(from 9.6.07) (I’d better get better at typing these as I go, or I’m going to hate Sunday nights) (Working with Shiyan and Vickie C. in the living room)

I am late to our first design meeting because I spend time looking for the Phantom Bike Bridge which supposedly goes over Willow. I don’t find it, have to double back, and – again – get to battle with a bunch of cars trying to get on the 101 North.

First design meeting:
Discussion of unconscious images vs. literal slideshow. We’re going for the unconscious, for Golda’s inner brain-images, not for the CNN powerpoint presentation.
Use of two screens – larger scrim, smaller projection screen. The little screen is more defined, more TV-esque, but the larger is more dreamlike & expressive.

Chad, our projection designer, shows sample images on his computer, lots of them. The black and white photos of the Cyprus camps are the most striking to me, but he has a great one of a boarded up door (Kiev, pogrom) (Nabokov, anyone?) too. He reminds Aaron that it’s easy to cut or move images during tech, and also about our ability to shift images by pixels on the larger screen. Sounds awesome.

We all agree to avoid being like Ken Burns or using images of war in a sensationalized or romanticized manner.

Discussion of the recurring Bach – Cliff, our sound designer thinks it’s the kind of music that supports any emotional state – it takes people’s impressions well. Cliff is a less-is-more guy, at least on this, and doesn’t want to overpower Camille’s voice. (Camille can probably handle any sound cue we can think of. She has a really great voice.) But he’s subtle. As are all the designers on this. We’re not superscoring it.

War of the Strings.
Sound designer: A cello’s just a big fiddle.
Director: Or, a fiddle’s just a very small cello?

We start talking through projection and sound cues and begin establishing the actual time of the Yom Kippur War, the ’73 section, as unscored by image or sound. We also don’t want to pop up real people. Aaron says we never want to bring in an image just as it’s spoken, either, but fade in and out around it.

After lunch, our third and final day of table work.

We’re finding a rhythm in the writing: moving between reporting (events of the war) and reflecting (meaning of events.) A third mode exists, too, of enacting, when she actually lives out moments as they happen.

Golda is a pessimist looking for optimism.

From 9.5.07.

On to our second day of table work. We begin mid-section 3, on page 11. Aaron wants to reexamine some of the text changes we made on the first day.

We discuss the kibbutz as a social experiment. Aaron’s friend who grew up in one of them has seen the survival mechanisms of the unit change completely – his kibbutz now manufactures body armor. “From fig groves to body armor” – or, as Golda says, “I began with the redemption of the human race and end up in the munitions business.”

Discussion about attributions in a one-person show: including the “he said, she said” or not.

The land lost in the ’67 war is still the most divisive issue in the Middle East.

1st break: resume on p. 19.

Aaron wants Camille to step into King Abdullah’s authority, his point of view, his rightness about his own view of the world. He talks about how from the POV of the Arab world that Jews have been second-class citizens for hundreds of years. That the takeover by the Jews of Arab lands is doubly humiliating for this reason. That since both the Arab lands and the African states are leaving their colonial period, Jews coming back to Palestine is both like re-colonization AND a people they see as being second-class taking over.

Recurring theme / recurring dream

Our first pass is done by 4 pm. We discuss tomorrow’s schedule: a design meeting while Camille runs lines, then we’re going to dig into staging.

Aaron talks about how we don’t want this production to be vaudeville. We want the flavor of the different voices without transforming completely. Especially in the big scenes with the family and Morris, this will be a challenge.