The essential exchange of theater:
Q: Is it worth it?
A: It’s worth trying.
And she named them all Dave
I’m in SF with Mere tonight, which seems to be the only time I get any work done. We ate Vietnamese vegetarian pancakes, which are like omelets full of bean sprouts, and lemongrass tofu and spicy eggplant with basil. Mere’s friend was a bean sprout farmer in Maui. Typing, writing, catching up on old notes and such. Here’s another Yiddish curse:
Hindert hayzer zol er hobn, in yeder hoyz a hindert tsimern, in yeder tsimer tsvonsik betn un kadukhes zol im varfn fin eyn bet in der tsveyter.
A hundred houses shall he have, in every house a hundred rooms and in every room twenty beds, and a delirious fever should drive him from bed to bed.
It reminds me of THE RED DEATH, and also of my brain.
Q: How do you keep it all in your head?
A: Keep what?
Communication…
As we began our third week, Aaron and Camille had a conversation in rehearsal yesterday about styles of communicating. It just took a moment out of our rehearsal day but it was so valuable, in terms of the understanding it brought to the work. (Aaron says that theater artists are professional communicators. Or should be.) They have a great working relationship, and a lot of respect for one another.
We worked through the first 10 pages of the play, with Aaron giving lots of notes and then with Camille going back and incorporating them in a larger run. Their goal was to have Camille connecting with the text strongly. Our blocking skeleton is mostly holding up under this more intense work.
As for the characters, we are experimenting with Camille using less of a defined national accent and more of a character’s personality. We’re dropping many of the one-liner voices. It seems to be working well.
“Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?”
Opening sentence of Look Homeward, Angel:
A destiny that leads the English to the Dutch is strange enough; but one that leads from Epsom into Pennsylvania, and thence into the hills that shut in Altamont over the proud coral cry of the cock, and the soft stone smile of an angel, is touched by that dark miracle of chance which makes new magic in a dusty world.
It reminds me of Hopkins.
Yiddish curses
We just got a bunch back from a scholar who’s friends with one of our dramaturgs: this is my favorite.
Khasene hobn zol er mit di malekh hamoves tokhter.
He should marry the daughter of the Angel of Death.
Chorus-ography
Jessica called me last night, and we talked about the possibility of adding an improvised chorus into existing pieces of choreography – combining blocking for some characters with improv for others. If this works, it would make it much more possible to use the method in different scenarios.
Anyone have an opinion about “spontaneous chorus” as a term? “Free radical chorus” hasn’t stuck with me – I keep going back to “improvised chorus” – but Portland liked “spontaneous.”
End of 2nd week
We had a run-through yesterday and one today, with designers present. Both went really well. I think I’m starting to get the rhythm of these rehearsals.
Eating dinner with Alice, Melissa, and Shiyan. Last night we had dinner at Rogue Chefs in Half Moon Bay for Mere’s birthday. It’s been a very culinary Menlo couple of days.
Process, Process
I emailed Aaron about his decision to move into more specific character work after our first block-through, and he told me he’d had some idea of doing that all along, but it became more specific in response to the text. He finds the text to be very “playable” and open to many layers of detail.
Golda’s Balcony Notes – Week 2, Day 3 (day 9)
From 9.13.07.
We begin a workthrough from the top, focusing on the sections with other characters and voices in them.
Aaron: Will the phone into ringing – will the memory into awakening. Ask yourself if you want to go there or not. Watch the phone. Then, you’re in.
We get talking about the semantics of attack and counterattack and mobilization. I find a source in Vickie’s dramaturgy binder that indicates that even a mobilization could have been perceived as a counterattack.
Distinguishing the voices of Dado and Dayan: breathiness, sexiness, depth, speed. Vowels open or clipped. Volume.
Camille raises the question of if it will seem false to take on on one character after another too quickly – Aaron goes in response to their point of view, the point they are trying to make. He returns to the idea of her point of view, or opinion in general, throughout – “we want to hear her opinion on Herzl when she says “the founder of zionism.” ”
I am multitasking and reading through THE ROMANTIC YEARS for source material on health, on her lovers, on her anger (Camille was interested in anger.) It’s so interesting how in a historical production you search outside the text for material, whereas in a more traditional production you’d be more New Critical about it and limit yourself to the text.
As the characters become sharper, Aaron asks for more conflict between them and Golda. “The father is so defined. Push up against him more.”
I work on a character chart of voices.
We decide, based on very limited evidence, that it was the left leg with phlebitis. We find out she had lots of lovers between 1938 and 1946. And we find that her anger was expressed in a lot of sarcasm and humor – and that she was not easily swayed or flustered.
Golda: (to an annoying British judge) “You should not address me in that manner!”
Golda’s Balcony Notes – Week 2, Day 2 (Day 8)
From 9.12.07.
We begin with a production meeting. Aaron asks me to brainstorm with Cliff and Chad about good times for them to come in and tech slides and sound over us working in Week 3. They are both interested in Tues and Weds, and have similar points with heavy sequences. (Chad wants to do a slideshow with the lights out, too.) Chad mentions the explosion on p.3, the section of war being declared up through Morris, as targets. I promise to send some emails about this.
Into rehearsal, we begin staging from p. 26 on.
Aaron lets movement happen in silence, too. He encourages Camille to get back to where she needs to be (the stage, as opposed to Planet Cyprus) before continuing. It’s a nice gesture in a quick-moving play.
Through page 35, then lunch. Aaron and I eat lunch at a nearby taqueria and he mentions the Acco Festival, an Israeli festival of experimental performance. We also talk ATJT and their current mission to have more administrative structure. They have a grant to have a consultant help them with it.
We stage through to the final beat. Aaron suggests that she engage with the entire audience visually on the Shaloms. They try a few different things and agree to hold off on that last moment for the moment.
We have staged the whole play, (including 3.5 days of table work) in eight rehearsal days.
We look for a recording of Chava Alberstein singing Yerushalayim Shel Zahav online, with no luck.
Dara Weinberg 