Should New Acquaintance

Due to an impromptu road trip, I have little time to write the year-end retrospective blog I intended to put together to close the 2007 year. However, the last few days of this waning year have brought new sights, new ideas, new friends... and hopefully this is just a bit of pre-game spillover from the hopeful, brighter year that 2008 is destined to be. Wishes to all for a safe and happy holiday, and a wonderful new year ahead.

In Memory of Benazir Bhutto

A dark day for agents of change around the world. May former Prime Minister Bhutto's legacy be long remembered, and may peace and not violence follow in the wake of her tragic death. Her many supporters killed not only today, but also since her return to her country, should also be remembered. There is no political conversation when murder silences the voices of protest. Terrorists, regimes and politicians willing to kill their opposition, and their own citizens and countrymen? Shocking, but not surprising. The scariest thread of this news story is how unsurprising Bhutto's assassination seems to be. Thank you for your courage, Prime Minister Bhutto. May this loss to the world community not be in vain.

"What?" Doesn't Kill You.

"Question Authority."

That's the quote that was emblazoned in big white letters on the matching red T-shirts my parents bought for the five of us that made up the Kander family in the mid-1980's. Mom, Dad, Jake, Adam and I wore those t-shirts with pride. We even had a picture taken of the five of us, standing in the gravel driveway behind the green-roofed white duplex on Main Street in Brighton, grinning ear to ear, red and white and questioning all over.

(Note: wearing matching shirts is okay when the kids are all under eight and the shirt carries a bold message of independent thinking, which counteracts the whole lookalike/matching-thing. Also, a family headed by alterna-parents might have something to do with making it work...)

Anyway. My brothers and I probably didn't really know what the quote meant at the time. Frankly, speaking as someone who's done a lot of work with kids... a six-year-old showing up donning such a shirt might make me a little nervous. Informed or not about the nuance of our apparel, all three of us knew it had something to do with questions, and we loved questions.

• Why is the sky blue? (It's NOT?!?! What color is it REALLY? Why do our eyes trick us?)
• Why are there different countries?
• Why don't we live in a different country?
• Do all things taste the same to all people, or is that why some people like some foods and some people hate those same foods? Does the FOOD taste different, or do WE just like different tastes?
  

Questions are important. We knew that as kids. Sure, somewhere along the way, questions went from safe to risky. The answers we got from other people were often important to us, and entirely contingent on them.

• Do you like me?
• Will I succeed?
• Why isn't she here anymore?
• What does he really mean by that?

Questions can be scary. But the questions unasked, the authority unquestioned, the "facts" unchecked are far more dangerous. Yet looking around, the unasked "why"s and unshared "what"s fill silent football fields all around us.

Why the fear of questions?

I think some people fear questions because they feel that not already having an answer is some sign of weakness -- and the risk of not getting an answer once a question is posed seems terrifying. But is blind acceptance less terrifying? Is it more comforting to have an answer that you accept without really owning, than to do a little probing and reach a more informed conclusion... or avoid a conclusion at all, and keep your mind a little more open?

Just a little reminder: "What?" doesn't kill you... and "Why?" might even make you stronger.

Entrances and Exits

I was fascinated when I heard of a diptych* of plays written by Alan Ayckbourn, entitled "House" and "Garden." The two plays are designed to run simultaneously, on adjacent stages. After exiting a scene in House, actors have only a few moments before their entrance into a scene in Garden. (If nothing else, it's a great marketing ploy - intrigued audience members will need to shell out money for two tickets to see both shows and learn what happened when the character left one play and joined the other!)

The idea really captures the imagination. (Sadly, most reviews of the work can be summarized as "good idea, weakly written"...) As an actor, it sounds like a tremendous amount of work: scurrying from one set to the other, remembering lines, blocking and a set for two different shows. Trying to keep everything straight must be a daunting challenge.

Then it occurred to me that, in fact, constant exits, entrances, and set changes are actually a rather true to life sort of experience... a very pronounced one for some of us at the moment. Costume and even role changes aren't unheard of, even when the same character is maintained in real life.

Performances of a show are often referred to as the "run." "Run" is also an accurate description of my current schedule. Forget House and Garden -- I am currently appearing in House, One Play, Another Play, Office, Additional Work, Volunteer Gigs, Classes, and a small, under-funded little improv show called Social Life. (Unfortunately, that leaves time for few performances in Blogging, so the script has been cut significantly this week.)

Take that, Alan Ayckbourn - and run with it!


* I am not ashamed to admit that I had to look up the word diptych. The basic meaning is "two things hinged together." You can get lengthier definitions at dictionary.com's entry, or Wikipedia's entry, or in your thesaurus of choice.