How I Learned to Juggle

Larry Pisoni, Cecil MacKinnon (center) and Peggy Snider juggle in the Pickle Family Circus. (Photo by Terry Lorant)

San Francisco’s Pickle Family Circus would juggle. I am left with many things from my research into this amazing organization—an investigation that led to interviews with the two cofounders, Larry Pisoni and Peggy Snider; Peggy’s daughter, Gypsy, who was 8 when the circus began; and, of course, their son, Lorenzo, who was literally born into the PFC, started performing at age 2, and is starring in the one-man clown show Humor Abuse, a show about his childhood, on the A.C.T. mainstage now.

My research reminded me of the powerful artistry of talented and inexhaustible young people. It reminded me of what can be accomplished with next-to-no funds if the drive is there. It reminded me of how brilliantly executed ideas will always trump brilliant spectacle. It reminded me of the power of intimacy, of community, of communication, and of carnival food—and how we need events to bring all those elements together. It reminded me that good things don’t last for ever, that inexhaustible youth become exhausted, and that the 1970s were a long time ago.

It also taught me that there are many ways to parent and that “babies will naturally cling to a trapeze bar if you let them because we are not inherently afraid”; that theater probably has more a need for the circus than we realize; that there are circuses around the world (like Gypsy’s Montreal-based Les 7 doigts de la main) that are thriving.

I am left with many things, but the take away I keep returning to is this: everyone in the PFC juggled. Larry and Peggy began as the Pickle Family Jugglers, passing the hat around Union Square, and the jugglers mentality permeated their circus: every show would end with an epic Big Juggle, involving everyone, even the roustabouts. Backstage and during rehearsals, Pickles would take juggling breaks “like normal people take coffee breaks,” wrote one journalist. They would do this to loosen up, to activate their muscles and their minds, and to connect with their fellow Pickles, for the solo juggle was rare: they were almost always juggling with someone else.

“What is the trick to juggling?” I opened my interview with Larry. “Trick? There’s no trick. It’s all practice.” When I was in the toy store last December buying soft footballs to donate to the fire department holiday collection, I picked up a set of juggling balls for myself. I’ve been bringing them back and forth from the office to home, taking them out when I need a break. And I have to say: it really is just practice.

Now I need to convince my colleagues. Because we could all stand to be a little more like the Pickles.

 

Teaching Pirates Dramaturgy

© 826 Valencia

“Everyone here knows what the fourth wall is, right?”

Stares. Heads shake side to side. “No.”

“That’s great!”

It is probably true of any profession. Any obsession. Anything one spends their time doing: it is easy to forget that not everyone knows the lingo. Why would writing tutors at the famed 826 Valencia know that the fourth wall is the invisible, nonexistent wall that separates actors onstage from the audience—that it is the line that separates the fictive from the real? They aren’t playwrights. That’s why I’m there, standing in front of them in a room designed to look like the hull of a pirate ship, stumbling through the basics of playwriting and dramaturgy in my allocated hour.

To forgo all suspense: it went great, and next Tuesday 20 freshly-minted new-play dramaturgs will enter the field. 826 Valencia is teaming up with A.C.T. and the project-based Downtown High School to help students “who have not experienced success in the district’s comprehensive high schools” craft monologues and 10-minute plays that will be published in a fully-designed book.

The experienced 826 tutors have taught fiction and essay writing, but never plays, so I was asked to come in and answer a few simple questions: “What are the differences between plays and other genres—especially film?” “What are the parts of a play?” “What are some tips you can give the tutors to pass on to their students on how to make their plays stronger?”

Wow. Great questions. And spending the past two weeks thinking about how to answer them strengthened my belief that if you want to do, you really should teach first. I learned academic writing by teaching freshman comp. for two years. I continue to learn how to write for dramaturgical publications by mentoring our yearly fellows. And now, for the first time, I was articulating for myself what a play is. What the role of the dramaturg is.

I said a lot of stuff yesterday morning. Theater is different from film because of proximity, focus, and language. Instead of going into Aristotle’s parts of a play—which I never really got behind—I talked about the loss of and search for stasis. I broke monologues down into categories. I explained how scripts are the beginning of a collaboration, not an end in and of themselves. Nothing surprising. But I was proud that I distilled new-play dramaturgy into a simple two-part formula:

“What are you trying to say?” —> “This is what I hear.”

We’re compared to consultants. Therapists. Editors. But really, dramaturgs are professional audience members—that talk back. It isn’t our place to make plays better: it is our place to help playwrights understand what they have so that they can craft their plays into what they want them to be.

© DC Comics

Election Year Musings

 

Last week I was searching for Ron Paul’s views on gay marriage (conspicuously left off of his official website), which led me to this quote, “I do trust individuals to make their own decisions,” and I realized that the spin is all wrong: conservatives are the idealists. True conservatives believe the government should get out of the way so citizens can get on with their business, defining liberty as permission to succeed—and fail—on your own merits. Liberals assume that more often than not we will fail, at which time conservatives will say, “Too bad, you had your shot: it’s not the government’s place to bail you out, that’s why you have friends, family, your church, and chapter 7,” while liberals say, “Here, let the government help you, because, let’s be honest, who else will.” In effect, politics is a problem of parenting: do you let your child cry until they figure it out on their own (or another kid in daycare comes over to help), or do you pick them up, wipe their nose, and teach them to do better next time? I don’t know.

Taking care of a nation of 313 million raises many complicated questions. How do you fix an economy that is affected by local, national, and global events: do you protect the consumer or the employer? Do you decrease the government’s role in the market or increase it? How do you secure peace in world in which different peoples have different beliefs, priorities, and needs? Do you provide monetary assistance? Military assistance? Military force? Or do you simply back away? How do you protect a citizenry from itself? Do you impose laws that guide them towards a healthier/safer way of life, or do you butt out and let the dumb ones kill themselves off and hope the smart ones survive?

No one really knows. How can we? We’ve never been here before. Do I think Obama and his advisors are certain that what they’re doing will solve these issues? Nope. But I think they have as good a guess as anyone else. It is easy to say, “I would have done differently, and it would have worked,” because there is no way to disprove the perfection of plans never executed. When Obama took office, unemployment was at 7.8%; last week it is finally back down to 8.5%, its lowest in three years. Is that .7% difference the fault of his policies, of his stimulus packages, of the bank bail outs? Or did those decisions prevent the recession from wiping out more jobs and buffer us somewhat against the Eurozone crisis?

That we can’t really know what will work is why many are more comfortable (myself included) focusing on issues of belief and the character of our candidates. Abortion, gay marriage, faith. Issues that do not boil down to will-it-work-or-won’t-it, but is-it-right-or-isn’t-it, because these are quandaries we can answer for ourselves—or at least wrestle with on an equal playing field as our candidates. It is why I, intrigued by Ron Paul’s call for smaller government and a retreat from world affairs, went looking for his thoughts on gay marriage. Issues pertaining to homosexuality are easy for me. Being a Kinsey 6 is not a sin because it’s no more a choice than being a Kinsey 0. I think that love is love and that those who cite the Bible against gay men and women are focusing on the wrong chapters and verses. Two of Rick Santorum’s congressional directives will be to “Advocate for a Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution” and “Call on Congress to reinstitute Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell”? That makes it easy for me: I’m done with him—regardless of whatever else he might have to say.

Listening to the rhetoric surrounding the Iowa caucuses made me realize how republicans must have felt in 2004. Perplexed. A little hurt. Defensive. Why are all these people traveling around to a few choice states badmouthing our president, while with the same breath preaching patriotism? What has our president done that is so bad that he deserves such disrespect? All of the republican candidates can tell you all the reasons. About 58% of Americans can tell you some of the reasons (according to the most recent Gallup poll). I can’t tell you. I see a man who has done the best he could with the cards he was dealt—not even dealt, really, handed as he tagged the other guy out of the game—at a poker table of unprecedented partisan politicking. I see a man who, if given the chance of a second term, will probably tiptoe a little less around harder issues, some liberal agenda items and some unfortunate-but-necessary reforms (entitlements). Less concerned about being reelected, he’ll probably get a bit more done. Whether that idea pleases or terrifies you, of course, depends on who you are.

It also depends on where you get your information. Last week a colleague told me her dad was furious with me for giving David Mamet a platform to voice his newly articulated conservative views in a guide for Race. Of course, for me, part of the appeal of writing an article about Mamet’s political conversion was just that—presenting conservative opinions in a publication consumed by a largely liberal readership. It is too easy to avoid challenges. It is easy to find trustworthy voices you agree with; it is more difficult to find those you trust and disagree with; it is harder still to find sources that are impartial. I have been frequenting The Political Guide for some unbiased news pertaining to the primaries. I recommend it, but encourage you to tell me if the site is actually nefarious! In addition to information about all the candidates, it also has a really great article about the National Defense Authorization Act Obama just signed (to the chagrin of his liberal base).