4/17 Reflections on race and Shakes. & Co. workshop
Quick reflections on S&co workshop after reading Spinning Into Butter:
The play: I don't think it's a good play but it's really interesting. Says some things. Makes me think.
The workshop: What was valuable was the effort to speak in my own voice, to find my voice. That was the focus of all the work, of Linklater's work, of Dave's teaching. Finding your voice. And that was what was successful about my session with him working on the Iago speech. I felt liberated and energized and given permission to be myself in the finding of my voice, which had everything to do with naming what was going on at the moment, what I wanted to say.
BUT that doesn't really have anything to do with whether I was right or not. My great discovery--that I just wanted to say to people, "Stop it. Stop doing it. Stop being stupid." (though I didn't use the word "stupid" I wish I had)--was true but it's not the answer. And Dave's statement to me: "You're not a racist. You can't play a racist, but you can play what you feel." Well, it's nice but it's not true either. And it's not really the point. I'm not going to solve my racism, stop participating in the whole sick enterprise, by "working on myself," by finding the racist in me. But I'm not going to solve it (I'm not going to solve it period) by saying, "Hey, I'm really not a racist." Because it isn't really about me, about my guilt, the racist messages I've absorbed. That's part of it, sure, but not the main project.
So the liberating experience was valuable, is a good experience to have had, and one that I hope I can build on and have again. But it doesn't really have much to do with race.
But the issue, the real issue, of the workshop was finding the voice, or a voice, or the voice for that moment (I have a bit of trouble with the idea of a "natural" voice, an authentic voice that would be essentially true, honest, mine for all time; in the same way, I have trouble with Dave's use of the word "soul." I think I know what he's trying to get at when he says emotions come from the soul and are therefore deep, complex, always changing, ineffable but real--I'm putting words in his mouth--but I prefer to limit it to what is happening right now without trying to essentialize it. Hah! I'm talking from theory I know very little about--what am I doing? Anyway...). The work of seeking that voice seems intensely valuable from a theraputic and, yes, artistic point of view. Which just means I want to do it.
I wonder what the connection is between and actor learning to speak out of his true voice and a writer "finding her voice"? And is a writer's "voice" always the same one?
The play: I don't think it's a good play but it's really interesting. Says some things. Makes me think.
The workshop: What was valuable was the effort to speak in my own voice, to find my voice. That was the focus of all the work, of Linklater's work, of Dave's teaching. Finding your voice. And that was what was successful about my session with him working on the Iago speech. I felt liberated and energized and given permission to be myself in the finding of my voice, which had everything to do with naming what was going on at the moment, what I wanted to say.
BUT that doesn't really have anything to do with whether I was right or not. My great discovery--that I just wanted to say to people, "Stop it. Stop doing it. Stop being stupid." (though I didn't use the word "stupid" I wish I had)--was true but it's not the answer. And Dave's statement to me: "You're not a racist. You can't play a racist, but you can play what you feel." Well, it's nice but it's not true either. And it's not really the point. I'm not going to solve my racism, stop participating in the whole sick enterprise, by "working on myself," by finding the racist in me. But I'm not going to solve it (I'm not going to solve it period) by saying, "Hey, I'm really not a racist." Because it isn't really about me, about my guilt, the racist messages I've absorbed. That's part of it, sure, but not the main project.
So the liberating experience was valuable, is a good experience to have had, and one that I hope I can build on and have again. But it doesn't really have much to do with race.
But the issue, the real issue, of the workshop was finding the voice, or a voice, or the voice for that moment (I have a bit of trouble with the idea of a "natural" voice, an authentic voice that would be essentially true, honest, mine for all time; in the same way, I have trouble with Dave's use of the word "soul." I think I know what he's trying to get at when he says emotions come from the soul and are therefore deep, complex, always changing, ineffable but real--I'm putting words in his mouth--but I prefer to limit it to what is happening right now without trying to essentialize it. Hah! I'm talking from theory I know very little about--what am I doing? Anyway...). The work of seeking that voice seems intensely valuable from a theraputic and, yes, artistic point of view. Which just means I want to do it.
I wonder what the connection is between and actor learning to speak out of his true voice and a writer "finding her voice"? And is a writer's "voice" always the same one?
posted by Graham at 8:48 PM
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