Remote Control Theatre

Was just at the Denver Improv Festival.

My personal improv workout began before the official festival with my (BFF and) true improv teacher Liora. I’ve known her since she was two and have ‘studied’ improv with her from the moment we met: she was in a pink tutu and we were being chased, then hiding, pressed against a wall, eyes sparkling at each other as if our lives were on the line. She’s my soul sister, artistically, and always pushing me beyond my creative comfort zone.

One night after dinner Liora designed the remote control featured here. (Her family only watches TV if they’re watching a movie, FYI.) She then handed the remote to me, told me to announce which button I was pressing and proceeded to act out the various channels and scenarios ala the remote.

Sports included commentary as well as action (the Rockies were just going into the playoffs when I was visiting), Comedy involved lots of pratfalls and physical shtick, ‘Liora Main’ was a series of ‘my favorite color is, my favorite song is,’ etc… Other buttons included fast forward motion or reverse, with or without sound. I added the following ‘buttons’: Slow Motion, Gibberish, Tragedy (which involved a lot of fainting and falling on the floor) and Drama. Liora didn’t skip a beat, even as several buttons were pushed at the same time, such as: Sports/Slow Motion/Reverse or Comedy/Gibberish/Fast Forward or Tragedy/Silent.

She improvised kazillions of scenarios for about an hour. We (the adults) shifted from the table to the living room, Liora got ice cream sandwiches for us and also ate her own—and made everything part of her ‘scenes.’

I think of that line from the old Superman show: “Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound.” That's my girl: fearless, fierce—yet relaxed—while creating, while playing, while inventing.

What a pleasure to witness how Liora relishes the unknown, rolls around in it, takes suggestions and just transforms one idea to the next, with no room for insecurity or doubt or second-guessing. The remote control theatre experience just flowed.

Then it was my turn to act out the scenes as Liora took over the remote. It was tricky to switch gears so quickly. As with anything done well, she’d made it look soooo easy. Believe me, it wasn’t. But it was a good workout. After running through all of the buttons, Liora stayed on the Drama channel, calling out ‘switch’ when she was bored and wanted to see a new scene in the same genre. I improvised back-to-back stories about planting cotton, fires, a banjo, rocking chairs on a porch, heartbreak and disappointment, love gone awry and generic longing. That’s all I remember, as it’s all kind of a blur.

Needless to say, this remote control theatre experience made me fall in love with my sweet friend all over again. How did I get so lucky to find someone who has this much fun?

The Ultimate Travel Rewards

Early morning in Denver:
Cranky. Only three hours of sleep, not in a row. After passing through the metal detector at the airport I redress, reshoe, repack, regroup so I can take the train to the terminal. And then, after stepping off the fifth escalator of the morning I see standing before me a young girl in a white floor-length dress, wearing a silver tiara with a big blue jewel in the center, silver glitter shoes and purple mardi gras beads. It never even occurred to me to travel as a princess or a fairy, yet here is this lovely creature, at dawn, waiting for the train, holding her father's hand. I soften, immediately.

On the plane:
I’m seated next to a young man who is movie star good looking, with eyes that the camera would love in repeated close-ups. He’s wearing a tan turtleneck sweater with socks and loafers that match. I decide he is a secret agent. When the flight attendant comes over and informs us that we’re in the exit row and asks if we’d be willing to save every single person on the entire plane if there’s a problem, I’m a bit slow to respond. The secret agent says, “Yes,” very casually and I eventually grunt something along those lines. As the flight attendant walks away, I turn and ask, “What exactly did we just commit to?” The secret agent says, “Don’t worry, I’ve got your back,” and even though I’m buckled in and tired and bleary and older, I’m pretty sure I swoon.

We take turns napping. (Do I snore and drool? Probably.) The secret agent and I start a typical airplane conversation: I was in Denver teaching at the improv festival, he joined friends to run a marathon. One thing leads to another and my seat partner of the dark curly hair and big dark eyes is sharing where he is in the age line-up of five siblings. He tells me this story: how his parents jumped through all of the complicated hoops to adopt a daughter. For an entire year—paperwork, home visits, etc… Then, the day they went to pick up their new daughter, while at the foster parents’ home, they find out about, and meet, their new daughter's younger sister. And as he gets to this part of the story, my seat mate gets teary and starts crying as he tells me that his parents refused to leave without taking both girls, that a judge had to be called off a golf course somewhere to approve the decision, and how his parents came to get one daughter and left with two. He is a little embarrassed that he still cries as he tells the story, that it still moves him, that he is amazed by his parents’ compassion. It’s such an intimate moment between us, this revelation. I touch the back of my hand against the back of his hand and look away. When I look back he is trying to regain his composure. I lean over and say, softly, “It’s a big deal, what they did. It’s a sign of life that you are still touched so deeply all these years later by what happened. Good for you.”

If you pull on the right thread in a conversation, sometimes you get lucky.

The airlines will not grant me any extra literal miles for these two specific moments, yet the internal mileage provided for my heart are infinite.

It's a 'Woof' Thang

In the restaurant lobby waiting for my pals to arrive, I heard a woman at the bar exclaim in a loud voice, “Woof!!” I heard her say this a couple more times and thought, “Well, someone’s had a bit much to drink.” Sure enough, the Woof woman stumbled from her barstool into the lobby to greet a friend and while hugging him said, “It’s so great to see you—Woof!”

Soon Molly, Rebecca and I were seated at a table near the bar, near the Woof woman, who continued punctuating her conversation with repeated Woofs. When she finally wobbled out of the restaurant, everyone started imitating her. Woofs were bursting from all corners of the room. (Here a woof, there a woof, everywhere a woof woof.)

The three of us wondered: is the Woof woman using Woof as punctuation, or as a way to emphasize good sentiments or bad? We weren’t sure, we couldn’t tell. But we were curious.

We decided to try out a bunch of Woof variations ourselves. But then we’d forget about our experiment until one of us would respond to something with an excited ‘Woof!’ or a somber ‘Woof.’

‘Woof’ became a shorthand for us, a way to respond without having to use many other words, as ‘Woof’ pretty much summed it up most of the time and became the go-to phrase of the night.

We kept finding ways to insert a ‘Woof’ every now and then, no matter what we were discussing. Together—with our group mind, our creative collective—we invented so many more ‘Woof’ variations than I ever would have on my own.

That’s the gift of working as an ensemble.

People say to me all the time, “I could never do what you do—that improv stuff, where you make things up on the spot.” Ah, but we all do it all the time. Case in point: Woof!!

All improv scenes involve a who/what/where. So if you're with friends, having dinner in a restaurant, the scene is set.

All you'd need then is a suggestion from the audience.

We got ours without having to ask and it was "Woof!"

Getting Lost on Purpose

My own theory about comedy is this: what makes for good humor is when you take the banal and mix it with something kooky, like mowing a lawn made of Jello or take something kooky and combine it with something banal, like being fired from a cannon while using your wireless device to determine the arc and rate of the projectile so you can let the ambulance folks know exactly where to show up.

It’s all about the surprise element. About not being predictable.

I’ve lived in Madison for over 25 years and know the lay of the land by heart: Streets, lakes, stores, houses, etc. Getting around town happens habitually. However, there are some woods near where I live and I’ve been walking there lately. I never quite know where I’m going or where I’ll end up. It's such a luxury to have lived here for so long and still be able to get lost, to "not know" something in the middle of all things familiar.

Now I'm starting to recognize the thick stone steps that look like they lead to a castle, the tree that bends across the entire path, the funky bridge, the hilltop vista that reminds me of a wall-sized photo I once saw in Paris.

But right now everything is new and I have to pay attention. I can’t zone out or drift into thinking about other things. I have to be present. This is trickier than it sounds. As my character Helvi says, "There's a lot going on in the world, the country, the community and especially in our own heads, which is where we spend most of our time!"

The more I walk in the woods the sooner the mystery will fade and everything will become known. It's okay. Walking, listening to music, feeling the chilly autumn air on my skin is all good. Until I memorize the trails I revel in not knowing where I’m going. I love the 'not knowing.' It wakes me up to my world.

Uproar in Aisle 3: The Cohen Family

My parents are characters. They are funny, goofy, tender, smart, kind, animated and hard-of-hearing. (Not necessarily in that order.) This summer they drove up from Florida and spent a few weeks in a condo near Chicago. It was an empty condo with sparse-to-no furnishings. Instead of buying a couch for the den, they decided to buy chaise lounge chairs. Their logic: we can sit and watch TV, read, and then—-when we need to nap—-we can just lie back and voila! (Or, as my mother says, Wah-lah!)

We go to Target to buy the chaise lounge chairs. One thing leads to another and we get stuck in the chairs, caught in them, opening one end while the other end collapses and visa versa. Very Marx Brothers. We begin laughing uncontrollably, loudly, shrieking, with tears running down our faces so that my father has to hold onto a shelf to keep his balance and my mother wobbles around in the aisle holding her stomach. I need to change my pants when we get home. We are a noisy family when we’re having fun.

We are loopy. Utterly and totally wild in the moment. The louder we laugh, the less we are able to get a grip. I absolutely love that we went to get chaise lounge chairs and ended up crying with contagious laughter—-shoulders shaking, knees weak.

We are loud and noisy wherever we are. What's true is that it's normal to laugh uncontrollably, to be raucous, to be the one people are looking at when they're trying to figure out where all that noise is coming from anyway.

What’s challenging and scary for me, what’s outside my own comfort zone is being quiet and still. It's never my first choice to be subtle. Yet I try. There are moments when I know it would be easier to make a joke, do some modern dance, or howl for instance, but I don't. It's awkward and uncomfortable. I also know that if I'm willing to stretch, to slow down and take my time, it's how I grow.

And so.

Here is a photo of Robin and Harvey. My mother said the same thing all summer while lying indoors on her lounge chair: I hope we don’t get sunburned!! That line never failed to crack us up. People ask me, "What are your parents like?" And I say, "They’re like me, only more so."

Spark

I ask one of my most favorite people on the planet (who’s 10): how are you? She writes back one word: fabtabulishis. That word tickles me and I carry it around in my head for days, whispering it to myself over and over, chewing on the dip and sway of the sounds.

There is a vast difference between our ages but not our hearts or humor.

When you spark with someone, you just spark.

Good Scene Partners Come in All Shapes & Sizes

I hadn’t seen my four- and two-year-old cousins in a whole big year. To them it’s as if I'd simply fallen off the planet. They forgot that I’m their ‘fun’ cousin, that I’m a moofy-goofy and know how to play. They kinda forgot that they’re crazy about me. That’s okay.

So I see them in July.

I ask Rena (five-years old) what her favorite color is and with utter joy she chirps, “pink!” I ask Chana (three-years old) and she states very matter-of-factly, “orange.” Then Rena asks my favorite color. I say “blue!” And immediately Rena says, “I like blue too!” Chana chimes in, “I like blue too!” And then they are hopping up and down, laughing and chanting, “I like whatever color you like!” and jump on my lap.

(An entire year has gone by and yet we find each other so quickly, so easily. Sigh… If only it was this simple with grown-ups.)

These young ponies like whatever color I like because they want to connect. It’s sooooo not fancy. Or complicated. Or high-tech. This brief moment reminds me of what it’s like to have good scene partners.

Generous and fun scene partners are people who will like whatever color you like. Who will find all kinds of ways to stretch and reach and bend in order to connect. There’s a generosity of spirit that is contagious. Eric—one of my favorite scene partners—is full of whimsy and mischief and also likes whatever color I like, no matter what happens in a scene.

About improv: You travel into the unknown, willing, open, and root around to see what you'll find. It’s a moment-to-moment-experience. People tend to think improv is about being funny. Yet it’s not. It’s truly about listening to your scene partner, finding out what color he or she likes and then chirping, hopping, jumping and squealing about liking that color too. FYI—improv can also be quiet and subtle.

To Reverse or Not to Reverse? That is the Question

My friends R and M have a Saab convertible that is older, funky and can’t really shift into reverse all that well. (Sounds a lot like some folks I know plus a dog or two.)

Last night R and I ran an errand in the Saab and while she was able to back out of the driveway, it was the only time we used the reverse gear.

I don’t usually think about how often I go backwards in a car. Do you?

Our field trip became an exercise in how to accomplish our mission without ever having to back up. It was a fun challenge and I noticed that driving to FedEx and stopping for a little dessert took on a whole new flavor as a result of the ‘reverse restriction.’

Do you remember those games we played as kids that involved passing an orange without using our hands? Or other games that involved special circumstances? Limits were imposed, rules were invented. We had to figure out how to do something in non-habitual ways.

One of my favorite improv exercises is acting out a scene without using your hands. People get very creative. I’ve watched houses being built with elbows, eyebrows, behinds. I’ve watched cooking shows where gourmet chefs whipped up delicious treats with their feet. And I myself have done some of my best imaginary surgery using my nose, mouth and chin.

As improvisers we learn how to incorporate quirky things (like not being able to use the reverse gear) and find ways to make the situation, the scene, the circumstances work.

Tweaking one simple variable in the landscape can create all kinds of challenges and changes. Do you tweak? How do you view the unexpected, the obstacles?

90 degree tilt

Yesterday I heard a woman say that the image she had of her life was of a woman on a cliffside barely hanging on by her fingernails. And that if she tilted the image just 90 degrees, the image became one of a woman lying flat on the rocks. Oh! If this scene had been in a movie or onstage, there would've been swelling background music or avant garde percussion or something to mark my "aha!" moment.

Shifting from desperation to comfort in just 90 degrees. Hmmmm.... Ain't that a metaphoric kick in the pants? Or what if the image stays the same, but you move your head to the side to see it differently? While tilting the image seems easier, sometimes we have to change our own perspective to get a different view.

And speaking of rocks, I went rock climbing on my last day as a 49 year-old. A friend in her early 30s had suggested we go one rainy afternoon when our dogwalking plans changed. My first and immediate response: "Riiiiiiight. Hold that thought." I reminded her that I am from Skokie. We laughed and then went to see a movie.

But it kept chewing at me. Or I kept replaying my knee-jerk responses to the suggestion: No; I'm from Skokie and you know what THAT means; I'm too old: I'm too creaky; I don't do stuff like that; I don't have the right equipment; I'm not that type of girl.

All of my improv training and background has planted a "yes, and" muscle that atrophies if I don't use it on a regular basis. My big, loud NO WAY to the idea of rock climbing set off alarm bells. I didn't want to be someone who said no to something outside my comfort zone, at least not rock climbing. Hanggliding, bungee-jumping, parachuting are all things I'd easily say no to and not blink.

So I called my friend and said yes. Three of us went rock climbing, indoors, at a place where they provide the rocks, gear and instruction. I'd had only a tiny bit of sleep the night before and was oh-so-tempted to cancel. But I thought no, I'm going up and then I'm coming down. Being so tired made we wobbly physically, but also allowed me to be wobbly on the inside as well. There was a big pack of boy scouts also rock climbing that morning and rock music playing in the background. Everyone who worked there looked about 12 years-old.

We learned the basics and then helped each other up and down the walls, shouting out encouragement, shouting out the jargon you're supposed to use for safety. I climbed up to the top of one wall and my friends took a picture. I posed in a very ho-hum kind of way, as if I'm always on top of huge rock wall. I made it halfway up three more walls that day. Every time it was my turn to climb I couldn't resist reciting the punchline to a joke I know: Please--it's like talking to a wall!

Then we returned our gear and went out for lunch. The next day I was sore sore sore. I was also 50. And whenever anyone asked me why I was limping, or moaning, or walking funny, it was the most awesome feeling in the world to say, "I'm so sore because I was ROCK CLIMBING!!!!"

Yaba daba doo.

Nourishment

I saw the show The Lion King recently and knew it would be an unusual and arty show from what I'd read, seen and heard about it. So when the actors entered from the back of the theatre, moving through the aisles in these magical, magnificent costumes and puppet creations, singing to music by a live band, I started crying. Oh my! All of my senses were tingly and my heart was full and I was overwhelmed.

I felt like I was being fed my REAL food.

What is the difference between feeding oneself and nourishing oneself?

Do we feed the body and nourish the soul?

I have been thinking recently a lot about this topic, the differences, how it plays out for each of us. It's nebulous, yet essential.

Several people in my corner of the universe are dealing with major illness, disease, loss. There are personal earthquakes changing the landscapes of our lives every moment. I always wonder how to take care of each other, amidst the challenges, with feeding AND nourishment. And I'm curious what it means for each of us, as we're all pretty different even though we're cut from the same cloth. And so...

Lately I've had the privilege of working with teenagers when I'm here in town. We are working on creative writing via improvisation. I am charmed by the kids BIG TIME. They are sarcastic, tired, hysterical, self-conscious, brilliant, edgy and at first we were all wary of each other. But then we all exhaled and are getting along just fine. Their armor isn't quite intact yet. Working with them feels like nourishment, like I'm being fed something I don't get anywhere else. After class I feel buoyant, delighted, impressed with their quirks and gifts. And that is my real food. Heart food. Soul food.