Alyssa

From September 22, 2016. A personal reflection wrapped up in what may be a partial manifesto. Take what you will from it (but don’t take the actual words: those are mine). 

—

When you are in touch with art, borders vanish and the world opens up.

-Anne Bogart

At least once daily I think about how much I do not want to participate in this world any longer, how I want it all to stop—violence, capitalism, terrorism, etc. I look around and am constantly reminded that worldwide we are wearing out our communities, the Earth, and our intentions. I look around and see a world distracted or turning a blind eye, clinging to the idea that if they do not see it then it is not happening.

I live in a privileged country and lead a fairly privileged life. I am usually not in any immediate danger, I will graduate college debt-free, and I have had the fortune to make friends from all around the world without leaving my privileged little bubble here in Iowa, due to my internship with the International Writing Program’s youth programming. That being said, I think the lack of constant immediate danger, or the expectation of danger, is what has kept me sheltered and conservative (in attitude, not in politics) for many years. The idea of leaving comfort frightens me, but that is precisely why I must do so. I must keep taking risks.

My classmate’s action-objective really struck me not because I thought she had failed the assignment, but rather I saw a part of myself in her, the part of myself that even up until last fall was hesitant to take risks. It was not until I took Theatre Movement in the fall of 2015 when it finally fell into place: during our mid-semester meeting, that class’s professor told me, “Your courage serves you well.” To this day, it brings tears to my eyes; I think about this particular phrase at least weekly, especially when I am at my lowest. That perhaps was the turning point for me, where my playing the victim stopped and where my openness began. Though my classmate is a generally calm and collected person, when she told us the story behind her circumstances, though they did not fit the assignment exactly, I saw what those possible stakes meant to her, or what a variation of those stakes would mean, and I immediately empathized with her as an audience member and also as a human being. With moments like these, I re-realize that the journey of theatre is not for myself but rather for “the benefit of others” (Bogart 97). I put myself through laughter, I put myself through hell not to recreate the emotion but to bring the circumstances to the table, to remain open, and to allow the audience the chance to reach out in return and process what they experience with me.

On our second day of class (August 25, 2016), another classmate said something really profound: “Viewpoints is almost conversational.” I absolutely agree with this, in that the “conversation” we all have with each other is the rhythm, proximity, and energy of our bodies. We do not need to say anything to one another because we already know what we mean when we approach each other. Compared to Acting I, I feel much more comfortable in Viewpoints now. I allow myself not to like something I did, to like something I did, to take risks in general. There are a few moments that stick out to me: when we did Viewpoints on September 15, I had near collisions with a few classmates, where one of them and I would stop momentarily, about the length of a pause, feel the energy passing between us, before departing again. Without speaking, we had a conversation in the form of a greeting, a pause to process, and our good-byes. Anne Bogart speaks about “soften[ing] [the] field of vision in order to make room for something to occur” (53), and those moments exactly fit this description. By remaining in soft focus, we allowed our attention to expand yet remain ever focused. Something similar yet completely different happened between me and yet another classmate, in which I suddenly had the courage to back her up against a wall with my energetic presence. I could feel her confusion and discomfort in a response other than running away. This gave me a sense of strange empowerment, even though it was at the expense of her feelings perhaps. I felt as though my body and energy had power in its steps and that for a certain character this kind of walk and presence would be incredibly effective.

One of the most important things about theatre, and my favorite part, is its inability to be a competition; at least, that is how I see true theatre. Actors may compete for roles, designers may compete for shows, playwrights may compete to get their plays chosen, but theatre in its true essence can never be about competition if it is to be successful. Theatre does not make me want to escape: it wakes me up. If we as artists are “asked to stand up in the present moment and to speak courageously for those who came before, to speak against the familiar currents” (29) then the theatre cannot be about competition. Standing up is an individual act that leads to communal cooperation. As T.S. Eliot said, “but there is no competition— / There is only the fight to recover what has been lost / And found and lost again and again.” I think the reason Anne Bogart quotes these particular T.S. Eliot lines in the “Articulation” chapter of her book is because if—as an actor but also as a writer or any other kind of artist, in my opinion—you cannot articulate your situation, you cannot connect to the circumstances, then you have made it selfishly about you and about surpassing others for the spotlight. This does not mean you cannot perform or write a piece about yourself, but it does mean that in writing that piece about yourself you must speak to “all the voices that came before you” (28). Your voice is wrapped up in all that has already been said and happened, so what are you contributing to that human fight? What are you trying to do as an artist?

The reason I took such a long break between Acting I and Acting II was not because I was disinterested but because I did not know my own voice. At times, I still do not. As a writer I still struggle with an organic voice, and as a performer I did not know how best to translate that without doing the hard thing: taking time for myself, to know myself, to actually be myself. I could not continue studying acting under the competitive guise that some of my peers so cling to, but most of all I could not continue studying acting until I knew my mind, body, and soul began to accept who I was at my core. One of the most significant things I have had to learn, in addition to being courageous, is that I “cannot make things happen; [I] can only create the circumstances in which something might occur” (54). This has been huge in combating my anxiety and depression, as well as how I approach my writing and my performance skills. By forcing my will on them, I retain a selfish point of view, but in molding the circumstances I instead focus on the possibilities rather than the initial expectation, whatever it may be. It used to be I feared “to be exact” because I was concerned I was not making the “right choice” (104). Now I know, though, that being concerned with making the right choice is withholding me from further discovering my voice.

The diffuse the bomb exercise is a great example of how I have changed in choice-making. In Acting 1, I was worried about what choices I was making and how it would come off to the audience. I cared too much about being perfect rather than being organic and authentic. When repeating these exercises in Acting 2, I noticed a great change in myself: during diffuse the bomb, I focused only on saving my person—Keegan, my partner and the love of my life—rather than what the class would think of me. I was unaware of them, certain only of the utter hopelessness that rushed through me the longer I went through the obstacle. When I was finished, I ducked away from the class to stifle a sob, but the feeling of hopelessness and tragic dread reemerged as we sat as a class discussing the exercise, and I was brought to the verge of letting it all out when I talked about how frustrating it was to keep going when I felt all was already lost. “Expectation creates experiences” (54), and my expectation that I would not make it in time to Keegan is what altered the circumstances so that I would fail rather than I would succeed.

My action-objective took a different turn, in which where I left the scene there was something else I could do beyond the door where the audience, my classmates, sat. While I did not necessarily embody the complete stakes, I felt I embodied enough of it for focused determination on the objective I had at hand (to save Keegan’s life) that I believed my circumstances, even though I agree I needed more explicit details to work with. Despite this, when I finally exited my “kitchen” or the classroom, I believed I needed to begin performing the tracheotomy on Keegan and prepared to open the pen before I realized I was in the hallway and that Keegan was fine. I felt myself, once again, choke out a small sob. I feel there is more I can do to take down my walls and to immerse myself fully in the given circumstances, and I hope to explore that more as this class continues for the rest of the semester.

What does any of this have to do with going beyond borders? Inside of me are walls, borders, binding me blindly to a system I do not care for yet cannot resist participating in, where more borders exist, physical and invisible. I abhor that people nowadays, in the United States and the rest of the Western world, are bystanders instead of witnesses. According to Bogart, a “witness is not a bystander, but rather a perceiver whose presence makes a difference…makes [them] responsible” (56). In order to move past the passive bystander guise, I must actively make the choice to observe what I see and take that in. In a world full of never ending distractions, where I find myself following the herd but despising the way I do so, I must create my responsible circumstances so that I may allow for different possibilities to blossom, to occur. I must allow danger in order to allow remedy. I must allow fear in order to allow bravery. I must allow sadness in order to allow happiness.

I absolutely loved my internship at the International Writing Program for their summer youth programming Between the Lines, which I had the fortune of working for in both 2015 and 2016 (as well as attending the program myself as a participant in 2012). BTL mimics the IWP’s Fall Residency program and bring together teenagers from all different parts of the world (from Armenia to Kyrgyzstan to Egypt to even Hawaii) in order to promote creative cultural exchange through writing. The aim is simple, but simple does not mean easy. Simple is the clearest but deepest path. It is “beyond the surface” (120) Americans are so used to; while working as intern for this program—interacting with the students and leading some playwriting and peacemaking workshops—I noticed my walls, my borders were at stake. In order to connect with these kids from different cultures, I had to open up, else the connections would not be there, from writer to writer, human being to human being, and often West to East. Bogart’s commentary that “[w]hat is unimaginable to most Americans is that the world might actually look different from the perspective of a different part of the world or an alternate point of view” (120) is absolutely, tragically true.

Americans are shallow, self-centered, and fearful. We celebrate isolationism in the name of individuality when in reality individuality must be celebrated by the community, or the ensemble, in order to feel true and valid. Theatre gives me hope that this destructive, violent world we inhabit would and can still be different if only we stand still long enough to look each other in the eyes. “Our task is to find out” (120) what is behind those eyes, no matter what because the “cost is real and it is personal” (109). The cost at failing is not only an enriched life but a better world. Theatre and writing no longer give me an escape from the world: they wake me up to what there is still to fight for. And I finally see people. And I finally, finally see myself too, teetering on the edge of the fence.

Work Cited

Bogart, Anne. and then, you act: making art in an unpredictable world. Routlege: New York.