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.