Doing Is the Reality of Being

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that I work in the theatre. So when I started thinking about the idea of “doing,” I remembered one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite theatre practitioners, a guy named Sanford Meisner.

Meisner was trying to explain his acting techniques to his students and this is what he said: “Acting is the reality of doing.” (What he actually said is “The foundation of acting is the reality of doing” but my way is catchier, Meisner.) Anyway, Meisner really wanted actors to stop trying to act and just start BEING on stage, being honest, being in the emotion, and responding however you do as you live and move and breathe in the world. It’s kind of the toughest acting assignment ever. Just be. Don’t act. Don’t show. Just exist in the space. I love the idea of it.

So when I ask myself, ‘what do I do?’, I can think of a hundred things that I do in a day. Study, write, grade, teach, check the mail, answer the phone, blog, watch television, open the refrigerator, close the refrigerator, walk the dog, update my Facebook, make lists, drink coffee, answer emails, worry about money, worry about time, worry, worry, worry, plan, plan, plan, do, do, do.

Sometimes I really wish I could bring more of that sense of BEING, not DOING, to my day, to my real, off-stage, honest-to-goodness life with all of its stresses and fears and discomfort and weariness. I would like to do more being. I would like to exist more. In this moment. Some moments are more built for than others. And maybe part of existing isn’t forcing myself not to worry or plan or stress. Maybe, in the end, all the doing is part of the being.  If “acting is the reality of doing,” maybe doing is the reality of being.

 

 

Here’s to more being, less doing.

love you guys,

elizabeth

What It Feels Like to Be A Teacher

I’m taking a break from the Blog Every Day in May prompts today because I am f-uh-reaking out about finishing my dissertation prospectus while preparing to start teaching a new course on Tuesday.

I feel like the following clip illustrates the highs and lows of teaching kind of perfectly. Plus….Zooey Deschanel. Incidentally, this is from my favorite, favorite episode of New Girl, “Pepperwood.”

love, elizabeth

There Aren’t Enough Blog Posts in the Universe to Talk About All My Favorite Quotes

So I’m just going to talk about like four. Or five. Maybe six. But no more than seven, definitely. (I realize that this breaks the strict rule for this prompt but Jenni and I go way back –like back to the 3rd grade back-- so she’ll probably forgive me if she ever sees this).

All of these quotes come from books. I choose to believe that this indicates how deep and intellectual and yet creative and interesting that I am. These are quotes that make me think, I wish I had thought of stringing those words together in that particular syntax and order first because that is exactly how I feel and I would like to be given credit for feeling that way.

(Incidentally, trying to pick a favorite John Green quote is kind of like trying to pick which one of your family members you would save from a house fire. Impossible and heartbreaking.)

I settled on four. Thanks for an awesome prompt today, Jenni.

 

love, elizabeth

Rape Jokes

If you clicked on this, you might be asking yourself if Elizabeth really needed to write a blog post about why rape jokes make her uncomfortable. I mean, you might be thinking, isn’t that kind of a given? WARNING: SENSITIVE MATERIAL AHEAD. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.
This post is not going to be a formal argument against rape jokes. It's not going to analyze rape humor or talk about potential ways that humor can be used to critique rape culture. I could probably write one a post like that but Lindy West did it so much better and no way am I going to try and compete with Lindy West. You should definitely read her article, though. It made me do some serious fist-pumps of agreement and general solidarity. I love Lindy. She is the internet-famous person I would most like to meet IRL.

But today we’re supposed to write about something that makes us uncomfortable so I’m going to talk for a second about how rape jokes make me feel.

Bad. Rape jokes make me feel bad. If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know that I volunteer for a local rape crisis center, working with survivors of sexual assault. I’m not going to get into the specifics here but my own life has been touched by sexual violence in a variety of ways. So when I hear jokes that make light of sexual violence, or domestic violence, or child molestation, it actually physically hurts. It makes me feel all kinds of concern for the hundreds of thousands of survivors who get to live in a culture that has no problem victimizing them again and again. Being a survivor of sexual violence means more than just having my consent taken away or having no power over my own body. It means that I will be told by friends and family and strangers, in a million different ways, that what happened to me was my fault, that I did something to cause it, that I deserve it. So when I hear a joke that makes light of an issue (or even the word) rape, it makes me uncomfortable.

When I hear a joke about a woman getting beaten up, it makes me uncomfortable.

When I hear a joke about a drunk girl at a party, it makes me uncomfortable.

When I hear a joke about someone being molested, it makes me uncomfortable.

When I hear a joke about prison rape, it makes me uncomfortable (because men are raped, too, and that is also wrong).

When I hear a joke about how “lucky” a boy was that his female teacher had sex with him, it makes me uncomfortable.

When I hear someone explain to me that they laugh at rape jokes because they “just have a dark sense of humor” or they’re just “edgy,” it makes me uncomfortable.

When I hear someone say that they are a survivor of rape and they think that rape jokes are funny, it makes me uncomfortable (each of us can speak only from our own experience). I don’t want to de-validate why that survivor finds that joke funny but I wonder if part of it has to do with needing to laugh because not laughing is another way of opening yourself up to vulnerability and the possibility of re-victimization. I don’t know this but I wonder it inside of my self.

Uncomfortable is the wrong word, really. It makes me feel exhausted and betrayed.  It makes me feel heartsick and tired and broken. And small.

If you or someone you know needs to talk, here is the toll-free number for the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). It’s safe and anonymous and you can call any time. You can also use their online hotline by going here.

If you are someone who hears rape jokes, from your friends, your coworkers, your family, even…you can make a difference by not laughing. By letting them know how hearing that might make you feel or make someone else feel. You can help make others feel safer in the world.

love, elizabeth

6 Things You Maybe Didn’t Know About Theatre

So far, Jenni’s prompts are WAY harder than I thought they would be. I’m probably putting a lot of pressure on myself to say meaningful things. But, like the true university-addict that I am, I am loving the blogging homework. So here we go, day two of Blog Every Day in May…
Today we are supposed to “educate our readers on something we know a lot about or are good at.” I don’t know why it suddenly feels like I’m not good at anything.

My PhD (that I will hopefully finish by next May) is in theatre, specifically theatre history, literature, and criticism. You still awake? I thought I’d share a few of my favorite random pieces of theatre history with you. They make great party trivia…if you go to parties at my house, anyway. Here’s some fun factoids to geek out to:

1. Theatre comes from a Greek word, theatron, and it means “the seeing place.”

2. Musicals are principally an American invention. The first musical was rumored to be an accident during which a ballet company’s performance venue burned down and so they were asked to add their dance routines into a melodrama called, The Black Crook, in 1866. The combined effort was so popular with audiences that it was soon repeated and copied. You’re welcome, Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark. I’m sure this is exactly what the 19th century had in mind.

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3. The words theatre and theater are sometimes used interchangeably but they mean different things. We generally use the British spelling, theatre, to refer to the art form or practice. When we are talking about the building or specific performance venue, we spell it, theater (also when we talk about the movie theater). We don’t mean to be snobby freaks; it just comes naturally.

4. A light gets left on in theaters when no one is in them. It’s called a ghost light. There are lots of stories about why it’s called that. A lot of people say the light is left on for the ghosts to find their way. (On a more practical level, ghost lights help people walk around safely inside the theater on dark days – days when there isn’t a show playing).

The ghost light on one of the stages at school.

5. One of my favorite artists ever, Augusto Boal, started something called Forum Theatre. In Forum Theatre, the audience could interact with the actors and change the ending of the play. They could even step in and take over an actor’s role. Boal’s hope was that this new performance style would help people find solutions for problems and help empower the oppressed to change their communities.

6. Celebrity-following is not a new thing. In 1850, one of the most popular American actors, Edwin Forrest (he was really famous for taking his shirt off in, like, all of his performances) had a much publicized divorce from his wife Catherine Sinclair. The press got involved, their fans followed the case closely, there were repeated reports of adultery and love letters from an actress named Josephine Clifton (read: Angelina Jolie) and public horse-whippings of alleged lovers. Fans brought signs showing their support for either Edwin or Catherine into the theater. In the end, the court sided with Catherine. If you are interested in the story, you can read the entire official divorce case document online here. It’s pretty juicy.

 

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Aaaaaand that’s it. Your life is forever altered. I know. What weird theatre thing would you share? 
Have a weird piece of theatre or performance trivia to share? Do you have a theatre/performance question? Comment below!

Can’t wait to read other people’s posts today…

love, elizabeth

250 Words

I tried to do the prompt the way Jenni wrote it. I swear, I tried. Apparently though, I do not know how to write the story of my life in 250 words.

I keep trying to think of a beginning and a middle and an end. But every time I start to tell it, all the stories get jumbled in my head and I can’t remember what happened first. I was born in South Korea. I am about to start my final year of my PhD work in Columbus, Ohio. And somewhere between those two facts, there are like fifty billion tiny microscopic Elizabeths running around, doing things, learning things, screwing up, falling in love, falling apart, mending fences, and crashing through them again, screaming into sun (before it was cool), breaking, blogging, fighting, and I am one of those Elizabeths. Maybe tomorrow I will be a different Elizabeth. I’ve been to school. I’ve graduated. And then I went to school again. And again. I sometimes think I’ll be going to school forever. And I sometimes think I want to go to school forever. And I sometimes think I should have majored in something useful like macro-economics or adolescent psychology or creative writing. I have great friends. Maybe they’ll write that on my tombstone. “She had great friends.” That would be a good epitaph, I feel. My dog is probably my best friend (which will not annoy my human best friends because they are, in fact, my best friends and they get it). Madigan is my dog and she can see into my soul and when I do things I am ashamed of, she knows but she licks my face, anyway. Fin.* **



*Glad to know I am not already breaking my “Blog Every Day in May” commitment since I am posting this at 11:21 PM Eastern Standard Time. Whew. That’s a relief.

**This paragraph is exactly 250 words. I counted.

love, elizabeth

PS: Are you taking the Blog Every Day in May challenge? If not, it’s not too late to join!

Blog Every Day in May

Jenni at Story of My Life announced a blogging challenge for the month of May. And because I have been feeling like a total failure as a blogger this year, I am DOING IT.

You should do it, too! You can even follow Jenni’s awesome calendar of prompts for the month! I’m really excited about this…

Get ready…

love, elizabeth