Workshopping

How is it mid-December already?

The answer: (other than the obvious time passes) we have been workshopping up a storm! It's been such a great help to us not only in terms of the knowledge we have gained and the fun stuff we've gotten to experiment with, but also in building our ensemble. We are such a cohesive group - and not only just the actors, but the whole artistic staff.

We did suffer a bit of a setback with the departure of one of our ensemble members and our Takeshi musician over aesthetic differences, but the wonderful Lisa Clifton joined us and we are moving forward on the musical front as well. It was a bit of a shock, but thanks to the enthusiasm and support of the rest of the group, we forge ahead.

We have had several great hands-on workshops: rehearsing the music, working with masks, movement, magic, puppetry, and martial arts. We've also been able to really delve into the text. Some issues have become clearer through our discussion, and some things remain ambiguous, but productively so. For example, we have really clarified what the Stadium means both in terms of the world of the play and also as a metaphor for our contemporary social realities. The ending, Texie's role and character, and and certain character motivations are more hazy, but that haziness helps to allow for the complexity of the piece to live. It keeps us from making this a didactic piece, which in terms of the production will open up that space for the audience to work more in the decoding of it. It was really useful to hear the actors talk about their characters - especially the ensemble members and the Narrators; their ideas really amplified what Rich and I were already thinking, and I feel like we have some amazing staging options based on their thoughts and readings.

On the dramaturgical front, I completed a production draft of the script that I think works really well. At Rich's request, we moved one of the Dazzler Brothers scenes a little earlier in the text to better establish their characters and to be able to plant our "trick lighter" sooner, so that we can build up the tension surrounding this very important prop. I also reworked the final scene (NOH ROYALE). I combined text from Ruth's first and second draft and ordered it a bit differently for flow and meaning. The current version keeps the poignancy of the first draft and helps to establish the space of the scene as sacred. The words, especially those of the Waki, are lyric and somewhat separated from the reality of the Stadium. Hiwa and I discussed the fact that this may be the first time we hear Reiko's true voice, and she followed this idea up with the observation that this is perhaps her journey of the piece. Being adept in all the dubbing languages may mean for Reiko that she is unable to speak her own reality until the end.

I also created a dramaturgical script for the actors and artistic team, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I am so happy that what I created is of use and value to them. I contextualized a lot of the references, but I also tried to point out some of the structural aspects of the piece, noting, for example, what lines get repeated or passed around different characters at different points of the text. On a more personal note, the actors response to this is indicative of their professionalism; it is such a treat to be working with such smart and engaged people. They devour new ideas and opportunities. They do not say the word no to anything; rather, they throw themselves into the work with abandon.

We break now for the holidays and come back to begin rehearsals January 7. We have a great foundation started, now we just have to get this piece up on its legs!

Musical Meeting

This morning Rich and I met with Josh Fardon to hear the latest versions of the songs and to plan for Saturday's workshop. Fardon's work is amazing, perhaps most notably because he picks up on the contradictions in the characters, crafting surprising pieces that disrupt more superficial readings of the text. For example, though it begins with a sweet and simple melody, he has added in a dark, ominous layer to "Toy Tea," at once capturing the innocence of the symbol of a child's tea set as well as the doom this prophecy foretells. The songs also greatly complete the text, or more specifically, how the text will work in production. The music provides tangible clues to how the scenes will go, especially in terms of how we can best use the ensemble.

An ongoing dramaturgical issue arose during our meeting - how to rework the text for production. I have been creating a hybrid text of the two versions Ruth has given us (which are significantly different in parts) while also dividing up the lines between the two narrators and finding moments for the ensemble to take center stage. The ending - which Rich and I had previously edited to suit our concept - must again be tweaked, as Josh was composing off of a different version of the script. Also, the parachute scene between Reiko and Game Boy is currently written as two separate monologues/songs, and we would like to combine the two into one duet. My task, then, is to make production revisions that are in keeping with both the text and our production concept.

Musical Workshop this Saturday

Did you know Stadium Devildare is a musical? With all the cyberstadium warrioring going on, it is almost possible to forget that Ruth Margraff has made her name writing avant-garde operas. We are collaborating with the excellent musician Josh Fardon and this Saturday marks the first time that the cast will hear the songs they will be required to sing.

I am so eager to get to work with the actors. There is so much planning and thought behind us, but nothing can top being in the rehearsal space with a group of talented actors.

Sound Design

Another piece of the Devildare puzzle has fallen into place - we have a sound designer! Rich and I met with Dennis Yen a few weeks ago to discuss sound ideas. It's exciting when you meet another artist whose ideas complement and clarify your own. Dennis understood perfectly the types of caustic noises we need, and even more importantly, the deafening silence that needs to replace it at the moment of the G*dzilla X reveal.

The Black Channel Citizen Comes to the Stadium

Exciting news. The Black Channel Citizen, an LA-based musician, is not only scoring the music for the takeshi battles, but will also perform live in the stadium. He will be locked up in a cage. He will bash garbage can lids and shake boxes of ball bearings. He will create an aural landscape of destruction.

First (Informal) Read

Hearing a play read by the cast for the first time is always exhilarating. This text, which we have lived with for so many months, gets invested with a spirit, a breath of life that brings it, however unsteadily, to its feet. That life – the collective voice of our talented actors – exists independently from our initial thoughts, and it takes its first steps toward what it will eventually come to be through our production. It is clear in these first moments how the unique casting decisions we have made affect that outcome. A different person here or there makes a clear difference, especially in an ensemble piece; it could have gone down any one of seemingly infinite distinct paths, but we start together down the one with all of our names on it, each of us assigned to our roles.

What initially struck me in this first reading is the pure sexiness of this piece. Since I tend to live in my head, especially when approaching a piece of theatre, I was surprised that this sensuality (which, admittedly, is clearly there in text) so immediately came to the foreground. What I saw as a piece about war, about American Imperialism, about the arrogance of an Administration bent on the enforcement of an American Dream that it uses it to justify violence and the squashing of dissent in the name of that Dream, suddenly seems equally as much about the sensual longings of these characters – and the playwright – in these modern times. This is a world in which sexuality is in your face, but where the erotic, the intimate, the personally scintillating are missing. The new reality expressed in the text is a dick joke without flirtation, the rawness of a porno without even the weak storyline of some hapless woman needing her cable television repaired or her pizza delivered. There is a palpable desire for desire in the Stadium.

Technology operates as an obvious metaphor-in-reverse for this desire in the text. This controlled, hyperreal, RoboCop meets Terminator world has deleted the most basic, innate human impulses toward lust, love, and longing. So while the anime-mastress Reiko might be skilled in battle, weaponry, and panty shots, she cannot act upon her desire for SupraK. And as she and Game Boy edge closer toward regaining their emotion – rewiring those human connections, the technology of the Stadium breaks down. What was a broadband connection to cyberspace becomes the dull buzz of an AM radio, soothing like warm bath water and hot tea.

The immediate questions that we need to tackle, from a practical standpoint, involve the ensemble and the narrator. We need to find moments in which the ensemble gets to star. I would like to see them create some entre acts, moments that break away from the competition and storyline of SDD, to comment upon what we have seen, foreshadow what is coming up, and contest (or reinforce) the official line of the Stadium. We will also have to determine whether the ensemble members are always the same characters, or if they change (with slight costume changes). Do they function as a chorus? Or do they buy into what the main characters say? We will also need to figure out moments when they echo and repeat snippets of text. Also, dividing up the narrator lines to make them distinct characters, with a yin/yang thing between them.

Initial Thoughts

To be working on Stadium Devildare at LA’s Theatre of Note is a director/dramaturg’s dream. Amazing. I’ve been struck by culture shock more than a few times since relocating to Los Angeles, but Note is a place at which I feel very much at home. This is a company truly dedicated to creating great theatre.

We have cast twelve actors in our production (cast list below) because we plan to develop this as an ensemble piece. Our four main contestants will be played as written (although Dazzler Lamar will be played as a man by a woman); the narrator will be split between two women, with one man backing them up (speaking Japanese, of course); and the remaining five actors round out our ensemble.

THE CAST:

NARRATOR:
Sofie Calderon
Lisa Liang

MC:
David Bickford

GAME BOY (SUPRA KNIEVEL):
Jonathan Klein

LONE WOLF REIKO:
Hiwa Bourne

DAZZLER EXPO CRENSHAW:
Justin Brinsfield

DAZZLER SPEED RACER LAMAR:
Jennifer Ann Evans

ENSEMBLE:
Lisa Clifton
Gina Garcia Sharp
Sarah Lilly
Rich PierreLouis