Brief Encounter- Kneehigh Theatre

I'm going to make a confession. A lot of times, I don't really like going to see plays. So often, the experience ends up be a trial just to sit through. I get bored. I am overly critical of the acting, the script, - everything. I can't go and just enjoy something. A lot of times I'd really rather just watch a movie- because there's a higher chance I'd enjoy myself and usually movies are cheaper.

Now, I'd heard about Brief Encounter probably a couple months ago. I'd heard there was this British company called Kneehigh and they were really physical and awesome and they had this show that was coming to the Guthrie and if I had a chance I should go see it. But the thing is I never have time to do anything and I'm broke and I really don't like slapping down $25 bucks for rush tickets for something that I might enjoy.

But then a couple of days ago I was in rehearsal for my Redeye works in progress piece, where I'm working juxtaposing realism with abstract movement. Maggie Scanlan, my director said that I really ought to go see Brief Encounter, because stylistically it was doing some of the things that I was trying to do in my piece. She told me she had already seen it a couple times and was planning on seeing it again. "Just see it," she said. "You really need to see it."

So I rallied my friend to come with me, and we went last night. While we were in line we ran in to Maren Warde and George McConnell from Bedlam and they said they heard the same thing we had- that this was a show that was not to be missed. Even as we were walking down to our seats (front row rush seats- awesome) the usher told Maren that it was his favorite show that he's seen this season.

I was completely floored by the production. I kind of hate when people use the phrase "the magic of theatre" but that's what it was. Magical. I was literally swept away from my seat and carried with the actors on their gloriously imaginative story.

What I loved about the play was how simple it was- it created these surprising moments with impeccable detail. And for the most part these moments weren't created with hugely complicated set pieces or technical feats. A crumpled piece of paper became a rolling dust ball, for example. Or suddenly all of the actors would begin shaking and we knew that the train outside had arrived. (There were a couple of technically awesome things too- like the movie screen made up of slats that actors could disappear into which was pretty rad.)

I just loved the actors- particularly in the ensemble. So physically alive, so fearless, they were all so... specific is the best word I can think of. There wasn't a moment that wasn't meticulously planned out- and I don't mean that in a bad way. I appreciated Annette McLaughlin and Beverly Rudd's comic abilities. It's so rare that women get to play roles with such comic opportunities, and both of them were hilarious. I was also really impressed with Stuart McLoughlin who played multiple characters and I didn't realize till the end that all his parts were played by the same person.

As for Hannah Yelland who played Laura- there were things I didn't like about her performance. She had a certain tension that I found unbelievable- particularly in contrast to Milo Twomey's Alec, but what i did appreciate was that she shifted effortlessly between straight acting and abstract movement. She would embody emotions physically. Swept away in a metaphor of water- she was a beautiful mover and really drew me in.

It's not like the play is about anything super profound. It's just a love story after all. It's a story about infidelity. (In director Emma Rice's program notes- she says that Noel Coward in writing about this forbidden love affair was speaking to his own experiences as a gay man, which I thought was interesting.) But it was the way that Kneehigh told the story that got me. I'm not exaggerating to say it gave me hope in theatre again. It made me want to strive to work harder- so that I can create as original, imaginative work as this company has done.

Plugging away on starvation play

I've been doing a little bit more research about the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. There are still a few historical questions that I still need to find out. Did all of the men sleep in the dorms, for example? Did any of them live off campus? How many hours per day did they have to stay at the lab? I think I may need to go to the University of Minnesota Archive. That's the source of the above film footage. I've been thinking lately about using some video projection in my piece. The only problem is that I don't have a projector, and have absolutely no knowledge about how to set something like that up. However, as my boyfriend said to me the other day: "if your play needs to have projections, you'll figure out a way to have projections." Certainly it seems possibly easier than my other idea of acquiring a treadmill, a vintage scale, and other vintage labratory items to be used or a montage sequence. I could instead of the real objects use projections juxtaposed with movement. So we'll see.

In any case, here are a couple of other links I was reading today:


http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/wwii/a2.html

http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-weve-came-to-believe-that.html

Just Do It

Okay, so I've been mildly freaking out about my Redeye Works in Progress Show. I'm finding that having six months to create a piece can actually be a difficult thing because it's so easy to procrastinate. It's not like I haven't been doing anything at all, but I do seem to put off working on it in favor of more pressing projects and assignments.

The good news is that I'm happy about my team. I've got Maggie Scanlan directing, and she is someone I trust and who I can rely on to be honest with me and to push myself. I've got Dixie Treichel helping me out with the Sound Design, and I know she's going to do a great job, and now I have Romina Tokimoto helping me out with movement.

I'm very excited to have Romina on board because I think she really connects with me (although we haven't worked artistically together before) and I'm really excited about some of the ideas she is bringing to the piece. She lead the group in an authentic movement session a couple weeks ago which was very helpful in generating some movement vocabulary for the piece, and the last time she met she said she was going to work on some choreography for the movement sections so we'll be able to play with that.

The thing I'm stuck on about right now is the text itself. Originally written as a traditional stage play, I'm re-imagining the work as a solo performance piece, and putting my own experience into it. This has been very scary, and I feel a bit stuck. I sort of know generally what the themes are that I'm working with: isolation, starvation, war, and altruism, but I need to hone in on what it is I'm trying to say more specifically.

Right now, it's difficult to begin working on the staging of it because I don't feel the script is ready. Or Rather, I'm having a moment of doubt about it. Last night, I had a very good conversation with the person whose opinion I respect above all others and he told me that I need to stop fretting about it and just do it. It's true, this momentary drop in confidence needs to be overcome if I'm going to be able to finish this project. I need to find my literary bad-ass gene, as he said, if I have one, and just write the play that has been in my head for over two years.

He also suggested that I re-think the title, and I'm considering changing it from The Minnesota Starvation Experiment to The Keys Experiment (Keys is the lead scientist in the Study).

Oh, and a bit of good news, and also more incentive to get my butt in gear: I've been accepted into Artery at The Soap Factory this summer, so that means that I'll be able to further explore the material following my presentation at the Redeye. So. Time to get to work.

Women and Water Rights

I stopped by the Nash Gallery at the University of Minnesota to see Women and Water Rights: Rivers of Regeneration which looks to "examine how the inclusion of women in management of local and global water resources improves social, economic and environmental results," according to the U of M website.

Tonight there were several speakers, including Marilyn Cuneo, from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Liz Dodson from Women's Caucus for Art, Clarence Morgan, a U of M professor, and Diane Katsiaficas, another U of M professor and co-coordinator of the exhibit.

Also at the opening was a Native American Ritual by the Keepers of the Water. Lisa Bellanger, also known as Bizhiwens, said of the ceremony: "We do not come to perform this as a play, but to share our ceremony with you."

The pieces in the exhibit are varied, from a sculpture of a canoe to a video of an urban farming project. I noticed there were a number of textile pieces, including Barbara Riegel Bend's Women and the Watershed, a scupture made of fiber and other elements, which symbolized the important role that women play in the life source, used women as a metaphor for the life blood of the watershed. In Bend's sculpture, which is a figure of a woman holding many people in her embrace, depicts a river with zippers.

Another piece that I was drawn to was Kimber Olson's Point Zero, a triptych quilt calling for awareness of the decline of artic ice. Like Bend's piece, I was interested in the use of textiles to create a statement. I've never been drawn to any kind of textile work myself, but I realize that it is traditionally known as a womans' art form. I feel that the use of that kind of art form added to the message of the whole exhibit, which was to empower women in the struggle for water rights.

Sandy Spieler, Artistic Director of Heart of the Beast, also has a piece in the exhibit, called Cabinet of Water Curiosities, which is a series of boxes with messages like "A Watershed Runs Through You" on the outside, and depictions of the life water brings on the inside. Spieler is really the brainchild of the water awareness movement in Minneapolis. The issue has been addressed at Heart of the Beast, but she has also gained support of the Mayor as well, and was very influencial in the Public Water fountain project.

Annnd.... we're open

Well, Lamb Lays With Lion Vs. Katie Mitchell's The Seagull is officially open, and not surprisingly, the reviews are mixed! We've had two write-ups, thus far. Lightsey Darst, writing for MnArtists, came to a rehearsal and wrote "I can't tell whether Lamb Lays with Lion vs. Katie Mitchell's The Seagull is a train wreck or a stroke of genius; I can't even tell where the performances stop or start." In a similar befuddled review, my friend and editor Jay Gabler wrote:

At first, I thought I really did like it. Then, I thought I didn't. Then, I did like it again—and finally, I realized that one of the things I like most about it is that what I thought changed so many times over the course of the show's hourlong running time. When you often write about theater, it's really refreshing when a piece is half-over and you still have no idea what you're going to say about it.

The reason I'm not surprised that both reviewers were so back and forth on their opinions of the piece is because the work itself is so different than the usual theatre fare, which I think is a compliment to Jeremey Cotterton, our director. What's interesting is that the "Lamb's" side isn't all that "avant garde", but the whole idea of the piece, to put the two sides against each other, is something so unusual and so ballsy that you have to give him credit just for that.

Does it work? Well, I have no idea. My friend Ben Kreilkamp asked me what I thought of the piece, and I honestly really can't say. I'm in the piece, and my job is to live the circumstances of my character as truthfully and as honestly as I can. I'm still figuring it out, honestly, even though we already opened. There are moments that I don't think I've nailed yet- particularly at the end of the first act. I also got some feedback that I was coming across as "bitter" when that was not my intention at all, so I'm working to make Masha more vulnerable while pursuing her objectives. As for how well the piece works, I have to rely on people who see the piece and can relay their experience. Ultimately, that's all any artist can do. You can never really know if something works or not if you are involved in the project. So come see it, and tell me what you think.

Masha

Unfortunately I have the annoying habit of letting characters I play pervade into the rest of my life. When I was in Marat/Sade, playing a patient in the asylum, I would have to do yoga after every performance just to get back into reality. When I played Thyona in Big Love, I lifted weights and became very bitchy in my personal life. Playing Masha has similar problems. Her melancholy seeps into my life like a leaking pen. Lines in the play, such as "I am in mourning for my life" or "My life drags behind me endlessly like an unraveling scarf," come into my head throughout my day. They are unwanted. I don't want to be a love-starved depressed alchoholic!

But I do the work. And try to maintain some distance, but not too much. I partially enjoy the pleasure of losing myself in the role- enough so that I feel like Masha sometimes even when I am not acting. I know some actors- including the great Stanislavski, would say that is a big no-no, but that is how I do it. I act in juicy parts like this so rarely that I have to relish in it.

In the particular production that I'm doing right now, I have the added challenge, besides playing the part, of also playing the part while someone else is playing it on the other side of the stage. This causes some difficulty, as concessions need to be made about timing and such. But the cast from the other side have been really fantastic, and are great about negotiating what will work best.

We're working on having everything sync up together, and at the same time I still have to do the work of realizing this character of Masha. I pretty much have used method acting in my process, using substitutions from my own life to fit the circumstances of the play. Maybe that's why I have such a hard time separating theatre from reality. But I've found that drawing on my personal experience for a role is the most effective way to create believable actions on stage. At least for a realistic play. And even though the sum total of two casts performing Seagull will be not realism at all, the fact is that the side that I'm on is definitely doing the play as naturalistically as possible.

In any case, I'm really enjoying playing Masha. I'm really going to miss her, if she ever leaves me.

Synchronicity

This week, the two casts for Lamb Lays with Lion vs. Katie Mitchell's The Seagull have been meeting together after spending the first two weeks of the rehearsal process working separately. It's pretty intense. Since my side, the Katie Mitchell "realism" side, is performing at the same time as the other cast, I haven't had that much opportunity to watch the other half perform, although it seems to be, from what I can tell, an almost cinematic take, full of irony, using microphones and lighting as tools to alienate and disrupt the audience and performance.

One aspect of performing at the same time as the other cast is how difficult it is to speak in synchronicity with them. While sometimes there are intentional moments of discord, when the actors speak at different paces, for the most part we are supposed to speak as one voice, while our movements, characterizations, and actions are very different.

I'm finding that I have a tendency to be fairly creative with my lines, which I simply cannot do in this production. I have to speak them absolutely verbatum from the script. The process also requires communication with the actor on the other side in terms of when to take pauses and things like that. It can be a bit frustrating, but in the moments when I'm not not acting, and instead watching the performance, it really is a pretty cool effect.

One little perk that I quite enjoy is that the Katie Mitchell cast gets to drink tea and eat biscuits between acts. I can't believe how much more civilized this makes the whole experience! Why have I not been drinking tea and eating biscuits for every show I've ever been in? It's fantastic.