Tonight I went to see Black Swan, the new movie by Darren Aronofsky. Now, let me preface the following thoughts by saying that I wasn't wild about seeing the movie. Not that I don't enjoy Aronofsky's films, but I sometimes feel that he has a penchant for simple shocks - that is, employing themes, images, or elements that are overtly uncomfortable (think Requiem for a Dream's electroshock therapy, infected needle arm, and sex scenes), and therefore understandably elicit a strong reaction from the audience, sometimes too easily (in my opinion). Instead of allowing the audience to examine themselves and delve deeper into potential questioning and wrestling with thematic content that elicits a strong yet ambiguous response that must be processed by each individual, Aronofsky's simple shocks sometimes have left me thinking, "Really?! Okay, sure, fine, do the easiest possible thing to get me to a place of sobbing and vomiting at the same time."
I'm also not a huge Natalie Portman fan (which, I know, often leaves people with a wide-eyed "why?!?" expression), but it has to do with something similar to Aronofsky....it sometimes feels like Nat is trying to prove something, and therefore employs her easiest tricks (for example, her cutesy smile and girlish voice juxtaposed with a stripper scene or intense emotional breakdown) in order to show that there's something more to her. I suppose with both of them, it sometimes feels like they're just trying too hard.
But, the movie tonight was a different story. Aronofsky and Portman provided me with a swell cinematic experience that encapsulated one of the themes/questions/concepts I've been wrestling with quite a bit since starting this whole MFA acting program thing: letting go. (I suppose it was still amidst a few simple shocks and an air of schizophrenic confusion, but hey, it's Aronofsky's trademark, so you gotta let him get a few kicks.)
Let me switch gears for a second and just say that this idea of letting go has been one of my primary meditations, daydreams, or late-night-lying-in-my-bed-ruminating topics as of late, since it's come up a lot in the work I've been doing at UCSD. Now, I thought I was all about letting go when I came to UCSD. After all, I had trained in yoga and discovered the concept of maintaining form in a yoga pose while attempting to let go of self-judgment and find one's own expression of the pose. I had worked long and hard on letting go of a pre-disability concept of myself, and felt that I had embraced my new wheelchair-user self, para-belly and all. I had even let go of some of my childhood tendencies towards perfectionism, and allowed myself to half-ass some school assignments, have a few drinks, or be less than ideal in quite a few ways.
But little did I know how much I still try to keep it all together. As I've moved through various class exercises and social experiences since starting at UCSD, I've been floored by the myriad of areas in which I - and we all - still attempt to maintain control in our lives. We tense and sculpt our muscles to attain perfect physiques, even though it prevents us from being able to flow or undulate in our movements. We manipulate our voices - often in response to some childhood experience in which we were told that that our voices were too loud, too quiet, too high, too low, too girly, too manly - and prevent our truest voice from making its way out to the world. We stifle our breath, often as a reactionary self-preservation response to get through scary or difficult experiences. We inhibit emotion so that we won't be seen as "too emotional" or "crazy" or "out of control" (particularly as females). We force ourselves into a certain conception of who we think we should be according to parents, horoscopes, childhood teachers, personality tests, or social measures of "success," even when our souls are sometimes crying out to do something entirely different. We continue, end, or avoid relationships because it's easier than confronting the reality of what they've become. We hold onto definitive conceptions of others and the world because it's easier than having to continually re-assess our own belief systems, and face a world and a human race that is unpredictable and inexplicable. And we continue trying to meet expectations of ourselves, even when we are fully aware that they are unrealistic and absurd.
Now, obviously, there are reasons we attempt to maintain control. We can't abandon all control, or all tension, or everything would fall apart. (I think there's a physics principle in here somewhere, but it escapes me at the moment). In yoga or tai chi, for example, you have to obviously maintain some measure of tension and control, or your body will become jelly and lose its form, or hell, you'll die. It's the same with the world - without some measure of control, structure, and tension, all would be chaos. (It's fascinating, by the way, to take one moment the next time you're driving on a freeway full of cars to reflect on the extent to which our societies really do maintain control and stasis to a great extent, even in periods of difficulty or unrest. Each car, with its own set of internal workings, operated by an individual human, each with his or her own complicated bodily processes and life circumstances, all working amidst speed and unpredictability of external forces and elements...and yet, for the most part, each car stays in the lines and gets where it needs to go...pretty amazing.)
But I think we often try to maintain control without balancing it with a healthy amount of relinquishment. After all, relinquishing control is hard, and terrifying.
Think for a second about one of the most difficult experiences you've had in your life. Say, a nasty breakup, or facing a physical illness, or getting laid off, or something similar. I would imagine that whatever it is, it probably involved some lack of control on your part, which is what made it particularly challenging and full of hurt.
Moreover, when we relinquish control, we venture into the unknown, and set ourselves up for experiences we can't anticipate. It kind of goes against tried and true messages that are drilled into many of our heads. In soccer it was "anticipate the ball." In Girl and Boy Scouts it's "be prepared." In debate, it's prepping for whatever kind of rebuttal the opposition might offer. We spend so much time preparing ourselves for all possible scenarios so that we won't find ourselves in a vulnerable situation that could leave us damaged, embarrassed, confused, or behaving unpredictably. (Makes me think of atomic bomb drills in elementary school...although, not sure that hiding under the desk really would have saved me.) And yet, despite our human attempts to harness and protect and control, the fact is that nature is unpredictable and often beyond human control.
Perhaps there is power in relinquishing some control and honoring the unknown. Kind of like a sherpa's view of Everest: working WITH the mountain rather than conquering it.
Oddly enough, this brings me to theatre, and the artist, and myself, and Black Swan. One of my friends and mentors always says, "Theatre is hard work." Now, some left-brainers out there might beg to differ, particularly based on the widespread characterization of popular "entertainers" in the media as spoiled, self-indulgent buttheads. Some would undoubtedly argue that theatre and the arts are not as "difficult" as, say, business, or science, or other disciplines. Now, these are obviously all very different (or, perhaps they all attempt to answer the same question, but through different means...but that's for another blog.) But the uniquely difficult work of artistic disciplines, and theatre in particular, is painfully obvious for anyone who has been through an MFA acting program. In essence, it's constantly pushing yourself to let go and give up control...to honor the unpredictability of the human condition (the actor's Everest).
In every one of my current classes, I am pushed to let go in some regard. In movement, it's about pushing physical limits, and challenging the learned impulses of my body to move rigidly to maintain balance and not fall out of my chair during a high speed movement activity, or to move against the momentum of my body in my wheelchair in order to give the illusion of colliding with a solid object without having an actual collision. To maintain form, but let go within the form.
In voice, it's about releasing your body to find a natural breath that carries your vocalization to amazing heights, even if it means inflating your belly, relaxing your jaw and tongue, and vocalizing in a way that may have gotten you teased or scolded at some point in life, or that feels unnatural, or unattractive, or scary.
In stage combat, it's about turning over your control of a weapon to the weapon, and trusting the implement to guide your movement, rather than the other way around.
In speech, it's about allowing yourself to make mistakes and sound completely unintelligible so that you can retrain your mouth to form words in ways that aren't native to you, and honestly identify the ways in which your natural speech might be atypical or impeded.
In singing, it's about letting go of your voice and risking being off-key or imperfect so you can find your musical strength, and letting a song infiltrate every part of your being even if it makes you look odd while singing it (think Mick Jagger, or the askew jaws of Barbra Streisand or John Mayer).
In acting process, it's about challenging - and letting go of - everything you've ever known as a person or an actor; relinquishing all control over your emotions, and letting yourself be unpredictable; risking that you might have to delve into the most painful personal experiences, or defy the most ingrained inhibitions, in order to reach the true emotional essence of a character you're playing; it's about being vulnerable, and turning over the most sacred parts of yourself to be used like tools in the building of a transformative experience for your audience.
Side tangent: When I got my master's in social work, I was enlightened to the incredibly difficult task faced by social workers to be self-effacing. Great social workers must attain a high level of self awareness, and be comfortable with deconstructing themselves to enough of an extent that they can acknowledge the ways in which systems - social, institutional, cultural, familial, relational, personal, internal, and spiritual - have made them who they are, and then can step away from their own complicated bullshit to help another person. They have to let go of preconceptions or judgments they have formed through their personal experiences, and approach each case anew with empathy and a beginner's mind. Essentially, step away from themselves, and utilize their practitioner skills to be a resource for others.
In a similar way, actors have to know their selves - their instruments - so fully that they can efface or employ different aspects of their instruments in crafting a character. A primary difference, though, between social workers and actors is that social workers are instructed to maintain boundaries...actors are encouraged to break through them.
Which brings me back to Black Swan. For me, the most compelling element of the film was the idea that artists (like the dancer in the film, or like Natalie Portman as the actor portraying the dancer in the film) have to push themselves to the brink - physically, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually - to access the most compelling niches of the human condition. In order to provide audiences with the most transformative experiences, actors must delve into extremes - of love, hate, obsession, sorrow, madness, fear - and yet somehow not lose themselves in the process.
It's actually interesting to think that actors, performers, entertainers, etc. often get chided for being egotistical or self-interested. For one, they HAVE to be self-focused to some extent in order to hone their instrument in its entirety. And two, the true benefit of their self-focus is the audience's. The ultimate result is that they are up on a stage offering all of themselves up to be used for the audience's pleasure. Think of a comedian. Sure, he or she gets the attention while on stage, but ultimately everything that a comedian does on stage - make fun of themselves, recount embarrassing life stories, manipulate their bodies and voices to sound stupid, react instantaneously to the audience, craft intelligent puns and ironic situations - are all for the benefit of the audience. Truly, great performers are hugely selfless - they have to be completely vulnerable, give every bit of themselves.
So as I move through this MFA program more and more, I am constantly faced with negotiating a balance, or a yin-yang-like interdependence, between turning myself over fully to the extremes of human nature, and maintaining a semblance of myself of Regan Linton. How do I immerse myself in the actor process without becoming an egotistical headcase? How do I go from throwing myself out of my wheelchair, or sobbing or laughing uncontrollably, or fighting someone in a fit of rage, back to just being Regan drinking her boba milk tea and watching Top Gun? How do I push myself to the extent of my physical ability, but avoid really damaging myself? How do I prevent the grief I dredge up for a Chekhov character from consuming me the rest of the day? How do I access intense anger on stage, and yet not allow it to overtake my personality offstage? How does one play the Black Swan without descending into masochistic madness?
I suppose the answer of any great actor is...craft. It's the job of an actor, it's why we train.
But it's not easy. To let go. To be at the brink. And to go there over and over again. Even for people who train in it. (After all, even with their training, actors are - first and foremost - human beings.) But, again, theatre is hard. And, as one of my professors has said, if you're not willing to go THERE, then don't do theatre.
I suppose the moral is, appreciate the artists or other individuals in life who DO let go and push to the brink, who take the risks that many of us avoid. And, perhaps by appreciating them and learning from them, each one of us can begin letting go in some way that enables us to live, and feel, and exist at a fuller capacity for all that life has to offer. We can risk opening our hearts a bit more, or emoting a little more strongly, or giving up some small part of ourselves in order to grow a little. And yes, it could result in falling flat on your face, or worst case scenario, having barbs poke through your skin as you become a black swan. But hey, if we're all really going to do this whole life thing for a number of years, isn't it better to get to the end and be able to say that you at least gave a few things a try?
I'm also not a huge Natalie Portman fan (which, I know, often leaves people with a wide-eyed "why?!?" expression), but it has to do with something similar to Aronofsky....it sometimes feels like Nat is trying to prove something, and therefore employs her easiest tricks (for example, her cutesy smile and girlish voice juxtaposed with a stripper scene or intense emotional breakdown) in order to show that there's something more to her. I suppose with both of them, it sometimes feels like they're just trying too hard.
But, the movie tonight was a different story. Aronofsky and Portman provided me with a swell cinematic experience that encapsulated one of the themes/questions/concepts I've been wrestling with quite a bit since starting this whole MFA acting program thing: letting go. (I suppose it was still amidst a few simple shocks and an air of schizophrenic confusion, but hey, it's Aronofsky's trademark, so you gotta let him get a few kicks.)
Let me switch gears for a second and just say that this idea of letting go has been one of my primary meditations, daydreams, or late-night-lying-in-my-bed-ruminating topics as of late, since it's come up a lot in the work I've been doing at UCSD. Now, I thought I was all about letting go when I came to UCSD. After all, I had trained in yoga and discovered the concept of maintaining form in a yoga pose while attempting to let go of self-judgment and find one's own expression of the pose. I had worked long and hard on letting go of a pre-disability concept of myself, and felt that I had embraced my new wheelchair-user self, para-belly and all. I had even let go of some of my childhood tendencies towards perfectionism, and allowed myself to half-ass some school assignments, have a few drinks, or be less than ideal in quite a few ways.
But little did I know how much I still try to keep it all together. As I've moved through various class exercises and social experiences since starting at UCSD, I've been floored by the myriad of areas in which I - and we all - still attempt to maintain control in our lives. We tense and sculpt our muscles to attain perfect physiques, even though it prevents us from being able to flow or undulate in our movements. We manipulate our voices - often in response to some childhood experience in which we were told that that our voices were too loud, too quiet, too high, too low, too girly, too manly - and prevent our truest voice from making its way out to the world. We stifle our breath, often as a reactionary self-preservation response to get through scary or difficult experiences. We inhibit emotion so that we won't be seen as "too emotional" or "crazy" or "out of control" (particularly as females). We force ourselves into a certain conception of who we think we should be according to parents, horoscopes, childhood teachers, personality tests, or social measures of "success," even when our souls are sometimes crying out to do something entirely different. We continue, end, or avoid relationships because it's easier than confronting the reality of what they've become. We hold onto definitive conceptions of others and the world because it's easier than having to continually re-assess our own belief systems, and face a world and a human race that is unpredictable and inexplicable. And we continue trying to meet expectations of ourselves, even when we are fully aware that they are unrealistic and absurd.
Now, obviously, there are reasons we attempt to maintain control. We can't abandon all control, or all tension, or everything would fall apart. (I think there's a physics principle in here somewhere, but it escapes me at the moment). In yoga or tai chi, for example, you have to obviously maintain some measure of tension and control, or your body will become jelly and lose its form, or hell, you'll die. It's the same with the world - without some measure of control, structure, and tension, all would be chaos. (It's fascinating, by the way, to take one moment the next time you're driving on a freeway full of cars to reflect on the extent to which our societies really do maintain control and stasis to a great extent, even in periods of difficulty or unrest. Each car, with its own set of internal workings, operated by an individual human, each with his or her own complicated bodily processes and life circumstances, all working amidst speed and unpredictability of external forces and elements...and yet, for the most part, each car stays in the lines and gets where it needs to go...pretty amazing.)
But I think we often try to maintain control without balancing it with a healthy amount of relinquishment. After all, relinquishing control is hard, and terrifying.
Think for a second about one of the most difficult experiences you've had in your life. Say, a nasty breakup, or facing a physical illness, or getting laid off, or something similar. I would imagine that whatever it is, it probably involved some lack of control on your part, which is what made it particularly challenging and full of hurt.
Moreover, when we relinquish control, we venture into the unknown, and set ourselves up for experiences we can't anticipate. It kind of goes against tried and true messages that are drilled into many of our heads. In soccer it was "anticipate the ball." In Girl and Boy Scouts it's "be prepared." In debate, it's prepping for whatever kind of rebuttal the opposition might offer. We spend so much time preparing ourselves for all possible scenarios so that we won't find ourselves in a vulnerable situation that could leave us damaged, embarrassed, confused, or behaving unpredictably. (Makes me think of atomic bomb drills in elementary school...although, not sure that hiding under the desk really would have saved me.) And yet, despite our human attempts to harness and protect and control, the fact is that nature is unpredictable and often beyond human control.
Perhaps there is power in relinquishing some control and honoring the unknown. Kind of like a sherpa's view of Everest: working WITH the mountain rather than conquering it.
Oddly enough, this brings me to theatre, and the artist, and myself, and Black Swan. One of my friends and mentors always says, "Theatre is hard work." Now, some left-brainers out there might beg to differ, particularly based on the widespread characterization of popular "entertainers" in the media as spoiled, self-indulgent buttheads. Some would undoubtedly argue that theatre and the arts are not as "difficult" as, say, business, or science, or other disciplines. Now, these are obviously all very different (or, perhaps they all attempt to answer the same question, but through different means...but that's for another blog.) But the uniquely difficult work of artistic disciplines, and theatre in particular, is painfully obvious for anyone who has been through an MFA acting program. In essence, it's constantly pushing yourself to let go and give up control...to honor the unpredictability of the human condition (the actor's Everest).
In every one of my current classes, I am pushed to let go in some regard. In movement, it's about pushing physical limits, and challenging the learned impulses of my body to move rigidly to maintain balance and not fall out of my chair during a high speed movement activity, or to move against the momentum of my body in my wheelchair in order to give the illusion of colliding with a solid object without having an actual collision. To maintain form, but let go within the form.
In voice, it's about releasing your body to find a natural breath that carries your vocalization to amazing heights, even if it means inflating your belly, relaxing your jaw and tongue, and vocalizing in a way that may have gotten you teased or scolded at some point in life, or that feels unnatural, or unattractive, or scary.
In stage combat, it's about turning over your control of a weapon to the weapon, and trusting the implement to guide your movement, rather than the other way around.
In speech, it's about allowing yourself to make mistakes and sound completely unintelligible so that you can retrain your mouth to form words in ways that aren't native to you, and honestly identify the ways in which your natural speech might be atypical or impeded.
In singing, it's about letting go of your voice and risking being off-key or imperfect so you can find your musical strength, and letting a song infiltrate every part of your being even if it makes you look odd while singing it (think Mick Jagger, or the askew jaws of Barbra Streisand or John Mayer).
In acting process, it's about challenging - and letting go of - everything you've ever known as a person or an actor; relinquishing all control over your emotions, and letting yourself be unpredictable; risking that you might have to delve into the most painful personal experiences, or defy the most ingrained inhibitions, in order to reach the true emotional essence of a character you're playing; it's about being vulnerable, and turning over the most sacred parts of yourself to be used like tools in the building of a transformative experience for your audience.
Side tangent: When I got my master's in social work, I was enlightened to the incredibly difficult task faced by social workers to be self-effacing. Great social workers must attain a high level of self awareness, and be comfortable with deconstructing themselves to enough of an extent that they can acknowledge the ways in which systems - social, institutional, cultural, familial, relational, personal, internal, and spiritual - have made them who they are, and then can step away from their own complicated bullshit to help another person. They have to let go of preconceptions or judgments they have formed through their personal experiences, and approach each case anew with empathy and a beginner's mind. Essentially, step away from themselves, and utilize their practitioner skills to be a resource for others.
In a similar way, actors have to know their selves - their instruments - so fully that they can efface or employ different aspects of their instruments in crafting a character. A primary difference, though, between social workers and actors is that social workers are instructed to maintain boundaries...actors are encouraged to break through them.
Which brings me back to Black Swan. For me, the most compelling element of the film was the idea that artists (like the dancer in the film, or like Natalie Portman as the actor portraying the dancer in the film) have to push themselves to the brink - physically, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually - to access the most compelling niches of the human condition. In order to provide audiences with the most transformative experiences, actors must delve into extremes - of love, hate, obsession, sorrow, madness, fear - and yet somehow not lose themselves in the process.
It's actually interesting to think that actors, performers, entertainers, etc. often get chided for being egotistical or self-interested. For one, they HAVE to be self-focused to some extent in order to hone their instrument in its entirety. And two, the true benefit of their self-focus is the audience's. The ultimate result is that they are up on a stage offering all of themselves up to be used for the audience's pleasure. Think of a comedian. Sure, he or she gets the attention while on stage, but ultimately everything that a comedian does on stage - make fun of themselves, recount embarrassing life stories, manipulate their bodies and voices to sound stupid, react instantaneously to the audience, craft intelligent puns and ironic situations - are all for the benefit of the audience. Truly, great performers are hugely selfless - they have to be completely vulnerable, give every bit of themselves.
So as I move through this MFA program more and more, I am constantly faced with negotiating a balance, or a yin-yang-like interdependence, between turning myself over fully to the extremes of human nature, and maintaining a semblance of myself of Regan Linton. How do I immerse myself in the actor process without becoming an egotistical headcase? How do I go from throwing myself out of my wheelchair, or sobbing or laughing uncontrollably, or fighting someone in a fit of rage, back to just being Regan drinking her boba milk tea and watching Top Gun? How do I push myself to the extent of my physical ability, but avoid really damaging myself? How do I prevent the grief I dredge up for a Chekhov character from consuming me the rest of the day? How do I access intense anger on stage, and yet not allow it to overtake my personality offstage? How does one play the Black Swan without descending into masochistic madness?
I suppose the answer of any great actor is...craft. It's the job of an actor, it's why we train.
But it's not easy. To let go. To be at the brink. And to go there over and over again. Even for people who train in it. (After all, even with their training, actors are - first and foremost - human beings.) But, again, theatre is hard. And, as one of my professors has said, if you're not willing to go THERE, then don't do theatre.
I suppose the moral is, appreciate the artists or other individuals in life who DO let go and push to the brink, who take the risks that many of us avoid. And, perhaps by appreciating them and learning from them, each one of us can begin letting go in some way that enables us to live, and feel, and exist at a fuller capacity for all that life has to offer. We can risk opening our hearts a bit more, or emoting a little more strongly, or giving up some small part of ourselves in order to grow a little. And yes, it could result in falling flat on your face, or worst case scenario, having barbs poke through your skin as you become a black swan. But hey, if we're all really going to do this whole life thing for a number of years, isn't it better to get to the end and be able to say that you at least gave a few things a try?
