Until It's Right

No authority is higher than reality.

Peter Zarlenga
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The teleology involved in a work of art is not hard to identify. It isn't Judgement Day or the end of the world, although it may seem that way sometimes to the artist. The culmination of a lot of effort is something finished and good enough for the artist to sign his name to. There is no way for an artist to know how hard the journey is going to be from the first stroke of the brush to the moment of signing.

It is a curious thing that some stories, paintings and other works seem to create themselves while others offer nothing much to the artist but struggle and frustration.
My two long stories, Brian and Christine, and Brian On The Road, seem to have written themselves, whereas some of the others, like the one I'm writing now, The Savior, is asking a completely different dimension from my imagination. It's one of those pieces that needs to be told, retold and retold again until it's right.

I used to have a similar experience as an actor. I did a lot of plays by Eugene O'Neill. Two of the major roles fit me Hogan in A Moon For The Misbegotten, and Con Melody in A Touch Of The Poet were roles I felt were written for me.

For the actor to make a successful work it must be honest, a recognizably real person within the style of the drama. It's the reality of human life and it's articulation by the playwright and the actor that gives the theatre it's vitality and authority.

I understood Con Melody at the first reading of the play, but I wasn't cast in the role. I was given a different part. The actor who had the role didn't understand him and dropped out. I took over the part on a day's notice.

In the case of Hogan I thought I had a good grasp of the character but there was still something missing. One day the director handed me a corn cob pipe, a tin of tobacco, a knife and a box of matches and said "Play with these." I cut the tobacco, stuffed it in the pipe and lit it a few times until I was comfortable with the business. It was the simple act of stuffing the tobacco into the pipe with my finger that opened up all the rest about that character I needed to know in order to play him.

On the other hand I twice played James Tyrone in A Long Days Journey Into Night and each time in order to get to the reward of the silvery poetic writing of the last act I found the first three acts a hard struggle.

The question is why do some things come easily and others don't. Someone watching from the outside might say "You're putting up barriers to yourself." That is probably true but what are those barriers and why do we erect them? I've heard many nonsensical reasons. "You're being to serious." "You aren't taking it seriously enough." "You're too angry." "Use your anger." "You're being too self-indulgent." "You need to put more of yourself into it." And so on.

The easy days are tempting us. One day we stride across home plate amid the cheers of the crowd and the next day we can't get to first base. We forget that we have to work at it and keep working at it until it's right, thumb our noses at frustration, take the dog out for a walk, have a shower, make another cup of coffee and go back to the task.

And we also have to ignore the voice that keeps saying "Look at you. You're a joke. You're a dunce. Whoever told you you could write? Give it up."

For the artist there is no such thing as "give it up."

DB - The Vagabond
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WEEKEND CONTEST
Gotcha

Here are the first two words of song titles.
"I got" or "I've got"

The person who comes up with the longest list of song titles that begin with those two words will be the winner. In the case of a tie duplicated prizes will be awarded.

good luck
DB

Deliverance Duty 5/04/09

For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded and defeated us in daily life.

Lawrence Durrell
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Welcome back.
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I can think of a lot of things about my past that please me, fun memories and good friends. But why is it so much easier to remember the hurts, the pains, the failures. I am glad to have learned the lessons from all of them. Now why can't I bind up the whole mess in a big plastic baggie, throw it out in the trash can and forget about it?

There used to be a popular question asked of older people when they were interviewed on radio or TV. If you had it to do all over again what would you change? The answer was "I wouldn't change a thing." I have never understood that remark. I sit here and fervently wish I could start all over again, change almost everything and do it right.

I would say, when asked, that most of the roles I played as an actor were either autobiographical or wish fulfillment, sometimes a combination of both. It was very helpful to call upon events of my past, both positive and negative, to supply me with images and emotions that synergized with the life of the character I was playing. But since I'm not an actor any more why do I need them? And, thus, why do they keep popping up to hurt me like mosquito bites or bee stings?

I don't appear to have any choice about it so I might as well take those memories, cut them apart, twist the pieces around, repaint them, hammer them out of shape on the anvil of my mind, make something else of them and run them through my keyboard.

The time and effort it takes me to invest my poor memories into the whirlpool of my creative mind is paid off by the repose I would never award myself otherwise. And as I pull apart the veils and uncover the grotesqueries of my vagabond past I tremble. But I also retool and redesign remorse and regret into something that may even resemble the beautiful.

To consider my sins of commission and especially my sins of omission I may feel as if I'm tending a garden of vipers with no exit for them to crawl away. But if so, I collected them. I earned them as my destiny. And now my duty is to translate each of them into something beneficial to me and anyone who wants to listen.

When Eugene O'Neill wrote "Ah, Wilderness!" he said it was the story of his youth the way it should have been. I can write about my youth the way it should have been (wish fulfillment) but only if I face the way it actually was (autobiographical). In short, I can turn that big plastic baggie of trash into art. And that's what we do.

DB - The Vagabond
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May you have a bright and happy day.
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