This Entry is Essentially One Big Spoiler of "The Dark Knight"

Consider yourself warned.

Saw it last night, finally. I shared the count-up of days from when it opened that I hadn't seen it on my Facebook status, and was oddly delighted by some of the responses I got to that. Even

Tom Rowan

greeted me after the reading of his play Monday night was over by saying, "So I guess this means you'll be able to see

The Dark Knight

now." (Sadly, I told him, I wouldn't until Wednesday.) It was a happy problem, not being able to immediately see this movie about my favorite character, a result as it mostly was of having too much acting work filling my time. Still, it frustrated, and as I raced last night from rehearsal to my saved seat five blocks away (

old-school Batman t-shirt

flapping in the humid breeze) I felt a wonderful lightening conjoined with my excitement. I would see it. I would have satisfaction.

And hoo-boy, I did. I am a satisfied man, at least for the time being -- when I grow dissatisfied again, I shall see it in Imax. That's not to say it was perfect or anything, but I did think it was a much better movie than its predecessor in terms of adapting aspects of the comicbook (which didn't do such a bad job itself). My primary problems with

Batman Begins

had to do with making the story and character a little

too

real-world based. That may sound absurd when talking about a superhero movie, but I really do think

BB

takes some of the drama out of its lead character by making him and his world so modern, so pragmatic. I had rather the opposite feeling about the moments of ridonkulousness in

The Dark Knight

; they were by-and-large departures from feasibility or overkill that even a huge fanboy such as myself couldn't quite stomach:

  1. My gauntlets shoot razor spires, yo. Erm, yes. You know, they did such a nice job of justifying low-tech uses for the fins on the gloves in the first film, why did they have to do this? It seemed cheap and lame, especially when you consider he's supposed to be good with precision weapons like his little bat-shuriken. Plus: How did those things fire, exactly? The trigger was in his sphincter, or something?
  1. I have a metal-manipulation technology so confusing, even I don't quite know how it works. His entrance includes using some gadget attached to his arm to bend a rifle muzzle into a crazy straw. This would seem to have limited uses, so they make sure we know it can also cut into and grip a van's metal shell. Way to go, Q...er...I mean, Lucius. Was that developed to help the military with creating inspirational metal sculptures? Batman is much more the type, as he does later in the film, to disassemble the gun; and if you need extra cool he could do it whilst it's still in the perp's hands. As for adhering to the side of an escape van, see above note about previously established uses for the gauntlet fins.
  1. I am recent American geopolitical policy personified. That may well be, Batman, but must you beat us about the head and shoulders with it? Er. Come to think of it, that's pretty in keeping with this philosophy. My mistake. Pray, continue.
  1. My cars don't break--they transform into motorcycles. This...was actually really cool. So I'm willing to suspend judgment on feasibility. They did it in such a way that I thought just prior to it, "Dang; how does he get out of that tank if it tanks?" And I'm not a big fan of the whole batcycle idea, even in the comics. But they made it look and work really really cool. So, like I said, I'm willing to forgive. Until I found out they named it the batPod. You think it's hampered by any DRM issues? And finally, the big one:
  1. I can haz Bat Sonar thru lil phones n' ther ownerz! No. No, you can't. Stop being frickin' stupid, LOLbatz. I really don't understand what this was doing in my movie (oh all right: OUR movie). Appeal to the video-gamers? They liked that effect in Daredevil? Say something about the omniscience of . . .. Nope; just don't get it. They could have brought up the same issues and character development if he had simply tapped all the phones, or maybe strung together their GPS functions in some wild way. I reject the bat sonar completely.

But enough of all that. This movie, in an unbelievable number of ways, was the Batman movie I've been waiting for all my life. It stands on its own, doing its own things with the character arcs, but doing them well and in a way that doesn't betray the spirit of the original. I almost don't know where to begin in my praise for this film, until I remember that it features the Joker and gives birth to Two-Face, arguably two of the best in a really impressive menagerie of rogues. And they do it so well, so new. They seemed to be decidedly eschewing the tormented childhood angle on both, which was great not only for keeping Gotham from becoming a reformed nursery, but also for keeping the origins of the characters in the action of the film. Harvey Dent is a true tragic figure. We can see his flaw from almost the start, and we watch as he changes over the course of two-and-a-half hours. Development! What a concept in a superhero movie!

And then the Joker. Much well-deserved, post-humus praise has gone Heath Ledger's way for this performance, and I speak as a humble -- not to mention humbled -- actor when I say it is entirely deserved. Between the writing and his craft an indelible character has come to life, one that is incredible to watch in action. I read a lot about how the filmmakers chose to avoid his history, to make him more a character defined by his actions than his history, and I thought, "Eh, well, sounds pretty shallow." And it might have been, had it not been for Ledger. I was amazed by the effect, too, of the screenwriting for him. They have him explain his face one horrible way to one person, then a completely different horrible way to another, then he starts on a third to Batman at the climax of the movie, and Batman never lets him finish. Not only does this make Joker a force in his own chaotic right, it makes Batman win on a direct philosophical level. The Joker never gets to the punchline, the Joker never finishes the joke . . . his comic three is interrupted!

Which leads me to another thing I really, really loved about this movie. Remember when you watched The Matrix for the first time, and you couldn't be sure of what to expect, and accompanying all this big-budget bad-ass-ness were some really interesting ideas about the nature of reality and approaches to that? (I could be speaking only for myself here, but I doubt it.) The Dark Knight is the first movie since then to really engage that kind of philosophical wonderment in me while maintaining the same high stakes and power fantasy. As I wrote last week in my pining for this movie, my ideal Batman struggle is with a villain who somehow stands in opposition not only to his politics, but to his philosophy. That idea was taken well in hand and run with. The Joker was an unrepentant anarchist with an argument about the nature of life that he made seem easy to make, and Batman had to really struggle to contend with it. The good resolution of that came through a seemingly miraculous coincidence of human benevolence, reminiscent of a Spider-Man fight sequence (Humanity is essentially good, and we'll prove it!), but Joker gets in his dangling dig, too. "It only takes one small push to send you over the edge."

Which brings us back to Harvey "Two-Face" Dent.

All-in-all, we've got a pretty well-adjusted Batman in these movies. He found peace in the mountains (studying the art of despotism), purpose that overwhelms his trauma -- we are not subjected to a movie full of flashbacks to that fateful night. This is the closest to Frank Miller's Dark Knight we've gotten in films; the vigilantism is his fix against the trauma, and when he's doing it, he's strong. One thing I loved about what Miller did in that graphic novel was to emphasize Batman's belief in Harvey's reformation and, ultimately, his fear over the recognition that Two-Face is Batman gone bad. Whereas the Joker is Batman's polar opposite, essentially, take the judgment away from Batman, and you've got Two-Face: a dual-identity obsessive who metes out justice by his own authority. Even in completely restructuring Two-Face's origin story (moreover, perhaps as a direct result of that) the writers set that up beautifully. Hopefully in the next installment they will continue to adhere to that motivation for him, and not turn him into a petty thief of some sort, obsessed with the number 2. It's the duality that's important, not the digit itself.

Just what can we expect from the third movie in this franchise? Will Harvey be back? Will Joker? Was Lucius Fox written out, or did his little name-cued destruction of the "bat sonar" redeem Wayne in his eyes? Well, I'd guess, but had I guessed at The Dark Knight's content I would have been sorely mistaken. One can hope, though. I hope they continue to learn from audience feedback, as they seemed to for this film. I hope we get to see the revamped Wayne Manor, and with it the completed "batcave." I hope they leave the Joker alone at least one movie, though that they keep him in the background: a joker card appearing here and there. I love that we leave Batman an outlaw once again, and hope they don't turn that around too early. Most of all, I hope they make a totally new and inventive movie that takes its characters seriously. As they've just succeeded in doing.

(Also: Take the batPod; leave the gun gauntlets.)

Update, 7/25/08: The WSJ agrees with my assessment of the politics of Batman: What Bush and Batman Have in Common. Thanks, Nat.

Up in Smoke

Last night I acted in a staged reading of one of

Tom Rowan

's plays,

Burning Leaves

. Foist of all: I have a lot of audience members from the night to be grateful for. It must have seemed like I was packing the house, which would be easy to do--it was easily the smallest "theatre" space I have ever worked in. It was akin to a return to the womb, and the play is not, as yet, a short one, so I owe big thanks to Friends

Geoff

,

Natalia

,

Kate C.

,

Sister Virginia

and

Fiancee Megan

. Way to go, guys. Way. To. Go.

Not that the experience was in any way bad. The script is, in fact, excellent. My friends were very engaged by the story and the performances, and only had critique for the run time -- a quite forgivable fault in my opinion when it comes to an initial reading. This was evidently a reading aimed at giving Tom some perspective on his work in action; the crowd seemed intimate and friendly, and he has already got a literary agent representing him (she was in the front row, and what I wouldn't give to know her response). I felt fairly good about my work, though I had a bit of that familiar sensation wherein I think to myself, "Damn--that went so much better in rehearsal..." It's hard to get away from that, particularly in a performance that has such a brief and concentrated rehearsal period. I just try to remind myself that some things go worse, but others go better, and I just have to stay open to the possibility each time of having the most true and effective performance yet.

I had several reasons to meditate on the various distractions that can enter an actor's concentration during his or her work, even while the reading went along. Not that I wasn't kept busy: I think there were maybe ten pages out of over a hundred on which my character didn't have substantial dialogue. The distractions, though seemed to begin to gang up on me even prior to entering that (very small) room. I had dressed casually nice for the event, and was careful to keep myself that way through my work day, but at my hasty dinner I spilled grease on my pants. The chairs we sat in for the reading had arms (rehearsal did not), which felt limiting and inappropriate, somehow. And my friends, God bless them, all sat in one corner and were not shy about being themselves. Add to that the audience just being very visible and very close in general, and you have yourself many interesting choices for being taken out of character. Fortunately for me, the script is very effective, to the point at which I almost didn't need to manifest the emotions involved. They were just there, ready.

In some ways, being an actor can boil down to an exercise in determination and concentration. The funny thing is, we have to remain supple and open at the same time, to allow impulses in and unpredictable forces to affect us. My character in this reading, a former NYC actor who moves to a more suburban environment to teach, recalls a director he worked for telling him acting should be a "stripping away of layers" to his soul. Apart from this immediately reminding me of the onion scene from

Peer Gynt

, it also reminds me of how the actual craft of acting, at its best, seems to work. Never mind souls and Truth, and all. A really successful acting experience is all about shedding, rather than accumulating, layers of analysis and lines and decision and fear and, hell, everything. Even the concentration so necessary for doing an effective job has to eventually become unnecessary. We're aiming for an emptiness, a nothingness, of sorts, to become cyphers for . . . what? Maybe it is Truth (by which I mean something more than simple verisimilitude), or maybe it's some kind of human energy, continuous and interdependent. I can't say. All I can say is that my best memories of jobs well done are suspiciously blank. They're mostly just a

knowing

of having hit the sweet spot, and the collective details are as impossible to touch as a leaf turned to ashes on the wind.

This reading was no such sweet spot on my part, though it went well enough. It was, however, one of those experiences that reminds me that this work is worth the struggle, the concentration, all of it. Sometimes, it seems like a very good trade-off indeed.

For the Benefit of "ETC"

Last Saturday I made one of my most brief sojourns to Scranton ever, and also one of my busiest, to perform as a part of the Electric Theatre Company's (nee The Northeast Theatre) midsummer benefit,

Sparks & Feathers

. Although everything I was scheduled to do there is fairly old hat to me, I was anxious about this volunteer work. The theatre has had some extremely well-intentioned benefits in the past that were just disastrous affairs, owing to an almost complete lack of interest (and/or possibly awareness, though they advertise the hell from these things) on the part of their community. It could have gone either way -- on the one hand, the event coincided with their change in identity and received a broad press coverage; and on the other, tickets were $50 a head, which seems like a lot for a buffet-style party even in places where the cost of living is higher. The mayor was scheduled to finally appear, famous as he is for not attending their theatre, but even that was uncertain. There is little more excruciating than performing energetically in the context of a big bash, when only a handful of people show.

Fortunately, the affair was quite well-attended and, perhaps more importantly, everyone there was excited to be there. I have to hand it to the newly formed ETC: They really dolled the place up right nice. The theatre is essentially set up in three areas of a former hotel (about two-thirds of a floor), and when they initially moved in in 2005, TNT/ETC worked pretty hard to refurbish it closer to its original state, peeling away layers of bad decorating decisions through the years. They even framed a rectangle of wall in the lobby that was left un-re-painted to demonstrate the layers of experience the place had had. In keeping with that ethos, a lot of what they've done since has been in honor of the hotel's former glory. This is all well and good and all, but in their traditionalism they had a convenient excuse not to claim something for themselves, to not make something new and wholly theirs (budget, of course, being another handy excuse). What they did for the benefit was hardly reconstructive, but it went a long way to making the space both special for a night, and more thoroughly theirs. Building details were painted in their new three-color scheme, an inexpensive but effective homemade electric chandelier of sorts was hung in the lobby, and the rest was decked out in balloons, show photographs and posters, and old scenery flats. It was a pretty impressive transformation, if you ask me.

As to the work I contributed, it was mostly pretty fun, and my expectations were either met or exceeded. I usually get a little nervous about improvising a speaking character for a busking gig, though I usually do all right with it, and I knew that the characters we'd be walk-about-ing were not the sort that adhered to my particular

busking ethos

.

Richard Grunn

,

Elizabeth Feller

and I were to play the Marx Brothers -- Groucho, Harpo and Chico, respectively (though not respectably). The Marx Brothers, for those of you not in the know (and shame on those of you; you'll catch your death of cold out there) are one of the most anarchic comic groups in recent memories. They exist to stir up trouble, and rare is the cocktail party I've been to at which people were eager to get their horsefeathers ruffled in that way. Fortunately, we had a "backstage" (never mind the quotes--it was literally backstage) to retire periodically to, and Rich had some plans for gags. Some people were still terrified or, worse, disdainful, but by-and-large people were there for a good time and wanted to be included. The Marx Brothers are a great excuse for punning, which is a rare joy for me. Which is, it goes without saying, probably for the best.

Thereafter, I had but a short break in which to change and warm up before performing acrobalance with

Friend Heather

to the live accompaniment of

Cuban Tres

, a wonderful young trio of musicians we had the pleasure of meeting last season. Improvising a sequence of acrobalance moves to live music is really just a joy. I think I appreciate it especially because most of the time I'm either aiming to perfect a move I haven't yet or trying to incorporate it into a story when I'm working on acrobalance, and when it's set to music before an audience I can just enjoy it and loosen it all up a bit. This, too, had its own worries, of course. Heather and I don't get together nearly enough, even when we did live in the same city, to practice to the extent a straight-up acro-adagio deserves. The week before we practiced a bit when I was down for our NEIU (no, the other one) certification, but that's like combining a first rehearsal and the dress rehearsal in one day a week before opening. At that session, I had the idea for us to be domino-esque characters, in keeping with the black-and-white theme of the affair, and so Heather dressed in black clothes with a white half-mask, I in white with black. And we didn't drop each other even once, and we were well-received, and Heather and I may even regain muscle control in a few weeks. So it was really really good!

After my obligations were fulfilled, I got to join the party as a formal participant with

Fiancee Megan

, and so the evening ended with rewards similar to those enjoyed by the rest of the attendees. As usual, I immediately wished I were in better practice with my acro, and wondered at when I would return to the theatre. The mayor had donated a very large, free-standing projection screen to them, and the main stage was set up as a kind of ballroom, with couches at the perimeter, a DJ and a DVD projector running silent films on the screen for a backdrop. People had finally reached that critical blood-alcohol level that allows them to dance with some abandon. I relaxed, however briefly, and dreamed of uses for the screen in shows, and for a moment I had done a job well and had nothing to do but sit back and enjoy my company and the world around me.

Murderous Clowns

In honor of MY NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE

THE DARK KNIGHT

FOR DAYS AND DAYS

, I thought I'd finally get around to writing the sequel (heh heh) to

this little gem

of an entry. I wasn't sure if I'd ever write about this. It's a difficult entry to justify in the ethos of the Aviary (because I've been

so

dedicated to my mission statement to date) except perhaps to say that: 1 - my doing clown work makes for a very real interest in the sociological implications of any clown identity; B - my early cultural influences have untold ramifications on what I choose to create today; and * - it's

BATMAN

weekend, people! And I've got to be a part of it!

Really though, it's Joker week. That's the big excitement over the movie and, I'd wager, would be even if it were not for Heath's untimely exit from the stage. The Joker is almost as iconic a character as Batman himself, and certainly as graphic and emblematic a villain as has ever risen from popular media. He may even indicate that a pervasive fear of clowns has been around a lot longer than some of the current media we have to propagate it. Before

The Dark Knight

, or

Batman

, or

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

, or

It

, or

John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

, or the original appearance of the Joker in Batman #1. Maybe it's always been around, pre-

Punch

. Maybe the fear was first, and the laughter second. That's certainly in keeping with my general theory of humor. [Laughter = self awareness * inevitability, squared.] And for those of you who consider the Joker a relatively trivial source of terror, consider this, too: In his first dozen appearances in the comics, he averaged about three murders per issue.

In my deep, unending and intricate research into

coulrophobia

(sp?) I have discovered some amazing things. Unfortunately, I can not share these things with you, because they are far too intricate, deep and, uh, unending, to . . .. Okay. I haven't exactly been to the library yet. But I've spoken with people about it, and I'm amazed by how few people know who John Wayne Gacy, Jr., was. (He was executed in 1994; one less clown to deal with, coulrophobes.) I thought he was sort of a household name, right up there with Dahmer and Manson, but I only spoke to one or two people who even had an inkling of who he was. Well, he was a seemingly pedophilic mass-murderer with a penchant for imprisonment and grisly dismemberment, who apparently can't even properly be classified as a psychopath. He also enjoyed moonlighting as a birthday clown. Pogo the clown.

So it's difficult to discount coulrophobia as absurd or irrelevant. It could even be a pretty basic survival instinct, as some have suggested. Some of the most ancient human rites involve masks and grinning figures that don't necessarily mean us well. The Joker's white face may as well be the clay pasted to an aboriginal witch-doctor, or the bleached skull an African shaman paints on his face. And death is absurd, too. Well, it seems absurd to the living, anyway. Living is to some extent based on ignoring the fact that we're going to die. This is such a prevalent philosophy that those who embrace death, or even simply associate themselves with it, are seen as somehow mystic or insane. The skull of a deceased comedian grins back at Hamlet's philosophizing, and when anyone grins, they expose the teeth -- the only "bones" directly visible on a living human body.

The Joker makes a great villain for Batman, and the two sum up a very basic human struggle pretty succinctly, so I have to forgive this perpetuation of the coulrophobic phenomenon. Batman is serious, and the events of his life have meaning -- he's a believer. Hell: His whole "superpower" is a character trait, that of determination. And Joker, well, he stands in absolute contrast to that. My favorite characterizations of him never allow him a moment to regret even his own failure. For him, it is all absurd, all pointless. He's not appetite-driven or suppressed, like Gacy, nor a traumatized child who is endlessly acting out his worst fantasies and fears. The story has no significance to the conclusion because, at the end, all our stories end the exact, same, way. If only he could convince Batman of that, maybe then he'd be able to rest. If only the Yorick had survived into Hamlet's story, maybe he could have made everyone see the folly of their ways.

So how do you tell the difference between the jester, who just wants to make fools of us all, and the joker, who wants to make us all corpses? Well, sadly, you can't. That's part of the dread of comedy, and the thrill of death. You just have to take your chances.