Goodbye to Alan Arkin

 
I was so sad to hear that the great Alan Arkin died
I adored him in so many of his classic early roles
Later he enjoyed an impressive resurgence
Winning a Best Supporting Oscar at 72
And because he spanned generations
And was relatively beloved, as actors go
Lots of folks know of him
But for me it was different, personal
Because he changed my life
Not a film of his but words from the man himself
Altered the course of my life
So when I say I loved him
I say it as person tremendously honored
To have known him a very little
And to have moved by him immensely
This is how it all happened
Years ago, inspired after reading his memoir
An Improvised Life
I felt energized and wanted to do something
Something bigger than what I’d been doing
I signed up for what turned out to be
The first of many interpersonal workshops
I would eventually attend
Weekends of hippie Nor Cal eye gazing vegan dancing
Plus hot tubs
I loved it and took easily to this new world
The work was big and deep and new to me
In terms of spiritual and emotional growth
My doors were blown open
At this retreat, I brought another Alan Arkin book
Halfway Through the Door, obscure, published 1979
On the Sunday morning, I woke up at dawn
Unable to sleep, with no one else up yet
So I read, and when I finished the book
A strange thing happened
Singular in my life so far
Mysteriously the workshop work
And the end of the book combined
In some unprecedented way
I don’t know what happened exactly
But suddenly and without warning
I was looking straight into the abyss
You may have heard of it
I’m talking about THE abyss
The one we avoid all our lives
Because we know we will have to look someday
And we don’t want to
Because it shows whatever we most fear
I wasn’t planning on gazing into it
But it happened anyway, and how!
I won’t go into details because
First, the experience was ineffable
And second, this is about Alan Arkin, whom I am coming to
Anyway this abyss-gazing
(and subsequent breakdown and phoenix-style rising)
Rose directly from Alan’s words being there
To guide me at exactly the right moment
This moment began to alter the course of my life
Not only did I face a fear of many lifetimes
But also the whole experience motivated me
I was seized with a desire to attend
One of Alan’s improv workshops
Which he still taught from time to time
I googled and poked around, found an old article
With his wife Suzanne’s email
I wrote, and she responded very kindly
Adding me to the improv weekend waiting list
And soon after I found myself in Santa Fe
With 19 other people of various backgrounds
Some actors, some not: professionals and dalliers alike
I myself had only a smattering of experience in improv
And none at all in taking direction from Alan Friggin’ Arkin
(Yes, we all played it so cool but still!)
He explained our objective
Yes, we would do scenes
Aiming for authentic moments
(not funny per se but, instead, real)
But his true goal was for each of us
To be able to let go of ourselves
And experience that elusive ecstatic flow state
That mysterious moment of zen during which
You are not acting but rather being acted
You aren’t playing the music; it is playing you
Alan said it much better
We all got the idea
The exercises began
Alan was attentive, focused
Generous in giving fair and honest feedback
Pro acting notes as well as personal emotional reactions
Praise dolled out only if and when you truly earned it
At first I did okay
Then to my horror, I made a goof
During an easy group beach improv
I accidentally picked an activity to mime
That was typical for me but atypical of the general public
And therefore too attention-getting
This earned me a call out
“I don’t think Brad Pitt would like to see
A background actor stealing his scene”
Which was a valid point but I felt so embarrassed
Oh no, did Alan and the class think I was grandstanding?
I honestly had simply lacked perspective and imagination
I felt like explaining myself but recognized that would be
A selfish use of valuable class time
So I swallowed my pride and accepted the feedback
But the incident had knocked me off my game
Escalating feelings began to arise
I did not belong here
I was not good enough
I was not good at all
I struggled along as they spun into a web of doubt
That ensnared me while I wrestled with the homework:
Outline a group scenario to perform on Sunday
Featuring a non-human (a god, animal or superpower)
Easy enough
Except I hit a complete and total blank
Not a single interesting scenario
Or character could I conjure
A late night walk in the craggy motel parking lot
Led to an awkward fall and a badly scrapped knee
I bled and cried in the Willie Nelson-themed room
Feeling pathetic, depressed, creatively useless
Mercifully, the next morning I came up with this:
My improv would be about a dog (played by me)
Who was unrequitedly in love with her human
(A handsome, emotionally unavailable playboy)
As we gathered to start the day
I was still an insecure shrinking wreck
But Alan kindly checked in with each of us
He asked, how did the homework go?
Was I ready to perform my scene?
I explained briefly my creative misery and despair
“It was a long dark night of the soul” I explained
“Oh, good! That’s normal” was his relaxed response
“Saturday night of this workshop is always
A long dark night of the soul
You are right on track”
This activated my courage enough to carry on
I cast my actors, my scene being one of the first up
I set the initial framework, not knowing where it would lead
(That’s the point of improv, after all)
But to my relief, the story turned out
Rather wonderful, sweet without sentimentality
Alan gave extensive feedback after each scene
And mine had been quite touching, he said  
Which was very nice to hear of course
But the real significance of my success was
Everyone else started casting me as their non-human
Which meant I got to play a lot of parts
I was asked to play another dog, part of a pack
And a monkey prosecutor during a jungle trial
And the Incredible Hulk’s talking goat
And though I did not realize it until later
The prior night’s suffering
Had broken me down, cracked me wide open
I had given up, letting go of any idea of being any good
My old ego had been scrapped away like the skin on my knee
Leaving me free to fall into the work with abandon
I was not playing the animals, they were playing me
I said nothing but Alan noticed
“Wow, another great animal from Kar
How can you do them all, and so good?”
He had a lot to say about my goat specifically  
Because that scene had gone very weird
An odd poorly-formed concept to start
Then it went way off the rails
But somehow it hung together
And was also extremely funny
Mostly due to my goat, which had come from
From some unknown place inside me
Easily, naturally, without any thought
But just as Alan was reflecting on this
He interrupted himself:
“Kar, do you know you are bleeding?”
I looked down to see my shin covered in blood
My makeshift paper towel and masking tape bandage
Had disintegrated from all the crawling around on all fours
The wound was worse than before
Though I had not even noticed, nor felt a thing
We took five while a classmate patched me up
After which, naturally, I played yet
Another character on my knees
This time, a worshipper of Baal, talking to Yahweh
(played by a wickedly wise and smart woman)
This scene quickly took a serious turn
She and I followed where it led
We locked into it and went deep
I fell into the moment
Nothing else existed and yet
I could also feel the audience falling into it with us
I was aware and yet not aware of the hushed tension
We had captured the room
We were riding some wave
Words came out of me
They came from me but they did not come from me
I had no conscious knowledge of what to do
But I knew exactly what to do
Right until the end
When I ended prostrate before the angry god
In fact, I had been facing Yahweh the whole time
The audience out of my sight
But the long silence before the applause
Told me all I needed to know
It had been glorious
There were more scenes and then it was over
I had to catch a plane, I was first to leave
During the last break, I said goodbye to Alan
There was a little time, so I quickly told him
Of my experience with the abyss
Thanked him for his writing
For his words that set me
On a fresh and critical direction
He listened like few people ever listen
It’s not easy to react when someone says
“Thank you for changing my life”
(I’ve been on the receiving end, so I know)
But he heard me
He was right there with me
He received my gratitude completely
Then he shifted and reflected on my improv
I had done very good work
“Especially that last scene,” he said
“I was very moved by what you did
It was…it was…”
He was at a loss for words
“It was really something” he finished
He choked up a bit
I heard the catch in his voice
“You really got to something…here”
And he placed his hand on his heart
We didn’t have words, just a mutual gaze
I understood him as he’d understood me
And just like I’d been aware and unaware
While acting in the scene
I was now totally in the moment
With this man who was a simple human being
Sharing with me a perfect moment of love and connection
And I was also aware that this was that same man
I’d been seeing on screens my whole life
One I had admired immensely
He had been one of those actors that
I don’t remember ever seeing for a first time
He was simply always there, like a favorite uncle
But that actor was this man, this very same person
And if I had it in me to move such a great actor
If I had it in me to move such a great soul
Then I must have at least something going on
This gave encouragement to my inner artist
Like nothing else could have
All that shame, doubt, worthlessness
The desire to give up
The feeling that what I had to say wasn’t worth saying
The sense that I was failing my own creative spirit
(Which is my core, my favorite part, my mission)
All that stuff that got in the way of the music playing me
All that began to shift
It did not go away like poof!
But it began to go away
The transformation took time
But it had at least become something
I could look at, and work with
Did my faith in myself as an artist or as a person
(Same thing, really)
Waver after this? Certainly
But it never flagged quite so deeply again
Because when doubts arose
I could remember Alan
Hand on his heart
Catch in his throat
Evidence that it happened at least once
So it was possible, whatever the it is
I might have had a life where it was not possible
But because of Alan, that was definitively gone
One of my personal gods had blessed me
There has been no going back
He is gone now
And I grieve
But I feel a bit of his great spirit stays on in the world
Certainly I shall always remember him
For, these days, I do keep a flame of love for myself
Burning at all times
And Alan’s fingerprints are all over
The match