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.

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.

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.

“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.

Some misc. notes from last week.

Aaron’s teacher Victoria has a warmup exercise with clapping echoes that’s interesting. We try it in warmup, with him clapping rhythms at everyone in the group and them clapping back at him. I would like to try it again.

I spent last week notating Aaron’s various 3rd-week acting notes in a clean script. It was a really good exercise for me. We worked section by section, once through for small notes and once through for connection.

When do you switch to a clean script, if ever?

I realize, in terms of Aaron saving notes, that what he saves notes from are runthroughs – he doesn’t save a page of notes for every single day. That’s probably a good balance. I never would have worked that out without blogging about it.

You can either write down blocking or else be focused on acting and intention – and in fact, the act of writing down blocking, because it is tedious, makes me automatically care less about intention. Chris Bolender had to tell me this.

Instead, I’m trying to be aware of the blocking and the feelings of it, as the overall picture of the play.

Paper tech:
Our front projector will be for more specific settings, for landscape, and back-screen for memory. Do front and rear projection have different feelings or is it just a technical thing? I’ll have to see.

Someone suggests crickets!

Lights is cueing off blocking and projections off language.

Editing is like directing. (As I edit essays.) What are you trying to say? What do you want? And actors are writers.

Is there something to be said for making a point badly? Is there a way for unclearness, or confusion, to be clearly expressed?

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.

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.