The Right Answers

Sometimes creativity is a compulsion not an ambition.

Ed Norton
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Hello Mark
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One day I had lunch with a young actor who wanted to pick my brains about acting. We went to a restaurant where he bought me a pizza. It was a good pizza. I told him I would ask him one question and that if I didn't get the right answer I was going to talk him out of it.

The question was "Why are you an actor?"

The answer was "Because I love entertaining people."

That was a good answer so I talked for the next hour or so about acting: the job, the career, the techniques, the artistry. While I was speaking and answering his questions I realized something I didn't usually think about which was how much I loved acting, the theatre, the opportunity and process of entertaining people.

In my late teens I had several opportunities open to me and a few skills in other trades. But when I realized that I was an actor I put all my other talents in the shed and never looked back.

I've had occasions to encourage other younger actors as time went by. I remember talking with one who said he loved performing and rehearsing but he hated auditions. I turned his head around about that when I told him an audition was a chance to put on a show and entertain people.

I have known artists, painters and writers who lost sleep and did not realize it because they had to finish what they were working on. I have known ballet and modern dancers for whom discipline was such a constant way of life that they exhibited more of it than any one else. And I've known actors who were more alive on the stage than any place else. I finally realized one day that I was totally at home on the stage, that I was more comfortable, confident and capable of life the moment I stepped out on to a stage. I loved it.

Learning lines is one of the tasks of an actor. It's tedious, hard work, but the more you do it the easier it gets. I got some excellent advice from Helen Hayes who said that she memorized something every day even when she didn't have a play to work on, just to keep her memory skills in shape.

For an artist there are simple terms to describe cosmic things. Some call it the Muse, to others it's a compulsion, or a desperation or the thrill of living and expressing life. Everything you write, a novel, a history, a short story, a poem, a journal entry, becomes a part of the unbelievably limitless world of the written word. It's the same with a painting, No matter where it's hung or not hung it is part of the genius of visual art.

From the grandeur of ancient Greek and Roman theatre, through the rag tag Commedia players moving around through the Middle Ages, to the authority of European theatre, to Broadway, Hollywood, TV drama and an occasional work of quality on You Tube, actors have been entertaining people with the portrayal of real life and the glamorization of ideas for centuries.

Is there any bad art? Of course. But the people who produce it should have been asked the question I asked the young actor years ago. And if the questioner didn't get the right answer he should have talked them out of it.

Great works of art have been made, are being made right this instant and will continue to be made by artists, just as long as they are compelled by love and the right answers.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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AUTUMN QUESTION

What event over the past year changed your life, a lot or a little?

3 answers so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

I await your answers.
DB
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What's the good word?

Be certain to partake of the good things in life, and don't forget to share them.

DB - The Vagabond
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"I will pray for you." Too often that statement has a wicked dirt road of sarcasm under it. I don't like your religion, I don't like your politics, I don't like your life style, I don't like your sexual behavior, I don't like how you live, I don't like where you are coming from, I don't like how you make a living, I don't like your choice of music, I don't like your choice of ball team, I don't like anything about you, I don't like you, I hate you, but I love you so "I will pray for you."

"He's black but nice." Here was a Protestant Sunday School teacher genuinely grappling with a deep prejudice against and suspicion of black people. Because of my liberalism he came to me for advice. "He's black but nice." I told him that the first thing he had to do was to permanently erase from his vocabulary the phrase "block but nice." I reminded him that there are nice black people and nasty black people just like there are nice white people and nasty white people. He and his wife had the black "but nice" couple over for dinner and then were invited to the other house for dinner. He told me about that and the discomfort was palpable.

"He's a Jew but he's not typical, you know what I mean?" Three college friends sitting on the banks of the Charles River in Boston. One of them is Jewish, the other two are not. The other two are trying to explain to the Jewish boy the difference between being a Jew and being Jewish. The Jewish boy is listening politely with a smile on his face. It's clear the two authorities haven't the faintest idea of what it is like to be Jewish. No prejudice here is there?

I asked a Protestant pastor's daughter what she would do if she met a Muslim. Her answer was "Convert them." (I will pray for you.)

Don't get me started on political beliefs. The point is made.

So what are the good things in life? Whatever they are they are covered over and smothered by prejudice, intolerance, injustice and ignorance. But with the advent of international communication the cultures of the whole world are open to the whole world. Sure there are many things going on that are distasteful to me. I'm not going to eat a dog, watch a bullfight, slaughter a camel with an axe or throw stones at an adulteress. I don't partake of them. I partake of the good things: African music, Arab dancers, Flamenco, Mariachi, I was very grateful to Sol Hurok when he brought the Kabuki, the traditional Japanese theatre, to New York. When I went to see it I thought I knew theatre. Watching those performers changed my life as an actor. There is enlightenment to be gained from the art, music and literature of the world whether it's across the sea or down the street. The good things in life will tread on the scorpions of religious and political fanaticism.

We will never make the whole world America, but we can make America more like the world by embracing the good things in it without prejudice and fear and sharing the good things we have with the world. I know there is a machinery of prejudice against that idea but the time is coming and now is when that machine should be dismantled.

The ballet dancer from Moscow had it right when he asked an American critic why he referred to "Soviet dancers" and "Russian tanks" when it should have been the other way around.


DB - The Vagabond

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SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?

Only 5 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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