Taking it out for a ride - Night Heron.

Last night was the first real go at "unleashing" what has been building up throughout the thought and rehearsal process. Vahktangov said the results of a rehearsal are found in the next rehearsal, and so on and so on. Last night brought out our first real organic creativity, and there was some fascinating stuff. The Night Heron is not an unusual play in its make up and structure. But it is dense and the details are many. And those details finally begin emerging for us last night.

Night Heron More

Mr. Jez Butterworth put together a very interesting and completely vague (intentionally so) script when he wrote The Night Heron. The only thing that I can tell you for sure at this point in time is that our production will be compelling. The good news is that we have done a hell of a lot of work uncovering the events of the play and figuring out what the heck is going on, in detail. The other good news is that now we have a hell of a lot more work to do. At this point some scenes are great fun, and others I still dread. As for the "main event" of the play for Jess, it has to either be the moment of speaking for himself in his defense or the moment just after of taking blame for everything gone wrong. We have traced and researched and talked about all the little particulars, words, phrases, ideas, events, places, people, etc. We have discussed the large metaphors and the big ideas. And we have discussed clear simple notions of who these people are and what they are doing. We have brutally probed the play. And of course we are trying to find ways to properly render it on the stage.

Many Things Are Difficult

Many of things are difficult about working on this role in The Night Heron, not the least of which is trying to get the dialect right. In this day and age you can listen to radio broadcasts, YouTube, Podcasts, etc, in order to hear and learn a dialect. That sure makes it easier, but never-the-less I always have trouble with the sounds, the rhythm. Baby steps, baby steps.

MixTape III - a little about Sorrow

There was a piece performed in Mixtape by Angela entitled "Sorrow." Now I hold some inside information in regards to the making of this piece, fortunate man that I am. But there is a premise in it of memories (including specific sounds in this case) which exist in the body. It is an incredibly interesting and unusual piece of performance. And those who know me will recognize in advance what I am likely more to say about it. So I won't rush it! Ah, yes, yes, yes, the foundation, the basis, of theatrical art, its existence, the very thing that distinguishes it from other arts - personal experience, existing as memory, manifested in theatrical form by the actor, with his or her self/body as the means of expression, taking on its very own new immediate life. Yes, this is theatre. But in "Sorrow" it is somewhat of an abstracted form. We hear the associated sounds in the literal, although many are not necessarily recognizable. And the relationships of the sounds themselves to each other is not identifiable. In other words we are not hearing a progression of sounds that may exist at a carnival for example or at a sporting event or on a walk near the ocean. The mask that Angela wears in the presentation of this piece is prominent, powerful, and painted a strong yellow. It is also distinctly sorrowful. A performer of lesser ilk might have opted to try and convey the premise, thereby making it novel and the object of the spectators muse. Angela worked to just let it be, a kind of raw expression wrought from the body, with individual sounds rising and then coming up together in two, three or more. It is not an easy piece, for performer or for spectator. And yet it is a goldmine. As a performer Angela has a powerful and agile body. But if you asked me to explain the kind of movements and gestures she made in this piece to give it life I would have difficulty, great difficulty. She sat on a little stool, covered by the mask, a long dress, (a shawl once), bare hands, bare feet. And she made little movements, here and there, arm, torso, head, leg, foot, hip, hand, each of which seemed all at once painful and joyful. I don't know. Think birth. Or cocoon hatching, or some unusual life-giving physical event. At times those events look senseless, unattractive or just pitiful. Yet we know what they produce. Along the way we experience those "OMG is this child ever going to be born!" moments. And we find calming moments, gracious moments, grating moments, confusion... and something we can only feel, not say, or represent.

Mixtape Post Number II

We can and do experience Mixtape via the individual works and via its whole. We can appreciate and talk about and understand its pieces and/or its overall effect. But I must be careful. By overall effect I do not mean the sum of its pieces. They don't add up that way. Perhaps I mean something like general overall set-up and premise vs each topical episode. Whatever the terms or descriptions you should know that I mean them as two unique concepts, related but not always influencing each other. One one hand we have Matt Walley and Angela Horchem who have come to the stage to perform. On the other hand we have the individual works themselves that they actually show us. No matter how much some performers might want to strip away personality and personal identity from their work (and I'm not implying that Matt and Angela do) they can never, ever, ever, ever, in a hundred thousand million years make that happen. It is worldly impossible. Personality is one-third of the deal which the spectators get. You can't make it go away. And the sooner many actors realize, accept, and embrace this fact, the better they will be. And so in this overall effect I see Angela (female she is) cleaning, working, feeling, thinking, suffering, busy, sometimes frantic, changing, I see Matt (male he is) looking for help, wanting sympathy, joking around, hoping, rarely changing. Not to sound stereotypical, but there it is in front of us. And as spectators we identify, understand and appreciate the dichotomy. It is one part of human nature made evident to us in this show, and also one of the "easier" parts of the show to take in intellectually.

Mixtape post part I

Back to Mixtape! I had a great time going to see this show. I found the whole experience lovely on many levels - not the least of which was feeling like part of a theatre community, which was now taking a leap forward in its growth, expansion, creativity and originality. I yearn for new plays, new works. I want to hear and experience signature "voices" that grow out of this time and place, and know of the inspiration found in the present, from among friends and family and co-workers and supporters of our theatre community. I want to see varying shapes and sizes and forms and constructs, all wrought from the collective work and individual talents gathered around here. And so the emergence of Mixtape was a bright signal, at least in my mind. It rolled out with ambition, determination and happiness, full of silly thank-god seemingly meaningless and amateurish moments mixed freely with these deeply profound difficult impossible attempts at revelation. But let me be clear. I am not being a cheerleader for a theatrical experience of "experimentation" or "good try." Too much was right-on for that to be the case. Rather I am emphasizing the range and bravado and the scope of life from which the performers drew the material of their creativity - nothing too sacred, nothing too base, everything in. And so the billing of the performance, it subtitle, "Physical. Variety. Show." held true. Physical was the bodies in a consciously active state of expression - emphasis on the conscious part. Variety was the anything goes framework. Show was the vigor and the obvious sense of performers and spectators tied together in this one. I loved it. And I will be writing more. And I can't wait.

MixTape Intro

I'm overdue to write about Mixtape at Live Theatre Workshop Etcetera Series. This is a show performed by Theatre3, featuring Angela Horchem and Matt Walley. Let it be said that I am partial to the work of Angela and Matt. I have my reasons and they are good ones. I may tell you about them along the way, but for now I have a short list of random thoughts and ideas to express - some directly related to Mixtape, some a few degrees of separation away, and others that are probably temporary manifestations in my mind. I will get to Mixtape starting in my next post but I need these few preliminaries for starters. O.K. here goes... British Theatre wants to be all intellectually talky. ("Its all in the words, love."). Italian Theatre is all over-the-top dramatic, emoting and buffoonery. French Theatre wants to be all silent and profound. They are like "oooh, Ges -ture, Ges-ture!" Russian Theatre tries to be a walking soul. German Theatre is really politics. American Theatre wants to be a social cause. And the rest of the world is just masks and ritual and things like that. All true enough on some level. Right? I hhhhhaaaattttteee the performance space at Live Theatre Workshop! It's always cold. It's dingy. Claustrophobic. Painted life-sucking black. The psychic energy is shaky at best. They sell candy in the lobby. Clowns disturb me. How difficult is joy to manifest in theatre performance? It's difficult. Very difficult. What constitutes "Silence" in theatre performance? My mind is clearer already!

Coming along slowly and personally now

I've been busy trying to piece together and understand the series of events that make up the actual play on the stage. And of course along with that comes the question of what is my character doing? What is the action, as we like to say? In the rehearsal room we have had the dicsussions of the essential facts and circumstances and we are working out the general physical world and movement of the play. We are "inside" the parameters and suggestions of the written script. The characters actions slowly get put in place, behaviorally, pieced together logically, in detail. I list them out or tell them to myself in the narrative. For example," I walk in, listening for sounds outside. I set down my notes and pick up the penny flute. My mind is thinking about whether or not I want to be alone, and trying not to think of the possibility of being beaten again. I try to play a song on the recorder, almost by habit. I feel pain in my mouth, a small taste of blood. A sigh hurts my broken ribs, pain. I set the recorder down and go to the sink to rinse my mouth out. I am listening to the recordings that I have made, tapedeck playing. I feel anxious. I rinse my mouth, trying to sooth myself and relax. I go back to the table. I turn off the tapedeck. I sit down." This "discription" of behavior, this narrative, eventually becomes my personal "script" or "text" you might say. Mine are always soaked in activities of the senses, thoughts, and images in the mind. What I create there, in those realms, should give rise to the words provided to my character by the playwright. The process of creating this working "text" for myself is slow, detailed, and full of trial and error. As I am working on it, I begin to develop an artistic point of view so to speak - a kind of general sense of purpose about the kind character I am making and why. I begin to harbor hopes and aspirations about what I might be able to artistically achieve and convey to the spectators. By now I have taken in the playwrights work pretty fully, and have been earnest in appreciating and trying to understand it. It's the beginning of melding my own creativity in with it now. It's personal. Very, very personal. On many levels. Mind you, this doesn't imply or mean private or unspeakable or something like that. It just means connected and intentionally so - having a stake or desire in what I am doing. I want a character that is enjoyable and complex and meaningful, for myself and for the spectators. And so this is how I am proceeding

Beginning to look for the Main Event of the character

The burning question now is what is the "main event" of the play for Jess. To begin to determine this, I have to put together the sequence of events that actually make up the play that the spectators will see. Off hand there are a couple of events that are candidates for the main event, the most important thing that happens, the change that occurs, the character dealing with the totality of his circumstances in some profound and meaningful way. In the meantime, I took some time to read some reviews both of the London and the New York production. Now, Jez Butterworth radically altered the character of Jess, rewriting for the New York production. Its almost a different man. The change of the script is drastic. More to that later in another post perhaps. However, whether the London or the New York script, both of which I have read and studied, I have to wonder about the reviews and what they say. Either the perception of the reviewers was unusual or the productions themselves emphasized some things that were not characteristic of the actual script. Maybe a combination of the two, I don't know. But either way the reviews almost seem like they are talking about a different set of circumstances, almost a different play. And so, I keep on working on the facts and the events and their logic.

initiating event

My posts are slightly behind the actual rehearsal schedule...but that is o.k. The intent of my analysis is to eventually pinpoint what my character is doing, thinking, feeling, wanting, moment by moment throughout the play. In doing this, I tend to avoid some common phrases and terminology. Not that they are bad. I just don't use them. For example "character arc." And although this is not a purely cold intellectual effort I am trying to avoid comparisons and assumptions at this point, things such as "oh, this character is like my uncle john" or "this character reminds me of those people who always...." And I am especially avoiding metaphors or summations at this point. I am repeating this, having said it in earlier posts, but its importance bears that. So onward. To the narrative of events now I can add other pieces of information contained in the script. Other characters describe my character in past events as "having been full of beans, busy organizing." Or they describe the effects of something my character has done, such as creating this incredible garden. The events and descriptions listed therefore in the script give rise to certain characteristics of personality perhaps - an energetic man, well organized, meticulous, detailed and caring. He is mentioned and seen as a man who can recite long passages of the old testament by heart. He remembers names and details of places, things, people, etc. So we can imagine he pays great attention and/or his mind is sharp and clear. We can imagine that he is a patient man, as many of the tasks and events to which he was involved would require such a quality. We know according to the script that the character of Warren Lee teased and tormented Jess in mean and cruel ways for several months before Jess finally broke, his patience exasperated, and he slapped Warren Lee. This slap, the initiating event to this series of events that eventually becomes this play, now begins to have a context. Slapping this boy sends Jess' life in a completely different and unexpected direction. But I can begin to imagine and understand how "out of character" this action is. I can put it in context with everything else and I can wonder how it felt for him in that very moment. Perhaps the action surprised even himself. Did he regret it immediately afterward? No doubt he now has many thoughts and feelings associated with this event, complex and deep. But here now I have my basis, a general understanding of the initiating event of the play.