Oliver is up and running, and my body is very angry at me.  
There should be a “musical theatre boot camp weight loss program”. The amount of physical effort and stamina required to run a musical from top to bottom is unlike anything in almost any kind of theatre (swashbuckling swordplay epics notwithstanding). And since I’m also the kind of masochist who would insist on going to the gym six days a week even if the apocalypse is raging, I am putting my body through a great deal these days. 
 
The first act of Oliver is a marathon: I play an orphan, Mr Sowerberry, a gentleman, a muffin seller, one of Fagin’s boys and a Bow Street Runner. That means six costumes, and five costume changes. Four of those five costume changes are quick-changes (generally under a minute; two are less than 35 seconds) and two of them must be done while I’m singing. I participate in eight musical numbers in the first act alone, and often have to lift or haul heavy tables or stair units. I and many others in the cast come off stage at the end of act one drenched in sweat from the effort of it all. I’m not complaining, though: there’s a sense of pride in the way we all rise to the occasion of putting so much work in to the show every night. And the second act is a quite a bit easier for me, so I have lots of time to recover while other cast members run their own marathons. 
 
We’ve been warned about the need to look after ourselves, since running a show such as this one is strenuous. I’d like to think I’ve taken it to heart… but that would be dishonest. I’ve been doing a great deal of stretching, taking Epsom baths as often as possible, and resting whenever I can. I should also be going for a massage at least once a week, but I have yet to do that. Every week I say “on my day off I’m going to get a massage”, and every week I find some ridiculous excuse not to go. I think my current favorite excuse is “but it’s my day off“. 
 
As the run of the show goes on and the physical “routine” of it becomes something to which I’ve adapted, I’ve been lulled into thinking everything is fine… but my body is definitely tired, and wants a little care. After only three shows so far this week, my body already feels like it did after finishing eight shows last week. I wake up in the mornings feeling like rigor mortis has set in, and I fear my body will soon go on strike. So this post is, in part, an attempt to publicly shame myself into seeing a massage therapist this weekend. Even if it is on my day off.

Today is our final day in the rehearsal hall for the National Arts Centre English Theatre production of Oliver. Tomorrow we move to the stage and begin the process of adding all of the technical elements to the show. As I write this, most of the run is sold out, an extension has been announced… and we don’t even have our first audience for another six days. 
As I talk to people about the show, I sense that almost everyone has a personal connection to Oliver. It seems like everyone’s been in it at some point — at school or in a community theatre production. Everyone talks about wanting to bring their kids or their grandchildren to see it. They’re a little excited about it. And since it’s being presented at Christmas, there is an unspoken expectation (as there is with almost everything at this time of year) that this is light family entertainment.
 
I don’t know why, but there are some interesting assumptions about the kind of show Oliver ”should be”. First, it has kids in it, so it must be a kids’ show with nothing to say to adults. Second, it’s a musical, so it must be frivolous. Third, since people remember having a lot of fun when they played The Artful Dodger at age eight, it must be all about fun.
 
There are elements of truth to all of these things, of course, but the complete picture gives us more. People forget that Charles Dickens was an outspoken activist in his time, angry at the immense inequality in English society and even more angry at the abuses of children.  Oliver was intended to chastise the Poor Law, critique a culture whose industrial revolution and pursuit of profit was driven by workhouse slave labour, and shine light on the injustices of a society that seemed hell-bent on keeping teeming masses of desperately poor citizens under the heel of a few wealthy people. Perhaps this sounds familiar. This is why choosing Oliver as holiday programming is about more than picking material that sells tickets.
 
It is a musical, but people who don’t know the form well also don’t know that musicals can be powerfully dramatic. It is about children, but the children in our production are all played by adults. It does have moments of happiness and fun and joy and playfulness, but it is also our duty to make sure that — true to Dickens’ source material — the orphans in the first scene are so hungry that they fear they’ll kill and eat each other; that Nancy is an indentured sex worker who is in a deeply abusive relationship; that there is no cut and dry moral judgement about street kids who steal from rich people so that they can survive; that all of these people were trapped in existences where death and murder were regular occurrences.
 
Great musical theatre writing is exquisite when experienced, and I think that Oliver is as popular as it is because of the moments it does beautifully. If we’ve done our jobs correctly, we’ll be offering something more like a fine dinner than a fast food combo meal. I think Dickens would have a lot to say about the culture in which we currently find ourselves, and I hope that folks who come to see us will be open to hearing it.
 

I went to the theatre tonight to see a preview of Midwinter’s Dream Tale at The Great Canadian Theatre Company.

“I take it you’re an actor,” said the woman next to me, at intermission.

How she came to this conclusion, I don’t know.

“Yes, indeed!” I replied. “I work around Ottawa a fair bit.”

My compatriot sat up in her seat. “That’s really nice!” she said. There was a pause, and then: “So… you can make a living as an artist?”

I smiled, and looked her in the eye, and said “Oh sure! I’ve been able to do it for many years now — since 2004 or so.”

“That’s really great. I’m glad you can make some money. My husband and I love the arts. It’s nice to hear someone in the arts can make a living.”

I never know what to make of this kind of comment. On one hand, it illustrates an understanding that artists are not whining rich elites who spend their time attending fancy galas, as Harper once claimed. On the other hand, it suggests that artists are pity cases who are expected to need handouts in order to get by; or that “the arts” is something you “get” to do as a hobby once your full time job has your salary and benefits covered. I love the first impression and bristle at the second: not because artists don’t (or shouldn’t) get subsidized, but because the notion implies that we are martyrs of sorts, suffering without the comforts of the middle class in order to serve a noble higher calling.

“My daughter trained as a visual artist,” the woman continued. “She was very talented, I thought. She teaches now. But when she was younger she really wanted to be an artist and she applied to all the schools and really wanted to do it for a living. I tried my best to help her. I called every painter I could think of and asked them if they were making enough money.”

We had been talking for a few minutes, by this point, and so I felt comfortable allowing my response, here, to move beyond quaint Canadian pleasantries.

“With respect,” I said, “I think you asked the wrong question. You should have asked if they were happy.”

Now that Whispering Pines has been closed for a couple of weeks, I think it’s fair to do a little reflection on my experience with the run of the play. I’ve read all of the reviews for the show that I could find, and they really run the gamut. On average, people found the work inaccessible and detached. Some loved it; some loathed it. So be it.

Many actors I know don’t read reviews until after a show has closed. I don’t have such hang-ups, now, but I used to. I still remember a review of my performance in a 1999 community theatre production of Fiddler On The Roof, which I foolishly read two nights after we opened the show. In it, The Critic To Impress stated that the three suitors (I played Perchik) were “more retiring than their roles required”. We three actors tried to blow this off, and joked that her turn of phrase was code for “gay”… but the review got under my skin! I spent the rest of that run re-evaluating and altering my work to address the critique. Bad actor!

As I’ve grown in experience and confidence, I’ve worried less and less about what observers — especially critics — think of my work. It’s not that I don’t care; it’s that opinions, like the art upon which those opinions are based, are subjective. I can’t waste time trying to meet the objective approval of everyone who sees me on stage, and I don’t need that approval to validate my work. And so I have no qualms about reading reviews of my work before the end of a run.

I look back on the performances of Whispering Pines with no sense of regret. I am proud of what we achieved. Most importantly, I take the expressed satisfaction of our director, our playwright, and my cast-mates at face value. With that said, however, I did read most of our reviews before we closed, and some of the writing about my work in the play haunted me. Unlike my 1999 adventure, though, I didn’t allow anything that was written affect my performance.

One critic called the play gripping, and another called it flat and lifeless. The thing that haunted me about this varied opinion is that both of those critics saw the same performance, on the same night. Now, what do I make of that? 

Under its surface, the engine of Whispering Pines is Chekhovian. The plot seems simple, but the inner life experienced by the characters is real and deep. My character, in particular, makes no apparent evolution during the course of the play’s action — and yet his turmoil is intended to be deep and affecting. Like the work of Chekhov, Whispering Pines is a play that could be seen as dull by many — but in the hands of gifted actors and directors it surely can be a powerful, resonant piece of tectonic theatre. 

I did several weeks of Chekhov scene study work while training in Banff this year. Brenda Bazinet referred to Chekhov as an instant “bullshit detector”: a litmus test for actors that exposed fakery. Through that experience I fell in love (finally) with Chekhov. Coincidentally, it was while I was in Banff that I was asked to be part of the premiere of Whispering Pines.  I sensed that the blood of Pines was very much in line with the work of Chekhov, and so I aimed to invest my portrayal of Thomas with as much inner life as possible. 

I went at the task with fervor, and was eager to share the work with an audience. The range of views on the work, however, tell me that the emotional life of the characters is actually created in the minds of the individual audience members during the performance — not in the rehearsal hall, and perhaps not even on stage. In this respect, it is completely out of the hands of the actor, and David Mamet’s heretical ratings in “True and False” are more astute than I’d previously imagined.  

Sobering.

On the other hand, I know I still have so much more work to do to be a better male actor. I know this because I shared the stage every night with Paul Rainville, and I never stopped watching his work with absolute awe. Everything I fought to achieve, he handled with finesse and sprezzatura.

Some day, I may achieve it. There’s time.

This week and next week are quite a slog for me. Having opened Whispering Pines last weekend, I have now started rehearsals for Oliver! As part of the National Arts Centre’s acting company. Thus I am spending my days in the world of England after the 1834 Poor Law Amendment, and my evenings in the world of East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It’s making for very long days, but I’ve known this was going to happen since May and have been trying to prepare for it as best I can. Staying well-rested is a priority; if I can take care of that, the urge to break into “Food, Glorious Food” halfway through act two of Whispering Pines should be manageable. As of November 13, when Pines closes, I’m sure I’ll be grateful to be back with a single focus… at least, until Oliver! Opens on December 6 and we go into rehearsals for Creation.

Feast or famine, they say. So true.

Between Rick Mercer’s rant, last week’s Globe and Mail editorial, and a bunch of media stories in between, there has been a lot of discussion in the past week about whether or not queer folks in the public eye should be out and visible.

I am downright militant on this topic, acknowledging my (fortunate) context as an assertive, proudly gay man here in Canada: if you’re gay, you should come out. If you are a public figure, you should be visible. High-profile, closeted public figures are cowards who perpetuate the oppression of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people by pretending that their sexuality has nothing to do with their public persona.

I’m not saying I’ll out you if I know you’re in the closet: your decision to come out is your own. But I will encourage you at every opportunity to stop living a lie, for the good of all of us; and I will support your decision to live with honesty and integrity, as a member of a community that should (and will) stand together.

As adults, we can all make choices about who we associate with, where we work, and how we present ourselves. We can steer clear of bigots, and play the pronoun game in our day-to-day business. What a luxury. Teenagers and kids in schools do not enjoy these freedoms. They can’t choose their school, often; can’t choose their social circles; can’t choose their work environment. A gay kid — or even a kid that is simply perceived as gay — must walk brazenly, every day, through an obstacle course of hatred, fear, and a feeling that They Don’t Fit. On a daily basis, these kids demonstrate a level of courage that some public figures — those who hide their sexuality for the sake of personal advancement — will never know.

If you are a public figure and you are in the closet, the BEST “it gets better” message you can offer is “just hang in there until you graduate. Then you can hide, just like I do”. Fuck that, and — yes — fuck you, too.

Stop telling kids it gets better. Make it better. Hold hands in public. Put your arm around your lover on the bus. Correct people when they assume you’re going home to someone of the opposite gender. Don’t assume Ellen Degeneres and Neil Patrick Harris have the gay role model jobs sewn up. If you are a cop or a firefighter or a teacher or a mayor or a cabinet minister or a radio host or a DJ in your community, you need to be a role model for that community. Kids and teens need to see out, happy, visible queers on their streets, on their local TV stations, and in their local shopping malls. Thousands of activists before you have stood up and fought for the protections we all enjoy (and are still fighting for). Use them. Lead by example. If we don’t, we will continue to find the blood of our young people on our hands.

It is ONLY when people STOP asking “why do you need to tell people you’re gay?” that we will have achieved full equality.

I’m about to start rehearsals for Whispering Pines, which is a new play by Richard Sanger. I’m in love with the script, and excited about the work.

I’d call it Chekhov-meets-East-Germany, if that makes any sense. The story of the play revolves around a woman named Renate who, many years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, applies to see her Stasi file and discovers that her husband was an informant. Much of the action involves reconstructing memories and imagining confrontations: what is the truth, and how do we respond to having to face it?

One of the most enjoyable aspects of my work is diving in to the world of a play. This year, alone, I’ve delved into 17th century France and Civil-War-era New England; before the end of the year it’ll be 19th century England and the Book of Genesis. Right now, my life is all about the German Democratic Republic. As part of my summer work, I’ve been reading books, watching films, and looking at documentaries about the socialist East German experiment.

The GDR employed about 97,000 people as part of its secret police force, and used a structured network of almost 200,000 informants. Taken along with part-time informers who made reports about their neighbours and friends, it is estimated there was one informer for every 6.5 citizens living in East Germany. By contrast, the Gestapo only ever managed one informant for every 2000 citizens in the Third Reich. People living in East Germany, before the wall fell, found themselves in a sort of panopticon — but a rather corrupt one.

People informed for myriad reasons — from a sense of duty, to a sense of loneliness, to a desire for “perks”, to fear of the consequences of not being a model socialist, to everything in between. The atmosphere must have been stifling… but in all my reading, the most painful stories are the ones where citizens have discovered, in the years since November 9, 1989, that people they loved and trusted were, in effect, state spies.

A few of my sources were terrific reads, so I want to pass them on in case you’re interested:

• Stasiland, by Anna Funder
• The German Comedy, by Peter Schneider
• The File, by Timothy Garton Ash

I apologize for my blog-silence over the last while. Every time I had the urge to write something here, I forcefully channeled it into a focus on my playwriting instead.

The benefit, though, is that the complete first draft of my play — still titled Entropy — is now finished.

I’ve brought it in at about 20,000 words and 63 pages, which in some ways seems like an accomplishment and in other ways feels like a thin total for two months of writing. As an excuse, though, many scenes were written, mulled, and then chopped. Ultimately, I’m quite happy with the output. There is a plot, a definite sense of style, and (I hope) a good story. I’m less certain about pacing, some character quirks, and (perhaps most importantly) a complete exploration of my theme. These things will come with time, though. As people kept reminding me, I have to allow for my first draft to be terrible. It is a starting place.

I gave myself an October 1 deadline, which gave me two months of work time covered by the grant money I received from the city of Ottawa. It also allowed for the fact that I am back in the shoes of “working actor” from October through February, making dedicated writing time challenging. And so I’m thrilled to have beat my deadline by almost a week.

At first, I thought I’d just sit on the script for a few days, and then take another pass at it…. but ultimately I couldn’t wait. I sent it out to some close friends and colleagues, which is a sharp contrast to the fear I had of showing anything to anyone up until this weekend. Reaching the point of sharing the script is a victory all its own.

From here, I can start looking for workshop funding. There is a writing group forming in Ottawa where I can bring pieces of the script to work on. And if all goes well, the script will be produced by Gruppo Rubato in a year or so.

Work on Entropy is proceeding rather well, I think, with a solid amount of progress in the last week. There was a bunch of “low-hanging fruit” in the script that I wanted to address — fleshing out character interactions, for example, and improving connections between scenes — and the next phase of the work is about digging into the “middle bits” I talked about previously.

In the draft that I created last fall, one of the most consistent bits of feedback I got was that the play took a while to get going (which is a polite way to say that, in the old draft, very little happened for a very long time). Today I pulled some of the most interesting plot developments from the latter half of the script and moved them as “early” into the plot as I think the script will bare. This opens up the field for new writing and new action that can build on the base I have. Additional plot points that escalate the action and dynamics have been brainstormed, and I’ve begun to put the bones of those events into the script.

At 34 pages and counting, part of the act of managing all this is keeping track of how new plot elements impact other areas of the script, and how the seeds for those elements are planted. I had the idea today that Adam is going to get caught raiding the desk in his father’s home office while he is looking for the answer key to a mathematics practice test. Aside from the issue of how to present this action on stage, I now need to answer questions like “is it the first time Adam has done this? Exactly how does he get caught? Has his father suspected that someone has been snooping in his desk? If so, how do I show this elsewhere in the script? How does Adam’s getting caught propel us into the next plot point? How does the confrontation change their relationship, and how do I demonstrate that shift?” and so on. One idea creates a ripple effect that can alter almost everything else.

I have a stack of notecards that I’m using to keep track of all of this, but the fact that they’re in a stack is becoming a problem. I started creating the cards because the script itself was too “linear” to manage (too hard to locate and manage plot details in a 34-page tract of prose). I need to be able to see and manipulate “the big picture”, so I’m going to end up with the cards plastered all over an empty wall in my almost-empty house. Eventually I’ll need some kind of database, it seems, to keep track of how any one change can impact what’s already in place. It makes my head hurt. How do writers do this? Entropy, indeed!

Over the past few weeks, I have learned that I am utterly unable to ignore my phone. Unless I turn it off, it rules me completely.

I became aware of this because I fell in love with the act of turning my phone off while dedicating time to writing. The less distraction I have, the better: the ability to focus on a single task is not one of my strengths. Turning the phone off and using nothing but a text editor has led to incredible productivity, most of the time.

The simple corollary is that my productivity is lessened most of the time as a result of having my phone on. Typically, I dispute this notion. But I have observed that I am unable to ignore an incoming email, text message, or push notification of any kind when my phone is within reach. No matter what I’m doing, the polite prompt of a short vibration or ‘ding’ orders me to pull out my phone and figure out who or what wants me for something. I cannot ignore this prompt; it is a true compulsion. When I receive a notification that I don’t immediately acknowledge in some way, I feel a mild pang of anxiety that grows exponentially until I buckle down, pull the phone from my pocket it, and respond to it.

This is reinforced by my iPhone’s insistence on notifying me a second time for every text message that I don’t immediately read. The second polite ‘ding’ takes place about a minute after the first. Subconsciously I know that this second notification must not be allowed to happen. It’s a 36-year-old’s game of “step on a crack and break your mother’s back” that I didn’t even know I was playing. Even if I am out walking, I must stop, pull out the cursed device, read the message, respond to it, put the phone away, and then keep moving. My response elicits a new message, and the whole process is repeated until it takes me twice as long as necessary to get where I’m going. And I end up annoyed about being constantly interrupted.

I know the answer to all of this: turn the phone off more (or, at least, the notifications). I just don’t know if I can.

The other day I ran for the bus and got on without realizing that I had left my phone behind. My anxiety over not having it was so strong that I had to fight the urge to go back home and look for it. I begrudgingly opted to re-plan my day so that I could function without Twitter, Foursquare, my workout plan, music, a clock, a calorie tracker, an expense tracker, and more. The day went by without issue — just a different routine than usual, underscored by a generalized anxiety over the lack of an iPhone in my left front pocket — but the commanding impulse I had on my return home was to Get My Hands On That Phone And Catch Up.

I’m not sure what to do about all of this. I rely on my iGadgetry for almost every aspect of my life. The utility of these devices is what makes them worth having — right? But I worry that the line between “reliance” and “addiction” is blurring, and am not sure what to do to make the line clear… and keep it clear. I welcome advice…!