the Way of the Showman
Philosophical and esoteric perspectives from a modern day Showman.
Each season is different in its approach. S1 is essays. S2 is one book length attempt at Understanding Showmanship, S3 is conversations with remarkable Showfolk. The brand new Season 4 explores the relationship between Showmanship and Play.
The host, Captain Frodo, internationally renowned circus performer, director, writer, husband and dad lays out, in great detail, his practical performance philosophy for performers who seek to deepen the conversation with their audiences and themselves. You can find him, and more of his writing at: www.thewayoftheshowman.com
the Way of the Showman
123 - Innovative Expressions Through Play and Imagination with Jay Gilligan (unpacking PLAY episode 109)
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What happens when showmanship meets the genius of performance art? Join Captain Frodo and special guest Jay Gilligan as they unravel the captivating world of Cirque du Soleil's Mad Apple. We dive into the vibrant chaos of Las Vegas productions, shedding light on the exhilarating, yet precarious nature of combining comedy, music, and mayhem into a single narrative. Discover how these artistic elements can resonate with audiences, as we also explore the significance of venturing into new genres like country music.
Ever wondered if true artistic genius involves self-destruction? Together, we challenge the cliché of the suffering artist by examining the lives of iconic figures like Kurt Cobain. Our discussion proposes a fresh perspective on genius, suggesting that sustaining creativity might be the real art. This episode questions the cultural expectations placed on artists and highlights the importance of a balanced approach to creativity—one where potential doesn't overshadow sustainable reality.
From juggling acts imagined mid-flight to redefining what it means to perform, creativity takes center stage. We delve into the transformative power of play and imagination, revealing how breaking conventions can lead to innovative expressions of identity. Through personal stories, we showcase the journey from concept to execution, emphasizing the power of persistence and adaptability. Celebrate the endless possibilities of artistic creation and embrace the journey of trusting the process with us.
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Greetings fellow travelers and welcome to the way of the showman, where we view the world through the lens of showmanship. I am Captain Frodo and I will be your host and your guide along the way. And viewing the world through the lens of showmanship, it just means taking showmanship and performance totally serious, and this is the only thing that I really know well in my life how to perform. It's what I've been doing for my whole life and I'm using this concept that by knowing one thing, you can then recognize stuff that you actually know, that you know work, that you know work and has positive impact on your life and on your work and on who you are, and taking this one idea that I understand well and applying it to everything else. So today, because I am recording this in a crack of my time when I am in a small town still, and I will be for all of December in these episodes, so also for this episode here, that is an interim episode.
Captain Frodo:It is an extra bonus added because it's almost christmas and it turns out the next episode the regularly scheduled episode will be out on christmas eve, which is the day that you open the presents here in norway. I hope a lot of you tune in and if you haven't done already, please click subscribe. It's my what I really want for Christmas. All I want from Christmas is your subscription. It's free. You just click. The episode comes down for free in your podcast inbox. Why don't do that as a special Christmas bonus present for me? It would be awesome. Anyway, I'm going to keep this as brief as I can because I am aware that the microphone that I'm using here because I didn't bring my normal microphone. Please enjoy my conversation with Jay Gilligan where we explore the possible and the actual, some of the ideas that Jay have picked out as seeds for conversation from our showmanship and play episode exploration, which was in episode 109. I hope you enjoy this added bonus extra hey man, how's it going?
Captain Frodo:I haven't talked to you in a while, man.
Jay Gilligan:Yeah, it's been ages. I am doing really good.
Captain Frodo:Last time I got to talk to you, you were going to hang up that Mad Apple poster. Did you ever get around to doing that?
Jay Gilligan:Yes, I did. Yeah, it looks great I see it there behind you.
Captain Frodo:It's got all the signatures on it of all the cast members.
Jay Gilligan:Yeah, that's right. I mean it was a big deal to be in Mad Apple. I was so excited to work with Cirque and it was, you know, never thought that it would. It wasn't even on my radar, I didn't think it would be possible and all of a sudden I was there and I am going back twice.
Captain Frodo:What was crazy is, of course, I got to come see you there and in all honesty, I don't know what better act they could have gotten for the show Mad Apple. When they thought of the show Mad Apple, I think you know, but seriously like, I think somehow your tennis racket act like is the cross section of everything they wanted the show to ever be. I guess, I don't know, it just was. It was just really perfect, I thought.
Jay Gilligan:I did feel that and it was one of the comments that I got, both from fellow artists and from management, and also from from techs as well, that I was hanging out with that the act fitted the show really well. Yeah, like it's it's tagline, it's not your usual Cirque show and, yeah, this is like cirque comedy, music, mayhem and exactly and I am offering mayhem and I'm exactly, it's like it fitted.
Jay Gilligan:All those kind of things is a little bit crazy and but uh so. So I was really happy at how well it went and and this is another.
Captain Frodo:I mean this is a whole other episode. At some point, but like now, the Cirque du Soleil show Songblazers just closed after four months, less than 100 performances, and of course the show Run closed before the pandemic, also around three or four months. I think you know long. And so the fact that Mad Apple and again we don't we don't even have to get into the idea of the show or the concept of the title or the quality of the show, we're just talking about the market now so the fact that you know Mad Apple opened and that it's still running and still selling tickets and you're going to go back, I mean that's also kind of a minor miracle, like in light of the other offerings, offerings just to say that's like that's also amazing. I don't know it.
Jay Gilligan:It is amazing, it really is. I mean, things got turbulent in vegas as well. I mean I ended up in norway and the pandemic is still playing out, and I mean I'm sure that with run and with other shows, there's always a million reasons why something doesn't work out or whatever. And when you're going really bold, like they did with run, where there was like all these video elements and stuff and or whatever, like you always you're trying to put together a few things and then you're seeing if the metaphor sticks to go with the language that we were developing in the last episode, like the movie language and robert rodriguez was involved in in run, the movie director, and and somehow then after four months they decided that this, that the metaphor, didn't work. The the thing, the components that they put together, didn't read as a cohesive story to the general public, or I mean I don't know any of the details of why it closed, but, um, I was just trying to tie it into what we talked about last time.
Captain Frodo:Oh no. No, it's perfect because today we're going to talk about episode 109. And actually you know thinking about Cirque du Soleil songblazers, where it's like, hey, we want to take country music and tie that into a Cirque du Soleil style show. It's kind of the perfect segue into the first quote that I pulled from the episode here.
Jay Gilligan:Awesome, just fire at will. Then we have a tendency to just go on for ages without starting.
Captain Frodo:No, but it's a nice little context. So keep in mind country music and Cirque du Soleil. And now here's the first transcript from the episode. So you were talking about soccer, football, and you said the sport and the constraints creates the actuals out of the possibles. Yeah, so there we go, the actuals, which is like country music. So there we go, the actuals, which is like country music. And then I mean, the possibles is like country music, or you know, video projection for run and then Cirque du Soleil.
Captain Frodo:That's all the possible things and the anything could be possible at any given time. But if you don't actually restrict yourself to taking a certain amount of choices, then it just remains possible. Everything is always possible and I study this. I could do that, I could go out and I could. You said, kick the neighbor's dog, which is hilarious, but it's also fun because, like it is true, we could. When we think about all, all these things are possible.
Captain Frodo:It also is good to point out that some of those things could be bad, like you could do negative, you could do bad things, maybe not on purpose I mean, the kick the neighbor's dog is an extreme example of that but like it's worth pointing out that, like, everything is possible, including maybe things that are unintentionally destructive or whatever. Um, and, like you, you go on to say you said I could do many things, but I won't do them. So then you can also consciously know that you're going to try not to do bad things. But then you said only when they become actual, um, it, it, there, it becomes real and there's a whole lot more possible things than there are actual things. And so that's the whole little quote there I wanted to pull out and again I had a couple of reflections and then I wanted to throw it over to you.
Captain Frodo:But this idea that all these things are possible, and then there's the things that are actual things, these things are possible, and then there's the things that are, that are actual things, um, and, and there's a hop, there's a whole lot more things that are possible than there are things that are actually happening. So in one way, I also wrestle with this idea in my mind, and this is I don't want to turn this into playing with language. I don't think that's the point here. I don't want to play with words and definitions of words, but I used used to think that I don't know, this is going to be a bad example, but it comes to my mind right now. You know Kurt Cobain and the band Nirvana, right? So Kurt Cobain tragically shot himself. But Kurt Cobain was also championed at the time as this kind of genius of music and genius artist and this new, you know, style of music and a voice of a generation and a brilliant writer and all these things. And maybe he was, but this idea of a genius to me.
Captain Frodo:Well, I'm bringing in a bunch of little layers here, but this idea of genius to me, I used to think it was about the work, I used to think it only rested on the work. You know, um, but thinking about kurt cobain and some other people I've known over the years who have struggled with, let's say, mental health, but you could also just say they've struggled with, you know, life. I mean, it doesn't have to be about mental health, it can just be like, man, I need to make that car payment or I need to whatever that. You know, people struggle like I, like we all struggle every day with, just like small things. It doesn't have to be so dramatic or big is what I mean.
Captain Frodo:And this idea of genius maybe is somebody who can navigate all those things and still put on a decent show. You know what I mean. Like I'll go see a show these days and because, again, you know, you're a father, I'm a father, we have families, we have other obligations other than our work, our performing work. I'll go see a show these days and even if it's like a quote, unquote, mediocre, mediocre show, sometimes I'll just be in complete awe of that show because I'll be like this person got out of bed, they got clean, they put clothes on, they got in the car, they drove to the gig.
Captain Frodo:They set everything up like I understand now because I'm an adult and I'm older and I know how the world works more deeply and I know everything involved in making a show that it's not just about that time on stage, it's about everything else. They booked the gig, they sent the emails, they talked on the phone, they said the right things, they got their show in that market, on that stage, in front of that audience. There's some sort of genius to that and that's the idea of, like, everything is possible, but there's only the things that are actual, things that actually happen. And so this idea of genius, this, this idea that it's the peak artistic output I don't know if that's so genius, if and this isn't in any relationship to kurt cobain shooting himself, but the point being that, like, where does sustainability fit into the idea of genius?
Captain Frodo:yeah it's like we can make the peak work but if it's gonna literally kill us, or because we also have that romantic cultural idea of um that the artist has to suffer right in order to make genius work, like we have, we still have that on our back as like the artist somehow has to be in a tragedy so that they can produce the peak work. And normally with our pop stars we much prefer when they're single and miserable, because then they write the great pop album about that breakup, as opposed to when they're married with kids and they become you, you know, domesticated and they don't do the wild parties anymore. There is some sort of degree of suffering that we kind of imply when we talk about genius work. Anyway, my point just being that, like I think these days I think a lot about genius work is also one aspect is sustainability and that it doesn't burn you out, it doesn't kill you, so that you can just keep making work. So maybe the work is like five percent less than the craziest work you could ever think of, but at the same time you're gonna keep writing those albums, you're gonna keep doing those shows, because the show you did doesn't kill you, um, and so this, so this idea about everything is possible there's a weird play on words there, because that's what I'm trying to say here it's a long way around to say it it's not actually possible. We think there's the potential that it's possible, we imagine it's possible, but in reality if it did become actual, maybe it would kill you or it would burn you out or it would. You know what I'm saying.
Captain Frodo:So, yeah, it's this weird illusion we have many times where we in our minds we're like oh man, we could do all these things here right now. But I think that's a little bit of an illusion because it's not. Those things aren't actually possible, maybe in the long run, and of course some of them are. But what I'm trying to say is we can temper our what do you? What do you say sometimes, frodo? You call it like blue sky thinking or something, where you just kind of imagine like all the possibilities that are just free. And I think a lot of the possibilities that we kind of daydream about are way less realistic than we maybe realize until they are in the real world. Yeah, I find that in my own life a lot. So how do you think about this difference between like everything is possible, but then in reality, I mean there are a little bit more constraints than just kind of anything.
Jay Gilligan:Anything goes right, I mean yeah, I mean, I really like this idea of having the genius. What does that mean? And To me, the idea of genius, or the idea of it's like it's also, it's like the idea of that. I say, first and foremost, it's a showman. I am.
Jay Gilligan:That has been the thing that has gone through my entire life, uh, and, and if you put the as like, if you want to be that, the genius act of being, if that's who I am and to continue to do that, if I now have to go and sit in the checkout at the grocery store instead to pay the bills, then I am somehow not being myself, because now that I'm almost 50 years old not quite a few years old, but that this is who I am and this is what, like, we spoke about in the last episode, that we, that I feel this is where I feel right and this is my desire and my drive to play and all these things.
Jay Gilligan:If I go and do something else, I have in some sense failed at being true to myself, right, and the genius acts that I need to perform or to create is to be able to keep me in that space, is to keep me actual as as a showman, and I think there's something in there in that.
Jay Gilligan:But just keeping you. So, when I'm thinking of genius, I'm also thinking just of showman, or being true to yourself, and when I wrote it down here, I just just put a bunch of lines pointing out from the letter G, which is genius, which reminds me that that's the symbol that the Freemasons use for God or the grand architect of the entire universe, the supreme being. So now I'm totally rambling. So now I'm totally rambling, but I think that sustainability to allow you or afford you to be able to pursue this path of where you are driven by your own inner motivation, following aspect three, where you are having fun, so being true to yourself. So this is an act of genius. And the act of genius is less so if you kill yourself during it or if this thing actually exacerbates you or brings on aspects of mental illness.
Captain Frodo:Yeah, potentially. I mean just to interject really quickly. I remember another quote from Eddie Vedder, who's the lead singer of Pearl Jam and back at the height of their trajectory of skyrocketing to fame in the early 90s 1990s, he went on MTV and he said I thought of the best ending for our concert. It would be that I would rip off my limbs, but I could only do three concerts, because I would rip off one arm and then the next show I'd rip off a leg and I could rip off the limbs. But I could only do three concerts because I would rip off one arm and then the next show I'd rip off a leg and I could rip off the other leg, but I couldn't rip off my final arm with my own arm and I just thought that was such a funny, stupid.
Captain Frodo:And also it stuck in my mind because in one way, that would be the most sensational way to end that concert. Right again, this is a really dumb example, but like you can think of these great things you could do. Oh man, all these things are possible, frodo. And you know, could you? You could imagine you're at that concert when Eddie Vedder rips off his arm, like it would be the craziest show ever. But at the same time, yeah, it's not sustainable and like.
Captain Frodo:So what that points out to me is we can go out in a blaze of glory, we can try to rip off our forelimbs, and maybe that is our legend or something. But more practically, what it means to me is what is our true goal, idea in our mind of what it is to be an artist and what it does mean to have success in our work and whatever. But for me there is, then, a different level of actual reality, not only on the possibilities of what we're going to do, but the results of what we do, and this idea of what it means to have success. It really struck. It really struck me, it really stuck in my brain of like, oh, maybe the point isn't to just like eddie better was pointing there unintentionally towards a right like a different trajectory in life and like a different goal besides, just like the peak, peak, sensational moment of craziness, right I think you do that.
Jay Gilligan:There you get it, and it could reflect again on many things. But let's go back to kurt cobain, and part of what exacerbated his situation was that he already had a troubled relationship to himself with mental illness and there was drugs involved, too substantial amounts of drugs, and there's almost like, if you're just going for the peak experience peak experience for your audience, but just narrowing it down to just him as a, as a genius creator, that you go. I'm writing these stories on the back of of napkins, on the on the thing, and then I, and now it is these poems, and then I put it to music and then it's, it's the greatest thing and the world agrees it's the greatest thing ever. And and now you're, so you're peaking from from the creation of all of that. But then after a while somehow just performing smells like teen spirits, does not do that for you anymore, because you're there every time it's performed and you're struggling to make it real. So to increase the peak experience of that, you start taking drugs. So now I struggling to make it real. So to increase the peak experience of that, you start taking drugs. So now I'm having the experience of being on some euphoric high or some chilled heroin, whatever it is that. And you're adding that to your experience and you're now having this deep emotional, biological connection to the music again. That is different from what you had before, but along the way you are in a sense, like Eddie Wetter said, you're sort of cutting off your arm because those other things are grasping onto you or like and pulling you apart. And what exactly it was that made it tip over? Was it the drugs? Was it the fame? Was it? They're not being able to go out anymore, was it? Whatever it is, or it all.
Jay Gilligan:It all plays its role, because you can probably write a book about the, the effects of drug use on on the, on kurt cobain, or the, or the effect and trajectory of his writing as a poet and musician, or his relationship to Courtney Love, or his relationship to the other people in the band, or all these things. So, and each of those things will have and be true, the story that's told from those points of view will be true. But everything is going on at the same time for him. So we're back at that concept where he's in the middle, and his relationship to drugs, his relationship to nirvana, the band, his relationship to his own development as a human being and his relationship to himself as an artist, all of those.
Jay Gilligan:He is all of those things, but to to david grohl, he is one relationship and he is one relationship to these others, but in himself he is all those things. And there again we are at this thing. He is to himself way more actualizations than he is for the individuals or the aspects around him, or so so, and and he is constantly then actualizing himself through every relationship that he has with everything, with his own mind, with with drugs, with rock and roll and all of that. So it keeps coming back to this really interesting concept of, like it's, you could always do everything, but you can always just do one thing.
Captain Frodo:So you're, and oh sorry well, no, no, but to take this in it, to take this in a more, uh, show business tact or like in a world that I know about, because I, I don't do. Uh, I'm not a grunge rock star, so I'm not yet, but possibly it's possible it is possible. That's perfect proto. Yeah, thanks for wrapping this up into something, into something like useful. Is it possible, though?
Jay Gilligan:that's my whole point so that's possible in the way that to me going out and kicking the neighbor's dog?
Captain Frodo:oh man, okay, so in terms of, uh, in terms of my personal experience with, with creating shows and creating performances, I think a large part of my my I don't know, I don't say identity, but maybe it's something like that or my process or something is I have like a scrappiness to me and I think that Ideas are possible on many different levels. I just want to point that out so you can have a concept, and maybe the concept initially is we should have 20 elephants on stage and they should all be painted gold elephants on stage and they should all be painted gold. And I'm such a firm believer of there's a, there's a version of that idea, that I can actually do so, and I often, I often joke in rehearsal. I think I've done it with you when we've, when we've been in rehearsal together where it's like, well, in the Cirque du Soleil version of this, this prop will come up out of the floor, or you know, in the Cirque du Soleil version of this, there'll be 20 people who descend from the ceiling carrying candles that will drip the wax onto the blah, blah, blah, you know whatever. Um, but this idea that we can scale ideas, and I think that's that's a, I think that's a talent, or I don't know if it's a talent, but it's a skill that you can hone. And I just want to point that out, that this idea that normally when we're first thinking of ideas and we're becoming artists and we're exploring our ideas or whatever, you're kind of often stuck with your first thought.
Captain Frodo:You go, oh man, we should get a bicycle in here or whatever. And then you maybe even go out and you get a bicycle, you buy one or you bring it into the studio and then you maybe even make the trick. And then you have to realize, oh, but we have to fly with this show and we can't carry the bicycle or whatever. Right, like a little example here. Whereas I think now what I try to do in my artistic life is I try to work through the mental process of looking into the future as much as I can to save myself as much money, time and effort. And that comes back to that being scrappy in terms of like trying to conserve my resources because I don't have a lot of time or money or energy. And it just reminds me, um, I was in a.
Captain Frodo:I was in a show in finland, probably over 20 years ago, and the rehearsal process, to my mind, was quite long. It was four months long, um, which for the scale and scope of the show I thought was really a long time to rehearse four months. And the first two months they were working with some sort of it was like a collaboration with a puppet theater and these puppet theater craftsmen were making amazing puppets. They did like human-sized eyeballs and noses and lips, and every day you'd come into rehearsal and they'd have a new costume to wear and we tried to make a fragmented face. You know, there'd be a big, human sized ear costume that you'd put on and dance around like a big ear. And guess what, not a single one of those props made it into the final show.
Captain Frodo:Four months later and they're all sitting in a storage room somewhere in Helsinki as we speak and that really burned into my brain, you know, 25 years ago, of this idea of like, oh, it's maybe not just if you have the resources, even if you have the money for that, you have the towards streamlining your resources and conserving your money and your energy and your time.
Captain Frodo:So this idea of everything is possible is true, but I just wanted to put it out there and say that ideas can scale up and down. That's one point. That's one point. And the second point being that, like, of course, there's a utility in making things actually real and having them be concretely in front of you, and maybe making that ear costume led to the final version of the show and you could say, well, it's all part of the process. At the scale of where I'm working, I don't have that luxury of going through the process of making the ear costume and then just like putting it in the closet and then saying, well, it led me to the final version of the show, so it was all worth it. My point being that oftentimes I try to work through a few steps ahead, mentally, of making something actually real before I go ahead and make it actually real, if that makes sense absolutely.
Jay Gilligan:This makes total sense, uh, to me, and it is because I think you and me have a similar idea of what kind of work needs to be done before we go into the rehearsal space to do it. And we can just go to Reflex, which is a good example, because everyone who listens to this can go back and listen to previous episodes where we explore this and our process for that in depth, and both you and me like to. When we arrive to have a script and a plan, we want to hold that script and that plan. And we know when, even in the last instance, hold that script and that plan. And we know we when, even in the last instance, when I flew to sweden and we worked together to make it happen, even then, um, we held the ideas loose and cut whole bits after that and and old chunks of it and stories and we redefined the beginning of the viagra story that never made it into it. We worked on that so much, but what we actually worked on was how you were to deliver text. That was the valuable thing that came out of it, even though the text and the thing that we actually spoke about you being part of the launch of this miracle drug that never made into it, but that wasn't the important part of what launch of this miracle drug that never made into it, but it wasn't. That wasn't the part of what we rehearsed or what we were doing in that process. What we were actually doing was preparing you to do the, the text that you decided on. That we decided on doing instead later on. Um, so that's that thing of going. We are, we're working on it and we are working on what we at that time thought was the actual thing. But what we were working on was a possibility to create a tool. That could be many things, because now, once we had cracked that way of you telling a story at the beginning of your show, what you to, we had done so much work on that and it felt like it was going really slowly, but it was because we were breaking ground into a mode of presentation for you which was different. And then, once we had cracked that, all of a sudden all kinds of new things became possible. All of a sudden, all of these other texts and we're going okay, it's just got to. We've got to dig down on the NASA material, because that's where the end of the thing is and it became clear and you made those changes and we talked about all the different possibles and yeah. So I think that's really cool and I this sort of scrappiness.
Jay Gilligan:I also have that often where you sort of go and it's using the criterias of play, criteria four, it's got to have rules and the rules is we're going to go on a plane with this show, so we have this. That's one of the rules that I set or whatever that you mentioned using that language, and it's going. It's fun to do this with a bike or whatever. But then OK, well, if we are to use a bike, then we need to. If we've really decided that idea is strong enough, then we need to make it so that it can. I need to practice the skills so that it can be happen with a generic bike.
Jay Gilligan:To actualize a bike when you went to New York City, for instance, with Reflex, would be possible. It's really possible. You could borrow one. But if there was a very specific bike, then that needed to be. That costed all the practical, the practicalities of, uh, of actualizing that. So I kind of think, also to tie it back to, to it's like we're talking about the possible and the actual, the possible is the infinite possibilities and the actual is what actually happens. And what I am proposing is that play is the process which we go through to actualize something. Because if you just go concretely and you go it's going to be this, it's going to be that, then we get to what I called in the last episode painting by numbers. But it's the playful process. It's holding everything loosely. Okay, we need a bike. Okay, do we need it? Well, like the elephants, the 20 elephants, do they really need to be painted gold? Right, then we need body paint in in 44 gallon drums, right, like, okay, so can we go? Can we make a suit that they wear? Can we like?
Jay Gilligan:because or like or like you guys, you got to think simple or think so, and I think that's that's great, and it also that goes on to this thing that you and me have talked about off off mic, about the relationship of taking time into this as well. The ongoing thing is that if it's a show that has legs to walk on and it gets a future, then it will continue to go on and maybe the, the scope or the ideas will refine and you will um, you will be even better at the skills and you will see dimensions that you didn't see before, just by the nature that it goes on. So that's the other sort of thing. It's to go. Maybe the gold paint of the elephant or or the bicycle will come in later when you realize oh no, actually this thing is so crucial that to pay the extra money is going to be worth it, and that comes through the development in time as well, to continue to play with the idea.
Captain Frodo:I noticed that in our conversations I often like to push things to the realm of thinking. I'm always kind of like, yeah, but if you just think a little bit more, like kind of always encouraging this process of putting things in your mind a little bit more than an actual reality, for some reason and I wonder I don't know how to resolve. I don't know the answer to that question, but I do notice my tendency towards that and I just had a couple of examples. I wanted to run by you and we don't need to answer answer it, but I think it's really relevant here. One is my.
Captain Frodo:I don't know if I ever told you my kind of infamous story of being hired by the seven fingers. Um, I was standing on a volcano. I was literally standing on the edge of a volcano crater in, uh, iceland when I got a phone call from Gypsy Snyder and she asked me if, if, because I was working with a juggler named Manu Lord at the time and she said if the two of us could come juggle and they were going to do the show loft in Berlin for one year and so it turned out that that Manu was actually and we and to be clear, me and Manu we had an act together that she had, and it turned out that Manu wasn't available for that year.
Captain Frodo:But I didn't want to lose the gig. So I called Gypsy back when I was in Iceland and I said, oh, but I have an act with this other guy named Mathias, mathias Salmonejo. And she said, oh great, yeah, well, that sounds cool Like let's go with that. And the truth of the matter is is we didn't have an act. But the also the whole rehearsal thing was it was late and it was a panic. It was a last minute phone call. So the next day I was on an airplane to Montreal and Mathias was on an airplane and I was in Iceland and he was in Finland going to Montreal and we didn't have an act. And so I really remember distinctly it was a big moment in my life of sitting on the airplane from Iceland to Montreal with a notebook and I wrote an act in my mind for me and Matthias and it was really fun. Because it was fun, because not only did I have to imagine the juggling that could that, that could be like I want I made like original juggling in my brain without actually doing it. But we had to do it first try, because when we landed, she wanted to see the act. Like that was how we were going to start, like, okay, you guys come to Montreal, we'll see the act and then we'll put you guys into the show. It was all very hurried and rushed and whatever. And so not only am I designing juggling in my head, but I'm designing juggling that, like, you basically have to be able to do the first time you try it, which, which, again, was somebody who you you've never worked with before, and juggling is pretty much impossible. And so I remember we landed in montreal in the morning and then gypsy had said okay, so, uh, can we see act? And it was like an hour before lunchtime and I said, oh, you know, we're pretty jet lagged. Maybe it's better that we take the lunch break and we get warmed up and we don't want to get injured and blah, blah, blah, professional sounding, whatever. And then during the lunch break, me and Mattia snuck off for an hour and learned the act from my notebook. And then we, the lunch break, me and Mattias snuck off for an hour and learned the act from my notebook. And then we did the act in the afternoon and they're like, oh yeah, it looks great, let's do it like this. And then we got the contract and then we did the year in Berlin with that show. But I never forgot that moment.
Captain Frodo:And since I did that airplane trip, I love that I have that skill of imagining juggling in my head, which I didn't have before. I didn't think that was a valid process because juggling is a physical activity, but I've really benefited from it. A lot Like if I'm in rehearsal with Eric these days making a new show with Eric O'Berry, and then maybe we'll have a discussion and say, oh, maybe we could juggle like this. And then I can just look in my brain and go like, oh, I don't know if that juggling is going to work like that, I can save ourselves a little bit of time and effort. Right, because I can edit in my brain like that. But on the contrary, I have a different example from Eric which I think is also really like, really I don't know, informative or somehow. Um, so there's the, there's the artist, theo jansen, and theo, he makes these sculptures, called strand beasts out of pvc pipe on the beaches in the netherlands and the wind blows them and they walk across the beach.
Captain Frodo:And the way that theo jansen started off that project was he wrote a computer program and I'm going to get the date wrong, but it was like 1982 or something and the computer program did, uh, you know, a simulated version of evolution. So it made iterations of leg joints and over the process of it's a computer, so they sped up evolution and over thousands of generations it came up with a prototype of a leg that had 12. It has 12 different lengths of pipe on it and then that leg walks across the beach using this golden ratio of these 12 parts. And of course you could iterate yourself just in a workshop. But imagine you have 12 different lengths of pipe, that each pipe has to be specifically long or the leg won't walk. You could spend your whole life trying to make that, those measurements right. But so the computer did this fake evolution of, like you know, simulated evolution and it found this leg joint that actually worked and that's what theo has used for his whole life to make these, these creatures who walk on the beach.
Captain Frodo:So eric has been making these, these ghost cube creations, these wooden boxes that turn and twist and fold on each other. He calls them ghost cubes. And at one point I said, uh, because he, because they're physical sculptures, they started to take up space in our studio, right, so like he would build these ghost cubes, and they started to pile up and like soon you, right, so like he would build these ghost cubes, and they started to pile up and like soon you couldn't really open the door to the, to the storage space, because there were just these ghost cubes everywhere. Um, I mean, they take up volumetric space, they're three-dimensional cubes, right, so they just become big. And so at one point I said to eric I was like, hey, man, you should, theo, janssen, you should make a computer program where you code into the program the DNA of these ghost cubes and then you just press the button and it does like the simulated evolution of life and it just does all the permutations for you, permutations for you, and then you can just pick and choose which permutations you want to build, and then it will stop this problem we have of scarcity of space in our studio.
Captain Frodo:But eric said eric's response was amazing and he just said no, that's the opposite of the process that I have and that I want to have.
Captain Frodo:He said, my process is I do the next evolution. You know, he makes a generation of this ghost cube, this certain shape, and then he looks at it and he holds it and he studies it and he moves it with his body, with his hands, and he looks at it from different angles and he sits with it and it's on the table right and he thinks about it and then he makes the next version and he said I have to make each version physically to know what I'm going to do next, and so I think that's also a really amazing and valid approach. So we have the two, the two opposites, right? It's like me sitting on an airplane just imagining in my brain some juggling. And then we have the exact opposite approach which is like no, I double down on, I have to make every single version physically possible so that I touch it with my hands, and it's the touching it with my hands which makes the next version possible. So I don't know, there's a few little yeah thoughts there yeah, yeah, yeah, that's.
Jay Gilligan:That's great, and I think there is a powerful thing to be said for that. Making is thinking as well. Like it's, the, those are those, it's the same. We think that thinking is just related to our brain, but that goes all the way back to to Descartes, and I think, therefore I am, but it's not. The feeling goes deeper than thinking in evolution. So I feel, therefore I am, is also true. I think, therefore I am, that's true, but I feel, but it's also I do, therefore I am. When I do, or when I make something, actually, then I am actualizing ideas and feelings and whatever. So each one of those are also sort of true, and making something is thinking with your hands.
Jay Gilligan:You're now in a dialogue, like you, and like you and me are. You're in a dialogue with what you, the picture that you just painted of eric making, the making it, gluing it, sanding it, making all those things. Then he sits with a real object and and now, as he encounters something which is actual, something that he has created and he's put it in, he explores all the different things that he can do and the knowledge that he gets through this interaction is invaluable to where this goes, because the brute force way of a computer playing chess is to go through all the millions of possibilities. You include me kicking the dog and you starting becoming a grunge thing. Because they're, because they are possible. So you go through it. But now you need to go through a million thing, but a grand master of chess skips past the vast majority, infinite amounts he does not even consider, or she, when she's sitting there and she's about to make the next move without thinking, she's down to five options or something.
Jay Gilligan:Right, right and and part of the skill is the restrictions Don't go down that lane, don't go down that other lane. That's also why sometimes, when the computer does something, or AI or whatever, we enter into a space where we go holy shit, we just learned something new about what chess could be, or whatever, because of this thing. So they have gone into the adjacent possible, into the this thing. These are possibilities that we never looked into because you needed to do 119 other permutations and then you get into a different realm. So it's, it's, it's. Yeah, sorry, you got somebody that.
Captain Frodo:That just reminds me of ivar heckscher. Uh, you know, ivar heckscher, he's not an actual practicing juggler. He cannot juggle, but he is. I call him a juggler because he knows juggling intimately and he's known it for 20 years now, but because he has the lack of the physical practice of it, he says stuff that isn't possible, like he says stuff he shouldn't say.
Captain Frodo:It's what you're just saying about the computer. He's not restricted by reality, he's not restricted by that actual manual dexterity, that physical feedback, because he's never had it or, more precisely, that's impossible. But then if I sit down and think about it for two seconds, I go but why not? Why shouldn't that be possible? And again to scale the idea, how can that be possible? Because he's right in the bigger picture. He just has no experience on the practical level.
Captain Frodo:But that shouldn't stop us from trying to make those things happen. And that is the genius of Ivar and that is our collaboration over these 20-25 years. And that's, you know, that's why all these things have happened with him, because we have that nice little interplay between us. He's always being very conceptual, or not even conceptual in his mind, he's being very straightforward, but the things he says are so out of touch with the actual technical practice, that what he's saying is generally impossible. But it's in solving or resolving that impossibility which makes the creation happen which is so wonderful yeah, I mean, that's why interdisciplinary collaborations right, really powerful, because they, they and, and it and.
Jay Gilligan:To concretize that, it's you and me you're always talking from the point of view of the juggler and all that and we have so many overlapping ideas. But it is the slightly different language and a slightly different experience of working within different mediums that has had us exploring this idea of concrete and abstract for so long, and we have made some recent breakthroughs in that which we got to talk.
Jay Gilligan:Do an episode about that as well yeah, yeah, yeah but, um, but like the, the discord or the bits where we don't fit quite together or where we don't even quite know.
Jay Gilligan:We both know what it is that we're talking about, but we can't put it into words Right, and in a sense, that is what poetry is about.
Jay Gilligan:It's that the poetry is, this new experience, this new, and it's not, it's not explaining that thing. It is that so that when you read the poem, you get a new feeling, or you get the new, the juxtaposition of words and everything inside it becomes this new thing. So that's what the language that we're developing in trying to, why you and me sometimes go absolutely mental doing our voice messages back and forth on whatsapp and then it's like, oh yeah, that's it, that's it, and you and you just have my mind blown on a redefinition of something, on something we've called it abstract and concrete, and that did not cover it, but it did at the time. But we were exploring, exploring and recently we've sort of made some leaps forward into what it was that we were talking about, and it includes more or less, or whatever, and it's with defining the language and understanding, then more aspects of, or whatever. And it's with defining the language and understanding, then more aspects of actual reality.
Captain Frodo:Well, so the other quotes I have from this episode they're all in the same vein. I mean, it's all from the same episode here, but there was a couple of highlights I really wanted to point out here. Because the next one is one of my favorite things so far in the whole series on play, actually, and actually, and it's again literally in the flow of our thoughts right now, because it's all the same thing but it's all connected. But the the quote is this um, I'll read the quote and I'll tell you why I I love it. It says because there are restrictions.
Captain Frodo:Everywhere, from time, space and gravity, there's already restrictions. The world, life, humans, the things we create and the activities that we engage in, they're shaped by these things like things like time, and gravity is, of course, so fundamental we don't even think of them as restrictions, but it it is a restriction that I can't fly, and then I'll just finish up a little bit more. It's so fun. But I mentioned gravity and time to point out there's restrictions to the world, or the restrictions that exist. They go all the way down to the very fundamentals and they're the part of what makes the world the way it is, from gravity to our particular desires or our social intelligence and what stands between us creating a new act and not creating it. It all comes down to the restrictions, and what I love that you did here is two things it's so cool and it's so crazy, and the first thing is that, yeah, I just have to talk from my perspective as a juggler. Right, I can't. I, it's just, it's just, I can't do anything else.
Jay Gilligan:It's what we want.
Captain Frodo:So so you know, eric always says we we've been going from the like, we're in the age of consciousness and juggling. We went from intuitive thinking, which is when me and Eric grew up, when we, when we learned how to juggle, and now weuggling is starting to evolve into some sort of age of consciousness that wasn't there before. And as part of that evolution from intuitiveness to consciousness, we have questioned the fundamentals of what it means to juggle. We have questioned the fundamentals of the definition of the word, and that's not creating a new definition, that's only trying to understand what people mean between each other when they use the word juggling, because that exists and that's just something to try to comprehend. That's been Eric's a big work of Eric's the first three episodes of our podcast Object Episodes.
Captain Frodo:So what is j juggling? That's the first thing we started to. You know, when someone, when I first learned how to juggle, I didn't think about what is juggling, I just thought. I just I didn't think about it, I just did it. And so now we're questioning fundamentally what is it that we're doing? And then the other things that was so useful to tear apart was what is a drop, what is a throw and what is a catch, the three most fundamental things of what is juggling, and so to question those techniques or those occurrences or those events, or whatever you want to call it, has been one of the most useful things that I've done, and so I love that you drill it back even farther, like it's so fun. Time, space and gravity Like it's so cool. I love it that you're getting down to the heart of where are we starting? Because we do take so many things for granted and we assume so many things, and that's so. That's the second part. So many things for granted and we assume so many things, and that's so. That's the second part. I just want to point out that you say, um, the world we live in, it's shaped by these things, and so, of course, there's a balance to be found here between um, because, because we are limited in our time and resources, right, so we can't sit down and say, okay, frodo, so we're going to make a new act together. Because we are limited in our time and resources, right, so we can't sit down and say, okay, frodo, so we're going to make a new act together. We have to remember, frodo, that the audience will be breathing. We have to remember that their hearts will be beating Like. We probably don't have enough time to delve into that aspect of the performance. I'm guessing time to delve into that aspect of the performance? I'm guessing, but at the same time I think we can still take this idea that there's time, space and gravity.
Captain Frodo:To me it's symbolic that we can always drill down to another level of fundamental knowledge and understanding about what we're trying to do and where we're trying to go, and I always think about that. Who is the audience? What do they want? What do you want to show them? What are we doing here? Where is here? What is a show? I mean you can take all of these like words and the definition of those words and drill them down to one more level below. Of like concrete, you know building block, foundational knowledge of like what is a show, and we've seen so many people play with that you get Sleep no More. You know Punch Drunk in New York City, which is immersive, this whole trend in the past few years of immersive theater. But like what is happening and studying performance art, you know driving a, driving a car in Spain into a crowd of people and our chaos back in the 80s, our chaos, circus and kind of twisting the genre, and so I always find it to be I've always found it to be really useful to re-examine what we think we know and examine the definitions of what we think is a show, what is an act, what is a character, what is a costume? And it, and in one way it sounds, it sounds kind of silly or trivial. Um, of course we know what a costume is, but it's like it goes back to. I have so many. I mean, I could talk about this forever. But like all all those stories about, like Sean McKinney 1992, sorry, 1991.
Captain Frodo:He shows up to the competition he's wearing a white T-shirt and ripped up blue jeans and he's got a garment bag with him, because the year before he wore ripped up blue jeans and a white T-shirt and the judges disqualified him because they said he didn't have a costume, because the judges were a bunch of old people like like we are now frodo and they said they said, well, that's not a costume.
Captain Frodo:A costume is, you know, sequins and the vest and a suit jacket and a bow tie, right? So sean shows up the next year, he's wearing ripped up blue jeans and a white t-shirt and a garment bag, and out of the garment bag, he unzips it and there's a pair wearing ripped up blue jeans and a white t-shirt and a garment bag. And out of the garment bag he unzips it and there's a pair of ripped up blue jeans and a white t-shirt and he changes out of the ripped up blue jeans into the other ripped up blue jeans and he changes the white t-shirt into the other white t-shirt and he says this is my costume, because I'm expressing who I am and my clothes express what I want to give, the experience I want to give to the audience, and that you don't recognize this as a traditional costume in your eyes. It doesn't mean it's not a costume and it was so.
Jay Gilligan:It was so punk rock that he showed and that's the question conceptual, but it is also really practical and it is. It's fighting with someone who tells you that you have to wear a bow tie, bow tie and smile when you juggle, because it's questioning the foundational fabric of the universe.
Captain Frodo:It's like what is a costume? What does that actually mean? Is it literally a bow tie, or is it something that expresses an aspect of the performance that you want to transmit to the audience, which it obviously is right and so, yeah, so this idea that, like we can always, we always assume we know what we're doing. To a certain level you have to to get through life, or we'll just be hung up on every step of the way at the same time, uh, anyway, yeah, yeah, we think we know what the world is.
Jay Gilligan:He opens up a door to the adjacent possible, as Stuart Kaufman calls it, the adjacent possible To the judges. This was not possible. And then he goes through and he goes. I chose these. This was not possible. And then he goes through and he goes. I chose these. I put these on now so that you can see that I am putting on clothes, and these are the clothes that I wear in my performance and it's intentions, he goes you're mistaken, and he is.
Jay Gilligan:In doing that, he is make, he's actualizing, making something actual, which probably then influenced all those people in 1991 who watched that, who went whoa. This is cool, because if there's anything that a young person gets excited about or in another way, it's their duty to do, it's to question what came before. Is this the best possible reality? Is this the best actual thing? Like everybody does, that, that's what that's what the teenagers do. You rebel and sometimes it's terrible and sometimes it's. It sets the new standard for going forward or it makes this, um, this domain of the possible into. This is now actual.
Jay Gilligan:And from then on, you could just refer back to that In IJA juggling competitions. You could refer back to this moment of going this is my costume and now they would have to take that into account. They could still have a person who says I refuse to take that on, it's bow tie or zero points from me. Yeah, so that you, you will have that, but you continue to have it. And the more um, conservative, it is like in ballet or within, or maybe not, by, like, let's say, gymnastics or something. The limits to what you're allowed to do when you're doing.
Captain Frodo:Your routine is restricted, so you could continue to push that out into another and what you said here is that, like, like things, like time and gravity is so fundamental, we don't think of them as restrictions. And that's been a big journey with juggling, which is that we have these traditions that are so entrenched that we didn't even think of them as traditions or habits, or, yeah, that are forming the culture and it was such a because things are so tangled up together and mixed together with so many different assumptions that you, you just take it. You just take it as a truth yeah, but it's to me.
Jay Gilligan:To me this really connects into what, uh, you talk about as juggling as art. What we have talked about in in reflex, that the history of juggling might be 3 000 years old, but history as of juggling as art might only be 40 years old or so from when michael motion really took it on, and what you're talking about is the evolution of the art of juggling. It's it's juggling as art, the history of juggling as art. Then somebody does need to question the costumes and, of course, this guy, in 1991 he did what, um, like, uh, what, uh, francis Brun, when he took on the matador, kind of, uh, the Spanish theme, so the flamenco flamenco, sorry, yeah. When he took on the matador, kind of, uh, the spanish theme, the flamenco flamenco, sorry yeah.
Jay Gilligan:When he took that on, that that was a as an artistic choice and for him just to put, put that on and that inflate it, it inspired the way that he moved, the way that he stood and gestured, the way that he presented the juggling and the music, and it put in a concept or a theme of the whole thing which altered the way that you perceived the juggling, right. So so, in a way that this guy is doing again. He's doing what kurt cobain did to music. He's doing the grunge of juggling because he was influenced by kurt cobain like you couldn. You couldn't, in 1991, not be aware of that.
Jay Gilligan:Or maybe no, no did oh hang on.
Captain Frodo:No, they came out in 1991. It's an aesthetic yeah it's an aesthetic.
Jay Gilligan:So all of that, that was maybe 90,. Maybe it was actually like 92.
Captain Frodo:Which I think is really the point. Right Is that the judges they only saw this like pop culture aesthetic or pop, but like popular culture aesthetic, it's just popular culture.
Jay Gilligan:It's just entertainment, exactly, and we're going. No, no, no. It's a mode of expression that affords me a different style of juggling. If I put on the bow tie and I juggle like I'm about to juggle now, it will not be. Uh it then, because I say truth is something that happens, it's not something that is so. The juggler is creating truth in that moment. And to be able to juggle like he did, he couldn't wear the bow tie and then juggle like he did, because then it would look weird, it would not spell truth, the experience would not be truthful to the audience. But when he does that, he takes the clothes and he puts them on.
Captain Frodo:Then truth happened in that moment and a new generation of jugglers emerged from it so let's stick with that, because it's the last quote from the episode and it's again, it's something that really sticks with me, something I've screamed about for years now, and now you have it here nicely articulated, and I would love to hear you again talk more personally about it. So the quote is from the episode it's all possible for me to make any kind of act, but as long as I just go around thinking I'm going to make the greatest act, well, what that's going to be is, I don't know, it's going to be the greatest thing you know, and so you don't really get much stuff done and you have to make some restrictions. Well, it's going to have something to do with this magic move, or I spent a lot of time learning this skill or whatever, and then that's a kind of a restriction. But it's also about making something that's possible to make it into an actual thing, which is what we've been talking about this past hour. But I just want to I really want to underline this, that this idea that I fallen into that trap too, probably even recently, with our recent private conversations, but this idea of, like, everybody walks around and says I'm gonna make a new act, what's it gonna be. Well, it's gonna be great. It's gonna be great, it's gonna be the greatest act.
Captain Frodo:It's like, yeah, but what's that actually mean? And it's, and in some ways it is the michael motion thing of you know. Michael motion has his violin for 3d space, as he calls it, and it's his last kind of magnum opus, his last greatest work, and he's never released it. He's never, he doesn't, he hasn't done it yet. And I have this theory that, you know, until he does that act in public and releases it or whatever it is his gr, it is schrodinger's cat, is that the?
Captain Frodo:yeah is that yeah, you know.
Captain Frodo:You know that the cat is neither dead nor alive until you look in the box right so until michael actually does this violin for 3d space in public, it is potentially the greatest thing he's ever done. Right, and it's the same thing for all of us. When we make that act, we make that new show and in our mind we're just like man, this is going to be the greatest act I've ever done. Maybe not, maybe you don't think it's the greatest act in the history of the world, but for you you go, this is the greatest thing I've ever done. I'm going to make this great thing. I've never made something this good before.
Captain Frodo:And until you actually go into rehearsal and until you actually start working, that thought is still very attractive, because you don't have any evidence to the. To the contrary, you're still just in your head thinking about it and yeah, anyway. So I I really think that we get a lot of us get stuck into this. Uh, this, this little dilemma you just outlined right now, yeah, about that kind of stuff, or how do you get out of that trap?
Jay Gilligan:Oh well, I don't know. A lot of the time. What helps me is actual deadlines for actual gigs. Right, because you work and work on something and I work on what I'm going to say and then sometimes after a while then the introduction is full. I can't talk anymore now I don't want to talk any more than three minutes, and that needs to get out of the last bit into the next bit and have you laugh along the way and introduce the ideas that I will then start subverting as we go on. So then you can think of more and more ideas, but that means that you're also needing more and more time or whatever in between. So sometimes going out and doing an actual gig makes the possibilities. An actual gig makes the possibilities necessarily actual, it concretizes it and I go hang on, there is no room anymore for any more gags there. I can think of I can change the introduction like that, I can do it like this and you're going yeah, but that's actually six different introductions and now I need to do six different shows then to actually check which one is seems to be the best one or whatever.
Jay Gilligan:But I just was thinking back to the last bit of the quote where we're talking about. I'm talking about restrictions, and I'm talking about restrictions because of criteria four, which we talk about in this specific 109 episode, which is that there is always rules to play, because that makes it in. You might not have manifested them in your mind, but you're doing it, so I call those restrictions, uh, rules or restrictions, as we've sort of called it here, but I think that that's the language that I use and you use choices. That's the same word. When you make a choice, you have followed a rule. You don't know it.
Jay Gilligan:So I remember you've talked to me before about an exercise where you go, you're going to do a, you're going to do something juggling, and then you're going to go do I like that or do I not like it? If you like it, you keep doing it, and then the rule is why is it? Have I got this routine? It's because I liked it. That's the rule. So it can be as simple as that. But it's just an example of how you have a very, very well-developed system of thinking, because you've articulated it for students for 25 years and I have an elaborate way of thinking as well, and they arrive at very similar kinds of truths. The language is different. So you call it choices and I call it restrictions, and I do that because of the influences that I cite or whatever. But choice is a more practical and a more in that's more to do with doing and making it's actionable?
Jay Gilligan:yeah, it's actionable, really like it. You take the choice and you do it, and um, and I thought then of of the greatest act in the world which exists in the mind of Michael Motion when he does violin, solo violin for 3D space. That is still, and I've gone back to my thought that an act is like a living organism or, to go with a metaphor, an act is a kind of organism and that act is still gestating. He is still pregnant with this act and as long as he rehearses, it happened and maybe someone has seen it or whatever, but it's still the pregnancy. Until you go on to stage and do it there, the act has not been born. And what?
Jay Gilligan:What I know as well is this what we're talking about, how time is introduced into this is that each time when you do that act, I see it as the act, as an organism, as the premier is the birth and then each act that we do, the act is growing up and it's becoming resilient and it's learning to adapt. It's learning who it is and it's becoming resilient and it's learning to adapt, is learning who it is and is learning which parts of itself it would will hold on to forever and it'll be the core identity of that act and which bits will fall away because it will shape itself in its interaction and relationship with the audience and with you. So it that act is the greatest thing that you ever saw, but each manifestation of it will be its aging and it's coming into being and its maturation as an organism I got one.
Captain Frodo:I have one final question for you, related to that and what we were just in the transition, transition into getting into that. I really I'm really curious to know what, what you, what your opinion on this is or how you would deal with this. So what you're saying there again, it's like the act is being born. It's an adjustation period before that it's being born and and all these things. Um, so for me, for all my talk about keeping not keeping things cerebral, but like thinking about things is like maybe more than we normally do that we can always have a little bit more intention with our thoughts than just kind of like we need 20 elephants or whatever, and then we're kind of stuck with that reality but like what, what does that mean and why do we want to have them? And can we get something else that's smaller or I don't don't know whatever less heavy?
Captain Frodo:Is it even possible to go with 19, or is that just totally ridiculous? Exactly, yeah. So I'm like, so I'm always encouraging, for example, my students to put more thought into their thought, right that, to not just leave it as the first level encounter of that idea, but to kind of you know again, scale it up or down, or blah, blah, blah, anyway. To kind of you know again, scale it up or down, or blah, blah, blah, anyway. For all my talk of that, I also find myself preaching this idea to get it on its feet as soon as possible. So if somebody came to me abstractly and just said, hey, so I'm thinking about making this act, it goes like this what do you think I should do? The first thing I would say is well, do that first version you just told me about, even if it doesn't exist. Just go into a studio and, you know, do as much of it as you can, which is maybe nothing, maybe it's just one second long, or it's a gesture you scratch your nose, or whatever it is that you're thinking about.
Captain Frodo:I always encourage people to, you know, make it physical as fast as possible within reason. Right again, we don't maybe have the set design done or all the different elements of the costume, or even the music or the lights or whatever. But do what you can and you'll start to grow and build from there. And I think that there is that tension then between that kind of process of just like you get an idea right and you say, oh, maybe I have a hat and a cane and I put the cane on my chin and I throw the hat on the cane and then I could do like I could move, like this and blah, blah, blah, and then you can't even do that trick. But I still would encourage you maybe to stand up in your studio and pretend to throw the hat on the stick and kind kind of imagine you learn something in the act of doing it's another form of thinking yeah, fake it until you make it kind of thing right, yeah, but also it's, it's actually.
Jay Gilligan:You are actually realizing that idea to some extent.
Captain Frodo:You go okay, whoa, yeah, you learn, yeah, okay well, no, no, because it also comes back to that tension.
Captain Frodo:Then I think of a lot of people, including myself, on this, this recent, on this newest conversation I've been having with you about my new show where it's like, why didn't I take my own advice, shut up and just go to the studio and just start hashing out the material with what I have?
Captain Frodo:Because I have a starting point and I realized that like, first of all, it's not the most sexy advice which is like, hey, go to your studio and do something that's good, that's going to be, that's not going to work. Right, that's also already like kind of a not a very fun proposition perhaps. But the other part of it is that, like in your mind, you want the work to be great and you're maybe imagining it to be, yeah, something that's possible, that that could be more or better, but you already know before you start that it's not going to be that. And so I think there is a little bit of it's a weird tension there between those two things, about this impulse, this desire to make the work at a certain level, and the reality of already knowing that it's not going to be that level. How do you navigate that process then, of kind of the enthusiasm for that process or I don't know. Do you have some advice of how to?
Jay Gilligan:I can just say believe or trust in?
Captain Frodo:believe or trust that that's going to all work out? I don't know. I find it exhausting.
Jay Gilligan:I gave you this. I talked about this the other day In 2009,. I had become clear to me that I wanted to do magic, but I had only been doing circus and freak show stuff for decades, so I didn't know how my character the tennis guy or whatever would do magic. How do I do that and make it seem like it's something that this person would do? Because it's not everything that you can grab on and just start to do. Not every character in the show can grab up and just read a soliloquy from Shakespeare and have the audience weeping. So I was doing magic.
Jay Gilligan:I went and some magic equipment and I had some ideas for what I was going to do and I did it and I was almost embarrassed with what I were doing. I wasn't showing it to anyone because it was terrible, because I was looking for the way to actualize these ideas and my character couldn't. I couldn't deliver it, truthfully so, because I kept feeling dejected, but I'd spent the money and taken the decision and I couldn't deliver it truthfully so, because I kept feeling dejected, but I'd spent the money and taken the decision and I wanted to do magic, something which I now is a core part of what I do again, but I wrote on on the on a piece of paper and stuck it on the inside of the suitcase that I was having my magic in and that the act gets better right and to, to keep that in mind, that it's like if this was easy then.
Jay Gilligan:It's like if this was easy and it just was like, super like, just then it wouldn't. I wouldn't be breaking into something new for me. But to get to this new thing, I needed to fight with the material for a long time and I did, and I can't remember where that must must have been. Two years later, 2011. Some of those original ideas that I had. That felt terrible and ridiculous.
Jay Gilligan:Yeah, I then did it with a live pianist when I was doing for, for ali mcgregor did a sort of cabaret show as part of the adelaide cabaret festival, the late night open stage. But there was a couple of people me and ashitra levin and, uh, we're hired by her to be the core of that production or so but, and there was other stuff happening, so I was doing different material every night and then I thought I can do this magic thing. I'll just see. And and the way that I did that act that night when I did ridiculous stuff with the phone bird and all of that, it changed the tempo and made me for the first time. So it took two years from I had something completely new until I actually did it and I went this is the way forward. It had been that same trick all the way along.
Jay Gilligan:It was so many things, but combining it with live music altered the way that I did the stuff because I was now in direct relationship with somebody.
Jay Gilligan:So when I later on went and put that to music, I knew how to behave with the music.
Jay Gilligan:It taught me something new and it came kind of out of necessity and it got actualized with me in front of an audience, them having seen me on the night before doing the tennis and sword swallowing and and whatever other things that I had done beforehand, so that when they saw me on the last night and I did that semi-improvised, it felt alive and electric and whatever. So the act did get better and even then, looking at the video of that from 2011, it was not particularly awesome, but it kept. From then on, that was like the the birthing moment or so, and it's to keep in mind that it that if you're in this for the long time, we're thinking about sustainability and that genius is to be able to continue on into the future. We're doing this one thing. Then you need to have this fundamental belief that, whatever it is that you do will get better because you will not cease from the exploration, and when you get back to the act again, it will be like you experienced it for the first time.
Captain Frodo:Wow, man, that's perfect. Well, that was that. You know, that was the point that that, really honestly, that really helps me. The act will get better. Trust the process, have faith that you're, that it's yeah that you're going to evolve and wow, thanks so much for that. I really needed that. I appreciate it, man good stuff?
Jay Gilligan:well, that's, that's episode uh what?
Captain Frodo:was that 109 all right all right, coming up next one yeah, 110, I think we're gonna combine it with 111 and I look forward to both those uh chats coming up next. Me too.
Jay Gilligan:Thanks, man have a good one.
Captain Frodo:Yeah, see you man I always have so much fun catching up with my friend, jay gilgan, getting into the meat of things, and I do post a bunch of stuff on Instagram, and if you wanted to follow the way of the showman on Instagram then you'd see updates on what's coming and a few little extra insights here and there. Good to gather the community somewhere, and that is all I have to say for today. So until next time, take care of yourself, those you love, and I hope to see you along the way.