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In & of Itself will be on @hulu soon. A few months ago I was asked to write a brief statement on the film's release. I couldn't figure out how to do that. Instead I wrote this:
We had been rehearsing IN & OF ITSELF for months. Although I use “rehearsing” loosely because there was no script. It was all in my head; I knew what I wanted to say I just didn’t know how I wanted to say it. Or rather, how it needed to be said for others to hear it.
Which meant, much of the time was spent in silence, with me staring blankly at the ground, and Frank Oz patiently waiting for me to decide what comes next. I’m certain most directors wouldn’t have been so patient. I believe most would have quit. But Frank is different.
He was fine with my untraditional process. In fact, he reveled in it. Turns out, it was his process long before it was mine. I realized that the day he leaned back in his chair and, while gazing at our crummy mock-set made of cardboard, said...
“This is great. I haven’t worked like this since the early days with Jim.” That was a good day. On this particular day, however, I was having a tough time. I couldn’t hear the next words or see the next move. I just didn’t have it.
We had been at it for months and I was exhausted. Unfortunately, there was no time to rest because we were opening in two months and didn’t have anything that resembled a show.
Not only was there no script, but I had never performed any of what I knew I was going to do. And much of it couldn’t be performed until opening night, as it required the otherness of the audience. The stress was mounting.
Frank saw me staring into an abyss and suggested we take a break, get some fresh air. We walked on the stars along Hollywood Blvd. and he asked me how I was feeling. I told him I was fine and he knew I was lying.
That became clear when, at the coffee shop, he got serious and said, “I want ask you something and it’s really important that you’re honest with me.” I said, “Of course,” and prepared myself for the question.
“Are you going to be okay if no one gets this?” I didn’t understand, so he clarified, “What you’re trying to do here—it’s all very heady, abstract stuff. I’m in it with you and sometimes even I have trouble wrapping my head around what we are doing here..."
"...people are going to see it soon. We’re going to get reviews. So what I want to know is… Are you going to be okay if nobody likes it?” Not the question I expected. Don’t recall what I expected, but it wasn’t that.
We sat in silence as I thought about it. It was a long time; we had grown accustomed to sitting together in silence. Then I replied, “I don’t know.” I told him I wanted to give him an honest answer and needed some time to find it.
Frank and I met back in 2013. He shook my hand after seeing me perform at a theater in NYC. A mutual friend had told Frank he should see my work. After the show, he didn’t want to “bother me,” but his wife insisted he at least say hello.
We hit it off and stayed in touch even after I went back to Los Angeles, where I lived at the time. When I decided to create a new show, the moment I knew what it was about, I knew Frank had to direct it.
That’s why, when I emailed Frank, asking him to direct, I wrote, “I've given careful consideration as to who I'd like to direct this show and it's come down to two choices: You. Or nobody. And I mean that.”
It wasn’t cause he’s famous. I could throw a rock and hit a famous person in L.A. And it wasn’t even because he’s a director. As far as I knew, he didn’t know a thing about directing theater. There was a specific reason it had to be Frank: He embodied the work I wanted to create.
I was exploring the paradoxical nature of identity. How we rely on labels and definitions to identify one another. But, ironically and inevitably, those labels conceal who we really are. It was a theme that seemed to have emerged, in various ways, throughout my life.
When I decided to create a show about that, I knew it had to be Frank. His name means something different to everyone. Some think of the great films he’s directed. Others picture Yoda. Or Miss Piggy. Or Fozzie. Or Grover. Or… List goes on and on. Frank was more than one thing.
And that’s exactly what this show needed to be. He didn’t agree to direct it right away. Instead, he replied to my email: “Let’s talk and see if I can contribute in the way that you expect. All that matters is that the show becomes what you want it to be.”
I flew from L.A. to New York, stood in his living room, and pitched a very rough vision of the show. A loose skeleton composed of fragmented ideas and scattered stories. And I told him, “It won’t really be a show though. It’ll just look like one.” He asked, “What is it then?”
I replied, “I don’t know, we haven’t made it yet.” That answer seemed to satisfy him and he agreed to direct. Years later, when I asked him what made him agree to take the leap, he replied, “Because I sensed you had pure intent. And I could tell you wanted to break something.”
Frank and I finished our coffees and moseyed back along Hollywood Blvd., to the studio, where I continued to try to break something. Many things, actually. One of those things was magic.
See, I was in the unfortunate position of wanting to create something meaningful, while also being known as a magician. That’s not a title I chose. Just something people started calling me. And yet another label preventing others from seeing what I was trying to show them.
This, I’d come to learn, was something Frank could relate to on a deep level. While different people think of different things when they hear Frank’s name, most people think he’s *only* that thing. Which means to many he’s something even more trivial than a magician: a puppeteer.
Yet another reason he was the right man for the job.
I don’t recall how much longer our rehearsal lasted after we returned from our coffee break. And I’m not sure I broke through whatever block was holding me up that day.
I don’t recall how much longer our rehearsal lasted after we returned from our coffee break. And I’m not sure I broke through whatever block was holding me up that day.
But I do recall what I said to Frank as we were packing up. I had been thinking about his question and found an honest answer. I told him, “I’m gonna be okay.” He replied, “Oh yeah?” and asked me how I knew.
I told him that I was already proud of what we had accomplished. That I believed the work embodied the spirit of the idea. It was living up to its title, as a creation that existed while also defying definitions.
And I explained that I had realized: People will see what they see and say what they say; they will define the work, and me, as they see fit. However, in doing so, they become an extension of the work, a continuation of the dialogue I’m attempting to have with the world.
The same is true today. This film, like the show before it, lives up to its title. And I’m gonna be okay.
