No, I'm not talking about the band with the same name. And Jupiter is not rising, strictly speaking, but turning direct, bringing back good luck and gifts, or so astrologyzone.com would have us believe. I read my horoscope regularly and yesterday, apparently, Jupiter, who's been conspicuously absent from all my areas (home, career, etc.) is coming back. If I am to believe astrologyzone, everything should be turning up Stetco any minute now. Is it sad that, the day before the show, I rely on astrology to get over my breakdown? Absolutely. Is it working? Almost.
This morning I came up with a plan. Two actually. First, I left about 5 messages for Karl at KRVS Radio. If he can come back and check the soundboard I'd feel better about everything. Naturally, that is no guarantee that something nobody has looked at so far, some tiny piece of malicious equipment, won't break down.
My second plan is a drastic change in my opening speech. Initially, I was just going to tell people to turn off their phones and have a good time. Now, I'm going to deliver my last blog entry live, on Saturday night. It won't be a long speech, but it will involve the audience in the process. I'm going to talk about the conditions we have been working in, not as a complaint, but in terms of a site specific performance: the show is shaped by the space it is presented in. So if the space fails, instead of thinking of it as a failure on our part, we'll think of it as some mutation of a guerrilla theatre show. Warned, included in the process, the public will hopefully not experience it as a disappointment either, but as a natural part of the space the performance takes place in. Theatre in times of war. The show can be interrupted at any moment, but once the danger is over, it can resume without taking a hit. Naturally, I hope nothing will go wrong. But if something does, it will simply be incorporated in the performance. If I learned one thing in 20 years of staging plays, it is to take a misfortune and turn it into an opportunity.
I've been doing a lot of thinking and, no, I won't let these people down because there's too much work that went into this production, too much emotional involvement. And I won't let the audience down either, because they did nothing wrong. Only my ego might get slightly bruised, but that, I hope, I can survive.
So let's hear it for Jupiter and a bit of luck coming our way, because at this point, all we need is luck. Everything we could control on our end has been taken care of: performances, inflections, rhythm, text, energy. The rest is a matter of luck.
This is my last written blog entry. The last entry will be delivered on the stage, tomorrow, as an opening speech. And if you want to know how things went...well, you'll just have to come to the play, won't you?
Friday, November 19, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
...
The straw that broke the camel's back...This play is the straw and I'm the camel, in case the reference wasn't clear. I've reached a point of exhaustion that borders on indifference. I'm numb. To have reactions, to get angry, to shout, protest and threaten, you have to have some emotions left...and I don't. I'm drained. This play drained me. First, the connection to my father. Then, the actors, whose often superb portrayal of the characters has turned me into a sentimental wreck. And now this. I think that in our 14 days on this miserable stage we've had about 5 rehearsals without technical incidents. We figure out one thing and another breaks down. I thought we were safe. I thought we were prepared to face the crowds. I was wrong. 20 minutes into the rehearsal tonight we had a new sound problem: new strange sounds, like paper being crumpled near a microphone. Everything shut down. We turned on the lights and Matthew proceeded to figure it out. What could it be this time? Not the mics: Karl checked them. Not the cables: I just bought 10 new ones. Not the speakers: we solved that one last week. No. This time it was the soundboard itself.
I give up. I can't fight this room anymore. I imagine four months of work, all these extraordinary people's energies destroyed by budget cuts, by the fact that the university has money to buy equipment but not to maintain it. Ok, so we solved this new problem today. What about tomorrow? What about opening night? I started crying in Fletcher tonight after everyone left...pulled myself together a little when Ellie came back...got home and cried some more. I don't know what to do. Part of me wants to pull the plug, but I can't do this to the people in the cast, the crew, Susan...I understand a show tanking because the actors are weak, or the writing is terrible. But to jeopardize a play because everything you work with is held together with tape and a q-tip is ridiculous. Can I take an opening night where the lights go up in the middle of the show and Matthew runs from the sound booth to the stage to figure out what's wrong this time? I don't know. For the time being, this is me, signing out.
I give up. I can't fight this room anymore. I imagine four months of work, all these extraordinary people's energies destroyed by budget cuts, by the fact that the university has money to buy equipment but not to maintain it. Ok, so we solved this new problem today. What about tomorrow? What about opening night? I started crying in Fletcher tonight after everyone left...pulled myself together a little when Ellie came back...got home and cried some more. I don't know what to do. Part of me wants to pull the plug, but I can't do this to the people in the cast, the crew, Susan...I understand a show tanking because the actors are weak, or the writing is terrible. But to jeopardize a play because everything you work with is held together with tape and a q-tip is ridiculous. Can I take an opening night where the lights go up in the middle of the show and Matthew runs from the sound booth to the stage to figure out what's wrong this time? I don't know. For the time being, this is me, signing out.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
That's enough sentiment for one day, Margaret!
Remember that quote? Comes in handy every time I get careless...And I've gotten really careless lately. Too much sentiment.
It's so difficult to be detached, though. You have to be part robot to do it (I'm working on it)...I was watching the cast celebrating Dan's birthday yesterday. That was the thing I couldn't tell him in the car: that the day before I had ordered awesome cupcakes from Sophi P (best cupcakes in town!) with candles and the whole shebang. That everyone in the cast knew and pretended it was a surprise...Could I have still wished him a happy birthday as we went shopping for shoes? Absolutely. But that would have felt like a tiny betrayal since everyone in the cast expected to celebrate him that evening...I can't explain these things: once a theatre collective is created, there is a certain protocol to be followed: either we do things together or not at all.
At the end of the rehearsal today (great rehearsal, by the way), Seth said, "I feel like the rehearsals we had in Griffin took place two years ago." Griffin Hall is the English Department building where we rehearse once a week for about four months before we go on the stage. Yes. The first meetings we had, at the end of August, feel like a lifetime ago. That's how productions are supposed to evolve: slowly, quietly. You begin with a skeleton and, slowly, you add muscles and blood vessels and...things (my knowledge of anatomy ends here). The play takes shape; the shape demands a certain rhythm; actors grow into their characters...All good things to those who wait, no?
So while watching the cast celebrate Dan, I wondered if they knew how rare these moments are: being so utterly part of something; belonging to a group where everyone has your back; working towards that one evening, that one production that reaches two hundred audience members simultaneously. It's a thing of beauty just to think about it.
I'm really trying to keep emotions in check because, to quote from my play, "people and relationships are nothing but traps." But it's getting increasingly difficult not to talk about the way I feel (Guten Abend, Herr Freud...) when I see these extraordinary people baring their souls for me every evening. How exhausting. How admirable. How humbling.
You see what I mean with the sentiment? There comes a point when there's simply too much of it.
Susan brought the pictures she took last night for us to see. They capture some moments in the play (some of them are very very good) but there's something missing. I think we need to have the cast go from scene to scene posing for the camera. There are close ups I need: Larry screaming, Gabe staring at the "Love at first sight" sign, Seth and Dominique's faces during their dance and final embrace, Jean's rare moment of affection...When I watch this play (while pacing maniacally from one end of the house to the other), there are things I see simultaneously, actions that happen in each of the characters' areas and it is this..."chorus" of images that creates the harmony of the whole. When Italo Calvino tried to describe the melodic quality of his chapters he called them "arias." That's how I see the scenes in my play: as separate voices existing in a chorus that unites them while maintaining their distinctive character.
I overexplain, I know. But I have to. I look at the stage and I see my characters, and they have an existence independent of my own, and their world exists only because the relationships between them have allowed for an entire world to be created. At the end of the play the stage is literally littered with "the little things" the lyrics of the opening song refer to: chalk outlines, and pages from a random manuscript, and shoes, and handbags, and rose petals...The tiny facts of life (I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled) have invaded the stage and the characters have to deal with them, carve out an existence among them, learn to love them. A simple play (Conni's kid who's 10, I believe, saw the entire production yesterday and seemed to get it), complicated by its need to stylize human emotions.
To put it more precisely: it has become increasingly difficult for me, at the end of each day, not to go and embrace Dan, and Seth, and Mike, and Conni, and my own kid who's been performing in my plays for 10 years now, not to tell them how much they mean to me, how grateful I am for their portrayal of my characters. There, on the stage, under the chiaroscuro lighting, I recognize my world, my refuge, the only place I feel completely at home. It is a fragile world, dependent entirely on sounds and lights and movement, a world where safety is an illusion, and houses have glass walls. How I love the look of it. How I admire the abandon with which the actors move from one space to the next. Each new space brings the promise of new adventures and each adventure is a little more daring than the last. I don't mean "adventures" in the usual sense. In fact, during many scenes, nothing happens. Nothing on the surface. Internally, the characters wrestle with themselves like Jacob with the angel. Those are the kinds of adventures I'm thinking of: a flight of the imagination, a great passion, an internal exile.
This entire play is a love letter: to my father, to the people in my past, to illusions I've let go of. It's about adventures I no longer dare to have, regrets that surface every day, and gratitude. Mostly gratitude. So, yes, I love you Dan, and Seth and Conni and Mike and Ellie...I love you all, with your faults,and your problems and your tremendous need to make sense of the world. My world makes sense through you, because of you.
That's enough sentiment for one day, Margaret.
It's so difficult to be detached, though. You have to be part robot to do it (I'm working on it)...I was watching the cast celebrating Dan's birthday yesterday. That was the thing I couldn't tell him in the car: that the day before I had ordered awesome cupcakes from Sophi P (best cupcakes in town!) with candles and the whole shebang. That everyone in the cast knew and pretended it was a surprise...Could I have still wished him a happy birthday as we went shopping for shoes? Absolutely. But that would have felt like a tiny betrayal since everyone in the cast expected to celebrate him that evening...I can't explain these things: once a theatre collective is created, there is a certain protocol to be followed: either we do things together or not at all.
At the end of the rehearsal today (great rehearsal, by the way), Seth said, "I feel like the rehearsals we had in Griffin took place two years ago." Griffin Hall is the English Department building where we rehearse once a week for about four months before we go on the stage. Yes. The first meetings we had, at the end of August, feel like a lifetime ago. That's how productions are supposed to evolve: slowly, quietly. You begin with a skeleton and, slowly, you add muscles and blood vessels and...things (my knowledge of anatomy ends here). The play takes shape; the shape demands a certain rhythm; actors grow into their characters...All good things to those who wait, no?
So while watching the cast celebrate Dan, I wondered if they knew how rare these moments are: being so utterly part of something; belonging to a group where everyone has your back; working towards that one evening, that one production that reaches two hundred audience members simultaneously. It's a thing of beauty just to think about it.
I'm really trying to keep emotions in check because, to quote from my play, "people and relationships are nothing but traps." But it's getting increasingly difficult not to talk about the way I feel (Guten Abend, Herr Freud...) when I see these extraordinary people baring their souls for me every evening. How exhausting. How admirable. How humbling.
You see what I mean with the sentiment? There comes a point when there's simply too much of it.
Susan brought the pictures she took last night for us to see. They capture some moments in the play (some of them are very very good) but there's something missing. I think we need to have the cast go from scene to scene posing for the camera. There are close ups I need: Larry screaming, Gabe staring at the "Love at first sight" sign, Seth and Dominique's faces during their dance and final embrace, Jean's rare moment of affection...When I watch this play (while pacing maniacally from one end of the house to the other), there are things I see simultaneously, actions that happen in each of the characters' areas and it is this..."chorus" of images that creates the harmony of the whole. When Italo Calvino tried to describe the melodic quality of his chapters he called them "arias." That's how I see the scenes in my play: as separate voices existing in a chorus that unites them while maintaining their distinctive character.
I overexplain, I know. But I have to. I look at the stage and I see my characters, and they have an existence independent of my own, and their world exists only because the relationships between them have allowed for an entire world to be created. At the end of the play the stage is literally littered with "the little things" the lyrics of the opening song refer to: chalk outlines, and pages from a random manuscript, and shoes, and handbags, and rose petals...The tiny facts of life (I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled) have invaded the stage and the characters have to deal with them, carve out an existence among them, learn to love them. A simple play (Conni's kid who's 10, I believe, saw the entire production yesterday and seemed to get it), complicated by its need to stylize human emotions.
To put it more precisely: it has become increasingly difficult for me, at the end of each day, not to go and embrace Dan, and Seth, and Mike, and Conni, and my own kid who's been performing in my plays for 10 years now, not to tell them how much they mean to me, how grateful I am for their portrayal of my characters. There, on the stage, under the chiaroscuro lighting, I recognize my world, my refuge, the only place I feel completely at home. It is a fragile world, dependent entirely on sounds and lights and movement, a world where safety is an illusion, and houses have glass walls. How I love the look of it. How I admire the abandon with which the actors move from one space to the next. Each new space brings the promise of new adventures and each adventure is a little more daring than the last. I don't mean "adventures" in the usual sense. In fact, during many scenes, nothing happens. Nothing on the surface. Internally, the characters wrestle with themselves like Jacob with the angel. Those are the kinds of adventures I'm thinking of: a flight of the imagination, a great passion, an internal exile.
This entire play is a love letter: to my father, to the people in my past, to illusions I've let go of. It's about adventures I no longer dare to have, regrets that surface every day, and gratitude. Mostly gratitude. So, yes, I love you Dan, and Seth and Conni and Mike and Ellie...I love you all, with your faults,and your problems and your tremendous need to make sense of the world. My world makes sense through you, because of you.
That's enough sentiment for one day, Margaret.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Superstitions
For all my preference for experimental, innovative theatre, I like maintaining certain traditions when staging our shows. For instance, I like the presence of the physical text on the stage, I like the connection between actor and "book," because the book is where it all began, the origin of every story, of every dramatic possibility. The act of reading, of connecting with the final text, is an important part of the show, now even more so than in the past, perhaps because technology urges us to give up physical texts and I find myself so attached to them. I appreciate online publications, but I prefer holding the actual journal in my hands. I understand the need for wireless reading devices, but I'll always buy the book because the act of reading a physical text comforts me.
21st century theatre has a love-hate relationship with language. The text is less important than choreography, movement, silence, lights. While I often find myself sacrificing text for spectacle, I need texts on the stage to remind myself of our point of departure. It's a strange kind of homage to the written (and spoken) word...
The first time I did a production whose set was an art installation, I worked with two extraordinary artists: sculptor Jeni Battaglia and artist Susan David. From that point on, I've always had, as part of the set design, a piece of art made by Jeni and a painting by Susan. Call it tradition, call it superstition, call it what you will. All our plays, since that first hybrid (the theatre-art installation show), incorporate Jeni and Susan's work. Their visual language and my idea of the spectacle coincide.
I have other superstitions as well, like the fact that we need one or two terrible rehearsals before the show. We had one yesterday. Everything that could go wrong with the props did. Ellie ripped her tutu, Mike's medicine bottles popped open, Dan's microphone needed adjustment, props got in the way of the words written in chalk on the floor...Low energy, missed cues, people stumbling over words.
Dan looked broken at the end. He's not familiar with the process (or my superstitions), so I needed to reassure him that everything that happened was part of the normal course of things.
Karl is supposed to stop by tonight to make sure that all our sound connections are...well, sound (sorry: that was bad), and there's one lighting cue I'd like to change. Other than that, I think all we need is public. The cast has been performing to an empty house for too long. Jokes fall on silence and there's a distinct sense of emptiness in the air.
Susan is taking pictures tonight, which is good. The cast needs to see itself. That's the problem with the people in my productions: they don't get to see the play, and the look -- the visual spectacle I'm always trying to achieve -- is as important as the rhythm of the production. The actors internalize the rhythm but, during the performance, they're never able to see the spectacle. So photographs are good.
Went shopping for shoes with Dan. My image of Larry is a bit of an homage to David Tennant's Dr. Who. Cool clothes, funny shoes. But instead of the suit, I went for an all black ensemble: slacks and one of those awesome thin, black sweaters that Batman relaxes in when he's Bruce Wayne. Ok, so it sounds like Larry is a hybrid between Batman and Dr. Who. He's not. It's just that his shoes can't be regular shoes, there has to be something slightly off about them. I found a pair that has a similar design to that of the sportsy shoes Gabe has. I am perfectly aware of the fact that people who wear similar shoes are not soulmates in reality. On the stage, however, I hope the connection will be visible. Gabe connects with Larry even before they meet.
Today is Dan's birthday. I knew that, but he took me a little by surprise when he confessed to it. For reasons that will be revealed later on, I couldn't wish him a happy birthday. He said, "I am 29...Today" I said, "I know," and pointed him in the direction of the shoe store. He now probably thinks that an old Romanian custom prevents me from wishing people happy birthday. Or he just thinks I'm rude. Oh well. All will be revealed, my friends, all will be revealed...
Dan wants definitive answers about the show. "How do you feel about it? How do you think it's going?" and I must frustrate him a little, because I refuse to give definitive answers. What can I say? That we had several rehearsals that were so good, I barely had any notes at the end? That there was that one "crazy good" performance which I hope we can duplicate? That technology is still on my mind and that I'll spend that hour and 20 minutes on the opening night praying that mics or lights or cables or speakers won't explode or fall on the actors' heads? What can I say? An overconfident, "We got this"? Superstition prevents me from making such statements. Am I terribly worried about everything that could go wrong? Up to a point. We have a tradition of pretty damn good opening nights. So I say very little and sound hesitant when, in fact, I am not. There are four more days until another public gets to see yet another fragment of the world that has settled in my mind for a while now. I often feel like I carry around my own museum without walls. And in times of dire economic straits, I don't even charge admission.
21st century theatre has a love-hate relationship with language. The text is less important than choreography, movement, silence, lights. While I often find myself sacrificing text for spectacle, I need texts on the stage to remind myself of our point of departure. It's a strange kind of homage to the written (and spoken) word...
The first time I did a production whose set was an art installation, I worked with two extraordinary artists: sculptor Jeni Battaglia and artist Susan David. From that point on, I've always had, as part of the set design, a piece of art made by Jeni and a painting by Susan. Call it tradition, call it superstition, call it what you will. All our plays, since that first hybrid (the theatre-art installation show), incorporate Jeni and Susan's work. Their visual language and my idea of the spectacle coincide.
I have other superstitions as well, like the fact that we need one or two terrible rehearsals before the show. We had one yesterday. Everything that could go wrong with the props did. Ellie ripped her tutu, Mike's medicine bottles popped open, Dan's microphone needed adjustment, props got in the way of the words written in chalk on the floor...Low energy, missed cues, people stumbling over words.
Dan looked broken at the end. He's not familiar with the process (or my superstitions), so I needed to reassure him that everything that happened was part of the normal course of things.
Karl is supposed to stop by tonight to make sure that all our sound connections are...well, sound (sorry: that was bad), and there's one lighting cue I'd like to change. Other than that, I think all we need is public. The cast has been performing to an empty house for too long. Jokes fall on silence and there's a distinct sense of emptiness in the air.
Susan is taking pictures tonight, which is good. The cast needs to see itself. That's the problem with the people in my productions: they don't get to see the play, and the look -- the visual spectacle I'm always trying to achieve -- is as important as the rhythm of the production. The actors internalize the rhythm but, during the performance, they're never able to see the spectacle. So photographs are good.
Went shopping for shoes with Dan. My image of Larry is a bit of an homage to David Tennant's Dr. Who. Cool clothes, funny shoes. But instead of the suit, I went for an all black ensemble: slacks and one of those awesome thin, black sweaters that Batman relaxes in when he's Bruce Wayne. Ok, so it sounds like Larry is a hybrid between Batman and Dr. Who. He's not. It's just that his shoes can't be regular shoes, there has to be something slightly off about them. I found a pair that has a similar design to that of the sportsy shoes Gabe has. I am perfectly aware of the fact that people who wear similar shoes are not soulmates in reality. On the stage, however, I hope the connection will be visible. Gabe connects with Larry even before they meet.
Today is Dan's birthday. I knew that, but he took me a little by surprise when he confessed to it. For reasons that will be revealed later on, I couldn't wish him a happy birthday. He said, "I am 29...Today" I said, "I know," and pointed him in the direction of the shoe store. He now probably thinks that an old Romanian custom prevents me from wishing people happy birthday. Or he just thinks I'm rude. Oh well. All will be revealed, my friends, all will be revealed...
Dan wants definitive answers about the show. "How do you feel about it? How do you think it's going?" and I must frustrate him a little, because I refuse to give definitive answers. What can I say? That we had several rehearsals that were so good, I barely had any notes at the end? That there was that one "crazy good" performance which I hope we can duplicate? That technology is still on my mind and that I'll spend that hour and 20 minutes on the opening night praying that mics or lights or cables or speakers won't explode or fall on the actors' heads? What can I say? An overconfident, "We got this"? Superstition prevents me from making such statements. Am I terribly worried about everything that could go wrong? Up to a point. We have a tradition of pretty damn good opening nights. So I say very little and sound hesitant when, in fact, I am not. There are four more days until another public gets to see yet another fragment of the world that has settled in my mind for a while now. I often feel like I carry around my own museum without walls. And in times of dire economic straits, I don't even charge admission.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Precautions
If I could have my way, I'd isolate the entire cast and crew five days before opening night. I'd lock them up in a secure building (something vaguely resembling a compound) and then I'd breathe easily for the first time in a long, long time. The compound would have the latest amenities, its grounds landscaped, private, secure. The cast and crew could ask for (and receive) anything they wanted, provided they didn't go anywhere or do anything.
I can't tell you how much I worry when I hear that Dan went horseback riding, or when I see him pass the time, during a rehearsal break, walking on the back of the chairs in the auditorium. I worry every time Ellie drives her car, not because she's not a safe driver but because everyone else is crazy. I worry when Seth leaves town, even for an afternoon. I worry when Jamie hangs lights 30 feet into the air or Susan climbs the tallest ladder I've ever seen to safety pin a curtain fold...(speaking of climbing ladders, I had an awesome idea yesterday. As lights hit the stage we noticed a long piece of wire hanging from the rafters. What to do? Remove it? Dangerous. Tie it, somehow? Not pretty. Tie something (meaningful) to it? Hm...Then, genius! My genius, that is, I've never suffered from false modesty: I took the Zeppelin with the bride silhouette attached to it and suspended it from the wire. We stepped back, lights hit the stage, and above Conni's area, the Zeppelin floated beautifully, a reminder of Larry Tarkowsky's love for impossible flying machines...I did a little victory dance that is usually not meant to have an audience, and we continued to hang lights.)
Collaboration, worry: the curse of the playwright. The playwright needs other people to produce a show. Again and again, I envy the poet, the fiction writer, all the writers, in fact, who do not depend on a collective. Not because the collective is undependable (I've worked with some of the most reliable people one could ask for), but because accidents do happen. So, yes. I'd love to lock up cast and crew in secure, glass cages, and cater to their every whim until the evening of the performance when I'd release them onto the stage...Is this a strange thought? Absolutely. But would it solve all my problems? Yes, it would. Why can't the cast experience the isolation that, in the movies, at least, astronauts experience before a trip to the moon or to some other nasty planet? In my perfect world (the one with the theatre with the awesome marble floors), this exile would be mandatory. In the real world...Realism again. My archenemy.
I'm waiting for Ellie, to go shopping for the white top. I'm also trying to gather my thoughts for this afternoon's live interview, so I won't babble without a point. I have to stop by the office and take care of some school work (although teaching seems the most surreal part of my job these days), and then I have to go to Fletcher to spray paint white a few more props.
Rehearsal at 6, as always. We've settled into this maddening rhythm with a certain ease. After a while, madness becomes second nature. Monday. Five days left. In their imaginary glass cages, the actors get ready for their parts. The enclosure is perfect, the cast completely protected. In my mind, where all things fantastical take place, precautions have been taken to assure success.
I can't tell you how much I worry when I hear that Dan went horseback riding, or when I see him pass the time, during a rehearsal break, walking on the back of the chairs in the auditorium. I worry every time Ellie drives her car, not because she's not a safe driver but because everyone else is crazy. I worry when Seth leaves town, even for an afternoon. I worry when Jamie hangs lights 30 feet into the air or Susan climbs the tallest ladder I've ever seen to safety pin a curtain fold...(speaking of climbing ladders, I had an awesome idea yesterday. As lights hit the stage we noticed a long piece of wire hanging from the rafters. What to do? Remove it? Dangerous. Tie it, somehow? Not pretty. Tie something (meaningful) to it? Hm...Then, genius! My genius, that is, I've never suffered from false modesty: I took the Zeppelin with the bride silhouette attached to it and suspended it from the wire. We stepped back, lights hit the stage, and above Conni's area, the Zeppelin floated beautifully, a reminder of Larry Tarkowsky's love for impossible flying machines...I did a little victory dance that is usually not meant to have an audience, and we continued to hang lights.)
Collaboration, worry: the curse of the playwright. The playwright needs other people to produce a show. Again and again, I envy the poet, the fiction writer, all the writers, in fact, who do not depend on a collective. Not because the collective is undependable (I've worked with some of the most reliable people one could ask for), but because accidents do happen. So, yes. I'd love to lock up cast and crew in secure, glass cages, and cater to their every whim until the evening of the performance when I'd release them onto the stage...Is this a strange thought? Absolutely. But would it solve all my problems? Yes, it would. Why can't the cast experience the isolation that, in the movies, at least, astronauts experience before a trip to the moon or to some other nasty planet? In my perfect world (the one with the theatre with the awesome marble floors), this exile would be mandatory. In the real world...Realism again. My archenemy.
I'm waiting for Ellie, to go shopping for the white top. I'm also trying to gather my thoughts for this afternoon's live interview, so I won't babble without a point. I have to stop by the office and take care of some school work (although teaching seems the most surreal part of my job these days), and then I have to go to Fletcher to spray paint white a few more props.
Rehearsal at 6, as always. We've settled into this maddening rhythm with a certain ease. After a while, madness becomes second nature. Monday. Five days left. In their imaginary glass cages, the actors get ready for their parts. The enclosure is perfect, the cast completely protected. In my mind, where all things fantastical take place, precautions have been taken to assure success.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Lights and Other Random Issues
One runthrough and four hours of figuring out lights. Discovery: I hate yellow. Yellow makes people look jaundiced and makes the stage look...poor. So Seth and Mike and Dan with occasional help from the rest of us spent a good portion of the time moving a 30 ft ladder about so that Jamie could focus lights and place gels where we needed them.
I had to change the blocking of the nightmare scene and of the ending because we simply don't have enough lights to cover all the areas. And what we have is dying. One of our main lights (one of two side lights, in fact), makes a terrible sound when brought up to full intensity and Jamie said that pretty much spells death: the light is about to shut down. Imagine losing one of your two lateral lights in performance. You can't? Ok, I'll tell you what happens: the entire downstage right area goes dark. All the collective fantasy scenes disappear.
I also rechoreographed the Zeppelin scene because, depending on where you sit in the house, you get to see parts of it or not much...So I changed it again hoping this new setup will solve all our problems.
On tomorrow's agenda:
1.convince Matthew to stop tweaking sound during the performance. When he told me he was muting mics during the runthrough I had a moment of panic. It's very easy to forget that a mic is muted (this has, in fact, happened with Chess' mike one time). I'd like the volumes adjusted once and for all before the rehearsal, and then the mics not touched again. Somehow I need to convince him how serious I am about this.
2.convince myself that I like what we have in terms of lights. I kind of do, but I'm not ecstatic or anything
3. go shopping with Ellie because she needs her white top for the play.
Today I went shopping with Dan for his costume. For all his isolation, Larry has to look cool. Until Dan tried on the fifth pair of pants I didn't realize how skinny he really is. I think I called him "feeble." I'm doing better and better. A week ago I told him he had the stamina of a five year old. Today I called him feeble while assuring him that all the women involved with this production are still crushing on Larry. Perhaps the two statements will balance each other out...
At the end of our six hour rehearsal, after shopping with Dan, we went to hang posters in Griffin. Tomorrow I'll deal with the large poster for Fletcher. While hanging posters I had a pretty weird conversation with Dan. Whenever I'm very tired I don't censor myself: whatever's on my mind, comes out. But Dan answers my questions with a smile and continues to put up with me. I don't know why. I don't know why all these people subject themselves to my merciless approach to directing, to months of work and criticism. It's happened ever since I moved down here. It must be something in the water...
I'm pretty worn out but tomorrow is a relatively easy day: no teaching, just the KRVS interview at 3:30, shopping and rehearsal. At some point the cheap motel that is my house has to return to its original condition. I'm planning a cast party after the show and I can't have people walk into this mess. It's not even messy...it just looks abandoned, as if a thin patina of desolation has attached itself to it.
Also on the agenda tomorrow (and every day until the 20th) is the reminder not to get emotionally attached to the cast. I used to care immensely for the actors I worked with and then one of them killed my play. This happened about four years ago when the production (that one show we had all worked so hard to perfect) got cancelled. I never got over that. The whole thing felt like a personal betrayal. That's why, whenever I catch myself thinking affectionate thoughts about the cast (and it's difficult not to, seeing them get better and better every day), I take a moment to remind myself of that incident and to tell myself that, after the 20th, things will go back to normal as if nothing happened.
But we'll all know that's a lie because something would have happened by then: a play, a moment of colossal abandon and delight, a complete break with reality. And for those few months, in the most artificial environment possible (the rehearsal space, the stage) a world would have been built from the ground up, and all the people in it would have remembered it as their most excellent adventure.
I had to change the blocking of the nightmare scene and of the ending because we simply don't have enough lights to cover all the areas. And what we have is dying. One of our main lights (one of two side lights, in fact), makes a terrible sound when brought up to full intensity and Jamie said that pretty much spells death: the light is about to shut down. Imagine losing one of your two lateral lights in performance. You can't? Ok, I'll tell you what happens: the entire downstage right area goes dark. All the collective fantasy scenes disappear.
I also rechoreographed the Zeppelin scene because, depending on where you sit in the house, you get to see parts of it or not much...So I changed it again hoping this new setup will solve all our problems.
On tomorrow's agenda:
1.convince Matthew to stop tweaking sound during the performance. When he told me he was muting mics during the runthrough I had a moment of panic. It's very easy to forget that a mic is muted (this has, in fact, happened with Chess' mike one time). I'd like the volumes adjusted once and for all before the rehearsal, and then the mics not touched again. Somehow I need to convince him how serious I am about this.
2.convince myself that I like what we have in terms of lights. I kind of do, but I'm not ecstatic or anything
3. go shopping with Ellie because she needs her white top for the play.
Today I went shopping with Dan for his costume. For all his isolation, Larry has to look cool. Until Dan tried on the fifth pair of pants I didn't realize how skinny he really is. I think I called him "feeble." I'm doing better and better. A week ago I told him he had the stamina of a five year old. Today I called him feeble while assuring him that all the women involved with this production are still crushing on Larry. Perhaps the two statements will balance each other out...
At the end of our six hour rehearsal, after shopping with Dan, we went to hang posters in Griffin. Tomorrow I'll deal with the large poster for Fletcher. While hanging posters I had a pretty weird conversation with Dan. Whenever I'm very tired I don't censor myself: whatever's on my mind, comes out. But Dan answers my questions with a smile and continues to put up with me. I don't know why. I don't know why all these people subject themselves to my merciless approach to directing, to months of work and criticism. It's happened ever since I moved down here. It must be something in the water...
I'm pretty worn out but tomorrow is a relatively easy day: no teaching, just the KRVS interview at 3:30, shopping and rehearsal. At some point the cheap motel that is my house has to return to its original condition. I'm planning a cast party after the show and I can't have people walk into this mess. It's not even messy...it just looks abandoned, as if a thin patina of desolation has attached itself to it.
Also on the agenda tomorrow (and every day until the 20th) is the reminder not to get emotionally attached to the cast. I used to care immensely for the actors I worked with and then one of them killed my play. This happened about four years ago when the production (that one show we had all worked so hard to perfect) got cancelled. I never got over that. The whole thing felt like a personal betrayal. That's why, whenever I catch myself thinking affectionate thoughts about the cast (and it's difficult not to, seeing them get better and better every day), I take a moment to remind myself of that incident and to tell myself that, after the 20th, things will go back to normal as if nothing happened.
But we'll all know that's a lie because something would have happened by then: a play, a moment of colossal abandon and delight, a complete break with reality. And for those few months, in the most artificial environment possible (the rehearsal space, the stage) a world would have been built from the ground up, and all the people in it would have remembered it as their most excellent adventure.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Strange Days
Spent the night yesterday throwing up and trying to get rid of an unbearable stomach ache. If I were Jean Laliberte, my vegan-revolutionary-disease-plagued character, I'd think stomach cancer, naturally. Deep down inside, I am Jean. On the surface I'm trying not to be him. My first stomach troubles (yes, my theatre friends, now you'll be subjected to intimate gastroenterological details...) started a few weeks after my father's death. I wasn't feeling well, I wasn't feeling ill either -- it was a combination of the two, triggered by food. As long as I ate toast and bananas, I was fine. Real food destroyed me. Since then, I've had these episodes a few times. I'd eat normal food, get a terrible stomach ache, throw up, go back to semi-normal. Perhaps my head and its problems have moved into my stomach. Perhaps I think with my colon.
Around 2:45am, I was thinking if it was possible to cancel the rehearsal. At 4 I managed to fall asleep. At 7:30 I was up and not in pain. I made a huge quantity of tea, poured it in a thermos, and went to Fletcher to get ready for the longest rehearsal to date: the first lighting rehearsal. Jamie arrived with a lot of instruments borrowed from the theatre department. We had a moment of internal celebration until we realized that 6 of the 10, I believe, borrowed instruments didn't work. We did a runthrough and, of course, sound troubles began. As I was telling Matthew (our sound guy), I have this love-hate relationship to Fletcher. I love the space, I HATE the equipment. Everything is faulty. This time, it was feedback from Dan's microphone. I was ready for a small breakdown when Matthew realized the feedback was coming from two giant speakers on each side of the stage, speakers we thought were dead. Well, they're alive and useless, and they make strange noises. We turned them away from the mics and then Matthew had a second brilliant idea: to replace Dan's shitty wireless microphone with a regular one. We did, and Dan's voice came to life. No more problems with the last monologue. No more difference in intensity between the left and the right side of the house. Rehearsal continued and, as it did, I could not believe what was happening, how tremendous everyone was.
I can't even talk about Dan. Dan is insane. It has to be insanity, to be able to manipulate the same sentence so many times -- different inflections, different meanings every time...The interaction with Ellie has never been more alive. Seth is beginning to improvise (the sign that the play is ready for it its public). I remembered a production I saw about 25 years ago back home. It was the equivalent of the art students' "senior show" here: theatre students and their professor (a well known Romanian actor) staged a scene that was a rehearsal of a play. At a certain point in the scene, the main girl turned to the professor/director and said, "I don't know what to do. I feel like slapping him, but that's not in the text." And the professor said, "Excellent. Theatre begins the moment you 'feel like' doing things nobody told you to do."
Absolutely true. When actors get completely comfortable with the space they inhabit on the stage and with their part, they start adding small things: an inflection, a gesture that wasn't there before, a pause...That's when I know they're ready. And we are ready for public.
After the runthrough Matthew had to leave and we began the slow process of hanging lights and checking to see what works and what doesn't. I say "we," but I mean Jamie. Jamie is extraordinary. She's done lights for me for 10 years (for free) and I would have a hard, hard time working with anybody else. Some people learn things and then produce these...what shall I call them?...these "correct" lighting schemes. Jamie invents stuff, mostly because we don't have much to work with and I always want things to be beautiful.
But here we are in Fletcher, with its strange bathroom-like floor that reflects light in the most uninspiring manner, missing tons of instruments, trying to make do. I'm so tired of this poverty. I want a fully functional lighting system. I want colors and I want subtlety and I want nightmare scenes with nightmare lighting and awesome fades and dramatic endings. In my dreams, my plays have all of these things.
While assisting Jamie, I told Dan that every woman there had a crush on Larry Tarkovsky. Dan was beaming and I didn't have the heart to remind him that Larry is the character...On the other had, Dan identifies with the character so much that, for another week, at least, there is no difference.
The cast had lunch, and Dan and Ellie started talking. I sat in Larry Tarkovsky's chair and watched them talk, and joke, and do combat moves, and have a great time. I have never been able to explain to an outsider the chemistry, the camaraderie, the amazing understanding that develops between the members of a cast whose ultimate goal is the show and not the cultivation of their own egos. It is amazing to watch. There's never too much sentiment. (After that perfect runthrough, I said, "I have no notes. That was crazy good. I hope you can do it again...Dan. I love you. I have no idea how you're doing what you're doing, but Larry has evolved beyond my wildest hopes." I should have said, "I love you all," because I do. I should have just quoted myself, because Larry says it in the play: "I love you, Gabe...and you, Dominique, and Jean...I love you all,with your problems, and your dreams and your absurd need to make sense of the world...")
We did a second run through (mostly a speed through) and roughly sketched a lighting scheme. For a first lighting rehearsal it was great. For the actual show...we need many more lighting instruments.
At some point during the hours it took to test the existing lights I took inventory of the cast: Seth, looking awesome in his white scrubs (did I mention he went to Subway dressed like that?), taking a nap on his -- now familiar -- prison-striped cot. Conni sunning herself outside, enjoying the gorgeous weather. Mikey admiring his freshly (spray painted) white shoes, occasionally stroking his pet baby scorpion, Jake. Dan...Dan is not on another planet: Dan is another planet...Ellie talking to everyone at the same time, laughing, having a great time away from...I guess, away from reality. Theatre is an admirable escape. You create your landscape, you light it the way you want it, you add its sounds, its soundtrack, its inhabitants. As a director, the world is under your control. As an actor, the simple fact that, for a few hours, you get to be someone whose actions have no consequence in real life is extremely liberating. Outside the door of the darkened room that has become our refuge, reality bides its time. It will get us in the end. But not today.
Around 2:45am, I was thinking if it was possible to cancel the rehearsal. At 4 I managed to fall asleep. At 7:30 I was up and not in pain. I made a huge quantity of tea, poured it in a thermos, and went to Fletcher to get ready for the longest rehearsal to date: the first lighting rehearsal. Jamie arrived with a lot of instruments borrowed from the theatre department. We had a moment of internal celebration until we realized that 6 of the 10, I believe, borrowed instruments didn't work. We did a runthrough and, of course, sound troubles began. As I was telling Matthew (our sound guy), I have this love-hate relationship to Fletcher. I love the space, I HATE the equipment. Everything is faulty. This time, it was feedback from Dan's microphone. I was ready for a small breakdown when Matthew realized the feedback was coming from two giant speakers on each side of the stage, speakers we thought were dead. Well, they're alive and useless, and they make strange noises. We turned them away from the mics and then Matthew had a second brilliant idea: to replace Dan's shitty wireless microphone with a regular one. We did, and Dan's voice came to life. No more problems with the last monologue. No more difference in intensity between the left and the right side of the house. Rehearsal continued and, as it did, I could not believe what was happening, how tremendous everyone was.
I can't even talk about Dan. Dan is insane. It has to be insanity, to be able to manipulate the same sentence so many times -- different inflections, different meanings every time...The interaction with Ellie has never been more alive. Seth is beginning to improvise (the sign that the play is ready for it its public). I remembered a production I saw about 25 years ago back home. It was the equivalent of the art students' "senior show" here: theatre students and their professor (a well known Romanian actor) staged a scene that was a rehearsal of a play. At a certain point in the scene, the main girl turned to the professor/director and said, "I don't know what to do. I feel like slapping him, but that's not in the text." And the professor said, "Excellent. Theatre begins the moment you 'feel like' doing things nobody told you to do."
Absolutely true. When actors get completely comfortable with the space they inhabit on the stage and with their part, they start adding small things: an inflection, a gesture that wasn't there before, a pause...That's when I know they're ready. And we are ready for public.
After the runthrough Matthew had to leave and we began the slow process of hanging lights and checking to see what works and what doesn't. I say "we," but I mean Jamie. Jamie is extraordinary. She's done lights for me for 10 years (for free) and I would have a hard, hard time working with anybody else. Some people learn things and then produce these...what shall I call them?...these "correct" lighting schemes. Jamie invents stuff, mostly because we don't have much to work with and I always want things to be beautiful.
But here we are in Fletcher, with its strange bathroom-like floor that reflects light in the most uninspiring manner, missing tons of instruments, trying to make do. I'm so tired of this poverty. I want a fully functional lighting system. I want colors and I want subtlety and I want nightmare scenes with nightmare lighting and awesome fades and dramatic endings. In my dreams, my plays have all of these things.
While assisting Jamie, I told Dan that every woman there had a crush on Larry Tarkovsky. Dan was beaming and I didn't have the heart to remind him that Larry is the character...On the other had, Dan identifies with the character so much that, for another week, at least, there is no difference.
The cast had lunch, and Dan and Ellie started talking. I sat in Larry Tarkovsky's chair and watched them talk, and joke, and do combat moves, and have a great time. I have never been able to explain to an outsider the chemistry, the camaraderie, the amazing understanding that develops between the members of a cast whose ultimate goal is the show and not the cultivation of their own egos. It is amazing to watch. There's never too much sentiment. (After that perfect runthrough, I said, "I have no notes. That was crazy good. I hope you can do it again...Dan. I love you. I have no idea how you're doing what you're doing, but Larry has evolved beyond my wildest hopes." I should have said, "I love you all," because I do. I should have just quoted myself, because Larry says it in the play: "I love you, Gabe...and you, Dominique, and Jean...I love you all,with your problems, and your dreams and your absurd need to make sense of the world...")
We did a second run through (mostly a speed through) and roughly sketched a lighting scheme. For a first lighting rehearsal it was great. For the actual show...we need many more lighting instruments.
At some point during the hours it took to test the existing lights I took inventory of the cast: Seth, looking awesome in his white scrubs (did I mention he went to Subway dressed like that?), taking a nap on his -- now familiar -- prison-striped cot. Conni sunning herself outside, enjoying the gorgeous weather. Mikey admiring his freshly (spray painted) white shoes, occasionally stroking his pet baby scorpion, Jake. Dan...Dan is not on another planet: Dan is another planet...Ellie talking to everyone at the same time, laughing, having a great time away from...I guess, away from reality. Theatre is an admirable escape. You create your landscape, you light it the way you want it, you add its sounds, its soundtrack, its inhabitants. As a director, the world is under your control. As an actor, the simple fact that, for a few hours, you get to be someone whose actions have no consequence in real life is extremely liberating. Outside the door of the darkened room that has become our refuge, reality bides its time. It will get us in the end. But not today.
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