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