Theatre that changed everything . . .

 December 31, 1965 The Martin Beck Theater, New York City  

 

It was New Years eve over fifty years ago. I remember it clearly. The new year 1966 was about to be heralded in all over Manhattan. Outside Times Square was packed for the dropping of the ball.  But I was not out celebrating. I was sitting in my third row center orchestra seat in the Martin Beck Theater on Broadway ten minutes after the house had cleared. The orchestra was now empty following the performance. An occasional usher was checking under the seats for programs or debris. I was still sitting sobbing gently and my whole body was shaking.  Trying to understand my state the word ‘catharsis’ came to mind. I felt fundamentally changed. The theater as a vehicle for transformation seemed obvious now. What had happened?  The final notes of  Richard Peaslee’s music still hung in the auditorium. Kokol spoke directly to me and screamed: “When will you learn to take sides?” I found this a personal message.

 

 I had to speak with someone connected with the production. 

 

Still shaking and with tears running down my face I made my way outside and to the backstage door and knocked.  A stage manager opened it and seemed surprised on seeing a 23 year old woman, clearly in extremis.  “Can I help you?” he said, with concern in his voice.  “I need to speak to somebody in the company please,” I begged.  I expect that my emotional state was justification for him to invite me backstage.  He ushered me down the hall toward the dressing room for Patrick McGee and Ian Richardson, the stars of the play, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean Paul Maret as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum at Cheranton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade which had been directed by the incomparable Peter Brook. The play was in its final week of previews and I had scored a ticket out of great good luck or by providence. 

 

Ian Richardson opened the door to his dressing room and seeing me still sobbing, almost shouted:  “What happened to you?”  .  .   .   “I just saw YOUR PLAY,” I blurted out.  

He and McGee actually laughed and then he said:  “Looks like you need a drink.” And he went over to a bottle of Scotch and poured some into a paper cup.  I think I began babbling something about how much this had affected me. I didn’t stay long and I don’t remember much more about that moment except to say that these two world famous actors were very kind to this crazy lady who was still under the spell of their profoundly disturbing and inspiring production.  

 

It’s not hyperbole to say that this play “changed my life.”  The injunction to “take sides” led me to become actively involved in political action around the civil rights struggle that was going on in the South were I lived.  Segregation was being challenged, and I knew that I had to go back to Virginia and do something to help the cause.  I chose to put together a mixed race acting company to perform a Readers Theater production of “In White America,” a docudrama about civil rights issues.  It was intended to instruct as well as open up the conversation about race.  Just traveling together in the same vehicle provoked stares and the occasional rude remark or gesture.  Lunch counters were still segregated in most of the South, so our little group of integrated players had many challenges.  I had to take sides.

 

I was in graduate school at the time all this happened, and I was making decisions about what to do with my life. This experience of feeling the enormity of theater in Marat/Sade was the cause of my decision to pursue theater as a career. From a meta perspective, I learned that theater could have the power of atomic fusion.  And so strong was my interest in this particular theatrical event that I chose to write my Master’s Thesis on the achievements of Peter Brook, who was then a rising star at age 43.  Peter’s father, Simon Brook kindly invited me to his home to peruse his mountain of scrapbooks with articles about his son.  Enclosed in this bag is an envelope with a USB drive containing the manuscript of the unpublished Thesis.  

 

A few years later I met up with Brook at the Roundhouse when he was in the final stages of rehearsing The Tempest.  I made the acquaintance of Yoshi Oida with whom I studied in Paris in the summer of 1984. A few years later I marveled at the magic of Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the spiritual message of his Mahabarata which I saw in LA.

 

In the nearly half century since I saw Marat/Sade the world has spun on a new axis.  I wonder what we would make of this experience if the play were produced today? I know it still speaks to us.  I have a deep gratitude to Peter Brook for his visionary leadership.   I admire that he has always been a seeker. His work raises the level of the art into the realm of the spirit.  

 

Thank you, Peter Brook, my own career was inspired by your work.  I am grateful.

With appreciation and respect,

 

Patricia Ryan Madson

 

April 21, 2017

El Granada, CA 94018

Was the Buddha an Improviser?

Was the Buddha an Improviser?

I think he was.  In fact, I’ll argue that Shakyamuni may have been the first improviser.  Not the first comedian(although by all reports he had a good sense of humor) but among the first humans who came to perfect attitudes and behaviors that are central to the practice of improvising.  

I’m not a Buddhist scholar. I’m more of a Buddhist dilettante, having sampled Zen, Pureland, and several Tibetan forms.  I never met a religion that I didn’t like, and I’ve been keen to explore both the philosophy and the practices of the many incarnations of the Buddha way.  I’ve chanted “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo” and“Namo Amitabha Bu,”sat Naikan practice in a Japanese Zen temple in Kuwana, spent a week at a Vipassana retreat in rural Japan observing the sensations in my body; I’ve attempted the rigors of Zazen and have gotten lost in the intricacies of a Tibetan visualization in a monastery in Nepal.  Alas, I have not been faithful to any of these fine practices, although I went a step farther than simply reading about them.  It’s true, I lack credentials on things Buddhist.

What I do know something about is what it means to improvise and how improvisation works.  I wrote a book about it:  Improv Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up.I came to this work/play out of desperation.  I was hired to lead the Acting Program in Stanford’s Department of Drama (during the Punic Wars or sometime in 1977).  My students were incredibly bright men and women who could produce on cue whatever the director demanded.  They were champs at “giving you the right answer.”  What they lacked was the ability or reflex to access their own voices.  “What do youthink/feel about your character?” often produced a deer-in-the-headlights look.  To help these students I needed strategies for entering the creative zone.

Enter improvisation.

During a tai chi workshop with Chungliang Al HuangI was introduced to Keith Johnstone, the Canadian “father” of modern improvisation theory and practice. His brilliant book, IMPRO, (and his teaching) hooked me.  I discovered that one could learnto improvise.  There were rules and guidelines.  When I followed these improv maxims I could bypass the natural habit of planning everything in advance or looking for the “right answer.”  Instead, improv training taught me to start where I am, look around and make sense out of the moment.  (Does that sound like mindfulness?)   “A good improviser is someone who is awake, not entirely self-focused, and moved by a desire to do something useful and give something back and who acts upon this impulse.” (p. 15 Improv Wisdom) Isn’t improvisation what we are doing most of the time?  Yes, likely we are, if we are really paying attention.    

Improvisation is founded on two principles that feature prominently in the Buddhist perspective: Impermanence and interdependence.  The fact of groundlessness and constant change is a given in improv.  Eternal instability: that is our playing field.  The improviser practices her art on her feet with others.  We learn that we aren’t in this alone.  We need and depend upon our fellow improvisers.  Only stand-up comics go it alone.  Improvisers look to their fellows for help, inspiration, ideas and fuel. Improv training is a form of meditation in action.   

So what are the principles that guide an improviser?  I’ll call them the Five A’s of Improv

1.    Attention

2.    Affirmation

3.    Acceptance

4.    Appreciation

5.    Action

In order to move forward without a plan we must first pay attention to what is actually going on. And isn’t this what meditation is all about?  Meditation always starts with attention.   You stay on your cushion and attend to the reality of your situation.  Sometimes there is an object of attention such as a mantra or the breath.  And as we try to keep our mind focused on this object we discover the tendency we all have to hop all over the place.  If we stay on the cushion we may find a way to return again and again to that object.  We discover how to outwit or coexist with our propensity to be distracted. 

When we step up to an improvisation our “job” is to notice everything that is going on: what our partner just said and did and the expression on her face as well as anything else that may be in our peripheral vision.  The immediate past is also part of the picture.  Then from this information we craft a story and place ourselves in it.  “What is needed now?” becomes my mantra.  The onstage player, pantomiming opening a newspaper, calls out:  “Honey!!!” and I come on stage as his wife, placing my hand on his shoulder, “Yes, dear?”   

If attention starts the ball rolling, then AFFIRMATION keeps it moving.  I need to say YES to whatever is going on in order to join it. Affirming does not necessarily mean liking or approving of the scene, but it does mean saying yes to the basic premise and building upon what is known. The universal law of improv is YES-AND.  This brings us to improv principle #3:  ACCEPTANCE.  I must accept the reality that is happening.  I must look realistically at the scene and join it, accepting all that is known.  It’s not my job to change this into something I’d prefer.  I can work, however, to move the known scene in an interesting direction. As I accept the situation my job is to add something useful to move the scene forward. The next player in turn must accept my offer . . . and so on.

The fourth A is APPRECIATION.  Improvisers know that the glass is never empty.  “There is always something in the box” is their credo. When I look around with the eye of appreciation I begin to see that there is a gas fireplace warming me now, that an Ikea chair is caressing my butt and supporting my back, a painted ceramic mug holds the dregs of my tea, sunlight is casting light on the keyboard, prescription glasses focus my vision and turn the blur into clear words. A word processor holds this writing and a Mac laptop stores this essay.  Appreciation warms my world.  I am able to see even disagreeable things as “offers” . . . something to work with.  

When we improvise we never take time to “come up with a good idea.” Life is too short.  Instead, we take whatever idea is in front of us (that something in the box above) and make something artful with it.  Everythingthat comes my way, that happens to me (pleasant or un . . ) is grist for the mill: an opportunity to advance the story of my life.  “What can I make of this?” becomes the operating question.  Notice the utility of this question as opposed to: “How do I like this?”  We simply turn off the LIKE button and don’t ask the question.  We don’t permit our preferences to push us around. 

Finally the fifth A is ACTION.  The improviser always starts before he is ready.  Ready, fire, aim.  Until we get going and have our bodies engaged in the flow of reality we simply don’t have enough to go on.  By stepping into the river we discover its temperature, the speed of the current, if and where there are rocks and who else is in the water.  The truth here is that we simply don’t have time for theoretical speculation.Deciding is not an option. After stepping we know exactly what the temperature is and so on.  NOW we are engaged in life and follow what needs to be done.  Cross the river?  Fish? Gather stones for a garden wall? Cool our toes from a humid day?  Take samples of the water for chemical analysis?  Notice how the action of stepping into the water (without a plan) produces a myriad of possibilities.  Improvisation teaches us the wisdom of action.  The Buddhist notion of Right Action comes to mind.  

The tenets of the Buddha way and the maxims of improvisation share similarities.  Both invite us to show up, stand up and engage with the world in a constructive manner.  Both involve waking up from the slumber of our preoccupation and getting involved with the everyday work of living.  Great improvisers are generous folks.  They listen, build upon what you are saying and always “make their partner look good.” 

In a recent NPR interview the Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield mused about the rise of the collective community as leader over the hierarchical Guru system of the past. “Community is the new Buddha,” he said. Perhaps there is mistrust of a single person to embody the wisdom necessary to provide guidance to those studying the Buddha’s path.  Instead of a single teacher, the community may regulate, teach and inspire. Some suggest that the Sangha has replaced the need for an omniscient leader.  We see this in the way social media is functioning: giving advice, helping an individual to correct a view or a behavior.  If the collective whole of the Sangha is now the bedrock of sanity and wisdom, then advice which helps us cooperate and collaborate is important.  Improv can do this.

The study of improvisation teaches us a way to be together, a method of cooperating in order to create the stories of our lives.  Improv guides us to set our personal preferences aside in favor of the greater good . . . the story that is emerging moment by moment on stage.  When Shakymuni stood up and took his first steps he was entering his first improvisation.  He said yes to life.  John Tarrant proclaimed: “Improv has become a wisdom tradition of its own.”  Hanging out with a gaggle of improvisers might be a good way to strengthen your practice.  I really do think that the Buddha was an improviser.  Wouldn’t you like to be on stage with him?

Changing Perspective

Turning Around the Crazies. Changing Perspective

This was the third call to the Stanford University IT Computer helpline.  Isabella, my technical rep this round had been on the phone with me for just under three hours.  The issue was Stanford’s new Encryption software that is required of all users who have a sunet ID for the University’s email server.  As the world continues to go mad the pressure to secure our cyber identities goes up.  Stanford tries to stay ahead of the curve in Security precautions and programs that protect us from any kind of cyber terror.  While I don’t spend much time worrying about my data being secure (perhaps I should) I do always obey commands to update software and security protocols.  For reasons unknown installing the new encryption program on my MacBook laptop had become a nightmare.  The rep who was helping me continued to try new things to make the process go successfully.  Both of us began to take long, deep breaths attempting to still the rising anger and frustration that only a dysfunctional Apple device can provoke.  “All morning, I’ve spent all morning trying to make this procedure work.”  Each time we would go around the circle of downloads, proffering of logins and 24 character passwords, followed by the same set of questions asked and answered.  Nothing was working.  My devices manager continued to read “Non Compliant” no matter what we tried.

I was fuming and felt ready to pop off expressing my most profound annoyance at this personal inconvenience.  You know that moment when your blood rises, and you just want to let expletives fly!  But something different happened: instead of giving in to that impulse to vent my mind did a 360 degree turn.  I changed what I was noticing, and I began thinking about the gift of our technology. I began reflecting about what was right about this moment while we were attempting to solve the security issue. So, changing my voice I exclaimed to Isabella:  “Despite this glitch, aren’t we lucky to have this amazing technology?  Isn’t the Internet a miracle?  Aren’t we blessed to have computers and the ability to connect and find the world’s bounty of information and knowledge?"  As I spoke I could sense immediately Isabella’s mood and voice change.  “Yes,” she declared cheerfully, “it is a miracle.  All that Stanford provides us with is such a great gift.”  We both clearly began to feel better and our former annoyance had been replaced by wonder.  Of course, the technical problem didn't disappear, but our relationship to it had made a dramatic shift.

I hope I can remember this “technique” if you can call it that.  When I feel ready to burst with anger and frustration instead of giving in to that useless emotion I should turn my mind to a catalogue of what I am receiving at that moment.  What are the everyday wonders and miracles that sustain us and console us and enrich our lives?

"Who Helped Me Know What I Know?"

"Who Helped Me Know What I Know?"

The Japanese practice known as Naikan (pronounced like the camera) is a way of getting a fresh perspective on things. This lens invites us to notice how we are being supported by others. It turns the image of the "self made person" on its ear and focuses on finding all the ways that other's actions make our lives possible. It looks at the fact of interdependence.  

Naikan ( or asking three questions, "What have I received, what have I given, and what trouble have I caused?") has a variety of applications. In a class a few years ago I introduced this exercise which comes from Naikan. 

"Who Helped Me Know What I Know?"

Pick a talent that you have or a hobby that you are good at. Then begin listing the names of all of those who helped you, taught you, or facilitated your understanding of that subject. This may include people who you don't know personally, but whose work contributed to your knowledge. 

I chose cooking as my talent and hobby and started to think of those who have helped me to become the cook that I am. Here goes: My mother taught me to be a hostess and to set a table for others. She also taught me how to cook pinto beans and make spaghetti sauce. Josephine Landor, a dear friend, taught me how to wash vegetables when they come into the kitchen and put them in containers with a paper towel to absorb the moisture. The lettuce was always crispy fresh to make a salad. Jo taught me how to make a "back out dinner" backing out leftovers in the fridge and turning them into an attractive meal. She taught me how to dress a salad properly, not drenching it. My Granny Ryan was the first woman in a kitchen that I remember. She always wore an apron to cook and filled the house with great smells. Years later, Dalla Brown taught me how to make soup out of anything. She also taught me about using up every single item (if it hadn't gone bad) in the fridge to honor the food we have been given. I learned how to make scones from Dalla. She would flatten out a large circle and cut wedges to form triangular scones. And, then I am indebted to the writers of cookbooks, especially to Ed Brown, Molly Katzen and Irma Rombauer who wrote the JOY OF COOKING. I am indebted to the countless cooks who took the time to write down a recipe and share it (on a 3X5 card, on their blogs, on the internet, in family cookbooks.) I could not be a cook if it wasn't for the inventor and manufacturer of my Viking Range and cooktops. Also, my cooking comes from having fresh ingredients which I am able to buy at our local Famers's Market in Half Moon Bay. To all the farmers who get up before light to bring their produce and goods to the market, I am in your debt. And, I am a cook thanks to the generous and appreciative palate of my husband, Ron. Over the past twenty years he has eaten with relish everything I've ever put in front of him. He compliments me and he always cleans up the kitchen. His work supports my cooking. And, while I'm thinking of it, Ron built the kitchen that I am working in, designed the cabinets, varnished the wood floor, and maintains the plumbing which brings water to the kitchen and takes away waste. He also maintains the compost.

You may want to try this exercise. Pick a talent and list those who helped you to become what you have become.

Reposted from 2010

Loaves and Fishes by David Whyte

Loaves and Fishes

This is not
the age of information.

This is not
the age of information.

Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.

This is the time
of loaves
and fishes.

People are hungry
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.

by David Whyte

from The House of Belonging

Waking up to the gifts

Look around. What is supporting you at this moment. Does a chair hold you up? Does a lamp illumine the night? Is a computer holding your thoughts and memories? This blog will explore the notion that each of us is receiving more than we have noticed.

Look for more. Indeed, open your eyes and look around. Notice everything. Notice.