I have my own private little sweat lodge in which try sometimes to write plays. Usually I wind up turning the sweat lodge into an outhouse and that’s that. My block has a lot to do with very severe expectations I place upon my efforts (which I think is a sign, ultimately, of shallowness–it doesn’t hurt so much after I accuse myself of it). Samuel Beckett didn’t start writing plays and cause everyone else to give up, obviously. There are a lot of occupied sweat lodges out there. But I am preoccupied with Beckett’s work as a kind of terminus in the drama. Through a meticulous scoring, through both restraining and exercising a facile bardic tongue, he crafted acts which choked the theatre into speaking about what lies at our limits (got to go beyond Godot folks, as great as it is; read the later shorter stuff where the voice begins to leave the body). In my shallowness and awe, I cannot find a way forward. My current idea for a play is a terrifying construction of the nothing that’s not happening and won’t happen any time soon. If you seek release from the pain of life through psychiatric institutionalization, ask me to describe what I want to write about. I won’t be able to tell you, but I’ll drive you nuts with the ways I can not talk about it. Continue reading “Scripting the Unscriptable”
Month: April 2006
The Vocal Sequence
Please read what follows. I didn’t write it.
“This is designed as a structure for searching with the voice, searching out the possibilities of the voice. The body will be instinctively involved, organically, that is unavoidable, and the voice can originate nowhere else but in the body, propelled by it and propelling. The rapidity with which it should eventually be done and the rhythmic play of it should eliminate interferences that come from wondering which comes first, voice or body, the emphasis is on the voice as body language.
The Vocal Sequence, A postlude
I’m pouting. The first time I tried to create this post (ouch, uncorrected typo was “pose”), it was lost (yes, I “saved”). So I’m not inspired to re-write a useful little piece on vocal support and sound production. Suffice to say, to do this work safely, you support and vocalize like a singer. Pavarotti to his students (no lie): “you squeeze and push like with the bowel movement, yes?” I said beautiful things about the lightness and relaxation of the throat, and likened believing that one’s voice comes from the throat to believing in one’s Ego. Stop clutching at that notion. So when I’ve done other things and am no longer grumpy I’ll say more.
In the meantime, talk to a singer. It [the Vocal Sequence] should feel strange and “not me”-ish. We sometimes laugh at the way opera singers “speak” lines not set to music in a performance. But consider, you can hear them. If you want to play with frequency spread and find mixes which “carry,” you vary the speed of the air passing through your column (through pressure) and try bouncing the vector of sound off different surfaces in your sinuses and skull. Any master of stage performing is going to have some instinct for this approach if not a good deal explicit training. The Method and film acting have almost eclipsed the pleasures available within this sonic world (as far as mass consumption goes), but it still works because it involves the rudimentary physics of how to be heard in a space. Yes, I’m one of those who is reluctant to use miking in a production, except when you want to create mindblowing special effects–then I love it. But just to be heard? Please. Whenever you feel like pushing the throat to accomplish something, let that Frankie Goes to Hollywood song play in your head, you know the one, the disco sex manual from the Eighties (not Two Tribes).
Gathering Topics
Drunk with power from my new-found ability to post, I thought it might be fun to start another list. For this one, assume that Lacuna will meet on a recurring basis for two hours per “gathering”. Propose a topic that you think would be valuable and interesting for one or more of these gatherings. As long as we are speculating wildly, you may as well include who you believe should facilitate the topic. While volunteering yourself certainly increases the likelyhood that the event will actually transpire, it is by no means necessary.
Farce
I’m opening a space in which I want us to think about Farce. Part of this is my attempt to pick brains as I prepare for this summer. I want to offer something to the GHP Theatre minors called Farce Factory, an opportunity to write and produce short (and why not as short as five minutes) farces. My wager is that the students will have an appreciation of farce as a structure, and will “know it when they see it,” but they will lack an understaning of how difficult it is to construct. I could, in fact, propose that the ability to construct farce is on its way out as an imaginative capacity. If this is true, can it be resurrected? Or am I just going through the middle-aged pining for some non-existent golden age? Am I just focusing on my own agalma by recognizing something in my own appreciation for farce? Continue reading “Farce”
Marc’s Repry
I’m reposting this from the email because I don’t want it to get lost in email history. It bears consideration and discussion here on the blog.
Marc says:
Noel knows I don’t know what I’m saying half the time, myself. And yet, I go on (Beckett). I cannot keep counsel (Shakespeare). Noel, you complete me (Cruise). You find the meaning I lack.
So one way for me to begin working on an idea is to propose an image which prompts a question. So these are questions prompted quite a while ago by local places and other such things. So listen, everybody, new work can grow out of seeing images and asking questions:
Why would an architecture student insist on designing nothing but impossible playgrounds? Continue reading “Marc’s Repry”
The original e-mail, once more…
Below is the first idle e-mail I sent to Dale and requested he distribute when I finally realized I had a crush on the Auntie Mame cast. I want to put it on the blog because it contains a very sober and simple expression of desires. It’s what’s real for me. Please remember the first e-mail as we go off on our tangents and to our extremes. For me it’s all sharing and it’s all performance and it’s all attempts to go to the extremes of thought and gesture to see what’s there. It’s how I play. But the seed of the group idea is in the text of the e-mail. That’s very real and realizable and doesn’t contradict anyone’s convictions (I hope). So I wrote this:
Dale knows I have a propensity for writing manic e-mails during my morning witching hour–you know: that period of caffeine fueled euphoria during which we believe our own press and that all things are possible; so I sent this to him first for comment and judicious distribution.
And now, if you are not put off by self-consciously baroque syntax, please continue and read the pitch. Continue reading “The original e-mail, once more…”
Marc’s handbook
In some other comment, Marc has mentioned the handbook he put together for his GHP students. I’ve been reading through it, it’s more like a textbook!, and beginning to work with him to edit it into a web-based document for our use. The more I read, the more excited I get about our potential as a theatre collaborative. Continue reading “Marc’s handbook”