'Liberty' from "The Glass Essay" by Anne Carson

LIBERTY

Liberty means different things to different people.

I have never liked lying in bed in the morning.

Law did.

My mother does.

But as soon as the morning light hits my eyes I want to be out in it—

moving along the moor

into the first blue currents and cold navigation of everything awake.

I hear my mother in the next room turn and sigh and sink deeper.

I peel the stale cage of sheets off my legs

and I am free.

Out on the moor all is brilliant and hard after a night of frost.

The light plunges straight up from the ice to a blue hole at the top of the sky.

Frozen mud crunches underfoot. The sound

startles me back into the dream I was having

this morning when I awoke,

one of those nightlong sweet dreams of lying in Law’s

arms like a needle in water—it is a physical effort

to pull myself out of his white silk hands

as they slide down my dream hips—I

turn and face into the wind

and begin to run.

Goblins, devils and death stream behind me.

In the days and months after Law left

I felt as if the sky was torn off my life.

I had no home in goodness anymore.

To see the love between Law and me

turn into two animals gnawing and craving through one another

towards some other hunger was terrible.

Perhaps this is what people mean by original sin, I thought.

But what love could be prior to it?

What is prior?

What is love?

My questions were not original.

Nor did I answer them.

Mornings when I meditated

I was presented with a nude glimpse of my lone soul,

not the complex mysteries of love and hate.

But the Nudes are still as clear in my mind

as pieces of laundry that froze on the clothesline overnight.

There were in all thirteen of them.

Nude #2. Woman caught in a cage of thorns.

Big glistening brown thorns with black stains on them

where she twists this way and that way

unable to stand upright.

Nude #3. Woman with a single great thorn implanted in her forehead.

She grips it in both hands

endeavouring to wrench it out.

Nude #4. Woman on a blasted landscape

backlit in red like Hieronymus Bosch.

Covering her head and upper body is a hellish contraption

like the top half of a crab.

With arms crossed as if pulling off a sweater

she works hard at dislodging the crab.

It was about this time

I began telling Dr. Haw

about the Nudes. She said,

When you see these horrible images why do you stay with them?

Why keep watching? Why not

go away? I was amazed.

Go away where? I said.

This still seems to me a good question.

But by now the day is wide open and a strange young April light

is filling the moor with gold milk.

I have reached the middle

where the ground goes down into a depression and fills with swampy water.

It is frozen.

A solid black pane of moor life caught in its own night attitudes.

Certain wild gold arrangements of weed are visible deep in the black.

Four naked alder trunks rise straight up from it

and sway in the blue air. Each trunk

where it enters the ice radiates a map of silver pressures—

thousands of hair-thin cracks catching the white of the light

like a jailed face

catching grins through the bars.

Emily Brontë has a poem about a woman in jail who says

                A messenger of Hope, comes every night to me

                And offers, for short life, eternal Liberty.

I wonder what kind of Liberty this is.

Her critics and commentators say she means death

or a visionary experience that prefigures death.

They understand her prison

as the limitations placed on a clergyman’s daughter

by nineteenth-century life in a remote parish on a cold moor

in the north of England.

They grow impatient with the extreme terms in which she figures prison life.

“In so much of Brontë’s work

the self-dramatising and posturing of these poems teeters

on the brink of a potentially bathetic melodrama,”

says one. Another

refers to “the cardboard sublime” of her caught world.

I stopped telling my psychotherapist about the Nudes

when I realized I had no way to answer her question,

Why keep watching?

Some people watch, that’s all I can say.

There is nowhere else to go,

no ledge to climb up to.

Perhaps I can explain this to her if I wait for the right moment,

as with a very difficult sister.

“On that mind time and experience alone could work:

to the influence of other intellects it was not amenable,”

wrote Charlotte of Emily.

I wonder what kind of conversation these two had

over breakfast at the parsonage.

“My sister Emily

was not a person of demonstrative character,” Charlotte emphasizes,

“nor one on the recesses of whose mind and feelings,

even those nearest and dearest to her could,

with impunity, intrude unlicensed. . . .” Recesses were many.

One autumn day in 1845 Charlotte

“accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse in my sister Emily’s   

    handwriting.”

It was a small (4 x 6) notebook

with a dark red cover marked 6d.

and contained 44 poems in Emily’s minute hand.

Charlotte had known Emily wrote verse

but felt “more than surprise” at its quality.

“Not at all like the poetry women generally write.”

Further surprise awaited Charlotte when she read Emily’s novel,

not least for its foul language.

She gently probes this recess

in her Editor’s Preface to Wuthering Heights.

“A large class of readers, likewise, will suffer greatly

from the introduction into the pages of this work

of words printed with all their letters,

which it has become the custom to represent by the initial and final letter

    only—a blank

line filling the interval.”

Well, there are different definitions of Liberty.

Love is freedom, Law was fond of saying.

I took this to be more a wish than a thought

and changed the subject.

But blank lines do not say nothing.

As Charlotte puts it,

“The practice of hinting by single letters those expletives

with which profane and violent persons are wont to garnish their discourse,

strikes me as a proceeding which,

however well meant, is weak and futile.

I cannot tell what good it does—what feeling it spares—

what horror it conceals.”

I turn my steps and begin walking back over the moor

towards home and breakfast. It is a two-way traffic,

the language of the unsaid. My favourite pages

of The Collected Works Of Emily Brontë

are the notes at the back

recording small adjustments made by Charlotte

to the text of Emily’s verse,

which Charlotte edited for publication after Emily’s death.

“Prison for strongest [in Emily’s hand] altered to lordly by Charlotte.”

painting by Eastman Johnson

Ready to tell you stories...

After Anatevka and White Hot Grief Parade are here.
They are ready to tell you stories.

Dreams happen.
Don’t wait for permission.
Dream.
Make.
Do.

Ask Al: FAQs! - Part 5

Lucky me. :)

1. Who is your favorite leading man you have ever worked with? 

How could I ever choose among this crew of men? I’m the luckiest lady on earth.


2. You’ve performed so many classic Broadway musical roles, from “Fiddler on the Roof” to “My Fair Lady,” “She Loves Me,” and West Side Story.”  Is there one song you never get tired of singing?  Is there a classic Broadway role you would most love to get a chance to perform?

As long as I live I will never tire of singing “Will He Like Me” from She Loves Me. Amalia is a parallel of me is so many ways, and that song, in particular, is a battle cry of the deeply-feeling introvert (which I personally identify as.) I’ve had the honor of playing her with a full symphony orchestra (the Orchestra of St Luke’s) opposite one of my oldest friends on earth, Santino Fontana.

I’m at the stage of my life where I am looking forward to moving out of the ingenue and into the role of the woman or “leading lady” as it is often termed. I'm not a girl anymore and I don't mind one bit! In the more immediate future I look forward to Yelena in Uncle Vanya, Rosalind in As You Like It, Fosca in Passion, and in the more distant future, I look forward to Shakespeare’s Cleopatra and Hello Dolly’s Dolly Levi (I see so much of my lover-of-life, widowed mother in Dolly, and I’d love to honor her that way someday).



3. Do you have any regular self-care routines or habits?
- I am (for the most part) on the Auto-Immune Protocol diet. It's the right diet for my body. I recommend doing lots of research and trial-and-error for your body. Then stick to it and rememebr you get one body and one life so friendly reminder: don't treat your one glorious vessle like a garbage truck.

- I prioritize the import of, and get a lot of, sleep (I have great "sleep hygene"

- I engage in non-punitive exercise (I used to go to the gym with the attitude of murdering myself into shape. That was boring and sad. Now I run along beautiful paths, I bike, do yoga, and walk everywhere. Exercise now has a life-affirming vibe, not run-from-Satan-because-you're-worthless vibe. That vibe totally sucked.)

- I drink lots (4L per day) of water (because of my medicaitons, I get dehydrated very easily, so I guzzle water and sometimes add electrolyte capsules).

- I have a really kick-ass therapist (Roberta my "feelings doctor") and I go even when I'm feeling great, the way a person goes to the dentist before there's an emergency.

- I took my time to find a very good, knowledgeable, compassioante GP and I see him regularly. Dr Steven Foscious saved my life.

"AP Introverting".

- I also have great friends, a great mother, and a very famous cat.

- I'm an introvert and thus require lots of time alone— which I advocate for. I use that time to process life, really listen and hear myself and my body, do things I love, and take care of things I don't love. I try to prioritize the things and people that I identify as "nourishing."

- I took a little time to get in touch with and identify things that soothe me (heat, water and “soft things”). This helped a lot when I was in constant physical pain, but now it has carried over to more mundane aspects of anxiety, so when I’m in distress I still use those to start the calming process.


4. You have performed in the UK and the USA often. Is there anywhere on your performance bucket list you have yet to play?

Yes! Japan and Australia are at the top of the list.


5. What do you think of the advice (that is so often given) "If you can picture yourself doing anything other than being an artist, you should do that and not be an artist?"

     Let me start by saying this: sometimes people offer wacky advice. Sometimes, good advice comes in weird sentences. And sometimes? People are jerks! This "acting only" piece of advice could be any one of the things stated above.
Here is what I really think:

     I think the advice (if taken in the spirit of self-reflection) can be utlized to promote a sense of true rigor about a very challenging and sacrificial vocation. I don't know that it is entirely productive if taken literally. But I do believe, when taken theoretically, it can be used to evoke answers to questions within the aspiring artist to test whether or not their pesonality, temperament and values, match their chosen vocation. "Can my soul thrive within the realities that are required to make such a life work" is a great question for anyone to ask themselves.

     Temprement matters. All good things in life usually come at a cost—what matters in this conversation is what "price" is each individual willing to "pay" to pursue thier dreams. Just like beng an astronaught or Olympian, just like being a parent! In that vein, any kind of artistic work is going to be a constant borage of rejection and failure, followed by bright sparks of victory. Not every extremely talented (or celebrated in childhood) individual is going to innately possess or be able to develop the internal personality/temperament to match their talent. In many cases temprement is as if not more important that talent and skill.

     A recent (and profound) example from one of my closest friends on earth, comes immediately to mind.

Bobby. Happy.

     Bobby Steggert became my best friend in adulthood. He grew up outside of Baltimore an intelligent, sensitive child with huge gifts in the performing arts. He graduated from the NYU Acting program and immediately started his Broadway career—he won job after job and accumulated enormous success quickly. He originated several roles in now-iconic plays and musicals, he has a host of recordings, fans, and two Tony nominations.
     But at 31, Bobby “woke up.” He realized he had everything he thought he had ever wanted, but was internally miserable.
     After much self-reflection, Bobby left show business at the height of his successful performing career, went back to school (at Columbia no less) to major in social work. He recently graduated, and now works with immigrants and the LGTBQ communities. He writes vividly and profoundly about his decision to leave the theatrical world in this article for 'The Medium' that I daren’t say anything further without allowing Bobby to speak for himself.


     I cite this example because— by all intents, Bobby, was as high-flying a young artists as it was possible to be, with all the talent required for a career in the arts. But as time churned along, Bobby mined his soul for more, and discovered that his temperament, personality, and overall value-system was not in line with a happy career serving in the arts. His life mission, he discovered, lay elsewhere.

    One can never say if this “all or nothing” guidance would have been helpful or pertinent to Bobby early in his life, but this story of a brilliant, vibrant, contributing and by all accounts hugely successful adult that started in the arts, and walked away from his initial passions to pursue others does not make him a “failure” as an artist. It makes him a huge success of a a human being.

     In short, I think this “acting only” advice is offered to start the process of that self-reflection.

     In addition to Bobby, I know so many other talented actors and singers— some far more talented than I, who discovered their temperaments were better suited to other jobs in life! I say “better suited” incidentally, because I don’t want anyone out there to think that this is about “having what it takes” or not having what it takes. You have what it takes, dear readers/listeners, you have exactly what it takes for your life and perfect path. Whether that matches up with the artistic job of your teenaged dreams is neither here nor there.

Coulda-been-ku 15

15. 

You were good to me

A diligent observer 

I hope you soften 

Ask Al: Creative Un-Blocking!

Dear Al,

Do you ever get creatively blocked? What do you do to find fresh inspiration?

Sincerely,

Blocked

* * *

Hello Blocked!

Whoa, boy have I absolutely been there. You claw at your eyes. You rumple up pages because you've seen someone do that in a movie once. You put on The Bathrobe of Shame. You throw a typewriter.

No, but seriously, practically I do a few things:

1. I return to some of my original sources of inspiration.
     For After Anatevka specifically, I drew from several sources of inspiration you’d likely never even imagine—Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead inspired my writing of the “scenes between the scenes,” and the J.J. Abrams TV show LOST was on television when I first began the novel, and directly inspired the “flashback” structure of the story-telling. The prose of John Steinbeck and Boris Pasternak (particularly East of Eden and Dr. Zhivago, respectively) as well as Russian literary greats Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. And of course the great stories of Yiddish oral tradition, and other Yiddish writers (in addition to Shalom Aleichem) such as Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Shalom Ashe.

     Essentially: I return to the masters and pray for a jolt by “praying at the altar.”


2. I “phone a friend.”
     I also have a small circle of (very) trusted friends that I will call and talk through the troubles with. That can be anything from story, plot, conflict, to trusting them to comb through the words themselves and tell me if I use too many italics. Or Whatever.

     Sometimes I scream into the phone while this friend talks me off the proverbial ledge. Sometimes we cry. Sometimes we do victory laps. The best part is, I always enjoy returning the favor. To give the two most important credit: I have been bouncing ideas off of and with Santino Fontana since we were teenagers, and I don’t know where I’d be creatively without Bobby Steggert. Which is why both are thanked in the acknowledgments of my book by name only, without any need for explanation.


3.  Change your environment / Do something to get your blood flowing.
     Personally, I walk. Everywhere. Until I drop.
     Sometimes I need to get the heck out of my “space” and walk and walk and WALK. Anywhere. Often co-mingling #1 and #2 whilst power-walking my way to publication.

     Have you ever seen the episode of The West Wing where CJ can’t sleep so she exercises on a stationary bike until she sweats out her spleen? Yeah. It’s like that. With less political consequences.


4. I’m always prepared for the un-blocking.
     Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat Pray Love and Big Magic, among others) speaks so perfectly about how the ancient, Jacobean, and early modern world viewed genius in her 2009 Ted talk. To quote David McMillan on his analysis of Gilbert's talk for Thought Catalogue:

“For nearly twenty minutes, Gilbert argues that (1) artists since the Renaissance have been under the belief—or more accurately, the delusion—that they are the source of their own genius; and (2) that this delusion may in fact be the root cause of much of the suffering, madness, and self-destruction that characterize the lives of creative artists in the modern, post-Renaissance era.

Gilbert goes on to explain that that this modern view of genius is starkly different from the Greco-Roman view; for the Greeks and Romans, creativity didn’t come from human beings, it came to human beings. This view served as a “protective psychological construct” that kept the artist both humble and sane. Humble, because the artist could never entirely take credit for his or her work. Sane, because if the work wasn’t good, it wasn’t entirely the artist’s fault—he or she could blame it partially on having a “lame” Genius.”

     Briefly: Gilbert reminds modern society that once, a person was not “a genius” they possessed a “genie”—they were fortunate enough to own an actual talisman that they believed was directly connected to the heavens. Today we see it in reverse— the person themselves possesses the inspiration, they are as we now call it: a “genius,” and they are exclusively responsible for the content they create—for better or for worse.

     Gilbert tells a wonderful (possibly apocryphal) anecdote in her book Big Magic about Tom Waits being hit by the “genie” whilst driving in his car along the highway. He had to pull over and write it all down lest it escape him utterly. He’s a real servant to the “genie.”

     I personally like to think of it as something somewhere mystically in-between. I imagine that the majority of my creativity belongs to me, but sometimes I am absolutely struck by an inspired just-right sentence, a voice, a plot point, a storyline or sometimes an entire character that feels as though it has come to me from nowhere.

     A very specific example of "the genie coming" to me—the character of Dmitri Petrov in my novel After Anatevka appeared to me fully formed—almost as if he knocked on my front door, asked if he could come in, made tea, sat me down, handed me a pen and recounted his entire life story to me in one sitting. I allowed it. I allowed Dmitri to take me over until Dmitri was "done," dutifully taking notes on his story and listening to “him” until "he" was "finished."  I honestly don’t feel even remotely responsible for his creation. In some ways, I feel Dmitri just chose me to tell his story.

     So! In that vein, always always have a pen, something to write on, or have some device that can quickly record your voice. You never know when the “gods” are going to bless you with inspiration, and when they do (even at an inopportune moment) you better be ready!

Philosophically, I try to keep the four worst enemies of creativity at bay:

5. Timing
   There is no perfect time to write. Just start. Do. Make. Go. Anything. Now.

6. Distractions
     Eliminate distractions (a lot of people use Ommwriter to focus on just writing). I also tend to turn off the internet and put my phone on airplane mode.

7. Fear
     Don't be afraid. Many writers struggle with putting their ideas (and themselves) out there for everyone to see and critique. Guess what? Life is full of exposure and judgment, and fear is a major reason some writers never become writers, some actors never become actors, some humans never become their greatest and best selves.
     You have to do your own rumbling with your demons, but the first step is recognizing that you are afraid, and then making the choice to overcome those fears and share your stories anyway. It would not be courage if you were not afraid.

8. Perfectionism
     You want everything to be juuuuuuuuuust right.  I know. I understand.
     Just as there will never be a perfect "time" to write, there is also no perfect writing, no perfect writing environment, no perfect pen, sentence, paragraph... nothing is perfect. If you are waiting for perfection you'll never even begin. Again, rumbling with perfectionism is everyone's own cross to bear, but in my experience, perfectionism kills more good work than any of the other demons combined. Be brave. A messy draft is better than a blank page.


Happy un-blocking!

Al

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”

— Jack London

We got Trouble (in Tahiti)

Camelot

There isn't the language to express what this role, process, and the entire experience have meant to me personally and professionally. Guenevere and Camelot were a silent agreement with myself to go all out-- to go big or go home-- before I decided whether or not to recommit myself to the theatre, and particularly, to singing in the theatre.

My illness from 2014-2017 left my singing voice in an unrecognizable state of disarray, but more than the physical damage (that, with much help from my devoted teacher Doc White, and sometimes soul-crushing work has 90% been overcome and largely healed) was the psychological and emotional trauma of literally losing not only my "money maker" but my Voice with a capital "V"-- the source of my purest expression, joy, and much to my surprise: my identity. To have it taken from me when I had really only just truly begun to embrace its fullest potential was a grief-like devastation I am still processing (despite the physical healing taking place). The confidence of an instrument that will simply "be there" without the slightest hint of drama or fear is no longer my reality, and I am never more grateful than when my voice flows from me without pain or internal hurricane.

Guenevere sings more than almost any other character I have ever played (Laura Fairlie, Eliza Doolittle and Maria in West Side Story were her competitors), and the largest singing role I have taken on since healing from my illness. It was a line in the sand" if you will. If I could maintain my health, power, vocal resonance and do so 8 shows a week, perhaps I would learn in my cells that I was capable of singing in the theatre again. No one could tell me this. It had to be experienced to be truly and fully learned. I suppose I selected a rather ambitious task when it came to such a "test" but ah well: that's about as AlSilber-y as it gets. Whole-ass it or stay at home.

But more than Camelot's significance in my vocal and health journey, it has been a milestone of the first theatrical experience I have enjoyed so thoroughly in over a decade (since, frankly, Fiddler on the Roof in Sheffield and subsequently London).

It is a funny thing in the theatre-- not every component always aligns itself perfectly-- to have a truly special production one must have three components in place: a perfectly balanced company (of actors, creatives, orchestra, crew and stage management)—there can be not even one bad apple, and if there is, that bad apple must be so swayed by the good that they don't make an impact. An excellent product (the work itself must be of excellent quality and hopefully feel important). An excellent process and atmosphere.
It's delicate.

This entire experience—the quality of its work, the alchemy of the company and the personal victory of triumphing over illness has meant more to me than I can express. It has been one of the most profound work experiences of my life thus far (in fact only one other in my memory rivals it and it was long, long ago...) Ken taught me a great deal off stage as well, and I am ever-grateful for those lessons.

Definitively, at the very core of this experience working with Ken Clarke. Creating and building a great, complex and truthful marriage between Arthur and Guenevere. I truly feel I have had the privilege of working with one of our great actors at the beginning of his career. Thank you, Ken, for always showing up, for playing “pro tennis,” and for allowing me the privilege of being let into your eyes and inner life as Arthur.

Further, I have had the extraordinary privilege of being present for the "break out" moment of one of the greatest singers and human beings I have ever had the joy of working with and cultivating an onstage romance with, and an offstage platonic intimacy (like I've only ever known with Bobby Steggert.)

Further, we created a beautiful triumvirate of friendship with genius actor Patrick Vaill (known as "Arthur's Admins") who played Mordred. That triangle and all its branches meant so much to me.

Nick Fitzer is that man, that artist, and it was easy to fall in love with all he brought to this incredibly complicated character. He buoyed and supported me, he lifted me sky high and taught me so much about love in its many forms, on stage and off. I am so thrilled the world took note. To quote the Washington Post:

"Nick Fitzer, playing divinely self-confident Lancelot du Lac, the delights become magnified. Fitzer’s delivery of “If Ever I Would Leave You,” the pastoral love ballad Lancelot sings to Guenevere, is, in a word, sensational, and the performance is such that you may find yourself asking, “Where did they get this guy?” To other directors out there looking for a romantic musical-theater leading man I can declare: C’est lui."

And my beloved ladies of Dressing Room 3, where would I have been without their family-like support, humor, truth, and love? I've never been in a dressing room like it: I wanted to remain there forever. Each woman standing up with her own magnificence, personality, talent and sense of life. I learned and grew from and with all of you and I've never felt so loved and supported by any other group of women. Thank goodness for our text chain!

This COMPANY. My heart.

So.
Dearest Guenevere,

I shall love you eternally.

Thank you for all you taught me and all of us. I haven’t experienced a perfect theatrical alchemy as profound as #Camelot at Shakespeare Theatre Company in many, many years.

Thank you.
I won’t let it be forgot.
None of us will. X