The Hague: Fin

After 8 months The Hague had our last show tonight. It was a very eclectic group and our time together fun and challenging. Everyone had their own style and more often than not we would come together, clash, and create something that worked despite the disparity of our different approaches. Sometimes it didn't work which is no rarity in improv. And when it didn't it was never boring, everyone on the team is strong, aggressive, and opinionated so our failures were just as interesting as our successes. Sometimes we were water and vinegar other times we were vinegar and baking soda. There were always surprises.

I don't feel any regret. For me the desire for the luster and love- the cultivating of a close knit group- faded after my first iO team FireCup. It's not as if we weren't friends but we were all, or at least I was, more concerned with the shows and the quality of the improv than with hanging out with each other a ton. I'm grateful for our time together and for a chance to get to know the people on the team I didn't and to spend more time with the people on the team I did. I took pleasure in most of the shows, pride in some, and I learned something from them all.

The two people that made the whole experience exceptionally special for me were Rich and Caitlin. Caitlin I've been friends with for over a decade and aside from one directing scene in college where I was Richard III and she was Lady Anne we never got to perform together. I consider it a great gift and something I'll very much miss, seeing her each week and improvising with her. The Hague gave us a chance to reconnect and get close again. Rich on the other hand I did not know. I knew who he was but we had no connection. When he was added I think we were all a little cautious. We had no need to be because although Rich is perpetually dry he is open. I loved playing with him despite, at times, his moves and ideas going directly counter to mine. It was frustrating but stimulating. He made me stretch. And he became a friend, not something I anticipated given his outward reserve and sarcasm.

Of course I loved playing with everyone else. I always love playing with Julia, James, Pants, and Ellen who I've been on teams with on and off for a couple years and it was a treat to be on a team with Mark and Dan who I had known previously only tangentially.

It was a good run and a good team. Improv can be fleeting and ethereal. Sometimes the teams are too.

'The Broken Circle Breakdown' A Review

The Broke Circle Breakdown is a Belgian musical drama.The non-linear film explores the relationship between Elise and Didier, their love of American bluegrass, and their burgeoning family centered around their daughter Maybelle. The film skips and jumps from past to present back to past, showing Elise and Didier's first meeting, concerts, their accidental pregnancy, their marriage proposal, more concerts, and Maybelle's eventual cancer diagnosis and treatment at age 6. At points visiting the same scene more than once. The fluid nature of the narrative structure allows the film to build and defuse tension quickly without getting bogged down in depressive ruts.

There is an alien, almost bizarre, quality about The Broken Circle Breakdown. The American traditionals sung in perfect English juxtaposed directly after with lilting Flemish is some what jarring and the story itself takes many twists and turns subverting normal "Hollywood" expectations. There is a sweet melancholic authenticity to the film, it is at times heartrending in its realism, and exuberant in its emotional discoveries.

The film is intense, at times overwhelming, but ultimately deeply moving. The ending is disappointing, unharmonious, almost belonging to a different story. But the journey and the questions that are raised are satisfying and reinforce love, faith, and perseverance.

See It.

Season 2 Intro

Tisher, Tim, and I have been working hard over the past couple months on our improvised comedy radio serial and we're finally ready to start releasing episodes. Bubble Boys Season 2 promises more idiocy, lunacy, and idolatry than the original. New episodes each week with an array of amazing guests. Listen to the intro below and look for episode one next week.

The Cold

No work today due to hazardous weather conditions. This relentless cold is draining. My mobility is hamstrung or at least the effort it takes to travel doesn't seem worth it most of the time.

Today I've obsessively cleaned my apartment and reorganized my movies and books. I watched the first three episodes of True Detectives(shows promise) and started a collage. I checked how much a tape player would cost and then I read for a little bit.

Now I sit and think of things to do, potential projects, and come up blank. Ice gathers on the window sill and the pane is frosted over. Soon I'll be able to go for a walk, run, ride a bike, or browse a book shop without having to bundle up and concentrate my will. This winter has been daunting and the extremity of the cold makes it drag on and on.

But the end is in sight, it must be. One more month or six weeks or eight. Sooner or later, warmth is inevitable. Spring gathers. We wait. Time ticks.

"You can't get too much winter in the winter." -Robert Frost

"In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer." -Albert Camus

The Snap

I've had the desire to be an artist as long as I can remember. I took piano lessons for a while but didn't have the discipline to practice. I took art classes in school and out from age 7 to 13 but showed no facility with any medium or ability to bring my ideas to actuality. I first got on stage at age 8 in a production of the Pied Piper, I was Councilman #3, and was intrigued. At age 11 I was in a staged production of a number of Aesop's Fables. It was the first time I got laughs from an audience, I was hooked and decided I wanted to be an actor.

Through middle school and high school I was in a number of plays and musicals. I cultivated my modest singing and dancing abilities. I had fun but I wasn't totally satisfied. I didn't feel like I was getting to express myself fully, I felt like acting fell more on the side of interpretation rather than creation. There was still something I wasn't getting, an undiscovered outlet.

Recently I've been reading, per Clayton's recommendation, this fantasy series Mistborn. In the books they describe the pivotal moment in someones life wherein they discover their magical abilities as "snapping". The moment I had my creative snap wasn't onstage but in my dorm room.

My college roommate was a guitarist and bassist, he turned me on to a bunch of musicians and I turned him on to a couple too. Fall of 2003 we were big into Tenacious D, Keller Williams, and Martin Sexton. One evening we were sitting around, Bob was playing guitar and I was playing Final Fantasy X on mute. For no particular reason we started singing- improvising lyrics and harmonies. By the end we had a complete song with a double chorus and two free-form verses, it was called "Trees".  We performed it a couple weeks later at Theater of Ted, a weekly sign-up variety show, and got a great response.

It was the first time I put out something  I created, the first time I felt a genuine collaboration. Bob and I wrote and performed songs the remainder of college and he taught me how to play guitar. Writing and performing original music gave me a unique satisfaction, a satisfaction I hadn't gotten from straight acting. A feeling of originality, singularity of purpose, and direct artistic expression. I continued to act but I became increasingly frustrated with speaking others words. That discontent eventually led me to improv and sketch comedy.

Soul of a Man

There's this new movie coming out called Son of God evidently cut from The Bible miniseries. I have no intention of seeing the movie but this song was in the trailer and it struck me. I got goosebumps despite the over-the-top subject matter. Come to find out it was also used for the Mad Max video game trailer. It's a cover of one of my favorite songs by 30's blues musician Blind Willie Johnson.

'Lone Survivor' A Review

Lone Survivor is a military drama based on the true experience of Marcus Latrell and his SEAL team in Afghanistan. The film follows the SEAL team from their base on a surveillance mission in the Afghan mountains. They objective is to identify two Taliban leaders in a small town. The mission is disrupted when three goat herders discover the team. After debate the goat herders are released and inform the local Taliban of the whereabouts of the soldiers. They are surrounded and attacked.

There are two striking things about the film. First the performances given by the four SEAL team members and the brotherhood that they portray. The second is the military tactics employed by the SEAL team in opposition to the 200 Taliban members that engage them. The film feels true from the dialogue to the deaths.

The film doesn't pass judgement on the war, those in power, or the Afghan natives. It's purpose is to show the courage and love of the US Navy SEALs, to remember those that have fallen. Lone Survivor paints a complex portrait of an even more complex situation. The film allows and encourages us to be proud of our military in the midst of an untenable position.

Although Mark Wahlberg is top billed it is the supporting cast that brings the film to life.

See It.