fairy tales
I'm taking a really amazing improv class right now... definitely the best theater class I've had since Shakesperf. (I miss you, Mr. Shelby, wherever you are. I miss the way you would creep up behind me and hit me on the head with your clipboard. No one does that any more.) Anyway, this class is so impeccably structured-- there's this horrible misconception in the lower echelons of the theater world that improv is just about being clever, and that can lead to some dreadfully awkward situations (i.e. most improv scenes) where two people are trying to be clever across purposes. Anyway, for the first two weeks we were totally silent-- we worked on individual mime, and transforming spaces with our actions and characters. The real glory of an empty stage is the fact that it is as close as your average person can come to understanding the Buddhist concept of clear light or emptiness. It can be as many places and hold whatever things you can possibly imagine. It is our only key to infinite possibility.
...But that's neither here nor there. We have since moved on to gibberish fairy tales, which are among the most bizarre and wonderful things I have experienced. Basically, you act out a well-known story in an invented language. It frees you from having to be clever and lets you focus completely on the character. Fucking awesome. And liberating.
And so I got to thinking about fairy tales, and how cliched and basically meaningless they've become-- they have this primal power that's easy to forget, this feeling of living at the edge of some dreadful peril, some inevitable death. In the 1300s you could walk from western Russia to the coast of France WITHOUT EVER SEEING SUNLIGHT. The forest was that dense and huge. People lived in these doomed little outcroppings-- these stories come from a time when people were the exception, not the rule.
Sometimes I wish I could live a life during that time, right before the Renaissance broke. When our destruction was at the hands of the world, not the other way around.
...But that's neither here nor there. We have since moved on to gibberish fairy tales, which are among the most bizarre and wonderful things I have experienced. Basically, you act out a well-known story in an invented language. It frees you from having to be clever and lets you focus completely on the character. Fucking awesome. And liberating.
And so I got to thinking about fairy tales, and how cliched and basically meaningless they've become-- they have this primal power that's easy to forget, this feeling of living at the edge of some dreadful peril, some inevitable death. In the 1300s you could walk from western Russia to the coast of France WITHOUT EVER SEEING SUNLIGHT. The forest was that dense and huge. People lived in these doomed little outcroppings-- these stories come from a time when people were the exception, not the rule.
Sometimes I wish I could live a life during that time, right before the Renaissance broke. When our destruction was at the hands of the world, not the other way around.