outWORD by Matte Downey

Image from theguardian.com September is here and school is about to start for another year. This term I will be working as both a teaching assistant and a research assistant in addition to finishing (fingers crossed) my doctoral dissertation (except for final rewrites). Some people have remarked that going from teaching a course at the university to being a teaching assistant seems like a step backwards. I don't see it that way. Every chance to be in the classroom is an opportunity to participate in another learning experience, a privilege I do not take for granted. Being a TA is a gift, actually: the professor does all the heavy lifting and takes ultimate responsibility for what happens in the course while I get to enjoy theological discussions and reading materials, grade (mostly) interesting assignments, answer questions from students, and exchange theological jokes with my fellow TA during class. No down side! Seriously, though, I have found that being a student and a lif...

Image by Gunnar Wrobel on Flickr The note on my calendar for last Saturday read: 3:30 Montreal Improv. A few months ago I had discovered that a local improvisation group offered free workshops, so I scribbled this note on the calendar to remind myself to check one out. I hoped it would be informative and relevant for my research on theatre practice. At the time it sounded like a fun thing to do on a weekend. However, on Saturday morning when those words glared at me from the calendar, the thought of walking into a room filled with strangers and making things up off the top of my head activated the anxiety tarantulas in my stomach and head. I immediately found a bazillion excuses for not going. And just as promptly decided that I would not be held hostage by fear and anxiety. Dean offered to drive me to the workshop and on the way there, I talked to God about the upcoming nightmare. I was mainly afraid of two things: freezing when it was my time to speak or act and being thrust in...

Image from thegardenparty.co.nz This past week, while I was on a research trip at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, I received news of another suicide. This time it was not a celebrity but someone close to my family. News like this cuts like a sharp knife. Breathing becomes more difficult when that heavy, dark stone has been dropped on your chest. Anger, sadness, despair, hopelessness, regret. These emotions flit through your soul with speed and sting. Without warning, your mind dives into dark thoughts and morbid scenes flash before your eyes. You have no words, no answers, no reasoning, nothing but silence and sighing. I received the shocking news about fifteen minutes before I was scheduled to attend a performance of Medea , a Greek tragedy by Euripides in which a mother exacts revenge on her unfaithful husband by killing their children. I didn't know if I had the fortitude to see tragedy heaped upon tragedy, but it was a unique opportunity to see a worl...

House on the Isle of Iona, Scotland I have been writing a play for the past month.  It is part of my studies that are focused on how we tell our stories.  You'd think that writing a play would be pretty simple.  Come up with two interesting characters.  Put them in a dramatic situation.  Slap down a few pages of dialogue as they work it out.  Reveal a few things about their past that makes the audience go "Ohhhhhhhh" and wrap it up nicely with the protagonist having an epiphany.  Pretty standard stuff.  Not so fast. Characters are living things.  Even fictional ones.  And they resist one's attempts to box them in or predict where they will go.  The main character in my play is an older priest.  I am taking a bit of license with the role, but in general he is a faithful, well-respected, and honest man.  Or so I thought.  Before I had finished the first page he was exhibiting a t...

Watching the waves at Lunan Bay, Scotland.  Each one slightly different. This past week I had to pitch an idea for a play to my fellow writers in a Playwriting class.  It was a bit scary because all of us were putting something out there that was not fully formed, and though we were excited about it, we didn't really know if anyone else would be.  And if no one is interested to see the story or meet the characters...that's a pretty bad sign for a play.  As I was waiting to do my pitch, I got to listen to a lot of other play ideas, most of which were pretty good and some which were quite outstanding, to be honest.  One of them in particular caught my attention: it was a scenario presented by a young guy who had chosen two characters almost exactly like mine and a situation that was very similar to the one that I had typed on a paper and stuffed in my notebook.  I am pretty sure I turned a shade whiter as he de...

The school term has started with a bang.  I am armpit-deep in scripts, playwriting texts, performance theory, and theology basics.  I am taking courses in the theatre department this semester and it is humbling and stimulating at the same time: humbling because I am pretty much the most theatrically-illiterate person in all my classes and stimulating because theatre (which is basically showing instead of telling) is inherently incarnational.  I read Shakespeare's Hamlet yesterday; it is quite a different experience to see a character act out revenge than to read a philosophical, psychological, or theological exposition on the desire for justice through retribution.  When I see something "in the flesh," I seem to comprehend it at a much deeper level and to more complex and nuanced degree.  It gets inside me, to some extent, if I let it.  As Hamlet indicates, a play has the potential to c...

I have been doing some reading on improvisation these past few weeks.  This is in preparation for a presentation I will be giving in Scotland in mid-August on the links between audience participation, improv, and theology.  Pretty fun stuff.  I came across some thought-provoking words in a few articles that seemed to speak directly to spiritual formation and what it looks like to follow Jesus.  But they were all about improv!  Let me share a few of these morsels with you...so you don't have to come all the way to Scotland to hear them. From a book on improvisation techniques: "In improvisation a mistake is simply a gift you weren’t expecting.   If a set piece falls, or a line is forgotten, or an entrance is missed, it’s as if so many gems have fallen in your lap.   Instead of bemoaning the fact that you’re ensconced deeply in the Actor’s Nightmare, you should rejoice that this may be the only moment in your entire career to in...

I was watching the show Celebrity Apprentice last week (artificially created, overly dramatic reality tv, I know, but it has its moments) and on that particular episode the teams had to perform in an improv puppet show (for adults) with members of The Jim Henson Company.  Interesting stuff.  The cameras followed the team through puppet-making, improv lessons, and learning how to be part of a live show.  Of course, the most fascinating part for me was seeing professionals (and amateurs) do improvisational theatre. The rules of improv are pretty simple.  Don't think up a scene ahead of time; instead, be in the moment and react to what is happening.  You don't have to be funny; place the emphasis on creating an interesting scene and a consistent character; funny will follow.  Be specific and avoid open-ended questions which add nothing; vague questions end up putting the burden on your team memb...

The location: automatic carwash at the gas bar The actors: Matte, 2 black gloves, gas bar attendant The setting: dirty CRV, cold winter day, line-up of 5 cars for the carwash Act One: Friday Scene 1: Matte gets in the line to wash the CRV because it is filthy from winter sludge. It will be a 20 minute wait, so she takes off her gloves, pulls out her iphone, and amuses herself. Her turn finally comes, the door to the carwash opens, and she slowly drives forward. She is careful to keep one eye on the ramp the left tire must hit and the other on the lit-up direction board in front of her that will tell her when to stop. She keeps driving...past the washing mechanism and halfway to the exit and still the direction board says GO. What? Something is wrong! She drives forward and back and forward and back and tries to make the direction board say STOP, but everything has shut down. Argh! What to do! Scene 2: Matte sets her iphone down, gets out of the car, runs out the open garage door at t...