I’ve realized that after today’s workshop, we are halfway through the reader! It’s always surprising to me just how quickly the workshop goes. But clearly, we are not stopping for anybody as we rolled through the day’s exercises with gusto and a new sense of focus.
We began with an exercise in which the participants, with their eyes closed, started as little seeds in the earth, and then, slowly, were guided into growing. We watched them timidly poke out a tendril and pierce the surface of the soil. Some rose just like those time-lapse videos of plants growing. Others seemed to grow at a pace like a mighty tree that will take years to grow fully. We watched them blossom in the sun. We watched as they experienced the elements: rain, wind, hail, heat, and a deep freeze. They shivered, wavered, wilted, collapsed, and, finally, died. Perhaps forever or only to be reborn with the rains and warmth of next spring. Playing several times, we also gave them the instructions to be either joyful or malicious plants, and also to pick a plant or trait of their choosing. Check out the photos of our garden and see if you can tell what plants we are:
Next, we revisited Quartets from the last session but this time we added masks. I got to join in on this exercise, and I couldn’t have been happier as we visualized our masks (expressions of pure joy, hunger, and one of our choosing) in our hands and then donned them. Holding the contortions of my face for the length of the game was challenging (I couldn’t stop my lip was twitching), but it seemed like we were all up for the task. The amount of focus coming out of the participants was astounding as they turned toward each other with their cartoonish expressions and refused to break. It was absolutely hilarious to watch. Additionally, it revealed how when we commit full-heartedly to something, even if it’s incredibly weird and silly, our audience will take it seriously.
Giving our faces a well-deserved break, we moved on to our next exercise. Gwethalyn instructed the actors to pick an object in the room and to focus on it. Then she told them to start feeling love for the object, starting down in their toes until it completely overtook their body. Unfortunately, the actors’ feet were stuck in place, so we watched as they reached, grasped, and strained for their objects across the room. Finally, after the need for their object was unstoppable, they were released. They sprinted to their object with open arms, but alas! Now an invisible bubble stopped them just a few feet away. Frantically, the participants hammered, kicked, and tore at the bubble to get closer to their beloved. And just as it seemed they could break through, an invisible hook pulled them back. Watching the desperation in the actors’ eyes as they were pulled backward had me on the edge of my seat. Finally, the hook disappeared and the actors were free to approach and adore their objects (several stood in awe beneath the thermostat). Then everything changed when Gwethalyn instructed them to now hate their objects. The love and need turned into disdain and repulsion. The participants fleed as fast as they could with disgust for what was once so beautiful. Finally, the actors made a slow and solemn return to their objects, communicating with every cell just how they felt about it. With a bittersweet goodbye, they let go of their feelings, and the objects turned back into their every day, uninteresting selves. What a journey!
Fitting in with our mask work from earlier, we started our reading with Polish playwright Jerzy Grotowski. With his company, appropriately named The Theater Laboratory, Grotowski experimented with how to reveal the truth, often using interpolation–the inserting of new ideas into pre-existing text. He believed that the text was not as important as the ideas within it and often worked with repetition, sounds, and silence as a means of expression. Also, as mentioned earlier, he had his actors work for hours on end in masks, believing that it was one way for the actors to completely become the character. Discussing his philosophy of acting, he said:
“Actors should be like martyrs burnt alive, still signaling to us from their stakes.”
In order to highlight the work of his performers, Grotowski also founded his concept of “Poor Theater,” in which he believed that the costumes and sets should be stripped away, and leave just the actors to transform in front of the audience in what he called “magical transubstantiation.” Clearly, his work was very physical. In order to better understand his ideas, we read a description of the staging of his play, Akropolis, as well as some of the text. The original work was in celebration of Western Powers, but Grotowski corrupted it, placing his version in a concentration camp (he also staged the production near the camps after World War II), in order to test if the West was really so great with this abomination of human dignity. The play was also layered with the biblical text of Jacob asking for an angel’s blessing. During the reading, our participants listened with solemnity to Grotowski’s resonate vision. The directors remarked that any time a Grotowski piece has been written in the workshop, it has been extremely powerful. If the actors should choose to write under the influence of Grotowski, they will be ready to physicalize their work as well as manipulate their source text, rearranging it to reveal the story they want to tell.
The other playwright we read from was Harry Kondoleon. As all of his works are wildly different, we focused on his play, The Brides, and the techniques he uses in it. Starting off, Kondoleon’s play features a central idea as a character that speaks more like a consciousness. Also, his play is written in a fairytale-like language, beginning with “Once upon a time…” However, it’s childishness can be deceiving as The Brides details a dark and disturbing story that plays out in nonchronological order. Uncomfortably, I felt that being confronted with the text was jarring due to the mix of fairytale and darkness. Someone else said they got the chills. Pretty quickly into the reading, one participant made the observation that the “brides” and “grooms” Kondoleon writes about are actually just a general term for men and women. Building off this discovery, another participant remarked: “It’s not just a story, it’s the state of the world.” Other participants reported feeling like the voice Kondoleon writes in is very relatable, and they felt “as trapped as the brides” while listening. Clearly, Kondoleon’s writing is effective, as it speaks to larger issues while remaining highly personal.
With our reading finished, we continued to explore some of Grotowski’s techniques by having a rhythm jam. The participants stood in a circle with their eyes closed. Then they would create rhythms with their bodies and voices. It took a lot of listening as they tried to fit in with each other. What resulted was an energizing composition that almost made me want to dance around the room. Gwethalyn and I agreed that it was an excellent jam made possible by the actor’s intense focus. I included the full recording below, and truth-be-told, I can’t stop listening to it!
Ending our session, we worked on precision. Starting solo and then moving into a full ensemble, the actors breathed in unison and moved only on the exhale. They filled the room with the sound of their breath, which became a driving force that bound the actors together. When observing this exercise, it became clear that the stillness was just as important as the movement. Gwethalyn reminded the participants that it is the precision of transitioning from movement to stillness that will “look like magic” to our audiences. The exercise took more listening from the group, but I agree that their focus made it magical.
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