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So, I’ve fallen down in terms of updating this blog, but I’ve yet been busy seeing shows and thought I’d just summarize what’s been going on.

Went and saw Valparaiso at convergence. It was great. I was talking with Clyde about the show and he remarked how much the main character’s identity was defined by those around him and the malleable nature of this particular character (as a sort of ‘new’ Everyman).  With this in mind I watched the show carefully and indeed picked up on the commentary that Delillo was making on how empty and soulless some people nowadays can be with their lust for fame and desire for sycophants to cuddle their knees.  In this show the main character becomes famous after getting on a flight for Valparaiso, Indiana and ending up in Valparaiso, Chile.  The fame is unearned. Through endless re-telling of a vapid tale, the character mythologizes himself (in an empty myth).  The character becomes whatever those around him want him to be. His wife cheats on him. And in the end we learn that he was actually attempting to kill himself in the airplane bathroom on the flight to Valparaiso. (An act which can variously be seen as the ultimate narcissistic action or the greatest act of self-nullification.)  There was section of talkshow and audience interaction which I enjoyed, especially as my own show Patterns at CPT used the talkshow as a vehicle for both character and audience engagement.

Next I saw Fever Dream at CPT.  I wasn’t that crazy about the script that Sheila Callaghan put out there and was much more impressed with Crumble (Lay me down Justin Timberlake).  I think it was likely a very difficult play to adapt from the original, with which I am only familiar by having read about.  There were moments in the play that were truly absurd and with a high-potential for strangeness; and then there were other sections where the impulse to create this naturalistic, highly elaborate plot-driven  hulking thing took over that bogged the rest of the strangeness down.  I thought Beth Wood did a fantastic job mixing the tempo, especially with the sections of Callaghan’s script that sort of lumbered along. The choreographed sections were wonderful and the design of the set was stunning and something to see.  Beth clearly encouraged the actors to play with what was possible in the space and move freely, actively, and daringly around it (given some of the things that individuals did).  Despite the periodic clunkiness of the script, I had a fine time at the show.

The Excavation at Theatre Ninjas was the highlight of the shows that I saw.  All around this show I heard from other playwrights, and even my wife who infrequently gets to theatre, that The Excavation is what theater should be.  It was the vanguard of non-linear storytelling, with each “scene” offering up 1) 3 individual scenes from which you could select and 2) having time enough to see two of the individual scenes before the “scene” shifted and the play moved forward.  This fact alone created a possibility for seeing the same play but experiencing it in dozens of different combinations each time.  The play, additionally, highly encouraged inquiry and self-directed engagement (a la museum). I regret, of course, only seeing it one time as clearly there were many, many different ways of seeing this play and many, many different experiences that could be had.  The play was highly interactive, on all fronts.  From the obvious breaking of the fourth wall and potential for direct engagement with the audience/actor; to very direct engagement during the Roman orgy, in which everyone in the space is encouraged to join in and dance, raise hell, drink beer, and so on; to various experiments and “excavations” that are occurring throughout.  In one sequence a “little girl” took myself and another theater-goer to a strange, small space where we had to hide from giants, eat snacks, draw with crayons, and generally “pretend.”  This is something I’m used to, having kids at home, but for those who do not this side trip had to be a blast back to a time when we used our own mind for entertainment and relied much less on the gadgets and devices that seem to clutter our lives nowadays.  Hats off to Jeremy Paul on this piece, because it was fantastic.

After The Excavation my wife and I went to the Vaudevillian Throwdown at Speakeasy, which was another piece of glory in a wonderful Cleveland night.  The two performances were by Pinch and Squeal, doing their very droll burlesque skits and routines (see photo above); followed by Sabrina Chap, who is a magnificent talent and whose music I immediately purchased of iTunes and have been enjoying since.

I even got to meet her and buy her a drink, which was quite an honor as far as I’m concerned.  I also picked up her book, Live Through This: on Creativity and Self-Destruction, which I’m looking forward to digging into soon.

In the mean time, I’ve started writing again and have a few pieces in the hopper. I’ve started helping out with the CPT slush pile. And finally I’ve got a meeting coming up next week to explore a new direction that I hope to go with some others that should be quite exciting!

Was watching an interview/discussion with Austin Pendleton on Theater Talk. It is a wonderful interview with plenty of insight into acting, directing, and theater relationships. Pendleton was talking about his upcoming productions of both Three Sisters and Detroit. Detroit is on the cover of American Theatre, either this month or last month, including the full text of the play. With Three Sisters I can only think of the Wooster Group production and Willem Dafoe speaking in his wispy, mellow way.

Anyway, the other night I was watching Zoldessy choreograph the movements of the actors in the East Storefront. He kept having them move and the he’d stop and think about it for a bit and then he’d talk about it and then he’d have everyone go back and run through the movement again. Zoldessy must have spend :30 minutes or :40 minutes on a page-and-a-half of the play, and I could tell the actors were getting antsy and there were only 10 pages left in the play and the hour was getting late, etc.

It was at this moment that I remembered the interview with Pendleton. In that interview he recounted how Jerome Robbins, during a 1964 production of Fiddler on the Roof spent 6 hours staging and re-staging a scene that was all of 5 minutes on stage. Now, Robbins could get away with it because he had paid actors who were acting as their job. Nonetheless, Robbins was, according to Pendleton, very committed to telling the story, that is, making the reality of the characters and their relationships truthful and real. The 5 minute scene was the family preparing for the Sabbath, and Robbins felt that the scene showed relationships and established character and was important enough to examine and block again and again until it was just right.

Pendleton then talked about his first gig as a director and how he blocked out the whole play in his mind. And then, with some other play that he was directing he didn’t get the chance to do that and felt awful about it, and unprepared, but, to his chagrin, discovered an organic approach, what he referred to as “expressive blocking.” Pendleton felt that this kind of experimenting is important and characterized it as working with clay, but you’re working with actors. And once the actors are interacting you begin to see things.

Jarod and I were at Happy Dog the other day talking about how much Zoldessy is bringing out in the play that is not apparent in the text, and much of this has to do with this process.

Pendleton also attributed a heuristic to Kazan, I think, that when it comes to successfully staging a play that it’s 80% casting, and 18% the ground plan: a ground plan that is expressive of the story.

Pendleton also talked about approaches to directing actors, including spending a certain amount of time at the table discussing the scene. What’s the event in the scene that moves the story forward. How are things different at the end of this scene than they were at the outset. Very traditional in that respect.