Another World, A Better World

[Disclaimer: spoilers for the film "Cloud Atlas," The Dark Tower book series, and the television series "Lost."]

I've been very open about my not having a religion, never quite fitting the system of any existing organized beliefs group. My one true and honest belief in this world is that believing something does not make it right or so, but it says everything about who one is as a person. Religion is good when it is used the right way, to cope with the hardships of life and to feel that everything has a purpose. I think that religion's main purpose is to console us from the great mystery at the end of our roads: death. It is the one place we cannot come back from and tell our friends and family about. What is after life?

That is a trailer for one of my favorite films, "Cloud Atlas." I cannot recommend enough that you watch the movie if you haven't, but the trailer sets up what I'm about to say just fine. Throughout the film we are introduced to multiple characters across six different stories. The trick of the film is that the same actors carry over into each others' stories portraying different people. What the film stresses in many of the character cases, though, is that they are the same or similar people each time. Similar traits are exhibited repeatedly by the characters played by Tom Hanks, especially. Whereas the characters of actors Hugo Weaving and Hugh Grant are consistently villainous -- in fact becoming less and less human the farther we go into the future of the timeline -- Tom Hanks's characters show a natural and necessary growth. The first chronological story, "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing," has Hanks as Dr. Henry Goose, a thieving and treacherous doctor who slowly poisons Jim Sturgess's Ewing while feigning treatment on him. Goose is after Ewing's gold, and is seen pilfering items off of Ewing's person throughout the process. When next we see Hanks he is a hotel manager who allows Ben Wishaw's character a room if he gives him his decorated vest in exchange. He is seen admiring the buttons of the vest, just as Goose admired and stole the buttons off of Ewing's vest in the previous story. A later segment shows Hanks as an Irish gangster character whose brief scene involves him murdering a literary critic. The final story has Hanks as Zachry, a native man who is a coward, allowing his brother-in-law to be killed by savages when he could have intervened. We still see the temptations of a thief in Zachry throughout the story, but in the end he finds his courage and saves the life of his niece. For the most part, Hanks's character is on a journey of redemption over the course of the film's timeline, constantly being reborn until he can achieve his full and true purpose in the world. The villainous Henry Goose becomes the heroic Zachry in the end.

What the film describes is a belief that every single person in the world has a purpose, a standard to achieve. It just sometimes takes multiple lifetimes to reach that potential. The television series "Lost" touched upon this subject matter with the character of Jacob, an immortal man who uses his mystical powers to guide people of certain character to his island where they are given the chance to redeem any past sins and achieve their true purpose in life. However, Jacob's experiments are constantly foiled by his brother, The Man in Black, who dedicates himself to proving Jacob wrong and that humanity is doomed and people cannot change.
"They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same," The Man in Black tells his brother.
Jacob calmly replies, "It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress."
Unlike his brother, Jacob always looks for the best in people. He looks at every failure as progress towards the eventual success.

Stephen King writes on the topic of repeated chances over the course of many lifetimes in his massive fantasy series The Dark Tower. At the end of the final novel, after hero Roland's ka-tet (fellowship) have all been killed or sent away, he finally reaches the giant and omnipotent Dark Tower, to which he had been guided towards his entire life. Upon reaching the top, however, and opening the final door, he is suddenly struck with brief deja vu. He realizes too late that he had reached the tower before, hundreds of times or more, and he is transported through the doorway to where he was at the very start of the series: in the middle of a desert following his foe, The Man in Black (not to be confused with the aforementioned character on "Lost"). Roland has no memories of the adventure we read about over the course of seven books, and he picks up exactly where we started with him. This time, however, he has an item he did not have before: the horn of his childhood friend and fellow gunslinger Cuthbert, lost when the latter was slain in battle. The horn here signifies that Roland has made progress in his ultimate quest, but he still has many more lifetimes to repeat until he does it all right. Every failure or poor choice he makes along the way to the Tower curses him to repeat it all again at the end. We as the readers never learn whether Roland is ever free from this terrible cycle, but by giving Roland his late friend's horn King shows us a glimmer of hope that Roland is on his way.

The belief that we repeat ourselves over and over again across distant lifetimes and even universes is about as close to a religious belief that I get. Life is simply too short to get everything done, too brief to really discover who we are and what we are fully capable of. There is only one true ending ahead of us, one that transcends even death, and I believe that we are slowly but surely working towards it. Only when we do will we find peace and satisfaction in life, and eventually, in death too.

"I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there,"
Tyler

One Blaze of Glory

I may or may not have mentioned that I was fortunate enough to perform in a local production of RENT in my home-ish town of Syracuse. I brought it up in passing in my last post but I felt that those few sentences just didn't do it justice. So naturally I'm dedicating an entire post to it so you'll just have to shut up and read. Or don't, if you don't want to. But you should, 'cause I'll hate you otherwise. I've unfriended people from Facebook before and don't think I'll hesitate to do it again. 

So enjoy the read!

Our story begins in January after hearing from two different friends that a theatre company in Syracuse was going to be holding auditions for RENT. Now, I've been a RENT fan since high school and had dreamed of playing the characters Mark or Roger ever since then, so naturally I was excited beyond words. I even purposely didn't tell some of my other actor/singer friends about the auditions to cut down on competition for the roles I wanted. Sorry friends, but welcome to the world of community theatre. So anyways I debate with myself between singing a song from the show or something else. I'd heard the director preferred songs from the show, but I didn't want to chance it. So I decided to sing "Don't Do Sadness" from the musical Spring Awakening as I figured the character of Moritz Stiefel from that show allowed me to showcase my ability to play either the awkward nerdy Mark as well as the intense, hard rocker Roger. 

I go into the audition space, sing my song, grow more nervous when I'm asked to sing it a second time with less body movements, and then the director (Garrett Heater; he's the best) asks me that, if cast, I would prefer the role of Roger or Mark. Talk about a tough question to answer, but I decided that in the end my voice was a better suited for Roger and tell him that. I figured that him asking me that was a good sign, but other than that I had no real notion of how I did. I then left and had the most anxious two weeks of my life as I awaited a call from Garrett about my audition. One day I get a call from a number I don't recognize and, assuming it was him, I let it go to voicemail, not ready to hear potential bad news yet. Later I listen to the voicemail and hear that I'd been chosen to play the role of Roger. Jumping and cheering soon followed.

Months later the cast has its first rehearsal, which was especially nerve-wracking for me as we were scheduled to rehearse two songs that I was heavily featured in. This would be the first time the cast would hear me sing and I was ridiculously nervous. Like, what if I turned out to not be what they had in mind? After convincing myself that I wouldn't be in the cast if they didn't want me there, I walked into rehearsal and just sang. To my delight, they liked me.

It was a grueling rehearsal process for me, having to rush right to the rehearsal space from work every day, usually only half-awake. My voice wasn't always up to the task after a 13 hour shift. Then there was delving right into the romantic scenes with the actress playing Mimi who I barely knew at all at that point that frankly made me kind of uncomfortable (but now we're friends so YAY!!!). Finally I just said "fuck it" to myself and realized I was supposed to be an actor and just began committing to every single scene and action as best as I could. 

                                                   And especially committing to those pants.

Sure the rehearsals and proving my worth as a singer/actor to myself and others was rewarding, but even more than that was the cast I was lucky enough to be a part of. I've never been a part of such a talented and friendly and diverse group of people who gave their all into every little action, the tiniest of moments, and the smallest of facial expressions. Because of an upcoming orgy scene we would be blocking soon, the cast decided to have a bonding session one weekend, the events of which I am sworn to secrecy about. Now I don't know if that was what really brought us all into an unbreakable familial bond, but ever since then we'd been nearly inseparable. Not only among the cast, but our director Garrett and everyone else in the crew as well. It was just the best group of people to work with.

My fellow actors, though, were an inspiration to stand alongside of. All along I wanted to portray a darker, more intense character of Roger than was typically done. Funnily enough, Garrett must have had the same vision as many of my acting notes went along with the character I wanted to play. Roger is a terribly underwritten character and him and I both wanted to bring out the darker, honest side of him. In a great twist of fate, everyone else in the cast wanted to do the same thing with their own character. That was what made this production better than any other I've seen; it was the honesty we all portrayed, which is something that is missing in contemporary musicals, I feel. 

                                               Ladies and gentlemen, we invite you to cry with us.

But yeah, when it came to going to those kinds of places for the sake of acting, things got pretty dark on stage. Garrett told us one rehearsal that if we didn't leave a part of ourselves behind in this show, then we didn't do our job right. So, I feel like we all did our jobs pretty well. I've admittedly never been able to cry onstage for a show, but my tear cherry was successfully popped in this one. All I had to do was look over at my buddy Max (playing Collins) while he sang the heartbreaking "I'll Cover You (Reprise)" and the tear dam was broken.

                                                                Pictured: acting.

Honestly I could write an individual post about every single actor in this production, but that wouldn't be very good writing/editing skills if I went on and on like this. You guys were fan-fucking-tastic! Especially you! Yeah, you!

Finally when it came time to put on the show for an audience, the nerves began coming in. My voice had been iffy that entire week of rehearsals and I wasn't sure how I would do that night. I drank nothing but tea and honey all day, and between every scene I was pouring honey down my throat. It must have done the trick because I felt awesome that night, and the audience loved the show. Only a few days later the entire remainder of the run was sold out. The reviews we got in the paper were extremely positive, calling our show the most emotional production the reviewer had ever seen. I was ecstatic to see that I had gotten a positive mention in one review, especially since I had never been mentioned period in a review before. I was on top of the world.

Roger was the first lead I've ever played in a musical. Well, more of a co-lead with the character of Mark, actually. After multiple auditions hoping to land the lead and getting cast in roles with less and less singing parts I had almost given up on it completely, accepting that my singing voice was just not up to the standards of a musical. There just didn't seem to be a place in Syracuse for a man with a rocker-style singing voice. Getting cast in this role really boosted my confidence in my abilities. I can't help but think that I may never have an opportunity like this role again, at least for a long, long time. That was why the song "One Song Glory" meant so much to me in the show; this role could be my "one blaze of glory." If that be the case, it was a great one. I'll keep on trying, though, because I finally have the confidence now to keep on going. No matter what, though, I know I'll never have an experience like this show in my life again, with this cast and this director and just the atmosphere of the show. So thank you, Garrett, the Covey Theatre Company (named Best Community Theatre in Syracuse, motherfuckers!!!), my cast that is my family now, and Jonathan Larson for writing this show so long ago. 

It's time now to sing out

Though the story never ends

Let's celebrate, remember a year

In the life of friends

And in case you missed the show, in turn setting yourself up for a life full of regret, here is a little video clip from opening night of the song "What You Own," featuring myself and Brett Roden.

It's gonna be a happy new year,

Tyler

P.S. Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson is now playing Wednesday-Saturday nights at 8:00pm at the Redhouse in downtown Syracuse and you should go. I'm in it with two of my fellow RENT alumni and we're all amazing!