AA Meetings

I just read Alan Arkin's An Improvised Life.  It threatens to be a biography, but ends up somewhere else.  For a while, Arkin tells us about his early days, and how he developed as an actor, and there's some good stuff there.

He went to the movies as a child and one day pretended he was watching what was going on while hiding in a closet, and it hit him how fake so much of the acting was. It started Arkin on a quest for an honest, realistic style--especially interesting in that he's not the average movie star type who seems to be playing versions of himself, but is well known as a chameleon.

He tried to make it as an actor in New York and somehow found himself as part of a successful folk group.  He eventually quit to go back to acting, but didn't have much success.  Finally, he took a job with the fledgling Second City troupe in Chicago. It was almost as if he were admitting failure, leaving behind the idea of making it in New York or L.A., the only cities that counted.  Years later, during a massive Second City reunion, he had to smile at the accolades, realizing the original group got together because they couldn't do anything else.

He also had a great story about how in their improvisations there used to be a lot of tension because they fought against each other all the time. Finally director Paul Sills got fed up and demanded they start agreeing with each other just to see where it would take them.  They found it an interesting experience, and it did open up new vistas.  But it was never a rule, just something to help them out.  Yet today, it's become the first commandment of improv--always say yes, go along with what your fellow troupe members are doing.

In these early days, Arkin admits he was a bit of a self-righteous, prickly character. (He seems to have gotten over it.) Second City got some notoriety and did a stint in New York.  The original cast members started getting other jobs and Arkin became a Broadway star in Enter Laughing and Luv.  He then had a successful transition to movies, debuting in The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, and soon moving on to Wait Until Dark and The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter.  It seemed he could do anything--drama, comedy, any accent or feel.

He'd go on to do many films, eventually winning an Oscar for Little Miss Sunshine, but it's at this point, however, where the biographical aspect of the book breaks up. He'll discuss some projects, but usually only in passing.  Many he doesn't even bring up.  He does note how he enjoyed--unusual for him--making The In-Laws (with Peter Falk), though this is mostly to note that people come up to him on the street and ask him if he enjoyed himself, as if they want to believe it.  He understands (and so do I)--when something is working, you want to feel a joy in its making.

Much of the book is a meditation on art and celebrity.  He admits he has a strange job--how would you explain to a Martian that you get paid for convincingly pretending to be a human being, when you and everyone else already are a human being.  In his study of acting, he's always tried to delve into what makes something real.

Which is why much of the last third of the book deals with workshops he does with regular folks.  He first tells them not to try to be clever.  Relieved of that burden, he believes that they often discover things about themselves.  He himself seems to have discovered our lives are psychodrama, and everything is improvisation.  Not being much of a fan of improv, and hoping to read a book about Arkin's career, I was surprised to find the discussion of his classes--which sound like they could be self-indulgent--so interesting.

David Mamet has written that theatre is about getting a reaction from an audience.  That the audience teaches you what works.  There's nothing more pointless than believing in the process of rehearsal, unless it's heading to performance.  Arkin seems to believe the opposite--the process counts (though if you want to make a living at it, the performance sure matters).  While I lean more toward the Mamet view, I suppose it depends on what you're after.  Improv as self-analysis can end up being a lot of navel-gazing, but maybe it can lead to something more.  Just don't make me pay to see it.