A Thousand Falsehoods (Part 1)
In order to know the truth, it is necessary to imagine a thousand falsehoods.
I read that quote by the theoretical physicist Sidney Coleman, and immediately signed up for an acting class in the city. I too wanted to know the truth.
The acting class was held every Wednesday night in an old Japanese theater.
The class was run by an older man named J. Everyone, J told us that first night, had to be on time. He wouldn’t be as strict as his old acting teacher in Los Angeles, who kicked out anyone who didn’t show up on time. If they were serious about acting, she’d said, they would make sure they weren't late.
I won't kick you out, but please try to be on time, said J. It disrupts the class if you walk in late.
Someone walked in late exactly at that moment. We all turned, aghast, but the man was so young and apologetic and carrying camera equipment, that we forgave him immediately. We were, if anything, a forgiving class.
I’ve decided to protect as many of the people in the class as I can by both anonymizing them and altering their essential characteristics. So when I say A was a young quiet woman who never did a scene, but always participated in the warm-up exercises, please know that I am lying. And that this honesty holds all the way to Z.
B was the young man with the camera equipment, who was, truth be told, a far better director than actor (one respected him all the more for this, to be part of an acting class if only to better understand actors). C was a young woman who lived with her parents in Santa Rosa and drove in every Wednesday evening. I had a strong sense she was expanding her life, and this was the best part of her week (I sympathized with her, as I had once done something similar). D was a dog with serious aspirations of becoming the next Air Bud. E was a recently divorced man with curly gray hair and a severely weathered face who sobbed on stage that first evening. F was a brilliant Italian woman raising two little boys alone who said she wasn’t sure how long she was going to do this, but she’d always enjoyed theater, and wanted a space to explore her creativity. G was an older balding man who had already been typecast by the acting teacher into playing an older balding man in every scene. We all admired the acting teacher for preparing the older balding man for the realities of a future acting career. H was the best actor in the class; she had range, depth, was utterly fearless, and seemed without ego or any of the nastiness inherent to the more competitive artistic professions. Over eight weeks I never spoke a word to her, and was in constant terror at the thought of having to share a scene with her. I was a foul-mouthed chain-smoking middle-aged lady of brobdingnagian proportions who participated via Zoom and appeared in person once every other month. J was the teacher. K was my wife, who did theater in high school, and was more naturally charismatic than everyone in the class, though she herself couldn’t see that, given the stress of performing a scene or doing one of J’s acting exercises. When I say my name is Elemeno P I hope you understand I am just trying to complete a set. Q was our friend, a brilliant actor, almost as good as H, though he considered himself superior. As much as she was no ego, he was all ego. R, S, and T were interchangeable young men, all piss and vinegar, all highly competitive. U was another phenomenal actor, but he was moving to New York City the next week and so I only saw him once. But I’ll never forget that warm-up exercise where J asked him to ‘do’ Magic Mike. V was one of those pricks that apparently show up in acting classes looking for actors for their project. W was a quiet diminutive man who came alive onstage in a ferocious, primal way; it was always glorious to see his transformation from a ‘meek’ persona into a presence. X, Y, and Z were three interchangeable young women. I think of them now as extras.
The class was two and a half hours long. There was a well-lit stage and tiered bleachers. J always sat in the front row. He had a list of acting warm-up exercises. The goal was to get people out of their shell, to get them to act authentically and without artificiality. The idea was that acting shouldn’t look like acting. He’d call out a person’s name and they’d stand alone onstage, in the bright lights, facing us. Then J would give them an exercise. He had about twenty of them, though it wasn’t clear that first class. And while it was our (K, Q, and my) first class it wasn’t for most of the people there. Some had been doing it for a year. That first day, the first person he called was A. She stood there alone, a small young woman, just under five feet tall.
I want you to imagine you’ve just lost someone dear to you, said J. A family member.
A nodded.
Go, he said.
A started wailing. This went on for about ten seconds. I could tell she was getting bored. So she started cursing.
No words, said J.
She took this in, was silent a moment, then switched to sobbing heavily. You could see her chest heaving, her shoulders shrugging. She covered her face with her hands.
Good, good, said J. Now imagine you’re at the funeral.
She collapsed onto the floor, her sobbing softened into weeping, you could see tears running down her cheeks. My heart was beating rapidly.
Now the funeral is over, said J, and it’s just you and the casket.
A jumped to her feet and leaned over an imaginary casket and began cooing and petting the air, then started sobbing, then wailed again, then started beating the air, and when that didn’t produce the effect she wanted, she got onto her hands and knees and pounded the stage floor. Finally she sat back and screamed and brought her hands to her head. I felt she was about to tear out her hair.
Stop, J said.
She stopped. She was breathing rapidly, eyes a bit red, but otherwise her face was impassive. As if she hadn’t just spent the last two minutes bawling her eyes out and cursing and pounding on the floor. She stood up.
Excellent, he said. You can go back to your seat.
He looked back down at his sheet and said U.
U, the guy who I would later learn was leaving for New York City, jogged to the stage. He was a tall well-built man in a white T-shirt and black sweat pants.
I want you to do, hmm. How about Magic Mike?
U looked confused.
Male stripper, someone shouted.
Ah, he said, and nodded. You could see him thinking. I’ll need music, he said.
There was a speaker near the stage and Pony by Ginuwine began playing.
U started dancing, doing his version of a sexy male stripper dance. Next to me K was shouting and hooting. Take it off, someone screamed.
The teacher had eighteen more exercises like that. He gave one to nearly every person in the class. Talk as fast as you can for a minute straight (while he urged you to go faster, faster, faster). Say only one thing every ten seconds. Or pretend you’re doing a stand-up comedy set. Pretend you’re a pastor and get us excited about God. Yell I am Superman as loud as you can while raising your arms above your head. To the diffident men, he’d say yell. To the loud men, he’d urge silence. To the alexithymic or emotionally constipated men, he’d have them talk about their feelings.
That's how I saw E, the recently divorced man, stand in front of 20 people and say one feeling every ten seconds for two minutes. I feel angry, he said. Ten seconds. I feel sad. Ten more seconds. I feel angry that you can see my sadness. Ten seconds again. I hate (and he said it with real hatred) that you can see my sadness. I want—
Stick to feelings, said J. I feel—
I feel frustrated, E sighed. He waited ten more seconds. You could see him staring straight ahead. At first I'd found it unnerving to see someone reveal themselves like that, but now I couldn't look away.
I feel so angry and sad, he said. And you could see his anger and his sadness. It, or perhaps the divorce, had warped his face and destroyed his life.
I feel so angry and sad, he said, and I hate feeling this way.
E stared out at us. We returned the stare. This broken and honest man. The seconds ticked by. K was holding my hand.
Do you feel better sharing your anger? said J.
I do, he said in a quiet, tight voice.
That first day, all that was asked of the three of us (K, Elemeno P, and Q) was to step onstage and talk about ourselves for two minutes.
I went last.
(End of Part 1)