We began the readings today with The Brides by Harry Kondoleon. The Brides doesn’t just critique one fairytale, it critiques all fairytales. Kondoleon explores the dangers inherent in the idea of prince charming and true love. It is the story of The Bride who seems to speak from different parts of her experience, from young and innocent, to betrayed and baffled, to acceptance of the absence of the happily from her ever after. The Groom has his say too, but he seems equally deluded as to his situation. The only character in the piece that doesn’t seem to be operating from a state of delusion is the Devil who speaks plainly about the kind of alternative to true love he offers. The piece is written in titled scenes that mix narrative, monologue, and poetry. No stage directions are given and there is no indication of how the show is to be performed in terms of who says what lines, which makes it very open to the interpretation of any company mounting a production in both interpretation and performance style. The use of fairytale language to explore the devastation of real disillusionment is haunting and I have to admit that I get shivers every time I read this piece.
It was then that sad time of the workshop when we read the last piece in the reader, luckily the last piece was so much fun it soothed the pain. We finished up with The Universal Wolf by Joan Schenkar. Joan Schenkar believes any true wit must be cruel and The Universal Wolf is full of extremely cruel wit. The story of Little Red Riding Hood is retold as a tale of primal hunger. There is so much going on in this play that I could not attempt to summarize it here, but a few highlights include a French Structuralist wolf with a Maurice Chevalier accent, a Little Red that starts the story off by killing a song bird so she can offer it to her grandmother for a pate, and Grandmere herself is a retired butcher with a penchant for wine and raw meat whose catch phrase is “or so we butchers always say.” As in:
Gmere: I’m thinking, Little Red.
LRed: You’re drinking, Grandmere.
Gmere: The one supports the other (glug glug). Or so we butchers always say.
And this doesn’t even begin to touch on the series of visual puns perpetrated by Structuralists and Post-Structuralists who appear to drop pearls of wisdom (or not) and fade away again. In the end Grandmere kills Little Red as a baffled Roland Barthes looks on from his laundry truck before he fades away as blood seeps across the stage. He he he.
Today we did a lot of vocal work. We used the line “Of course, every pleasure has its penalties.” Penalties proved a tough word to master, but by the end of the session they were all pros. The whole group spread out across the stage and did their best to embody the abstract concepts I threw at them using their voices and those words. Then we tried some less abstract ideas, chainsaws, sweeping brooms, etc. I think my favorite was actually when we asked them to say it like they were a giant bell and then right afterwards like they were a tiny bell being run very quickly. The effect of the whole group doing this together was very interesting. Possible fodder for performance choices for sure!
We also returned to some serious group shaping today. I reminded them that the idea was to make bold choices and commit to them and they all really rose to the challenge, it was some very impressive ensemble work and I think that they felt the excitement of working so boldly together. In the keeping with the ensemble building, we did the counting game, where everyone closes their eyes and tries to count to 20 with no number being said by more than one person. This is a game that requires a lot of focus. It took us a long time to reach that level of focus, but once we did we got it on the first try. Hello, Ensemble, nice to meet you!
Now it’s on to the next phase of the workshop. Saturday is decision day! What target story will they choose? What small groups will be formed? I can’t wait to find out.
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