I’m at the bar with a few friends—this is before the pandemic—and one of them is telling us about her supervisor, who has been recently fired. He reached out to her, and she’s conflicted about whether or not to respond. She believes the other people who accused him of unwanted advances, and yet, he was a champion of her abilities in a company where she was often dismissed by others for being young and female. I don’t know her supervisor—and the extent of what I know about company politics begins and ends with The Office—but I saw how she blossomed there, how she began to move through the world with confidence and authority. “I thought he could be eccentric,” she says. “But I never felt like he didn’t respect me. Now I’m wondering if there were things that I just… missed.”
Another friend jumps in—she once had a similar experience, she tells us, with a professor. He had been a mentor to her, and when she finally heard all of the allegations about his behavior with others, she felt like the ground underneath her feet had shifted, as if reality itself had cracked. You think you know someone, she tells us, but then you have to reckon with the fact that there’s a whole reality you never knew, and now that’s true too.
My first friend says that her supervisor’s life has fallen apart in the wake of the firing, but her own has in a way as well. She’s left trying to reconcile the man she thought she knew with the man that everyone who came forward seemed to know. How can he be both those people? How could he do so much good in her life, so much tangible good, and yet cause harm to others?
***
I was still in college, spending time at a theater training program. I’d been assigned to assist with a play that was getting a workshop with guest theater artists. I don’t know who thought housing wolves in the chicken coop was a brilliant move, but one morning we got out of bed and wandered into the common room, and there they were: fresh arrivals, real professional actors.
Duke—I’ve changed his name here—was in his forties, and he loved to flirt, but with the kind of harmless panache that let you know he was just keeping his game well-oiled. He told us stories about an ex-girlfriend who was wild, and each story ended with: “Ever since then, I’ve been looking for the next woman to ruin my life”—and he’d wink. The other actor, Jerry—not his real name—was younger. He was lithe like a cat, with sharp eyes, handsome, quieter. Jerry had been a supporting actor on a TV show, but from the way he talked about his life, you would think he was the star. Jerry didn’t have the good-natured self-mockery of Duke, and his eyes followed me in ways that made me uncomfortable. Sometimes I’d see Jerry holding court with the young female apprentices. When he saw me, he’d call out and invite me to join them, but I kept my distance.
Rehearsals started a few days after Duke and Jerry showed up, and inside the theater both men became entirely different people. It was the first time I’d seen how actors transform when they are asked to be other people, when their job is locating and mining the compassion, the curiosity, the deep humanity that allows this change to occur. Suddenly both men were deeply still, inwardly-turned. Jerry’s attention wasn’t on me—it wasn’t even on himself—it was on the powerful thing occurring in that room.
"behavior" - Google News
February 10, 2021 at 04:52AM
https://ift.tt/3rQ6Ycr
Reckoning with Art in the Era of Bad Behavior - Vogue.com
"behavior" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2We9Kdi
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Reckoning with Art in the Era of Bad Behavior - Vogue.com"
Post a Comment