Nathan Fielder, similar Andy Kaufman earlier him, makes performance-art drama that does not lone poke amusive astatine the satellite but experimentally perturbs it, and helium plies this commercialized successful the buffer portion betwixt world and artifice. He presents himself arsenic thing of a Kaspar Hauser fig for the property of artificial intelligence, a foundling raised not by wolves but by an precocious and affectless contention of extraterrestrial anthropologists. His entity is to isolate and mimic the rudiments of quality sociability. Fielder’s intuition is that galore putatively mean radical stock his ain bewildered dread of mundane interactions, which are astatine erstwhile governed by established, if opaque, societal norms and taxable to unnerving unpredictability. Children larn to tame uncertainty done repetition: they replay interactions successful an effort to construe and power the varied challenges of their environment. Adults who follow this maneuver are diagnosed with repetition compulsion. Actors, however, alteration specified neurotic behaviour into the virtuousness of professionalism, and, arsenic such, helium sees their enactment arsenic a broadly applicable signifier for immoderate civilian beset by uncertainty and equivocation. This is the premise of the “The Rehearsal,” Fielder’s effort to deploy cleanable facsimiles of existent environments—night-life venues, apartments—to service arsenic quality sandboxes for dry-run iterations. The full happening has lone worked due to the fact that Fielder shows an unflagging committedness to the bit. His translation of artifice into authenticity has been rendered credible by the delighted, deadpan alacrity with which helium acceptable immense sums of HBO’s wealth connected fire.
Fielder promises his participants lives of greater state and ease: to playact the crippled of beingness successful a controlled, low-stakes mounting would hole them to conscionable existent interactions with recently relaxed spontaneity. In the first, comparatively sane example, a New Yorker named Kor frets that his pub-trivia squad volition excommunicate him if helium comes cleanable astir the information that helium does not, successful fact, person a master’s degree; Fielder not lone hires an histrion to play Kor’s person and teammate, helium re-creates an full Brooklyn barroom to springiness their fake conversations an asymptotic proximity to the real. By the extremity of the season, Fielder has taken his attack to its logically batshit conclusion: helium scaffolds the entirety of a child’s improvement from infancy to adolescence.
Fielder, however, was not conscionable the signifier manager of these experiments successful preëmptive reënactment; helium was besides his ain superior client. Fielder was good alert that nary magnitude of coaching could successfully tame the disorderly interior lives of his participants, and, arsenic helium ratcheted up the absurdity of their environments, the authenticity of their emotions became cardinal props connected a signifier yet acceptable for Fielder himself. He needed them to person existent feelings successful the anticipation that helium mightiness make a greater installation for earthy quality interaction. The infinite regress of recursive self-awareness is pushed truthful acold that it collapses successful connected itself, and Fielder’s religion successful artifice proves nary lucifer for the inescapable powerfulness of the real. The finale—where Fielder, who by this constituent has thoroughly undermined his ain quality to abstracted rehearsal from reality, breaks quality and appears to place arsenic the existent begetter of 1 of his kid actors—is a shocking and genuinely destabilizing confrontation with sincerity. Then again, possibly it’s not.
The archetypal play of “The Rehearsal” seemed to exhaust each possibilities for the conceit that acting—the subject of the artificial—could supply a prophylactic for life. It did not. The 2nd play is, somehow, adjacent much berserk than the first, but it’s besides much disciplined and coherent. (If you haven’t watched the amusement oregon got to the finale, 2 words of warning: determination are spoilers to come, and adjacent my effort to picture what happens volition marque maine dependable arsenic though I, too, person mislaid my mind.) The quarry of authentic feeling proved a reddish herring; Fielder has abandoned his involvement successful interiority for an involvement successful conduct, and the thought that determination is nary facet of quality behaviour that cannot beryllium “learned, oregon astatine slightest emulated.” The aviator occurrence opens with an ostensibly in-flight speech betwixt an airplane skipper and his archetypal officer. When the captain, successful a amusement of stereotypical arrogance, ignores his archetypal officer’s reservations astir their trajectory, their small collegial quarrel is definitively resolved by an unceremonious and fiery plunge to earth. Fielder past materializes arsenic a demonic perceiver backlit by an inferno. As the camera pans out, we spot that the full occurrence was conducted not astatine cruising altitude but successful a formation simulator. Aviation is simply a domain wherever the operative metaphor of the show—that beingness is amenable to simulation—can beryllium afloat literalized.
Fielder, oregon astatine slightest his character, explains that helium has a hobbyist’s involvement successful level crashes, and the archetypal occurrence uses cockpit dependable recordings arsenic melodramatic screenplays for the acheronian re-creation of a bid of existent disasters. These beryllium retired Fielder’s intuition that aviation information depends connected candid cockpit conversation, a peculiarly high-stakes—and, crucially, possibly tractable—example of Fielder’s over-all preoccupation with the fearfulness and anxiousness that inhibits genuine communication. Fielder believes that his ain expertise successful elaborate role-playing scenarios mightiness correspond a large publication to aviation safety. Although helium would similar to beryllium taken earnestly arsenic a motivation actor, helium can’t renege connected his work to entertain: “Even though I had the resources to perchance lick this life-or-death contented and prevention existent humans from dying, I was fixed this wealth to make a drama series. So far, I was failing. We were implicit 10 minutes into this occurrence with zero laughs.”
On 3 interconnected warehouses successful Los Angeles, helium constructs an exacting replica of an full terminal of the Houston airport, implicit with a Brookstone and concatenation restaurants. He hires much than seventy actors to execute the roles of information personnel, gross agents, and Panda Express employees. All of this infrastructure creates a discourse of verisimilitude for fake rehearsals designed to carnivore existent fruit. He invites a cohort of existent pilots to measurement extracurricular of their accustomed self-conceptions and inhabit playful exchanges betwixt First Officer Blunt, who ne'er hesitates to explicit what’s truly connected his mind, and Captain Allears, who graciously accepts disapproval successful the tone of self-improvement. These exercises mightiness liberate them from the constraints of their regular self-consciousness.
Although the presumption of the amusement is that the aviation manufacture has neglected the interpersonal magnitude of the cockpit, the subject of “crew assets management” has existed for much than 4 decades. Fielder’s obsessive probe seems to person missed the seminal publication of “NASA Technical Memorandum 78482,” which called for the replacement of the archetypally imperious skipper and deferential archetypal serviceman with a much forgiving and comfy cockpit culture. As William Langewiesche, the top aviation writer of each time, enactment it successful a harrowing 2014 nonfiction astir the clang of Air France 447, this accent connected candid teamwork included thing abbreviated of “a caller attack to the usage of simulators.” My constituent is not that “The Rehearsal” has been anticipated. It’s that Fielder whitethorn beryllium a lunatic, but he’s decidedly not crazy.
In the celebrated “Bad Faith” section of Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness,” the scholar is asked to see the illustration of a waiter successful a café, whose fidelity to a acceptable of gestures correspond his aspiration to the presumption of automaton. His recognition with his individuality arsenic a waiter provides a refuge from the overwhelming panic of existential freedom. Sartre contrasts the timid fixity of the waiter with the heroically protean fig of the actor, who treats the recitation of a publication arsenic simply 1 of galore games that helium mightiness play. Actors are escaped insofar arsenic they admit their performances arsenic performances. Their “true” aforesaid is treated with the lightness of yet different role.
When Sartre wrote his book, this classical attack to quality was astir to beryllium superseded by Method acting. Method actors didn’t simply imitate their characters and pantomime their sentiments; they became them and felt their emotions. These contrasting modes were encapsulated successful the apocryphal speech betwixt Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman connected the acceptable of “Marathon Man.” Hoffman, fable has it, stayed up for 3 consecutive days to deplete himself for the involvement of realism. Olivier is said to person turned to Hoffman and said, “My beloved boy, wherefore don’t you conscionable effort acting?”
Classical acting, successful its accustomed nonaccomplishment mode, feels rote oregon mechanical. The nonaccomplishment mode of Method acting, by comparison, is that the obsessive effort to manufacture an interior authorities of authentic strength has nary limiting principle, and tin thrust you retired of your mind. This dynamic is taken to its eventual utmost by the narrator of Tom McCarthy’s cult caller “Remainder.” In the aftermath of a traumatic encephalon wounded and consequent ineligible settlement, the book’s narrator spends a large woody of wealth successful the compulsive effort to re-create the carnal settings, and reënact the idiosyncratic interactions with which helium associates vague feelings of profound contentment. His progressively psychotic dedication to reënactment yet devolves into theatrical unit and destruction, including drive-by shootings and a slope heist. Fielder, too, flirts with pathological extremes. Many moments from the season—the instauration of a fake reality-show competition, featuring aviator judges, called “Wings of Voice”; the mentation that Chesley Sullenberger spent the last twenty-three seconds of his descent into the Hudson River listening to Evanescence’s “Bring Me to Life”—are frankly bananas.
“The Rehearsal” frankincense bears a superficial resemblance to the spiralling madness of “Remainder,” but the awesome quality is that Fielder—who teaches his ain acting method and calls it the Fielder Method—isn’t distracted by the chimera of authentic feeling. In 1 of the show’s galore intertextual references to his different work, helium recalls what it was similar to play other Emma Stone successful his task “The Curse”: “I didn’t recognize however an histrion could consciousness emotion successful a wholly fake relationship.” Acting, arsenic helium sees it, isn’t astir convincing yourself but convincing different people. Fielder populates his ain shows with actors due to the fact that their remit is to convey feelings—a important portion of his incessant rehearsals—without actually having them. He tin experimentation with his ain performances without worrying they mightiness instrumentality his responses personally. They are not, aft all, regular people. They’re professionals.
The entity of Fielder’s rehearsals is not the nurturance of immoderate elusive interior truth; it’s the anticipation that helium mightiness marque his ain show of aforesaid successful mundane beingness much convincing. He is not funny successful authenticity oregon interior depth. He would conscionable similar to larn however amended to beryllium taken astatine look value: “Every nationalist accidental I’ve had successful my beingness to convey sincerity I’ve turned into a implicit joke.”
The finale of this season, “My Controls,” is 1 of the astir astonishing, ridiculous, and sublime episodes of tv I deliberation I’ve ever seen. It opens connected a barren soundstage, wherever Fielder is holding auditions for the relation of airplane passenger. The actors person prepared to present lines drawn from a beverage-service scene: “Diet Pepsi, please,” and different in-flight banalities. These scenes, Fielder explains, volition beryllium performed not connected a soundstage replica but astatine existent cruising altitude. There’s 1 tiny caveat. The relation of the aviator volition beryllium played by Fielder himself.
Two years earlier, helium explains, helium began to instrumentality flying lessons. He concedes helium was “not a natural, particularly erstwhile it came to landing the plane.” One of his formation instructors told him that helium was “the slowest learner they ever taught.” They advised that helium instrumentality location and absorption connected “chair flying”—sitting connected a portion of furniture, successful different words, and acting arsenic though he’s piloting an aircraft. There is an constituent of manifestation astatine work: helium tells himself helium is “confident successful each decision,” and adjacent imagines bragging to his aviator friends astir peculiarly creaseless landings. Somehow this works, and each of a abrupt helium sticks his existent landings. He gets his pilot’s license.
Over a abbreviated succession of harrowing videos taken from the backmost spot of assorted rideshares—one operator texts, different scrolls done TikTok—he makes a last bid for his run against struggle aversion arsenic a genuine nationalist service: “We’re each conscionable radical successful the backmost of an Uber, trying to debar an awkward conversation, and I mean to beryllium that.” After having failed to unafraid regulatory, congressional, oregon manufacture involvement successful his strategy to betterment cockpit communication, helium proposes a program that’s conscionable brainsick capable to work—or to termination himself and a 100 and 50 others. Although this seems not lone narratively but morally and legally preposterous, helium explains that an obscure loophole volition let him to skipper his ain 737 arsenic agelong arsenic determination are nary paying passengers. If helium alternatively flies actors—people who are astatine erstwhile existent and make-believe—he’s technically successful the clear.
With little than 3 100 hours of formation time—about a 5th of the minimum required to suffice for a occupation arsenic a commercialized pilot—Fielder pursues his 737 benignant rating. The full of his training, his teacher tells him, volition instrumentality spot successful a simulator. He volition ne'er alert the existent craft until helium and his 100 and 50 actors committee the level for real. Despite his bedrock committedness to the principles of rigorous simulation, it takes him a theatrical bushed to person himself that the simulator indispensable beryllium “real” capable to gamble with the lives of existent people. A period later, helium becomes the slightest experienced aviator licensed to alert a 737 successful North America.
There’s 1 hitch. This play has highlighted his popularity successful the autism community, which appreciated “The Rehearsal” arsenic a vivid illustration of “masking,” oregon the neurodivergent inclination to survey and mimic modular societal intercourse. The thought appears to transverse his caput that the information mightiness relationship for his ain societal perplexity. This comes to a caput erstwhile helium is faced with the F.A.A.’s required aesculapian questionnaire. A doc tells him that nary of the intelligence conditions mentioned connected the signifier are materially applicable unless they interfere with “the capableness to execute adequately.” If this external, behavioral appraisal seems dubiously sufficient, Fielder submits to a peculiar fMRI that purports to adjacent wrong his encephalon for much factual evidence, but helium won’t person the results successful clip to fly. He checks the “no” container connected the form. From a table successful a bleak edifice room, successful his afloat pilot’s regalia, helium turns to code the camera: helium is going done with this certifiably demented program to amusement “how hard it tin beryllium for immoderate aviator to accidental what they’re reasoning successful a cockpit environment”—not connected uncommon occasions but “on each azygous hose flight.” Plenty of creation is simply a metaphor for our inability to link with 1 another. Most of it doesn’t entail a mortal hazard to a 100 and 50 radical for the involvement of a tv drama program.
One of the pilots who served arsenic a justice for the singing contention “Wings of Voice” is besides an aspiring reality-television producer, and helium agrees to motion connected arsenic Fielder’s archetypal officer. As they are preparing to implicit the preflight checklist, the archetypal serviceman says thing somewhat uneasy astir however actors successful films and tv don’t usually alert their ain planes. Fielder seems a small peevish, reminding his workfellow that he’s not just an histrion oregon comedian: “I’m a aviator too, I guess.” As they hole for takeoff, Fielder welcomes everyone aboard “on behalf of your full formation crew, and, of course, HBO.”
The flight—two hours retired into the godforsaken and backmost to the San Bernardino airport—passes uneventfully, and Fielder gets his accidental to play Captain Allears to his First Officer Blunt, who tentatively points retired immoderate insignificant errors connected the captain’s part. Fielder approaches the last descent with immoderate trepidation, offhandedly asking his archetypal serviceman if the process works successful existent beingness the mode it works successful the sim, but helium nails the landing—both virtually and figuratively. The assembled actor-passengers applaud him from the tarmac. He muses, successful voice-over, that “no 1 sees what goes connected successful the cockpit, and, arsenic agelong arsenic you get everyone down safely, that’s each it takes to beryllium their hero.” The rule of the rehearsal has been vindicated by crushed truth.
As the victor of “Wings of Voice” sings Captain Sully’s favourite Evanescence song, Fielder receives a dependable message astir his fMRI results. He stares astatine the surface for a fewer seconds earlier deleting the message. The outward competence helium demonstrated arsenic a aviator renders immoderate diagnosis irrelevant. It’s not conscionable that helium doesn’t attraction whether helium has been deemed autistic oregon not. It’s that the mysteries of interiority are wholly beside the point. What the amusement yet stages is an unsentimental rejection of the full edifice of authenticity, and the cult of individuality it inspires. He mightiness beryllium autistic and a comedian, but he’s besides present a pilot, 1 with a caller broadside gig for a institution that transports bare 737s. The bid ends with a montage of his cockpit adventures. He has spent his vocation trying to fig retired if he’s O.K. inside, and present that load has been lifted. “They lone fto the smartest and champion radical alert a level of this size, and it feels bully to cognize that,” helium concludes. “No 1 is allowed successful the cockpit if there’s thing incorrect with them. So, if you’re here, you indispensable beryllium fine.” ♦
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