directing

Notable

Aaron saves more of the notes he takes in their original form than Bill, who used to get rid of paper as quickly as possible, or else type them.

He also gave Camille some notes in person, waiting for her to write them down, which was a good way for them to process together.

With a larger cast it wouldn’t be practical, but it seemed so powerful in this context.

To see the note go from the director’s handwritten paper, to his words out loud, to Camille’s words out loud, to their discussion of it, to her handwritten paper – all the technology in the world, and we’re still seeing how a piece of information is transformed between two humans.

It made me understand how a “note” works, more – and why, if it isn’t worth all that, you don’t give it.

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writing

Intellectual Disgrace

I want to write an article on my worst intellectual digression, counting phonemes in poems, and the value of going way off track. On the ideas that go nowhere that you follow for so long, and that seem, through retrospective-colored-glasses, so dumb.

But it taught me one thing – which is that you never know whether or not the idea is going nowhere until you do follow it.

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Golda

Golda: Week 4

From rehearsal today: “It’s not a monologue. We’re all in the room with you.”

We also learned today the value of starting GOLDA’S BALCONY at the beginning – it’s proving really useful, at least for now, to get the momentum of the start under all our belts before diving into detail work in the less-worked middle and end sections. This is, I guess, still Lisa James’s principle of working the first act more heavily than the 2nd or 3rd.

She once told me that you work the first act until the actors are really eager to move on beyond it – that if the first act is coherent, the rest will flow out of it. This was in reference to BOLD GIRLS in particular.

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quotes

The Need For…

From Diane Duane’s weblog. I’d never heard this before, but it’s a comfort to us speeders.

“The faster I write the better my output. If I’m going slow I’m in trouble. It means I’m pushing the word instead of being pulled by them.”
— Raymond Chandler

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Golda

Golda – end of week 3

After today’s runthrough, which went really well, we moved into some issues of the fourth wall and storytelling style.

Q: Do I see the audience?
A: The same way you see the stars.

Aaron and Camille talked about the necessity of making sure that the Golda-storyteller character was always present. She can’t ever fully disappear into the other characters, because she has to make sure they (the audience) understand her story.

Full realism happens in the phone calls. Only then does Golda enact. All the rest of the time, when doing dialogue, she precedes it with a “he said” or “she said.”

They discussed the fact that Golda enjoys the telling.

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quotes

Quotestuck

“So with the devil’s-advocate moon grinning over my shoulder, with demure quails calling and bullbats diving and old Henry honking across the river that gurgled coyly to the stars, and with my stomach heavy with Viv’s cooking and my head light with Hank’s praise, right then and right there I decided to bury the hatchet. I would blame my sad beginnings on no fiend but my own. Live and let live. Forgive me as I forgive my debtors. The man who seeks revenge digs two graves.”

(from Kesey’s SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION.)

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the chorus

In the night I had a dream

Sick, really sick. At home in bed today. Sad to have missed our last day of blocking on our week of connecting closely to the text. It’s been such a powerful time. There’s a runthrough tomorrow, our second, and we go into tech next week.

In the delirium of sleeping for eighteen hours, dreaming of geometric shapes. And FLATLAND.

“I am no Woman,” replied the Straight Line: “I am the Monarch of the World. But thou, whence intrudest thou into my realm of Lineland?”

See, I think that a great way to tell a story of multiple dimensions and overlapping realities would be with flexible, choral casting: with the identities of the ensemble shifting as the dimensions shift.

Some of this comes from the isolation exercises I’ve always done as part of the longer choral workshops. And some of it from the infamous “Grid” of Planet Viewpoints.

Some of it probably comes from just wanting a challenge more ridiculous than MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL. As the Square writes, “This is the hope of my brighter moments.”

PS, the 2319 girls have a Labradoodle, Murray, and he has a Facebook page. Even dogs.

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directing

what’s your deal

I’ve had several people mention to me now that I’ve assisted a lot of different artists, and that the shows I’ve worked on don’t always seem to match up with the kinds of plays I choose to direct myself. It’s true.

When I’m directing, I tend to gravitate towards, you know, choruses, rhyme, the macabre. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a hell of a lot to learn from working on Moliere, Shakespeare, a one-woman show about Golda Meir, a new play, an adaptation – all that and more.

I think it’s my own graduate school, this year of assisting on productions that are unlike my own. In a way, I think I’ve sought out things I couldn’t have imagined directing myself.

It’s like the exercise of making yourself write a poem in a style you’d never use. The exercise is going to teach you things about both that style and your own, much more than you’d learn from just writing in the style with which you’re already comfortable.

(revision of post prompted by the law of shorter paragraphs on the internet)

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directing, Golda

asking nicely

When do characters come out of their shells, and why? What makes the actor hear those voices? How do you trust that they will come? It’s not so different from writing.
What makes us free to play and not to doubt ourselves?
What gives us the permission to “fake it till you make it” and put in placeholders for what we trust will be more complete characterizations?
What lets us do our work?

I think that the answer to all of this is in the level of safety engendered in the room by the artists. (Mere and I were just talking about differences in management styles and work environments, and how drastically those differences affect people’s work.)

Sure, there are different levels of technique. But if the place in which that technique has to work isn’t safe and consistent – if you don’t show up every day, and show up with patience and compassion – the characters may never choose to come out at all.

Lots of faith. And making the room a safe place.

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