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.