An Actor's Best Moment

When I was in a play in 9th grade (The Diary of Anne Frank), one of the seniors in the production, who was in many ways a role model for me in all things drama, told me about the time he saved a show. A necessary prop (incriminating evidence for a murder) wasn't where it was supposed to be; in the instant he realized that it was gone, he was forced to make up lines to work around it, while still sounding completely confident that he had solved the case.

A staff member, who has been involved in musical theater productions for decades, frequently would talk of one memorable incident in which a glass bottle broke on stage in the middle of a musical number. Rather than freaking out, everyone just kept singing and dancing, while one cast member danced off the stage, danced back on with a broom, swept it all off the stage, and the show continued.

Some actors may say their best moment was when they got a certain role in a play, or earned a certain award, or pulled off a flawless performance, or got a standing ovation, or something of the like. But quite often, an actor's "best moment" comes when something goes wrong. The whole point of a play is to keep the audience inside a fantasy world; as soon as the audience realizes something is wrong, the illusion is broken. So the toughest part about dealing with big problems that pop up unexpectedly is not just being able to work around them, but staying in character the whole time, and directing as little attention as possible to the mistake; or somehow working the mistake into the plot of the story so the audience thinks it was supposed to be that way. Problem-solving is hard enough - problem-solving in such a way that no one notices that you're problem-solving is quite the achievement. And when an actor faces a problem that they can solve without anyone noticing, that very often becomes their best moment. It becomes their story.

This is my story. A story which really shows how practice, practice, practice pays off - once you get used to your character, make your character truly a part of you, you can just be your character without even thinking about it. So even as you focus on dealing with a problem, you never sacrifice being in character.

Thursday, February 17, 2011. Opening night for Christian Academy in Japan's production of Annie. Act 1 Scene 5. Annie has just arrived at billionaire Oliver Warbucks' mansion, and is being greeted by all the staff with a delightful little tune assuring her that she's gonna like it here. I, Oliver Warbucks, have been away from New York, on a tour to inspect my factories, and I am currently waiting outside the door of my house, waiting for my staff to stop singing and for the audience's applause to die down in order to make my grand entrance.

The song reaches a climax. "we know you're go~~~~nna~~~~ like~~~~ it~~~" and I go over a quick list to see if I have everything ready. Coat buttoned up, check. Hat on, check. Deep breaths. Somewhere in my mind there is a voice called "Jonathan" who is both nervous and excited because it's opening night for his last high school production, but I try to push that strange thought back. And what? Did I say it's 2011? What am I talking about, I don't live in the future. The year is 1933, there is no audience but my staff, I am upset about the state of my factories, but glad to be home in a city I love. And I feel a strange twitch in my nose.

What? I gently raise my finger to just under my nose...

and took it away to see a small red droplet.

panic

"here!!!~~~~~~~~~~~~~" the song reaches its last, sustained note, and the voice in my mind called Jonathan is beginning to get very upset. "WHAT no I can't have a nosebleed now please stop please stop what am I going to do..."

I gently try to coax Jonathan into being a bit more calm, but I must say, I'm a good deal nervous myself. I can't appear before my staff with a bloody nose, not on my first day back when I need to get all my affairs in order! I check my pockets and find that I didn't bring a handkerchief. Jonathan informs me that there is a washroom nearby - down a flight of stairs and along a corridor - but that being even five seconds late would throw off the show, and ten seconds would ruin it. In other words, I don't have time to do anything - I'll have to deal with the problem in front of everyone. I can't walk in pinching my nose... I'd prefer not to sniffle, sniffling is a sign of weakness and I am not weak. In addition, Jonathan tells me that I'm going to be on stage for a long time - through two scenes straight, including a substantive solo in which I sing about why I love NYC. How on earth am I expected to sing when I have a nosebleed to worry about?!

So Jonathan and I make a deal. He will take care of the nosebleed, he says; timing the sniffs so that they're neither too strong nor too often, just enough to keep the blood in. Making sure they don't interfere with my speaking or singing, and hopefully ensuring that few people notice. To do this, he will have to concentrate entirely on that task, and for the most part ignore what I'm doing; what I say, the people I'm with, my actions, interactions, singing, dancing, and the like. Fine by me, I never appreciated the way Jonathan always controlled me like that. But I understand that it's a big risk for him - he's so used to telling me what to say, what to do, and now he's giving me free reign. I suppose he trusts me enough now that I know what I'm doing. About time, if I do say so myself.

And with that, the four last measures of the song are over, applause swells, begins to die down. "Been away six weeks," I shout; and never before has it been so truly I, Warbucks, doing the shouting. Small sniffle, "Where the dickens is everybody?", and I swing open the doors.

Secret Revealed

So it's about time I told y'all about where the title of this blog comes from.

March 10, 2011 - the second-last day of a unit on "Cosmos and Chaos." Chaos: disorder, destruction. Something broken. Cosmos: Order, restoration, beauty. The way things should be. How can we find cosmos in the midst of chaos? Can we turn chaos into cosmos, bring cosmos out of chaos, find the cosmos in the chaos, or create cosmos to replace chaos? Can one intend to bring cosmos but instead just increase chaos? Questions such as these were the focus of our readings, writings, and discussions for several months.

On this day, I was to give a presentation relating to this overall theme of cosmos and chaos. And what struck me at some point was that though most of us could identify cosmos or chaos when we saw it, it was extremely difficult to actually define what either of the two were. Well, chaos is perhaps fairly straightforward. But is it enough to say cosmos is a "lack of chaos?" I didn't think so.

So I began my presentation with a picture of a smiling group of friends, and asked the class "do you see cosmos or chaos?" It was fairly obvious - cosmos. I showed a picture of a war zone - definitely chaos. I went on like that, showing flowers, abandoned and run-down buildings, sunsets, and so on... but at one point I showed a mathematical pattern (a Julia Set, for those who are interested) - and some people (like me) thought it was a great example of cosmos, others thought for sure it was chaos. Then I showed a checkerboard pattern, and finally, a blank gray screen. Cosmos or chaos?

We had often compared cosmos to a completed jigsaw puzzle (every piece where it's supposed to be), and chaos being the unsolved puzzle (pieces everywhere, no order). But if order is cosmos... then is a totalitarian military regime, where everything goes according to the dictator's wishes, an example of cosmos? If chaos is when the pieces don't fit together... what if there are no pieces? Or if the pieces are all identical squares?

Through the rest of my presentation I developed the idea of cosmos being "purposeful randomness." There must be purpose (and it goes almost without saying that the purpose must also be good), or else it is just chaos; but there must also be randomness, or else it's just empty. It's boring, mundane, apathetic... unless you have purposeful randomness. It's the unexpected little things that brighten your day; the random conversations, the unforeseen opportunities. That's what makes life interesting; if your whole life strictly follows a pattern, nothing unexpected, you can hardly say that's cosmos. In fact, I argued, it's worse than chaos, because chaos, first, can help you grow or make you stronger, and second, gives you a strong desire to bring change, to strive for cosmos. But when you have just emptiness, you get neither.

There was a lot more detail, drawing out conclusions, providing examples, and so on, but I ended with a good example of purposeful randomness (the purpose being mainly to entertain, which, I would argue, brings cosmos): "So in conclusion, here’s a picture of Bruce Lee and a blue chicken, and do you have any questions?"

So yeah, that's where it came from. I guess in some ways my hope for this blog is that it yields this purposeful randomness. So far I don't think it's doing it too well, because recently most of the blog posts have just been long rants. But that's fine, as I mentioned in my introductions to the blog I don't really have a specific direction or goal in mind.

As an interesting footnote, the last day of the unit was March 11, 2011; little did we know at the time that within ten minutes of our English class ending, we would undergo the most chaos any of us had probably ever experienced.

Voluntary Viruses

Whoops, haven't posted in a while. All right, here's something I've been thinking about recently... chain letters. statuses that say "repost this to your status too!" Pictures that ask for as many shares as possible. Anything on the internet that has a "you have to spread this to as many people as possible" message. I'm sure there's an official term for this, but I'm calling it a voluntary virus. First of all, they are viruses; they reproduce constantly and spread through large portions of the internet. Secondly, they're the only type of virus that is spread through people deciding to pass it on. Most viruses take over software and force the computer to pass them on... but this virus is spread through human will. Pretty fascinating if you think about it.

A lot of people don't really care about voluntary viruses - if they get one, they just pass it on, no big deal. Some people take them very seriously. Some people really hate them, or at least find them frustrating to always have to deal with them. My personal reaction is one of curiosity - as I mentioned, I find the idea fascinating. Every time, I ask myself why someone would choose to pass it on... and sometimes, I do it myself, if I feel the reasons are good enough - if it's a funny joke or interesting idea, for example.

There's one type of voluntary virus that I truly despise, however.

Is it the "the more people you share this with, the more lucky you will be" kind, or the related "share this or something terrible will happen to you (you will break your leg tomorrow, or you will not be able to use Facebook for free any more)" kind? No, I find those really funny actually. Is it the "take a stand - prove who you are; only 1% will pass this on, be that 1%" kind? Not really - those do annoy me, especially when I realize how many people they're fooling (this kind of virus preys on people with low self-esteem, which I really don't like), and especially when they take the "stand up for your faith" approach, but I can't take them too seriously. That's another rant for another time if anyone is wondering about my thoughts on those, and on what I feel the proper response to these viruses are.

No, the type of voluntary virus that I just can't stand is the kind that says "if this gets 100 shares, or if you pass this on to at least ten friends, or whatever, then some person or organization will donate money so we can save this person's life."

Let's analyze this message for a bit. There are only two options (assuming we're sticking with the law of excluded middle, for anyone who cares) - it's TRUE, or it's FALSE.

Personally, I think the FALSE option is most likely most of the time. In this case, there really isn't an organization that will donate x amount of money for every person it's passed on to, and there isn't a beneficiary. If a message is in all caps or uses bad grammar, it's almost certainly in this category - someone donating money would definitely want to make a much more official-looking message. But anyways, the problem in this case is that the message is a flat-out lie. Now, most voluntary viruses have lies in them; but in this case, the people who pass it on believe that they are doing some good for someone else. So whoever concocted this virus is essentially taking advantage of people's desire to do good, and making them feel guilty if they don't pass on the message. At least most other voluntary viruses appeal to people's selfishness - "what will happen to you or your reputation if you don't send this on?" But this one strikes at a more vulnerable spot than most, and that's a pretty cheap trick.

But let's think about the more sinister option: what if it is TRUE? In this case, there is someone in need, and there is someone who has money and is willing to help whoever's in need... as long as enough people on Facebook get the message.

[pause for dramatic emphasis]

Did you catch that? Someone is out there, with the ability to help, with the desire to help... but only if enough people hear about it.

The very idea of something like this is truly horrific. Because if not enough people share, then the person in need won't get what he needs. Why on earth would someone do something like that? Can you imagine some rich guy, setting aside a couple thousand dollars to help out a dying child, and then saying "I'll save this child's life... but only if enough people on Facebook say I should." You might ask him...Why would you trust Facebook with that immense responsibility? Do you really care for this child at all? Are you just playing a game, when someone's life is at stake?

Note that this is very different from things like freerice.com, which actually do collect more money for each person that gets involved. Advertising companies, knowing that a lot of people will go to freerice.com, pay freerice money to put their advertisements up on the site, hoping that people will see them and buy the products. So every page view of freerice.com makes the site "more valuable" to the advertisers, so they pay more money to put up their ads, giving freerice.com more money to buy rice for people in need. It's a really clever setup; an example, I might say, of restoration in the mostly corrupt world of advertising. 

But none of these voluntary viruses carry any advertisements (as far as I know), so there's no way any money could be made off of the sharing itself. The only way any money could be made off the virus is by someone watching the virus and choosing to donate money as people see it. So again, we're left with the guy who could donate money, but chooses to make a game out of it instead.

This does raise a host of ethical questions... is this hypothetical rich guy doing more good than the people who don't donate any money at all, because there's at least the possibility of the person in need getting help?  Somehow I'm more comfortable with the idea of people who just don't help at all, than people who are willing to help but only if enough people know about it, and I'm not sure why... from a utilitarian perspective, the guy willing to donate is doing more to promote general happiness than the people who don't do anything. Maybe it's because he knows he has a duty to fulfill, and we know he knows it, but he's not willing to carry out the duty without some other form of compensation (a more deontological perspective)? Or maybe it's the lightness of their value of human life - the other guys, those who don't do anything, may have other concerns that get in the way - perhaps not completely justifiable, but understandable all the same. Of course, the right thing to do would be to help. But of these two alternatives (not helping, and helping if you get enough attention), why does the second option seem less justifiable than the first? Or is it just me?

Honestly, if I knew, for sure, in every single case, that the viruses were FALSE, I wouldn't mind so much - it would just be like any other voluntary virus that preys on the weaknesses of human psychology. Stupid, yes, annoying, yes, frustrating, yes - but I could live with it. There are many other stupid, annoying, frustrating things on the internet that you just have to get used to and learn to laugh at. But as long as there's even the possibility that these viruses are TRUE... it's enough to make me upset. Enough to make me write a decently long blog post about it.

I implore you: Share this blog post with everyone you know! Save the internet from the evils of voluntary viruses! Oh and also, if you send this to at least ten people in the next three minutes, you will find an envelope with $32,000 in your mailbox in the next three days.