-
I was a Marine with 1/1 Weapons Company,
-
81's platoon,
-
out in Camp Pendleton, California.
-
Oorah!
-
Audience: Oorah!
-
(Laughter)
-
I joined a few months after September 11,
-
feeling like I think most people
in the country did at the time,
-
filled with a sense
of patriotism and retribution
-
and the desire to do something --
-
that, coupled with that fact
that I wasn't doing anything.
-
I was 17, just graduated
from high school that past summer,
-
living in the back room
of my parents' house paying rent,
-
in the small town I was raised in
in Northern Indiana,
-
called Mishawaka.
-
I can spell that later
for people who are interested --
-
(Laughter)
-
Mishawaka is many good things
but cultural hub of the world it is not,
-
so my only exposure to theater and film
-
was limited to the plays
I did in high school
-
and Blockbuster Video,
may she rest in peace.
-
(Laughter)
-
I was serious enough about acting
-
that I auditioned for Juilliard
when I was a senior in high school,
-
didn't get in,
-
determined college wasn't for me
and applied nowhere else,
-
which was a genius move.
-
I also did that Hail Mary
LA acting odyssey
-
that I always heard stories about,
-
of actors moving to LA
with, like, seven dollars
-
and finding work and successful careers.
-
I got as far as Amarillo, Texas,
before my car broke down.
-
I spent all my money repairing it,
-
finally made it to Santa Monica --
-
not even LA --
-
stayed for 48 hours wandering
the beach, basically,
-
got in my car, drove home,
-
thus ending my acting career, so --
-
(Laughter)
-
Seventeen, Mishawaka ...
-
parents' house, paying rent,
selling vacuums ...
-
telemarketing,
-
cutting grass at the local
4-H fairgrounds.
-
This was my world
going into September, 2001.
-
So after the 11th,
-
and feeling an overwhelming sense of duty,
-
and just being pissed off
in general -- at myself,
-
my parents, the government;
-
not having confidence,
not having a respectable job,
-
my shitty mini-fridge that I just
drove to California and back --
-
I joined the Marine Corps and loved it.
I loved being a Marine.
-
It's one of the things I'm most proud
of having done in my life.
-
Firing weapons was cool,
-
driving and detonating
expensive things was great.
-
But I found I loved
the Marine Corps the most
-
for the thing I was looking
for the least when I joined,
-
which was the people:
-
these weird dudes --
a motley crew of characters
-
from a cross section
of the United States --
-
that on the surface I had
nothing in common with.
-
And over time,
-
all the political and personal bravado
-
that lead me to the military dissolved,
-
and for me, the Marine Corps
became synonymous with my friends.
-
And then, a few years into my service
-
and months away from deploying to Iraq,
-
I dislocated my sternum
in a mountain-biking accident,
-
and had to be medically separated.
-
Those never in the military
may find this hard to understand,
-
but being told I wasn't getting deployed
to Iraq or Afghanistan
-
was very devastating for me.
-
I have a very clear image of leaving
the base hospital on a stretcher
-
and my entire platoon is waiting
outside to see if I was OK.
-
And then, suddenly,
I was a civilian again.
-
I knew I wanted to give
acting another shot,
-
because -- again, this is me --
-
I thought all civilian problems
are small compared to the military.
-
I mean, what can you really
bitch about now, you know?
-
"It's hot.
-
Someone should turn
on the air conditioner."
-
"This coffee line is too long."
-
I was a Marine,
-
I knew how to survive.
-
I'd go to New York and become an actor.
-
If things didn't work out,
-
I'd live in Central Park
and dumpster-dive behind Panera Bread.
-
(Laughter)
-
I re-auditioned for Juilliard
and this time I was lucky,
-
I got in.
-
But I was surprised
by how complex the transition was
-
from military to civilian.
-
And I was relatively healthy; I can't
imagine going through that process
-
on top of a mental or physical injury.
-
But regardless, it was difficult.
-
In part, because I was in acting school --
-
I couldn't justify going
to voice and speech class,
-
throwing imaginary balls of energy
at the back of the room,
-
doing acting exercises
where I gave birth to myself --
-
(Laughter)
-
while my friends were serving
without me overseas.
-
But also, because I didn't
know how to apply the things
-
I learned in the military
to a civilian context.
-
I mean that both practically
and emotionally.
-
Practically, I had to get a job.
-
And I was an Infantry Marine,
-
where you're shooting machine guns
and firing mortars.
-
There's not a lot of places you can
put those skills in the civilian world.
-
(Laughter)
-
Emotionally, I struggled to find meaning.
-
In the military, everything has meaning.
-
Everything you do
is either steeped in tradition
-
or has a practical purpose.
-
You can't smoke in the field
-
because you don't want
to give away your position.
-
You don't touch your face --
you have to maintain
-
a personal level of health and hygiene.
-
You face this way when "Colors" plays,
-
out of respect for people
who went before you.
-
Walk this way, talk this way
because of this.
-
Your uniform is maintained to the inch.
-
How diligently you followed
those rules spoke volumes
-
about the kind of Marine you were.
-
Your rank said something
about your history
-
and the respect you had earned.
-
In the civilian world there's no rank.
-
Here you're just another body,
-
and I felt like I constantly had
to prove my worth all over again.
-
And the respect civilians were giving me
while I was in uniform
-
didn't exist when I was out of it.
-
There didn't seem to be a ...
-
a sense of community,
-
whereas in the military,
I felt this sense of community.
-
How often in the civilian world
-
are you put in a life-or-death situation
with your closest friends
-
and they constantly demonstrate
that they're not going to abandon you?
-
And meanwhile, at acting school ...
-
(Laughter)
-
I was really, for the first time,
-
discovering playwrights
and characters and plays
-
that had nothing to do with the military,
-
but were somehow describing
my military experience
-
in a way that before
to me was indescribable.
-
And I felt myself becoming less aggressive
-
as I was able to put words
to feelings for the first time
-
and realizing what
a valuable tool that was.
-
And when I was reflecting
on my time in the military,
-
I wasn't first thinking
on the stereotypical drills
-
and discipline and pain of it;
-
but rather, the small,
intimate human moments,
-
moments of great feeling:
-
friends going AWOL
because they missed their families,
-
friends getting divorced,
-
grieving together, celebrating together,
-
all within the backdrop of the military.
-
I saw my friends battling
these circumstances,
-
and I watched the anxiety
it produced in them and me,
-
not being able to express
our feelings about it.
-
The military and theater communities
are actually very similar.
-
You have a group of people
trying to accomplish a mission
-
greater than themselves;
it's not about you.
-
You have a role, you have to know
your role within that team.
-
Every team has a leader or director;
-
sometimes they're smart,
sometimes they're not.
-
You're forced to be intimate
with complete strangers
-
in a short amount of time;
-
the self-discipline, the self-maintenance.
-
I thought, how great would it be
to create a space
-
that combined these two seemingly
dissimilar communities,
-
that brought entertainment
to a group of people
-
that, considering their occupation,
-
could handle something
a bit more thought-provoking
-
than the typical mandatory-fun events
-
that I remember being
"volun-told" to go to in the military --
-
(Laughter)
-
All well-intended but slightly
offensive events,
-
like "Win a Date with a San Diego
Chargers Cheerleader,"
-
where you answer a question
about pop culture,
-
and if you get it right you win a date,
-
which was a chaperoned walk
around the parade deck
-
with this already married,
pregnant cheerleader --
-
(Laughter)
-
Nothing against cheerleaders,
I love cheerleaders.
-
The point is more, how great would it
be to have theater presented
-
through characters that were accessible
without being condescending.
-
So we started this nonprofit
called Arts in the Armed Forces,
-
where we tried to do that,
-
tried to join these two seemingly
dissimilar communities.
-
We pick a play or select monologues
from contemporary American plays
-
that are diverse in age and race
like a military audience is,
-
grab a group of incredible
theater-trained actors,
-
arm them with incredible material,
-
keep production value
as minimal as possible --
-
no sets, no costumes,
no lights, just reading it --
-
to throw all the emphasis on the language
-
and to show that theater can
be created at any setting.
-
It's a powerful thing,
-
getting in a room with complete strangers
-
and reminding ourselves of our humanity,
-
and that self-expression
is just as valuable a tool
-
as a rifle on your shoulder.
-
And for an organization like the military,
-
that prides itself on having
acronyms for acronyms,
-
you can get lost in the sauce
-
when it comes to explaining
a collective experience.
-
And I can think of no better community
-
to arm with a new means of self-expression
-
than those protecting our country.
-
We've gone all over
the United States and the world,
-
from Walter Reed in Bethesda, Maryland,
-
to Camp Pendleton,
to Camp Arifjan in Kuwait,
-
to USAG Bavaria,
-
on- and off-Broadway theaters in New York.
-
And for the performing artists we bring,
-
it's a window into a culture
-
they otherwise would not
have had exposure to.
-
And for the military, it's the exact same.
-
And in doing this for the past six years,
-
I'm always reminded
that acting is many things.
-
It's a craft, it's a political act,
it's a business, it's --
-
whatever adjective
is most applicable to you.
-
But it's also a service.
-
I didn't get to finish mine,
-
so whenever I get to be of service
-
to this ultimate service industry,
the military, for me, again --
-
there's not many things better than that.
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)
-
We're going to be doing a piece
from Marco Ramirez,
-
called "I am not Batman."
-
An incredible actor
and good friend of mine, Jesse Perez,
-
is going to be reading,
-
and Matt Johnson,
who I just met a couple hours ago.
-
They're doing it together
for the first time,
-
so we'll see how it goes.
-
Jesse Perez and Matt Johnson.
-
(Applause)
-
Jesse Perez: It's the middle of the night
-
and the sky is glowing
like mad, radioactive red.
-
And if you squint,
you can maybe see the moon
-
through a thick layer of cigarette smoke
and airplane exhaust
-
that covers the whole city,
-
like a mosquito net
that won't let the angels in.
-
(Drum beat)
-
And if you look up high enough,
-
you can see me standing
on the edge of an 87-story building,
-
and up there, a place for gargoyles
and broken clock towers
-
that have stayed still and dead
for maybe like 100 years,
-
up there is me.
-
(Beat)
-
And I'm frickin' Batman.
-
(Beat)
-
And I gots Batmobiles and batarangs
-
and frickin' bat caves, like, for real.
-
And all it takes is a broom closet
-
or a back room or a fire escape,
-
and Danny's hand-me-down jeans are gone.
-
And my navy blue polo shirt,
-
the one that looks kinda good on me
but has that hole on it near the butt
-
from when it got snagged
on the chain-link fence behind Arturo's
-
but it isn't even a big deal
because I tuck that part in
-
and it's, like, all good.
-
That blue polo shirt -- it's gone, too!
-
And I get like, like ... transformational.
-
(Beat)
-
And nobody pulls out a belt
and whips Batman for talkin' back.
-
(Beat)
-
Or for not talkin' back.
-
And nobody calls Batman simple
-
or stupid
-
or skinny.
-
And nobody fires Batman's brother
from the Eastern Taxi Company
-
'cause they was making cutbacks, neither.
-
'Cause they got nothing but respect.
-
And not like afraid-respect,
-
just, like, respect-respect.
-
(Laughter)
-
'Cause nobody's afraid of you.
-
'Cause Batman doesn't mean nobody no harm.
-
(Beat)
-
Ever.
(Double beat)
-
'Cause all Batman really wants
to do is save people
-
and maybe pay abuela's bills one day
-
and die happy.
-
And maybe get, like, mad-famous for real.
-
(Laughter)
-
Oh -- and kill the Joker.
-
(Drum roll)
-
Tonight, like most nights, I'm all alone.
-
And I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
-
like a eagle
-
or like a --
-
no, yeah, like a eagle.
-
(Laughter)
-
And my cape is flapping in the wind
cause it's frickin' long
-
and my pointy ears are on,
-
and that mask that covers like half
my face is on, too,
-
and I got, like, bulletproof stuff
all in my chest so no one can hurt me.
-
And nobody -- nobody! --
-
is gonna come between Batman ...
-
and justice.
-
(Drums)
(Laughter)
-
From where I am,
-
I can hear everything.
-
(Silence)
-
Somewhere in the city,
-
there's a old lady picking
Styrofoam leftovers up out of a trash can
-
and she's putting a piece
of sesame chicken someone spit out
-
into her own mouth.
-
And somewhere there's a doctor
with a wack haircut in a black lab coat
-
trying to find a cure for the diseases
-
that are gonna make us
all extinct for real one day.
-
And somewhere there's a man,
-
a man in a janitor's uniform,
-
stumbling home drunk and dizzy
-
after spending half his paycheck
on 40-ounce bottles of twist-off beer,
-
and the other half on a four-hour visit
to some lady's house
-
on a street where the lights
have all been shot out
-
by people who'd rather do
what they do in this city in the dark.
-
And half a block away from janitor man,
-
there's a group of good-for-nothings
who don't know no better,
-
waiting for janitor man
with rusted bicycle chains
-
and imitation Louisville Sluggers,
-
and if they don't find a cent on him,
-
which they won't,
-
they'll just pound at him till the muscles
in their arms start burning,
-
till there's no more teeth to crack out.
-
But they don't count on me.
-
They don't count on no Dark Knight,
-
with a stomach full of grocery-store
brand macaroni and cheese
-
and cut-up Vienna sausages.
-
(Laughter)
-
'Cause they'd rather believe
I don't exist.
-
And from 87 stories up, I can hear
one of the good-for-nothings say,
-
"Gimme the cash!" -- real fast like that,
-
just, "Gimme me the fuckin' cash!"
-
And I see janitor man mumble something
in drunk language and turn pale,
-
and from 87 stories up,
-
I can hear his stomach trying
to hurl its way out his Dickies.
-
So I swoop down, like, mad-fast
-
and I'm like darkness, I'm like, "Swoosh!"
-
And I throw a batarang
at the one naked lightbulb.
-
(Cymbal)
-
And they're all like, "Whoa, muthafucker!
-
Who just turned out the lights?"
-
(Laughter)
-
"What's that over there?"
"What?"
-
"Gimme me what you got, old man!"
-
"Did anybody hear that?"
-
"Hear what? There ain't nothing.
No, really -- there ain't no bat!"
-
But then ...
-
one out of the three good-for-nothings
gets it to the head -- pow!
-
And number two swings blindly
into the dark cape before him,
-
but before his fist hits anything,
-
I grab a trash can lid and --
-
right in the gut!
-
And number one comes
back with the jump kick,
-
but I know judo karate too, so I'm like --
-
(Drums)
-
Twice!
-
(Drums)
-
(Laughter)
-
(Drums)
-
But before I can do any more damage,
-
suddenly we all hear a "Click-click!"
-
And suddenly everything gets quiet.
-
And the one good-for-nothing left standing
-
grips a handgun and aims it straight up,
-
like he's holding Jesus hostage,
-
like he's threatening maybe
to blow a hole in the moon.
-
And the good-for-nothing
who got it to the head,
-
who tried to jump-kick me,
-
and the other good-for-nothing
who got it in the gut,
-
is both scrambling back away
from the dark figure before 'em.
-
And the drunk man, the janitor man,
-
is huddled in a corner,
praying to Saint Anthony
-
'cause that's the only one
he could remember.
-
(Double beat)
-
And there's me:
-
eyes glowing white,
-
cape blowing softly in the wind.
-
(Beat)
-
Bulletproof chest heaving,
-
my heart beating right through it
in a Morse code for:
-
"Fuck with me
-
just once
-
come on
-
just try."
-
And the one good-for-nothing
left standing,
-
the one with the handgun --
-
yeah, he laughs.
-
And he lowers his arm.
-
And he points it at me
-
and gives the moon a break.
-
And he aims it right
between my pointy ears,
-
like goal posts and he's special teams.
-
And janitor man is still
calling Saint Anthony,
-
but he ain't pickin' up.
-
And for a second,
-
it seems like ...
-
maybe I'm gonna lose.
-
Nah!
-
(Drums)
-
Shoot! Shoot! Fwa-ka-ka!
-
"Don't kill me, man!"
-
Snap! Wrist crack! Neck! Slash!
-
Skin meets acid:
"Ahhhhhhh!"
-
And he's on the floor
-
and I'm standing over him
-
and I got the gun in my hands now
-
and I hate guns, I hate holding 'em
'cause I'm Batman.
-
And, asterisk:
-
Batman don't like guns 'cause his parents
got iced by guns a long time ago.
-
But for just a second,
-
my eyes glow white,
-
and I hold this thing
-
for I could speak to the good-for-nothing
-
in a language he maybe understands.
-
Click-click!
-
(Beat)
-
And the good-for-nothings
become good-for-disappearing
-
into whatever toxic waste, chemical
sludge shithole they crawled out of.
-
And it's just me and janitor man.
-
And I pick him up,
-
and I wipe sweat and cheap perfume
off his forehead.
-
And he begs me not to hurt him
-
and I grab him tight
by his janitor-man shirt collar,
-
and I pull him to my face
-
and he's taller than me
but the cape helps,
-
so he listens when I look him
straight in the eyes.
-
And I say two words to him:
-
"Go home."
-
And he does,
-
checking behind his shoulder
every 10 feet.
-
And I swoosh from building
to building on his way there
-
'cause I know where he lives.
-
And I watch his hands tremble
as he pulls out his key chain
-
and opens the door to his building.
-
And I'm back in bed
-
before he even walks in
through the front door.
-
And I hear him turn on the faucet
-
and pour himself a glass
of warm tap water.
-
And he puts the glass back in the sink.
-
And I hear his footsteps.
-
And they get slower
as they get to my room.
-
And he creaks my door open,
like, mad-slow.
-
And he takes a step in,
-
which he never does.
-
(Beat)
-
And he's staring off into nowhere,
-
his face, the color
of sidewalks in summer.
-
And I act like I'm just waking up
-
and I say, "Ah, what's up, Pop?"
-
And janitor man says nothing to me.
-
But I see in the dark,
-
I see his arms go limp
-
and his head turns back, like, towards me.
-
And he lifts it for I can see his face,
-
for I could see his eyes.
-
And his cheeks is drippin',
but not with sweat.
-
And he just stands there breathing,
-
like he remembers my eyes glowing white,
-
like he remembers my bulletproof chest,
-
like he remembers he's my pop.
-
And for a long time I don't say nothin'.
-
And he turns around, hand on the doorknob.
-
And he ain't looking my way,
-
but I hear him mumble two words to me:
-
"I'm sorry."
-
And I lean over and I open
my window just a crack.
-
If you look up high enough,
-
you could see me.
-
And from where I am --
-
(Cymbals)
-
I could hear everything.
-
(Applause)
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)