learning – The Actorvist

Hello Gentle Reader!

This a post that isn’t as fully formed as I was hoping as I rushed to get my thoughts in place. The post that was supposed to be uploaded had references to the Golden Globes and with the passing of Lisa Marie Presley, I felt like it wasn’t the right time to post it.💔

I am currently in rehearsal for a staged reading of a new play called La Lechuza or The Owl Witch. It is a really neat opportunity to see a play evolve and morph into a more matured version of itself. I am loving the conversation we are having during our time together.

In a previous post, I had expressed a want to figure out myself to try and find that elusive self love that we are always hearing about. One of the biggest blank spaces I have in regards to my sense of self is culture 🇲🇽 and what it means for me and how I can embrace it and be more comfortable in my milk chocolatey colored outer candy shell.

Last spring/summer, while I was involved with The Pear Theatre’s Pear Slices performances, I had a back and forth email conversation with one of the playwrights, Linda Amayo-Hassan who is writing my current project.

Growing up, I had always known where I should be. The silly tests like “what job would you be suited for” and the like all said the same thing and it was what I had already known. Entertainment. Yet, when I think back at all the shows that I watched, I didn’t see people like me in the roles that weren’t thugs or criminals of some kind, if they were in the show or movie at all. There were a handful of Latinx people on TV, but those were in dramas and I wasn’t keen on those as a kid. I stopped associating with anything that was culturally focused. I thought that I would be looked at as lesser than by theatre directors if I was more proud of it.

In my neighborhood and in schools I attended, so many of the mocha colored kids, like myself, were a part of gangs or misbehaving in some other way. Of course, that just isn’t my personality, Dear Reader. Eventually, I just made it through life believing that culture and race didn’t matter, that you just had to be a good person.

In an old job at Nordstrom, I used to work with this amazing lady name Mebrat. She was from Eritrea, a small country in Northern Africa. I swear that every day, as she watched people coming or going, she would say at least once “I wonder where s/he is from?” Finally, after weeks of this, I asked her why is that so important? Isn’t it more important that the person is kind and compassionate? I didn’t yell this or anything, mind you, Kind Reader, I respected her so much and we had some of my favorite conversations. I was truly curious because that was how my perspective was focused. She told me that she wanted to know what similarities were shared, what did they enjoy about their lives, did they emigrate here, were they second or third or more generation “American.” She was a lot like me, full of curiosity. Where we differed was that she was curious about people and I was curious about things and creating things. Her questions were “who are they?” and mine were “how did they do that?” While she did teach me to be curious about people, it wasn’t to the point that I needed to know where they were from and how that informed their view of the world. 🌍

It wasn’t until as recently as 3 or 4 years when I began to appreciate more movies from other cultures that shared their traditions and joys, and of course the terrible racist events around the country, that are still happening TO THIS DAY, that I began to want to know more about my own. And it sort of showed me a hole that had been falsely covered like some sort of hunting trap that one falls in because they weren’t looking where they were going.

Ms. Amayo-Hassan’s piece in the Pear Slices was about a Puerto Rican family who had lost their home on the island due to Hurricane Katrina, and the lack of help that followed. It was a beautiful piece because even while surrounded by this profound amount of death and loss, the parents still had hope and still were able to make one another smile. In it, the father questions if the government would have stepped in faster if this happened on the mainland. While Puerto Ricans are considered U.S. citizens, this government dragged their feet getting any sort of assistance to the island to help rescue and rebuild. So he wondered if they are really citizens and asks why would they let “their people”suffer? Why would the government not help as it should? While I worked on this short play, I was finding all of these little questions in his motivations, his reactions and his silence. When I first started the play, I took it rather fairly straightforward with the upbeat parts being upbeat and the serious parts being more reserved. Then, as we got to walk through the piece more and more, I was finding things that felt like little betrayals, or small prayers for the dead, or at one point just fury.

Gentle Reader, I slowly began to realize that I had more in common with this character than I thought. I noticed that I was really hitting on some inner hurts that I had inflicted on myself thinking I was merely “American.” Finding all these gems of pain and sadness and betrayal even that Ricardo, the father character, felt helped to fill that hole I was feeling a little.

This new play, La Lechuza, is helping me learn a little more about the culture from my cast mates and I am doing my best to absorb everything that they are saying. It is also helping my pronunciation of the language. I would say this is a pretty good start on the self discovery path. This project is a staged reading for More Más Marami Arts in March, I believe. I will keep you posted as details get finalized.

Well, I hope this wasn’t too much of a jumbled mess of a post. As I mentioned before, it was a bit of a rush job to get this idea mostly formulated. I didn’t know how it was going to go because I know I had to give you a lot of backstory to get to the point. I just hope I got to it. 😂

Thank you, Dear Reader, for joining along in my rambles as I try to figure out my messy brain and all around self so that I can be my best when I step on to the stage. I always appreciate the chance to bend your ear.

Until next time, stay safe and alert. Be kind and take care of yourself and those you care about.

As is usually the custom, once we reach this point of the year, we tend to review the things we did during the year. Some people look back to see if they’ve accomplished any of the goals that they’ve set for themselves. Some look back in regret. Some people look back to learn from mistakes. Some, like me, do a combination of them.

I am not big on self-promotion. Call me shy. So I’ve never looked for accomplishments. I often review with a combination of regret and what did I learn.

In January, I learned of a cool little indie museum called Empire Seven Studios in San Jose. My friend Kyle had a show there.

I loved that his pieces were filled with whimsy. The volume of pieces that were up in the studio was insane. There had to have been easily over a hundred of them. I scored two works and love them both. The one that is officially mine looks like a bunch of tiny blotches that look like a body with arms and legs painted in. The way that it’s done makes it look like it’s a dancer. The other belongs to Perry and it looks like it could have been part of a Dr. Seuss story if you aren’t close enough. I regret not being able to by more of these cool works.

What I love about Empire Seven is that there isn’t any pretense. As you can see, the walls are decorated (I don’t know for certain if it’s by the Artists or not, but I think it is.) and it reminds me of how I decorated my first apartments. When I walk into other museums, the stark white walls just seem so authoritative. I know it’s so you can focus on the art, but I feel like I am supposed to behave as though I am in a library with whispered tones and a look that says ” I am deep in thought”on my face. This place says, come and check out what some local people have created or just come and chat with some cool cats.

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In February, I began working on my second project with Teatro Vision. It’s a wonderful company, and it provided me with a nice change of pace from musicals or comedies. My love of this company is so much more profound than I remember from my first experience with them. I learned to not only question everything, including my beliefs (are they really mine or what I was taught?) and ask questions. Through them, whether by osmosis or a new habit, I became more informed about the events of the world. That is something that isn’t really talked about in American news. To pay attention to all the things that are happening in the world, not just what the big cable networks are telling you is news. Find independent sources of news like KPFA which has MANY links from which to check out.

This second time around, made me feel more connected with my heritage. I know it sounds like I am being outrageous for the sake of it, but let me clarify. Even after working on “Hero” with Teatro, I was still too self conscious to speak Spanish words. I remember having to learn some Spanish in 1st grade and some of the kids would make fun of us on the playground. I don’t even know why I was in that class. I spoke perfectly fluent English with complex sentences. Maybe it was the brown skin. So, I have made it a point for myself to not be what people believe I am. I didn’t bother learning any more Spanish after that school year, and in high school I learned French.

With this cast being 3 times bigger than my first experience, I was surrounded by all these wonderful amazing incredible people that were an honor to work with. And I began to learn some Spanish. Little by little, I hear a word here and there and I try to remember what it means. But merely speaking a language isn’t all that I am talking about. I am finally beginning to see the beauty in the culture itself and learning about it’s past.

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In March, I decided that I was going to join the AIDS Lifecycle. On a whim, I decided this. So when I look into the details, I find that registration has been closed for like 2 months! I was a little disheartened, but then I figured, well, hell. I can ride next year! So I requested to be added to their early registration alert. So any day now, I will be expecting an email saying it’s time to sign up. So while I may regret not being able to ride last year, I am hoping that I get everything ready and train for it this year!

Also in March, we celebrated our 15 year anniversary! There were no bells. There were no drinks. There was only, wake up and go to work to pay taxes and rent and bills. And there still are no Equal Rights….

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I didn’t have too many things to regret the first part of the year, thankfully. Well, kids, Quarter #1 is over. What did you learn during the first three months of 2011? More importantly, what do you regret and how will you make sure not to repeat it in 2012? Comments are always welcome.