Mike Alfreds’ book Different Every Night is a beautiful book because it places the actor—not the set, the lighting, the costumes, or the sound—as the center of his focus. We therefore gain access in a relational way, though not a scientific way, of what motivates people to act.
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The important point, which I think I’ve danced around, is that just like people can “action” their lines for their characters’ tactics, they can also become more familiar with the action verbs which are available so they can better understand what they’re doing in their own lives and what they’d like to be doing.
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I think the connection between the fine arts, or at least acting, and the ways of communicating I’ve been promoting is that when actors get a script, what they do which creates a play is supply the meta-messages to the lines in the script. For us, MMT is the basis for the lines we say, and we have to supply the meta-messages to those lines. As the name of Different Every Night indicates, just because we use the same lines for each performance doesn’t mean the performances aren’t different every time.
Remember Paul Wachtel’s words from Therapeutic Communication:
“[E]very overt message that the therapist intends to convey, every communication of a particular understanding of the patient’s experience or dynamics (what I will call the ‘focal message’), carries with it a second message, a ‘metamessage,’ if you will, that conveys an attitude about what is being conveyed in the focal message. It is often in this meta-message—frequently unnoticed or unexamined—that the greatest potential for therapeutic transformation (or therapeutic failure) lies,” (p. 24).
The attitudes actors have towards the words they’re speaking is what makes plays come alive. In the same sense and the same way, leftists’ attitudes towards revolutionary ideas—but, maybe more importantly, towards non-revolutionary ideas— will make the revolution come alive. It is a considerable task to figure out the how our economy and world works (a.k.a. our focal messages), but figuring that out is not the entire task of revolutionaries. We need more than accurate focal messages. We need to produce engaging, sensitive meta-messages too. We need to, in other words, express a quick and delicate appreciation of other people’s feelings.
Alfreds’ work is also useful because it shows the constituent elements by which people create their neuroses. In Cyclical Psychodynamics Wachtel explains the idea that recruiting people into maladaptive relationships is what neurosis is:
"Being effective in helping people to achieve deep and lasting change requires understanding the ways in which neurosis is a joint activity, a cooperative enterprise of a most peculiar sort. Without the participation of the cast of characters in the patient’s life – or, to put it differently (because nothing in human behavior occurs in a vacuum) with different participation by the significant others in the patient’s life – the neurosis would not continue. Indeed, one might even argue that the process whereby others are continually recruited into a persisting maladaptive pattern is the neurosis," (p. 72; emphasis in original).
Alfred’s work, based on the work of Stanislavsky, shows that people can understand their neuroses and gain control of them by understanding and gaining control of their objectives and tactics. That will lead to different feelings. (This is called “want”, “do”, and “feel” in Alfreds’ terminology). This process is true for political action and creating a new social order as well. If we want to change society, we need to change our objectives and tactics which will hopefully lead to us having different feelings.
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I think Kelton’s and Grey’s positions though as leaders of MMT but not elected leaders puts them in a different position from Sanders and requires them to think of more than Sanders has to. Sanders is expected to speak to us in way that’s respectful and helpful, but Kelton and Grey are not. Therefore they won’t receive the reprobation Sanders will if they’re sarcastic or exasperated as Kelton and Grey seemed to be.
Therapists, I believe, are in a similar position to Bernie Sanders. We expect them to be helpful if not respectful. Therefore if we—who as private citizens are not expected to be that way—wish to apply Wachtel’s work to our own lives, we need to consider our objectives, tactics, and motives more than therapists do. I think a body of work which helps us do this is theater director Mike Alfreds’ book Different Every Night.
This book helps actors create relationships with one another which are, as the book’s title suggests, different each performance. Again, Bernie Sanders and therapists do not have to consider the variables in this book because they are expected to act in a way that helps people. We, though, who have to decide what our stance is toward every person we meet, will need to consider more fully our objectives and the tactics we use for achieving those objects—as Alfreds’ book asks actors to do when creating a character.
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MMT does this to some extent. One objective of left MMTers is to, as Scott Ferguson writes in Declarations of Dependence, unleash collective life and demand a space for all life to flourish. Of course most people are conflicted and have counter-objectives as well.
MMT is also using different tactics than many economic movements. They’re fleshing the theory out with humanities; they confront people online, they write editorials, they try to convince elected representatives, etc..
I think if we really home in and write down what our objective(s) is/are in terms of our daily interaction with others and what tactics we’re using to achieve those objectives, we’ll create a new social order which will support and drive our successes in the legislative arena.
Engaging in the fine arts, and not just the humanities, are important for revolution because they teach us to take action on what we sense, think, feel, and desire.
A big part of being a revolutionary imagining how the social order can be different.
There is also a connection with Wachtel’s work. The fine arts are largely about creating something based on what’s in your imagination. In Psychoanalysis, Behavior Therapy, and the Relational World, Wachtel notes that the in behavior therapy, exposure, which is what relieves people of their anxiety, is often accomplished by asking people to imagine what they fear (Loc. 3186, 3191, 3196).
The writings of theater director Mike Alfreds, particularly in his book Different Every Night, teaches actors how to understand and build characters which are real and dynamic. Those of us wishing to understand ourselves so that we’re more real and dynamic in our political work and in social situations would be wise to study what Alfreds has written.
Alfreds’ methods for creating characters are based on the writings of Anton Stanislavski. Alfreds has just assembled and systematized Stanislavski’s ideas in a way that’s unusually accessible and compelling.
Relate not knowing what’s going to happen to Wilhelm von Humboldt’s ideas about spontaneity. von Humboldt is obsessed with spontaneity. In The Limits of State Action, which is only 200 pages, von Humboldt speaks of acting spontaneously or spontaneity 22 times. He says variously:
Remember to that Chomsky’s quote about spiritual transformation is not a transformation in how we feel necessarily but in our ability to do things—to
Friedrich Schelling’s quote that “man is born to act and not to speculate”.
What are the parts of acting from Alfreds? Wants/needs, tactics, objectives, counter-objectives, etc. (He has a three-step flow chart I believe.). These are the same psychological things people need to know about in their daily lives. People need to think in terms of needs, tactics, and objectives. That will help them.
Hamlet: “let your own discretion be your tutor”. “the readiness is all”
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I think we have to bring different standards to bear on Kelton’s and Grey’s comments than Bernie Sanders’ because they’re not elected officials but he is. Sanders is expected to speak to us in way that’s respectful and helpful, but Kelton and Grey are not. Therefore they won’t receive the reprobation Sanders will if they rebuke Kelton and Grey seemed to be. At the same time, this doesn’t mean being sarcastic or bring people
Therapists, I believe, are in a similar position to Bernie Sanders. We expect them to be helpful if not respectful. Therefore if we—who as private citizens are not expected to be that way—wish to apply Wachtel’s work to our own lives, we need to consider our objectives, tactics, and motives more than therapists do. I think a body of work which helps us do this is theater director Mike Alfreds’ book Different Every Night.
In a future essay on theater director Mike Alfred’s work, I’ll write at length of the pitfalls and potential value of Kelton’s sarcasm and Grey’s exasperation. For now, though, let me say that
This book helps actors create relationships with one another which are, as the book’s title suggests, different each performance. Again, Bernie Sanders and therapists do not have to consider the variables in this book because they are expected to act in a way that helps people. We, though, who have to decide what our stance is toward every person we meet, will need to consider more fully our objectives and the tactics we use for achieving those objects—as Alfreds’ book asks actors to do when creating a character.
I could be wrong about that. I don’t know Nonetheless, in general I think it’s wise to reserve disdain, sarcasm, and aggression for elites and to speak to people we want to join our movement in a way that shows we hold them in high regard—that is, in a way that demonstrates we think they’re intelligent, admirable, and capable. At the same time, there are no one-size-fits-all rules when it comes to communication.