AUTHENTICITY
THE past few days, I’ve been in conversation with my friend and sometimes co-author, the incomparable William Maltese, over a new phase in my life: Several weeks ago, I auditioned for a part in an upcoming made-for-television movie entitled “Static” (https://kspllc.media/the-static-movie), to my surprise, landing the leading role of Will Gardner, a crotchety old man suffering onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s a dramatic piece, originally written by the outstanding Savant screenwriter and author, Richard Rose (https://richardroseauthor.com), presenting an opportunity for me to reprise the role of my own father in what resulted in a tumultuous childhood and his tragic and still emotionally unresolved death. It’s an opportunity I am pleased to be able to take on at this point in my life.
What has come up during rehearsals, is authenticity. In a dramatic work, it’s not enough to read-the-lines well while going through all the required motions in the various scenes. As the director, Kenny Simmons (https://www.facebook.com/ksimmonsprod...) repeatedly cajoles, it has to be authentic. That’s left me with a lot of wondering what exactly it means not just in my character role, but as an actor, and more broadly, in terms of my own life. How “authentic” is anyone?
Psychologists today hold that up to ninety-five percent of everything we do is subconscious. Automatic. Reflexive. The “Little Brain” (the cerebellum that controls fine motor coordination), spinal and autonomic systems taking care of issues that allow us to reserve the Big Brain, the cerebrum, for making big decisions. If so, then how “authentic” is “normal” life? And what about all those popular CGI-action movies today? So much effort goes into making them seem “real.” And what is “authentic” authoring or acting anyway?
As an author, this issue is constantly at the forefront. Authoring, after all, is all about word choice in an attempt in most cases to create “authenticity” whether in pure fiction or novels or non-fiction, novels, the most popular, typically being a mixture of history (his-story) and fiction, often called today, “historical fiction.” It was a major issue in the authoring my newest work, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, one of my several pen names. Talk about authenticity! And right from the start surrounding simply an author’s name! This whole issue helped me rethink what began as a techno-science fiction thriller into an entirely new genre, that of techno-science futuring, in which the technology and science of today were plausibly extrapolated into a new world, where, “Taking up where TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese left off, NewAmerica, a shadow of its former United States of America, provides a challenging and dangerous future place for three young firebrands to live.” Call it a literary mirror, gazing into which readers can use what they read to make better informed decisions in the REAL AUTHENTIC world, as much as it can be said to be such. The mere fact that the line between real and unreal, authentic and inauthentic is not only blurred, but reality and authenticity themselves are blurred and veiled that makes the experience of reading THE EDGE OF MADNESS so poignant. Or so I believe. But then, I’m an author, now actor, simply working hard to make reality real.
The Edge of Madness
Kindle version on sale for $1.99 through May 2021 — also available in printed format; soon to become an audiobook read by the incomparable Peter Pollock. Purchased for manga, animation and cinematic treatment by K. Simmons Productions.
What has come up during rehearsals, is authenticity. In a dramatic work, it’s not enough to read-the-lines well while going through all the required motions in the various scenes. As the director, Kenny Simmons (https://www.facebook.com/ksimmonsprod...) repeatedly cajoles, it has to be authentic. That’s left me with a lot of wondering what exactly it means not just in my character role, but as an actor, and more broadly, in terms of my own life. How “authentic” is anyone?
Psychologists today hold that up to ninety-five percent of everything we do is subconscious. Automatic. Reflexive. The “Little Brain” (the cerebellum that controls fine motor coordination), spinal and autonomic systems taking care of issues that allow us to reserve the Big Brain, the cerebrum, for making big decisions. If so, then how “authentic” is “normal” life? And what about all those popular CGI-action movies today? So much effort goes into making them seem “real.” And what is “authentic” authoring or acting anyway?
As an author, this issue is constantly at the forefront. Authoring, after all, is all about word choice in an attempt in most cases to create “authenticity” whether in pure fiction or novels or non-fiction, novels, the most popular, typically being a mixture of history (his-story) and fiction, often called today, “historical fiction.” It was a major issue in the authoring my newest work, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, one of my several pen names. Talk about authenticity! And right from the start surrounding simply an author’s name! This whole issue helped me rethink what began as a techno-science fiction thriller into an entirely new genre, that of techno-science futuring, in which the technology and science of today were plausibly extrapolated into a new world, where, “Taking up where TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese left off, NewAmerica, a shadow of its former United States of America, provides a challenging and dangerous future place for three young firebrands to live.” Call it a literary mirror, gazing into which readers can use what they read to make better informed decisions in the REAL AUTHENTIC world, as much as it can be said to be such. The mere fact that the line between real and unreal, authentic and inauthentic is not only blurred, but reality and authenticity themselves are blurred and veiled that makes the experience of reading THE EDGE OF MADNESS so poignant. Or so I believe. But then, I’m an author, now actor, simply working hard to make reality real.
The Edge of Madness
Kindle version on sale for $1.99 through May 2021 — also available in printed format; soon to become an audiobook read by the incomparable Peter Pollock. Purchased for manga, animation and cinematic treatment by K. Simmons Productions.
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