set build day #3

ryan saws wood

set build day #3

lee mixing

set build day #3

ryan w/ saw

set build day #3

thom & grant & joe ben on set

set build day #3

grant on set

r14

designer run through before focus tomorrow. we had staged most of the play except for scene four.
...
here is part of me, emily, thom, lee and betsy.

i cannot express how exciting and invigorating it is to get in that rehearsal room at the end of the day.
...
i for one am very intersted to see how this will turn out.

Linhart Theater 9am Wednesday 8.30.2006

r13

we rehearsed in the smaller black box @ 440 (home for the 29-31 before we move into the space on 9/1). we staged the first half of the play.
...
this is really happening.

r13

r13

Linhart Theater 9am Tuesday 8.29.2006

at the beginning of day two....

Linhart Theater 9am Monday 8.28.2006

here is what the theatre looked like at 9am monday, day one of load-in

r12

our last day of table work. we finished working through the play and then read it once at the table. For the first time the actors interacted with the actual groundplan of the space for a run throught of the play. Words used by the actors to describe it included "thick, huh and little."

During the run, when they weren't in a scene, they were drawing with two colors (except for steve who had five) their experience of the play. or something like it. what follows are each of their drawings
...
...
...
...
...

r12

kate's

r12

frances'

r12

katy's

r12

steve's

r12

edelen's

r11

more at the table

r10

i took no pictures today so here is the sky

to the table today. we worked scene one at the table. ken came. kate brought cupcakes. they were tasty. time to get specific. not time to think we don't have time and we have to hurry and "decide" everything and not be fluid. Time to take the enriching character work that we have done over the last week and marry it with the text. the play is the thing.

postcards going out....

field trip

while the production team had its 2nd production meeting, the five actors were sent to NJ on field trips. They were each given $20 for train fare and to use to buy (and/or find) five items; one for themself and one for each of the other characters in the play. Here's where they went:

Pam to Newark

Linda to New Brunswick

Maureen to Jersey City

Betsy to Metuchen

The Guy to Edison

They shared interesting tales during Wednesday's rehearsal.

The pic is from an office building in Newark snapped by Edelen.

postcard

r8

our first run through.

not much music used today except for the arvo part's cantus in memory of benjamin britten. one of my favorite pieces of music. haunting stuff. i first experienced this piece at the Shaw Festival during a production of The Petrified Forest. The huge battle scene at the end of the play was staged in silence and all you heard was the Cantus. Absolutely breathtaking spectacle.

r8

i asked them about 40 questions tonight for the characters to answer in a 1st person, stream of concsiousness way. This is my favorite Ken Washington exercise. Questions ranged from "what role does romantic love play in your life?" to "describe a time when you were happy with your family." to "What's your last name?" Gives the actors more to think about and create a fuller life for their character which inevitably makes what happen on stage deeper. It also blurs the line between actor and character in a farily vivid way.

rehearsal 7

we worked a bit on scene three. we shuffled the pages up and did pages at random. steve as the guy would rip the tape off the floor exposing the women.

we used some sub sub (doves), manic street preachers, eminem and many versions of everything in its right place.

for the first time in the rehearsal, the women got to be together and touch and use each other's strength. they crerated a formidable scene partner. this is a great shot of them blurring together.

r7

steve facing the women

r7

edelen (foreground) frances (background) in their boxes

rehearsal 7

katy (foreground) kate (background) in their boxes

r6

we found this balloon in our rehearsal space. we like it very much.

music used today: basinkski (disintegration loops), the bees, bowie.

other material used today: dfw's infinite jest:

"so yo then man what's your story?"

actors created their characters' story with words and drawings

color blocks

we created these during rehearsal 5. eight colors with words on top.

Immanuel

Immanuel on Women

"A woman", says Kant, "does not have a deep mind but a beautiful mind. She has a mind for beauty to the extent that if she does not commit a crime it is not because she thinks it is wrong but because she thinks it is ugly."

See Kant is a feminist, albeit an unwitting one.

Thanks to Johannes F Lagerweij for the quote.

rehearsal 5

we moved to the glam rehearsal hall in midtown today.

music used today: Hans Zimmer, Quannum, Sonic Youth, Arcade Fire, radiohead (live version of follow me around/everything in its right place (LA 06.29.2006)

rehearsal 5

How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?

-Meno

rehearsal 5

"Is it that there is a place where sadness and joy are not distinct, where all emotion lies together, a sort of ocean into which the tributary streams of distinct emotions go, a faraway deep inside."

rehearsal 4

we talked a bit about the sublime today which was described as a dancing in the rain to the bends in oxford, the pause in mahler's symphony #7, surfing, releasing a stressor, water. always something physical as well as mental but never an intellectual thought only. we then put down boxes in tape and the women decorated their spaces with a color and any objects found in the space. we used some m. ward, aphex twin, sonic youth and microphones music to help us.

this is not staged

r4

r4

rehearsal 4

stevefam

on day 3 of rehearsal, the actors who act as siblings (linda, maureen, karl) were asked to draw pictures of their growing-up life while discussing their characters growing-up life. this is the one steve did

katefam

katyfam

Design Research

Here are some research images that are inspiring the scenic design for the show:










Images are from Joseph Cornell and Gordon Matta-Clark

the sublime

The Sublime: There is no real way to annotate the sublime within the confines of language, within the words which we are bound to use simply because they are all we have. The stage directions in the play are specifically vague at these moments, “Something weird happens,” and so forth. In the moment of the sublime in the play, the actors are not acting, but they are also not not acting. According to Kant, "Nothing that can be an object of our senses is to be called sublime, and thus the imagination, our power of estimating the magnitude of things, is inadequate to the idea of the sublime. Yet this inadequacy itself is the arousal in us of the feeling that we have within us a supersensible power. Therefore what we call the sublime is not an object, the sublime is what proves the mind has a power surpassing any standard.” This tension between not knowing what the sublime is and yet knowing that it exists can serve as a guide for how to get to that place which is both weirdly wonderful and f***ing horrifying. While old Immanuel is useful, you shouldn’t need, however, to take his Christian baggage with you. Kant was wrong about some things. Many things. The sublime is found in art, not in nature, truth or God, especially now that we’ve managed to kill off most of nature, truth and God (that “fat bastard,” as good old Samuel Beckett was fond of calling him). In short, embrace the chaos.

rehearsal 2

we worked a bit with videotape and the bends. The actors used the lyrics to these songs and what their characters say in the play to create a distilled monologue with the essence of all three. something for them to come back to as we move through the process. they then were asked to pick an image from one of the books on the inspiration table that matched their piece in some way. the results were quite beautiful.

on break

inspiration table

from my e-mail to the group:

If each of you could bring in something that inspires you that is non-theatre related. A book, a cd, a photograph, a picture of your dog, whatever. Ideally this is something that relates in some way to the play, in concept or in feeling. It doesn't have to relate in a very linear way, more important than its connection to the play is its connection to you. We'll do a bit of show and tell and if it is something that can be copied and/or left in the rehearsal room, it will give other people a chance to experience as well over the course of our rehearsals.

workingwalking

lauren (working), steve (working), ken (walking)

menwithglasses

thom, ken, dylan

videotape

set

day one

first rehearsal tomorrow.

after two and half months of casting and contacting about 100 actors, it is nice to be done with this step and get everyone in a room. the designers are creating a wonderful landscape for everyone to play on, so it is nice to finally add actors in to the creative mix

fluctuating massively between the known and the unknown, reason and experience (in true Kantian fashion), planning and chance.

i have no idea how this is all going to happen but ready or not, here we come.

dylan