Commentary
All the World is not a Stage
by David Ortmann
My friend Heather is single. Again. It's happened before. She's told me that she wants a new boyfriend and that I should be on the lookout for prospective men. The fact that I can't seem to find a boyfriend for myself doesn't seem to cast a pall over my man-hunting credentials.
"You're good at this stuff, David, and I need your help! But, there's one condition." She said ominously, a trait she's mastered from years of theatrical training and watching old Bette Davis films. "No actors!"
"No actors?"
"No, wait, make that no theater people at all! No actors, no writers, designers, and heaven help me, no bloody directors! So help me David, I don't even want a man who did a five second walk-on in his high school play! I need to start cultivating relationships with healthier men, no more egotistical, substance abusing, process-oriented, bed-hopping head case artists!"
Ouch.
I reminded her that I've been an actor, and am still a writer.
"Oh you're an exception." She said dismissively.
I am definitely not an exception, but I let it go and began to look at my fellow theater people and wonder if Heather is right or just burned from the dying flames of her last amorous encounter with a bi-polar community theater director who went through week-long bouts of refusing to speak.
"Are all artists completely fucked up, or what?" She asked, burying her head in her hands.
I told her I didn't have an answer, but I'd be happy to look for one, and a boyfriend for her as well.
We are an eclectic group, we theater people, but do share a common desire on some level to be publicly accepted, or even embraced. In Drama Bug David Sedaris says, that the drama bug seems to strike hardest in "individuals who, for one reason or another, desperately crave attention." There is truth in that statement but also, given the fact that our business in one based on the acceptance or rejection of yourself, or your work, as the product, is it possible that we, dare I say it, become at times disproportionately self-absorbed or seem slightly neurotic?
"Not all theater people are crazy!" I said, feeling the need to defend the community Heather and I are both a part of.
"Please! Remember that last play you did?"
"The one without a script or a playwright?"
"Or any discernible artistic focus!"
"Okay!" I said. "I got it."
Heather was referring to a piece I did where our well-intentioned director had a an ever-shifting vision incorporating multi-media, drama, mime, dance, stage combat, song and enough costume changes to clothe a bus and trunk company of Mame. The vision, unfortunately, didn't include a developed plot, script, or playwright. Offstage, trying to force the bonding experience, the cast and crew smoked, drank, and abused a variety of chemical substances. Loosely stitched love affairs bloomed and withered and people fell into alcohol soaked fuck-fests, replete with their own interpersonal dramas that adversely affected the union our bleary-eyed creative visionary struggled to create.
Our rehearsals were meditative campfire circles that would have put a lesbian Zen retreat to shame. We processed, practiced breath, did yoga, processed, talked about our childhoods, attempted to develop a storyline, participated in a grueling regimen of physical theater games that left us tired, and angry with one another, and processed some more. We did everything but focus on the development of the play and rehearse-an integral part of theater to say the least, and the production was lost on us and on the poor audience who sat through the four-hour final product.
I did learn a valuable lesson though. Without focus on a tangible, clear final product, it is possible to get lost in the quagmire of process. This is true in theater, and in life.
Ever since Vincent Van Gogh cut his ear off and Arthur Rimbaud opened his first bottle of absinthe, many artists have toiled to make their personals lives torturous disasters because that's the way we think artists are supposed to be. The cruel stereotypes of "theater people" and "artists" reflect this and, like all stereotypes, reflect glimmers of truth. In spite of this, we can create our own patterns for the people and artists we want to be. Heather's scathing analysis of our ilk also helped me to recognize the many artists I know who are brilliant, productive, and healthy-those many talented individuals who write, act, design, compose, dance, and continue to inspire with creative determination while also having the ability to keep their narcissistic wounds from infecting their personal and professional lives.
Maybe the key to a successful career and personal life may lie in leaving the drama onstage, where it belongs, in knowing where and when to draw the line around the need for acceptance or outside validation. In As You Like It, William Shakespeare's Jaques says, "All the world's a stage."
But is it? Maybe all the world is just that, a world, and stages are simply stages-a magical place to enact drama and fantasy and then leave it behind. I'm not saying it's easy. Most people unwillingly drag their work home with them. For theater artists, this is almost a rule, as our craft does not fit itself into neat nine-to-five, clock-punching, time compartments and is a vocation where the self is constantly being used, abused, reevaluated, and not always effectively replenished. Two of the best lessons I have learned in a career in writing and in theater are the need for keeping the drama where it belongs-on stage-and for creating time for nurturing and self-soothing activities. We can not count on getting it from editors, directors, or agents so we must give that gift to ourselves, and give it. Consistently.
I did find Heather a new boyfriend. He's a devastatingly handsome accountant, who drives a nice car and has helped Heather organize her finances. He's been in therapy for years, doesn't abuse drugs or alcohol, and has an even-temped disposition.
He tells me he has "a great idea for a screenplay", but I figure I'll let Heather find that out on her own.