What a difference a day makes...

Had a killer day--in a good way! A quick overview: met Amy Lee, grabbed coffee at Jason's stall, went over to Sir John Soane's Museum, walked up to Farringdon for some gluten-free beer, had high tea at Athenaeum, and then ended up at SHUNT for this month's D&D and some kick ass music from a band that's so new (it was only their second gig) that they didn't even have a name yet. I was worried about taking the day off completely from work, but it was so nice to have a release, and because of it (and the wisdom and reassurance gleamed from the D&D session) I feel more ready to take on the rest of this process to the end--even if it gets a little choppy along the way. Bring it, bitches.

I wish I had more time/energy to blog about specifics, but sadly, I don't. I'm hitting my bed NOW because I need the sleep, but I feel really revved up and excited for everything to come. More another time, perhaps, when I'm not passing out as I write this...

Papers and Puppets

I'm posting before I start a paper I've been putting off for a bit that's due Friday. Basically, we're meant to present an outline (in 1,500 words) of how we plan to proceed as artists in our practice past graduation, and how we will prepare for that in terms of our research for our dissertation by stating what we will research, how and why. This work is also meant to contribute to our Practitioner Portfolio, wherein we talk a lot about a practitioner we like, how awesome they are, why they are awesome, and why someday we would like to be awesome like them, too. This paper would seem daunting--having to make a HUGE, almost blanket statement about "What I want to do as a grown-up artist and here is how I will do it" does seem a bit overwhelming--but it's really not. At the end of the brief, the following is stated:

"...Please note that we recognize that plans and research imperatives may change. You Scheme of Work does not commit you to following through exactly in the terms that you describe when you come to write up your portfolio..."

So: one could stress over writing 1,500 words, but since in the end one won't necessarily be held accountable for anything stated, surmised, or generally declared therein, one comes to care less. Which makes one feel more annoyed by the prospect of writing this paper than worried. Which, in turn, makes one procrastinate.

(My apologies for the "one"-ness of the last few sentences. I've been watching a lot of Jeeves and Wooster lately, and can only surmise that the source lies there.)

Last night, Ronnie Le Drew guest-lectured at my puppetry class. He came in to talk to us about marionettes, as well as his work on various projects in television, commercials, and film. At one point he mentioned having worked as Zippy in Rainbow, and everyone in the class let out excited gasps. I just stood there being American and not getting the reference. Rainbow is essentially a children's show with puppets, that seems to run in a similar vain to Captain Kangaroo, not quite Sesame Street, though I suspect meeting Ronnie for these folks would be akin to me meeting Caroll Spinney).

Ronnie has been a puppeteer his whole life since having knocked on the door of the Little Angel Theatre at 15, and I don't think there could be a better spokesperson for the lifestyle. He started by showing us some old footage of the Little Angel, then moved on to recent commercials he's done. Ronnie is especially gifted in working with marionette puppets, something he learned at Little Angel, and a rare commodity of specialization in the world of puppets today, where hand or rod puppets are most commonly seen. Below is some footage of Ronnie and a marionette he brought in, while he discusses operating it and his work on Animo, an Improbable show from a few years back (again: all roads lead back to Improbable).

Here's another video of Ronnie, talking about his audition for and working on Labyrinth. He introduced the topic by bringing out a beaver puppet (who had "lost" his tale). Having a beaver puppet myself, I took out my camera to catch the action. The reason this video starts with the sound of my raucous (and ridiculous) laughter is because the beaver saw me turning on my camera, became excited, and in full Muppet-like fashion (complete with flailing arms) squealed with excitement: "You're gonna take a PICTUUUURRRRRRREEEE???!!!"

No doubt, that little guy was cute, but fret not, Bobby: you shall always be the first in my heart.

We didn't do any hands-on yesterday, but it didn't matter--Ronnie was so entertaining and everyone loved hearing his stories. He'll be back next week, and we'll work with some marionettes then.

I'm going to end this entry quickly and abruptly--not because I'm dashing off to write a paper, but because I seem to have come down with a bit of a head cold, and I have to lie down before I fall over.

Toodlepip!

I am lost/In a rainbow/Now the rainbow is gone

Title of this entry comes from lyrics from the band that's currently changing my life, who I'm heading out to see play live in a couple weeks with members of NASH. For a great clip from the Shelly Love (somebody else currently changing my life) film that they scored and the song these lyrics come from, please go here and enjoy. For reals.

I have felt lost lately, but not in any kind of a rainbow. The grind of school has been overwhelming over the last few weeks, and that, compounded with other activities and the lack of Internet in my room (how I survived that, I will truly never know) has obviously infringed on the bloggation of late. My apologies, but there just wasn't the time. I'll have to give a briefbrief overview of my doings, so as to not completely discredit these past few weeks.

Hotel Medea:

Headed out to the Arcola the first weekend in February for some hardcore theatre going, as evidenced by our blazoned fists.

(Photo courtesy of Heidi O'Connell's iPhone.)

The production was a six hour-long extravaganza, with three twenty-minute breaks, and a breakfast spread<--Did I mention the play started at 11:59PM? I couldn't do justice to the show if I tried to give you a synopsis here, but needless to say the sheer stamina of the performers was beyond impressive, particularly Medea who was at least five months pregnant, if not more. Both she and Jason got totally naked at one point--whoa. The production was also really great at creating an all-encompassing experience for the audience. At one point we were all taken in turn, tucked into cots in pairs, read a bedtime story while we held our own stuffed animals and sipped cocoa--we were Medea and Jason's children, overhearing our parents having an argument with our eyes closed. My friend Max died (Not really: they just used him as one of Medea's children at the very end, and we built a funeral memorial around him. His wife Amy was not amused.). We got stranded in the morning because London is not New York, and there were no trains running to the area of the city we were in on Sunday. Ridiculous. WiFi at McDonalds and Heidi's iPhone saved us. We got home around 8AM and were out of commission for the rest of the weekend.

Complicite Workshop:

Complicite is an institution in England, in terms of the top "known" theatre companies in the country. After seeing A Disappearing Number at the Barbican this past fall, I totally jumped on to the Complicite bandwagon (despite the slight over-use of projection in that production). Their last show that ran at the Barbican this past month, Shun-kin, based on a Japanese story, featuring an all Japanese cast and some puppets by Blind Summit Theatre, prompted a short workshop that introduced and instructed on aspects of said production. Basically, it was an auditorium of students, mostly high schoolers, and a handful of Central-ites, that turned up to listen to Simon McBurney (AD of Complicite, and the director of Broadway's latest revival of All My Sons--hence the projections used in said production...) walk us through the first part of the show, and then call some of us up on stage to demonstrate some of the techniques used in rehearsal, both with the actors (none of whom spoke fluent English) and when dealing with the puppets used in the show. Heidi and her iPhone were there, and caught all the action.

(That's Simon McBurney waving his arms.)

The next day Mark Down, one of the founding members of Blind Summit (pictured above in the foreground all the way to the left) came out to CSSD and did an hour lecture on puppetry that was terribly amusing and informative. The day after I caught Shun-kin, and was happy I'd been able to catch Simon McBurney the day before doing his introduction/summary. As the piece was entirely in Japanese, and I was sat all the way to the side on audience left, I:

1. often couldn't see what was going on/being projected onto the stage.
2. was too far back to read any of the translation text that was being projected on the sides of the stage.

Now, as I've said repeatedly before, I need glasses. This evening confirmed this fact yet again. However, there was a lot of dialogue in the show, too much even for the fully optically functional 20/20 viewing audience, and McBurney, in my humble opinion, did not make up for the fact with his staging. If you looked away from the stage, you missed part of the story for the sake of the text. If you missed part of the text, you missed part of the story in terms of the staging. And neither were totally decipherable all on their own. It was a little like a poorly staged opera that way. I will also say that I think there were one too many narrators. But I'll go no further than that. It was in all ways a Complicite production, and therefore good enough to be one of the better productions I've seen while over here.

Valentine's Day with Tom Stoppard

I spent basically all of Valentine's Day at the National at various events that all had one common thread: the playwright Tom Stoppard. First, myself and others caught a production of Stoppard's play Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, a play for actors and an orchestra, featuring none other than our very own guest tutor, Toby Jones! My only complaint was that the piece wasn't longer--I could have stayed in the Olivier for hours listening to that music and that text. After that, we sat in on a talk back with the man himself. Stoppard is everything you'd envision in a playwright, right down to the baggy, old man sweater and the slip-on suede shoes that look more like slippers than outerwear. He rolls his r's, probably left over from his Czechoslovakian roots. He reduced Rozencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as just "a play about two courtiers trying to entertain themselves in a boring place." He owns an iPhone, which rang during the talk. He was great. Afterwards, several of us went out to dinner and then returned to the National to watch Shakespeare in Love (co-scribed {or mostly scribed} by Stoppard) from one of the terraces, as it was projected on the side of the fly space of the Lyttleton (one of the spaces in the National). Heidi's iPhone was once again on the scene to catch all the action.


It was a delightful day, full of great art, and a truly unique experience that makes it my top Valentine's Day of all time.<--That statement clearly evidences the fact that I have never had a boyfriend around that date. But no matter. For one day, Top Stoppard was my boyfriend. And I loved him.

Visit from a New Yorker

Right around Valentine's Day, my friend Jen came into town with the transfer of an opera that had just finished it's run at the Met in New York, Doctor Atomic. She had worked on that production and was over here with light plot in hand, and tourist demands. I was happy to oblige her, as I never do anything too too touristy, and it was nice to have the excuse. We spent a lovely day together, watching a busker with a giant unicycle and a chainsaw in Convent Garden, traipsing about the Tower of London, walking along a considerable extent of the Thames, and sharing in a lovely meal. A couple days later, thanks to Jen, I caught Doctor Atomic's dress rehearsal from the best seat I will ever have in that opera house--the stalls, which at this house means orchestra level seating. The design by Improbable's Julian Crouch was great (it always comes back to Improbable, doesn't it?), and baritone Gerald Finley had the most dreamy tone quality. It was far more enjoyable than my last foray at the Coliseum. The final evening I spent with Jen during her visit, we headed over to Gordon's Wine Bar, the oldest wine bar in London. It's largely underground, in catacomb like structures, and you buy a bottle and crouch under brick archways at candlelit tables that are surrounded by mismatched chairs, all the while being dripped on by erosion from above. It was delightful. Moreover, it was wonderful to see a familiar face, and to share part of this experience with someone from home. It gives this journey some context somehow, and is a reminder that there is another world outside this place, and one that's possible to go back to, should I choose to go.

Incidentally...

The evening I caught the dress rehearsal for the opera, I was standing behind a man on the tube who looked staggeringly familiar. I tried my best not to stare or lean into him that much, but I kept glancing to him, trying to catch the side of his face, which he was clearly trying to shield. Suddenly at a stop, he turned his head for a moment and then got off. I instantly recognized his left cheek bone: it was Jamie Bamber, aka Lee "Apollo" Adama, the hottest of the hot, the CAG himself, soon to be president of the twelve colonies, and a cast member of the greatest TV show of the last few years of my life. For days I convinced myself if couldn't have been him (too short), but through Internet snooping I found a picture of him wearing the exact same jacket he was wearing on the tube, and since he's in town shooting Law and Order: UK, I have come to the conclusion that it was none other than the man himself. So close, and still so far...

And yes, I did just say: "Law and Order: UK." To be Dick York right now, I swear...

As far as school is concerned--

Term 2 is winding down in the next couple weeks. Our Stage Two Practice showcases our work Tuesday, for three performances. The piece focuses on web-based culture, activity, and identity. The most compelling part for me as an actor is a sequence where myself and my fellow collaborator Ronan perform a movement piece that's basically meant to simulate cybersex. It's really artfully done, I swear. We intend to film it, but due to intellectual copyrighting, there ain't no way that stuff is going to end up here. Also, my parents and relatives read my blog, so to save them from any possible embarrassment, I will avoid posting it. But for anyone curious (I'm seriously serious when I say it's artfully done, truly), I can figure out a way to show you the footage somehow, promise. Don't expect too much in certain areas--we are fully clothed all the time. But there is a vast amount of lipstick used.

The research group continues to plug along, performing our beat-like experiments (sorry I've still not thrown up any video), and the practice conference is fast approaching. We'll see what comes of that.

Third Term Festival proposals went in today at noon. My name is on three (I think...), and if any of them get selected--there were several submissions, but only ten will be accepted--I'll be a happy duck. Hopefully everything will work out. I will say no more on that topic, as I am a deep believer in the fates, and don't want to jinx anything.

................................

And that's really it from here. It's a lot--I realize that was basically a month's worth of stuff I just kind of threw out there--but in reality, it feels like everything happens so fast that almost nothing has happened at all.

Word keeps coming in from New York, and none of it seems to bode well. Jobs are lost, unavailable, or tightening in terms of hours. Less Equity contracts are being issued for summer seasons (because Equity actors demand a living wage and are therefore more expensive than non-union, and therefore at times unprotected, actors), and arts funding is even less existent than it was before. Everyone keeps plugging and/or struggling along, but the realization that for several life is changing drastically is ever prevalent. It makes me appreciate the somewhat insular environment I've holed up in for the year, despite the occasionally stagnant, claustrophobic, and down right irritating nature it can be at times. Putting up with a little aggravation and being spared wondering where the next meal is coming from is a blessing in it of itself. Even if that meal is disgusting cafeteria food from downstairs.

In the coming weeks I will do my best to be more diligent in my updates. Again, I apologize for having lapsed this long. But hopefully all can and will be forgiven. Take care, my dears.

OMG! I = your BIGGEST FAN!

If I was a more honest person, I'd wax poetical all day and all night about the VAST enthusiasm that fills me every time I see art I really like. I'd proclaim it to the heavens, dance in the street, herald it to the masses, and probably even cry (like I did within the first ten minutes of Wall-E--BOTH times!). But I put up a front because often I fear I'll look like a child if I'm caught enjoying anything. And living in New York for a while hasn't done much in terms of making me a more openly enthusiastic person.

Well, friends, today this ends, twofold. First, I found out I got a belated ticket to Improbable's annual theatre forum Devoted and Disgruntled. My love of the theatre company knows no bounds (at least, I've yet to find the boundary yet) and ever since I dug around their website after the awe-inspiring production of Satyagraha I caught at the Met last year, I can honestly say I have been waiting for the opportunity to go to this event since April. I am so psyched! But there's a glitch: I arrive back in England the morning of the event. It starts at 10AM, and I get into Heathrow at 8:45. What is it with me and the close calls re: continental travel? Seriously, I need an assistant. Not to mention the jet lag I'm going to be dealing with those two days. Also, I never sleep on planes. But it will be worth it, I just know it!

(Hear those famous last words?)

Maybe I'll try to change my ticket. I need to stop living at extremes.


The second thing I'd like to gush about today is The Wrestler. I caught it the other night at one of my favorite smaller art house cinemas in NYC, and loved it. I hated the last Aronofsky film (HATED it) and despite my complete adoration of Requim for a Dream, I wasn't sure I could ever trust that man again. But now my fears are all allayed. The topic of the film seems almost ludicrous, and as someone who used to watch professional wrestling a lot (I was doing it so I would have something to talk about with a boy--lame I know, but who here isn't guilty of that sort of thing at least a few times in their lives) I wasn't too sure what I would gain from watching this movie. Of course, the film doesn't deal with the more recognizable, more commercial version of professional wrestling that blew up about nine or ten years ago, but the time that comes after the fall of fame for one wrestler, played with the most beautiful honesty by Mickey Rourke. For serious guys: he was really freakin' good. I haven't seen a performance like this in a while, probably not since Javier Bardem in A Sea Inside. If you know anything about Mickey Rourke's career, the film takes on an extra life beyond the screen when you watch his character, Randy "The Ram" Robinson, dealing with the seeming futility of his life. (Oh, Mickey Rourke...) Clint Mansell's scoring is really sparse, and Aronofsky keeps most of the film silent, with an occassional rush when Randy puts his hearing aid on. It's a really nice choice, and makes the movie more realistic, less melodramatic or sweeping which seems to be the effect of the scores to the other Aronofsky films I've seen (never caught Pi--I know, I know, I have no integrity).

The director also made a really interesting choice in having the camera follow his subject from behind, obscuring his face for most of the beginning of the movie--this sense of following close behind Randy, joining him on his day to day journey, and also creating a sense of distance between the character and the audience by denying us his face. The proverbial "they" always talk about the psychological association that a viewer experiences when watching a film: if you see someone looked scared, you experience fear; if you see someone with a smile on their face, you feel at ease. We recognize ourselves and our own feelings in characters. It's a natural, more basic, more psychological extension of empathy, really. This is something I've brought up briefly before re: my interest in exploring how to create this effect on the body using people on stage (perhaps a little more next term) and it's really great to see such an effective example of this.

(Quick side note: I seem to be pre-occupied with adapting filmic qualities for the stage. This seems ludicrous for a lot of reasons I needn't list here, mostly because some are so painfully obvious. But the big piece of feedback I got from my peers on my final solo performance piece for the term (which you will not see here because of my fear of artistic plagiarism, but I will grant special viewings for those who request them) was that my work was very "filmic." I don't know if that was meant as a compliment, an insult, or if it was a strict observation. But that's what was said.)

But anyway, yes: great film, go out and see it today.

And now to discover the cost of a flight change...

NY Event Number Three: Seeing a dress rehearsal at the Met.

Thanks to the company I work for, I had the good fortune of sitting in on the afternoon dress rehearsal today of Phillip Glass's opera, Satyagraha, which will mount at the Met in two days. The title is actually a combination of two Sanskrit words and is the name of the practice of nonviolent resistance used and developed by Gandhi (so says/confirms the wiki, to which we all bow). It's music is quite beautiful, and this new production originally staged in England (w00t! I knew I picked the right country to move to.) by the English National Opera and a company called Improbable, who I am slowly falling in deep artistic love with, really struck me. So much that I felt the need to blog about it. Incidentally, if you like Neil Gaiman and know The Wolves in the Walls, Improbable produced it for the stage as a "Musical Pandemonium." Enough said.

But give me a moment to explain something: not only is this a New York Event, but it is also a piece of great art. As it will be a while till I get to England, I feel like I'm going to have to talk about other things here in the time being, without diverging too far from the original, founding, and central idea/purpose for this blog. Under that heading falls, I think, an opportunity to discuss the kind of work I'd like to start producing once I get to England. Specific ideas and topics that I'd like to produce art about will likely remain hidden from this blog--I am pretty private about stuff I intend to develop, always worried about artistic thievery (it's true: I'm a paranoid fuck). But discussing form and methods of production I think are totally okay. And if I see something that really works, to the point I really want to share it here, then I will. It's all the excuse I can offer. I hope that will suffice.

The opera uses the original Sanskrit text of the Bhagavad Gita, a really wonderful epic poem and Indian religious text. One of the reasons I love operatic music, the little that I know of it, is because it’s often written in a language that is not English. Because of the foreign language, and the sound that operatic singing produces (far from normal speech), what is being said textually and directly, is less immediately accessible to the audience. (Unless, of course, you know Sanskrit.) This affect makes language as a tool here secondary, and forces the theatre artist to convey with body, vocal production (we’re talking about the affect of sound here, not the words themselves), staging and other theatrical affects (lighting and the rest) paramount in portraying a story that would be incomprehensible to most on a simple, spoken level. It should also be noted that this production is done sans the Met Titles usually used for performance, and instead projections of short sections of the English translation of the text are thrown onto the back wall, giving the basic overview of what’s being sung as opposed to a line-by-line interpretation.

This kind of dismissal of language (though it must be acknowledged that language does provide the opera structure and aids in the conception of some of the specific staging the Skills Ensemble pulls off beautifully) I think can be likened to circus, clown, and strict physical work--basically anything that is performed sans or sans distinct text--in that it asks the audience to respond in a more primal way, associating the bodies on stage with their own bodies, identifying with them, projecting themselves onto the journey the stage characters make more directly than they would for a piece where dialogue is used, which can be colored by regional accents, implied meanings and cadences by the actor, etc. In this way, non-text based performance can be more universal, even when dealing with a specific story, ie: Ghandi's. The program I'm going into deals a lot with developing original work, without coming from a place of text OR working with ancient text and developing work out of that. It was exciting to experience first hand such a brilliant work dealing with those principles.

Something else here, which I touched on briefly above, is the element of sound in performance. I love sound because it's so isolated, and can often be one of the most powerful elements in terms of establishing setting and mood--I know it's a movie, but I'd like to give a nod to Alien here as one of the best examples of this. It's something I had wanted to play around with for my grad school audition piece, but ran out of time to develop my idea fully. Hopefully I'll be able to revisit it and experiment how to make shape with this element in the upcoming school year.

But getting back to what was produced here, we're not just talking orchestration, which worked a lot to drive and maintain tension through the story (Glass loves his repetitious themes, no doubt), but also vocal performance. The thing about vocal performance, likened to the above idea about an audience's relationship with movement, is that it is something the body can physically and organically produce. It's resonate (literally, figuratively) because it is in the audience's capacity (in most cases) to do that themselves, again playing on the universality of that method of performance. Being a yogi, I do believe that different energy is produced and sent in different tone and pitches of sound, and that's something I'd like to explore as well.

Okay: last thing. This production really demanded a lot of the ensemble, and I loved that. Watching an entire company build the setting that they're going to be performing in is a wonderful performance tool, and constantly engages the audience in experiencing the transformation that is a key element to theatre entirely. Along with the Skills Ensemble (aerial, puppet, and circus artists employed for the production to do the business a singing chorus member would be unqualified to do), the chorus is in charge of setting some of the stage dressing, and it just totally worked. It was really powerful imagery, particularly due to such an en masse grouping covering the stage of the Metropolitan, with simple but direct movement. And I loved it.

Re-reading this post, I have to say I am the master of the run-on. Sorry about that guys, but look forward to more of it in the future.

Anyway, if you're in the NY area, save your pennies and catch this if you can.