Pieces become a whole, final post

November 15th, Sunday, start of the final week before showtime!

The set is going up! The lights and switches are being tested, cued up today. John and the crew are hanging wood planks from the ceiling to cover the sound stage where James’ piano will be set up.

A wall has been knocked down on the side of the stage area to create more space. The bed is set up with posts and doorknobs and ship ropes decorating it.

James is up on the sound stage, playing piano from time to time, blowing the fog horn. The other sound crew member experiments with horse hoof sounds by clip clopping the wood blocks that hang from the ceiling together. This also can very much resemble the sound of water lapping against the side of a boat.

Deb asks me to melt the candles so they stick onto the puppet theatre. Everyone is busy setting things up or warming up to start the run through.

Out in the fireplace lounge, there is a spoken word rally going on for equal marriage rights, and later there is punk music playing so loudly that the actors have a hard time hearing one another.

The cast runs through the whole show, marking the physicality and saying all the text quickly, yelling out cues to each other to remember things. I find it interesting to compare this to the mark through of a dance piece, in which the dancers will skip most of the big stunts unless they are decided upon.

Everyone wishes each other good luck for the first full run through. Sheila says, “See you on the other side!”

The lights go down and the run through begins. I can feel the stress in everyone’s minds as they put all they test out everything they have worked on. Bob watches critically and makes notes to share with the cast afterward. Kristin keeps time and gives lines when the actors forget.

I am finally seeing all the pieces put together, and I love noticing all the little touches they have added since they first began rehearsals. They have come so far as a cast.

I like watching Dario play with the stove that Barbra cooks on when she is remembering her mother. The stove is just a stool with a hole in it under which Dario holds some ripped pieces of paper and shakes them around to simulate a flame. It’s very dreamlike the way they are using the white pieces of paper for so many props.

James is experimenting on the piano up on the sound stage behind the hanging wood planks. Bob wants him to keep playing while Barbra is speaking but to play quieter so we can hear Barbra better. Bob is standing downstage where the audience would be and is motioning to James, but James can’t see him. Bob walks over where James can see him and signals with his hand. James stops playing for a second, but then Bob motions to keep playing and nods. He makes a shushing sign to tell James to just be a little softer. James understands. I am amazed at how in sync Bob is with the cast and crew. Everyone has such easy communication because they have spent so much time working together and knowing one another. It’s really something beautiful.

The fog horn from the sound stage is perfect. It sounds just like a ship coming into harbor. The cast finishes the run through, and Bob gives notes to cast and crew, recognizes errors and glitches that still need to be worked out. All in all, I think they will be more than ready by opening night.

I am confident in their abilities to deliver a spectacularly moving performance this weekend. I am excited for the full tech rehearsal and to see everything put together in the final product. I know that their work has transformed the piece from its first stages to what it is now, and that is something to be truly proud of. I feel honored to have had the opportunity to observe this process, and I thank everyone who has been involved for allowing me to watch their artistic minds at work.

Meeting the real space

Saturday, November 14th. First day in the Bedlam Theatre space.

The cast is talking about stage makeup, throwing around different ideas, and figuring out when and how to remove it. They will have certain makeup for specific parts of the piece but will need to remove it for other parts.

Bob is explaining his vision to the set crew. His idea is that there will be a wall of four-by-fours and the projector will be in the back showing the image of the horse on the wall. The crew members discuss how to accomplish this. They have already started to put the wall together, and John is hanging large pieces of canvas from the rafters that hang all the way down to the floor of the stage and can even act as stage wings.

James makes sounds that resemble thunder with a spring instrument. It looks like a simple noise-maker, but there appears to be a technique to making it exert a storm sound.

Barbra seems a little frazzled, but is making light of the stress. “We have another month to work on this show, right?” she jokes hopefully. Telsche remarks, “Five days.” “Shut up,” Barbra says. They all smile and continue the scene.

Barbra laughs long and loud after the three cast members name different warriors and make a joke. I think it’s nice for her to have this moment of indulgence in laughter as a release from the tension she might feel during the rest of the show. Bob asks why she skipped right to the laughter, and she says, “Oh yeah, I didn’t like that part, so I cut it.” “Thanks for telling me,” Bob says and laughs.

They work together on the part where Barbra is running through the forest and the cast acts as trees that surround her. Bob does not want them to do modern dance here, but he tells them to just run around and touch Barbra as she goes along. They all joke around about “Robert Rosen’s School of Modern Dance.” Sheila declares, “This forest is so post modern, it’s amazing.” They then take a short break.

When they come back, it is time to run through a large section of the piece. The cast paints their faces with grey paint for the warrior scene. Sonya runs to Target to get makeup remover wipes and knee pads for them.

When Barbra is reaching the sea, Bob says they should have some ocean sounds here. James makes a note of this.

The cast runs through the umbrella-people scene, and James realizes how high-pitched their jibberish is sounding. “I love how we’re going to Europe, but we reach the border and suddently we’re in Asia,” he says. “Haha, yeah,” says Bob. “Why are we in Shanghai?” He tells the cast to just try and use their normal pitch and normal voices for this part.

They back up a bit to the part right before the umbrella scene where the ship arrives in the new world and they all wave and then get off and start parading around. I find it hilarious when the patriotic-sounding music comes on and they all start mingling around quickly, Telsche riding a bicycle to deliver newspapers, Dario and Sheila hailing taxis and Barbra trying to imitate them. Bob is subbing in for Barbra so she can see her role being played. Barbra watches, smiling as Bob gets pushed around all flustered. One of the cast jokes that Bob is Barbra’s understudy.

They talk a little about costume pieces and props that still need to be worked out and placed. The cast hangs their coats and hats on the bedposts and the hooks that are on the bed.

Bob, Dario, and Sheila discuss the construction of the brick wall, decide who is building each part, and practice it beneath a warm sunlight cascading in through the big skylight over the space.

They practice the scene again where they arrive in the new world. The whole room is in chaos, the bed becomes a taxi and the cast takes Barbra “downtown!” Bob is giving Barbra points on how to interact as they go along, and Barbra is looking confused, feeling like she is in the way.

As they run through the scenes, someone is up in the ceiling, above the sound box behind me, fixing the lights with a flashlight.

I watch the café scene where Dario sits on a stool behind a newspaper, and Telsche the dog is playing with a brick on the floor in front of him. She repeatedly brings the brick back to Dario, and he throws it back for her to fetch, never looking up from the newspaper or even showing his face. He is hidden behind it. I think this is a great moment here.

They wrap up for the day, and Bob suggests that tomorrow they walk through the whole show and do an “Italian,” which I found out means they will just mark through the spacing without speaking all of the text. Bob wants them to physically know the journey in the space.

After they finish up, everyone goes next door to the rehearsal shop where John has a little model of the theatre stage with a plan of what it will look like for the show. They talk logistics of seating, backstage areas, and John asks the cast about their preferences and what they will need.

I’d say things are coming along smoothly, but I anticipate a lot of hard work will go into this coming week before the show. The sound, lights, and set crew are already working to start getting everything prepared, and John seems to be getting things organized quickly.

Theatre on fire!

November 8th, rehearsal in the Bedlam shop space.

John brings a pile of bricks in a wheelbarrow and stacks them up in a rectangular formation with wood planks for the actors to assemble their puppet theatre. Some of the cast move the bricks around to decide which set up is best or the audience to view. They adjust according to how the Bedlam Theatre space will be, though they are not rehearsing in that space today.

Dario, Bob, and Telsche lay a canvas down under the brick pile and use a simple black bookshelf to support the stacks of bricks. Bob asks if there are any little votive candles they could use, and Telsche goes to find some. Bob also wants some old newspapers, and Deb goes around to the theatre to get some.

Bob and Dario talk about how to make a fire in the puppet show with the candles and newspaper. John is listening and says, “We don’t want to start the curtains on fire!” Bob and Dario think they can make the puppet theatre curtains out of newspaper and start them on fire with the candles to set the puppet show in flames. It should be able to put itself out after a few minutes.

Bob arranges little candles all around the bricks that stick out and puts cut pieces of newspaper down in front as the curtain. He asks if anyone can make paper hats or a paper boat out of the newspaper.

Jason, a set designer, makes paper hats that Sheila and Dario put on. Bob is thinking that Sheila and Dario will be the puppets in the puppet show. They will be life-size puppets. Bob says he wants them to play on the two levels of the puppet theatre they have created. John moves a brick around on the puppet theatre stage saying, “Hello…I’m a brick person,” and there are laughs all around.

Bob and John try to move the entire second and third floors of the puppet theatre, though none of the bricks and planks are stuck together. They almost topple it all over, candles lit and everything, but Telsche runs to help them hold it together while Dario watches nervously, whispering, “Oh my god!”

They think about how to quickly assemble the theatre on stage without sticking the bricks together, since they will all be falling down eventually in the fire.

Bob would like to portray a few poems and pieces of the book “How We Lived,” in the puppet show. He wants the actors to read through the poems and underline things they could say in the puppet show. He tells them to move their faces and arms like puppets as they play around with the puppet theatre. Bob suggests the show should have three characters. One would wear a mask and represent Barbra’s character. This character would not speak in the puppet show. It could be played by Telsche.

In one of the poems, there is a stanza about packing. Someone suggests they could say the line, “Chaos will always be in fashion,” from the poem and then pack the poem somehow.

Sheila has more ideas for the puppet show. She and Dario could act as a captain and his ship mate. Maybe one is the smart one and one is the stupid one, but really they are both pretty stupid. Maybe one is drunk?

Telsche practices the mask part as the text is spoken, beginning with Dario as Sheila is playing her violin. Then Telsche lights a match to light the candles on the theatre, Dario comes to help her set up the theatre, and Dario and Sheila become sailor puppets above the puppet theatre. Telsche wears the mask and sits on the main stage of the theatre, below them. Dario and Sheila try to ask Telsche if she has a ticket for the ship, but she does not understand them. Telsche moves the paper boat on the stage.

The idea is presented that the canvas beneath them could be used for shadow puppets. Bob plays with a big light

Sheila and Dario practice their high-pitched little puppet voices. Sheila says to Dario, “I was gonna have a cigarette, wanna have a cigarette break with me?” to which he replies in the same little puppet voice, “Sure!...Uh-oh! The boat’s on fire! At least we’re surrounded by water! Ahahahah!”

They all set up the theatre to practice burning it down. Nobody knows what to expect, but they light the paper curtains and boat on fire and push all the bricks, paper, and candles over and onto the canvas. The flames are self-contained, and the paper singes and stops after it has burned. The dust from the fallen bricks provides an eerie after-affect to the fire as it leaves a lingering mist.

They practice destroying the puppet theatre again. This time, Sheila and Dario continue to talk as the curtains start on fire, and then they finally realize the whole thing is on fire. They wait for the rubble to stop burning, and then Barbra continues, quietly reading the text about the horses that came in the night and burned the theatre to the ground.

After this, they do not have much time in the show to build the bricks back up into the café for the next scene. A couple people are down on the ground picking up the bricks and tossing them up to others who are standing at the top to start building it up again.

They finish up rehearsal quickly, as the space is being used by another group soon. Bob reminds them that they only have two days of tech in the theatre space where they can actually execute the fire. Before they leave, Deb asks if they can each submit a bio or the program by the end of tomorrow. She also give them each a list of props for them to check off whether they still need certain objects or not.

I can’t help but share the excitement of things coming together and the show is right around the corner!

Memories, physical activity

November 7th. Last rehearsal in Bob’s studio in the Ivy Building.

Bob is feeling a little anxious, it seems. “I’m just sitting,” he tells me. He gestures with his arms waving up and down. “I want to be moving…I mean I love directing, but I’m just standing back watching them…I want play too.”

Dario is not here today. Bob thinks it wouldn’t be worth it to go through the whole show when he’s not here. Instead they should take advantage of his absence and focus on parts he is not really a part of, look at the beginning, the mother and daughter moments.

Barbra is unsure about a few things. A friend had recently watched her and given feedback, saying that the violent parts are very vivid, but almost hard to listen to. Barbra wonders whether she should be really invested emotionally in the stories she is telling, or whether it should be more journalistic, relaying the events matter-of-factly.

There is so much sun today, so much natural light flooding in through the huge studio windows.

Tomorrow, the cast will be rehearsing in the Bedlam shop space. John has a pile of bricks they will be able to practice building the wall and puppet theater with.

Barbra puts on her boots to begin a scene. While she ties them, she comments that if she’s going to have boots for the show, they’ve got to be already laced. It takes too much time for her to lace them onstage.

Bob believes the piece should begin with old things and finish with new things when Barbra is in the new place. Barbra says she feels like they are not wearing anything new right now, though. They think about different costume choices that will help the old and new themes to come out. Barbra also mentions she would like a small notebook or even a small piece of leather for the scene they are working on. She will be putting it in her pocket while she is rolling around on the bed and laying on people, so it should be flexible and soft. Stage managers make notes.

Barbra and Sheila practice the mother and daughter scene, when Barbra is leaving home at age seventeen. Bob says they need to somehow better distinguish who is the mother and who is the daughter and when they switch takes place. They talk about what kind of suitcase Barbra should have here. Bob doesn’t like the look of the suitcase they are currently using, and Barbra has one that is leather that they could paint, though it might be a little small.

They practice the scene again. I love the moment when Barbra is saying, “I will no longer be with you, ever..” as she caresses Sheila’s shoulder with her face. Then she backs away and says to the audience again, “I was seventeen,” and Sheila abruptly lets the suitcase she is holding fall open to reveal the inside of it to the audience. “What should I take,” Barbra gasps, and they both scramble around to find objects to put in the suitcase. The energy in this part of the scene has such a perfect rise and fall, it keeps my attention the whole way through.

It is a difficult concept to execute, switching the roles from Sheila as the mother to Barbra as the mother, all through Barbra’s memory. Bob tells Barbra she shouldn’t smell her hands because she was just touching Sheila, but rather smell her arms as herself now, showing that she is the mother now and is remembering the smell of her own mother. But Barbra says it is like she is taking the feeling of Sheila into her hands and onto her own face…

They run through the whole scene, and Bob says, “Good, that was good, two things: Take more time, and also look at the hat, make an adjustment as you put it on Sheila.” Barbra does it again, adjusting the hat on Sheila, and Bob wants her to make sure she stands to the side so the audience can see her make that adjustment. It shows a sort of affection that Barbra has for the memory of Sheila. Bob thinks Barbra should touch Sheila more, stop and physically adjust her clothing as she says, “I will no longer be with you…” Bob says, “It’s like…the last time you’re going to touch your child.”

I enjoy listening to the difference in tone and composition of Barbra’s voice as she repeats her lines in a fresh way each time. Maybe she likes the way it sounds one time and will keep that sound and try to find it again the next time.

Bob notices the difference in height between Sheila and Barbra as they play. “You were taller when you were younger,” he says jokingly to Barbra and they laugh.

They talk about the garden part where Dario is the memory of Barbra’s father. Barbra thinks this scene is sad. She tells everyone that the last time she did that part, she tried to smile but still have really sad eyes. But then she realized that her face is like this naturally anyway. She laughs to herself and everyone smiles.

Telsche is resting on a cushion, basking in the sun that pools in through the window. Bob wakes her up. Bob comments about how sleepy the sun can make you feel. “We should have a show here, with like 25-30 people and have a really slow show with this sun and the goal, without telling them, will be to put the audience to sleep,” he says. I can just imagine this, a piece of art in itself. An audience falling asleep to a slow show in the sun. James remembers a show he saw in London about Medea that started at 10pm and ended at 6am and the audience took a 15 minute nap in the middle while the actors sung lullabies.

The group takes a short break to refresh. When they resume, Telsche and Barbra are practicing the part where Telsche is the brother pushing Barbra down. The scene begins with Barbra’s line, “You could hear the riders laughing.” She thinks Telsche should continue by laughing as she comes in to push Barbra down. Bob mentions they might have a recording of laughter playing throughout. Telsche and Barbra play around for a while and figure out what kind of pushing and pulling and pretend wrestling tactics work best for them. Telsche pulls Barbra by the leg around in a circle, but keep moving further downstage to where we are sitting. Bob tells Telsche to just drag Barbra back if they get too far up and there is nowhere to go. Bob wants them to be spontaneous in their fight, but they talk about some ideas to make sure they are on the same page.

Next, they work on the boat stores. Telsche grabs a newspaper to carry in her pocket and read her story from. Bob wants the transition from Telsche’s story to Sheila’s letter to be abrupt. Sheila declares, “I have a letter,” immediately after Telsche finishes up with, “They thought they could fly to heaven!” and chuckles. Bob tells Sheila to sort of pull the rug out.

Telsche and Sheila leave, while Barbra works on how to find her boots in the forest. She thinks it is kind of nice to have someone huddled in the middle of the forest with no one else around. At five minutes left in the rehearsal time, Barbra says, “Well, I’m sufficiently beat up for the day. This was good, Bob, thank you.”

Barbra comes to the "New Place"

During rehearsal on November 1st, I listen to the cast share Halloween stories with each other and reminisce a little before getting down to business.

They begin by reviewing some of the parts that were played with the previous day. They practice the scene where the bed has become the ship and Barbra climbs on by walking up the wood plank, nudged along by Dario, Telsche, and Sheila, who are horses. Once they get on the ship, Telsche and Sheila are laying on the bed while Barbra reads text, standing between them. She mentions that horses usually sleep standing up, but she agrees with Bob that she would be better positioned standing taller than the horses while she reads the text. Telsche and Sheila lay on the bed so that the audience cannot see their faces. They hold onto the drapes of Barbra’s sheets as she reads the story. Barbra describes the trip on the boat, and she sways softly as Sheila and Telsche make whispering wind sounds.

They practice the next scene where Telsche, Dario, and Sheila each tell each other a story as passengers or sailors on the boat, while Barbra lays down to sleep among them. Dario is absent today, but Telsche pretends he is sitting next to her on the bed. She tells her story about the group of Christians believing they could fly to Heaven, gesturing to the newspaper and laughing, pointing the article out to the empty space where Dario should sit.

Bob works with Sheila on how to read the letter from her son. Barbra envisions her having raised a son who goes to America alone perhaps, who has left his mother and now has a reason to write her this letter. It is very bittersweet when the son talks about his mother and father in love but then signs the letter “with respect, not love,” and Bob wants Sheila to read it as though she is fighting the love and sadness from her son.

After the sailor stories, Telsche and Sheila lay back down to sleep and Barbra gets up to read more. She lays over Telsche and Sheila as she talks of sleeping among the horses on the ship, and she asks them if they are comfortable with how much weight she is giving them. They say yes.

Bob decides to change a part in the script. Stage managers Kristin and Deb are typing away, documenting the revisions.

There is a part where Barbra talks about a gallery of accomplished women of all kinds, and she pretends to write down their names on a piece of paper. She then crumples the paper and, after the line, “They were visionaries,” throws the crumpled ball into what would be the water around the ship. She and Bob like the concept of throwing the message in a bottle out into the ocean, and brainstorm other ways to accomplish this.

They move to the next part in the script. Both Bob and Barbra agree that the description of an “evil thing” in this text needs rephrasing. Barbra says that she what she means by this text is that not all of the horses are evil. Just because one person is evil, that doesn’t mean another of this same type of person is also evil. There can’t be generalizations. Telsche adds that it is about outward appearance. You can’t judge a book by its cover. Bob says, “We’ll work on it.” Sheila, on the side, starts putting the idea into a mathematical equation. “If A does B, and A is X, are all B’s X?” she says, laughing at how ridiculous this sounds.

Bob now talks about “the new place,” in the story. There should be no talking as they arrive in the new place, just noises and street sounds as they get off the boat and Barbra finds herself lost among the traffic and chaos of a city. Bob thinks the bed should remain onstage during this part, but Barbra says it should at least change the placement of where it is on the stage.

Bob would like to later create an apartment scene for this introduction into the new world.

They rewind a bit to the reading of the sailor stories on the ship. Telsche tells her story again and Sheila reads the letter from her son. Bob tells Sheila to play with the letter after she is done reading it. How will she treat this object? She could fold it up slowly, raise it up as a gesture, close it up and put it away. The movement will reflect the emotion she feels about what her son has written to her. Bob wants her to be hopeful about the letter, rather than sad. Sheila practices different movements with the letter to transition into laying back down on the bed.

Barbra rehearses the lines about her dream where there was a staircase and a gallery of portraits of powerful women. Following the text from the script, she says, “each picture had a name,” and starts pretending to write down the names of the women as she remembers them. Telsche mentions that people don’t read in their dreams. Nobody seemed familiar with this, so she explained that “you just know the words,” before you even read them. Perhaps this idea could be integrated into the script.

Barbra continues rehearsing the lines for this part, but Bob keeps stopping her to make comments or ask questions. He makes sure she is staying in the past tense as she reads, telling what happened in her dream. He also adds that, instead of just being a list of names that she writes down, there should be moments of heightened suspension as she remembers the women. She can show excitement about certain women shouting, “and her! Because she did this…and her! Because…” Barbra expresses this with more energy each time she starts over, and they both seem very satisfied with the results of Bob pushing her a little.

Bob explains the fumigation process, which they act out in the scene where they are arriving in the new place. They grab their umbrellas for this part, and everyone is thinking of ways they can represent American culture for this scene. Barbra says they could be given hats and greeted with “Welcome to America!” Sheila says “We could eat hot dogs,” and laughs. Sonya, the costume designer, asks if they would like some hats to work with for now. Bob says yes.

Bob takes out a CD player with large speakers and puts on a march song from a jazz album for them to enter America with. It sounds very patriotic, though there are no lyrics, and it reminds me of a classic Fourth of July parade. They play with the scene, walking down the plank to get off the boat, standing with arms raised to be fumigated, then Sheila and Telsche walking around with identical hats and umbrellas. Barbra tries to copy what they are doing, but seems confused.

They pause to talk about other American things they could do. Sheila suggests they could smoke cigars. Barbra offers they could open billfolds and have tons of money. Sheila takes this idea and transforms it. They could open wallets to find crumpled papers and throw them into the air.

I like the fact that they are reusing the papers as a prop and as a symbol of materials throughout the piece.

Following the busy scene of their arrival in the new place, there will be a team construction of a brick wall that is added to while Barbra is commenting on the recurring image of the horse. Barbra recollects on the photo that inspired this image. The picture is of a horse’s face in relief on the side of a building in New York, and she was intrigued, almost haunted by this photo. Sheila suggests they could have the horse’s face as a transparency on the brick wall.
They talk about Barbra’s suitcase in the new place. Does she need a suitcase? Is it left behind? Bob thinks she doesn’t need it, but Telsche says it could relate to the “stuff” that she talks about the people having in the new world. It is an idea that Barbra’s character, as an outsider, is bewildered by, but it is a part of the culture that she may become assimilated into. Bob agrees the suitcase could refer to the “stuff,” but all the objects on the bed that are carried around serve to symbolize the “stuff.” He says, “For me, the idea of possessions is memories. She needs these things to hold onto what she had..It’s not about wanting to give up all your memories.” Everyone nods in agreement to this.

Bob shows Barbra how to transition the stage into an apartment scene, making the bed, fixing the sheets, taking off her coat to change her outfit, rearranging all the new “stuff.” She is a maid, cleaning the homes of people in the new world, people who have much more “stuff” than she had thought necessary.

They touch on the corner café scene, where Barbra reads about a dog playing in front of the café, while the cast acts it out. Sheila is the dog, pushing a wooden block around with her head while Telsche, the dog’s owner, kicks the block gently for the dog to fetch.

They are nearing the end of the entire show. Barbra thinks she should end by saying something like “That’s my story,” But Bob reminds her that the story never really ends, it is still continuing.