Monthly Archives: September 2007

directing, Golda, style

ibid

I was thinking about what the inherently Jewish styles are, especially of language and performance. And this popped into my head, round about the Dimona section.

FOOTNOTES.

Commentary is a scholarly art, a religious one, a Jewish one – and I need to do a play with more commentary in it. Like the “Footnote” character I interpolated into LYSISTRATA. It just seemed natural to do. But only natural to the brain of someone brought up on the arguing rabbis in the Seder. It’d be great to have commentary characters in the Passover project.

I did so many things right in LYSISTRATA, and I still don’t know how I did most of them. I need to do that show again. It’ll have been ten years in two.

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a propos of nothing, style

Kissinger! (“Rigorous Intellectual Digression…”)

So I started out trying to write a note, in a word document, about blocking on Morris crushing the lampshade. 5 steps later – lampshades – Holocaust – the Investigation – German theater – Toby – email Toby – Syzygy eblast – Goblin Market – email Aaron about Syzygy – I should write a chamber musical –

Linking and following is Herodotean ring composition except you never get back to the beginning.

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Golda, writing

Tech: The Game Show. Tech: The Lunch Box. Tech: The Action Figure…

We teched very rapidly today, going through over 22 pages of the script. I particularly enjoyed being able to do some quick on-the-fly research on why mushroom clouds are mushrooms and the font of the floor of Yad Vashem’s Hall of Remembrance. (Definition: Theater artists are people with extremely detailed knowledge of an assortment of unrelated things, linked only by their factual presence in an imaginary narrative.)

I want to write a play called “Ten Out Of Twelve” which actually takes place during tech.

“Oh well – ten out of twelve ain’t bad…

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israel, the academy

freedom

“Academic freedom is not to be sacrificed; it is in itself a mode of struggle against those who deny such freedom and against material conditions which limit such freedom. “

From David Hirsch via ENGAGE, re: the proposed and defeated UCU boycott of Israeli academics.

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Golda

Tech Me With Your Best Shot

A good day of tech. It was all about figuring out the rhythm of the projections in the show. The “cube” effect is negligible now.

Aaron has 2 phones on either side of his table: the one on the left talks to the projections designer and sound designer, and the one on the right to the lighting designer. The stage manager hears all of them. It’s like Star Trek. (Which we also discussed today – and Spaceballs.)

I ran lines with Camille whenever we stopped to tech further, and I talked to Joan about the best use of our US rehearsal time.

Aaron, Camille, Heather and I went for drinks afterwards, and we talked, among other things, about the representation of the Holocaust in experience museums (of Tolerance, etc.) in LA and elsewhere. And I came to a realization which I’m going to put here for lack of anywhere else, thinking of Peter Weiss’s THE INVESTIGATION – representations of the Holocaust should never be literal – it’s like God in Islamic art – abstract, symbol, word, number, name, sound, even image if less than complete – but we do not want to re-experience the literal reality of it.

Then we talked about theater some more, in the restaurant and the parking garage and the car and the minds of all those present, and I remembered why I am doing this (I am doing this, aren’t I?) It’s mostly about joy.

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Golda

Tov. Od? (Good. Again?)

Yesterday we moved into the theater. We worked the end of the show in the morning at Willow, then the end of the end on stage, and began a runthrough. It was our first real run.

Last night the staff discussed the problem of the gray square which the (video-dark, white in natural color) projection screen makes on the black scrim in front of it. Unfortunately, it makes it seem like there’s a giant floating square behind the set. They moved the scrim and hung a second layer to reduce this problem, and it’s now almost invisible.

Then I moved in with Cisco and LaCona.

Tech begins today.

I talked to Juliette this morning about SSDC associate membership, which apparently has some insurance benefits.

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directing

But It’s A Rolex! (More than likely…)

An old memory: hanging out in a HW auditorium, years after graduating – going to a dress run of one of Ted’s shows, and seeing a printed copy of his notes, and this note among them, to some unfortunate:

“If you don’t take your watch off, I’m going to cut it off.”

I was never in one of Ted’s shows, and never saw his notes. I seem to remember them as typed on colored paper, in a small font, distributed to everyone (another strike on that side – I really have to systematize my work on this note business). But that made me laugh so hard. And it made me realize Ted was human. I suppose at the time, he would have still been “Mr. Walch.”

I want to make a documentary about his directing. Having said that, I have no resources with which to do it. But someone should. “Master Class with Ted Walch,” or something.

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Golda

More mysteries of Golda

We raced ahead today. Pages 15-32 in a re-work-through for detail. We move into the theater tomorrow. Spent a lot of detail time on working or realizing on the line, not on the pause – the work of pacing. It was a textbook day.

Aaron gives direction sometimes in terms of character traits – intelligence, strength, etc. I like it, and I must have seen it before, but somehow it seems unfamiliar. As in, “She’s smarter than that.”

I’ve thought this before but never known it – and it became really clear today – Travel on the action – move while traveling, both literally and in the mind. Arrive physically at the point of decision.

Golda pulls us down deep into seriousness, so far it takes extra to flare up the humor. Realizing this made me feel more understanding for Neil LaBute.

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quotes, theater

99-Cent…

Aaron and I have been discussing LA waiver theater and whether it’s better to make art with the resources you have ( a contract that pays no one very much ) or to hold off and advocate / fundraise for better payment. I think you should do both.

I found myself very close to the bone on the argument, having directed 3 LA waiver productions, and knowing exactly how hard it was to raise enough money to pay people – and being a member of a waiver company, and proud of its work in producing new plays and experimental work.

But, just imagine…if there was no 99-seat plan, would theaters all be like Syzygy in LA, and fundraise all year until they could produce a play under an Equity contract? And would that be better than producing 4 or 5 shows a year, where no one gets wages to speak of?

I don’t want to see a world without Theatre of NOTE but I find myself hard-pressed to defend the model of waiver theater as a method of making a living. Which is why I’ve left LA.

I do believe that NOTE’s role in producing new plays and new work makes it ideally suited for a lower-tier contract, and I don’t want to see it or companies like it driven out of business. But should some theaters be forced to go on a low-level Equity contract? Should there be a timespan under which you can operate waiver, and then have to go union?

The best way of instituting more change is probably just to have more union companies in LA, to have more houses make the jump – to make it seem successful, to figure out marketing and survival models for it, not just legislate change and then watch as meaningful, small companies are driven out of the landscape.

Incentive, not destructive.

Keep the waiver model in place until another is working, but put incentives in place for companies that do migrate to a union contract.

I’m very torn about it.

This quote came up in the conversation.

“The artist in ancient times inspired, entertained, educated his
fellow citizens. Modern artists have an additional responsibility —
to encourage others to be artists. Why? Because technology is going
to destroy the human soul unless we realize that each of us must in
some way be a creator as well as a spectator or consumer. Make your
own music, write your own books, if you would keep your soul.”
— Pete Seeger

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Golda

Whose Name I Know

“Golda insisted that Lior keep her abreast of battle results and the number of Israeli casualties as he learned of them. She ordered that she be awakened at any time of the night, as often as necessary.”
(From GOLDA, THE UNCROWNED QUEEN OF ISRAEL)

She was sometimes called eight times in a night.

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