Speaking with your characters

A daring friend suggested she might consult a character in a live theatrical production for thoughts on another character still in the making. The voice teacher in me quakes for my students when looking to a live theatrical production for character inspiration. I don't like my students to listen to other, professionally produced singers too often, or to learn a new piece by listening to someone else's recorded piece; too intimidating for most, adds to derivative interpretation for a few others.

Still, when is it possible for each of us, seeking new inspiration to populate a character, either in writing or performance, to visit with some of the current creations out and about in someone else's interpretation? When are we finally strong enough to look at someone else, have the light turn on and not find our own soul crushed?

For me the answer can be now and never, depending on the timing, the impact of the influence and how I am finding my own self to be, robust or pliable. When I am drawn strongly to someone else's work, I know that I need time and discussion to get around to understanding what those influences will do to me and what I should let them do.

The urge to have a character under one's own direction speak with another, unrelated or unlikely character is very alluring. What will 15th century French St. Joan say to my contemporary self? Will she have thoughts and conversation with my 19th century Camille? Will they get along, influence each other? Can they converse in French from different eras, or perhaps some magic meta language that is the language of inspiration itself?

I long for a series of 10 minutes plays, perhaps 3 produced together, but not the same play. The first conversation between Joan and Camille, women of passion for very different reasons. The second might be between Joan and Betty Ford. They might talk about public life, passion and the need for moderation, being taken seriously in a man's world. The last piece would feature three contemporary women, each is reading about one of the 3 women featured previously. Hmmm.

Scholar critic v. media critic

After an interesting conversation with a friend, I was stimulated to think about the differences between scholarly criticism and that type of commentary from the media. Borrowing from my conversational companion, is the role for those voices located in the media more to promote and market the artist's work, leaving the scholar-critic to inform and interpret?

In the large, Midwestern city in which I live, there is something of a tradition in the media of promoting art and being either kind with criticism or veering away from commentary and providing lightweight education if the subject matter is thorny or difficult and perhaps inspired but less than well executed. This type of criticism is often witty, but not necessariy terribly complex or deep; no 21 paragraph analyses of the artist's oeuvre here in the Heartland. Get 'em out to see the thing, then let the chatter commence.

A recent post in the Chicago Tribune by a reader states, "...I long for the days when critics (such as Frank Rich) could write reviews as well as any playwright could write a play, and create a criticism that was not bound up in what appears to be an insatiable need in today's reviewers to be celebrity critic whose words are quoted in newspaper ads and on the backs of published scripts." (12/5/07 - postscript to Jones' review of the NYC staging of Osage County)

I would tend to agree with this comment. Attending a large chunk of regional theater, I find opening night is cluttered with critics who are there as much to see and talk to each other as to drink in the staging and craft gorgeous commentary that enlightens us as to what we can expect or how we should think about the experience.

So I await and expect from scholars what I thirsted for from others.

What is it really about?

While attending the current production of Savannah Disputation, a friend asked a truly perceptive and intriguing question: what is it really about. This was in response to someone else's comment about another play - "of course you know what that was really about." Bringing my thoughts squarely to rest on the playwright's thinking for Savannah Disputation in particular was a happy place to land.

This play examines the disappointments of women, priests as people and as symbols, religion, power, mortality (sort of), the role of constraints and those thing forbidden, relationships generally, the South vaguely, America and it's use and mis-use of religion, how we fight and 'getting along', and likely more to add mess to a well constructed run-on sentence. Evan Smith's new play pushes a whole bunch of buttons.

I suspect a certain flatness to the production comes from a linear construct within the play itself because the writing appears to run through a list of questions rather than creating a carefully constructed dramatic progression. The female actors had to work to portray real people because most of the dialog supported light weight characters going after heavy weight material and getting flattened in the process. Occasionally the character of Mary gets something meaty to set up action for Father Murphy. And Robert Scogin's portrayal of the priest has real depth and pathos, partly the result of stellar acting on top of a character with real issues. He shines with masterful power as he commands Margaret to stop second guessing all of catholicism as a result of an afternoon's chat with a sophist-fundamentalist. And his cynicism is front and center when he tells Mary she may as well remain a catholic because she doesn't believe in anything else and, "then you can go to the same church as Margaret."

I would like to see Smith go back and make a less orderly examination of his questions, shake up the situation comedy. But the production is well done and affords laughter about serious rather than solemn topics that invites continued disputation over time.

Cooks, Cubans and the role of atmosphere in theater and our daily lives

This is the second in a series of posts that will be dubuting in the space as "works in progress'. I plan to post these only partially completed in case I can convince some of my collaborating artists to participate prior to completion of the product. This will involve some necessary mess because the pieces will change in mid-stream. This will also require me to leave commentary posts up that may not make sense as the pieces change in scope and even perhaps in direction or conclusion.

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The Cook, in a production currently playing at the Goodman started a conversation on the role of set design in creating atmosphere. In a world that is highly theatrical away from the theater, I wonder if part of the intrigue of that play is a sense of 'trying out' a space. The story itself revolves around people who are preserving a house for differing reasons. The audience reaction so far is that the set is itself a character, one that sets up expectations and then follows up with the process of aging we all must endure.

In shelter magazines the notion of a kitchen as stage is nothing new. The fabulousness of our kitchens tells our friends something about each of us. I long for a kitchen that is the heart of my personal and social life. My kitchen has always been my 'best' room, the place I spend the most time and where most of my friends participate in various creations and evenings of learning. Recently I have been spending a lot more time in my new, small kitchen cooking and contemplating how to make it more mine.

Chatting with our demons, on heroes and anti-heroes

Having recently seen two vastly different plays that each include discussion around war or terror, discipline and how we prepare for things, I wonder if it is possible to dramtize contemporary issues without the passage of time to lend perspective. John Patrick Shanley's "Defiance" covers material from the early 70's. Brett Neveu's "Weapon of Mass Impact" seems so very current. I think one succeeds and the other needs some more thought. In addition Evan Smith's "The Savannah Disputation" tackles the search for heroes in the world of today.

Shanley's play is set within the world of the career military in the early 70's. The main issue at hand is race, though there is plenty of room for all sorts of bad behavior. His main topic is the nature of heroes, how are they created, how they behave, can they tangle with women succussfully (in the standard world of real people it seems that men are heroes and women foil their man's best self if they cannot reinforce it). His main character aims for hero-state but misses, never resting on cynicism as a crutch. Does that mean he was never meant to be a hero? Defiance also points to Martin Luther King as hero and as the black captain's excuse for avoiding acts of heroism, though it is his final inability to avoid hero behavior that lends the drama credence, keeps the action moving forward and brings about the end of the Lt. Colonel.

What is the difference between the failures of hero Odysseus when returning to the ever-waiting Penelope and the Lt. Colonel's single transgression? According to the Mrs. it is that he reaches for heroism when he himself isn't one and thus, cannot make the mark. Whereas Penelope expects and demands a hero and thus, does Odysseus' behavior remain heroic. Is this a modern failure to allow for heroes?

After seeing Evan Smith's new play, The Savannah Disputation, I would add another question. Is it possible to be a hero and a cynic at the same time? Women seek heroes, Mary is looking for one in Father Murphy and he acts heroically at the end of the action, but his cynicism shines through as well. Does cynicism make room for an anti-hero?

Neveu's focus is on preparing for a kidnapping and perhaps other acts of terror, how to prepare a potential victim through study, enactment, discussion between victim-students. All the students are women, they are quite different in their character expression, though all are roughly the same age, ethnic and socio-economic background, outwardly the same woman times three. This playwright is always willing to look at fear emotions, internal turmoil, current events as a driver for topic and plot.

Weapon fails to stay on course because the main premise has more to do with exposing ugly feelings while remaining essentially attractive. The emotional crushing of the 'nicest' woman, the woman who truly wants to be liked is at the center of the piece and it has nothing to do with preparing for a kidnapping and is out of place with the device used. This leaves the viewer with two stories that have little to do with each other.

This is a piece in progress and before I finish it, I wonder if anyone else has thoughts? I do believe the subject matter on heroes is what these playwrights are chasing and I find the topic fascinating. How does Joseph Cambell's reflections on being our own heroes work in this thematic area? How about the lack of public heroes lately--our complex world buries their stories. United flight 93 involved heroic behavior unknown until recently (though I believe it happens all the time). And how is it that most compelling stories focus more on those who try and fail to live up to their own expectations?