Still catching up. These are from 9.9.07.

Sylvia Berman, a TheatreWorks volunteer, was with us for an hour this morning reading the Yiddish in the script. She spent 20 years in Israel and had a very personal connection to the idea of Golda. (And she’s originally from the Bronx, like Camille.) She wanted to go to Israel in 48 but, due to pressure from her parents, waited until later to make aliyah. Her family was one of the first six in the West Bank settlement in the 70s. Incredible woman.

I am feeling myself more compelled by Israel, one week in – the myth, the reality, the history – just the idea of it. I’ve spent so long being critical. Now I feel like there’s a lot to be appreciated about the place.

We move on into Section 3. New rubrics are emerging. The Southern front is SL, and the Northern front SR. Family – Morris Corner – is DSR, along with cigarettes, but speeches and politics are DSL.

We aren’t talking beats or motivations much – again, Aaron manages to use improvisation as a quick blocking tool, not just the slow way I’ve seen it with Bill. He has a very physical sense of pace. “Too fast. You’re there too soon.” It’s so clear that it’s not pre-planned, that it comes from Camille’s work, that her instincts guide his.

Aaron and Camille get into a discussion about emphasis in phrases like this: “adjective noun”. Aaron often wants it to be either “adjective NOUN” or else equal stress on both when Camille is using an adjective stress.

A truism drifts into my brain, after watching this rehearsal:
“If you decide to be with another person to escape something, that something will manifest itself in the other person.”

Aaron and Camille discover Golda should be in a dress, not a jacket. Jill, our costume designer, comes in and they discuss this, along with fabric choices. Part of this comes from Sylvia, our guest this morning, saying that Golda was always first and foremost a mother, a human, before a politician.

Our first week of rehearsal has ended. Roughly 3 days of table work, 3 days staging, and we’ve staged through p. 23 (of 40) and reviewed through p.18. Very productive.

Aaron asks Camille to start thinking about the other characters, making their voices and motivations, their stakes and points of view, clearer. Homework.

And we all drive to Mountain View to see EMMA. On the way, Aaron and I talk about using beats and motivation and “why are you doing that, what do you want” techniques in rehearsal. He likes to stage through first and go back and fill in with scenework like that more where needed. It’s so fascinating to me, and I know I keep saying this, but it really is a revelation – it’s so fascinating that it’s possible to combine improvised blocking with an initial disregard for some of the motivation details, with a sense of speed and the confidence to return later. I really admire it. I wish I could phrase it better.

We eat at Cafe Baklava (Camille is a fan of LaChiusa’s “Way Back To Paradise.” She uses it as an audition song.) and then go visit Mr. Robert Martin.

Still catching up. These are from Sat 9.8.07.

Camille recorded the script this morning for 2 hours, so she could have a CD version to listen to, and ran lines for an hour. Then they broke, and Aaron and I joined at 2 pm.

The accent samples which I got for Camille from The International Dialects of English Archive were not very helpful. Rather than downloading more of them, they want me to focus on finding video and audio clips of the real people involved.

We went through what was staged so far and kept moving forward. It’s our second blocking day. Aaron took a moment to describe what his process was, which I think they both understood better from having…tried it the day before. Sometimes it’s no good talking about what you intend to do until you do it. Anyway, he said that he wants to lay out the architecture and then go back and refine further – ask detailed questions on the next round.

Aaron works from actor improvisation very naturally, as Bill does, but Aaron still manages to keep a fast pace the first go-round. Deeper questions are being, often, tabled for Round II. It’s good for me to see that working from actor improvisation can be consonant with a variety of approaches in blocking pace.

“Let’s not get too comfy too quick.” (Avoiding sitting down)

Aaron and Camille confront the problem of the other speakers in the text (Morris, Mother, Ben-Gurion, etc…) and try a number of different things with where Camille’s face is pointing for each speaker. They discover, remarkably quickly and easily, that the other speakers who are not Golda should face directly out to the audience. It works very well. So well, in fact, that the epistemology of the whole thing is confusing.

Aaron and I talk about this on a break, because I’m so flabbergasted that he’s figured the key out so quickly. He says he’s used front-facing presentational direct address before. (He said it in a shorter and more meaningful way, but you know what I mean.) But he didn’t plan it coming in as the key. He just found it, naturally, from watching her.

When two characters, neither one of whom is Golda, speak to each other, Aaron tries having the dominant one out front. But when that doesn’t work, he quickly modifies it – so quickly, with no attachment – I really hope to be like this some day – so that both of them are out front. And it works.

Aaron watches Camille improvise, then he jumps up and takes a move she’s just done and modifies it slightly. He riffs off of her. I wrote down, “Aaron is giving blocking readings,” at one point, but it’s not really like that – it’s more like she begins to draw a line and he guides her hand in drawing it. Whatever it is, it’s impressive. He’s a very active director. Music stand. On and off the stage.

Another convention we build, playing into the theme of everything being in Golda’s mind, is the idea of her evoking these characters before they speak. Seeing them before they are announced.

(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.

When the instructions for downloading a sound clip of the Kaddish say, “Be patient and have faith if the icon does not appear immediately.”

At the show introduction, Aaron spoke about the set representing the layers of history (platform of Israel’s war room atop rubble of centuries, literally.) He also read from Golda’s autobiography, a passage about her not wanting to be prime minister, but accepting the job because she felt she had no choice.

The designers are excited about the challenge of a one-person show, especially sound, lights, and projection.

After the show intro, we adjourned to the rehearsal room. Aaron divided the script into 9 sections and we began working through, like this:
– read through a section
– discuss and table-work
– read through again

Some things that stood out to me:

Moshe Dayan as Golda’s military conscience – the two of them going down together, taking blame for unpreparedness.

The abstract structure of antisemitism: Jews get sandwiched between the power and the people.

The twelfth-century Christian blood libel, a myth still alive today in parts of the world – a miniseries, “Horseman without a Horse” was made in the last 5 years repeating it. Jews killing an arab girl for matzos.

Gibson shifting between the war story and the personal story. He tightens the tragedy then releases through humor. He gives us new, complicated political information, then lets Golda pull back and comment on it.
The war story is the anchor – the other story is the digresssion. The war story progresses through landmarks. The phone call. The cabinet meeting.

Discussions between Aaron and Camille about text.

Aaron, Camille and I are going to see EMMA on Sunday.