The Time I Died for My "Art"

My last year at NYU, I took a stage combat class with a professor who, as he liked to remind us, was kind of a “big deal.” “Bill” had worked on many movies and many, many Broadway shows and told stories from these various experiences many times over the course of the two-credit elective class.

            But this isn’t about Bill and his Spring Awakening or Spider-Man: Turn of the Dark stories. This is about one of Bill’s exercises. 

            He called it his Vietnam Death Exercise. The name alone should tell you a lot. Looking back now, it’s hard to explain why he included it in his curriculum because the exercise itself had more to do with acting than with combat.

            This is how it worked: the class was divided in half. Some of us were to be the Vietnamese prisoners. The other half of the class took on roles of executioners. We all lay down on the floor, eyes closed, while Bill played parts of the Apocalypse Now soundtrack. We heard helicopters and gunfire. The music was poignant and emotionally manipulative in all the ways that movie scores tend to be. And then, after we were all sufficiently moved by the music, the exercise began.

            I, as one of the “Vietnamese,” was suddenly hoisted up off of the floor and before I could even get my bearings, a bag was put over my head. The music was stopped and all I could hear around me were the sounds of my fellow classmates yelling, cursing, panting, crying, etc. I was brought to one side of the classroom along with the rest of my fellow “Vietnamese” and lined up against a wall. I was scared for two reasons. The first was that it was genuinely scary to be denied one of your five senses and have people yelling at you and pushing you around. The other reason was that somewhere in the part of my brain that knew this was just an exercise and I was vaguely aware of how manipulative it all was. I didn’t like how I was feeling not just because it was uncomfortable, but also because I couldn’t understand how it was necessary. What story were we telling? And why?

            One by one those of us with bags over our heads were brought to the center of the room. We were forced on to our knees. For a brief moment I felt the barrel of a [prop] gun against the back of my head. Then the barrel pulled away (for combat safety reasons) and the gun was fired. 

And I “died.”

Photographer Eddie Adams said of his Pulitzer Prize winning
photo: "Pictures don't tell the whole story. It doesn't tell you why."
(National Post)

            It sucked. I was extremely distraught and disturbed. When the bag came off of my head and we all regrouped in a circle at the conclusion of the exercise, I couldn’t look at my fellow classmates or my teacher the same way. I felt humiliated and de-humanized. Which I guess may have been the point.

            Though not a traditional performance, I believe this exercise went too far in the direction of realism. Which is interesting because there were no sets, costumes, or lighting involved. All it took was a canvas bag, musical underscoring, and a prop gun to deeply affect me.

            Perhaps you can offer some insight. In the meantime, I will be over here never listening to the Apocalypse Now soundtrack again.