The Invisible Vioce Manifest

Today I got to meet Steven Gridley--the playwright of "Sun, Stand Thou Still." After spending so much time on his script and working incredibly hard to put myself into the universe he created--becoming one of the characters birthed from his own personal experiences and imagination--it was like I got to meet god. An omnipotent presence in the play. Invisible, yet thoroughly sensed. After making discoveries from his cryptic text since last May, I was bursting with questions and practically bristling with fear that I completely interpreted everything wrong. It was kind of nerve-wracking! I told my friend before hand "I'm sure he wrote this role for a tall, curvy red-head...I'm none of those things..." I had this immense feeling of dread that he was going to size me up and down and wonder why I was the one cast. I also quite expected him to be creepy because of some of the grotesque things that happen in the play. He was neither creepy nor judging. I had the chance to talk to him for like five minutes earlier in the day, before he saw the show, and then afterwords for much longer.
He was quietly pensive and somewhat somber; I wondered what he was thinking. He listened to our accounts of our journeys with the script and preparation for the show. I stuttered a bit but managed to pass off the majority of my speech with coherence. The Old Testament references instances of theological allusions blew my mind and shaped my perception of the play.
When he spoke about his experience viewing his own show, I found it fascinating. He basically began with a monologue and then wrote the rest as a stream of conscious--following an emotion. Nothing was planned out before he began writing--and when he came near to the conclusion, he put it away for a year and a half, until he knew how it was supposed to end. He said that, as a playwright, when your plays are produced, it's like of like having your diary on display. Watching the play is sort of like time travel--projecting Gridley back to the time in his life when he wrote it. Now he understands more about what it was actually about. What the symbols meant--what themes and struggles from his personal life subconsciously manifest in his work. He said that he realized he is still writing about the same thing and hasn't really moved on (though he said it in a lighthearted manner).
The play is about dealing with tragedy and loss. The protagonist is dealing with the loss of his wife. What would you do if you could bring a loved one back? Would you do it? It would mean eventually having to deal with death all over again...sooner or later. There is so much to think about. I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to meet the man behind the play, and to have an appreciation for the mysterious events in his life that lead to this "diary" of his subconscious--this play that I am in. The other actors, and myself, have found so much meaning in "Sun, Stand Thou Still" that I am reminded why I am studying theatre. Theatre is a connection of the human experience; it shows me the world outside of my own.

Tonight, I am sad.

Four of my friends (who are roommates) were robbed today. I don't really know what to do or think. They had thousands of dollars worth of stuff taken: laptops, iPods, phones...Whoever it was broke in through a window and completely decimated the bedrooms. Clothes strewn about...everything torn up. One of the girls even had her make-up taken. This incident goes deeper, though, because there are thoughts that one of the girl's identity's could be stolen, as she had some important documents out--including social security. Why would anybody do this? I just don't understand how a human being could so intentionally screw over another. What is it that makes people so heartless? I don't understand how somebody could damage another person like that.
People have been like that for all of human history. The ancient Romans were particularly vicious. For entertainment, the Romans liked to watch barbarians fight each other to the death. They would also congregate in a stadium at mid-day to watch the execution of Christians and criminals--to watch starving lions attack the defenseless people, and rip their bodies to shreds. Sometimes the blood-thirsty Emperor would take people out of the audience and through them into the arena with the beasts.
Just today I was asking myself if our world was very different from the ancient world, and then my friends were robbed. Certainly, they were not fed to lions or even physically harmed, but in essence, it is still a human being intentionally inflicting evil upon another and reveling in their heightened position because of it. It makes me sick. It is absolutely horrible.

Think Happy Thoughts

After two years and one month of college, I have finally discovered the secret to not hate my life when things get insanely busy (and I mean INSANELY busy). I've had nervous breakdowns and panic attacks and used to hyperventilate regularly. At least three people during the day would stop me and tell me to "breathe...just breathe..." (The rhythm of that phrase still dances about my head like a familiar, obnoxious friend.) It turns out the secret to my very sanity was spoken to me in my childhood: "Think Happy Thoughts." In the movie "Peter Pan," the children get sprinkled with fairy dust and they need only to think happy thoughts to be able to fly. The youngest one, I believe, keeps repeating "candy!" and he is the first one to take off. So sometimes when I'm getting in the shower at three in the morning after chugging coffee to stay awake to finish a paper, I think about candy. Seriously. Candy Canes, sparkling purple and green gum drops, Fun Dips, chocolate Christmas truffles, the little pink mints my Grandma would give me...those candy hearts you get around Valentine's Day... The thought of candy is so much better than the actual thing because it can live on, forever, in my memory as it was during childhood. Candy during childhood was magical. Candy now makes me feel like a fatty with no self-control and bad teeth. When I was nine years old, the smell of my plastic Halloween pumpkin mixed with tootsie rolls, smarties, peanut butter cups and Carmel apple suckers was this exciting transcending experience. If I did that now, in reality, I would be thinking about how many carbohydrates I already ate that day and how far I need to run in the morning to work everything off.
The point is...the thought of candy, with all of its emotional and sensory ties to childhood, can be kind of an elixir to get me through when things get crazy. Of course, it works with much more than candy. I can pretend it's Christmas. Last night I rode my bike home at ten o'clock at night. I new I had a ton of work to do before bed, so I started singing Christmas songs at the top of my lungs. It totally worked.

After re-reading this blog, I have come to the conclusion that I am insane.

The Life of a Theatre Major

"Be fire!! Be it more!" The words of my acting professor echo across the black box as she moves her body in frantic, asymmetrical movements across the floor. Indeed, it seems as if she is burning; I would be frightened to be in her way as limbs fly about like the fluid rise and fall of flames. Her eyes flash fiercely, and the longer she goes,the more intense and rapids her movements become.

"Or you can be earth." Movement stops. She sinks her feet into the floor and roots immediately extend from her soles and twist down, deep, into the earth. She is grounded like a tree and rests, confidently and anciently within herself. Every movement takes a long time, and nothing is said or done unless it is done carefully and with deep meaning. And very slowly. Earth is connected and grounded.

Fire, earth, water and air. These are our elements. We become them in class, and throughout the rest of the day, the acting students at Aquinas College secretly label all of their friends, roommates, co-workers and professors as a certain element character. One of my bosses is earth, and the other is fire. (They probably wouldn't get along) A girl who sits next to me in class is air...And I believe I am water.

This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the strangest sampling of our training. We also do animals and colors and music. Yesterday we had partners move our bodies around, and we had to create a different character for each manipulation. If my partner turned my hand slightly to the left, I had to come up with a different character. Beggar. Debutant. Young foolish boy. Space alien. 47 year old man drowning. 32 year old man with tattoos mugging a young lady. Elderly lady who just broke a hip. Old man holding a lantern, entering a dripping cave. Ballerina in the 19th century performing in masquerade for a large audience.

I had characters flitting in and out of my head for the rest of the day.

Sometimes Using Protection Doesn't Help.

Pop-up adds are like unwanted suitors. They are deceptive and sly, and sneakishly invade the lives of unsuspecting females. A half hour ago, I performed a virus scan in attempts to assure the safety of my Internet activity. But as soon as I entered the realm of the Internet, it was like I put myself on some kind of shady market. A pop up add had the audacity to present itself as an anti-virus warning. It falsely clothed itself in evocative language, meant to stir the heart of an unsuspecting, naive maiden. "Your computer is at high risk! Hurry, download me and let me protect you! Lend me access to the secret of your files and I shall be valiant and battle the many viruses that beat down your defenses!" And I, being a trusting maiden with little experience, began to take the hand of the sly gentleman pop-up add, trusting his intentions were pure. Luckily, my father came to my rescue on his noble telephone and waged verbal battle against the trickish deceiver. One-two, one-two, and through and through! My father's abuses made it clear, that the so-called protector of P.C. merely wanted to get into my files... He gave me instruction to oust the scoundrel, then with a click of the phone, he was off. I turned my eyes, ablaze, upon the trembling add, and loosed my venom upon the restart option, bidding the fool a vicious adieu. Thank God for my honorable and timely-telephoning father. He is my hero.

My Meatballs Tell Me I'm An Epic Failure

I don't know why I thought I could take on the Legendary Grandma Wehner recipe for meatballs. I obviously over-estimated my domestic skills at the age of twenty. Now with the atrocity of my failure, it is utterly clear that I am a struggling college kid who knows what she wants to be, but has absolutely no clue how to become it. As I look into my pot of freakish meat-mush,I see myself. And I suck. At least at cooking--though it is hard not to let that obscure mix of random ingredients (that I added in a panic after terribly miss-reading the cookbook) go deeper into my introspection and attribute my failure to every aspect of my life. I just wasted several pounds of ingredients (for which I rode my bike to purchase) and shamed my Grandmother and all my female ancestors of whose domesticness I will never live up to. I am left with two less hours in my valuable evening, and no dinner for the next three days--but this goes much further than starvation. I will never get a husband at this rate...I will probably die off and leave the rest of humanity to the more intelligent alpha females who are clever enough to follow recipes and attract a mate.

My 19th Century Soul-Mate

I have decided (perhaps by coercion, at first) to do a class presentation on Lydia Maria Child. Until three days ago, I had never even heard of her; but after only a matter of hours researching her, I have been sold to the persuasion that she is one of the coolest people that ever lived. Unlike the other transcendentalists, she actually put her life on the line for what she believed in--her radical abolitionist views. Lydia Maria Child published appeals for the emancipation of the African people in an age when men were being dragged through the streets with a rope around their neck, for having the same dispositions. I discovered an amazing quote from Child, which expresses her sentiments about the social uproar stirred by her most famous abolitionist work, "Appeal for that class of Americans called Africans." I promptly memorized it.

"I am fully aware of the unpopularity of the task I have undertaken; but though I expect ridicule and censure, it is not in my nature to fear them. A few years hence, the opinion of the world will be a matter in which I have not even the most transient interest; but this book will be abroad on its mission of humanity long after the hand that wrote it is mingling with the dust. Should it be the means of advancing, even one single hour, the inevitable progress of truth and justice, I would not exchange the consciousness for all Rothschild's wealth or Sir Walter's fame."

I think that Lydia Maria Child is on the same level of awesomeness as Xena.
Her devotion to truth and "moral beauty" strengthens her, and raises her to the status of "bad-ass" in my book.