Who's a witch?

Last night we spend a portion of rehearsal exploring the three Maggies. We are on a quest to find the common link between them and then articulate how we go from one to the other. We began to explore religion, animals, voice and water. In religion, we spoke about the three spiritual presences in the play and if a Maggie aligns with one more than the other. All of them agree they WANT to be the witch, but at portions of the play feel most in line with the devil in attitude or in action with Thomas a Kempis.

The women also agreed that at least for young Mag, the starting animal imagery is a puppy. They built a puppy out out of imaginary clay and stepped inside it. Watching them on stage together doing just about anything is quite rewarding for me. It was amazing how even as a puppy (each had their own family dog in mind) they moved and responded differently to stimuli. They were not even thinking about Maggie, and so, I realize the differences are deep within them and so perfect.

We found a rich lower range to explore, giving Maggie an honest confident sound.

And then we decided that Maggie (for now) is water, and so we began physically exploring how that can inform the connection between them.

When the rest of the cast came in, the goal was to make the first strides at defining and staging the mob scenes. As with anything in theatre, we began slowly and worked out way to the floor and then more and more clarity came out.

I will have to write more about this later. As I need to get to rehearsal this morning.

Chi va piano va sano e va lontano.

"He who goes slowly and safely goes far."

A breath. That is what the show, actors, rehearsals and, yes, director, needed tonight. After such a high intensity, fast-paced week of a million items, we deserve to slow down and think for a moment.

Tonight, for the first hour, the Maggies sat on the floor and we spoke about the journey. We tried to find ways to articulate what Maggie is made of-- in adjectives, in verbs. We began by discussing the changing of the actors as the play progresses. Perhaps there os physical element carried through-- perhaps there is an emotional quality to the moments-- a shedding of skin... and so many more ideas came out.

We spoke about Maggie's relationship with the witch-- WHY a witch, when does she arrive? we began to discuss the Freudian implications of the journey.

In regard to the witch and dreams and fantasy:

A Dream is a Wish
In part description of his methods and results, in part autobiography, and in part speculation on the workings of the mind, The Interpretation of Dreams marks the beginning of psychoanalysis. The book also reveals Freud's powers as a writer, weaving intriguing stories together with ambitious theory. Its key idea on which so much else is built: the dream is the expression of a disguised wish.

And then we spoke about Tom and a moment later he joined the group. With "Tom", we were able to begin exploration of the sibling relationship. Perhaps a little too often I was reminded of my own brother. But we all agreed that a sibling bond is inexplicably desperate and permanent. Also, maggie's first memory is standing with Tom by the river, and so, it is fascinating to remember Freud's theory: Identification: an early, primitive kind of attachment to an object which results in incorporating some of its aspects into oneself.

(more on freud to come... but let's not get too heady all at once!)

We also got on our feet today. For me, this is what it's all about. Off to a slow and specific start, with fantastic actors who are dying to find the truth, we cannot go wrong. Honestly, this cast makes it easy for me to do my job. I have done this before, though, and I know it gets harder, but for ow, they are playing and listening and committing to the moments. The older Maggie's jumped in and played the first scene as well. This was fascinating on several levels: 1. Maggie 1 is literally getting the experience of someone else taking her part in the game (life), 2. Tom gets to play the scene with several actresses who have different tactics but the same objective, and 3. I get to see older Maggie's access a freedom ordinarily assigned to youth, but actually most interesting in adulthood.

Discoveries and Surprises: Stillness in a child, more meta-theatrical/fantasy moments, violence, oppposites, cause-and-effect, best intentions.

We ended rehearsal with a plea to the actors to RETAIN RETAIN RETAIN.

I love what I do.

Sweeping Brush Strokes

The culmination of our first full week of rehearsal-- a week packed with activities like doll-making, make-believe, read-thrus, discussion, movement exercises and rapid staging-- came to a head with our first "stumble-thru." It was a week of "new": New play, new wold, new cast, new relationships, new dialects, new clothes, new everything! With that newness comes an energy that has come up throughout this process-- we call it potential energy. It is my goal to sustain that potential energy through the last breath of the final performance.

I said to the cast after the run tonight that they just ran a marathon, in fact, I felt like I had just run one as well. Except, the truth of it is, I have trained and run a marathon (a proud moment of my life!) and that first day of training -- in my memory-- was memorably painful. Only after the 14 mile run could I imagine 18, and 21 miles seemed impossible until I ran the 18th and could keep going. The 26th mile was so painful and I was struggling, but there was no question that I would finish. We just finished about 5 miles. Tired, a long way to go, but definitely on our way.

Switching metaphors: We have laid the foundation, we know where we want to build this house, we can squint our eyes and imagine what it looks like, we can hear the life that will soon live in it, but it is not there there yet... it does not exist yet because we have only laid the foundation. However, the foundation is the most important part, without it, the house would crumble and all the work and ornamentation would be for naught.

What I saw today was a team, an ensemble, working together, focused on telling an enormous tale. There were moments of surprise and moments lost in the scuffle-- it was fast and furious an frantic-- there were at least two or three balls on the court at any given time (going with the basketball metaphor here-- can't play with more than one ball). I want to allow the breath to take over, find that single ball of tension and see it through.

I am so looking forward to slowing down and relishing in the moments in these next couple of weeks. Talking in detail about the characters, and immediately testing out the relationships will be so telling. I see in the play a need for a certain care and delicacy in the story-telling, The story is massive and exhausting, but that requires nurturing.

The actors will remain diligent in there technical work-- defining vocal and physical choices and taking care of their physical and mental health, every day bringing in richer and deeper choices. Everyday growing more equipped and comfortable with yesterday's work in order to get messy and uncomfortable all over again.

I must lookout for any moment of dishonesty or laziness or mush and wipe it away. The time has come to mature into the play. We are artists and we have many characters within us with many stories to tell, this first week only brought out the first few. I await the thousands more to come!

Dear Actors who are reading this, thank you.

Exchange rates

A very quick and dirty calculation of money in the play.

1 pound was approx. $4.86 in 1800.

300 pounds -> $1458.00 in 1800 -> $855.15 in 1840 -> $17,563.00 in 2007
100 pounds -> $486.00 in 1800 -> $285.05 in 1840 -> $5854.36 in 2007
Two half-crowns and a sixpence -> $40 in 2007

Towards a Poor Theatre

i partially re-read Jerzy Grotowski's book TOWARDS A POOR THEATRE at the laundromat today. Its quite amazing how aspects of life seem to correspond as if there were a controlling force..(of course, who's to say there isn't-- none of us really know for sure). in this case, by reading this wonderful text again, I found that the classes I am taking-- eurhythmics, figure drawing-- are so connected to the way I am approaching this show-- it is astounding. for example, thinking about shape and structure and time is easy enough in theatre, but add in a cello and a circular space, and I cannot help but respond to the time it takes to cover one moment and use that to inform the next. Because, in the world of this production, all we have to go on is contrast. I am definitely interested in exploring shape and contact this week. I will probably steal an exercise or two from the book. More than anything, reading this book is like reading a bible for the theatre. It is a truly holistic approach to theatre. There is no right and wrong, but there is ignorance of the mind, body and spirit. There is an openness that is inspiring and contagious. Here is a section that I must savor:

"We can define the theatre as "what takes place between spectator and actor. All other things are supplementary--perhaps necessary, but nevertheless supplementary."

"if the actor, by setting himself a challenge publicly challenges others, and through excess, profanation and outrageous sacrilege reveals himself by casting off his everyday mask, he makes it possible for the spectator to undertake a similar process of self-penetration."

"if it [theatre] cannot be richer than the cinema, then let it be poor. If it cannot be as lavish as television, let it be ascetic. If it cannot be a technical attraction, let it renounce all outward technique. Thus we are left with a "holy" actor in a poor theatre."

"Art is bit the source of science. It is the experience which we take upon ourselves when we open ourselves to others, when we confront ourselves with them in order to understand ourselves-- not in the scientific sense of re-creating the context of an epoch in history, but in an elementary and human sense."


STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

I

The rhythm of life in modern civilization is characterized by pace, tension, a feeling of doom, the wish to hide our personal motives and the assumption of a variety of roles and masks in life (different ones with our family, at work, amongst friends or in community life, etc.-). We like to be "scientific", by which we mean discursive and cerebral, since this attitude is dictated by the course of civilization. But we also want to pay tribute to our biological selves, to what we might call physiological pleasures. We do not want to be restricted in this sphere. Therefore we play a double game of intellect and instinct, thought and emotion; we try to divide ourselves artificially into body and soul. When we try to liberate ourselves from it all we start to shout and stamp, we convulse to the rhythm of music. In our search for liberation we reach biological chaos. We suffer most from a lack of totality, throwing ourselves away, squandering ourselves.

Theatre - through the actor's technique, his art in which the living organism strives for higher motives - provides an opportunity for what could be called integration, the discarding of masks, the revealing of the real substance: a totality of physical and mental reactions. This opportunity must be treated in a disciplined manner, with a full awareness of the responsibilities it involves. Here we can see the theatre's therapeutic function for people in our present day civilization. It is true that the actor accomplishes this act, but he can only do so through an encounter with the spectator - intimately, visibly, not hiding behind a cameraman, wardrobe mistress, stage designer or make-up girl - in direct confrontation with him, and somehow " instead of" him. The actor's act - discarding half measures, revealing, opening up, emerging from himself as opposed to closing up - is an invitation to the spectator. This act could be compared to an act of the most deeply rooted, genuine love between two human beings - this is just a comparison since we can only refer to this "emergence from oneself" through analogy. This act, paradoxical and borderline, we call a total act. In our opinion it epitomizes the actor's deepest calling.

II

Why do we sacrifice so much energy to our art? Not in order to teach others but to learn with them what our existence, our organism, our personal and unrepeatable experience have to give us; to learn to break down the barriers which surround us and to free ourselves from the breaks which hold us back, from the lies about ourselves which we manufacture daily for ourselves and for others; to destroy the limitations caused by our ignorance and lack of courage; in short, to fill the emptiness in us: to fulfill ourselves. Art is neither a state of the soul (in the sense of some extraordinary, unpredictable moment of inspiration) nor a state of man (in the sense of a profession or social function). Art is a ripening, an evolution, an uplifting which enables us to emerge from darkness into a blaze of light.

We fight then to discover, to experience the truth about ourselves; to tear away the masks behind which we hide daily. We see theatre - especially in its palpable, carnal aspect - as a place of provocation, a challenge the actor sets himself and also, indirectly, other people. Theatre only has a meaning if it allows us to transcend our stereotyped vision, our conventional feelings and customs, our standards of judgment - not just for the sake of doing so, but so that we may experience what is real and, having already given up all daily escapes and pretenses, in a state of complete defenselessness unveil, give, discover ourselves. In this way - through shock, through the shudder which causes us to drop our dally masks and mannerisms - we are able, without hiding anything, to entrust ourselves to something we cannot name but in which live Eros and Charitas.

III

Art cannot be bound by the laws of common morality or any catechism. The actor, at least in part, is creator, model and creation rolled into one- He must not be shameless as that leads to exhibitionism. He must have courage, but not merely the courage to exhibit himself - a passive courage, we might say: the courage of the defenseless, the courage to reveal himself. Neither that which touches the interior sphere, nor the profound stripping bare of the self should be regarded as evil so long as in the process of preparation or in the completed work they produce an act of creation. If they do not come easily and if they are not signs of outburst but of mastership, then they are creative: they reveal and purify us while we transcend ourselves. Indeed, they improve us then.

For these reasons every aspect of an actor's work dealing with intimate matters should be protected from incidental remarks, indiscretions, nonchalance, idle comments and jokes. The personal realm - both spiritual and physical - must not be "swamped" by triviality, the sordidness of life and lack of tact towards oneself and others; at least not in the place of work or anywhere connected with it. This postulate sounds like an abstract moral order. It is not. It involves the very essence of the actor's calling. This calling is realized through carnality. The actor must not Illustrate but accomplish an "act of the soul" by means of his own organism. Thus he is faced with two extreme alternatives: he can either sell, dishonour, his real "incarnate" self, making himself an object of artistic prostitution; or he can give himself, sanctify his real "incarnate" self.

IV

An actor can only be guided and inspired by someone who is whole-hearted in his creative activity. The producer, while guiding and inspiring the actor, must at the same time allow himself to be guided and inspired by him- it is a question of freedom, partnership, and this does not imply a lack of discipline but a respect for the autonomy of others. Respect for the actor's autonomy does not mean lawlessness, lack of demands, never ending discussions and the replacement of action by continuous streams of words. On the contrary, respect for autonomy means enormous demands, the expectation of a maximum creative effort and the most personal revelation. Understood thus, solicitude for the actor's freedom can only be born from the plenitude of the guide and not from his lack of plenitude. Such a lack implies imposition, dictatorship, superficial dressage.

V

An act of creation has nothing to do with either external comfort or conventional human civility; that is to say working conditions in which everybody is happy. It demands a maximum of silence and a minimum of words. In this kind of creativity we discuss through proposals, actions and living organisms, not through explanations. When we finally find ourselves on the track of something difficult and often almost intangible, we have no right to lose it through frivolity and carelessness. Therefore, even during breaks after which we will be continuing with the creative process, we are obliged to observe certain natural reticences in our behaviour and even in our private affairs. This applies just as much to our own work as to the work of our partners. We must not interrupt and disorganize the work because we are hurrying to our own affairs; we must not peep, comment or make jokes about it privately. In any case, private Ideas of fun have no place in the actors calling. In our approach to creative tasks, even if the theme is a game, we must be in a state of readiness - one might even say " solemnity". Our working terminology which serves as a stimulus must not be dissociated from the work and used in a private context. Work terminology should be associated only with that which it serves.

A creative act of this quality is performed in a group, and therefore within certain limits we should restrain our creative egoism. An actor has no right to mold his partner so as to provide greater possibilities for his own performance. Nor has he the right to correct his partner unless authorized by the work leader. Intimate or drastic elements in the work of others are untouchable and should not be commented upon even in their absence. Private conflicts, quarrels, sentiments, animosities are unavoidable in any human group. It is our duty towards creation to keep them in check in so far as they might deform and wreck the work process. We are obliged to open ourselves up even towards an enemy.

VI

It has been mentioned several times already but we can never stress and explain too often the fact that we must never exploit privately anything connected with the creative act: i. e. location, costume, props, an element from the acting score a melodic theme or lines from the text. This rule applies to the smallest detail and there can be no exceptions. We did not make this rule simply to pay tribute to a special artistic devotion. We are not interested in grandeur and noble words, but our awareness and experience tell us that lack of strict adherence to such rules causes the actors score to become deprived of its psychic motives and "radiance."

VII

Order and harmony in the work of each actor are essential conditions without which a creative act cannot take place. Here we demand consistency. We demand it from the actors who come to the theatre consciously to try themselves out in something extreme, a sort of challenge seeking a total response from every one of us. They come to test themselves in something very definite that reaches beyond the meaning of "theatre" and is more like an act of living and way of existence. This outline probably sounds rather vague. If we try to explain it theoretically, we might say that the theatre and acting are for us a kind of vehicle allowing us to emerge from ourselves, to fulfill ourselves. We could go into this at great length. However, anyone who stays here longer than just the trial period is perfectly aware that what we are talking about can be grasped less through grandiose words than through details, demands and the rigours of work in all its elements. The individual who disturbs the basic elements, who does not for example respect his own and the others acting score, destroying its structure by shamming or automatic reproduction, is the very one who shakes this undeniable higher motive of our common activity. Seemingly small details form the background against which fundamental questions are decided, as for example the duty to note down elements discovered in the course of the work. We must not rely on our memory unless we feel the spontaneity of our work is being threatened, and even then we must keep a partial record. This is just as basic a rule as is strict punctuality, the thorough memorizing of the text, etc. Any form of shamming in one's work is completely inadmissible. However it does sometimes happen that an actor has to go through a scene, just outline it, in order to check its organization and the elements of his partners' actions. But even then he must follow the actions carefully, measuring himself against them, in order to comprehend their motives. This is the difference between outlining and shamming.

An actor must always be ready to join the creative act at the exact moment determined by the group. In this respect his health, physical condition and all his private affairs cease to be just his own concern. A creative act of such quality flourishes only if nourished by the living organism. Therefore we are obliged to take daily care of our bodies so we are always ready for our tasks. We must not go short of sleep for the sake of private enjoyment and then come to work tired or with a hangover. We must not come unable to concentrate. The rule here is not just one's compulsory presence in the place of work, but physical readiness to create.

VIII

Creativity, especially where acting is concerned, is boundless sincerity, yet disciplined: i.e. articulated through signs. The creator should not therefore find his material a barrier in this respect. And as the actor's material is his own body, it should be trained to obey, to be pliable, to respond passively to psychic impulses as if it did not exist during the moment of creation - by which we mean it does not offer any resistance. Spontaneity and discipline are the basic aspects of an actor's work and they require a methodical key.

Before a man decides to do something he must first work out a point of orientation and then act accordingly and in a coherent manner. This point of orientation should be quite evident to him, the result of natural convictions, prior observations and experiences in life. The basic foundations of this method constitute for our troupe this point of orientation. Our institute is geared to examining the consequences of this point of orientation. Therefore nobody who comes and stays here can claim a lack of knowledge of the troupe's methodical program. Anyone who comes and works here and then wants to keep his distance (as regards creative consciousness) shows the wrong kind of care for his own individuality. The etymological meaning of " individuality" is " indivisibility" which means complete existence in something: individuality is the very opposite of half-heartedness. We maintain, therefore, that those who come and stay here discover in our method something deeply related to them, prepared by their lives and experiences. Since they accept this consciously, we presume that each of the participants feels obliged to train creatively and try to form his own variation inseparable from himself, his own reorientation open to risks and search. For what we here call "the method" is the very opposite of any sort of prescription.

IX

The main point then is that an actor should not try to acquire any kind of recipe or build up a "box of tricks." This is no place for collecting all sorts of means of expression. The force of gravity in our work pushes the actor towards an interior ripening which expresses itself through a willingness to break through barriers, to search for a "summit", for totality.

The actor's first duty is to grasp the fact that nobody here wants to give him anything; instead they plan to take a lot from him, to take away that to which he is usually very attached: his resistance, reticence, his inclination to hide behind masks, his half-heartedness, the obstacles his body places in the way of his creative act, his habits and even his usual "good manners".

X

Before an actor is able to achieve a total act he has to fulfill a number of requirements, some of which are so subtle, so intangible, as to be practically undefinable through words. They only become plain through practical application. It is easier, however, to define conditions under which a total act cannot be achieved and which of the actor's actions make it impossible. This act cannot exist if the actor is more concerned with charm, personal success, applause and salary than with creation as understood in its highest form. It cannot exist if the actor conditions it according to the size of his part, his place in the performance, the day or kind of audience. There can be no total act if the actor, even away from the theatre, dissipates his creative impulse and, as we said before, sullies it, blocks it, particularly through incidental engagements of a doubtful nature or by the premeditated use of the creative act as a means to further own career.

Recap of Rehearsal Week One

By 2:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, the cast and I finished the large brush strokes of staging Act I. It's quite remarkable how staging a show, putting the action on the stage, can happen in so many ways. With this play, given the amount of preparation and thought I have given to the many images and events the occur, there is a lovely amount of play and freedom occurring in the rehearsal room. I like to think that this is because of the way I have structured the first week, but I know there are many more ingredients involved. The circular space invites movement and unusual relationships. The number of scenes instill a charged pace and a keen awareness to what has just happened and what comes next. The remarkable strengths of the team of actors to work as an ensemble. The individual strengths each actors brings to the floor. The absolute communal understanding that we are all telling this story together and it is the same story. And so, I feel relaxed and playful and proud of the work the actors are doing even so early in the game.

On the third rehearsal, we continued our reading of the play while charting the cardiogram of the story we are telling. We were finally able to articulate that journey of ups and downs in relation to Maggie's sense of self-worth, her ability to live freely vs. the opposite. Interestingly, Ali really locked into this idea as an a way to hook into the story of the witch. having this huge cardiogram on the wall will prove very helpful as we begin to work moments of the play. Seeing the story in front of us will keep us all on the same page. Most exciting this night, however, was the big surprise of doll-making. In this exercise, Brian diligently sewed together 15 dolls so that the actors could create dolls of their characters using mostly materials of the world. It was an opportunity to think about the characters. And we will use these dolls in rehearsal (and maybe some of them in the show!) But mostly, it was an opportunity to allow the cast to use their hands. I am interested in constantly creating series of surprises. I am interested in bringing out the whole artist in each of them. There are no limits and there are no set identities. They have thousands of possibilities. Daily, i wish to wake them up.

On the next night, we explored the relationship between the cello and movement. In order to create a dialogue between the actors and the cello, we must speak the same language. And so, the actors spent some time listening, then moving freely, eventually interacting, exploring ideas of tension, intimacy, elements etc... What we created was not just a response from actors, but it evolved into a dialogue. The cello responded to the actors and the ball was tossed back and forth. Ali said after the exercise, "that was the best score I ever played to." And then we began staging. I was nervous, I'll admit. After a year of a play begin in your head and on paper, getting up on our feet is a huge milestone. But because I have this wonderful giving and brave team of actors, they LEAPED onto the stage.

The idea of building an ensemble is quite different when the actors have all worked together before. And particularly when they have all trained together. I take pleasure in learning from them. I can see where their communal strengths lie, and I can harness their individual strengths so that they is a constant movement within them. What I intend to create is a world inside the rehearsal room. They are already an ensemble. They are becoming a culture.

At this morning's rehearsal, after our daily few minutes of dialect review, I left the room with SM and the AD and asked the actors to put on a show. They could use anything in the room and the show could be anything they wanted. And they had 15 minutes. It is so clear to me that they have caught the bug of the show. What I saw began from the moment the door opened. They filled the room with a new world, they established rules, they told a story, the used elements of costume, prop, set, sound, lighting. They know how to play and they have fun. And, luckily, so do I. This exercise was more like a warm-up, was meant to wake up our imaginations. And I needed to say nothing when it was over. I am learning how much more powerful actions can be.

The rehearsals have been slightly schizophrenic. I simply mean that I do ten things in a rehearsal instead of just one. I am happy to stop the stream of motion to tell a story. I want to be open to what they bring and respond as necessary. While we make these large staging brush strokes, new ideas for costumes and scenic and lighting pop up. This is when the process begins to grow exponentially. i know the designers see the rehearsal report at the end of each night and wonder what brought on some of these new ideas and also what causes changes to old ideas. They will will to embrace this new phase and I will do my best to articulate what happens in the room when they cannot be there. Now is when trust and collaboration is most important. I predict that within the next week, the show moves from two groups of collaborators with director in the middle, to one giant production.

This plan for this week is to continue giant brush strokes of Act II, allow for play, explore relationships, begin moment to moment work telling one story, begin looking at some of the combat and probably throw in a very rough stumble thru for the designers to see. I will remind myself of my old saying that Allegra Libonati taught me: "slowly, slowly and you will go far."

I will practice trust in myself and in the power of the story.