Overdue Production Report part 2

That Saturday, then, we had a surprisingly light turnout, and so I simply paired up the six people who were there and set them to work on specific scenes in the script. One pair did “Questions” from “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead,” another did a scene between Buttercup and the Man in Black from “The Princess Bride,” and the third pair did a segment of Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s on First” routine.

The “R&G” pair was between a pro wrestler and a middle-aged amateur grappler, both of whom have limited theatrical experience and familiarity with Shakespeare…and none with Stoppard. I set them in the grid and instructed them to find occasions to engage and confront each other. After a few turns of that, I let them incorporate grappling moves into the scene. They came up with a funny and exciting bit of theater, and the more they read through the lines, the more they started to understand the scene. The moves, in fact, started to express the ebb and flow of the scene. Then on a break, I discussed Hamlet, Shakespeare, and “R&G” with the pro wrestler, who had never studied Shakespeare before. They then went back to working on the scene, and came up with a whole new physical interpretation of it. This new version gave new dimension and insight to the scene. It was not all about the grappling, there was use of levels and seemingly random movements that expressed the absurdity of it.

The “Princess Bride” scene became an almost dancelike grappling scene between the two characters. You could feel the emotion, the anger and romance, in the scene in every move.

“Who’s on First” was interesting. I am used to, and expect, and hope for that scene to be done in the rapid-fire, machine gun manner of the original broadcast (which I have on tape and listened to often when growing up). I originally envisioned it as a series of chain wrestling moves punctuated by pro-style throws and slams. Instead, it started with an almost Beckett-like sense of existentialism, and then evolved into a physical expression of confusion and exasperation.

You know, I thought, is there anything truly wrong with re-interpreting Abbot and Costello, like the way we so frequently re-interpret classic theater and opera? Who says that there is only one way to do “Who’s on First” that is entertaining? I have wanted to do that routine as a fight scene for years, and though someone else is acting in it, I am thrilled that they are doing it in a way that I never imagined…and I am even more entertained.

Overdue Production Report

OK, I have been remiss and not filed a production report in a while. So I will review.

Sifu Alex Richter at City Wing Tsun has been awesome enough to give us a good deal on using their studio for rehearsals on Saturday. A BJJ specialist I was hoping would work with us was supposed to come on the past two weeks, but unavoidable situations has kept him away. This has forced me to change the plan for those rehearsals on the fly. However on both occasions, this gave us the opportunity to find some new things I had not imagined.

On the first of these days, certain cast members who had missed a couple of rehearsals were given the opportunity to catch up on the techniques that we had learned, and we were able to add a few more steps. I was then able to see if the whole cast could do the moves in unison. A video of this will be up soon.

We then played a game of “freeze-tag-team-match,” in which the actors were to improvise scenes and combine grappling moves with the dialog. This proved to be a valuable and fun exercise. Thinking of the move and the line at once proved to be a challenge, but a fun challenge.

The following Wednesday we had a read-through. Many of the cast members had submitted scenes from various plays and movies. I assembled them into a sort of script that has come to be known as the “Drama Club Tag Team.” It will be the lead-off scene in the show.

The cast jumped into the lines with encouraging enthusiasm. Some of them seemed unfamiliar with some of the dialog, due to their limited theatrical experience, but none of it seems to be an insurmountable obstacle. It was a good jumping-off spot for the consideration of who will play which role.

We also learned a couple of submission moves from standing and applied them to the grid exercise.

Second Casting Call

For the second casting call, a whole bunch of new people showed up, including four women, two MMA fighters, and several new lightsaber enthusiasts (Force bless ‘em). We began like the first one, with warm-ups, rolls and falls, the takedown, and training in the same basic BJJ routine.

Mark Greenfield, founder and creative director of the Faux-Real Theater Co was there. He is the man that got me back into theater about 11 years ago, and who’s version of Oedipus Rex gave me the creative breakthrough I needed to really see how this show could be done.

He led the workshopping of the grid this time, taking it places I had not imagine. In addition to incorporating the takedown, he added different speeds, added salutations, and added what I call the “centipede.” In this, when a player took down another player, that player joined his “army.” Working this in the grid, that led to long lines of “centipedes.” When two leaders faced off, the winner of the takedown would gain the other’s army. On those occasions when two facing actors could not decide who would win, another actor took the initiative of stepping between them and calling odds or evens.

Interestingly, the most experienced MMA fighter, one who professed no theatrical experience, stayed away from the other players until the very last moment, when it was one long centipede against him,. When we talked afterward he said that the point of fighting is always to attack. This is a concept I understand but had not considered making use of. I look forward to his contributions to the show.

At present, the cast is slightly bigger than I think I will have room for at Wicked Faire, but for the most part they are an enthusiastic bunch, and seem to be willing to “rough it” a little bit to do this show there. This is very encouraging.