Krochet Kids

The Krochet Kids are 3 good looking men... who crochet... for a good cause.
I think I'm in love. You all may be getting some of their hats as gifts.

Poem of the Day

Hanauma Bay, Hawaii. Clement family vacation, 1995

Natural Resources

by. Maura Clement

Spring 2009

  

If Dylan Thomas loved with an Irish heart,

I live with a Hawaiian one.

I suppose Irish hearts are made of

A 7 year-old Maura feeds the fishes at Hanauma.

Green hills, ballads of love and dire famine.

Hawaiian hearts are made of coral

Like the world below the surface

Of the undulating water in Hanauma Bay.

Hawaiian hearts live

And breathe salty tears.

Sharp spikes line my heart

Protecting the vacuoles and ventricles,

The life which lives within me,

Beautiful enough to slice a wayward limb.

 

Careful not to touch the reef,

tourists swim around and assume to know me.

Lindsay Sablan, Jeffrey and I snorkeling in the Bay.

My heart is not one entity,

But a colony of identical individuals.

I am an ecosystem,

Can you say that?

Break off a piece of me to take home

With you to Seattle or Salt Lake.

Show all your friends.

Although you have me,

Because you have me,

I am dead.

I belong to the sea turtle and not to you.

Reflections on a Summer Spent Playing Next to an Old Yellow House

"There is no end, Believe me! 

to the inventions of summer, 

to the happiness your body is willing to bear." 

-Mary Oliver 

The 2011 HVSF Acting Company and Terry O'Brien, Artistic Director

How should I reflect on four of the most crazylovely months of my young life? Gabra Zackman shared this poem by Mary Oliver with us during one of her yoga classes. If there ever was a summer that encapsulated those few phrases, this was it.

I have always been an actor. But now I feel like an actor. I can live happily for months out of two suitcases.

My summer at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival was one of many "firsts" for me: my first professional acting job, my first time living in New York City, my first mention in a major newspaper's review, my first time playing a three breasted woman, my first time performing stand-up comedy and the list goes on... How fun was the three day party during Hurricane Irene? Trips to the waterfall? Six Flags? Running on the Appalachian Trail? The Batman Show? The Margarita Party? Pool parties? Chopper setting off the fire alarm? The Fourth of July? Stand-up night? Laying on the lawn at Boscobel? James Hickey? Matt's surprise party? Nights on the Rock at Graymoor?

MC Hamlet, Matt Amendt, an alum of the UM/Guthrie Program who played the title role this summer at HVSF, shared with us this insight on storytelling and leading a company of actors. He said: "When you are playing Guildenstern, (and I can say this because I have played Guildenstern) your job is to lift up Hamlet's story with as much humility and specificity as you can. When you are playing Hamlet, your job is to make everyone in the company feel like they are doing something special, together." Matt certainly practiced what he preached, for I have never worked with a more gracious, more positive actor... not to mention that his talent and work ethic are both overwhelming.

This summer for me was a summer of lifting up one of the greatest stories ever told (Hamlet) and one of the most absurd (The Comedy of Errors). [I also spent a good amount of time lifting things up, things like letters and cups. That's right, I was the Royal Danish Hander-of-Things-to-the-King.] I found such joy in playing fantastic small parts in these plays. I found joy in the actual storytelling, which I did not always have in school. In my conservatory program, we would be cast in each of the shows "prescriptively." That is, the faculty would choose a part for us and tell us what acting challenges they wanted us to work on in that role. For example, when I was cast as Maria in Twelfth Night during sophomore year, Steve challenged me to work on variety of actions & making bold, impulsive choices. In retrospect, I think this mindset led me to a sort of tunnel vision, where I focused on being the best Maria I could be, rather then collectively trying to tell the story of Twelfth Night in the most engaging and honest way possible. Now acting school is just that... SCHOOL, and those acting challenges must be identified and worked on in a specific way. And indeed, without a doubt, I know that my four years in the BFA Program, whether tunneled or not, prepared me to be able to perform, grow and listen the way I was able to at HVSF this summer.

This summer I discovered a shift in perspective. A shift from "What am I doing?" to "How am I telling the story?" Because I was not speaking, I learned to listen. To listen with ease.

After a summer of lifting up these stories, we, the apprentices, were hungry for the chance to tell our own... and what better story to tell than Romeo and Juliet? I was able to do many of my favorite things in this production of R&J, directed by Ryan Quinn: play a guy, play a complicated mom, roll in the dirt, carry Vaish on my back, sing The Foundations, carry a (really embarassingly small) knife, and get yelled at by Dave Klasko. I really enjoy playing multiple characters in a show because it forces me to have incredible vocal and physical specificity to differentiate them. And boy, did I fall in love with these two people...

I would consider naming my firstborn son Benvolio. We should all be so lucky to have a friend who loves us as much as Benny loves Mercutio and Romeo. He likes dancing and drinking, but can sense that this age of innocence is coming to an end. It's a coming of age story, as much as a love story. This group of childhood friends, of brothers is ruptured forever by one of them falling in love and the consequences that brings. To honestly and simply tell the story of Mercutio's death and Romeo's murdering Tybalt was tragic and heartbreaking and beautiful.

Mercutio (Vaishnavi Sharma) and Benvolio (yours truly) conjuring Romeo

. Photo by Will Marsh

And maybe it's just all the Mad Men I watched this summer, but Lady Capulet has something of a Betty Draper about her, a bird in a cage. She is vain, but not the type of vanity that makes her think she's beautiful. The type that spends all day in the spa because she fears wrinkles and the inevitability of death. She drinks, but only in secret. Her husband hasn't touched her in months, not that she'd know what to do if he did. No one ever listens to her, and even if they do, they don't do what she says. She loves her daughter but doesn't understand how to talk to her. It was a blast to play these paradoxes of vanity and insecurity, love and total resentment, desire and repulsion. I found the key with her (and with Benvolio too) was subtlety... seeing how small I could play a big action, which I don't think I've ever really done before. The smallest tilt of the head or movement of the hand could tell her story fully. (Because if you know me... or you saw me play Arkadina, or Mamma Wahl, or Maria in the BFA... or Lucy in You're a Good Man Charlie Brown at West Cary Middle School... you know I have a flair for the loud and proud...)

Lady Capulet gives advice to her daughter, Juliet (Susanna Stahlmann). Photo by Will Marsh

This summer brought other changes for me personally. After two great years in a serious relationship, I find myself single again. I look forward to meeting new people, but more importantly to finding out more about who I am as an adult woman, an artist and a citizen. My brother Jeffrey went back overseas for his second tour in Afghanistan. I continue to keep him and our other servicemen and women in my prayers, as this year marks 10 years that the US has had troops in Afghanistan, that's longer than our troops were in Vietnam. My kid sister started college at UNC... that means Jen and Dave Clement are free birds! Just in time to lend me a car and take an epic road with me to my new home... CHICAGO.


That's right, the windy city just got windier. Maura is moving to town. I loved New York. I will be back in New York, but for now I want to work and I have a hunch that Chicago is the place for me to get non-Equity work so that I can continue to grow as an artist, without depleting my savings to zilch. But for now, thank you New York. Thank you Terry O'Brien. Thank you Hudson Valley Shakespeare acting company, production staff, company management, house staff, audiences, donors, and everyone in between. A humble thank you.

Review

I got my name mentioned in my first professional review in the Wall Street Journal! Check it out here.

It includes a very excellent complement for our production of Hamlet:

"I've never seen a more attentive "Hamlet" audience—or heard a quieter one."

Poem

A charcoal by Toulouse Lautrec

Sabine 
by Maura Clement

Sabine bathes but does not wash her hair,
red curls carrying the smells of sorrowful music
and the sea, the wooden boats docked at La Rochelle.
She has run out of money and should return home,
but defeat lacks charm and where would she leave the cat?
So when the crippled artist asks her to lay, she lays.
The bed’s been unmade since Pentecost but she’s not religious.
Falling on her back, her eyes close though it is not night,
collapsing under the heat of the stilly, moist day.
Black stockings are all that separate herself from herself
and though she feels his bespectacled eyes watching her,
her hand slides up the torn silk slip trimmed in lace,
which was once her finest garment and now her only one.
She hears him work the charcoal on brown paper
and wonders if he thinks her beautiful,
because he often paints ugly people (or he paints people ugly.)
The bells ring on Montmantre, the artist sketches,
And Sabine takes pleasure in being alone.

When I'm onstage, please talk back to me.

Last night at during a performance of The Comedy of Errors, I experienced the incredible joy of having children in the audience speak back at us, like they were characters in the show (as indeed they are!) These boys were two friends about 9, one black and one white, both dressed like they were colorful cartoon characters complete with striped shirts, red sneakers and backwards baseball caps. They sat in the front row, laughing and elbowing each other.

During the fifth act, Balthazar and the Courtesan (Dave & yours truly) stand on the sidelines of the back of the stage as all the plot highjinks get worked out by the other characters. These two kids talked to us throughout the whole scene. They were totally with the story of the show. For example:

On Antipholus not recognizing his father Egeon: "Oh, that's cold."
On the reveal that the Abbess is actually the twins long lost mother: "That's their mom, right??"
On our collective "OHHH" after said reveal: "You guys just got that??"
On the Courtesan getting her ring back: "You got your ring back! That's great!"
On Antipholus kissing Adriana, the bearded woman: "She's got a beard! Doesn't anyone else notice that!"
On Dave and I shimmying: "Look at that man shaking it!"
On the Riverdance at the end of the play: "I know this! This is Irish dancing!" (they begin to imitate our arm movements)
On the play in general: "I'm about to stand up and tell everyone this doesn't make sense!"

It is the best feeling as a performer to look out into the audience and see people, young and old, with smiles plastered on their faces. Audience members look aglow as they watch Luciana, the mermaid, grow legs after receiving true love's kiss. In times like these, it is no small feat to bring 500 people together to smile, let alone laugh and cheer.

Ephesus, as Kurt Rhoads has created it, is a magical place where everyone is a freak of sorts, so therefore no one is a freak. The Comedy of Errors is a play about finding your other half, your soul's mate. It's an absurd tale about becoming whole again. That's not so silly after all.

 

Photo: Will Marsh

Power of Theater for Change

Let us hope that one day—please, not too far in the future—we’ll be able to convince or force our governments, our leaders, to do the same; to ask their audiences– us–what they should do, so as to make this world a place to live and be happy in—yes, it is possible—rather than just a vast market in which we sell our goods and our souls. Let’s hope. Let’s work for it!

-Games for Actors and Non-Actors, by Augusto Boal