Crisis of Faith

In college, I read Stanislavski. For those of us who slept through (or never even considered taking) Theatre History 101,

Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski

was an actor, director and teacher in 19th century Russia who made a big impact on the acting world by recording his process and "method" in a series of books, amongst various other associations and theatrical victories. To put the tale overly simply, he grew up in an aesthetic that instructed acting by way of imitation, but he came to value an approach of creating a character "from the inside out," meaning to find an association or familiarity with a character within one's own emotional landscape before mucking about with the specifics of gesture and voice. This was revolutionary, and we've been rather obsessed with it ever since (even though Stan went on to study truth through physical gesture as well). I laughed out loud (and I'm still trying to figure out if that was the desired effect) at one point in his book

An Actor Prepares

. He's telling the story of trying to get a handle on playing Othello, when he sees a chocolate cake on a table. He impulsively plunges his face into the frosting, and returns to his mirror to continue working on whatever monologue had his attention at that time. When I was 19 or so, I thought this was the most ridiculous thing I had ever read about acting.

This morning, while waiting to cross a street, I noticed a puddle full of oil, or gasoline, and barely thinking about it stepped

into

the puddle to stand and wait for the light to change. You see, for the past few days I have been wearing the sneakers my character wears in the show. They're white, and need to look like they're well used in fields and garages, my character being a soldier and a mechanic. So, for the past few days, I have been reprogramming my instinct (hopefully only temporarily) to step IN every nasty spot in the park and city that I can find. Waiting to cross the street I spotted the rainbow sworls below and thought (Tin-Man like) as I stepped, "Oil!" It's rather ridiculous what a sense of victory I experienced from this.

Yesterday one of the actors in

As Far As We Know

quit. Actually, that's only true insofar as I've heard it. I was not there (it happened in a morning phone call between the actor and the director) and have only heard the details third-hand, so to the actor it may have seemed more like a firing, or at least an inevitability. We open tomorrow.

This generally doesn't happen. The night before it happened, as a way of pardoning all the up-to-the-curtain changes a group-developed work may involve, Laurie told a story of making

I Am My Own Wife

, in which the playwright came into the last rehearsal and told the only actor in the show, in sum of substance: "I have good news and bad. The good is I've solved the ending. The bad is that it means you have to come up with 13 new, distinctively different characterizations." And when I developed the first show of

Zuppa del Giorno

,

Noble Aspirations

, we spent nine months building a story, and ended up scrapping it entirely and starting fresh during tech week. So I am accustomed to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune where the theatre is concerned.

This particular plot twist, however, is surprising in a number of ways. First and foremost, actors don't quit a show two days before it opens. They occasionally get fired in such a time, but they don't quit. I've been trying to imagine circumstances under which I would do such a thing, and there are a few, none of which could apply here. So it is flummoxing. Secondly, and most baffling, most of us have been working on this show--off and on--for over two years. This is what's kept me in the game during those times when I began to question my own resolve to see it through. How could I leave off before we saw some kind of semi-glossed presentation? I don't think any one of us can claim

not

to have been profoundly affected by this work at some point. And maybe that's it. Maybe the actor just couldn't agree with the show we ended up making, or something. It's pointless for me to speculate in this.

You know that inevitable scene in the Rocky movies in which the match is not going well, and the chips are down, and Rocky's looking like he's going to vomit and fall in it any moment now, and we're all just waiting for him to rear up and triumph against all odds? Pepper that feeling with--to borrow a term--a little shock and awe, and you'll have the mood of rehearsal last night. We already had a new actor in, and they were doing their very best to catch up. The adrenaline of it all helped to wash away some of the sense of loss and incompleteness, but every so often you'd catch a fellow actor's eye and see it all in there. In the final stages of creating a play about a family's inexplicable loss of one of its own, we lost, rather inexplicably (to the cast, anyway), a member of our family. I really, really miss this actor. It sucks.

But...Rocky's going to get up off the floor. We will take arms against a sea of troubles. The show will go on. That's what we do. It may not be perfect, it may not even be pretty, but it will be, and we will have made it. Come to think of it, many people have contributed to what we've made who are not here now. From actors to writers to actual participants in the events that are the source of our inspiration, there are all kinds of missing people, and part of what we're learning through this is how we live through that. One thing I've learned is to find small joys during it all, to be sure not to miss them when they cross your path. That, and a little faith doesn't hurt, either.

Live Free or Die Hard or Make Something People Will Love

Yeah, okay. I caved yesterday and saw it. Sometimes the lowest common denominator appeals to me, I confess. At present I'm reading about the creation of

A Streetcar Named Desire

, from the debut production through the

Kazan

film, and I'm blown away by how viscerally

Brando

lived during his twenties. I feel as though I've positively wasted the last decade of my life (though perhaps retained a bit more cleanliness in general), and last night I wasted two more hours of it. If Brando had had action movies, would they have helped slake some of his youthful lust and mischief? Probably not. And, while on the subject, would I have felt more fulfilled by two hours of casual sex, a la Marlon? Probably not.

Then again, an acting class might not have been a complete waste of my time.

It's a strange stew I prepare for you today, seasoned with

Desire

,

Die Hard

and day-job interruptions. (Best part about being back: Time for 'bloggage. [Ability to pay for groceries also ranks high on the list.]) I was greeted when I sat to email today by an unaccustomed missive (stop it, jerk) by an unusual email from

Friend Anna

. She writes:

"I'm writing my paper on creativity, and was fielding thoughts with some people on the matter. ... What is creativity? What does it mean to be creative? (Are there certain characteristics you think of?) [And, is it a matter of inborn characteristics or influenced by upbringing and social environment? Is it innate talent or something that can be learned? Some scholars propose it is simply a matter of skills learned through hard work, a matter of motivation and discipline, not that anyone is innately more creative (genius) than anyone else. That is, it's conscious effort, they don't believe in it coming from unconscious.]"

I know so many people in school right now. It really does make them smarter. Is that an effect of age? Because, God knows, school didn't seem to make anyone smarter the last time I was in it. The most reasonable thing to do before responding to such questions would be to define my terms, terms such as "creativity," "genius" and "it." But as

John McClane

teaches us, it isn't reason that makes America so great; it's a willingness to do viciously risky and self-aggrandizing stunts involving the maximum amount of property damage. In that spirit, I dive right in.

First of all, let's release the concept of "artistry" from this discussion. Great artistry is its own creature, a thing born from arduous study, disciplined work and having a craft or technique. It's great, I love it, and maybe no great work can be great without it. Fine. But in our interests today we're exploring the nature of creativity, not artistry.

I would separate "creativity" from "genius." To my mind, creativity is a quality all possess. In a spiritual context, I believe it is our awareness of having been created (and not necessarily by an omnipotent deity--an awareness that we begin and end suffices) that compels us to emulate the process with our own actions, be this via child birth, entreprenurism or performance art. In a pragmatic context, I see a sense of creativity as one of the later stages of the evolution of intelligence. After one learns to perceive tools out of the objects around them, one may eventually come to refine such tools and create their own. In short, creativity to me is simply abstract thought, which some people take to greater extremes than others.

One interesting feature of abstract thought is the ability to conceive of concepts. (Is that redundant? John McClane wouldn't care. I don't care.) The real brain-twister is contemplating whether concepts are of themselves spontaneous creations on our part, similar to ancient peoples creating gods to explain the bits of the world they couldn't better understand, or master. In other words, have we created the concept of, say, love, in order to explain (or at least name) what seemingly illogical and irrational forces make us act like absolute idiots. Me, I tend to discount the notion of spontaneous creation. I am a fan of the law of

conservation of energy

, and believe that kind of balance applies to a great deal of reality. Similarly, for example, I agree that there are a finite number of stories in the world, and we just seem to create new ones by recombining, deconstructing and re-conceiving these few. To put it still another way, we are all inspired in our "creations" by everything that already

is

, around and within us. To this end, I don't really believe in genius, per se. There is no great, mysterious inborn gift that is only bestowed upon a few.

Then again, when I was faced with Michaelangelo's

David

(and listen: photographs will never express this work), not a force in the world could have convinced me it wasn't the result of genius.

Not even John McClane killing a helicopter with a car.

So my overall opinion is this: The magic of the original

Die Hard

had a lot to do with where the star was at that point in his career (spunky with something to prove, because he was an acknowledged television star but not by any means celebrated) and where the director was coming from (

John McTeirnan

tells us on the commentary that he wanted to find the joy in this otherwise harrowing tale). There's a synergy to it that came from taking risks and improvising, something that could never hope to be duplicated in a sequel. When

A Streetcar Named Desire

was brought to film, it brought together the Stanley from the Broadway cast and the Blanche from the London cast, and it should have exploded. Brash, method Brando set off against Lady Olivier (

Vivien Leigh

) seems a formula for an insane working environment. Yet it worked beautifully, and it never would have happened if the rules had been followed or sense had prevailed.

Whether it really exists or not, the creative person needs to believe in genius. Maybe, in looking back on a creation, we can readily name its sources and the whole thing seems like a masterminded manipulation of common elements. Yet the feeling of creating something good, of being in a creative spirit, isn't like that. It's a chartless territory, a blank page or a silent room. People often ask authors where they get their ideas from, and it's easy to say, "Oh, I was a closeted homosexual who grew up in the south, so . . . you know . . . ." I believe that it's belief that ideas come from. Creativity springs from a confrontation of nothingness with faith in that intangible genius that we can never prove, but that always intervenes.

. . . Eventually. Yippie-kiy-yay . . .

ITALIA: June 18, 2007

This morning we awoke early to take Todd to the train into Rome, where he would catch the subway to the airport, where he would fly to Perugia, where he would then fly on to America. He had about three hours of sleep the night before, so hopefully he is able to sleep on the longer leg of his flight. We have a similar timing for our flight out next week, and I’m not looking forward to it. To depart at 2:00 in the afternoon, spend eight hours in the air and arrive at 5:00 in the afternoon is not only weird, it’s exhausting. They’d best not expect much from Todd at work tomorrow, or me next week.

It’s sad to have him go. Everything is a lot quieter, and we’re all adjusting gradually to the energy shift. We truly do adjust in his absence. Heather and I become more outspoken, and David takes more (albeit calmer) prerogative, but it’s never as adventurous or—frankly speaking—dangerous when Todd is absent, and as students of theatre we miss that when it’s gone. We’ll try to promise him not to have too much fun without him, but it will be a challenge. We are in Italy.

The rest of the morning was spent in Orvieto, dropping off laundry (YAY!) and visiting the farmacia and an internet café. I was supposed to have posted last week’s entries today, in fact, but changed bags and neglected to bring my wireless card. Hence the entry bearing this same date, yet containing nothing but an apology. When I finally do post these entries (under one entry, methinks) I’ll have to attach pretty much all of the existing labels, and maybe a few more.

Lunch was at our old favorite for it last year (mainly “favorite” because they made a deal with the language school that included free wine), Antica Cantina. The owner didn’t seem to recognize us, but he’s something of a craggy sort and may have just been under-whelmed to see us again. Afterward we picked up our laundry and arrived at Piazza Cahen to meet Andrea somewhat early, so we had a walk around a park attached to the piazza that overlooks what I believe is the south end of Orvieto. It was gorgeous. I’ve never seen it before. We quickly found Andrea and headed back to Teatro Boni to try on his props-acting workshop for size.

So much happened, it’s hard to encapsulate it all. (Sorry Todd—we really tried not to have anything worth noting happen after you had to leave.) We took our time warming up, which Andrea left to us, wanting to experience our style again, and we moved into partner stretching with him. This may have been pushing it a bit. The last, wherein you lift you partner, back-to-back, proved to be a bit much for him as a base. He didn’t seem seriously hurt, fortunately. We rapidly moved on to his workshop. He laid out a variety of props, both mundane and somewhat constructed to his purposes, and instructed us to take our time choosing one, then exploring it in our own isolation. He had several helpful (not to mention original) suggestions on how to approach this discovery, including to find all the sounds it can make and to consider the materials it is constructed of and where they come from. He went off to do some business for the theatre, which ended up taking longer than expected. That was fine with us. The music he put on ran out while we never did find an end to the exploration of our respective objects. It was the kind of work you never really find time for in a rehearsal process…but probably should.

When Andrea did return to break us from our trance, we discovered we were joined in the audience by the director of their current show (a Plautus play), Cesare, and a secretary of the theatre, Hanna. I swear, none of we three had any idea they had come in. I still wonder how long they watched us “exploring.” Andrea’s next assignment was to demonstrate three alternative uses for the objects we had chosen. David’s whisk and pot top became a wine bottle and tray, a mirror and comb, and a paintbrush and palette. Heather’s thermal blanket became a superhero cape, a cobra, jiffy pop and a balloon. My round wicker basket became (I couldn’t resist over committing) a helmet, ear horn, parachute, canoe and combination back hump and/or knap sack. Then Andrea, in what seems to be his inimitable style, requested we improvise a monologue incorporating our respective prop(s). I lucked out and got to go last on this, giving me the most time to think, and constructed a story (of a football player surviving a plane crash in the Himalayas) that I ended up actually feeling fairly satisfied with. It was a good day; good to see we could keep moving forward with Andrea in spite of losing our Alpha Communicator, and the workshop ended happily on all sides.

Actually, we had another surprise, as Andrea requested we present something of our work for Cesare and Hanna at the end of the workshop. Heather and I were quite taken aback. We couldn’t see doing the Valentino excerpt without Todd, and our other piece, the one that only involves we two (Death + a Maiden) is prop heavy, and timed in large part by a soundtrack. In the spirit of the workshop (and, I suppose, Italy) however, we attempted it. Heather used a milk crate for a chair, a sort of slender boa for a hair bow and a toilet scrubber for a mirror. I used the thermal blanket for a cloak, a collapsible Chinese long sword for a scythe and a spaghetti spatula for flowers. Sans music, which was a first for us, and sans rehearsal (read: fight call) of the acrobalance and momentum moves involved. It went great, all things considered, was well-received and full of discovery for us both. Plus we got another piece of "Zuppa in Italia" ("Italia della Zuppa"?) on film, impromptu though it may have been.

The adventure did not end with our day’s “rehearsal.” Afterward we five, plus another friend of the theatre, joined up for drinks at a local bar (“bar” in Italy is what we’d think of in America as a café) and getting-to-know-you. Then the subject of an amphitheater in town came up. It was being restored, and they hoped we could see it, though they joked it might mean “breaking in.” Well, we drove across town, and the place was indeed locked up. To my surprise, we actually did break in. At the encouragement of the others, Andrea, Heather, David and I climbed over an eight-foot wall and walked about the amphitheatre. It was heavily under (re)construction, with a giant, net-covered scaffolding in front of the yawning proscenium arch, but you could see how wonderful it would be. On the way back to Orvieto, after goodbyes to our new friends, we fantasized about Aquapendente’s first annual Shakespeare festival opening with our clown production of Romeo & Juliet, or Measure for Measure.

The day ended quietly, with we three opting to make a dinner of leftovers back at home base after dropping Andrea off. Night settles on slowly now, for a change, and with utterly allergic sinuses but completely fulfilled heart and stomach, I’m off to read Coarse Acting until I fall into increasingly vivid dreams.

ITALIA: June 16, 2007

We’ve had a couple of amazing days working and playing here, but I’m also losing a lot of endurance for the unfamiliarity and somewhat self-imposed isolation. It’s very difficult for me to feel I’m contributing anything when I’m so terrible with the language. I didn’t fully appreciate all the contact I had with our American studenti last year, and the way that made me feel more valuable to the experience as a whole. It’s going to be particularly difficult once Todd flies back this Monday. I don’t speak the language, Heather is much better with it but lacks confidence and David often has trouble hearing what people say. What exactly we’re going to do, I don’t know. I have to confess that I have contemplated trading my ticket with Todd if he were willing to do (capable of doing) what is necessary to stay.

The lesson for next time is to really work on my Italian. That’s the primary difficulty. Though my shyness is moderate, in Italy the desire to connect is much stronger, and if I can break past the language barrier my enthusiasm will undoubtedly carry me through any timidity I might otherwise have in new social situations in my native land.

Thursday began with a business proposition from our friend Piero, head of marketing at LinguaSi. He had a very strong proposition to essentially host Zuppa del Giorno through LinguaSi, establishing a separate association and including courses through the school that we would teach in a sort of high school, period structure, for LinguaSi’s students from all over the world. It was all very appealing—in some ways exactly what we’ve been hoping for—but there remain a great many considerations to be made and discussions with our other Italian contacts to be had.

Later we met with Andrea at Teatro Communale Porano to show each other what we do. As is by now to be expected, from the first moment there we were blown away by the environment. The theatre itself was not nearly as impressively beautiful as Teatro Boni; in fact it fairly closely resembled a little regional theatre in America. Then Andrea pulled back the curtain that ran along the back of the stage, and there was a fresco covering the entire wall up to the roof. It turns out the theatre was formerly a church. All that was left exposed were the wooden roof beams, a huge entrance door and that marvelously surprising fresco.

We presented the Valentino excerpt from Silent Lives, sans rehearsal. It went fine, all things considered. Andrea responded very well, but it has also been agreed since then that our timing and listening were strange after so long away. Not bad, per se—maybe just quirky. One of the benefits of performing this piece again was that—finally—thanks to my investment in my shiny red camera we have a little video of what we do. The quality is far from great, but it’s great to be able to watch what we’ve done to represent our work of the past three years. Afterward, Andrea presented a portion of a solo piece he’s performed for years: an encapsulation of the movie The Ten Commandments. It was absolutely charming, and afterward there was much discussion of how to bring Silent Lives over next year, and Andrea to The Northeast Theatre.

Thereafter it was off to il lago di Bolsena for the first time since our arrival (a favorite spot of repose last year). A gorgeous, huge volcanic lake, it was cold. Last year we had been there just a week later and the water was wonderfully temperate. In spite of the chill, David, Todd and I plunged in (well, I waded). It was great, once my body numbed itself a bit. A short drive later we had an amazing meal at a chance restaurant in nearby Montefiascone, and for surprisingly little Euro. I drove home as my friends dozed, enjoying the freedom of a little car on long, hilly Italian roads.

Friday was our day in Rome, to meet Sebastiano (a.k.a. “Romano”), another actor and a friend of Piero’s. He met us at Termini, the train station in Rome, which was a bit like meeting us on our doorstep for breakfast, as we all slept on the train. He is, in many ways, what I might have expected of a Roman actor. We all went to lunch at a place of his choosing (where they were accustomed to tourists, which is at once relieving and entertaining for me—they say things like “would you like water with gas?”—definitely a far better gaffe than some of the ones I’ve made in their language) and while we were there, a man on moped crashed right outside the door trying to avoid a young girl. American girl, of course. Everyone was fine, but it was startling. It perhaps also set the tone for the meeting. There was a lot of kvetching about how hard it is to be an actor in the big city. It’s nice to know some difficulties are not exclusively American.

We spent the rest of the day until our 20:00 train back to Orvieto sight-seeing. Sebastiano joined us for Dumo de San Petro (where Michelangelo’s Moses and the chains that bound Saint Peter are to be found) then departed for an appointment. The rest of our tourism was something of a disappointment. It was muggy, and some of us tired pretty quickly. We tried to see a commedia dell’arte puppet theatre Todd had discovered last trip, but it looked as though it were being torn down, and I did get to see my favorite place in Rome—Piazza Navona—but only as we charged through it to make our train. Todd remained in Rome overnight, of course (pazzo lupo that he is) and there’s yet another reason for learning Italian better. But the rest of us did have a good little meal at a pizza place where Orvieto’s furniculare lets off, and Heather and I stayed up a bit talking and watching the recording of our Valentino sketch.

Finally (I know you’ve been holding your breath [wait, are you still there?][hello?]), this morning we rose and Heather and I ran off to Orvieto to buy groceries and meet Todd’s train. It seems he ended up going to Sebastiano’s apartment and staying there, where he got a much more detailed (and increasingly positive) impression of the guy. We finally got more toilet paper (YAY!) and all settled in to a meal at a trattoria at the base of the winding dirt road from our agriturismo to the main road, which was splendid and cheap (yet again: YAY!). Andrea met us there and we ran over to Teatro Boni again to receive one of his workshops.

He brought his masks—amazing masks—and we spent three hours working our way into and learning how to effectively use them. We began by walking the space, getting into the feeling of our feet (a marvelous way to begin) and then imagining a specific environment of our choice to walk through. Mine became a vast, shallow, rocky river lined with trees. Once that was well-established, he asked us to choose an animal nature to occupy our environment. We lived a long time in that nature (mine, a beaver) before he asked us to bring it to our feet and interact. At this point we were almost our characters, and he set out the masks for us to discover in character. We all chose (I ended up with a Brighella mask—not entirely inappropriate for a beaver) and a tiny play of interaction developed. After a break, he assigned us masks, and we improvised a scene. Then we performed monologues as the various characters before calling the end of a working day. All in all, it was a lot of work, and very rewarding. We had planned on working in Andrea’s style with prop work as well, but there simply wasn’t enough time. Always our time is borrowed, always we steal some more.

The rest of the evening was pretty amazing too. First we drove to San Angelo to try and track down David’s friend, Mauro. He wasn’t around, and we had many interactions with locals to determine this. We spent a total of about twenty minutes walking around the town. We passed the house of a woman David had told us about last year. She had been the local priest’s mistress for years. When he died, the town chose to ignore her connection, and refused her any of his property. In response, she “went crazy” and began collecting all the wild cats to her apartment. When we were walking, we turned one corner and suddenly we were surrounded by all different manner of cats, and we knew where we were. Also in that time, a local man approached us and tried to give us the keys to Mauro’s apartment, assuming after word got around we were American tourists he had rented it to. Finally, upon leaving the town, we were approached by another man, who explained without prompting that Mauro and his wife had left town at around 2:30 to buy some meat. Google’s got nothing on a small Italian town.

Unsuccessful in our attempt to contact Mauro, we headed to nearby Rocolvecchi, the town that was the inspiration for our first show as Zuppa del Giorno, Noble Aspirations. It was meant to just be a quick nostalgia trip, but on our way by the local church we heard amazing music. We stepped inside and received a free, hour-long choral concert that was just amazing. I believe it was some sort of arrangement of medieval music, and it was thrillingly beautiful. Thereafter we were off to Civita di Bagnoregio, where we had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, overlooking the ancient city on a hill, before ascending to walk the city late at night. That’s a whole new kind of stillness, right there. We rather disturbed it for a little while, as Todd and I gave in to some fantasies and climbed a thing or two we really weren’t meant to climb. It was worth it. Risk is always worth it.

But Mom, I've Got, Like, a Gagillion Hours of Homework...

Keeping with the theme of assignments (see

6/4/07

), today I write to you, most dear reader, about some of the behind-the-scenes work of creating a show from scratch. This, I realize, imperils my ratings (

kicking people in the head

and complaining about

irrepressible sexual urges

, for some unfathomable reason, gets more readership) but it is more in keeping with the purpose of this here 'blog and so I heedlessly hurry onward.

The thing about (okay: only one of the many things about) creating one's own work in a theatrical context is that--at least at the no-to-low-paying level--the creator has to do a lot of work outside the collaborative setting of a kind he or she wouldn't otherwise be doing. I mean, if I'm working on, say,

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

(a totally random example, and not at all a play I am performing voodoo rituals in the hope of being cast in), I will do plenty of work outside of rehearsal. There's the simple line memorization, reading up on the backgrounds of Stoppard, Hamlet, late-1960s theatre, Denmark, absurdism, determinism, Shakespeare, etc., working on any tricks or skills the director may want included, dialect training . . . it goes on and on. A good actor becomes obsessed with his or her role and the world of the play for the time he or she is working on it, and does it all to more thoroughly incorporate his or her self into it all. (Man, but I hate the standing rule about not using "them" or "they" to refer to male or female hypothetical persons. He's got the right idea over at

xkcd

.)

(Parenthetically, [this is the most parenthetical parenthetical

ever

{my boss insists on doing this in her letters: saying "Parenthetically," at the start of something

in parentheses

, no matter how many times I point out it's redundant, and I deserve a medal or ribbon or something for not throwing my keyboard at her head}] I have a giant tape X on my lumbar region today, applied by my physical therapist to remind me to sit up straight and bend--if I absolutely

must

--from the hips. I consider this some kind of oblique revenge by

Anton Chekhov

from beyond the grave for

this post

. Plus it's a sign that my body will actually explode this Saturday when I turn thirty. Parenthetically.)

When you are responsible for building the show from the ground up, however, homework takes on all-new, mammoth proportions. The best example of this I have, to date, is the period of weeks leading up to

Zuppa del Giorno

's debut of

Silent Lives

.

Friend Grey

was directing, and we were all pretty obsessed with the subject matter--silent film characters and actors--so it didn't take much to motivate us to spend all our time building that one. Yet somehow Grey managed to motivate us to spend literally every waking hour working on the show. I mean, we just never stopped. Sleep was watching silent films. Eating was learning the bread dance from Arbuckle cum Chaplin cum

Downey Jr.

and

Depp

(Brits: Please don't censor me for my use of "cum" in this context). It was, to borrow a term, ridonkulous.

As Far As We Know

is not that bad. In fact, we often eat and drink during our table sessions, so it's like the opposite. Except for the assignments, which are

hard

and just keep getting

harder

. I have written about these on past occasion (see

2/28/07

-

3/1/07

) and this last, due by early Saturday, is no exception. The assignment, as comprehended by me, is as follows:

We've been given a bunch of material. Using this material (act one of three and numerous transcripts of interviews with people from Matt's hometown and people of related significance), 1) rewrite or create a new scene far act one, or 2) create a stage "moment" with a piece of text from the interviews, or 3) present your character in an impossible situation, or 4) all of the above.

Now, this kind of assignment is how a great deal of the play got created in the first place, with even less to go on. Sometimes these assignments would be assigned in rehearsal, with ten minutes provided for a group to pull something together. I like working this way. Parameters are fun for me (I like the crunching noise they make as I break them, to paraphrase Douglas Adams). Yet somehow I always stress about these

Joint Stock

/

unCommon Cause

assignments. One I stayed up until two in the morning working on one, blasting

Damien Rice

(like that's a bad thing) and practicing punching holes in paper with my finger. It's a measure, I believe, of how high an esteem I hold my fellow collaborators in. They're all such skilled

and

talented actors and writers and directors that I feel a need to rise to their level, and that feeling is most poignant the night before a presentation.

This one's going in a funny direction for me so far, possibly because it lacks some of the specific parameters the prior ones have featured. I had an initial idea: to explore the similarities between my character (the captured soldier) and

Sara Bakker

's (the casualty assistance officer who ministers to his family). But I didn't then set to an examination of their particular scenes, or even rumination on their respective characteristics. Instead, I got fascinated with this idea of

re

writing a scene that we already had. I began to wonder how the play would read if I had been writing it by myself all along. (The answer, it seems to me, is that it wouldn't read, at least not particularly well. I couldn't have gotten more than few steps with this material by myself, and don't excel at writing naturalistic dialogue.) So what I started doing, quite unintentionally at first, was underlining any dialogue that--out of context--directly addressed the experience of the captured soldier or his family and town.

I have NO idea what I'm going to do with this yet. I have some vague notions involving gathering all these fragments together, finding appropriate music (always my favorite element of the assignments) and perhaps drawing more connections between Sara's character and my own. And that's about it. Tonight, I will sit quietly and let my mind stretch and wander over the raw material, and see what happens. Laundry will be done as well, and packing for Italy. Somehow mundane chores always help with idea flow.

And hopefully, by 2:00 AM, I'll be making props out of defunct coat hangers and leftover moving boxes. This, in the mind of a "

creactor

," is the image of a perfect sort of evening. I'm looking forward to it.