Minkgirl Muses

It’s the million dollar question – the one that makes new graduates shiver and sweat – the one that can turn a cocktail party into a Kafka-esque ordeal – what do you do? Most of us work diligently to craft an acceptable spiel or a series of spiels in response to this seemingly innocuous, yet craftily impertinent question. “Well, I’ve been in marketing for quite awhile, but I’m really eager to shift into event planning. I’ve discovered that I’ve really got a knack for…” “Actually, I’m at home right now with our baby and I’m loving it. But after my 3-month maternity leave, I’ll be back full-time with Schnapps, Schneppel & Slivkowitz…” “I’m a free-lance (fill-in the blank), and it’s fantastic. Yeah, the money is shit, but it’s great waking up each morning knowing I’m living my dream…”

Blah, blah, fucking blah, blah (as my husband Lord Limescale would say.) These are the stories we tell, the white lies we design to highlight our good-points - the aspects of our lives that might make others appreciative or even envious - and down-play our weaknesses, inconsistencies, and doubts. Here are some of the sound-bites I’ve used in the past to explain myself and the specific nature of my scrapings and scratchings on this earth:

“I’m a director.”

“I’m a free-lance performing arts teacher.”

“I’m a drama teacher, but I also do arts administration and direct.”

“I’m a theatre director and dramaturg, and I’ve been working for a non-profit play development organization for the past 6 years. I also teach.”

Notice a trend? Over the past ten years, the answers have gotten more and more complicated. It usually required a full five minutes of follow-up explication before I’d get the “oh, I get what you do” nod. And even then, nobody really got it. “What’s a dramaturg?” “What theatres have you worked at?...Oh, I haven’t heard of those.” “How many jobs do you have?” I sometimes used to wish I was a lawyer, or an accountant, or a dentist. Something concrete with a clearly definable job description and an accepted sense of professionalism.

And now, none of these things is even true anymore, at least not in the present-tense sense. I last directed a developmental workshop of a play nearly a year ago. It’s been just over three years since I directed a full-length play. I haven’t taught anyone anything (except how to say “yes, please” and “no, thank-you”) in six months. I’m not producing, managing, facilitating or administrating anything at the moment except one unruly three-year old and one six-room flat. I am, in fact,…a full-time mommy. And while I expect and hope that this condition will be temporary. And while I claim to value the hard work and social contributions of my full-time mommy peers. The truth is. I hate having this as my spiel. I hate telling people that I am not doing anything right now except tending to my home and my family and waiting for inspiration to strike me about what to do next. And I hate that I hate this. What greater purpose is there, really, than taking care of other people. Than making a family. A home.

“We are human beings, not human doings.” My mom used to speak this quote a lot. For awhile I had it up on my bulletin board. And I believe it. I do. But truly, I am addicted to doing. And like any addict worth her salt, I am committed to hanging on to my addiction. I have a history of fiercely resisting any and all attempts by the universe and my own subconscious to slow my ass down. But I finally found the perfect solution to my workaholicism – I ripped myself out of the environment where I had the opportunity to do so much and plunked myself down in a place where it is hard to do much of anything – hard because I don’t know anyone, because my experience and work history are virtually meaningless in British terms, because I have a small child and one tenth of the support network I had back in SF. Some days I feel like an utter fool for having done this – those are the days when I read theatre reviews from SF Gate and feel engorged with envy and regret – “I could have been doing that!” But on good days, on sane days (which are rarer than I’d like them to be), I remember that I came here to reinvent myself and to discover (perhaps for the first time), what it is that I really want to do.

And yesterday, I had a tiny break-through on this score. I went to meet Mr. L, who runs the graduate program at a prestigious drama school in London. He is the first authentic academic contact I have been able to make (through a friend), and he was kind enough to take time out of his very busy schedule to meet with me, a slightly muddled woman with a teeming resume that tells too many stories at once. He was politely friendly in that uniquely English way, and he asked me some very insightful questions about what I am about. When I told him that I am interested in both new plays and devising, he pointed out that these are two very different aspects of the theatrical art-form. Touché! I went on to explain that the playwrights I have enjoyed working with in the past are highly collaborative, and relish engaging with and getting feedback from director/dramaturgs and performers. I told him that while I don’t consider myself a co-author necessarily, on many of the pieces I’ve worked on with playwrights, I’ve been given greater creative latitude than one might expect in a normal director/playwright relationship. I told him that I’m all about collaboration – this is my talent, my passion, and my driving motivation in making theatre – to interact with others – to have a conversation, creatively.

Now, in fact, I wasn’t quite as cogent with Mr. L as I’m being now 24-hours later. In actuality, I blathered on for quite awhile at a high rate of speed trying to find my point. Mr. L looked increasingly concerned and then shortly thereafter excused himself – I think I drove him off with my fast-talking, informal, American ways. But nevermind. It was a first step toward figuring out an authentic answer to the question.

“What do you do?”

“I have conversations with people. I like to be in conversation with other artists and with people in my community about things that matter to us. These conversations are most satisfying to me when they take on a theatrical form.”

Nevermind where or how or when these conversations occur. Nevermind who is watching the conversations from a distance or whether they pay me to have them. The point is the connecting with others and making sense of things. The point is self-expression and self-discovery and intimacy and amazement. The point is being after-all.

Be well.

Labels: Career Anxiety

# posted by Christine Young @ 2:19 PM