Out of Order: some earlier posts and comments

 

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.

Briefly, for now, the keys for me are in the “existential categories.” [Ed. note: time, space, body, objects, and intersubjectivity]

[Ed. note: this paragraph belies Marc’s “briefly,” so I’m bracketing it. Important stuff, but not critical until you’ve thought about all this a bit. Skip it if you like and come back to it later.] These I stole from existential-phenomenological psychology and various methods it employs to do “qualitative research.” Language, itself, speaking itself, are not categories, their puzzling nature is “bracketed” or set aside and we assume a person can transparently relate a description of an event. The best modern playwrights, of course, factor in the troubling nature of language and recollection, but you don’t always have to. It’s a good creative exercise for unfolding the possibilities in dramatic communication. And the fact that the event might have happened but didn’t flirts with the whole question of longing or desire or regret (part of our emotional secret as we work with this kind of material; it will fuel the whole production).

Everybody, take a shot at the exercise. You can work in solitude. You need not improv it on demand. Soon I will publish some more suggestions as I continue to work with my own material, but for now—

TWO MAIN APPROACHES:

  1. Think of the event. Describe it. Go back over the description and do an analysis using the existential categories. Which ones did you feature? Which ones did you neglect? Add to your full description by working through the neglected elements. Did you attend to what your “body” was about in the description? What happens if you do? How did you interact with others (intersubjectivity)?
  2. Think of event (both of these approaches involve positing the event at the outset; you could describe your way toward the event, but that’s “more advanced,” I think, so try one of these approaches first) Write descriptions of the event, one for each existential category (one for time, space, body, object, and for intersubjectivity) You will have five texts. Then experiment with cutting and pasting; combine elements from your five texts into the final monologue.

Then, ONCE YOU HAVE TAKEN ONE OF THESE APPROACHES:

Think through how you want to perform your monologue (it’s still you speaking at this point) using the five existential categories; create descriptions based on this exploration, see if additional lines suggest themselves, add them to your piece.

For example, what additional lines might be inspired by your attending to the performance’s

  • time: “my speaking to the listener(s) is timeless; was that only three minutes?; I want to dwell a bit longer, to linger, over details”;
  • space: “the listener and I are alone in a room in my parents’ house; I’m sitting in an uncomfortable chair (body leaks in here)”;
  • body: “I feel insubstantial, all in my head”;
  • object: “why am I telling you this, the words are hard to say, but the image is enjoyable, I want to conjure something for the listener, but I’m afraid”; and
  • intersubjectivity: “the listener is an old friend but has never heard this story; I worry she will disapprove.”

How does thinking through this way make you want to add to or subtract from your monologue? Does it influence choice of word or detail? Re-work. As you re-write you are also doing your actor’s homework.

I’m going to try to compose one using method two by the time of our next meeting. I have to be out of town, but I’ll try to send the text along.

Some masterpieces of recollection in which you are unsure of the status of the recollector, i.e., is he/she remembering it correctly or even telling the truth: Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape; Pinter’s Old Times and Monologue; Shepard’s Killer’s Head.

8 Comments

  1. Turff wrote:

    The whole idea of “a memory that isn’t” is not all that foriegn. I like to consider myself an honest guy, but who hasn’t started telling a story (based on a real memory) only to realize in the telling that it isn’t all that fascinating after all. Have you ever expanded on what you remember? Have you ever adopted these embellishments back in to your actual memory of the event?

    It would be interesting to have several folks tell their own versions of the same event that might have happened (but didn’t) in documentary fashion. One approach could involve tellings that reflect different recollections (none of them truly accurate) on the same event by different witnesses/participants. Another approach would be to have different players act the role of the same participant, but with tellings representing the evolution of the memory over time.

    Thursday, April 20, 2006 at 12:30 pm | Permalink

  2. marc wrote:

    I like Turff’s variations. Also makes me think of Rashomon (play and movie). Lots of variations possible.

    Thursday, April 20, 2006 at 12:52 pm | Permalink

  3. Dale wrote:

    This has nothing to do with anything, but I think it’s interesting that when I think about working on this assignment, I think about getting my notebook and writing in it. It has not occurred to me to use my laptop; in fact, it seems unnatural.

    Marc will say something about the scratching out and revision, the pentimento of the physical act of writing. He may be right.

    Friday, April 21, 2006 at 6:32 am | Permalink

  4. marc wrote:

    I, too, had the pen and paper itch on this one.

    I was struck by how the questionable nature of “truth” was primary for some. The exercise was born out of the more mundane notion that writers “make things up.” But with the ironic title, clearly it invites wider pondering. I love saying to the GHP kids, “You’re actors; you’re liars.”

    It’s killing me that I can’t clear my plate and wrap myself up in working on this.

    On the physical act of writing, don’t get me started. One of the elements in the Vocal Sequence is the Ideograph. If we look at the history of writing and alphabets and language, we find that the ideographs preceded the letters—the mark or inscription defined a cluster of notions. And was the mark a way of cutting a precise channel in the body, a way of rendering a particular bodily feeling to ground the lived meaning? Germanic children learned the runes by adopting body postures. Consider the cross as an ideograph, or the priest’s postures during Mass or what was the true heart of DelSarte.

    In an otherwise forgettable production of Romeo and Juliet I watched recently with some Northgate animals at the Performing Arts Center, at the moment of accepting the future possibility of death in the unfolding of her plan, Juliet was in a cold single spot at the front of the stage; she extended her arms at her side, not in a full cross, more at 45 degrees than 90, palms facing the audience, her look directed slightly above the audience (I’m too lazy to look up the closing couplet of the speech). But it was chilling. It was beautiful. The production was full of this frenetic “playerly” energy for the most part, but at that moment ideograph and moment and word lined up perfectly, all play stopped and boom there was the full event in a nutshell. No need to continue. The production, alas, did continue.

    I put the mark down and I watch it cutting a channel in me. What better way to render what never was.

    Friday, April 21, 2006 at 8:40 am | Permalink

  5. Dale wrote:

    In editing Marc’s comment above (paragraphs, Marc, paragraphs!) I thought it would be fun to link to some stuff about Delsarte. In searching, I came across this website: A New Alphabet: Embodiment, Language & Digital Literacy. I think there’s lots here to fuel our work no matter what we’re working on.

    Friday, April 21, 2006 at 10:09 am | Permalink

  6. Dale wrote:

    Hm. At the risk of feeding a monster, I have to point out Marc’s last line in his post:

    “I put the mark down.”

    Hm.

    Friday, April 21, 2006 at 10:11 am | Permalink

  7. marc wrote:

    We had to put our budgy down…

    Friday, April 21, 2006 at 4:52 pm | Permalink

  8. Dale wrote:

    Was it not well?

    Saturday, April 22, 2006 at 1:02 pm | Permalink

And another…

 

Meeting, 4/26/06

We met in the basement of Nan and Billy Newman. (Thanks, Newmans!)

After warmups, we dealt with some housekeeping:

  • Dale suggested that we commit to meeting at the Newmans until May 18, and that we continue to look for a more permanent, less invasive home. Marvel suggested the Newnan Hospital Fitness Center and offered to look into it. It was also suggested (later in the session) that we meet 7:00-9:00, for an earlier evening.
  • We discussed the hesitation of some Mame cast members to join Lacuna for fear that it was too “weird” or too “hard.” We’ll reach out to them. Come, join us.
  • We discussed the Contact Improvisation workshop being offered at Mary Frances’s dance studio. Dale encouraged everyone to attend: fears of not being “fit” enough were discounted, the whole idea being to find the tension and balance in any contact.
  • We decided to decide by next week whether we will offer a performance of our Telling the Truth memories before June.
  • Dale proposed devoting one session (or half of one session) soon to listening to William Blake’s Inn so that the group can make a final decision about working on it. Kim said she had tried to find it at bookstores but had been unsuccessful. Dale said he had asked Scott’s Bookstore to lay in some copies. (Ed. note: those copies are in.)

Having dealt with all that stuff, we worked on our Telling the Truth exercise. Everyone had worked on something and shared, and it was good stuff. Dale suggested, when the question arose of how to make them “better,” that we wait until Marc (who was in D.C.) returned to show us his methods of playing with text to worry about moving forward.

With about 30 minutes left in the session, Dale dragged out a box of scripts and asked people to go through an pick a scene for scene work, part of our acting 101 initiative. That was pretty unfocused.

For next week, continued work on Telling the Truth, plus William Blake’s Inn.

The floor is now open for discussion.


In attendance: Dale, Nan, Billy, William, Marvel, Melissa, Kim, Michael, and Kevin.

7 Comments

  1. Dale wrote:

    I accept full responsibility for the unfocused nature of the scene work section. I should have had scenes already selected and copied for people to peruse. My fault.

    While getting the minutes up this morning, it dawned on me that I need to go ahead and share William Blake’s Inn next week: I’ll be out on May 11, and May 18 is probably my last session until August. (That could change, but with graduation and GHP upon us, that’s my best estimate.) So prepare to be puzzled and maybe a little delighted next Thursday.

    Sunday, April 30, 2006 at 7:29 am | Permalink

  2. marc wrote:

    Re: Art of Telling the Truth.

    Tips:

    It’s a process-oriented approach, so as you work through the exercise you will find new possibilities and ideas. Be ready to follow a new trail and turn on a dime. You don’t have to write it through the way it will ultimately be performed.

    I decided upon my story. It was one short sentence.

    I took a sheet of paper and divided it into five sections: time, space (place), body, intersubjectivity, object.

    I thought through my event and wrote down descriptions in my five sections, in no particular order. Always asking myself, am I describing? Does it fit the category?

    Then I wrote descriptions in my five sections about *how* the monologue event might unfold. In no particular order. I speculated about who is addressing, who is being addressed, where, why, etc (it wound up being me and a touch of not me—in fact the telling of the tale had a certain touch of “could happen but didn’t” to it.

    Then I read through my sections and looked for ways to fuse the tale with the telling of the tale. What new words or images or events emerged? What got tossed? In what places did the rhythm of the telling take the place of a detail in the tale, for instance. Where did silence or ellipsis work better than words.

    Example: in contemplating all of these things, I decided there would be no pronouns. Then I decided, no, the pronouns are merely being witheld, as a differed gratification for the “listener.” No logical reason, just something about the “object” involved in the telling, something about intimacy and resignation.

    Only then did I decide to string my elements together in some kind of order, again guided by not only the needs of the story but also the “telling.”

    Remember, you are creating a performance event, not just composing a story. Someone will be speaking your words before an audience, and that is the event. What is the event?

    Sunday, April 30, 2006 at 5:07 pm | Permalink

  3. marc wrote:

    Regarding “weird” and “hard.”

    Someone tell me the easy and comfortable way to start an acting ensemble. I vote we do it that way.

    I only consider my private interests “weird” and “hard.” My interest in being a part of a acting group is probably no different from anyone else who is interested in such a thing. Everything I have written (and by writing too much I have aroused further suspicion, I fear) has re-stated that I am not trying to impose my “hard”ness and “weird”ness on anyone. I have been expressing some of the ways I play in this gathering of players. Read what I have written. I’ve been very transparent. I act. I enjoy doing shows. I have various enthusiasms. I enjoy finding ways to create. I’m one person writing from one point of view. If I can be odd and provoke or intrigue, goody. Who else wants to propose a game? Let’s do something that’s not hard and weird.

    At my first grade Christmas party, I pitched a temper tantrum because the kid who drew my name gave me some wooden beads strung on a dried wiry reed. Everyone but me got normal gifts. One of the moms at the party got me to quiet down by giving me an extra matchbox car she happened to have. I never did find out the kid’s ethnicity, religion, or the cultural significance of the gift…

    That was the first of a number of instances where I couldn’t encounter something due to a block in my ability to receive. I can count up the regrets and reasons for self-disgust since then.

    I have been lucky, however, to have overcome some of those blocks (and not in ways which involved drugs, strange religious practices, or marginalized sexual behavior—pretty boring really) and now I have nothing to loose. And I drink beer. And sing in the Sunday choir. And I cry at the Lincoln Memorial. And I have fond TV memories from the Golden Age of Wrestling.

    And the only reason I am responding explicitly to this matter is because it is being clung to as a way for some not to take the next step. Come on. And now to top it all off I’ve been indelicate. Another one that got away. And the lure has been snapped off the line this time, so no way to re-bait the hook. I shut up now, I promise.

    Sunday, April 30, 2006 at 9:01 pm | Permalink

  4. marc wrote:

    Suggestions on how to proceed with Art of Telling the Truth:

    1. We each compose a monologue using the process.

    2. We play with performing them for ourselves—by each of us performing our own and then swapping with others. As we go through this phase we observe ourselves and note what is interesting. Make observations, notes and discoveries. Everyone will have a different interpretation performing each monologue.

    Suggestions for protocol at this stage: a) everything created is perfect, no need to point out things we like or don’t like b)authors don’t need to explain or direct (any “do it this way”s should be contained in the final composition) c) let’s focus responses on what the thing (the monologue and/or its performance) causes you to think, feel, or do—let your questioning or explaining address that truth
    d) let diversity of style and approach and subject matter thrive
    e)let’s agree that all performing should be as natural an activity as drinking water and as disposable as the paper cup you drink from—no need to make issue of feeling vulnerable or exposed or judged, no need to get stressed by framing it elaborately—performing is just communicating, shaping thoughts and feelings

    3. Then we can begin to elaborate our work in ways suggested by Turff et al. Performing some of the tales? Altering features? “Deconstructing” some of the tales? Weaving two or more tales together in various ways. Playing with unfolding events, with variations and contradictions. As we learn one another’s pieces, we will begin to share “lines” and stories and notions we can play with, exploring the shared material: the paradoxes of truth, telling of truth, telling as art, art as truth, art as something other than telling the truth.

    4. Show Reflect Recapitulate. Compose our evening.

    Monday, May 1, 2006 at 8:04 am | Permalink

  5. Whitney wrote:

    I really wish I could have been there. Dale, if you have anything that can be sent via. email like a script I could be working on, then I am at your disposal. I will work on it and be prepared next meeting.

    Monday, May 1, 2006 at 2:15 pm | Permalink

  6. Dale wrote:

    I’ll take some time this week to pull together some scenes suitable for us, and then we can start over.

    Monday, May 1, 2006 at 4:52 pm | Permalink

  7. Dale wrote:

    Actually, I may not get that done, what with Beauty & the Beast and getting William Blake’s Inn ready.

    Wednesday, May 3, 2006 at 5:55 am | Permalink

Another…

 

Meeting, 5/4/06

We met again in the basement room of the Newmans.

We discussed Marc’s ideas about how our Telling the Truth exercises could be molded into a performance that would not be simply an evening of monologues. To wit:

  • Dale and Ginny could begin telling “The Charlotte Story,” and the audience can tell that each is, besides sharing it with the audience as a whole, giving a special wink and a nod to another person in the audience.
  • These “privileged listeners,” as Marc called them, might comment, might contradict, might share their version of the story.
  • Other stories might spring up, through revelation, contradiction, explanation. Lying might occur.
  • The audience begins to wonder how much of what we’re saying is true (which they would anyway), especially when other cast members begin to share their recollection of the “memories” being shared.

After some more discussion, we played with Dale’s “Dog Story”:

  • Dale told a simple version of the story.
  • Michael interrupted with his own evaluation of dirt clods as projectiles, plus a quick comment on how he got a bloody nose from one.
  • Kevin, assuming the role of Dale’s brother, flatly contradicted the emotional basis of the story, i.e., he didn’t know why they had attacked the dog. Dale had a new slingsot, Kevin said, and deliberately led the attack.
  • Marc began musing about how the story couldn’t make sense, based on what he knew about Dale.
  • Melissa made the comment that her mother, Dale’s sister, would never have thrown anything at a dog and in fact would have adopted it, having done so with Melissa’s own dog.

Marc did his piece, posted elsewhere on this blog. It is a thoroughly self-conscious “art” piece, and a third of the way through it, Dale began an eye-rolling recapitulation of the evening in question to Kevin. “Marc” got mad at “Dale” for interrupting him, and “Dale” hushed. But, Kevin said afterward, “Dale” still undercut “Marc’s” story with the “true version” just by the expression on his face.

We discussed other ways this could be expanded on:

In a performance strategy that Dale called radiation, we could begin with a story being told up front like that (we have all been imagining this being performed at Gallery Row), but then commentary and new stories spreading from the stage to the tables and soon the whole room is full of performances. Like NTC’s murder mysteries, the audience has to choose what to pay attention to. They can’t hear it all.

We moved on to William Blake’s Inn. After a little futzing with the speakers, we listened to all fifteen pieces. Commentary followed:

  • We discussed performance options: dance, puppets, large sets, small sets, children, etc.
  • We developed several ideas for a framework scenario:
    • three children on the road, from somewhere to nowhere, and they encounter the Inn
    • three children at a stuffy Victorian inn, being seen and not heard; they attempt to play with a little puppet theatre (tiger, rabbit, sun, moon) but are shushed; the handyman gives them a little carved tiger, and they have a vision of the Inn
  • Marc had the idea of Blake being a constant, kindly, removed, sometimes scary presence, always at work on his engravings of the guests, which he hangs for viewing as each guest takes the spotlight.
  • Kevin discussed the idea that Dale’s music needed expanding. Since it started as a song cycle, to be sung by a chorus, obviously some expansion will be required to give room for any stage action. Dale commented on the differences between the pieces that were written first and the most recent ones and how he had written the recent ones with staging in mind.

The floor is now open for discussion.


In attendance: Marc, Dale, Melissa, Kevin, Kim, Michael, Billy

15 Comments

  1. Turff wrote:

    Other ideas:
    Thinking of the connections of listeners/confidants/conspirators as a network, with varying protocols or as a web that binds them inextricably together, yet in ways that are not common to one another. Various ways of making the connections included interruptions (verbal and non), physical disruption, “inserted discomfort”, thrown bits, uncomfortable silences, “walk-ins”, etc. We also discussed possible staging ideas, such as starting the event with all the trappings of a traditionally staged event, only to have it deteriorate into something that looks conspicuously disrupted and off the script.

    Dale also talked about being publicly nude a fair amount.

    Friday, May 5, 2006 at 10:01 am | Permalink

  2. Turff wrote:

    I suppose I should have made it clear that the contents of my post above were focused on the Art of Telling the Truth.

    Friday, May 5, 2006 at 10:03 am | Permalink

  3. marc wrote:

    I sent some recapitulations out into the loop. Let me re-print here:

    (The first was in response to Dale’s question about a when and where for performing AoTtT; the second was on Wm Blake)

    I don’t want a deadline to be our only effective motivator.

    The taste of a great process was present at the meeting last night. I was
    enjoying what we were doing too much to mess with it by talking about
    performance dates so soon. That’s me.

    Surely there are other ways to encourage the little woodland creatures to
    venture from their safe forest homes and try the crumbs we are offering.

    I encourage more of you to try making a little Art of Telling the Truth
    piece. A variety of styles is welcome; so far we have a “couples” anecdote,
    a childhood recollection (kudos to Kevin for his Ken Lyles), and an artsy
    self-conscious performance text (which was too much fun to make fun of).
    Collaboration on a piece is possible if you prefer to work that way. Why
    not a song?

    These pieces will be our raw material for putting the performance together.
    We have an insidious plan; come find out what it is.

    I realize it doesn’t seem real until we’ve put our group on the map, so to
    speak. We want to already have our first production behind us, so we can
    get to work resting securely on our reputation. I say, Fear not. Getting
    there is too much fun.

    One thing to do a this point, maybe, is to start playing with performing the songs to see what kind of events emerge. What kinds of performance experience for singers and listeners unfold? Could we make a cd of accompaniment wave files? If the “storytelling” impact of the songs is clear, it might open space for imagining complements to the performing of the songs.

    And what about the “sharing” of songs among two or more soloists where appropriate?

    After our meeting I’m compelled to try and “synthesize” all of our ideas into one imaginary world, just to see what happens:

    An artisan is putting touches on a pale, tepid sign, “Nobodaddy’s Retreat.” We see the gloomy guests inside the gloomy inn. A Tableau of Misery. We see a family arrive, prim and proper and humorless, Mother, Father, Grandmamma, perhaps, and taking up the rear in quiet resignation, the children. The ghostly staff welcomes them. Everyone takes tea. Dreadful. Stuffy. Only the artisan perhaps whistles and goes about his business with a touch of mischievous jovial intent. The Children practice being seen and not heard. An old man reads scripture as entertainment (oops, just alienated a few, sorry—but I’m trying to be loyal to Billy Blake). All listen quietly. A clock ticks and chimes, etc.

    The artisan comes in to try and light a fire in the fireplace. Conspiratorial glances exchanged between the artisan and the staff. A wink from him (it’s Blake, of course) enlivens them. A fire suddenly roars out of the hearth and Blake walks into it. The children take note of this with some understandable alarm. The staff is amused. The children approach the fireplace. The dour adults seem not to notice, warmed as they are, no doubt, by scriptural fire. A toy car rolls out of the fireplace. One child picks it up. Blake pops back out of the fire and invites the kids and the staff to come along. Even the cook sneaks out of the kitchen to join the fun. They follow Blake into the fire. (Just because Rowling used fireplaces for transport doesn’t mean its now off limits. It’s more about the idea of “walking into the fire” for our purposes, anyway)

    We might then witness the car as full-size and capable of transporting the group.

    Upon arrival, Blake steps out of the car with a new sign, replaces the Nobodaddy sign with another one he perhaps puts finishing touches on after arrival. The staff are invited to enter first. Then the children. It is the same interior as the previous in, but now it is situated against limitless sky. The adults in the drawing room have been replaced by creatures, fantastical figures, the staff in new costume. The walls in the drawing room can be flipped out, not only letting in more of the skylight behind, but revealing new, magical surfaces. As the walls flip out, the rest of the Inn is revealed, all three stories, as if architecture could flame out of the earth, spires the tips of flame reaching heavenward.

    The Inn is already full of children who invite the new arrivals to join them. We have now the transformative space of the Inn and the more open abstract space of the horizon and the heavens available for performing, for tableau, for dance, for puppets, images. Perhaps the small puppet theatre was originally covered in dust, neglected in a corner of the drawing room, a few sad paper puppets set upon its stage. In Blake’s Inn the puppet stage is a focal point. And Blake is giving the children fantastical figures to place upon the stage. Might the musicians be located in various “rooms” in the Inn.

    Random notions: during the Tyger sequences, at some point, the children watch a pas de deux, one dancer dressed in fiery red, the other in black, the energy of the dance merges them into the energy of the Tyger.

    Again, this is just an attempt to recapitulate our discussions from last night into a different form…

    Friday, May 5, 2006 at 10:22 am | Permalink

  4. Dale wrote:

    If we use the idea of the Victorian paper puppet theatre—where the puppets are really no more than pasteboard cutouts on sticks—then our full-size puppets can also be two-dimensional and it will seem natural.

    Friday, May 5, 2006 at 10:29 am | Permalink

  5. marc wrote:

    Actors and dancers wearing these paper puppet pieces that are jointed at the actor’s joints, even at the neck. I can see a puppet character tilting a head up, and the two-dimensional head piece tilts up.

    If we use “traditional” puppet representations in a “Victorian” graphic style, then we can have fun creating scenic juxtapositions in which these paper puppets appear in incongruous and imaginative settings, after the spirit of Willard’s poetic discriptions of the impossible. Whimsy.

    Friday, May 5, 2006 at 11:33 am | Permalink

  6. marc wrote:

    Or a “Blakean” style, of course.

    So indulge me for a moment in my fondness for Blakeana.

    Old man with bad eyesight reading scripture with a magnifying glass in the drawing room at the beginning, everyone respectfully listening.

    At the end when we return to the drawing room (Ah, mustn’t me always return…) the adults are transformed somehow due to Blake’s influence. The Old Man has now clearly lost all eyesight and become Milton intoning passages from Paradise Lost.

    Blake admired Milton…you see.

    Friday, May 5, 2006 at 11:41 am | Permalink

  7. Dale wrote:

    Kevin says “public nudity” like it’s a bad thing.

    Friday, May 5, 2006 at 11:56 am | Permalink

  8. Dale wrote:

    To answer a question two or three comments back, yes, I can make CDs for everyone. I can also print out the piano score as it stands for anyone who would like it to mark on.

    I can foresee a time very soon where I will need to create a separate blog for WBI, where we can brainstorm ideas for this major project. Or should we keep all that here?

    There’s a fabulous program called Curio which allows you to brainstorm and store and sort and all kinds of cool stuff. I’m going to start a Curio file for WBI where I can drop all our ideas. I can then export it periodically as PDF or PowerPoint or even webpages.

    Friday, May 5, 2006 at 12:00 pm | Permalink

  9. marc wrote:

    Can you work with images in Curio? Sketches, etc. Scanned items, jpg, etc? I’m thinking about trying to move to an exchange above and beyond text as soon as possible.

    This is an aside, but while I’m there. Could this Curio program work with the High School One Act Play development site? Which could become part of Lacuna. In brief, we’ve talked in the past about creating a resource web site for high school students and teachers who might want to build their One-Act Play entries for competition out of a year-long collective creation process.

    Friday, May 5, 2006 at 1:41 pm | Permalink

  10. Turff wrote:

    I am appalled. I passed no such judgements about nudity, expressed or implied. One might even say that some of my best memories involve nudity.

    Friday, May 5, 2006 at 1:46 pm | Permalink

  11. Turff wrote:

    Another thought on the puppet thing: if pre-transformation, there are puppets of rabbit, tiger, and the guy with jelly on his hat, then I think the parents and other gloomy types should be puppets on the other side, while the rabbet et al become of greater dimension.

    Friday, May 5, 2006 at 1:47 pm | Permalink

  12. Dale wrote:

    Curio handles everything, and can either link to the original file or actually embed the file itself. Go look at the website, http://www.zengobi.com/products/curio.

    It does not, however, function as an online gizmo. Otherwise, it is exactly the kind of thing you seek.

    Friday, May 5, 2006 at 9:22 pm | Permalink

  13. Dale wrote:

    Since we are adapting a song cycle for what we would like to become an international children’s thing, we will need to keep an eye on exactly what said international children would be doing in each piece. I’m adding a children’s bits list to each idea space in my Curio file.

    Saturday, May 6, 2006 at 9:33 am | Permalink

  14. Dale wrote:

    Here’s a link to a staged version of a Victorian toy theatre: http://www.vlo.org/images/R04intro.jpg

    In case you were wondering what one looked like. (Yes, it’s already in my Curio file.)

    And look at this: http://www.oldtoyz1.com/tiger.jpg!

    Saturday, May 6, 2006 at 10:04 am | Permalink

  15. marc wrote:

    I will at some point look at these things. Whew!

    I like the idea of parents as puppets on the “other side.”

    I wonder if there will be an amiable agon over this issue of family.

    In fact, I’m even curious at Willard’s take on Blake as “father” figure (for the Tyger or the children).

    I quietly bristled inside at the first attempt to impose a “Holy Family” componenet (as drab and uninvolved as it may be) because I want to be Blake’s advocate. (And I realize that Willard’s Blake is not my Blake; I need to keep that in mind). Blake was rather radical and revolutionary in his views on the power of the imagination to transform reality. “Family” would read as hypocritical and institutional, an imposition of control on the human spirit. Hence my fondness for the idea of children unanchored, children as free pilgrims.

    The trope of “escape” from a stultifying family environment, seemingly a liberatory gesture, still can keep the Oedipal anchor at full weight.

    Hmmm. I will keep thinking and questioning how the “family” is ultimately portrayed.

    I am trying to be delicate because I don’t know how many interpretations of the phrase “family values” exist among our numbers.

    Saturday, May 6, 2006 at 11:58 am | Permalink

Beginning to feel like a packrat…

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