chapter 3

“trules speaks”

changing the world 1 student at a time

may 21, 2010

it started out with just the 2 of us. mihaela and i.
sitting for lunch at a little wooden table at the “one”
café, right next door to the caragiale film and
theater university, where i’d been invited to teach for
2 weeks on a fulbright from my imperial government. it
was the first day after the first class of solo
performance and only 7 out of the 19 students had
bothered to show up. half of them late. you know,
“romanian time”. i had met mihaela on the street, after
the performance of “hamlet” by the wooster group. we
had both left at intermission. so tedious. sure, it was
the imperious wooster group in bucharest, but still,
boring is boring. of course, all the sophisticated,
cultural glitterati were there. i even had the
privilege of meeting mr. liviu cuilei, the 90 year old
director-legend of romanian theater lore, who explained
to me that peter brook’s “midsummer’s” was ” all
white”, while his at the guthrie was all “red”.

mihaela was with her bespectacled romanian friend,
vlad, who had earned his notorious counter cultural
reputation by standing up in the middle of yet another
pretentious bucharesti performance event at the
national theater and said something like, “do you
really expect us to watch this shit?” vlad then walked
out and cemented his infamous reputation in the hearts
and minds of romanian artists everywhere. he did the
same tonight (without the shout out), and the three of
us walked down the street towards piata romana (one of
the many beautiful public squares in bucharest, a
little like columbus circle in new york or any of a
myriad of others in paris, rome, bangkok/any big city
with a vibrant pedestrian life). vlad took his leave,
off to a dinner meeting, and mihaela took an
uncharacteristic chance and decided to roam the streets
with me, taking me to the museum of ethnic village
people about half an hour away. by foot, naturally.

the food was authentic but disgusting (various
varieties of pig fat, pig feet, pig innards, you know,
the kind of stuff village people have to eat to survive
the challengingly cold, romanian winters). mihaela and
i shared a couple of silva bruns, a deliciously sweet,
dark beer, a little like san miguel dark from the
philippines with a slight taste of black strap
molasses. coincidentally (are there really any
coincidences?), mihaela was a woman in search of
herself, while i was a teacher starting a 2 week
workshop about self discovery though autobiographical
story telling. i said i would make a call to my
university host to see if we could include her at no
charge, and hopefully i’d see her monday morning at 10
sharp.

on the way to the university from the subway stop
bright and early monday morning, ioana, my perfect
romanian host, and i actually ran into mihaela, walking
from home to the workshop. apparently, we were, indeed,
“on the same paths”. we all climbed the 5 flights of
stairs to “pod B”, the attic of the old communist
dinosaur of a building, and we met the 5 other students
who had made the climb. they were all a bit embarrassed
at the small turnout, telling me that “it was de last 2
weeks of de semester, dat all their student brethren
had exams, finals, etc etc.” i said, “no problem.” at
least they all could speak english and understand me.
“let’s get started,” i enthused. i had seen this same
under-attendance problem in malaysia 8 years ago on my
previous fulbright residency. there was nothing i could
do about it, then or now. it was beyond my control.
just show up and do what i came to do. “build a field
and they will come,” right?

so now i had 2 hours between my 3 hour solo class
and my 2 o’clock improv class, which i was assured
“would be full”. with no car and no place to go, i took
ioana’s suggestion and went to “one”, the adjacent
café. “the food is good. and cheap,” she assured
me. fortunately, mihaela had pity on me and joined me.
just the two of us, the first day. the class had gone
well. i gave them my usual 1st day pitch, telling them,
“you are all unique and amazing human beings and have
fabulous stories inside you. you just don’t know it
yet, and you probably have never been asked to look
inside yourselves before for creativity, inspiration,
and source material.” apparently it was true. how could
it be otherwise? not that they all didn’t have these
fabulous stories, urges, and ideas, they did. but this
was communist romania, run by the brutal ceaucescu, as
recently as 1989. one didn’t speak what one thought…
unless one wanted to be marked and persecuted, maybe
sent to prison, or eliminated altogether. no, you were
part of the whole, part of the omnipotent proletariat.
individuality, personal expression, these were self
indulgent capitalist concepts, leading inevitably to
self ruin, and to destruction of the omniscient state.
i had my work cut out for me.

lunch is good. “chorba”, a romanian vegetable and
chicken borscht. with sour cream. and freshly-baked
bread. just like my ancestors had in the schetls of
kharkov and odessa, before they made the trans-atlantic
schlep to new yawk in the early 20th century. mihaela
and i sit across the little table from each other, and
she speaks shyly about being a free lance journalist,
recently “downsized” from her day job, opportunely
making her free to search for her artistic identity and
to explore her creative potential. she is completely
charming…. in a gawky, six foot, long hair, romanian
kind of way. actually, she is yet another “hippie girl”
trapped in the wrong decade, but it makes her wide open
to the preachings of a still renegade dancer-clown,
steeped in the bohemian ways of new york’s avant garde
of the late 60s and in the principles of tim leary, ram
das, and all the other counter-cultural,
we-can-change-the-world idealists of the baby boom “me
generation”.

after too much romanian coffee, we climb the stairs
again, this time mercifully, just to the third floor,
only to learn that their are no students at all for the
improv class. instead i am invited to speak to a large
lecture group waiting for their esteemed professor,
apparently still on romanian time. “hey, you guys, my
name is trules, and i’m a loud-mouthed american from
new york and i need students for my workshops!”
laughter. “no, i’m serious. you guys need to rearrange
your schedules and come to my solo performance class 5
days a week so you can learn how to write and perform
your own stories… and to improv class 3 days a week
so you can learn how to lose your inhibitions, take
risks, and live in the moment!” a few smiles, twitters,
and murmurs. i can read their faces: “who is this guy?
what’s he doing in our masters class, shooting off his
big mouth?”

“any questions?” none. “well, look, guys, my
unpopular american government spent a lot of money
getting me here, and your university had the wisdom and
balls to invite me here, so i think the least you can
do is show up and take advantage of this opportunity.
ever hear of the ‘train of opportunity’? well,
here it is, right in front of you.” i move my left arm
in front of them in slow motion, from stage right to
stage left. “how many times do you think this train
will come by again?” silence. “that’s right. maybe
never again. so what do you think you can do about it?”
one student seizes the day and shouts out, “get on it!”
“that’s right. what’s holding you back? fear?
insecurity? inconvenience. well, you know what i call
all of them? ‘excuses’. there’s an old wise,
jewish biblical expression that starts, ‘if not
now…..'”. i pause…. but this time half the room
shouts out, “when?” “that’s right! see you tomorrow at
10, eh?” and i walk off to a smattering of
applause.

the next day, i have 15 students up in the attic of
pod B. in the bright morning sun streaming through the
roof’s open windows, i try to teach them about “solo
performance voice”, about “drawing the audience out of
their seats into the solo performer’s world by
being in and experiencing your own story”,
about what makes a good story, about “having
something at stake like a good spring in a mouse trap
at the beginning of a story”, about what makes a good
solo performance artist. “he or she is someone who can
mine the pain and injury from the emotional
wounds of life and turn them into theatrical gold.
someone who can make art out of the fabric of their
lives.” “…not just in a self-indulgent, therapeutic
kind of way, but with a craft and with a perspective
that makes the specificity of the individual story into
something universal”.

i talk about the 3 greatest american playwrights,
eugene o’neill, tennessee williams, and arthur miller.
of “how they spun their autobiographical plays out of
their own families’ tumultuous and painful histories”.
of “how williams wrote about his southern-bred and
overbearing mother and his crippled and too-delicate
sister and turned them into amanda and laura wingfield
in his poetic and tragic ‘glass menagerie'”. of
“how o’neill wrote arguably the greatest american play,
‘long day’s journey into night’ about his drunk
and miserly father, about his morphine-addicted mother,
about his bitter and failed older brother, and about
himself, a taciturn and tubercular teenager… and took
them all into one of the darkest and longest nights of
soul-wrenching theater an american audience had ever
seen.” yet “he was so mortified about the power and
truth of his own play that he refused to have it
produced until after 25 years after his death.” i say,
“making art out of the fabric of your lives is what
playwrights and artists do. not that it’s easy, because
the doors of avoidance, artifice and escape are always
wide open… but for those who are chosen or driven to
try, they must follow the path deep inside themselves,
and like shamans of old, they must come out the other
side… with their individual truths… with their own
beauties… and offer them up… to the choir… to the
audience… like the greeks did… like shakespeare
did… like only they, themselves, must ultimately
attempt to do.”

i talk. and they listen. i’m surprised. i don’t have
anything scripted. i haven’t planned anything. but the
simple truth is that i’ve been doing this same thing
for so many years, that i actually know and believe in
what i’m talking about. i’ve seen the power of stories.
i’ve seen them release their own authors from years of
shame and secrecy. and i’ve seen these same stories
make audiences stand on their feet with recognition and
appreciation. i believe that we all have something in
common as human beings. no matter which side of the
border we live on. no matter what our religious or
political persuasions are. we all have problematic
families: mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters. we have
all tried to love, been loved or been rejected; we’ve
all been loyal, betrayed, succeeded against great odds,
been abandoned, ashamed, overcome impossible obstacles.
these powerful stories are what make us human,
different from the other species. not just the size of
our brain and our intelligence. but our histories. our
memories. the way we interact with each other, make
choices, carry around our histories and memories in our
present.

i talk and they listen. for 2 weeks. i tell them
about myself. about my unhappy adolescence. about my
defying my family’s expectations by choosing to become
an artist, instead of a doctor. i talk about my cancer
in 1989. about my fear of death. and about my not being
afraid of it any more. about living in the moment.
about traveling without an itinerary. again, about the
train of opportunity. “that life is about making
choices and commitments.” i tell them about “meeting my
wife in front of an ATM machine in bali, completely
‘by accident’ and inviting her to america and
marrying her a year later, when she was 30 years
younger than i was, spoke no english, and didn’t know
who tim leary, ram dass, or even who richard nixon or
george washington was.” i use my own life as example. i
try to practice what i preach and to learn by practice
what i still need to learn.

every day after class, mihaela and i go out to
lunch… at the one café. the second day, bibi,
mother and improv actress, joins us. we are three. same
delicious chorba, freshly baked bread, and strong
romanian coffee. the third day, felix and alice-monica
join us. we are five. another chorba, same bread and
strong coffee. the next day… vlad, and patricia. we
are growing. i’ve never had lunch with a single student
in my 24 years at USC in los angeles. it’s not my
thing. i like to keep boundaries. like a good
professional: doctor, therapist, sports coach, you know
what i mean. if the student sees you as too human, with
problems and weaknesses of your own, they believe you
less. they believe in you less. or that’s what
i always thought. but now, out of need and convenience,
i am breaking bread with my romanian students. sure, we
talk a bit about class, but… we also talk about so
many other things. about communism, ceaucescu,
vampires, and family. about the 60s in america, about
gypsies living on the sides of the road in moldavia,
about courage and cowardice, about … life. it is
totally surprising… and enjoyable. i am discovering
that students are so much more than bodies, hearts, and
minds sitting or moving around in a class room, wanting
to learn. they are actually “people” too.

and… it’s reciprocal. they’ve never had lunch with
a teacher before. they’ve never had a teacher be so
open and honest with them before. be so vulnerable,
so… him…self. in fact, they say that most of their
teachers are disappointing… only going through the
motions, with all the power… with all the so-called
“knowledge and expertise”, treating them like impotent,
sponge-absorbing children. “how dare you think of
telling your own story? who do you think you are? learn
the classics. learn how to act!” i tell them, “look
within. find out who you are. what do you have to say?
where you want to go? have the courage to say it, to do
it. your stories can be as powerful as anyone’s. who
wants to see chekhov’s ‘3 sisters’ for the
billionth time? we want to be surprised, delighted,
moved, provoked in the theater, in ways that tv and
movies can’t do to us. we want to discover ourselves in
new, meaningful, and alive ways… right there in our
seats… right there on the stage in front of us. in a
community called ‘an audience’.” i talk. they
listen. they write. we listen. we laugh. and
occasionally, we cry. together. and almost every day, i
realize that i do, indeed, have a mighty magnificent
job.

in the afternoon improv classes, it’s different, but
parallel. the class grows every day. the word spreads.
“trules knows what he’s doing. check it out!” i teach
them about “not thinking”, about “living in the
moment”, about “saying yes, making it their own, adding
something new and passing it on”. the 3 steps of improv
a la trules. i teach them about “gesture”, about
“discovering the content of their movement”, so that
it’s real and spontaneous. about “the importance
listening and making their partners, their teammates,
look good.” i tell them about “how little i like comedy
sports, and improv teams and improv actors trying to be
clever and funny” i tell them that “comedy in our class
will come from the surprise of genuine, instinctive
re-action. from doing the work and seeing what you
discover along the way. not from planning things out
and trying to get laughs.” “life”, i say, “is like one
long improv. about having the courage and confidence to
make choices and decisions… sometimes under a great
deal of pressure. life never turns out the way you
expect or want it to. as mr. lennon said, ‘life
is what happens while you’re waiting for your plans to
work out.'” i ask them, “when the train of opportunity
comes along, can you trust yourself to step up, swing
the bat…improvise and see where it takes you?” day
after day, on and on, along the road of life.

in the middle of the 2nd week, i screen my
autobiographical documentary film, “the poet and the
con”. the film about my identification and relationship
with my criminal uncle that took me 7 long years to
make and which i haven’t seen in maybe another 10
years. the film in which i show my parents and i
struggling in a sunny california back yard over my
arrest for commercial burglary, over my own virulent
anti-semitism, over my own discomfort and hatred of
myself. it’s not an easy film to share with an
audience, especially one composed of students who have
come to admire and respect me as a teacher and as an
artist. but as the saying goes, i have to put up or
shut up. take the risk i’m so flippant asking them to
take. so… i lose a night’s sleep… and don’t
actually watch the film with them… but i introduce it
and come back into the screening room when it’s over to
answer questions. i’m met by a sea of silence. no
applause. silence. but i know from previous screenings
at festivals around the world, that my film disturbs
people. it’s not an easy one to come out of, or to
start yammering away about. but then i see, the
audience is moved. and after a moment, they do start
asking me personal questions. “you look and sound so
different now than when you made the film. do you feel
different?” “what were you so angry about?” “how did
your relationship with your parents survive that awful
day of filming?” i try to give honest answers. i try to
meet the challenge.

two days later, i’m up in front of an audience
again. this time, live. i call the event (tongue in
cheek), “trules speaks”. as if i haven’t said enough
over the 2 week residency. but it feels like i haven’t
had an audience listen to me in years… as an
artist… as a man with something to say. so… instead
of just doing a rehearsed performance, like i’ve done
so many times before, i decide to “just let myself be”
in front of the audience. i want to carry on the
dialogue i’ve been having for 2 weeks… but in front
of an audience. i don’t want to isolate myself inside
of memorization, performance, judgment, and need for
approval; i just want to open up and let it rip!

so i do. about an hour before the event, i show up
in the theater with nicu, the gentle and self-effacing
dean of the theater school. with his palette of theater
brushes and his life spent in too many small theaters,
nicu is the wizard of UNATC (the university’s acronym).
he’s able to give me a live internet connection with a
screen and projector, which we put stage right, next to
a white plastic podium in the center of the stage. i
see a bright yellow ladder sitting on the side of the
room, and after we adjust some lights, i say, “let’s
leave the ladder stage left.” so as the audience comes
into the space now composed of these 3 simple set
pieces, into a kind of blue soundscape of miles davis’
“so what”, i have the guests actually walk to the
podium, center stage, and sign into the facebook page,
“trules speaks”, as guests. they’re all a little
surprised to be part of the performance, but it starts
us out on tenuous, interesting ground. like “what’s
going to happen next?”

next… i walk onto stage and climb the ladder with
my back to the audience. the lights dim, the music
fades, the audiences hushes, and i turn around and sit
there on one of the rungs staring at them all. maybe 50
of them. great! just what i didn’t want. expectation. a
“performance.” but what can i do? i open my mouth….
“when i grow up, i’m gonna be…. a puma whale.”
silence. “i said, when i grow up i’m gonna be a puma
whale.” more silence. “is this a poem? a performance? a
reading? what the fuck is trules doing?” i plow through
the first piece. silence. no applause. i climb down the
ladder, walk center to the podium, and start the
second. “see my face? it’s ugly. it’s rubbery. watch.”
a few twitters, … discomfort. i finish: “just keep
your face outta my face. alright? a few more twitters.
silence. no applause.

this ain’t workin’, trules. do something else. i put
on my glasses and look out at the crowd. at least
they’re not walking out. or hurling romanian tomatoes.
“ok…….. welcome…. to… ‘trules’ speaks'”.
my mind races to find the right thing to say. “and…
here i am… and there you are…” and from that moment
on, for the next 2 hours, i improvise. i actually look
at, and speak to, the audience. i ask them questions.
“do you want to know the difference between new york
and LA?” they answer enthusiastically, “yes!” i tell
them: “in LA people say ‘have a nice day’, but
actually are thinking ‘fuck you’, while in new
york, people say ‘fuck you’ but are actually
thinking ‘have a nice day.” they laugh. they
start to loosen up. i start to loosen up. it starts to
be a two way street, a dialogue, just like i’d hoped
for. i ask some questions. they ask some questions. i
read a few more pieces. they open up some more. i
address them by name, the ones that i know from class,
it seems like we have a friendship, a relationship. if
they don’t respond, i remind them about the train of
opportunity. “if not now…” “when?”they respond. i
ask, “if i could do anything in the world for you
tonight, what would it be?” i look at them. they look
around uncomfortably and twitter again. “come one…!”
a girl in the back who i don’t know says, “i want to
meet johnny depp.” the audience laughs. i tell her how:
“go to paris, look up his girl friend, vanessa paradis,
and start stalking him.” the audience likes the idea.
“but why waste your time on fucking celebrity? we’re
all such bloodsucking sycophants, thinking if we get
close to fame, something good might rub off. i promise
you, it won’t….”

and so it goes. and so it goes. more questions. more
answers. trules speaks… for 90 minutes, until he
finally asks, “have you had enough?” in unison, they
sing out “noooooo.” “well then let’s take a little
break, and when we come back, i’ll tell you some travel
stories….”

and we do. and i do…. and at the end of two
improvised, i hope, inspiring hours, where i actually
die on stage in front of them… for about 60 seconds
with my head glued to the podium… illustrating my
point… that we could all die… any time… if not
now… when? at the end of these 2 glorious,
non-performance interactive hours, i say my heartfelt
thank yous, my good nights and my good lucks, and i
take a humble little bow. (i think, truly.) they
applaud. and applaud. i stand there and take it in.
they don’t stand up, but they continue to applaud. i
think it’s the longest, not the loudest, but the
warmest and longest…. applause i’ve ever received. i
guess i must have done something right.

on the next day, my last in bucharest, i teach my
final two classes, solo performance & improvisation,
and naturally, we go out for lunch in between. of
course, to the one café. this time, we have to
slide 6 tables together; there are more than 20 of us.
mihaela is still there. she of the first day and of the
first chorba and freshly baked bread. felix and bibi
are there. and patricia and lucia and ana pasti and
vlad and alice-monica and sorina … they have all
joined us. even the good dean, nicu mandea, is there,
shyly drinking his romanian beer and eating his
romanian sausage. we are all one happy… and sad…
family. my time here is through. i/we’ve built a field
and we all “came together”, as mr. lennon would say
again. we laughed and we learned. together. we sweated.
together. we wrote and listened to each other. we “came
together” and we celebrated our 2 countries, our 2
cultures… together… all on mr. fulbright’s tab.
hey, there are SOME things to be grateful for about our
big bad, imperialist, american empire!

in the evening, the solo performers show up at
“underground”, the typically eastern european
underground night club/bar, to read their monologues,
the culmination of our 2 weeks of work together. there
are 12 of them, and they manage to fill the club with
about 50 friends, sitting on stools, standing in front
of the stage… to hear stories from the “fabric of our
lives”. they read: a story of the awkwardness of
english class for a young romanian girl, a story of a
girl of 7 having sex with a 11 year old gypsy boy, a
story of taking care of a mother with cancer, a story
of a young gypsy girl coming to terms with years of
abandonment and abuse. stories… out of these young
romanian lives. and… the audience… listens. and is
surprised. and… listens. and laughs. and listens some
more. and is moved. and listens… and applauds…. and
applauds… into the night.

afterwards, we all mill about the dark, raunchy club
with wines and beers, and we take lots of photos… and
then felix takes out his guitar to play… but because
the club now turns into a disco, we all pile out into
the streets of downtown bucharest, ambling and laughing
together… until we end up in front of the famous
architecture school and the student protest fountain…
where we park ourselves and sing communal romanian folk
songs for the next two hours. actually, they sing and i
listen…. and then at 2 in the morning… we all stand
to do our final group hug and shed our tears and say
our goodbyes… until i come back again… until i come
back again………

and then it’s morning and the next thing i know it,
i’m a plane for istanbul…

but that, as they say… is another story…

for now though, trules has spoken. probably too long
again… but hey, it’s been nice… to have been
heard!

thank you, mr. fulbright. thank you, mr. obama.
thank you, bucharest and sinaia and moldavia and
romania. thank you, my students. i’ve dome my job…
planted the seeds. it’s now up to you, to tend them and
to take care of them. up to you, to watch them grow and
to harvest their fruits and bounty.

there are many fields of dreams still out there. i
know. notwithstanding many disappointments,
heartbreaks, and failures…

not to worry. say yes. get on those trains of
opportunity………

they’re rolling along every day,

right bob?