by Sam Bayer
A while back, I went to an evening consisting of several performers. I don’t really dare say more about it, lest I end up accidently identifying the performers, and the point here is not to humiliate, but educate (now, now, I heard the chortling in the front row, there). I learned something that night, and I don’t often learn something about performance anymore, being the seasoned pro that I am, so I thought I’d share this revelation with you lucky duckies. (Again with the chortling. Don’t make me turn this blog entry around.)
When you get on stage for the first time, you’re going to be genuine – actually, you’re going to be engenuine (ingenue + genuine, get it? Wow, tough room). You don’t know what you don’t know, and you don’t know enough to know that there’s stuff you don’t know – and as a result, the uncrafted, unprepped you spills into the seats. It’s charming and refreshing, the first couple times you do it. And nobody tells you that you’re uncrafted and unprepped, because it’s charming and refreshing and we’re all so darn nice and conflict-avoidant, and you won’t know what we’re talking about, and it’s not clear that you’re interested in the feedback.
But then, you get nervous. Maybe you see yourself on videotape, or overhear someone snickering, or you plan on auditioning for Simon Cowell’s new show “So You Think You Can Sing”. And you start to work on your act. And it all goes to hell. You’re stiff, and broad, and you’re forcing things, and it’s kind of uncomfortable to watch – and still nobody tells you, because we’re all so darn nice and conflict-avoidant, and you think that you’ve fixed it and that you’re killing, just killing, and you might know what we’re talking about, but you’re already certain we’re wrong, and who needs that kind of headache.
Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll reach the end of this tunnel. You’ll flail around until you finally hit on the solution, or you’ll hire a performance coach who’ll take you into a closet and beat you with a rubber hose. It’s like the long, tortuous road to adulthood – you’re in college, you think you’ve grown up, but boy, you’re so wrong, and then, you get to be 30 or 35 or 40 (in my case) and suddenly it hits you, and you say to yourself (insert sound of smacking forehead), “That’s how this life thing is supposed to work”. And as you discover your adult stage self, you’ll return to those moments of genuineness you had when you started out – except now, you know them, you understand them, you can choose them. And still nobody says anything to you, because, well, you already know it and you don’t need the feedback. (See how that works? We never say anything to you. Score one – or perhaps three – for conflict-avoidance.)
But back to our several-person show. As you’re probably guessing, this show featured a variety of performers, flailing-around-in-the-tunnel-wise. Two of the acts were gems – people who understand themselves on stage, understand what’s special and important about their act, understand how to let the moment evolve, how to lead the audience to find the value for themselves. Two others, well, not so much. One of them was at stage one; the act wasn’t polished at all, but the artlessness was charming, in its way. Another one was caught in the hell of stage two.
Now, I don’t really mind watching this process. Some very nice people patted me on the head while I was going through it, and it’s incumbent upon me to pay it forward, so I’ll gladly take my turn in the audience. But it’s not all the same to me. Stage one is charming in its innocence – but It’s stage two that really fascinates me, because stage two is the place where all the truly bad ideas are.
See, having reached stage three myself, I feel like I can recognize a really bad stage idea. I’ve had a number of them myself, and here at the pinnacle of stage three, I can look at them, littered at my feet, and marvel at how I managed to survive them. But even better, I’ve been trained to recognize new ones. For instance, this year, I’ve seen video of a number of my own shows, and I can tell you: I will never be wearing shorts during an actual gig, ever again. The public doesn’t need to see my knees. Shorts were a terrible idea. And, of course, I can also recognize these terrible ideas in others. Which is why I’m so fascinated by stage two: every time I see somebody trapped there, I go home with a couple more things I need to make sure not to do.
No rules are set in stone, of course. I mean, while the public doesn’t need to see my knees, it’s actually worked out relatively well for the lead singer of AC/DC. Similarly, you might think that “never answer your cell phone during your open mike feature” might be a rock-solid absolutism – but I’ve seen Rob Mattson do it, and it was one of the funniest, freshest things I’ve seen in ages (frankly, at this point, several years later, I’m suspecting that he planned it). But when people break these rules, they break them because they’ve – repeat after me, now – reached stage three. Otherwise, you’re just throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks.
There are probably a few of you out there who are suspecting that I’m not actually as enlightened as I claim. Perhaps there’s a higher stage – stage pi, let’s call it – occupied by the true masters, that I haven’t even been given the privilege of glimpsing. Or maybe I’m just a stage two shlub trying to pass. But those are your calls to make. Just remember those three steps: innocence on the bottom; enlightenment on top; and a mess in between.
Sam Bayer is a fantastic and whimsical local MA musician and songwriter. He has also been the keeper of one of the most important open mike lists over the past 15 years at www.sambayer.com.
