Theatre
I Have No Idea What’s Going to Come Out of My Mouth…
On beginning rehearsals for a play
Time to talk. First rehearsal. The stage manager introduces me. Time to talk. Words of wisdom. Words of beginning. Lay out the path. Time to talk. I have no idea what’s going to come out of my mouth. Everyone’s focused, eyes on me. Notes in front of me. Mouth’s dry. Heart’s racing. Blood pressure’s rising. I open my mouth…
And…
No sweat. I’ve been here before. I’m as comfortable being this uncomfortable as a pig in slop. I’m in the shit. I’m loving this. I know what’s happening. I feel what’s happening. I know it’s happening. And it happens.
Noted theatre director Anne Bogart once recounted an experience of hers I’ve shared many times. Deeper into rehearsal. Actors on stage. Staff in the audience. The play is playing. Everyone on stage is doing their thing. And she says “stop.” Everything stops.
Understand. At that stage in rehearsal if the director says “stop” it’s an earthquake. Everyone is off balance. No one knows what’s up or what’s down. Everyone looks out into the seats. Listening.
In that moment she says she often has no idea why she said “stop.” She just knew that something was off. Needed direction. Needed correction. Needed something. Something different. Everyone’s eyes turned to her. She had no idea what she was going to say. But she trusted that by the time she left her seat and walked to the front of the stage the right words would come.
Like I said, been there, done that. Many times. Got to trust the process. No, too simple a cliché. The trust has to come from somewhere deeper. Inside? Somewhere. Yourself? Your preparation? That was months ago. This is now. Your connection to the material and the actors? Does it matter? Got to trust the…
There’s a similar but different moment that reoccurs. Like a nightmare turning in on itself.
I’m a damn good communicator in the moment. The right words always come. Usually without much thought. Always moving us forward. Always clear. Voice is strong. Action is confident. And then a moment.
In this moment something, somewhere, somehow says something is going to change. I see it. I feel it. I know it.
I can’t speak it.
Words stumble. Stuttering. My mouth and throat fill with wetness like before you are going to vomit. Swallowing. Lots of swallowing. Hesitating. And then a parched dryness. So dry it hurts. My voice goes up an octave and a half. I know exactly what needs to happen. I can see it clearly. Can feel it in my bones. Still, I can’t speak it. Everyone’s confused because that ain’t me.
But it is.
It’s the moment the muse moseys in. Inspiration? Insanity? Either way, it’s often the moment the entire production turns on. Big deal or small detail. It doesn’t matter. It’s the moment. Mosey on.
A story
Bertolt Brecht’s Edward II. Absolute Theatre Company. Big moment in the play when the two sides square off on the battlefield. Stage direction simply says A Great Battle.
We’d spent hours on some pretty spectacular stage combat. Swords. Shields. Quarter staffs. Hours. Brutal work. It was working. It was damn good stage combat and powerful story telling. First time we put the great battle together with the scenes before and after it felt good. Everyone was excited, jazzed, pumped.
But me. It was wrong. End of day.
I’m talking with the stage manager and our brilliant composer, Charles Wilding-White. He’d created some amazing music to some of Brecht’s poetry and a few of his own. The symptoms hit. It’s happening. I squeaked out, “what if we cut the fight?” “What if Charlie writes a song that our Balladeer sings while everyone armed to the hilt just lays down and dies? Sing the great battle.”
Silence. Awkward.
Charlie says, “I’ll have something in two days.” The show turned. It worked. Charlie and the show won some awards that year. He died much too young.
Another story
I’m back at my alma mater, James Madison University. Virginia. A late fill in for the professor who was my advisor when I was a student. He’d taken a head of department gig at another school last minute. When I got the call I was told the job included directing the second production of the fall season in the Experimental Theatre. “What’s the show?” I asked. Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel.
I’m a white guy from the hills of Virginia making theatre in Chicago. Soyinka is a world renowned Noble Prize winning Nigerian playwright. There’s little if anything in common with our stories. I wasn’t familiar with the play but familiar enough with Soyinka to know that I’m not the guy for this gig. This is an African story.
I take the gig. There’s not enough African American students who audition to fill the roles. It’s a mixed race cast for this very African story led by me, a white choreographer and a white composer/musical director. Virginia.
Scared out of my fucking mind. Plunging ahead. We decide to do the show in the round and fill the stage floor with sand. We couldn’t get dirt. We could get sand. We wanted everyone moving closer, tied closer, bound to the Earth. A story of modernization versus tradition in this tiny village. Amazing story telling through dance in the sand that should have been dirt. Muscular. Sexy. Dangerous. Dirty. Sand flying, kicked up by feet. Sand everywhere.
In the battle for the hand of a young girl, the Jewel, the village chieftain, the Lion, is contesting with a young school teacher newly returned home full of hope and change. Old versus new. Age old story. Age old context. In the courtship scene The Lion roars with his accomplishments that she constantly dismisses. She’s winning. He’s losing. The scene is working.
“Stop.”
No idea what’s coming out of my mouth. My mouth, my throat is doing the wet then dry, up an octave and a half thing. It’s happening. “What if the Lion uncovers a record player, puts on a record and he leads her in a waltz? Barefoot. In the sand.”
Silence.
We try it. It works. No. It transcends. It takes this mixed up, shouldn’t be done by this group beautiful play and makes it somehow relevant to an audience that was freaked out that they had to walk across a sand stage getting sand in their shoes to take their seats.
Folks danced in the sand on their way home.
Now
Rehearsals start in two days. Virtually. Table and character work. The Lehman Trilogy by Stefano Massini. Adapted by Ben Power. Mammoth piece. Memphis. Three and a half hours of mammoth. Three actors, playing so many characters I haven’t counted them all yet. Men, women, children.
We’re starting virtual rehearsals weeks ahead of in person work. Not enough time in the regular rehearsal schedule for this much of a story. Directing is math. Actors X pages X tech / rehearsal hours. The math doesn’t work. The math is so wrong it’s incalculable. Terrified. Wanting it. We all agree. No. We all beg for these early virtual rehearsals.
I’m surrounded by research. No. I’m drowning in it. If it weren’t the digital age there’d be piles of paper. Now it’s links, PDFs, spreadsheets, images, music and videos. I’m drowning in it. Drowning them in it.
None of us is Jewish. The play has been slammed for being anti-Semitic and also too Jewish. The play has been slammed for side-swiping slavery as the engine the Lehman Brothers used to begin their empire. We’re doing it in Memphis. We’ll talk about it all. Then I’ll tell them to set it all aside and focus on the text. It’s all there. Absorb. Then set it aside. Massini and Power have given us all we need.
Two days. Time to talk. The stage manager will introduce. Time to talk. Words of wisdom. Words of beginning. Lay out the path. Time to talk. I have no idea what’s going to come out of my mouth…
