OK, people…

I would like to propose a way forward; not in product, but in process.

Not that there’s anything wrong with talking about product(ions). That should continue, I think, and must. But speaking just for myself, there’s always a sharp disjunction between what I think about potential productions and what i do when I’m engaged in a creative process. Often it’s not a disjunction as much as it is an antagonism. Mutual destruction is ensured in such a case, leaving me just staring off into space while waiting for sleep. For me, talking about the kind of work I’d like to do is often an exercise in egoaggrandizement, an attempt at self-justification through asserting some high-falutin’ critical and academic sensibility. To exploit my jargon, it’s indulging in an imaginary mode of reflection: how do I see myself, how do others see me, how do I want to see myself, how should someone my age be seen, etc. Once shoulds enter the picture they usually turn monstrous and omnivorous; next thing I know they are chasing me down like wild dogs.

Process, on the other hand, is very forgiving. It meets me where I am. It respects limitations. It breathes with me. It patiently teaches and offers reasonable rewards. I’m tempted to use my experience working on Coriolanus as an example, but the experience is too recent and we have many mixed feelings. I’ll just say it was a process experience that got me through and kept me fairly even tempered (for me) in the midst of a frustrating schedule. I didn’t worry about the product too much because my process kept me absorbed and distracted (in a good way).

Let’s give ourselves a rewarding and satisfying life while we wait for the “right one” to come along. If you know what I mean. No need to cloister ourselves.

Here’s my proposal. We open up a page on this site for ongoing creative contributions and exchanges. Wednesdays, I will open up the Newnan School of Dance at 6:30 for whoever wishes to gather and explore. That’s it. No pressure. You do not have to come on Wednesdays expecting to “act, perform, improvise,” etc. Just talking and observing is fine. Let your own thoughts of process lead you.

This may lead us to having several “irons in the fire.” Why not? Several works in progress? Experiments? A series of variations? Scripts? Other performance ideas? We each lean in with whatever process and sensibility fits us. Speaking for myself, again, there may be times when I feel so beset with thoughts of product and the burden of my own unrealized aspirations that spending a Wednesday absorbed in playing around in someone else’s ideas would be just the thing. To just engage in a process with no concern for my own future ambitions would be a welcome opportunity.

If we want to use Vyew as an annex for our online sharing, great. We will need to be reminded of passwords and names and such. As for our forum on this site, new page? or new post? Thoughts?

My one suggestion for our online work: avoid creating the illusion of human interaction and favor other encounters.

The Art of Being Off-Task

I’m not trying to derail the progress of the scene breakdown. I was cleaning a room and got distracted. Maybe this is more appropriate for the Lichtenbergian site since it represents divided attention; I don’t know. It does touch on theatre art, however, so…

I wrote a speculative little thing a while ago in which I tried, yet again, to synthesize two of my interests: performance and psychoanalysis. Yes, I know; I’m pretty predictable, but don’t begin chanting the Te Dium just yet. And no pained sideways glances. Have a look at it and see what you make of it.

I’m not much interested in being asked questions beginning with What did you mean by…. or entertaining editorial observations; as exposition and improvisation, it is what it is. Rather,I think there are occasional passages I’m quite proud of because of the way they articulate some pretty arcane Lacan concepts in everyday language. Also, I want to inspire new thinking on performance issues. To my mind, nothing I’ve offered is shattering original, just another stirring up of the familiar into a slightly unfamiliar brew.

Useful for Coriolanus? Not a bad question. It’s not my agenda in encouraging you to read it, but if it inspires, why not. Too eccentric? We can only hope.

No Dead Artists

In the midst of my daily reading, I noticed a link reading “Artists who died in 2007”. Given recent debates on the subject of art, I gleefully clicked away hoping to find more grist for the mill. Much to my dismay, a quick perusal revealed disclaiming language referring to the contents as “…the artists, entertainers and pop culture figures who died in 2007.”

Given the additional categorization, I quickly lost interest. Instead, I pose the following, far more interesting question (to be answered by more interesting people): “Who are your candidates for a list of top 5 living artists?” Inclusion may be based on any number of factors:

  • the quantity of produced product qualifying (in the nominator’s eye) as art
  • the overall percentage or product qualifying as art
  • their production of art (however infrequently) that is so moving, earthshattering, trancendant, or whatever that it bears inclusion
  • some criteria far less mundane than those presented here

I dare not define for each of you either what qualifies as art or encourages your inclusion of the artist. Rather I challenge you to present your respective lists, and more importantly, explain your choices. If you are feeling particularly chippy, provide a themed list…

What do you want of me?: Improvisation Suggestions

Let me try to lay out the structures for improvisation and then, afterwards, offer some variations and comments.

For two performers: A and B are the participants. B’s constant objective is to question A with some form of: What do you want of me? A has the opportunity to make any demands of B he or she wishes. B is to comply willingly. A decides when this first phase is complete. In the next phase, A’s objective is to ask of B: What do you want of me? B, then, has the opportunity to demand anything of A. B decides when this phase is complete.

That’s it. It is meant to be simple and lean. The intrigue lies in how the exercise is taken up by the participants and in the variations possible. Before exploring variations, have participants simply execute the exercise as it appears above. Discourage questions beforehand; the participants should be referred back to the instructions as an answer to all of their questions.

Continue reading “What do you want of me?: Improvisation Suggestions”

Please Attach to Previous Post

Dear Reader, I know these posts take as much of a toll on you as they do on me. I need to be cleaning house, but composing the previous post got me to thinking and now I have to post a note if for no other reason than to scratch a sign that new thoughts have entered the picture.

First point. A quick bit of retrospection has led me to confirm that pretty much all of my thinking and writing about theatre matters is an attempt to translate my psychoanalytic study into theatrical enthusiasms. One past feeding a deeper past as I keep dragging everything into an indifferent present. I nuture a comic book fantasy engendered by, no surprise, a play. Don DeLillo’s play The Day Room is in part about a mythical theatre company led by an enigmatic impresario named Arno Klein. The tales and legends spun out about the effect of the company’s work are quite fantastical and legendary. And infective if you are a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind set and already taken with the work of KRAKEN and other groups. Guilty as charged. All of my efforts over the past few years nurture a silly little notion of a company doing radically new work because influenced in part by radical psychoanalytic principles. So I write out my ideas for this imaginary company. I’m at peace with that.

Second point. In my previous post I neglected an element which will become crucial. I am not paying enough attention to the Imaginary Dyad as I sputter on about systems of meaning and signifying chains and formulas. It’s as if I want to deny the basic necessity for the Imaginary Dyad in theatrical matters instead of granting its priviledged place at every level. There is a fundamental “two-ness” in performance which you can’t escape and which shapes all meaning. It’s called Imaginary because it builds on the image of what is out there and our relationship to it. Pretty basic in theatrical issues: me-you, he-she, actor-audience, the observer-the observed, agent-object, “who am I to you and who are you to me?”, etc. It’s an interesting structure because it is so easily reversible: actor can become audience and audience can become actor through one fundamental flip (theoretically). And what occured to me was that members of a group trying to improvise in some radical psychoanalytic way need to understand the Audience as deeply as they understand themselves. In the Imaginary Dyad, performer can be audience and audience performer. You have to find ways to understand what the audience “wants” by understanding what you, the performer, want, and visa versa. So as I continue to think about putting together formulas, I’m also thinking about exercises and strategies which address the Imaginary dimension of the actor-audience relationship. And now my question is: how kinky is too kinky?

The Word is the Murder of the Thing: putting names to stuff we’re already doing

Two excerpts from the GHP Lab Manual. They might have a contribution to make. I don’t know HTML and so can’t fix font issues; maybe they work themselves out.

TOOLS: Making a move out of the frying pan: acts and in(ter)ventions

When the group is working in the Clearing, anything can happen. Define anything? What follows are suggestions for how one might begin to show something or to intervene in the work of others using a piece of text or through invention. These are terms to provoke thought and investigation. If a word does not lead you anywhere, the Oxford English Dictionary is an excellent help. Continue reading “The Word is the Murder of the Thing: putting names to stuff we’re already doing”

Comments on The Art of Telling the Truth

These are comments Marc made originally in response to the post on our first meeting. They are important for working on our assignment for the 4/28/06 meeting.

On THE ART OF TELLING THE TRUTH. I want us to produce an evening (coffee house-ish, readings-ish) with the above ironic title and based on our work with that exercise. Last night has inspired me to try and create one (prepared, not improvised) and to write some more about ways of using and developing the exercise. Continue reading “Comments on The Art of Telling the Truth”

There’s room for all in Lacuna

The lacuna is what is missing (originally referring to a holein a manuscript). Those who churn out texts on our site create the possibility for a lacuna, but it is the silent hole in the midst of the babbling texts which is the lacuna. It takes both to make the lacuna, the text and the absence. To withhold words is to be in the lacuna, and perhaps closer to the heart of the mystery. There’s a work ethic implied here, I think; in fact, I’ve seen it at work in many instances of creative collaboration. Presence and absence are both necessary to create the mystery of collaboration: one person may define the possibility of a hole by revealing a boundarywhile another personis actually part of the substance of the gap (if a gap has a substance–maybe you can “take up residence in the gap”).Holding eitherposition implies astrategy and an approach, as does the possibility of moving from presence to absence and back.

Writing and reading (and acting and speaking) are ways of responding to the lacuna in ourselves as we find a new lacuna in our midst…grasshopper.