Thaed: dramaturgical packet/production outline
My casting plot involves literally every actor except Lawrence playing two characters. (Lawrence dances as much as anybody, though, so...)
This came about through examining the gender roles in the play:
There's a certain kind of misogyny to the way the women are represented. (We're looking at it mostly through Lawrence's eyes, so I think it's his.) His relationship with his mother pits her as sexual, controlling, and disposable. This is muted through looking at both Stephanie and Maenad, although they're both unarguably sexual (weirdly enough, with Maenad being the least explicitly sexual -- in the dialogue, at least.)
I want to tease this out by casting two women as Mother/Maenad and Maenad/Stephanie, so there's a sense that, to Lawrence at least, all women are on some level the same, and play different and less varied roles than men. (I don't want to condone it. Obviously.) At some point I thought of both Maenad and Stephanie as rave culture. I love this idea, but whether it will manifest completely in the finished production I don't know. I love it because of the mother's "girls like that" being no good line and the sense of history that could add to her if we pull it off right. So with that, the idea is not that women are disposable, the idea is that we are able to see that's what Lawrence thinks. But we also get startling moments of them as living, breathing, human beings.
Another possibility is, at at least one point, having both female characters play all three roles. (This'll be explained later, but the point I'm thinking of happens to the music right after Jovis kicks the bullet, with both actors simultaneously playing all three roles.)
All non-Lawrence characters will supply the movement roles in any scene they don't already appear in (the one that presented a problem was in the forest, when the dancers come out of the trees, but I think I've cracked that. If the characters come out of the trees, dancing, playing a dual role... Maybe.)
I don't know how plausible that is, but I have high hopes for things like it, because of the idea of representative gesture. If you saw Sarah in Syringa Tree you have a good idea what that is (although I made up the term) -- the one that sticks with me is as simple as a hand on the neck or clavicle for the girl's mother.
Which is a very straightforward idea of it, although in the National Theatre of Scotland's (if I had a nickel for every time I mention them...) Black Watch there's a much more obscure or oblique occurrence of it, when the soldiers are all reading letters, and then they drop them and go into this circuit of gestures (there might be a bit of it on some clip on youtube, I don't know) which in that instance is almost like a dance of sign language. I think I want something halfway in between functional and esoteric. I expect these will be largely developed in production, so there will be an individuality for each actor but a similarity for each shared character. I'd also like similarity between Lawrence and the doctor's gestures, a similarity of mortality -- maybe we can pull the mother into this too.
Anyway, so, the casting is like this:
Boy: Lawrence.
Woman 1: Mother/Maenad/Dancer.
Woman 2: Maenad/Stephanie/Dancer.
Man 1: Jovis/Dancer.
Man 2: Thaed/Doctor/Dancer (I also toss around the possibility of woman 1 playing the doctor in one scene, but that might be too much. I may also want Jovis to play the Doctor instead, but I'm hesitant about what that says, whereas Thaed/Doctor is a symbolically excellent pairing.)
Possibly a Lead Dancer who doesn't play another role, if it's absolutely necessary. Possibly.
The neat thing about this is with the madness and confusion of multiple casting (and I intend to work in production to inject as much clarity as possible) is that we're literally thrown into Lawrence's world, with all these different people clouding around him.
Aside from gesture, obviously costuming is a tried and true way to express character:
For the movement roles, I love the idea of black lace shirts and jazz pants for men, and black lace shirt, (black bra,) and knee-length black skirt for women. I'm not sure where we would find four black lace shirts that happen to fit our actors (although I do have -one-...), but here's another neat idea I have: costuming by a local fashion designer. The setback to this is obviously cost, but I'll look into what's available. (Upcoming designers might do it for free or a steep discount, just to get their name out there, and how. There's also the possibility of loan or rental.)
Anyway, it could be as simple as an apron for the mother's waitressing uniform, and loose, low pigtails for Stephanie. Maenad's horns, Jovis's sword, Thaed's... well, we could probably have him put on a full tailcoat, actually, if we play our cards right. (Which I also have! As well as Lawrence's tattered painting jeans. If I cast people roughly the same size as me. Which is obviously not my primary concern.) The doctor could certainly have a full costume, since he's in so infrequently and if I remember right, there's not a quick change like there usually is for the mother.
I also love the idea of having the dancers in mask. Either typical, black masks, or full head coverings. May or may not work out; we'll see. Edited: NEW IDEA! Half black, half white domino masks? Just split down the middle.
As I also mentioned, the text and the album The Bachelor by Patrick Wolf are irrevocably twined in my mind (and actually that music provided my "in" into the play; this made me learn it's very hard for me to appreciate reading plays unless I put them to music in my mind. Very helpful revelation. Makes me want to go back and read anything I didn't like.) I need to get a copy of this to you (if you'd like to listen. This will probably make more sense if you hear it, haha. Some of it might be up on youtube? Don't watch the music video for Vulture, I don't think I would use that song.. And it's not a very good music video.)
The moment I first realized it was while listening to Count of Casualty and thinking "this would be such a bomb opening number for a musical." It doesn't really need to be a musical though! I want the introduction to be read in time with the intro to the song. (You've written some sentences that metrically facilitate this, actually. "when the lighting comes I scream, the thought of my death is a comfort.") It starts with the lyric "awake young minister, there is message to be delivered." Lights up, a red ribbon, a burst of paper...
Oh! Set! At the end of last semester I saw an empty mattress (just the frame and springs) rolling around in 115, I'd love to score that if I can and put it center stage. (This is also pretty easy to come by if I can't.) Also: naturally rope colored thick harbour ropes attached to the ceiling and floor. (Trees.) Unfortunately, as we learned in Season in Hell, we can hang things from the grid, but we can't hang actors from things hanging from the grid. (That's okay though, I hear it's physically impossible to climb a rope anyway...) I also don't know how this meshes with The New Studio 115, having a set. I think we could call the rope-trees furniture? Like, you couldn't do Bus Stop without tables, chairs, etc -- I think this is on the same level as that. Right? Right?
So for most of the songs I envision in my mind this kind of explosive acrobatic choreography. For at least song I expect to need to pull in a dance student to choreograph it, and besides that I love working with people, so that'll probably happen, and they might even do it for free or cheap. (It's also thoroughly possible to work without one. I have a lot of pictures in my mind, and in the dramaturgical packet.)
I'd also love to commission an art student to make Lawrence's paintings, and if we were willing to compensate them for materials I imagine they'd be pretty gung-ho about it. (Edited: Or a different artist for every painting?) In my mind I picture something with the sense of grace and simplicity of asian calligraphy. Of course, I think it'd be pretty easy to paint these ourselves, if that becomes necessary. I'd like to hang them on the walls of 115, so the audience is, in fact, inside the room. (Edited: I think the paintings are portraits of chess pieces. I don't know if I can even explain this idea fully, but it does a LOT to blocking. And it doesn't involve painting the stage like a chessboard. I'm being subtle. I'm tossing around the idea of the production palette using only black, white, and the ribbon/lipstick red. WHICH IS REALLY SUBTLE YEAH. I don't know. We'll see.)
So there's also a reoccurring (I spell any iteration of the word "occur" wrong EVERY time -- very frustrating) red ribbon. I think it belongs to Maenad. It comes out in the opening song. I think someone will also throw some papers up into the air too. (I was navigating the idea of having a different colored ribbon for each character, and then at the beginning they would pull these out of blue envelopes (why blue? I dunno), and that would be the papers that are thrown into the air, but I don't know if that idea will stick. The idea is that the actor assumes this color to become the character, and then there's crazy ribbon trading, and I do think it's a good idea, but maybe not for this production. If I did the Skriker I could have actors changing character at any point I wanted, so that would work better there.)
I think the ribbon represents love. I'm not sure. The women's lipstick will match it identically. (I might be getting symbolically in over my head here. If the ribbon represents love, and that color also appears on the women, yet the women are objectified, what does that say? Well, I guess he does kill two of the women in the end, doesn't he? And then as a result the third woman kills him. Hmm...)
Anyway, one of two tiny changes I would be interested in imposing on the script (you have veto power, of course) is that Maenad gets strangled with her own ribbon instead of shot, and -- I don't know if this was intentional, but by the time Stephanie says "Hello, Thaed" at the end, she's heard his name said five or six times already. I haven't looked at each occur... instance individually, but I bet they could be removed without a trace. (Just because she's onstage doesn't mean she has to hear it, either. She could be listening to music on headphones, or... something else that might impede her hearing. There are options but I'm not sure what all of them are.)
Expressing the difference between Lawrence's bedroom and the other characters' underworld without changing the set is I think as simple as pulling a black mesh shroud over the bed. This is also a useful object to have lying around onstage. (Death scenes, bedsheet, etc.)
The doctor's office will either be onstage the whole time or be pulled in from the third corner (northeast -- I'm going to establish a number system for the corners, I could not handle trying to think over which direction is which every time I wanted to offer direction), just a desk and a chair or two. (Or, a desk and a chair, and when the second chair is needed it gets pulled in from Lawrence's room.)
I went to my parents' house this Friday and my father had this whole cabinet of strange old chemicals and things (amateur chemist, he made ink and fireworks -- weird right?), one of them was labelled "1942" in spidery handwriting, when he would have been nine... Anyway, if the desk gets pulled in every time, obviously they'll have to be stuck down, but that's doable. (I don't know if it's doable to have scads of chemicals lying around a theatre department, but we'll look into stuff. Maybe attach them to a board that can be locked in the prop closet. Yes, that's a good idea. Maybe empty bottles? Yeeah... that's another good idea.)
I want to give people the sense that the doctor might go in for electroshock, lobotomies, or bloodletting, if he was given the chance. Is this real or Lawrence's imagination? I don't know. I don't really care to know. But I'd love to have his office overflowing with strange old bottles, frightening instruments, and books. (Plus I read Plath's Bell Jar on the bus down, that thoroughly fucked me up in preparation for it, hahaha.)
If I need more music for scene changes, I bet I'll pull from the catalogue of Sigur Ros or Mum.
I also want more depth to the mother than just shrieking, nagging. (I don't expect that's what you wrote anyway.) There are some lines where tenderness could be drawn out, like the one -- "you have all day to talk to yourself, why ya gotta do it at night?" Well, she lets him stay up all night, at least. She's still working to keep him housed and fed. She seeks out grocery stores he hasn't been banned from yet. They are, yes, odd gestures of love. But nonetheless.
I like the idea of having Lawrence stay in his room while Maenad and Jovis return to the underworld. I don't know where I would put that yet. (Edited: When Thaed first talks to them. Then, I have some weird blocking ideas there. Like Copenhagen, except there are four people onstage so I don't know if it would work.) If we've set up each space, the audience can follow. (Like Ayckborn's staging of Taking Steps, where each floor is in the same place as the other, they just go up the stairs and then come right back to where they were, in the same place onstage but in a different room in the play.)
As far as the paintings and costuming go, I like the wall paintings being black and white and the movement costumes being black in order to embolden choices of color elsewhere, like in the onstage painting (I think it might be more economical to laminate that and have him paint all over it instead of slashing it every night?) and costumes. Whether or not Maenad and Stephanie are kandi kids, I'm pretty sure they need a lot of color. (Stephanie for sure. Actually I have a skirt from black chandy we could use. (Please don't ask.))
Right before the forest scene where we first see Stephanie, I'd love a full-out lyrical dance between Lawrence and Stephanie to the song Blackdown, from the PW album. This is the one I would probably bring in a choreographer for. There's a film NToS adapted called Dolls, directed by Takeshi Kitano, and in it there's this couple that's bound together around the waist by red rope. There's a youtube video of interviews from the production, it's so gorgeous. I'd love to use Maenad's ribbon like that. (I don't know if I'd actually tie them to each other though. We'll see what happens.) And this is the other thing I want to do with productions: A slew of artistic references and homages. Whatever we can get in there. If anybody's seen Dolls they'll probably recognize it, and that's the sort of thing I want. (Any ideas for interpolating Dali? Which painting was it, The Illusion of Desire? Fits in with the overlapping women... Ha. haha... no.)
So on that note, for each rehearsal, I'd like to start it off, like a ritual (and I think I'll do this for everything I direct) with some little piece for inspirations. Either from me, or if the actors want to bring in stuff, like a poem, a quote, a painting, a picture, a song, a music video, and on and on. Anything! I'd also like to make it clear that guests are welcome, either interested students or especially faculty, if they're willing to be well behaved and give me a heads-up first. I love input.
In Jovis's death scene, the song Oblivion will play, cued at "all things have a destiny and he is the guide" -- that way, while playing underneath the dialogue, the gunshot in the play lines up with the gunshot in the song (although I expect we'll also need a cap gun onstage for sound). Right after that, Lawrence has a breakdown (I think that's in the script even) and he's already had a set of gestures that represents that, and then both women come in to line up with the female spoken word in the song, both playing all three of the female characters at once. ("Wait a minute. Have you come so far for it to end like this? This is the challenge. I dare you. Get a hold of that darkness from deep down inside of you. Get what are you so afraid of? Get get back up.") Tilda Swinton actually contributes spoken word to several songs on the album (and sounds remarkably like Sarah Ship in at least two places), and from listening to it with Thaed in mind, I get the sense that she's another voice in his head. Patrick said he brought her in as a throughline, a voice of encouragement to the character on the album, so temper the darkness -- yet in some strange way, for Lawrence, I think she actually sort of drives him to his death.
Anyway, at that moment the two women would both speak along with her, in and out of time with it, like a sort of frightening echo. (I have a particular burst of acrobatics in mind for Lawrence and the women right after that, in time with the cymbal crash, but I'd have to try it with actors to see if it works.)
A neat theatrical trick I have in mind is for Lawrence to draw mascara streaks on Stephanie's eyes, as if she's been crying, when he's tying her to the bed. Not trying to hide it from the audience. Mascara can easily go unnoticed in a room full of art supplies. Then he pulls the bedsheet/shroud over her and tucks her in. (Another huge reason I love the black mesh instead of a white bedsheet.) Related: anyone watch my youtube blog where I talked about using fun dip for stage makeup so when the actor cries in bleeds in streaks of a different color? I love that, and need to try it. (I also mentioned Infantry Monologues in that video, and apparently Tobin posted it on his facebook or something, so when I went to the Playwright's Lab people recognized me from it. I kind of wish they recognized me for something less strange, but heeeey.)
The first part of The Sun is Often Out plays for Maenad's discovery of dead Jovis and underneath her monologue. (Dramaturgy moment: the discovery of a dead lover in Milk.) It fades out at a precise point, for the second half to fade in after Lawrence's death, and right before Stephanie says "Hello, Thaed" -- at this point in the song, and a few others, there's this chorus of voices that comes in and I would love to have the actors onstage singing with it (throwing the audience into the woorld!), as well as a couple other possible moments, so we'll see if that can be wrangled. Right after "Hello, Thaed", the song Theseus plays for the curtain call. (At the first drumbeat, the offstage actors somersault in from the corners. Maybe. There are only two of them though. It would work best with four, hahaha.)
Early on (before the multiple casting idea, actually) I thought of each of the characters as having a signature vice. This is where I thought of Maenad or Stephanie as kandi kids. Obviously the doctor and the mother would have to be alcoholics, or maybe the mother smokes, and Lawrence is a stoner, and I like the idea of Thaed smoking hand rolled cigarettes. (Gabi Gaston was watching the Picture of Dorian Grey and their proficient smoking of hand rolled cigarettes actually made her pause the movie and go out to buy some, haha. I think this is where that idea comes from.) I don't know what Jovis's vice is, or if this idea would even appear in production.
If it did, Maenad and Jovis would interact with the same dancer each time, as their coatrack, or sword table, and this character would represent their vice? I think that gets too complicated to deal with, with multiple casting, and ultimately I have no idea what it contributes to the production.
I want to do something to exacerbate the classical tragic form. I don't know what yet. It might involve the dancers. (Edited: Or chess.)
I think that's all the production ideas I had so far.
Keep in mind that this is my If I Had Everything sketch. If the budget is anything like it's been in past years (i.e. thousands of dollars, WTF), I can certainly manage with that, and if it's significantly smaller, I can certainly manage with that. (I bet I could pull it off with a new Studio 115-standard $50 budget actually. My only concern then is that we'd probably have to paint the paintings ourselves, which could be done. I think if I do the harbour ropes, I'll be paying for them, so I can keep them for later.)
Did I mention lighting? I can't remember. It's on/off, as far as I'm concerned. If we could get it on a dimmer switch that would be great, but either way. (Well, if this was really the If I Had Everything sketch I would have an elaborate plan for this, but I know what space I'm working in, and we don't get designers, so I'm being realistic. I haven't thought much about it because I know on/off will be sufficient.)
Dramaturgy!
The work of Jan Durina.
(This photo gave me the idea for the lipstick matching the ribbon.)
Follow the link for copious artistic nudity! (i.e. not a safe link.)
The work of Allison Wonderland.
This will occur in staging somewhere. Blackdown lyrical dance?
This -- female domination, male submission -- also contributes to the picture of femininity in the production. Objectification tied to dependence. (Haha, get it, "tied to"... see what I did there.)
Jen McGrew, when I was talking to her about it, asked me what the bent, or the desired crowd would be for this production. Well, logistically, university students who see university theatre, but if it was an independent production by a theatre company I would do my damnedest to entice the bondage crowd. No, seriously.
The thing Jen said to that is the liability with bondage culture onstage is monkey see, monkey do -- whereas in practice it's significantly, significantly more about the psychology than the appearance.
Relatedly:
I found both of the previous pictures (this one is also by Jan Durina) via Male Submission Art, which is more pornographic (i.e. not safe link) than anything, but once in a fair while renders some fantastic photographs.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. (Fantastic immersion in a mental breakdown. I need to dig out my book of Plath poems too. As far as more straightforward dramaturgy goes, the mental illness is one of the things I would need to assemble information on, such as what afflicts him, what other symptoms of that disorder may be, etc. (OR BRING IN A GUEST LECTURER... Just kidding. Maybe.)
Clips of Dolls by Takeshi Kitano and by the National Theatre of Scotland, respectively:
(Heh... I like that the one screenshot is the car crash shot. It's actually not a violent video at all.)
Click to viewDaniel by Bat for Lashes:
For makeup, movement, costuming, atmosphere, set design, acting... I love musicians that can act. I need to figure out how to build one of those cube veils. That is so cool. Can we get live crows onstage? (Just kidding... maybe.)
I'm not sure who this is by, but I saw it at the Pickle Company gallery stroll, and WOW. I don't know how to throw this in the production, but maybe if we pick a fabric you can see through from the inside it could be something for the movement roles.
I also have DVDs of the music video catalogues of Bjork and Tori Amos I'd offer excerpts from, but youtube's got nothing. (I'm also not sure where my Tori Amos DVD IS... shit. Gone forever.)
Oh wait! Bjork:
For the color in the bedroom. I don't expect we'll have anything that neon, but it sure is neat.
Edited: SPEAKING OF NEON! This was released after I wrote this. Hard Times by Patrick Wolf:
This is Patrick Wolf:
I love the fabric in the first one. And the makeup. In his sideburns.
The white suit (plus the shrouded lovers photo) makes me think black and white, like the paintings, is a viable option for non-colored roles, instead of just black. I also love the ears, in that they're stylistic instead of literal. Maenad's horns?