Afterthoughts ...

I just wanted to post once more at the end of the semester to reflect on the work we did. First, I will say again that I was very impressed and grateful for the small group of students in the class. We had a group of eight at the beginning and a few had to leave because their schedules demanded it, but throughout everyone was very receptive to new ideas and gave their full attention and energy to thinking and talking about these plays and this process. Excellent work all around!

I was also very impressed with what the students put together for their final performances. Naomi Wallace's plays are already extremely relevant and moving, but I feel like the students were able to make direct connections with their own lives, current situations, and local people in ways that doesn't always happen, especially publicly, in acting classes. As I was watching, it occurred to me that if I were an audience member who wasn't familiar with how actors work, I would be intrigued just by seeing the process of research. And in addition to that, I learned a lot from the performances. I really think that if actors always went through such a process of research, interviewing and performing their work on characters, theatre would become relevant in a different way for contemporary audiences. That's an ambitious thought, but it does seem possible.

I will definitely do some things differently if the opportunity presents itself to do this again in the future. (Students can weigh in on this if they have the chance.) First, this is the assignment I gave for the final performance:

You might think of this performance as being akin to a live documentary related to your character, a collage, a quilt woven from a number of different kinds of fabric to represent your character, or a sort of “Frankenstein’s monster” of your character. The idea is to develop your character’s identity using different pieces of information—interviews, written texts, pictures, film clips, songs, costume pieces, etc.— and perform this montage for the class. You will then put that character to work in the scene you are performing. You can create the montage any way you care to do so, but it must include the following elements:

1. At least two “Everyday Life Performance” moments
2. At least two costume pieces
3. A piece of music that you associate with your character
4. All of the Viewpoints
5. At least two pieces of non-fictional research associated with your character (from news media, for example, or scholarly texts)
6. At least two artistic representations—not music--you associate with your character (film clips, sculpture, paintings, etc.)
7. At least two of your character’s lines from the play
8. At least two elements of your character’s history that come from your imagination
9. At least one reference to your own identity and how it is similar to your character’s

("Everyday Life Performance Moments," by the way, refers to an exercise that I took from Omi Osun Olomo's course in Performance Ethnography. It is a short excerpt from an interview performed verbatim, in the way it is spoken by the interviewee.)

I modeled this assignment after the composition work I learned when studying with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company years ago, and think it works well in a situation when there is limited time to compose a performance. I also have used it in the past, for undergraduate students who have very little performance experience. But this time, it seemed a bit limiting.

This may also because I worked along with the student and composed my own performance as part of the class, so they might have a model to which they could look (and also so that I would have something to demonstrate this process in other contexts). But I think that students who are more experienced would benefit from something less structured than this. The problem is that students have so much anxiety about this process, they tend to look for a template or a set of rules to have something that ensures them they are doing this "right." And so when I say "just compose a solo performance using the techniques we studied in the first half of the semester," it seems too wide open and students sometimes feel paralyzed. But the truth is, I think the performances would be more varied, in terms of structure, if I didn't include this list, or didn't show them my own work as a model. I wonder if I shouldn't be less concerned about easing students' anxieties, since sometimes solving the problem of "how do I communicate this character to an audience?" produces such compelling ideas. Not that these performances weren't beautiful and fascinating, just that I don't want students to feel that they have to follow a particular set of rules to get everything "right."

Also, one thing that was really unfortunately missing in this process was more engagement with the interviewees and members of the community outside of class. I always encourage students to invite people to rehearsals, but it never does pan out. That's where I think it would help to have a community of people already interested before the class begins. I think the fruitful conversations that might happen as a result of this process, and the changing relationship of audience to actors this is intended to encourage, really relies on seeing the process as more of a dialogue and equal exchange instead of a process through which the actors interview people and use that information to lend authority to their representations. In fact, that's the way in which this really is fundamentally different than "method" acting or other processes actors undertake - that it is a process that happens publicly rather than behind closed doors. That's also the reason for using the blog and Myspace, so people can offer their feedback as we work and allow their thoughts to influence the choices actors make.

Part of the problem is, of course, that people's time is precious, and to request that they give some of it up to work with a group of acting students is a lot to ask. This part of it ... the "community based," dialogue-driven part ... is perhaps the most important, and the one piece that has never worked. But once again, I am convinced that this process has the potential to introduce a very important shift in the relationship between actors and audiences, so we can all benefit from the questions and ideas being circulated through these processes. What I mean to suggest is that, rather than theatre artists working toward a "production" that is a final point, the whole process is something dynamic and changing, a conversation that can happen before, during and after what we usually consider the "performances" are over. If anybody has any suggestions for how to make the dialogue part of this process more successful, I welcome your comments or thoughts.

Program for Our Final Performances

I thought I would post the program from our final performances for anyone who wasn't able to attend. Thanks to everyone who was there!


Final Performances for Community Based Acting
April 25 and 26, 2009

Characters and Performers:
Gin Chance from The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek … Amy Steiger
Dray Chance from The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek … Amelia Pantalos
Pace Creagan from The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek … Will Gantt
Dalton Chance from The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek … Melanie Henry
Boxler from In the Heart of America … Rocky Vanderford
Fairouz Saboura from In the Heart of America … Zac Gilbert
Craver Perry from In the Heart of America … Cassie Perkins

The scenes we will perform today are from plays by Naomi Wallace, a Kentucky-born playwright whose new play The Hard Weather Boating Party opened this spring at Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival of New American Plays. In one of the plays the students chose, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, the character Pace Creagan says to her young friend, “Dalton Chance, when we're grown up, I want to stand here with you and not be afraid. I want to know it will be okay. Tonight. Tomorrow. That when it's time to work, I'll have work. That when I'm tired, I can rest. Just those things. Shouldn't they belong to us?" I find each part of Pace’s simple desire so moving - the "here" that means having a sense of place, the "with you" that means love and companionship, the lack of fear of persecution or loss, the need for satisfying work, and the need for rest - and this is so much what Ms. Wallace’s plays are about to me: the need to recognize which people in our world lack those simple human needs, to examine how we might contribute to their inability to have them, and to do our best to transform inequity and injustice in our own lives and communities.

And so these plays seemed ideal models for our efforts to find ways to examine and transform our relationship as theatre artists to our own community. All of us collected interviews with two or three people, and then we used pieces of those interviews in solo character study performances, using a technique borrowed from performance ethnography and the work of Anna Deavere Smith, who edits interviews into performances and speaks her interviewees’ words verbatim. We use her work because it gives equal attention to empathy and difference. Smith sees drama in the effort she makes to “cross the bridge” between herself and other people. In the introduction to her play Fires in the Mirror, she writes, "Character lives in the obvious gap between the real person and my attempt to seem like them. I try to close the gap between us, but I applaud the gap between us. I am willing to display my own unlikeness" (xxxvii-xxxviii). So as we worked, we noticed where we succeeded and failed in our attempts to get inside another person’s skin—and the important thing is what we learned through the process, through learning how to listen so closely to someone else, through becoming aware of how complicated human identity is, and the beauty and difficulty of that complexity, through finding out how to truly respect both the comforting similarities and the significant and fascinating differences between ourselves and other people.

Thanks for giving us your time and attention! We hope you enjoy the performances. We would love to hear your thoughts on our work or these characters and the questions they raise.

Post Solo Performance

Whew..., was it good? What was the response? I don't know, audience...what was the response?

I felt extremely good about the performances, of not just me, but of my comrades in the class. I feel like we all gave it all that we could considering (at least from my perspective) how much we really didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. I will be the first to admit that I was filled with dread beyond all dread, no matter how often Amy told us it wasn't that big of a deal (...but academics are academics!). However, having done one I reflect:

The last time I did my solo performance with a larger audience I felt like I was missing a big chunk of information. Granted, everyone is their own biggest critic, I realize now that Fairouz was in no way as developed as other people developed theirs...or maybe she was and I just can't see that? I will admit that I feel like I went a much different route when it came to doing my performance, I felt like I was doing a monologue a lot more than I was bring pieces into the piece to be examined, although that was a part of it. I felt that I didn't explain my process of creation, but rather did a weird monologue that was full of exposition of my character. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but perhaps it limited me...or I just didn't know how to develop it more (at the time). I ramble....

The big chunk that I was missing was part of my character that I sort of tricked myself into thinking I really didn't need.... for example...the race difference! Ah, gad! It was as I was down pretending to have sand fall through my fingertips that I realized that I was not complete and I had turned this woman into a woman from campbellsville and I no longer believed in her anymore - that is, not to the fullest extent.

However, this has taught my loads! In fact, it makes me very excited to do this process again and I may just go around making ten minute solo performances as I please... I mean, I'm already the life of every party anyway, ha. But, on a serious note, I deeply feel that I grasp the level of commitment something like this takes and how I did not give it all the justice it deserved. It was a learning process though, and now I've learned without receiving a literal slap on the wrist. I think that doing TOO much research is always the answer instead of curtailing around a schedule - although, I do think that I gave it as much as I could in my current state of ...crazy and sick.

How did it affect me as an actor? technician?

How didn't it. I think it's obvious how it affected me as an actor, but as a technician it only furthers my evolving through process that...theatre is not Me or You - it's US. And, if it isn't US it isn't worth a damn. I think this only makes it clearer that research is important in all facets of ...LIFE. It's a crime to misrepresent anything and these techniques allow me to represent to a more full capacity. Also, creating these solo performances allows all this research and information to become tools for creativity which was the most fun. Being able to take SO many things and create a story from it, my own story (so to speak) makes me feel more like the artist that I strive to be. In the end, we're all artists, even the audience.

This was TOO much fun! Can't wait to do it again!

Pre Solo Performance

As I begin to write this, I can't even allow myself to think straight without playing music in the background. This worries me a bit because the weapon of choice is, of course, CocoRosie...perhaps they are becoming a bit TOO involved with my life. Perhaps? NONSENSE... I start to wonder.

"Now that I'm alone, I feel the lonely brokenness of all the wicked avenues I never sold my love on."

Beginning to develop my solo performance I was really nervous. I knew I had a lot of information but due to my crazy semester and schedule and the outside world...and perhaps my overall effort in the end, I didn't develop the character as much as she deserved to be. I focused mainly on how her situation in the play could be played out, that is regarding her feelings of loss and not really being able to understand her brother's disappearance. If I've learned anything this semester in my own life it's that I now know what it's like to have someone in your life and for reasons that you canNOT understand they are gone. I wanted that to come across. So, I interviewed Cassandra Perkins, the one and only since she had a similar situation involving her brother leaving for the service. However, their stories don't really match, thankfully nothing tragic became of Cassie's brother, but the feeling of losing someone close to you (or that you might) was what I wanted to hit upon.

"He's my evil shadow dove, my black palomito. Can't shake him like a diamond skull... I can't seem to do so. Can't just rub him out like the mob used to do so..like memories of porno and tear stains and tobacco...oh...it's a mini disastro"

What else? I was able to use my information regarding the first gulf war to give a setting for the play since the rest of the show is set... in some...other world it seems. Boxler, especially exists in this world of living/dead...and I begin to think that Fairouz and Craver are no strangers to this weird existence. For this, I wanted to incorporate a part of a conversation that the class had had about the setting for "In the Heart of America." I chose to set my performance/scenes in a hotel room that was full of sand. That is to make the gap between life/death america/iraq more apparent.

What is most interesting/scary is that will it be ten minutes? I know Amy would say it really doesn't matter, but that's the academic part of all of this coming together. The stress of it being an assignment helps it work and makes it even more daunting. Here's hoping that it goes well!

Schedule for Final Performances: Solo Character Studies and Scenes from Two Plays by Naomi Wallace

Hello, everyone.


First of all, I've fixed things so that anyone interested can comment here on the blog. Better late than never.

We'll be giving a public demonstration of our work for this class, and we would love to have everyone come to our final performances. We will be showing solo character study performances that incorporate interview material, interspersed with scenes from The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek and In the Heart of America by Naomi Wallace.

Saturday, April 25 at 2:00 pm and Sunday April 26 at 7:00 pm, in the Thrust Theatre at the University of Louisville:


View Larger Map

Please come and let us know your thoughts on the work we've done this semester! And invite friends, too.

Performances so far (not ELP)

I received my grades back from my solo performance of my own story and my first performance of my piece from Trestle, so I figured I'd write on both of them.
The solo performance was kind of nerve-wrecking for me, I don't like to perform myself. Interesting, isn't it, how it is so much easier to hide behind a character that someone else has created? All actors are storytellers, but how hesitant we are to tell our own stories on stage. (Backstage... well, that's something else entirely.) So of course, I didn't execute my story exactly how I had rehearsed it, (and of course none of you knew any better, but there was even more great repetition and so fourth), but the plot was still communicated, so on that most basic level, I was still successful. As I said in my pre-story, I really don’t think I have many good stories to tell, in fact only one that I can produce on command that is really worthwhile, and even then it has to be for the right audience. It was very helpful to have someone say, in essence, “just tell. Me. A. Story. It doesn’t have to be epic, or ironic, or profound, it just has to have characters and action.” Time and again I find myself struggling as a student because I get too immersed in what I have been asked to do, and then I get overwhelmed and half the time I quit. When I don’t quit, I often end up settling for something less than what I had envisioned in my head, even though it still meets the assignment’s requirements. What did Shakespeare say about ambition?

Approaching Dray’s monologue was a different sort of challenge, as I had to figure out if/how to present it within the context of the play without someone playing Gin, and what to do with this need to destroy things-physical things-in order to manifest his frustration with his situation. I also wish I had spent more time playing with the physical tearing itself, and that I had sucked it up and brought something woven which I could tear. (I think someone I know occasionally does this as a stress relief mechanism. She also has been known to smash aluminum cans with a sledgehammer. Maybe I should interview her.) I want to work more with using the tears as punctuation.
In the future, I am also going to do the whole scene, I think, since we talked so much about honoring the script, and it really does make a huge difference in the action of the scene.
What I really like about this scene is they way that Dray is finally able to put his finger on something, to form the sentence “I don’t know how to belong to my life.” It gives a sense of hope, in the sense, at least, that progress is being made, and progress is the number one thing really missing from the lives of these characters. The stagnancy has smothered any remaining hope in just about everyone but Gin. What about Pace? In some ways, she is the driving force of the play, but she also doesn’t really know where she’s going.

Meeting the writer

I wanted to post over the break about meeting Naomi Wallace, and that seemed to slip my mind.. all week.. so, i decided to go ahead and post about it now.
Going into the meeting, I had a completely different idea of what she would be like, and what our meeting would be like. I just thought that it would be very professional, because she is a professional and very successful-- so i thought that we would be very restrained in our questions and that she would be cut and dry with her answers. However, I was proven wrong when she walked up to greet our group with this welcoming smile on her face. We sat in a small circle and started talking about writing and what we are doing with this class and she was just as interested in us as we were in her. It was so fun to hear her talk about her experience working with other people in the business, and I was so comfortable listening to her. She seemed like she was a part of our close community, and she is from Louisville, but when I stand back and think about where she has been and how successful she is, it really was nice to meet the person and not just a professional personality.
To be reading and performing her work is a completely different level of amazement for me. It is just such a new experience that I'm not quite used to and embracing that is definitely a fun adventure for me (and as I hope for the entire class). It makes me nervous to some extent too, to perform her work now, because we have met her and I feel a loyalty to her to perform it like she wanted, but i don't really know what that is.
the point of my blog is that it was a really educational experience getting to meet Naomi Wallace, and it was nice to put a personality with the name and face, and to know who wrote the plays that we have read and discussed.

So Obvious, Yet So Often Overlooked

I haven't worked with a professional theatre in any capacity; my theatrical experience is pretty well limited to work at the University of Louisville. Therefore, when it comes to the etiquette of the professional theatre, I have only questions and some hearsay. What I saw during the special effects tech run for THWBP answered a question, and it also made me smile a little.

The director, actors, and crew members treated one another with respect and civility. Unfortunately, this behavior is not often seen in our theatre department. Instead of barking orders at others, those involved with THWBP made polite requests. Rather than give attitude, they offered thanks for having been accomodated. No one person acted as if he or she was better than another. Similar ideas may have been thought by some, but they were not shown. The director did not scream, the actors did not talk down to crew members, and the crew members did not insinuate that the actors were buffoons. How nice it seemed. Furthermore, the star playwright that we met was a nice as anyone that I have spoken with for only half-an-hour.

Granted, this was one experience. Despite my lack of knowledge on the matter, I highly doubt that all professional theatre is always so courteous. I even doubt that the same behavior was seen throughout every inch of ATL. We've all had our moments of shameful behavior, I have certainly had mine. But that is the absolute most that they can be: moments. Those mere moments are still too much, but all cannot be perfect. I am not asking for rainbow smiles and Beach Boy sing-a-longs, but something as simple as politeness can make all the difference. Theatre, both inside and outside of this particular class, should be about community and collaboration. Anything else and the work is no longer art, it becomes a gross product of the ego. Good manners are an elementary component of the collaborative process and an easy way to establish that egos have been put aside for the benefit of the community. I've had a fear that passive-aggression and high-horse attitudes would to be ever-present in my hopeful future. Two Thursdays ago, I regained an optimism that the days ahead may not be so grim.

The Writer. The Reader. The "Then What?"

After returning from talking to Naomi Wallace, I had this weird thought that...SHE WROTE IT! Haha, I guess what made it weird was that there was an intensity level of knowing she had the answers, or that we had questions that had no business being asked regarding the work itself, that make sense? It was when Rocky was talking about the issues regarding war and terror and war crimes and how it can be paralleled throughout the there plays that we read - i realized that this woman HAS THE ANSWERS! Then I got to thinking some more, what have i created on my own through my own experiences that were not hidden into these texts in the first place - and how off target will I be when I talk about it? Anyway, it was a bit of anxiety regarding a pandora's box situation - do I want to know what's intentional or what's not? Hmm...

I also had a very self-esteem booster type of moment when I realized that I had stumbled across something (seemingly)great that parallels the three plays. Perhaps it was something to do with the supernaturalness of being able to leave or find something better. Perhaps that was the role of Lue Ming, Sausage Man and the Train - they were these more than reality characters that showed us something about the characters and ourselves - where we are coming from and what we are striving for. That doesn't sound like what I said (if anyone wrote it down, I'd like to be refreshed) but I like this just as well.

Moving on to other things, interviewing.... I'm starting to get worried about who I can interview and how far I'm able to spread my wings in doing so. I've got interviews lined up with people who are in the class, but does that really do me any good?

Moving on again. Recently (Yesterday) I just got back from the USITT conference, which is a Theatre Technology conference that showcases the growing industry and offers classes regarding different areas of technical theatre to help people learn and share their experiences. While I was there and for a few weeks I've been dealing with the issues of what do i want to get out of what I am doing? For example, I really want to run away to NYC and latch onto a designer and work my way up in the world by becoming a Broadway Lighting Designer - but what good am I doing for the world? Sure, I'm entertaining the few masses who can experience such a pricey thing, but what am I doing? So, the activist inside of me really wants to focus on the world and the issues that are at hand. I want to make a difference with all of this schooling that I'm doing and is that Community Based Theatre?

I realize this is scattered, but this is how the good thoughts come out (at least for me)

research for naomi wallace

So, finally, here are the two articles I pulled from that I found online. The first is "Enemy Within," and you can find it at http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2007/feb/06/lyngardner.features11 . This article speaks mostly about how Naomi is percieved. It especially talks about what obstacles she has to face as far as the government goes, or just how she is not very welcomed in her playwrighting from the government because she is, after all, a very political writer.
("Today, if you put forward ideas of a different America, you are accused of being naive or presumptuous and of not accepting reality," says Wallace") This was a quote I pulled from the article that gives you an idea of what she faces as a writer, and how she thinks as a person. (Gardner, Enemy Within.)

The second article was titled, "Looking for Fire," by Connie Julian. It is found at
http://revcom.us/a/1232/naomirwinterview.htm. This was an interview with Naomi Wallace, and although she did not talk extensively about her background information, I feel that by reading this, you will know her more personally than you would with a biography.

("In this culture we are sexualized in a certain way, not only to be heterosexual, but we are told there is one story of the body, and that is how you interact with the body. You know, the attention is put on the breasts or the groin and these other parts of the body are neglected, right? [laughs] But it's not so much just finding, "Oh, my toe is erotic," it's not about that, it's that if we're trying to re-imagine ourselves, then maybe we need to touch the world and what's out there in a different way, and grasp it in a different way. It's through making it strange to ourselves that we sometimes get into a new place, and then we can look at ourselves differently or look at our possibilities differently.
While I have also written about queer sexuality, I've mostly done what you're talking about in heterosexual relations in my plays because how heterosexuals touch and act out their sexuality is extremely overdetermined and restrictive. I've tried to break that down. The Trestle at Popelick Creek was an experiment in trying to write a heterosexual love story which is not dead at the gate in terms of being a site for change.
I do not believe that any sexuality is inherently liberatory or resistant. It depends on where it's sitting in history. So the challenge for me is how can I take a relationship between a boy and a girl and remake that desire in a way that they're not just a boy and a girl any more. They have to look at what it means to be a boy and a girl, how they are supposed to act, how they are supposed to touch and what they want to do with that knowledge. That's why a lot of folks have felt that it's a very queer play in that way. Because the sex that the boy and girl have is not your typical teenager sex when they finally get down to it. Because they are strangled by the norm, what they are allowed to do, what their choices are, which are so few. So it's a boy and a girl trying to break out of how they are meant to interact as young heterosexuals.
I think there's also a way of looking at the body, the way the body is so overused in this society in terms of selling it, or the way it labors, or the way the body is used up, by capitalism you could say, used and thrown out the back door. How we're these incredible bodies, with this enormous capacity to feel and desire, and how that's destroyed or how that's harnessed for other means, like channeling our desires into buying or consuming. So to try to relook at the body, and almost retrain our bodies to respond in a different way, or go to a different place than where the legal touch requires it to go. I've always been interested in that." -Naomi Wallace) (Julian, Looking for Fire.)
That was just an excerpt from the interview that I found very interesting because Naomi Wallace's plays are very sexual, but in a very different, almost raw, way from the "mainstream," or "common," sex scenes we see in plays today. The rest of the interview is very informative and really shows what Naomi's mission is as a writer. I encourage you to read the entire thing- it may help when reading her plays.

I'll meet you down at the trestle

GIN: Trains. Yeah. Huge, sweatin', steamin', oil spittin' promises when I was a girl. Always taking someone away, never bringing someone back. I couldn't get used to it.

This is a line from Act I Scene III of The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek. Gin says it to Dalton when he is trying to impress her with Pace's knowledge of trains. This conversation between mother and son is intercut with Dray's hand shadows portrayed by the often silent father character. The hand shadows are quite similar to Gin's idea of trains: something that you can see, but cannot touch or truly experience.
For my dramaturgy report, I researched and presented history and facts surrounding trains and trestles, especially those in Louisville and throughout Kentucky. In my applying this information to the play, I assumed the setting of the play somewhere in Appalachia.
The L&N railroad began extending its line to Eastern Kentucky towards the end of the 19th Century. As soon as the idea of trains and railroads became comfortable with these people, the Great Depression hit. Trains in Eastern Kentucky stopped transporting people, but continued to transport goods, like coal. Here is a (long) quote from the book, History of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad by Maury Klein:

"The elimination of trains and especially the abandonment of mileage evoked a similar anguish that extended beyond the L&N family into dozens of the communities served by the company. The accelerating rate of abandonments symbolized a striking reversal in the history of American railroads. The high tide of expansion had passed and was now ebbing slowly back. With its receding line went the hopes and ambitions of thousands who inhabited the areas no longer served. Usually the L&N's departure merely confirmed that any significant industry or resources were dried up. In this reverse process the railroad's leaving symbolized decay just as its coming had suggested prosperity. To these people, already crushed in spirit, abandonment often connoted desolation in more than the literal sense."

One of the most valuable books I found is called Trains, Trestles, and Tunnels, by Lou Harshaw. There are so many amazing pictures of trains, traintracks, tunnels, and trestles taken throughout Southern Appalachia, as well as a basic history and timeline of railroads in the South. There is one amazing picture of a trestle coming out of a tunnel, with a girl standing on top of it. Imagine Pace.
And finally, I found two songs that I think capture some of the overall mood of the show. I like putting music in my research, because it evokes a very specific emotion.

Train Song by Vashti Bunyan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AGD78mWcss
Trestle by Cletus Romp http://www.myspace.com/cletusromp

I know you won't miss kids like us, but kids like yours will pay the price

While doing the dramaturgy assignment for the class, I came across a huge amount of information regarding my topic: Gulf War/Desert Storm. My most valuable piece of evidence was finding a website that had many declassified government documents which were able to be downloaded into a PDF version. This information was WAY helpful, because it gave an unpopular, yet very factual, insight to the war.
The overall language of was very USA biased. For example, one of the main reasons we even started paying attention to things in Iraq was due to the Iraqi success in the Persian Gulf War and what Iraqi influence my do to the surrounding areas. We, and it's stated in the Executive summary released by the Government, the US Government became nervous of losing OUR influence in the land that is Iraq, Iran, UAE, etc. First off, the immediate question is why do we,the USA, have to have the overpowering influence in a land that is not, in anyway, our home? It's ridiculous. However, there are other reasons for war.
Kuwait sits on oil for days..., if Iraq took over Kuwait it was would have control of almost three quarters of the world's supply of Oil(previously having around 1/4). (It's safe to assume then Kuwait is not a threat - since by a simple arithmetical process we will easily discover that Kuwait now has almost 50% of the supply). Is it safe? Desert Shield was an act to protect Kuwait and keep Iraq out, then Desert Storm was born and created the effort to go around and attack Iraqi forces from the side (blindside them). We won! Hooray! - yeah...
The first Gulf War is heralded as the one that "broke the Vietnam Syndrome!" We did in fact have success in many ways in Iraq. I believe that this war had the least US Casualties reported as well as conflict seemed resolved, whereas Vietnam...is still a scourge in our history and will forever be the comparison for a war that went on for too long (and should have never started). When will ever learn; How can you remove a speck of sawdust from your brother's eye when the whole time you've got this great big plank in your own!

That little parable to me is the epitome of what In the Heart of America is for me. We've got these problems but we're spending time trying to solve other problems. We have to work on ourselves first to be able to open up and accept what is right and what is ... true to ourselves. It seems that the one character who does open himself up for truth is the one who dies. Remzi. Craver, who is lost in his own world from issues of PTSD and issues growing up; Fairouz who carries bitterness in her towards her brother and herself and how everything is turning out; they carry planks in their eyes and they need to be able to wash themselves of it. Does that make any sense?

Other information found was visual evidence from Youtube. There is a youtube channel that offers videos on all of the major American wars and the reason and tactics used during the war. It is extremely helpful in allowing someone (like me) who knows very little about war tactics and just general knowledge to be able to understand how it all happened. It is sponsored by the Discovery Channel.

I am not at my own computer so I cannot provide the accurate links (that are saved at home) but will update this post when I can get to my own computer!

I'm reminded of a song...

Thin Ice - Soviettes

I might not know just everything
But what I hear is that you kind of brought this on yourself
Well not quite you, but some before
They set it up so that the one you're after sat on top, they put him in a privileged spot
They gave him everything he's got
And now he's keeping to himself, so send someone for your revenge?
Well maybe not revenge
It's been suggested that you're out to finish up your daddy's war
You say it's not okay for them to have enough to wipe us out, so why is it okay for you?
It seems to me that since no one's got their hands on anyone for what happened last year
You're using this as a distraction
If you stepped back a minute I would hope you'd see
Its better that you work this out yourself
I know you won't miss kids like us, but kids like yours will pay the price
How will they see you then?
I wonder what they think of your big plan to wipe those people out
This could be your biggest regret
The ice you're on has never been so thin

Our Myspace Pages, Commenting on Our Work, and Naomi Wallace on Youtube

Just a couple of quick things: first, we have set up Myspace pages for our characters. This is how we will collect the character based research we do for the rest of the semester. The point of collecting information on Myspace is so that we can build online identities for our characters in a very public way. Once again, please feel free to comment on our work: we want to know what you think! This is all about having a conversation with members of our community as we build and develop characters.

Which brings me to commenting: I recently figured out that it doesn't seem possible to add a comment on Blogger, here, unless you have a Google account or some other related online presence. That's unfortunate! But if you have things you'd like to say and don't want to sign up for a free Google account, please feel free to email me at amy.steiger@louisville.edu, and I will post your comments for you. The same goes for Myspace: if you'd prefer not to sign up for an account, I'll be happy to copy and paste your thoughts for you.

Finally, this is just an online interview between Naomi Wallace and Kwami Kwei-Armah that I found on Youtube:

video links

As I'm doing work on Boxler and looking at vids about PTSD, I'm also considering other things we (as a nation, not we as a class) remember about the Vietnam War. That took me to thinking about Kim Phuc, the girl in the famous picture regarding napalm attacks, which led to this video. Just something for TA 525 to think about; esp. given the Viewpoints work we've done in class regarding images.

Univ. of CA TV: Can an image change the world?


Also, here are links to the youtube videos that I am hoping to show in class today:

Vietnam War: Da Nang
Public Service Announcement
What is PTSD?
PTSD Awareness
PTSD


These videos are not 'the gospel truth' in terms of highly regarded authorities speaking on the subject, but they are there to get the mental cogs turning.

One last one, not related to PTSD necessarily, but still regarding how a veteran copes with the after effects of war:

CNN: Wounded and Inspirational

Previous Productions

For class this week, I tried to research (tried being the keyword) previous productions of the two plays with which we will be working.

Here are the links to some relevant websites:

In the Heart of America
Production photos from Illinois Wesleyan University
Production photos from Macalester College
Interview with Naomi Wallace by InterAct Dramaturg Larry Loebell

The Trestle at Popelick Creek
Facebook Group for Kenyon College's production- has good photos
Facebook Event for IU Bloomington's production

More to follow since I have recently learned to spell- Pope Lick. It has a space.

Cornerstone, Community Based Theatre, Anna Deavere Smith and Naomi Wallace: Some Connections

As we move forward with the class and begin to practice applying some of the techniques we've been examining, I thought it would be good to draw some connections between the various threads about which we've been reading and talking. In an effort to be as transparent as possible about my goals as a teacher, I should say that my interest in including all of these various artists was that they have a particular interest in what some people call "engaged" artistic practices and scholarship. I am trying to find ways that these practices can be more actively included in the training of young actors, specifically, whose work is so important but is often dismissed and overlooked as a possible avenue for public intellectual engagement (in my opinion, the intellectual part of acting is often downplayed because we are so closely associated with our emotions and our bodies; but, as much recent research and scholarship shows, the mind is thoroughly embodied and emotional).

We began by making a transition from the discussion of solo performance to talking about community based theatre, and I brought up a quote by Ron Short, a member of Roadside Theatre who was cited in the chapter we read from the book Performing Communities. He points out that if you have historically been part of a group on the fringes of American society,

...you don't have any of that political control, that economic control, even the control of your own image. Somebody else is controlling and telling you who you are. Then the only thing you have is your own story. That's about the only thing that you have. It comes down to how you use that in a public way. That's essential to me. Thater is the last public forum for common people. ... That process of dialog with the audience enters into the collective consciousness of that community and helps shape that community. As it uses the collective knowledge, it gets built together. (30)

This made me realize how much of a gift it will be if people choose to share their stories with us, and how important it is for us to continue a dialogue with them as we progress. The work we are doing here is about conversation, ideally, rather than about control.

Continuing on that theme, we were really very fortunate to have a visit from Patty Payette, a former member of Cornerstone Theater Company who now works on our campus. We discussed the chapter in the same book on Cornerstone's work, and focused on the importance of mutual respect, and sharing our skills as theatre artists with the larger community in which we live. The chapter we read emphasized the importance of not entering into a project with the goal of changing a specific thing about someone or a community, and this brought up the risk of looking for a definite outcome or attempting to "help" in a sort of condescending, disengaged way. So we also talked about the importance of process and prioritizing what we can all learn from each other, as opposed to just paying attention to a final, marketable product. And as Ron Short pointed out, it is this kind of conversation that creates and builds our communities anew.

As tools for approaching this kind of work, we began to look at resources offered by different artists and writers whose work is based on the art of listening: the late, great Studs Terkel (may he rest in peace), whose website includes some very useful advice about conducting oral history interviews, the Storycorps project, whose book Listening is an Act of Love also offers excellent resources for conducting rich conversations, and Anna Deavere Smith, whose work of listening and embodiment takes careful research a step further by actually allowing actors to try on another person's identity.

One definition of community based art is that it is made "in, from, and for" specific communities, which lead to a long and ongoing discussion of how one defines community. I have read critiques of Deavere Smith's work, for example, that suggest it is not technically community based because it focuses a great deal on her own virtuosity as a performer. I, myself, believe that her work is exemplary because she is a highly skilled performer with enormous presence who actually makes an effort to open her power up and share it by beginning conversations about what American communities are or can be. But also, anyone who has tried to do the kind of work she does will probably find that it is a selfless process that requires an intense and respectful focus on the specific details of the lives of other people.

I also appreciate the focus Deavere Smith's work gives both to empathy and difference. In her introduction to Fires in the Mirror, she writes, "Character lives in the obvious gap between the real person and my attempt to seem like them. I try to close the gap between us, but I applaud the gap between us. I am willing to display my own unlikeness" (xxxvii-xxxviii). Training actors for professional careers is so frequently internally focused and intent on emphasizing an actor's ability to be "natural," and actors in mainstream theatre, television and film are so often limited to roles "like them" into which they can conveniently and believably be cast, the value of listening, observing and behaving differently doesn't get enough time or attention.

Finally, we begin work this week on the characters that form the basis of our research this semester, from the plays of Naomi Wallace. It seems to me that Wallace fits very well in the context of this other work, because as Brendan Pelsue points out in his portrait of her in the schedule for the upcoming Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville, "Wallace's work is grounded in the idea that human connection - emotional and sexual intimacy or the honest and empathically minded study of history - can transcend even the most desperate situations." Wallace herself, in an essay in the January 2008 issue of American Theatre magazine, writes that "we need more writers who envision theatre as a space for social and imaginative transformation" (100). I believe we also need more actors who do the same. She continues,

I am not calling for a condescending theatre or a 'preach to the converted' theatre but a welcoming, vigorous, inquisitive and brutal theatre. If we encourage our students to dig, they will find the body, in all its intimacy and vulnerability, under the garbage of mainstream political rhetoric. (102)

In order to reach for this kind of acting and performing, our class will spend the last half of the semester working on scenes and monologues from The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek and In the Heart of America. At the same time we will be building our characters from those plays through an attempt to "extend our sense of common ground," as the authors of Beginner's Guide to Community Based Arts phrase it. As we continue, I think it will be helpful to use the acronym "CRAFT" that is proposed by that book to assess how we are progressing on a number of fronts. The letters stand for "Contact," or establishing trust, mutual understanding and commitment; "Research," which involves listening, observing and learning; "Action," which refers to producing new works of art - in our case solo performances and scenes; "Feedback," which again means listening to and incorporating community suggestions, critiques, imagination and needs into our work; and "Teaching," which means doing what we can to make our own knowledge and skills available to other people, in the humble hope that our knowledge might in some way help them to build and enhance their own lives and communities.

Please, if you read this and would like to be a part of what we're doing or know someone who would, feel free to write.

Feedback from Public Readings

I am finally getting around to writing here about our public readings of three plays by Naomi Wallace: Slaughter City, In the Heart of America and The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek. For each of three Saturday afternoons, we gathered in the Thrust Theatre as a class to read the plays aloud and discuss them. I explained in an earlier entry the idea behind these readings: to invite members of the community at large into the process of deciding which play would provide the basis for our semester's work. We've ended up choosing to focus on scenes from two of the plays: In the Heart of America and The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek.

Our early discussions were really excellent, I thought, even though we only had a handful of people not in the class ... all of whom were family members of ours! I think this kind of process is very slow to catch on, but I'm determined to convince people of its value. This occurred to me during President Obama's address the other evening, when he said something related to each and every person's point of view being valuable. I think this kind of engaged process makes so much sense in a political environment that is attempting to re-focus the country's priorities on ethics, responsibility and real participatory democracy. I think Naomi Wallace's plays call for the same kind of engagement.

That said, I want to include some notes two of our community members sent to me (who happen to be my mother and my aunt.)

My Aunt Peggy was present at all three readings, and wrote to me that she was very impressed with the students and their insights about the plays. Here are the notes she sent regarding questions of what struck her in general, what she related to personally, and what issues the plays address that are relevant to the local community:

Slaughter City: The themes relating to the inability to find other jobs; equal pay for women; job discrimination resonated with me and with what I hear from some of the people I talk with who are struggling to make ends meet. There were some lines that hit on current themes: "What happened to this animal called hope." Of course, we have just completed a presidential election on that theme.

Trestle at Pope Lick Creek: I think this caught very well the current economic situation the country is in, in terms of closing of plants and job losses. I think it has appeal because the trestle at Pope Lick Creek is pretty well known in this community and has an aura of danger and risk about it. The risk taking of youth and the discovery of the opposite sex themes are ones lots of folk would relate to as well as parents who struggle through these years with their children. I had thought this would be my selection, until today.

In the Heart of America: I think this was a powerful play for our time. I was so impressed that some of your students thought so, too. Since the Vietnam war the pictures of war that come back to the American people through the news have been sanitized and the real horrors of war are not shown. This play brings them home. With the second Iraq war phasing down, the war in Afghanistan is being expanded, and so we do the same things and we do them again and again. The juxtapositioning of the description of the various weapons with the attempt to develop a relationship has meaning on several levels. One is that we can use weapons to focus our attention away from the individuals on whom these weapons are going to be used. Another strong theme is the need to be trained to be a soldier and to channel anger against the "other" regardless of whether the other is the source/cause of our anger or not.

If I had to pick one play, it would be "In the Heart of America." However, I think taking scenes from several of the plays, particularly if they relate to a similar theme could be very effective also. I look forward to seeing what the class decides to do.

My Mom (Mary Ann) was present at the last two readings, and I'm paraphrasing her notes here:

In The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, she noted the difficulties of people being out of work. She was also struck by the strength of the women in the play: she made a note about Pace being a particularly atypical and strong female character. And she related to Gin's comment about trains taking people away, but never bringing them back; it occurs to me that loss and grief of various kinds are major themes in this play, and the others as well.

She noted a number of lines that stood out in In the Heart of America. One expressed the idea that facts are there to be interpreted to the benefit of whoever cares to use them; she later mentioned that the issue this raised for her was the current Iraq war. Another line was "what's done is often done again and done again" - this play points out the similarities among wars in which the U.S. has engaged in the 20th and 21st Centuries. She also noted the poetic names for all the weaponry: that people never actually mention what these things do to human bodies.

In both plays, she noted that they address stereotypes of poor Kentuckians, and particularly people from Eastern Kentucky.

My mom didn't express a preference, but she had a lot more notes about In the Heart of America.

I was so thankful that my family was supportive of the work we're doing and wanted to attend, but am also thrilled that they engaged so closely with what they were hearing and were willing to offer some comments. Thanks also to Rocky's mom for her very insightful input. I hope they'll continue to discuss things with us as we move forward.

Just one thing I wanted to note: I directed a laboratory version of The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek six years ago. One line of Pace's really jumped out at me this time in a way that it didn't before. She says, "Dalton Chance, when we're grown up, I want to stand here with you and not be afraid. I want to know it will be okay. Tonight. Tomorrow. That when it's time to work, I'll have work. That when I'm tired, I can rest. Just those things. Shouldn't they belong to us?" I find each part of her simple desire so moving - the "here" that means having a place, the "with you" that means love and companionship, the lack of fear of persecution or loss, the need for satisfying work, and the need for rest - and it's so much what these plays are about to me: the need to recognize which people in our world lack those simple human needs, to examine how we might contribute to their inability to have them, and to do our best to transform inequity and injustice in our own lives and communities.

Anna Deavere Smith on 60 Minutes

I have quite a few things to catch up on, here, but first I wanted to post this video for the students to watch before tomorrow's class. It's a segment about Anna Deavere Smith that was on 60 Minutes twelve or fifteen years ago. For those readers who might be interviewed for the class: this is how the students may perform your stories later in the semester.

(I apologize for the small size and poor quality. I copied this a long time ago from a video tape a professor of mine had recorded from the television. But I think it's clear enough for you to get the idea.)

Catching up on blogging with the return of internet... Some thoughts on Trestle at Pope Lick Creek

Some thoughts I jotted down after last Saturday’s reading of The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek:

I was very struck by the moment on p. 303-4 where Dalton and Pace are improvising their own adventure with the train, and Dalton says that he is killed by the train- “Of course there’s almost nothing left,” to which Pace replies “Yeah there was. There was a lot left.” And suddenly the moment isn’t about Pace and Dalton anymore, it’s about Pace and Brett. I also don’t think Pace loses her cool throughout the whole play. When she gets upset, she doesn’t raise her voice, that’s not her way.


I also wrote down the phrase “shadow play,” which really expresses itself in several ways. This play is in itself a shadow play, in that it addresses poverty and depression, issues that people like to keep sequestered to the “shadows,” not bring to the forefront as they are uncomfortable subjects. Most, if not all of the characters are in some way shadows of their former selves, and then there is of course the literal use of shadows made by hands in front of a candle.


Throughout the play there is also a connecting thread of needing someone else’s confirmation to affirm one’s own existence or identity. I see this manifested in Brett’s request for Pace to confirm that she saw Chas slap him, in Dray’s request for Dalton to touch him, and in Pace’s request to “watch me. Whatever you do. Take a good look. Make some notes. 'Cause one day I might come back here to find out who I was—and then you’re going to tell me.” (page 326) The role of touch in this play is very intricate. I think that in a staged production it would be especially apparent just how important and deliberate physical contact between two characters is- it is always specific and intentional. This relates to questions about having control over your body and what happens to it, whether that is going to work and having your hands turned blue by chemicals, or whether or not you get sliced in two by a train.


One thing I’d like to explore further are ideas about love and the expectations that accompany it in this play. Thoughts?

today's class

After our meeting with a former Cornerstone member last week, I wasn’t so sure about how this all worked. I think because Cornerstone is such an extreme to what we had been talking about – I mean, they literally drove in their cars and landed upon whoever would take them in. Now, don’t get me wrong, this sounds incredible, but I was not quite sure how the appeal compared to the success of the communities the company inhabited. After reading the book, however, I am starting to see what’s up. I’m not as much into the directions and all that, but I really enjoy the stories (plus those are the comic book parts!)
As humans, we are creatures of comparison. We usually learn more about something by comparing it to whatever prior knowledge we have of that subject. Today in class we were talking about theatre and how it has been a certain way, with specific conventions, for so long. The social order and view regarding theatre and drama have changed throughout history, but the basic implementation has always been, and is still there. Now we are being introduced to a completely different theatre process that can change perspectives for the audience and company, not just one or the other. Is this the new form of theatrical convention? And if it is, do we want that? So often, something is so great until it becomes the norm, and then we find (again as our comparative genes overpower our sensibility sometimes) that we are not as intrigued with this new form that has taken shift.

Craver

Craver is me. I am Craver. I really feel so connected to him and it hit me in such a strange way while reading the play. I know I talked to Cassie about this, but did anyone else feel they were about to come to tears while reading this play? It struck a nerve, and I thought that I was sold on Dalton, but playing opposite of Craver (who I instantly saw as myself from the beginning) as Fairouz made me fall in love with the character so deeply. I'm realizing that I am one of those people who wears emotions on their sleeves - but it's true, and now that I'm talking about it just makes me feel more connected to him, like a rush.
I'm from a part of town that is easily considered "white trash," and I've definitely grown up with that mentality and learning how to escape the dreaded garbage filled backyards. My own personal home was not as such and the environment I come from is very nurturing and beautiful, but all the houses around me were the same people, just not concerned with presentation. When I think about it, I think that it's a group of people who don't know the benefit of sight and therefore they cannot see themselves. (Which ties into Cornerstone actually - more on that in a minute). Craver was a beautiful lost piece of trash that was experiencing seeing himself for the first time (or at least it felt that way with the situation) although still very jaded and torn. His love for Remzi is so strange in the play that it is so TRUE, and his strange feelings for Fairouz stem from such an intriguing place (somewhere in the depths of guilt or pain of Remzi's death). I think that this role is a very eye-opening bit. His tragic lot in life is something that seems to shine very beautifully because he is the real American boy from a real American town who feels unwanted and ashamed and confused and mixed with a quiet sense of pride, the way I feel we all are. I think he is the model for everyone and whether or not his role leads in good example is irrelevant. Truth only leads to truth.
Back to Cornerstone. Reading about them and then having the discussion we had, made me just want to hop in a car and CONTROL what I was doing and control the role I was choosing to play by giving people a mirror to see themselves in. I think that people don't realize their potential to be anything any other human being can be until someone TELLS them (better yet, SHOWS them and WORKS with them) that they can DO these things. I feel so proactive about this class as it speaks to the inner activist.

"And what's done is often done again and done again."

As the page loaded so that I could begin this blog post, I heard

Without going out of your door
You can know all things on earth...

...The farther one travels
The less one really knows

((lyrics from "The Inner Light," The Beatles))

And all of the sudden, like many things in this play, that song really resonated with my mind frame. I know that after we finished reading the play I barely spoke two sentences. But this play, for several reasons, was one I really needed to have time on my own to decompress from reading; to let my thoughts percolate and my emotions untangle as it were.

Since In the Heart of America is the third Naomi Wallace play we've read as a class, and I'm not yet familiar with her other work, it's the commonalities between these plays that stand out to me. Foremost are the themes of inequality (within interpersonal relationships), power struggles/issues of control (both inter- and intrapersonal), homoeroticism, the cyclical nature of history and the way people dwell on their past mistakes without trying to learn from them.

There are also several images she uses repeatedly -- whether in evocative dialogue or visually, suggested in the stage directions. With most plays, people within the theatre world--especially when taking a scholarly approach--tend to bear in mind that stage directions in scripts are often added into scripts not by the playwright, but rather, after they have been performed and the script reprinted. My question after reading Slaughter City, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, and In The Heart of America is whether or not the stage directions in the versions of these scripts that are included in the anthology we read from are directions from Naomi Wallace. Given that we are not reading reading individual scripts, from different publishers, as happens with Shakespeare, Williams, O'Neill, Mamet, but rather an anthology containing works only from one writer, I would assume Wallace wrote in the directions we read.

This makes it all the more meaningful when we read stage directions indicating that Pace stands in Dalton's jail cell and he is unaware of her presence, or Cod, not yet born, standing in the room that will lead to her mother's demise, trys so hard to warn her mother of the fire creeping quickly up the building, or Remzi shows up in the shadows of Craver and Fairouz's minds in the final scene of In The Heart of America.

Then there is the language. Again her language in this play is striking; stunningly simple at times, profound in its blunt, provocative nature in places, and full of memorable phrases and imagery. The repetition of words and phrases within each play ((all roads lead to Viewpoints for me now?)) lead you to reexamine the characters motives with each utterance. The threats and occurrences of people gutting one another throughout these three scripts make you contemplate what it is to split a person open, metaphorically, and get their inner self -- who or what will you find their heart beating for? Can you figure out what makes them tick? And their soul, if it is still there, what will it look like? The one that gets me every time, the one I most want ask the author about is the significance of fishing. It (the fishhook, fishing, fish etc.) seems to be a trademark. It appears in each of the scripts we read at some point. See if you remember who said what in which play:

• "As though your chin has a string attached to it that is pulling it up. (stage directions). No, a hook is better, a hook in your chin, like a fish."
  
• "He took some fish line and a hook out of his box and he sewed my mouth shout. That's why I could never kiss a girl."
• "Long thin pieces of glass. He pulled them out of his cheeks with pliers, like pullin' fish bones out of a fish."
• "I was using a six-pound line that day and I landed a four-pound smallmouth bass...He kissed me on the mouth four times, one time for each pound of that bass."

To touch on the three questions we were asked to keep in mind for each reading (what stands out to you, what do you relate to, and how does this play relate to your community), I think I have one thing to say to all three. Because I'm spending 20+ hours a week immersed in working on Soldiers Circle, the things that stand out to me and that I relate to most are bits of the dialogue that serve as keyholes into the soldiers' minds (right off the bat, between pp. 87 and 89, there are three lines that sound so much like characters in SC, that I immediately flashed back to last week's rehearsals, and David, Justin, and Tiffany in different scenes, making different observations about Iraq and war...and killing.) The play I'm stage managing is based on interviews with, blogs, journals, diaries, and letters by veterans of and soldiers in the current war with Iraq.
Even though In The Heart of America and Soldiers Circle are structured very differently and each has a very different focus from the other, I couldn't help but think about the parallels between all of the soldiers in the past wars Wallace mentions and soldiers in the current war. History isn't just repeating itself when politicians, civic and religious leaders ignore the past and return to war against anyone they can find who'll fight back, it repeats as the soldiers on the front lines are taught not value the lives of others (much like the attitudes Sarah Carleton described in her Solo Composition); are inundated with messages that the only thing that matters is winning, is saving themselves, at any cost, are sent back to live as civilians with the knowledge of the things that happen during war, and with the weight of the world on their shoulders. The weight of a world that is filled with people who can never possibly understand their experiences, relate to their lives.
I know I sure as hell won't ever understand what it's like to kill someone, because you've been sent into their country by people who can make the decision to put you in the line of fire, knowing they're safe back home, and now if you don't take that shot it could be you who dies.

The current war, like all wars at home and abroad, impacts not only the global community, but our community down to its most localized level -- campus, and even further in, our department. I'll venture to say all of know someone involved in the war to some extent (I have a fraternity brother who was called back to active duty last year, a close friend who's recent ex just shipped out, and a friend from my last school who married a man in the service, as well as other friends of friends or friends of family), giving us all an even bigger stake in a peaceful resolution.

As much I liked the other two plays, and would particularly enjoy working on Pace, I feel that in the spirit of community based arts, In The Heart of America just might be what's called for right now.




Besides I'd have an easy time finding people to interview.

Solo...Trestle...Butoh?

Honey or Tar. Does anyone know that song cocorosie? Well, after reading Trestle I found that it was stuck in my head. There is such beautiful imagery conjured up that has to do with control and lust and desire and bodies and pain. It's a very beautiful piece and too me, this is what the play represented. I was shocked by how much I related to the character Dalton. To the point where I felt that Dalton was a homosexual in the play and to me that explained his odd relationship with Pace. It seemed forced and fragile and unsure and just ODD; however, strangely comfortable to me for reasons that I can't really put into words.
I thought the play was outrageously and scarily poignant to NOW. Does anyone else agree? I think the parallels between economy is extremely striking as we enter a very scary part of our world that is scary as can be for someone my age. There is an urge in me to never grow up because being in school allows me to gain money and live without having to worry what's going to happen. Financial Aid is a wonderful safety net, although it's limiting and who knows what's going to happen to me once I leave it behind - and I want to. I don't want to be scared into not living my life and being forced to bide time in a life that could create detrimental results. Very much the same way detrimental results inflict the lives of Dalton and Pace.
Moving on...the solo performance
I was surprised that I was able to just jump into something making sure that it was a major improv. I figured having it done improv would provide a higher energy and would make it a much more enjoyable experience for everyone involved. I think I needed that adrenaline to be able to actually play the guitar and sing in front of people. I guess that's the moral of the story though. What's interesting is how I left the viewpoints alone and just let them be what they were. I think that in the beginning I may have been thinking about them too much and I never let myself realize that they are always happening no matter what. It's also funny how learning about them has coincided with so many things that I'm doing in my life. For example the dance company I Stage Manage. Not only that, the Butoh show.
I recently had the pleasure/opportunity to design lights for a solo Butoh performance and it really allowed me to experience the viewpoints in a way that I had been searching for. The performer had no real care about when lighting moments happened or how they happened. He'd ask for a change and make obvious decisions, but he left a lot of responsibility up to me to sort of dictate to him. It was as if we were in this relationship and I would supply for him what I FELT he needed. For example, there was a part in the show where he wanders around in the blue light and these harsh white spotlights appear on the stage floor. His response is to jump in the light and examine it and then I was supposed to take it away whenever I felt like it. I had this ultimate control to dictate how long he stayed in one place on stage until the spot moved away and disappeared into the ceiling.
I feel like I'm rambling at this point, but I hope my points were clear. Here are the lyrics to "Honey or Tar" and I hope they make sense to someone else (granted they are not literal, but suggestive of the emotions and thoughts that I felt were prevalent in the play)

I undressed you with my eyes i have
Maybe even raped you
In a dark and eerie corner of my mind
I tucked you there
And touched you in a dream last night
Pushed you aside when you entered
My thoughts at the wrong time
I have sat up upon your lap and
Saddled my thighs around your hips like ropes
I rode you on a chair and in the shower
And all the while i clung heavy to your back
My desire deeply harnessed in your spine
I'm riding recklessly though a thick and humid
Jungle growing anxious with the deep and primal
Yearning that stirs
Deeply pulsing up toward the surface
Like sap rising or honey or tar

Derailing life

Ok, so I know I talked a lot after the reading Saturday, so some of my comments will undoubtedly be straight reiteration of reactions which I already mentioned. I apologize in advance for that. For me to organize my thoughts/reactions to the readings, it is easiest to look at notes I wrote in response to Amy's specific questions and expound on my feelings from there.

1: 'anything that stands out, is striking, of interest'

• I already mentioned the strong imagery and use of metaphors, the poetic nature of the piece. Some of the page numbers I scribbled down while we were reading were 290 (the neck breaking), p 296 (pretty much all of what Chaz says), and the top of 306.
  

• Right off the bat, Pace and Dalton's conversation of how Brett used to hit himself in the face.It reminds of the behavior I've experienced when I used to work in childcare and there were autistic children in my program, some of whom were not very high functioning. While the particular child I'm thinking of, I have no reason to believe that was learned behavior from the way he treated by his parents, teachers or therapists, in Brett's case it was a survival instinct. *My dad doesn't know how to relate to me, and I can't seem to make him happy with me, so maybe if I treat myself the way he treats me, then we can connect on some level. And maybe the pain won't be so bad if I'm controlling it.*

Every single relationship and interchange, whether shown or described, within this piece
was in some form about status, power, and control. These were people living with the
daily fear and grief that comes from having no power over the chaos in the world around
you. When that is your reality every minute of every day, any control you can exert over
your specific circumstances and over the lives of those around you is that much more of
a sense of security, a feeling that if you can "trudge instead of wallowing," you have at
least some small hope of surviving. You just might make it, even though the world is
falling to shit around you.


2: 'something you relate to'

• As hard as is was for me to initially recognize things in this piece that I could relate to, once the first thought came there was a lot there waiting to burst the dam. The first thing was, again, Brett's self abuse. I had no thought's on his motivation for that until about 10 minutes ago, but I could still identify the urge he and his father were having to physically manifest their emotional torment.
• Dalton. His admission of 'I killed Pace' was the first time, in probably his entire almost-16 years of living, that he could control a major event in his life, and take ownership of things. I remember 16, it was hard to get people to let make your own choices, they were too afraid of the consequences to let you learn from your mistakes. I was 17 when this play was published, and it's set 45 before my birth. And I know I can not ever fully fathom what it what it meant to be a teenager during the Great Depression, in a time when it's finally becoming accepted and a standard expectation for, in middle class working families at least, their children -- of both genders, at that --to begin to receive something more than the most basic of education before they go to work with their parents or go out and find jobs in the world beyond Mom and Pop's home. I think Dalton felt immense guilt that he had not tried to stop Pace, who was so determined to control her own destiny and provoke the people around her to give into her powerful personality, her wants and whims. And his way of grieving and assuaging that guilt was to, rather than saying he felt responsible because he was there and he let her show off to him and he wanted things from her and he gave into her, he just out and out said he killed her.
  

3: 'ways this play ties into the community'

• This was an easy and obvious question to answer, and it was already touched on by the group Saturday that the parallels between the depression in the '30s and the economic crisis we currently face, which historians and economists are labeling as the worst economic situation since the Great Depression. What we currently face in 2009 is having a global impact. And we are already seeing people losing their ability to cope with job loss, mortage payments, evictions, inability to provide for their children. We turn on the news nightly (at least, I do; I'm a CNN junkie) and hear about people committing crimes against their neighbors, people killing their families and themselves, families with no means of feeding and clothing their children. I talked to the clerk at the liquor store near campus the other night; I was half-heartedly thanking him for carding me, and he was stating that he couldn't risk losing his job (I realted to that, being an ex-server) with a family to provide for. He told me "I get WIC, but that's not enough for everything. Especially since I've got twins." People forget when they bemoan the families recieving government assistance that yes, there are some who sit on their asses and do nothing to try and take care of their kids, sure, but there are also a lot of good people, working hard to feed and diaper their little ones, but just can't make it in this economy without some help from some other source. Enough about that. We all agreed, it's rough. And the despair and pain and sense of entrapment people faced in the '30s is rapidly creeping into our society today.
• One more thing. It's back to the control issue actually, and it is, I guess, more of a question or a grain of thought to rub on your brain and generate pearls for others' blog comments. For people who have some tie to the belief, whether it be through religion or spirituality or working the steps in AA, that something larger is always in control, and if you surrender your need to micromanage everything and trust that things will work out, are times like these easier to endure? Can you keep it together in the face of despair and adversity with no solution in sight if you believe in your heart of hearts that hope is somewhere down the road?
  

saturday's reading

I have to say that I love The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek! Just comparing it to Slaughter City, I find it to be more clear, and clean. Again, it is a sad story, but i think it is easier to understand first off. Slaughter City was so raw, and I really liked the edge that it had, but I think that "Trestle," would be my choice so far, for us to work on.
The solo performances on friday went well, i thought. They were all very different, because we interpreted the assignment in our own ways, and that made for an interesting performance each time. I really liked the use of audience participation from everyone, it was nice to see how each person incorporated that into their piece. I also liked how Zac incorporated the song "origin of love," into his piece. He was so connected with us when he sang and played the song, and it has really touching words anyway- it was a moving experience because you could tell that it meant something, and that made it mean something to us. I found it difficult to get through my performance without getting emotional. Talking about the past and comparing it to the present always brings a little bit of pain in everyone because we relive our experiences, good and bad, but I found it much more difficult to talk about the present than the past. It was a good experience, but i just hope that it wasn't uncomfortable to watch.

I read this play two years ago and was intrigued and interested in this story. As I’ve said before I am interested in material that brings together fantasy and realism. And this show weaves these elements in a seamless way that provided a show that I found so interesting.

The way the train becomes such a stark part of the story and personality – showing the deep desire to find oneself and leave behind depression and the impact of poverty.

In our current economic state where I hear stories of friends and friends of friends loosing jobs and the fear of that impacting more this story speaks to the stories I see played out in front of me.

One of the powerful parts of this story was the way that the children had to watch their parents suffer and despair. In the face of this kind of despair words are often not enough – and this is where the fantasy and poetry of the play becomes so powerful.

The simplicity of the play lays out a story that takes us through pain with poetry and beauty.

the trestle at pope lick creek!

So I read In the Heart of America yesterday at work after the staged reading of The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek. Having read all three plays, (even though we haven’t had the reading for the third play yet), I think The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek is my favorite. I feel like I can relate to this play more than the others. I know that’s not the point of the class, per se, but it is not even so much the characters I relate to. It’s the idea that there is something better out there, but it is unattainable. I lived a big part of my life like this, constantly thinking that things would get better once…(fill in whatever). Finally, I realized that I was missing out on my life, and I think all of the characters in this play are stuck there. They all think that things will change and then their circumstances will be better, or things will never change and they will forever be stuck. But really, it is up to people to change their own lives. But is that really a possibility? Right now, I think a lot of Americans feel the same way, because they are losing one of the biggest things our society values (money!) and the less they have, the more they value it, which ultimately leads to a situation like one in the play, where the characters cannot even continue their relationships or form new ones. I think this play would be good for us to do because it can relate to the situation our country is in today, in a very scary way. I also think our dependency on technology could interestingly be tied into a production of this play, just like the trains were for the time period. I really did love this play, a lot.

More About the Readings ... Trestle at Pope Lick Creek This Weekend!

We're resuming our public readings this Saturday, February 7, with Naomi Wallace's The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek. Again, we'll be in the Thrust Theatre at the University of Louisville at 2:00 p.m. Please come and bring friends! Click here for an earlier post with a map.

And if you're coming, please let me know in advance what kind of snacks you like.

Our first reading, of Slaughter City, was really productive in terms of starting our discussion of these plays, although it was very sparsely attended (one person not in the class, who happened to be my aunt!) I'm afraid that the messed up schedule because of the weather will keep people away again. But also, it occurs to me that since this is a kind of unusual process, it's unclear what we're doing. And most people are busy and tired and spending a Saturday afternoon reading and discussing a play may not be first on the priority list.

So I thought I might explain a bit what I expect to happen at/after these readings, and why we're doing them.

First, if you think about it, every time you go to a play you're part of a new community. For some people, it's rare anymore to sit together with a large group of people in the same place at the same time for a couple of hours. It seems a shame to let these groups just form and dissolve so quickly without talking to each other. I would like to be able to harness the potential of the community that is made when actors and audiences get together by starting the process earlier and extending it longer than just the performance itself.

This is an acting class, but acting class is normally done behind closed doors. Usually, students don't take part in choosing plays or scenes, and sometimes don't even have to read an entire play or think about how their work might affect or be affected by the world outside the classroom. This course is supposed to work differently in a lot of ways. The students imagine themselves as an ensemble theatre company who is preparing to put on a play in the community. But before they begin working on scenes, we are asking the community to help us choose a play that moves them and speaks directly to issues that are relevant to their lives.

We're asking people in Louisville to join us even before the rehearsal process even begins to help us choose a play and to start a dialogue that will continue throughout our work. At these readings, we spend some time just reading the play all the way through. And then we spend some time talking about what seems important about it, what we don't understand, what is familiar, etc.

Then, after the audience and actors choose a play, the community can be involved however they would like. As the students are rehearsing, they will also be putting together community based character studies based on interviews, so audience members might want to volunteer to be interviewed. Or you might know people who would like to help us by sharing their stories. Or you might just join our conversations here on the blog, or via email. You will be invited to attend rehearsals and offer feedback as we work. Or you could just come to the final showcase of all the work we've done this semester. Or you might choose not to participate any more at all. Basically, it's up to you how much time and effort you put into helping us learn about how to best develop this new process here.

So that, in a nutshell, is what these readings are all about. They are even before the beginning of a lot more work, and what we hope will be rich and productive discussions that bring us all closer together as a community. Through the process, I'm hoping audience members will also have a new perspective on how actors work, and can help us find out how best to involve the community in our processes so everybody benefits as much as possible.

So, I hope you'll join us! And snacks ... remember to tell me what kind of food to bring.

Catching Up and Juggling

This is what we're doing this week: catching up and juggling. The ice and snow were disorienting, and it's been tough to regroup, but it seems like we're getting there.

Just to catch readers up if any of you aren't in the class:

We began by starting to learn the Viewpoints as a method of improvisation, both for ensemble building and for creating our own work. We started the process of having public readings of the plays we'll be working on later in the semester. Then we spent some time discussing solo performance as a particular form that can give people an opportunity to tell their own stories to audiences. Now each student is using the Viewpoints vocabulary to tell a story he or she wants to tell.

In The Viewpoints Book, one of the ways Anne Bogart and Tina Landau describe a "Composition" that uses Viewpoints as its foundation is

... an assignment given to an ensemble so that it can create short, specific theater pieces addressing a particular aspect of the work. We use Composition during rehearsal to engage the collaborators in the process of generating their own work around a source. The assignment will usually include an overall intention or structure as well as a substantial list of ingredients which must be included in the piece. ... These ingredients are to a Composition what single words are to a paragraph or essay. The creator makes meaning through their arrangement. (11)

Part of the point of this first autobiographical solo composition assignment is to allow the actors to explore their own identities ... who they imagine themselves to be, and what's important to them ... before they begin engaging with the fictional identities of characters and the histories of people in the community. It's also to give them an opportunity to practice building work in this way so that they can build on the experience later in the semester.

I'm posting the assignment here, just so readers will have a context for what we're talking about:

Solo Composition:
Performing Yourself as a Character

In this assignment, you will use the viewpoints (and the other “ingredients” on the list below) to compose a solo performance that focuses on your own identity. One of the challenges is to include everything on this list in the short amount of time provided. It is based on the idea that you perform yourself as a character every day, even if that character changes in different circumstances. And as an actor, you always bring at least a little bit of your own identity—your personal history, cultural background, likes and dislikes, deepest wishes, etc.—to the character on which you’re working. This project should give you an opportunity to explore what those things are before you start to work on a character who is in many ways very different from you.

In no more than five minutes (or less … just don’t go over five) you should tell the story of something important that happened to you (not necessarily deeply personal or emotional, unless you feel comfortable doing that. Just a story you feel you really want to tell). In those five minutes, you must use all of the following:

1. Your favorite song in some form.
2. A physical re-enactment of one thing you do everyday
3. A mention of your cultural background (whatever that means to you)
4. 10 consecutive seconds of total silence
5. All of the Viewpoints (Space: Shape, Spatial Relationship, Gesture, Architecture, Topography; Time: Repetition, Tempo, Duration, Kinesthetic Response)
6. A moment in which the audience participates actively
7. At least one costume piece
8. One object from home that is relevant to your story

You should turn in a sheet of paper with an outline of your script that explains how you’ve included each of these things. The performance should be memorized.

These performances are happening tomorrow and Monday, and we'll videotape some of them in case we want to revisit them later in the semester. I'm excited to see these.

After those are done, we delve into studying community based work.

Solo Performance

So I just wrote a page of a story I'd like to use for my Solo Performance. I feel okay about it. I think I do a lot more telling, and I definitely need to figure out where I'm going to fit in all of the ingredients. I'm pretty worried about all of them, to tell the truth (I started a list, and had so many that I just feel compelled to say they are all intimidating). I actually might have a place for the ten seconds of silence, surprisingly, but the others are all eek! I know pretty much all of the Viewpoints will automatically exist within the piece, but I am excited to see what comes out when I stand up the writing and say the words out loud. I just felt like I needed to get the story out first, and then fit in the rest. I'm not married to what I've written, but it is definitely something to work with.
I feel rejuvenated after writing it, though. I struggled so much with finding something to write about. I don't know, I had a lot of ideas, but nothing has really jumped out at me like "THAT'S IT!" Even what I have written is not speeding my heart rate, like something that really moves me. I might scrap it if I come up with something else in my dreams tonight. Or maybe I'll fall in love with the piece after I workshop it with someone. Watching the other solo performances on the internet has really helped, but I think what will be more helpful is seeing what my classmates have chosen to talk about and how they incorporate the elements we've been given.