantly I am unconsciously picking up the parts I enjoy most and storing them in my pool house, in the toolbox right next to the pool skimmer so in a few hours when I skim and chlorinate the rotting thing I can feel confident the next time I want to go for a swim because I have new tools that will help fill up all those cracks in its damn foundations.

Little Play #2 (November 21st, 2005)

A struggle for everyone to join.

Pressure point 126.4... a lack of time... otherwise known as: a due date.

I work so much better when a wall is coming at me in the distance.

As it draws nearer I tend to get my best ideas.

Little by little I am able to chip away at this wall.

Eventually I find a way to dissolve the mortar and make its foundations shatter.

As it approaches me, I see it is no more than a pile of rubble.

Sometimes, however, I cannot find the solution.

Alternatives are key.

The construction of a door is useful; 
when the wall draws near I am able to step through unscathed.

But the wall is still there.

That means I must work extra hard to topple it 
because another one has appeared in the distance.

Trapped by two walls.
If I do not bring them down, I will eventually be trapped.

Sometimes the pressure is there.

Sometimes it's all in my head.

Always there is a solution.