Thursday, May 13, 2010
acting is fun
Have enjoyed realizing what discoveries can come from making small observations these last few rehearsals. When directing, once things are sort of up and staged, you're looking to fix and make better based on what you see not working as a part of the big picture, then you have to work with the actor to hopefully find something they can adjust in what they're doing internally that will read externally the way you want it to. I feel like Katie and I have been able to communicate really well/ she's really been able to help me a lot at this stage, looking for these minute inner work adjustments to make. They seem like really silly little things, but what I'm working on or having trouble with now are issues of like where my gaze is falling, how if I pick a point really far away one day, like yesterday, the quality of my concentration gets a lot fuzzier. And does that mean I'm too much in the world/ gaze not soft enough, or is that just something to be aware of, control for in performance. Or it will be a gloomy, rainy day, and suddenly the piece will feel all drowsy (ps-Katie, I realized the drowsiness might also be a result of listening to it every night before I go to sleep. Oh well. Too late. Now I'm addicted.) It's great to be able to let it be a little bit different every time I do it, sometimes as a choice, sometimes just letting different environmental/emotional factors present that day creep in and color it. And not needing to have like an intellectual justification for each choice, or whim. Letting Katie read the stuff that comes out of me, discussing together the implications of various possible choices that present themselves and agreeing about which directions we're comfortable exploring in, from a dramaturgical point of view. Then I just sort of have to trust Katie as we go back and forth, chasing down and refining the good, letting the bad fall away, speculating together about whether I might be able to keep my eyes open for longer in strong light if I didn't spend so much time reading in the dark. But I think this is helping me develop a better sense of what the ideal actor-director conversation/relationship ought to be. While I've always felt it was nice to pause occasionally, however far along in the process, to ask the actor "How was that for you?" sometimes it's perfunctory.. or even a placeholder for the brilliant note you've yet to articulate for yourself. It's been helpful to spend some time thinking about what's really most helpful for the actor to hear back after they finish sharing, pouring out this unfiltered stream of impressions and physical sensations. If the director can really engage the actor on that level, as Katie's been so great about doing with me, just climb into their head, their body, a little bit, talk with them on that level about the actor's immediate reality, which is a sensory one at this point, and the actor's able to talk about it also, that's the way they're going to be of most use to one another.
Monday, May 10, 2010
catch up not ketchup
We haven't reported in a few days but work down the ROCKABY path is trekking steadily and fruitfully. In the last two rehearsals I've been working with Jessica on figuring out ways to release tension in the face/ keep eyes alive/ and find the right verbs in our mores. After a long rehearsal Friday, Jessica fell into a really nice hyper-aware place. The unblinking gaze was piercing yet neutral, desperate yet cocky and ready for death. After running it consecutively so many times we really came to a very deep place. We erased all color and kept the eyes and body solely disconnected from the mind/the recording. However, as we dug deeper and deeper (which really means becoming more and more naked or bare) we realized that there has to be some connection to the mind and body because otherwise it seems like this woman is just listening to somebody, not herself (or perhaps her mother.) Therefore, after falling into cycle after cycle of neutrality, I asked Jessica to regain consciousness when lifting certain images or words. The result was great and now we can even do more of this.
We've been playing around with this idea of not being prematurely old, not being the perfect woman for this role that Beckett would have wanted and trying to understand how our approach is different than we originally intended. Jessica talked about this a bit in the last post but it's something we've been talking A LOT about. We were trying to stick so closely to the text, to the stage directions and to what would be most Beckettian (as we coo over Billie and her rendition.) Then we realized, as J said, that we'd strayed into our own way of approaching this that is very not Beckett. Confidence in approaching death, yes, that's in Billie/Sam/Us (not to put ourselves in the same category as those people...) but for us being 20 and naive we're looking at her going to die as this amazingly confident/fuck you all gesture to the world. What we ran into the last rehearsal was that this cockiness can easily turn into masochistic which is NOT what we want. Again, it's all in the idea of shading rather than coloring.
Also, the last two rehearsals (Friday and today) I made Jessica do "actory" things. Working through ways to release tension in the body--particularly in the face. We worked on breath (doing some gratowski exercises) and talked at length about the connection between the rocking and the breath. They have to be in sync or at least connected because when the chair stops rocking off, the breath stops and she's dead. But as long as we're rocking, we're still breathing. I didn't tell this to Jessica in rehearsal but one thing I loved about the last few runs was her hands. Grasping the arms of the chair, your fingers delicately yet sturdily suggest many of the key images/verbs/nouns we've been throwing around (fear, desparation, confidence, cockiness, discovery, search, etc.) Your lovely long appendages grasping this chair are almost scary/creepy (in all good ways.)
We also finally figured out the rocking technicalities. I've attached a rope to the back of our (janky) rocking chair and feed it through the back window of the common room. As Jessica (gently and secretly) helps press back and forth, we've created a decent rocking motion. We now need to find a slave to help us out OR decide if Jessica can rock herself secretly and effortlessly than just have her do it... This could be a big mistake because the mechanical passiveness of the woman needs to be there and it may be that in order to that we really need the chair pulled by me. We'll see and keep working tomorrow evening.
Go team.
We've been playing around with this idea of not being prematurely old, not being the perfect woman for this role that Beckett would have wanted and trying to understand how our approach is different than we originally intended. Jessica talked about this a bit in the last post but it's something we've been talking A LOT about. We were trying to stick so closely to the text, to the stage directions and to what would be most Beckettian (as we coo over Billie and her rendition.) Then we realized, as J said, that we'd strayed into our own way of approaching this that is very not Beckett. Confidence in approaching death, yes, that's in Billie/Sam/Us (not to put ourselves in the same category as those people...) but for us being 20 and naive we're looking at her going to die as this amazingly confident/fuck you all gesture to the world. What we ran into the last rehearsal was that this cockiness can easily turn into masochistic which is NOT what we want. Again, it's all in the idea of shading rather than coloring.
Also, the last two rehearsals (Friday and today) I made Jessica do "actory" things. Working through ways to release tension in the body--particularly in the face. We worked on breath (doing some gratowski exercises) and talked at length about the connection between the rocking and the breath. They have to be in sync or at least connected because when the chair stops rocking off, the breath stops and she's dead. But as long as we're rocking, we're still breathing. I didn't tell this to Jessica in rehearsal but one thing I loved about the last few runs was her hands. Grasping the arms of the chair, your fingers delicately yet sturdily suggest many of the key images/verbs/nouns we've been throwing around (fear, desparation, confidence, cockiness, discovery, search, etc.) Your lovely long appendages grasping this chair are almost scary/creepy (in all good ways.)
We also finally figured out the rocking technicalities. I've attached a rope to the back of our (janky) rocking chair and feed it through the back window of the common room. As Jessica (gently and secretly) helps press back and forth, we've created a decent rocking motion. We now need to find a slave to help us out OR decide if Jessica can rock herself secretly and effortlessly than just have her do it... This could be a big mistake because the mechanical passiveness of the woman needs to be there and it may be that in order to that we really need the chair pulled by me. We'll see and keep working tomorrow evening.
Go team.
Friday, May 7, 2010
shavasana
Okay so Katie, by the way- if theater doesn't work out, let's build a business around selling podcasts of this recording to insomniacs who can listen to it as they go to bed. I'm two for two on sleeping through the night.
So thursday we began rehearsal with a discussion about the below-posted Beckett on Film performance and why we do not like it very much. We were both surprised/irritated by its macabre, horror movie feel. And surprised by how manic it seemed, both the zippy rocking and the tense, abrasive performance. This woman was terrified, angry, fighting death all the way through. In connection with this, there was little regard shown for the soothing rhythms that we've been working to bring out. So it didn't feel like she's singing a lullaby to herself at all, more like she's shaking her fist at the universe.
But we realized that though most of what we're doing has been all about following Beckett's instructions as precisely as we can, there's a way we've already gone pretty far away from what he probably would have wanted. And we felt good about this pretty different version we were coming up with. Noted that since I'm twenty, not fifty, though "prematurely old" doesn't feel like the biggest stretch of my illustrious career, it's bound to be a very different piece than the one imagined with Billie. And some of the differences were kind of surprising, we realized while taking stock.
As mentioned before, our Woman's attitude towards death feels so much gentler because we've really been thinking about it as an embrace. Katie pointed out after one run that the development of my "more"s seemed to be about coming closer and closer to be able to taste something the woman anticipates to be the most exquisitely ecstatic experience she'll ever have. There's a little fear at first, but I think of it more as little by little coaxing your dumb body to stop having these reflexes, survival instincts, that puts it in conflict with what your mind wants to do. Katie also pointed out that there was something kind of cocky about saying yes, this is the right choice, everybody else is wrong, but they just keep hanging around because they're too weak, about saying okay, so this is life, this is the world, alright seen it, not quite worth sticking around for. I'm out of here. if there's arrogance in that choice, it's really underscored when you have a younger actress. Almost like saying "I'm too good for this. See ya." This tone, we decided, was probably quite different from what Beckett had in mind, but we think we might keep going in that direction anyway and see what's yielded. Death as an existential "correction" of the mistake that is being alive. She gets it. Everyone else is just wrong.
Being directed by Katie is great. Was learning all about little unconscious physical habits I have that one needs to have pointed out by somebody else. I was the one, surprisingly, that introduced the shavasana metaphor, the corpse pose that comes at the end of a yoga class. Just letting yourself be fully supported by the floor, totally relaxed like you might just sink in. As the mind is sharpening, becoming more and more focused, ready, resolute, the body needs to be going correspondingly slack. That's how we show that/what she is able to achieve. I had a tendency to tense up my face in anticipation or concentration or dreamy wonder to correspond with an inner state. Working to notice and be aware of holding or showing tension so I can let it go. Still trying to find a soft gaze that doesn't feel like I'm peering at something in particular, one that I can comfortably sustain for twelve minutes. But I feel like getting control of my face at the place it needs to be by next week I'd need to have been doing something analogous to the crazy mandible-strengthening excercises Billie did to build her jaws up for NOT I. We'll see how far we get.
So thursday we began rehearsal with a discussion about the below-posted Beckett on Film performance and why we do not like it very much. We were both surprised/irritated by its macabre, horror movie feel. And surprised by how manic it seemed, both the zippy rocking and the tense, abrasive performance. This woman was terrified, angry, fighting death all the way through. In connection with this, there was little regard shown for the soothing rhythms that we've been working to bring out. So it didn't feel like she's singing a lullaby to herself at all, more like she's shaking her fist at the universe.
But we realized that though most of what we're doing has been all about following Beckett's instructions as precisely as we can, there's a way we've already gone pretty far away from what he probably would have wanted. And we felt good about this pretty different version we were coming up with. Noted that since I'm twenty, not fifty, though "prematurely old" doesn't feel like the biggest stretch of my illustrious career, it's bound to be a very different piece than the one imagined with Billie. And some of the differences were kind of surprising, we realized while taking stock.
As mentioned before, our Woman's attitude towards death feels so much gentler because we've really been thinking about it as an embrace. Katie pointed out after one run that the development of my "more"s seemed to be about coming closer and closer to be able to taste something the woman anticipates to be the most exquisitely ecstatic experience she'll ever have. There's a little fear at first, but I think of it more as little by little coaxing your dumb body to stop having these reflexes, survival instincts, that puts it in conflict with what your mind wants to do. Katie also pointed out that there was something kind of cocky about saying yes, this is the right choice, everybody else is wrong, but they just keep hanging around because they're too weak, about saying okay, so this is life, this is the world, alright seen it, not quite worth sticking around for. I'm out of here. if there's arrogance in that choice, it's really underscored when you have a younger actress. Almost like saying "I'm too good for this. See ya." This tone, we decided, was probably quite different from what Beckett had in mind, but we think we might keep going in that direction anyway and see what's yielded. Death as an existential "correction" of the mistake that is being alive. She gets it. Everyone else is just wrong.
Being directed by Katie is great. Was learning all about little unconscious physical habits I have that one needs to have pointed out by somebody else. I was the one, surprisingly, that introduced the shavasana metaphor, the corpse pose that comes at the end of a yoga class. Just letting yourself be fully supported by the floor, totally relaxed like you might just sink in. As the mind is sharpening, becoming more and more focused, ready, resolute, the body needs to be going correspondingly slack. That's how we show that/what she is able to achieve. I had a tendency to tense up my face in anticipation or concentration or dreamy wonder to correspond with an inner state. Working to notice and be aware of holding or showing tension so I can let it go. Still trying to find a soft gaze that doesn't feel like I'm peering at something in particular, one that I can comfortably sustain for twelve minutes. But I feel like getting control of my face at the place it needs to be by next week I'd need to have been doing something analogous to the crazy mandible-strengthening excercises Billie did to build her jaws up for NOT I. We'll see how far we get.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Hey, I know I told you to stop watching video of other performances, but I found these. BECKETT ON FILM parts one and two. Don't know who this actress is, but I think this version is awful. Do you agree? Let's discuss.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZPiTirNIOk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_g96aj5Whk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZPiTirNIOk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_g96aj5Whk&feature=related
we need a chair/unblinking gaze
Yesterday afternoon Jessica and I wandered into the common room and set down to work. Using our quick and dirty cut of the recording the rehearsal was focused around two majors things: 1) the eyes and spheres 2) the rocking. I'll talk about the first because the second is mostly that of complaining. Beckett's stage directions are specific enough to include the details about how the eyes should open and close and when. "Now closed, now open. Unblinking gaze. The eyes begin to close more and more throughout the sections and half way in section four the eyes close completely. " I asked Jessica to pick a point of reference to hang out in an uber concentrated first sphere. If it felt too removed, to inwards and incapable of being open and available to others than we would try changing the hyper aware concentration into a larger sphere-place. Here's what happened. Well, first, Jessica laughed at herself in the recording. Hearing your own voice is unsettling, disconcerting and rough. We have talked about this in our very early rehearsals almost two weeks ago. The idea of seeing your own self for the first time, like the woman does, is perhaps vaguely similar. It's like catching a glimpse of yourself in mid-conversation with someone in a mirror reflection and how odd that it. You don't feel like you but rather the character of yourself...or maybe the character thing is just me. Anyways, off this tangent, Jessica dealt beauitfully with adjusting to hearing herself in our purring/scratchy/janky (like that, J?) recording and proceeding to dig deep into her sphere work. We got some really great things out of the run. Jessica's ability to concentrate in first sphere was what we needed to hone into the work.
What's amazing to me (and we both talked about for a long time) is that although we're in this completely inward- first sphere of concentration, I felt as an audience member and Jessica said as a performer completely in sync, aware and deep into the rhtyhm of the piece. I was drawn INTO the eyes. I was drawn INTO the hyper aware bubble that we classify as only for ourselves. I know in acting classes I'm told while doing certain exercises to OPEN up my sphere larger and larger and reach third sphere because we have to 'share' ourselves with the audience. Being is first sphere up on stage is no go (all the time...) BUT here, it was perfect. That complete inwardness was vulnerable and exposing. We see the woman completely striped down, bare and naked. She's ready to die by the end and although this is an individual process (as Hiediegger reminds us) she has exposed herself completely with us by being in with herself.
Things that we needed to work on: the intention of the eyes. Sometimes, and this is having a lot to do with the whole UNBLINKING thing, Jessica's eye 'shuts' (I'll call them eye shuts...weird.) Felt unfocused or unmotivated. I'm not sure if necessary want them to motivated, however, I need to see the woman be confident in the places she shuts her eyes and opens them. Sometimes when we open them, we find ourselves deeper into the pool of Jessica's eyes. We see behind the eyes, we see the mind clicking and working and it's a beautiful thing. We need to be careful, again, that when we see the woman's fear, remembrances, images that it doesn't read too much...back to this whole shading v. coloring thing. We got to a really nice place yesterday where we could see the tiniest of shifts in Jessica's face/eyes at certain points in the piece (the mother and off her head.) Jessica asked if this was too much? I don't think so. Things need to lift. The variation and movement and purity behind the eyes is SO SMALL that maybe because we know each other so well I'm the only one who can see what you're doing. It's something to keep working with. I told Jessica that we should try next time to do it completely without any shading at all. To be hyper aware in one sphere with in one reference place-just to see if stripping it down even more brings out or lifts the wrods by themselves.
2.) The rocking. We just need a better chair. I found some rope and made a dinky little pulling device but Jessica's legs are far to long to rock in this meak little chair. She found a rhythm by herself using her feet but for me the real rhythm, motion and heat of this piece comes from the mechincal rocking of the chair while the woman sits back passively (awaiting death.) The pieces revolves around the up and down of the boat in the waves. We need a better chair. Any suggestions, Mark? We're thinking of scavenging around Wyndham and other "nice" places on campus... Or we could go to a cheap vintage store to find an old chair. Or we were thinking we could just cut off Jessica's legs. What do you think? At my house we have a chair that would work wonderfully, if that's where we go Jess we'll use that. We also need a slave to help us while I watch Jessica instead of pulling the rope behind her. Eventually, wherever and if ever we do this, I would want to be the one controlling the rocking.
Today we're chair hunting and re-cording on a quieter computer. Also, another personal side note: South Marshall street in south SOUTH philly is a) scary b) unsafe c) no where near a coffee shop d) NOT cute e) devoid of a new york times within a 5 miles radius. Not the place for Jessica Rizzo. We'll never go back there again.
The adventures continue...
K
What's amazing to me (and we both talked about for a long time) is that although we're in this completely inward- first sphere of concentration, I felt as an audience member and Jessica said as a performer completely in sync, aware and deep into the rhtyhm of the piece. I was drawn INTO the eyes. I was drawn INTO the hyper aware bubble that we classify as only for ourselves. I know in acting classes I'm told while doing certain exercises to OPEN up my sphere larger and larger and reach third sphere because we have to 'share' ourselves with the audience. Being is first sphere up on stage is no go (all the time...) BUT here, it was perfect. That complete inwardness was vulnerable and exposing. We see the woman completely striped down, bare and naked. She's ready to die by the end and although this is an individual process (as Hiediegger reminds us) she has exposed herself completely with us by being in with herself.
Things that we needed to work on: the intention of the eyes. Sometimes, and this is having a lot to do with the whole UNBLINKING thing, Jessica's eye 'shuts' (I'll call them eye shuts...weird.) Felt unfocused or unmotivated. I'm not sure if necessary want them to motivated, however, I need to see the woman be confident in the places she shuts her eyes and opens them. Sometimes when we open them, we find ourselves deeper into the pool of Jessica's eyes. We see behind the eyes, we see the mind clicking and working and it's a beautiful thing. We need to be careful, again, that when we see the woman's fear, remembrances, images that it doesn't read too much...back to this whole shading v. coloring thing. We got to a really nice place yesterday where we could see the tiniest of shifts in Jessica's face/eyes at certain points in the piece (the mother and off her head.) Jessica asked if this was too much? I don't think so. Things need to lift. The variation and movement and purity behind the eyes is SO SMALL that maybe because we know each other so well I'm the only one who can see what you're doing. It's something to keep working with. I told Jessica that we should try next time to do it completely without any shading at all. To be hyper aware in one sphere with in one reference place-just to see if stripping it down even more brings out or lifts the wrods by themselves.
2.) The rocking. We just need a better chair. I found some rope and made a dinky little pulling device but Jessica's legs are far to long to rock in this meak little chair. She found a rhythm by herself using her feet but for me the real rhythm, motion and heat of this piece comes from the mechincal rocking of the chair while the woman sits back passively (awaiting death.) The pieces revolves around the up and down of the boat in the waves. We need a better chair. Any suggestions, Mark? We're thinking of scavenging around Wyndham and other "nice" places on campus... Or we could go to a cheap vintage store to find an old chair. Or we were thinking we could just cut off Jessica's legs. What do you think? At my house we have a chair that would work wonderfully, if that's where we go Jess we'll use that. We also need a slave to help us while I watch Jessica instead of pulling the rope behind her. Eventually, wherever and if ever we do this, I would want to be the one controlling the rocking.
Today we're chair hunting and re-cording on a quieter computer. Also, another personal side note: South Marshall street in south SOUTH philly is a) scary b) unsafe c) no where near a coffee shop d) NOT cute e) devoid of a new york times within a 5 miles radius. Not the place for Jessica Rizzo. We'll never go back there again.
The adventures continue...
K
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Quick and Dirty
Saturday Jessica and I laid down the quick and dirty version of the voice. We both read and recorded but made the big decision to have Jessica read and be the woman while I’ll take the ‘rocking’ role. I’m really excited about this actually. Jessica was better at finding the colorless place in which this piece has to fall. The asymptote that we had found in the rehearsals before may have too much variation. We lose the rhythmic motion and melody of the piece if we let (even the smallest pigmentation in.) Where we go from here is finding HOW to shade in order to find the neutral beckttian movement of the piece.
The first PERIOD is what we’re having to the most trouble with. Especially in figuring out how to hone in and dig deep from right off the bat. What I think we’ll do is run the piece at least three times before going into the actually recording. The monotonous style is found as we define our sphere and plough deeper into the thickness, which takes a few times running it.
What we found surprising is that as you work more and more on a piece you tend to find more and more in it. It gets thicker and muckier as you trek through. Yet with Beckett we’ve found that the deeper we get into it the LESS we want. We’ve been stripping down more and more each time—attempting to find the naked truth of the words. Let the words do it themselves. Again, like Beckett said, the perfect play would be without any actors. We’re now attempting in the latter half of our work with this piece to find the bare minimum, to expose ourselves through this woman completely.
After a May Day break we're back--More rehearsal today paired with sublet hunting for Jessica. Fun.
Go team.
The first PERIOD is what we’re having to the most trouble with. Especially in figuring out how to hone in and dig deep from right off the bat. What I think we’ll do is run the piece at least three times before going into the actually recording. The monotonous style is found as we define our sphere and plough deeper into the thickness, which takes a few times running it.
What we found surprising is that as you work more and more on a piece you tend to find more and more in it. It gets thicker and muckier as you trek through. Yet with Beckett we’ve found that the deeper we get into it the LESS we want. We’ve been stripping down more and more each time—attempting to find the naked truth of the words. Let the words do it themselves. Again, like Beckett said, the perfect play would be without any actors. We’re now attempting in the latter half of our work with this piece to find the bare minimum, to expose ourselves through this woman completely.
After a May Day break we're back--More rehearsal today paired with sublet hunting for Jessica. Fun.
Go team.
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