First work session. In attendance: Dale, Marc, Galen, Jeff B., Greg, Dan, Kevin. (Jeff A. and Matthew were both working.)
Dale taped up a sheet and drew a floorplan of the Greenville St Park performance area. The raised brick platform is about 40 feet across and basically 9 feet deep. There are stairs SL, and an L-shaped ramp SR. In front of the platform is a 4-foot wide swatch with shrubberies, and then a 5-foot-wide sidewalk.
There is a large green space (with drains C, L, & R), followed by a second and third tier of green.
We discussed our options with the space. The City has already said that we cannot build steps to bridge the sidewalk to the platform over the shrubbery (although we’re not sure they understood we meant a temporary structure). We’re probably going to perform mostly in the lower green space, three-quarter thrust.
We discussed our personnel. We still need a few good men. Dale will submit a PR release for the paper which invites interested men to join us.
We began to read through the play. We read through Act I and most of Act II. Galen and Kevin had to leave for prior commitments, and we began to summarize some parts and read others.
We decided that we would play with the script for at least another week before making final casting decisions.
We broke for lunch, and then afterwards we got on our feet and played with some staging ideas. We’re leaning heavily towards staffs as weapons/set pieces.
As an opening, Marc suggested a dumbshow/tableau: two figures (Cor. and Auf.) below, with a frieze of warriors behind them. That developed into drummed accompaniment, with Cor. & Auf. battling in stylized slow motion, while behind them the warriors strike poses with shouts. Finally, the godlike warriors break into the clumsy, malleable mob of scene 1 and sweep down the ramp to begin the play. An idea to play with, score, and choreograph.
We ran through I.1, up through Cor.’s entrance and commented on the dynamics. The whole play is a game of political strategy, and only Cor. is too “pure” to play it. Everyone else is, as Marc put it, constantly getting ready for the next battle.
Other ideas that floated about: the missing father, every character telling the truth, the homoerotic undertones.
Next session is Wednesday, Aug. 20, 7:00, Newnan School of Dance. We’re going to look at I.2 and IV.6, plus whatever else pops up. We’ll still be playing with the text, still holding off on casting decisions.
My presence on this Wednesday is still being negotiated (I’m not optimistic), but no reason not to go forward with I,iii. Volumnia is fun to read/play and we are, as Dale mentioned, holding off on final role assignments.
On a nostalgic note, it was good fun to reunite with former colleagues.
On some of the joys and pitfalls of the collaborative approach. Joys: ideas were flying at a fast and furious rate and from all present; it’s very inspiring when that happens and makes for a depth of very rich layers as the work is brought together. Pitfalls: I try to say everything that comes into my head in response to the work, and at one point a run-through of a scene inspired me to begin ruminating and associating in a manner which, I regret, was interpreted by an actor as “It’s our first rehearsal and you should know the lines…” Certainly not what I meant. We are always going to be ahead of the curve with how the work inspires us and how we respond, while meat and potatoes mechanisms like getting words will run at another pace. All we can do is laugh at ourselves in the perpetual disjunction. When we collaborate like this, we have to forgive ourselves ahead of time. Sorry to make anyone feel put on the spot.
Might this be worth looking into?
http://www.times-herald.com/Local/Offshoot-Productions-to-empty-warehouse-of-set-pieces–props–527255
I just re-read the post–did we say 1.2 (Aufidius & the Volscians) or 1.3 (Mommy at home)? I’m thinking it was 1.3, not 1.2.
Oh well, we can do both.
In other news, if you go to the online text linked on the Coriolanus page here, you can click on a character’s name and get all that character’s lines, with cue lines. In other words, sides.
Of course, it’s an open source edition, so it’s going to diverge occasionally from the edited texts we have in print.