Antiquated

"A man's road back to himself is a return from his spiritual exile, for that is what a personal history amounts to--exile.... I seem to have decided that to be busy about one's self-image, to adjust,revise, to tamper with it, was a waste of time."

-- Saul Bellow in The Actual

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After watching all of the HBO series Rome, season one, I have found myself on an old literature kick. I read up on Plutarch and Shakespeare. I checked out a Thucydides volume yesterday, one that comes of course highly recommended, and while I haven't yet gotten to the meaty portions, the servings of war stories and the like, I am fascinated by the way the man takes hold of things. You'd think the beginning of a history about the Peloponnesian War would tackle grand issues (honor, bravery, the rough twine that binds nations together) or detail the military prowess of two opposite heroes, but no--instead, Thucydides begins with a description of the land, and the people, and the kind of migrations and agriculture those people practiced. He begins with something so simple: The people and the land. The way they moved it, shaped it, and invested in it. What a fascinating way to begin, I think.

Also in my retinue of reading material:
- Everyman, by Philip Roth (my third Roth)
- The Actual, by Saul Bellow (my first Bellow)
- Gertrude and Claudius, by John Updike (my first "real" Updike, a book rather than a short story)

And, naturally, I'm still making my way through Actors at Work.

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An interesting thought: An Actor Prepares is the famous Stanislavski book that has become the staple of acting classes in America. I had always assumed that the title meant that the book was about an actor preparing, that it was an image or a concept of what was in the pages. Sort of, "Read this book, and you can watch as an actor prepares."

Maybe that's completely wrong. Maybe it's a statement. In other words, you cannot be an actor without working on it. If you want to be an actor, well then, an actor prepares.

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Did something yesterday that I have not done in months: I read a book in a single sitting. No interruptions, no meals, no bathroom breaks. Now, the book wasn't long (The Breast, by Philip Roth, only reached 90 pages in this edition), but it still felt good. I think it would be good for me to read in longer stretches, maybe with clear goals to finish whole chapters before moving on to the next thing.

Shoot. It would be good for me to take a break from reading only plays, that's for sure. After a while, the plays all fall into categories, and you miss the characters by scanning only for action. You start to read the italicized stage directions, the words between words, instead of the actual dialogue.

I've been reading too much drama lately. Not enough prose, and sure as hell not enough poetry. For excellent recharges, I often turn to Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, edited by Miguel Algarin and Bob Holman. (The Preface in that book is one of my favorite book openings, certainly a top anthology preface. That introduction is right up there with Wilde's opening to Dorian Gray.)

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Met the four new touring actors today. We made a trip to the shop and retrieved the set and some of the props. Nice folks, all, and capable: I happily refrained from doing all the disassembling, loading, and rearranging. I think this is going to be a good group.

And if I have any say in the matter, I think it's going to be a good season, too.