Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Space
My “method”, whatever it may be, may have a transformative effect on the viewer indeed. But that doesn’t make me a wizard or a guru. It strictly reflects my opinion about the true existence of films. They don’t exist because there are prints on the shelves, or because there are box office results, or reviews, or whatever. They exist because they are SEEN, and the place where they are stored is only and exclusively in the eyes and the minds of the spectator. Now you might say that goes for all films. I tend to disagree. There are films MADE to exist as box office results first, or as reviews first, or as expression of the author first. My films are meant to come to life in people’s heads. They are incomplete before, actually they are meant to be incomplete. I see them like open systems that need to be pulled together by somebody. That somebody is each and every spectator. In a way I think of films the same way I looked at stories in books, when I was little. I realized very early on that the story was not in the written words, but in the space between the lines. That’s where the real reading took place: In my imagination, and that happened in all the white between the letters and the lines. And when I started to see films, I approached them the same way. In fact those films ALLOWED me to perceive them like that, they were asking me to dream myself into them. The classic American cinema has that same specific quality, and this is also the great tradition of European Cinema. I did not invent that “method”. It is an endangered process, though, these days. More and more films come as “wall to wall” entertainment. What you see (and hear!) is what you get. No more space between the frames, so to speak. No chance to sneak in with your imagination, to dream on and to project your innermost hopes or fears or desires into what you see and thereby pushing it further. You come out of the theatre and feel strangely empty. For two hours you were prevented from participating. You were obliged to “witness” instead. And that is the opposite to what you called my “method” which is in the true sense of the word “interactive”.
5 Things to Consider
- Artist Jim Denevan featured on Spark. His website is here.
- Dreaming Between Frames - an interview with Wim Wenders here. Found via wood s lot.
- Brecht's The Five Difficulties full text published here.
- It's How You Look at the Thing... (a call to make good work)
- The Common Touch - the Problem with Theatre Today
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Not Quite 5 Things
Here's a thoughtful post about our relationship to fear and its place in our lives and the theatrical process on Theatre Conversation.
Interview with creators of the Burning Cities Project here. Burning Cities is part of the NY International Fringe Festival.
George Hunka reviews Reverend Billy's Tent Revival here.
The Paris Review online has fifty years of author interviews available here.
Interview with creators of the Burning Cities Project here. Burning Cities is part of the NY International Fringe Festival.
George Hunka reviews Reverend Billy's Tent Revival here.
The Paris Review online has fifty years of author interviews available here.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Ghostlight Recommends
Take a trip through our culture's collective memory hole. Devised from a variety of found texts and interviews with a wide range of people including Historian Howard Zinn, A Show of Force examines the complex moral issues we face in the shadow of war.
Part of the NY International Fringe Festival
Created & Performed by Donnie Mather
Directed by Leon Ingulsrud
Scenic & Lighting Design by Brian Scott
Soundscape by Darron L. West & Emily Wright
Thursday, August 17 @ 7 pm
Saturday, August 19 @ 1:45 pm
Saturday, August 26 @ 3:30 pm
Dance New Amsterdam
280 Broadway (Entrance on Chambers St.)
$15 General Admission
Call 212.279.4488 or www.fringecny.org
Show of Force website here.
Monday, August 14, 2006
From the Vault
If you've ever been in a show I've directed, you'll be familiar with this essay. I'm putting it up here because it still speaks to the way I approach my work in the theater. Mind you, I'm not advocating, along with Mamet, a strict Stanislavskian approach to theater production. My training/aesthetic veers wildly off from that work.
The proclamation and repetition of first principles is a constant feature in life in our democracy. Active adherence to these principles, however, has always been considered un-American.
We recipients of the boon of liberty have always been ready, when faced with discomfort, to discard any and all first principles of liberty; and, further, to indict those who do not freely join with us in happily abrogating those principles.
Freedom of speech, religion, and sexual preference are tolerated only until their exercise is found offensive, at which point those freedoms are haughtily revoked--and we hear, “Yes, but the Framers of the Constitution (or Christ or Lincoln, or whatever Saint we are choosing to invoke in our support) surely didn’t envision an instance as extreme as this!”
We tolerate and repeat the teachings of Christ, but explain that the injunction against murder surely cannot be construed to apply to war; and that against theft does not apply to commerce. We sanctify the Constitution of the United States, but explain that freedom of choice is meant to apply to all except women, racial minorities, homosexuals, the poor, opponents of the government, and those with whose ideals we disagree.
The theatre also has its first principles--principles which make our presentations honest, moral and (coincidentally) moving, funny and worth the time and money of the audience.
Most of us are acquainted with these rules, which relegate everything in a production to the idea of the play, and cause all elements to adhere to and express that idea forcefully, fully, without desire for praise or fear of censure. But, at first sign of discomfort we assure ourselves that principles of unity, simplicity and honesty are well and good under normal circumstances, but we surely cannot be meant to apply them under the extraordinary pressure of actually working on a play.
We discard our first principles the moment they cause us unpleasantness--where they might send the author back for another draft, or the piece back for another week or month of rehearsal, or cause the director to work on a scene until it is finished, or cause a producer to say, “You know, on reflection this piece is garbage. I think it would be better for all concerned if we didn’t put it on.”.....yes, but we have seats to fill, we have to get on to the next act, we have a deadline to meet.
If we act as if the Aristotelian unities, the philosophy of Stanislavski or Brecht or Shaw, were effete musings and intended for some ideal theatre and not applicable to our own work, we are declining the responsibility for creating that ideal theatre.
Every time an actor deviates from the through-line of a piece (that is, the first principle of the piece) for whatever reason...to gain praise, or out of laziness, or because he hasn’t taken the time to discover how that one difficult moment actually expresses the through-line...he creates in himself the habit of moral turpitude. And the play, which is a strict lesson in ethics, is given the lie.
Every time the author leaves in a piece of non-essential prose (beautiful though it may be) he weakens the structure of the play, and again, the audience learns this lesson: no one is taking responsibility---theatre people are prepared to espouse a moral act, but not to commit it. What is communicated to the audience when we deviate from first principles is a lesson in cowardice.
This lesson is of as great a magnitude as our subversion of the constitution by involvement in Vietnam, in Ford’s pardon of Nixon, in the persecution of Larry Flynt, in the re-instatement of the death penalty. They are all lessons in cowardice, and each begets cowardice.
Alternatively, the theatre affords an opportunity uniquely suited for communicating and inspiring ethical behavior: the audience is given the possibility of seeing live people on stage carrying out an action based on first principles (objectives) to its full conclusion.
The audience participates in a celebration of the idea that Intention A begets Result B. The audience imbibes that lesson as regards the given circumstances of the play, and they also receive the lesson as regards the standards of production, writing, acting, design and direction.
If theatrical workers are seen not to have the courage of their convictions (which is to say the courage to relegate every aspect of the production to the laws of theatrical action, economy, and specifically the requirements of the super-objective of the play) the audience once again learns a lesson in moral cowardice, and we add to the burden of their lives. We add to their loneliness.
Each time we (in all respects of production) relegate all we do to the necessity of bringing to life simply and completely the intention of the play, we give the audience an experience which enlightens and frees them: the experience of witnessing their fellow human beings saying, “Nothing will sway me, nothing will divert me, nothing will dilute my intention of achieving what I have sworn to achieve.” (In technical terms, “My Objective;” in general terms, my “goal,” my “desire,” my “responsibility.”)
The theatrical repetition of this lesson can and will, in time, help teach that it is possible and pleasant to substitute action for inaction, courage for cowardice, humanity for selfishness.
If we hold to those first principles of action and beauty and economy which we know to be true, and hold to them in all things--choice of plays, actor training, writing, advertising, promotion--we can uniquely speak to our fellow citizens.
In a morally bankrupt time we can help to change the habits of coercive and frightened action and substitute for it the habits of trust, self-reliance, and cooperation.
If we are true to our ideals, we can help to form an ideal society--a society based on and adhering to ethical first principles--not preaching about it, but by creating it each night, in front of the audience--by showing how it works. In action.
First Principles
by David Mamet
by David Mamet
The proclamation and repetition of first principles is a constant feature in life in our democracy. Active adherence to these principles, however, has always been considered un-American.
We recipients of the boon of liberty have always been ready, when faced with discomfort, to discard any and all first principles of liberty; and, further, to indict those who do not freely join with us in happily abrogating those principles.
Freedom of speech, religion, and sexual preference are tolerated only until their exercise is found offensive, at which point those freedoms are haughtily revoked--and we hear, “Yes, but the Framers of the Constitution (or Christ or Lincoln, or whatever Saint we are choosing to invoke in our support) surely didn’t envision an instance as extreme as this!”
We tolerate and repeat the teachings of Christ, but explain that the injunction against murder surely cannot be construed to apply to war; and that against theft does not apply to commerce. We sanctify the Constitution of the United States, but explain that freedom of choice is meant to apply to all except women, racial minorities, homosexuals, the poor, opponents of the government, and those with whose ideals we disagree.
The theatre also has its first principles--principles which make our presentations honest, moral and (coincidentally) moving, funny and worth the time and money of the audience.
Most of us are acquainted with these rules, which relegate everything in a production to the idea of the play, and cause all elements to adhere to and express that idea forcefully, fully, without desire for praise or fear of censure. But, at first sign of discomfort we assure ourselves that principles of unity, simplicity and honesty are well and good under normal circumstances, but we surely cannot be meant to apply them under the extraordinary pressure of actually working on a play.
We discard our first principles the moment they cause us unpleasantness--where they might send the author back for another draft, or the piece back for another week or month of rehearsal, or cause the director to work on a scene until it is finished, or cause a producer to say, “You know, on reflection this piece is garbage. I think it would be better for all concerned if we didn’t put it on.”.....yes, but we have seats to fill, we have to get on to the next act, we have a deadline to meet.
If we act as if the Aristotelian unities, the philosophy of Stanislavski or Brecht or Shaw, were effete musings and intended for some ideal theatre and not applicable to our own work, we are declining the responsibility for creating that ideal theatre.
Every time an actor deviates from the through-line of a piece (that is, the first principle of the piece) for whatever reason...to gain praise, or out of laziness, or because he hasn’t taken the time to discover how that one difficult moment actually expresses the through-line...he creates in himself the habit of moral turpitude. And the play, which is a strict lesson in ethics, is given the lie.
Every time the author leaves in a piece of non-essential prose (beautiful though it may be) he weakens the structure of the play, and again, the audience learns this lesson: no one is taking responsibility---theatre people are prepared to espouse a moral act, but not to commit it. What is communicated to the audience when we deviate from first principles is a lesson in cowardice.
This lesson is of as great a magnitude as our subversion of the constitution by involvement in Vietnam, in Ford’s pardon of Nixon, in the persecution of Larry Flynt, in the re-instatement of the death penalty. They are all lessons in cowardice, and each begets cowardice.
Alternatively, the theatre affords an opportunity uniquely suited for communicating and inspiring ethical behavior: the audience is given the possibility of seeing live people on stage carrying out an action based on first principles (objectives) to its full conclusion.
The audience participates in a celebration of the idea that Intention A begets Result B. The audience imbibes that lesson as regards the given circumstances of the play, and they also receive the lesson as regards the standards of production, writing, acting, design and direction.
If theatrical workers are seen not to have the courage of their convictions (which is to say the courage to relegate every aspect of the production to the laws of theatrical action, economy, and specifically the requirements of the super-objective of the play) the audience once again learns a lesson in moral cowardice, and we add to the burden of their lives. We add to their loneliness.
Each time we (in all respects of production) relegate all we do to the necessity of bringing to life simply and completely the intention of the play, we give the audience an experience which enlightens and frees them: the experience of witnessing their fellow human beings saying, “Nothing will sway me, nothing will divert me, nothing will dilute my intention of achieving what I have sworn to achieve.” (In technical terms, “My Objective;” in general terms, my “goal,” my “desire,” my “responsibility.”)
The theatrical repetition of this lesson can and will, in time, help teach that it is possible and pleasant to substitute action for inaction, courage for cowardice, humanity for selfishness.
If we hold to those first principles of action and beauty and economy which we know to be true, and hold to them in all things--choice of plays, actor training, writing, advertising, promotion--we can uniquely speak to our fellow citizens.
In a morally bankrupt time we can help to change the habits of coercive and frightened action and substitute for it the habits of trust, self-reliance, and cooperation.
If we are true to our ideals, we can help to form an ideal society--a society based on and adhering to ethical first principles--not preaching about it, but by creating it each night, in front of the audience--by showing how it works. In action.
Love of the Art
Please read Alison Croggon's essay Little Alison and Her Battle Against the Eunchs. She discusses theater criticism and theater-making in Australia. I'm amazed at how well it describes certain aspects of theater in the U.S.
Theatre can offer such radical experiences. Australian theatre usually doesn’t, because theatre is by its nature a social act. One person cannot make theatre on her own and repressions, conscious and unconscious, operate at almost every level of its production and reception. A major repression is the fear of ridicule and dislike. Our theatrical institutions ensure that the work they produce is acceptable to its audience. This is not a problem confined to Australia; in every Western culture, theatre producers face the bogey of the subscription audience, which is too often the death of theatrical courage. Everything is carefully airbrushed to a nice beige, in order not to offend anyone, and younger artists, rebelling as they must against the prevailing order, produce a lot of radical - beige.
As a substitute we have celebrity, watered-down social issues and the odd trite controversy. The effect is the creation of an “official” culture, well-oiled by public relations, which keeps in place a number of cherished assumptions and careers by the simple expedient of appearing to be challenging, cutting edge, exciting and everything else a culture is supposed to be, without any of the substance. This hypocrisy is endemic in all of our arts and is reflected in the repression of dissenting voices.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Technique vs. Aesthetics
Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it. To the great poet, there is only one method of music -- his own. To the great painter, there is only one manner of painting -- that which he himself employs. The aesthetic critic, and the aesthetic critic alone, can appreciate all forms and all modes. It is to him that Art makes her appeal.
Ghostlight Recommends
Orbit (notes from the edge of forever)
Erika Shuch Performance Project
A surprising and mostly seamless fusion of dance, theater, music, and video that charts the search for extra-terrestrial life, faith, belief, and the need for contact and connection with the universe. By turns funny, poetic, and visually captivating.
A surprising and mostly seamless fusion of dance, theater, music, and video that charts the search for extra-terrestrial life, faith, belief, and the need for contact and connection with the universe. By turns funny, poetic, and visually captivating. Extended for through August 19. Thursday - Saturday @ 8pm
Intersection for the Arts
446 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA
Tickets: 415.626.3311 or
http://www.theintersection.org/
$9-20/Sliding Scale
Thursdays are Pay What You Can
Directed and Choreographed by Erika Chong Shuch. Created and Performed by Erika Chong Shuch, Melanie Elms and Danny Wolohan with Kieran Chavez, Joseph Estlack, Courtney Moreno and Erin Mei-Ling Stuart. Production Design by Sean Riley. Video Design Ishan Vernallis with III. Music by Daveen DiGiacomo with Vocal Direction by Dwayne Calizo. Directorial Assistance by Jessica Robinson. Production Team: Seth Beale, Leslie Linnebur, David Petrelli, and Emily Zwissig.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Territory Expansion
Here's an item I've been meaning to post. Chasing Ruins: An Interview with Tim Etchells. An old interview I think. Relevant to me in much the same way as the Version 1.0 Micro-Lecture. It speaks to working together as an ensemble, or as a company, and finally why one is working at all. Three quotes describe my thought in regards to work at the moment.From Chasing Ruins:
...this really is a group of people that has a conversation it needs to have, a set of topics and themes and concerns we need to keep discussing together...
I think the best decision we ever made was that we weren't interested in being a successful theatre company. I think it took us ten years to realise that fully—that the ladder one was meant or expected to climb in the UK—was of no interest to us. I think from that point on we were confident that expansion sideways into installation projects, new media, video and so on, were of more interest to us than trying to forge relations with the mainstream theater venues. It's a very liberating moment when you admit that you aren't even tied to particular forms or strategies...
From Version 1.0:
...what would be the shakiest premise for being together in the studio...
Exploring this territory is pretty lonely work. I don't mind being alone actually. I'm at the point where it's liberating. It's changed my conditions for working with other people - the how, the why, the where. It's changed my conditions for the work I'm creating. It's not that these are new ideas for me because I've held them for quite some time. It's finally insisting that these are the conditions for work and that settling for less is unteneable. Impractical? Idealistic? Sure. The results are inconclusive at this point, but the work and the direction I'm moving slowly, ever so slowly are right on target.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Version 1.0
I haven't seen this group perform. But I'm keenly interested in them. Maybe someday I'll make it to Australia to see them. Here's a Micro-lecture on performance devising written by David Williams (company manager, performer, etc).
Their current production The Wages of Spin goes into performance this week. Schedule here.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Things to Come
I began reading Edward Said's On Late Style last week. Mostly, I dove into the chapter on Glenn Gould and have been swimming in it ever since. Over the next month or so (I'm writing my thesis so it's difficult to carve out the time to do this), I'm going to go through the essay using it as a springboard to discuss the following topics: appropriation & stealing, creation & inspiration, and performance in relation to my own acting/directing/ writing and specifically in relation to work on Hanke's Offending the Audience (which I'm in the process of memorizing). Gould is one of my sources of inspiration as I tackle this text. I've been listening to his Radio Documentaries and the Solitude Trilogy. In the meantime, John Updike reviews Said's book in the August 8th issue of The New Yorker. You can read it here.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Get Caught
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Not My Beautiful House
Okay. So I didn't hold my breath when my car died leaving me stranded and baking in the parking lot a couple of weeks ago. And last week, when I came home to find a third of the house flooded with water coming from the shower, the toilet, and the sink all at once, I thought - "what's a little water?" Ha. Now as I look around at the house stripped - 2 feet of wall and most of the floor - not to mention the dehumidifiers to dry out the floor and the smell of the decontamination chemicals, I'm not feeling so optimistic. As a friend pointed out, "things come in threes." And things could be worse, right? Much, much worse. Right. I'll keep looking for the silver lining.
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