Session 1, Part 2: Our swelling ranks and Cocteau.

by gwethalyn

As we began our first session we were a very small group and I was worried that we would have the same problem which plagued us for the past three years, low enrollment. But as we have learned, this process does work with a very small group, so I mustered my optimism and began warm ups on time despite the small group. I lead the usual breath and stretching exercises, many of which involve bending over or laying down or looking some way other than ahead and it seemed that every time I returned my gaze to the circle after looking away our numbers had grown, people just kept showing up, until by the time we were ready for vocal warm-ups there was a larger circle of people than had been seen in many a year. That’s right! This year our ranks have grown, we are a healthy company of 16 performers!!! Add four directors to that and we really can fill the space we are working in. Hurrah!

“Does one ever know what’s coming next? Since these mysteries are beyond me, let’s pretend we’re organizing them.”
-First Phonograph, Cocteau’s “Wedding on The Eiffel Tower”

Deep words from a human/phonograph hybrid? Indeed, but don’t worry, they are preceded by these words:

First phonograph: I’m following an ostrich. I thought I saw it caught in the grillwork of the Eiffel Tower.
Second Phonograph: And so you killed a telegram on me.
First Phonograph: I didn’t do it on purpose.
Second Phonograph: End of conversation.

Such is the contradictory world of Jean Cocteau’s “Wedding on The Eiffel Tower,” the first piece we read and discussed in this year’s workshop. Cocteau claims he wants to highlight only the mundane, so he sets his piece during a family picnic outing, but he also claims the only way to get at the absurdness of the mundane is to show things “more truthly than the truth” and admits that his audience may not recognize his presentation of the mundane in it’s naked truthfulness. To this end, his picnic is populated by ostriches, talking cameras, mirages, dancing dead telegrams, man eating lions, and progeny which massacre their families. Mundane, no? Cocteau seems to have no problem with the contradictions in his work, so why should we? But this group certainly did as they discussed the piece with more scrutiny than I have ever seen this piece provoke. The discussion was mostly motivated by bewilderment, but they were really trying to figure it out. So I was not surprised when their discussion of the Gertrude Stein pieces we read next went well over our allotted time as several of the participants had a lively discussion musing over what Stein was up to and how she worked and offered incredibly perceptive ideas about why Stein still has appeal today. They’re thinkers, deep thinkers, and they’ve really got their brains working on this stuff. Just the way we like it!

After warm ups and the red ball get-to-know-you-learn-to-focus game we jumped right into some moving and shaping. They took to it like fish to water. Wonderfully dynamic shapes! Many of the side coaching things I usually have to say were fairly unnecessary (not that I won’t say them, and say them again, and again, and again, and again, over the next few weeks). This group has a natural proclivity towards precision, focus, and especially working together rather than individually. There is work to do, but such work is never done and an initial inclination in the right direction will surely lead to exciting things ahead!