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The Hour of the Wolf
Apr. 10th, 2006 05:45 am5.45 am?
Fell asleep soundly, happily, and early (11.45 pm) last night, and as sometimes happens, this means waking up at 5.00 am and being unable to return to sleep but it's too quiet and dark to really get up and do anything. The only light on is the laptop screen, which is almost painfully bright, but if I turn it down I can't see the keyboard to type. So very quiet. Just occasional sound and light coming through the window as an F Train goes by at the Kings Highway stop. And Hooker, the big tuxedo cat, yowling his complaints that I'm not paying enough attention to him. Started the coffee in the kitchen, and from the window in there I could see the sky to the east, a lovely dark blue.
Since I wrote the above, just ten minutes have passed, but the sun is somewhat up, and the cat is sleeping on my foot. I've started reassembling all the inspirational/potential THAT'S WHAT WE'RE HERE FOR audio tracks in the audio program I can use now (the old one I was using has a bug in it and won't open without crashing now). So, I've put together all 8 hours of stuff I collected for the show in a playlist again and am beginning to weed it down to 2 CDs worth to work from. Listening to a 1960s Coca-Cola jingle now -- a "hip" rock band version with the band complaining about being on the road and wanting their road manager to get them some Coke. Doesn't quite come off as the kind of coke they meant it to . . .
So today is a day to work on all this sound stuff. Maybe some visuals. I was lying here for a while before getting up trying to visualize the show some more, and I realized I needed to hear the tracks and probably make some sketches. Also I realized that I'm doing all this journal typing as much to get the ideas out where I can see them and react to them myself as to share them and the process with anyone else.
Last night was pleasant. I was going to put the DVD of KOYAANISQATSI on as background while I was working a bit/playing a bit at the computer, but Berit, playing games on a different computer, didn't want that on unless she could actually sit and watch it, so I put on the CDs of Glass's EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH (the '93 recording) instead, and let that flow over us. Always inspirational to listen to EINSTEIN at the beginning of a new project. Encourages ambition. Made me realize I did indeed have to do some sketches for TWWHF -- I need to think of each of the scenes as tableaux -- if I know WHERE each scene is . . . really have the landscape planned out . . . then a lot of the structure, so uncertain now, will take care of itself.
I have to find out when The Brick will know what furniture they'll have in house for the festival -- I'll need lots of tables and chairs, and I don't want to have to carry them all in myself for each performance.
The cats are adorable now -- both curled up next to me, cleaning each other . . . but the play is getting a bit rough. One of them's going to grab the other too hard soon, biting will start, and it'll all end in tears. Maybe I can head it off.
I've only realized I like lots of chairs on my sets recently -- or rather I like people sitting and talking, so lots of chairs, and then lots of tables and desks to make the chairs make sense. Is this "untheatrical?" Should I have more movement? No, I don't think so and I don't care. I move people enough, and movement for its own sake is annoying beyond belief.
I see almost no Broadway shows -- I think I've only seen 3 in the last 23 years, after seeing quite a few from 1974-1983. Not interested or not the money available. Of those three, two were the fairly recent revivals of 1776 and FOLLIES, my two favorite musicals, both of which productions were marred by some mediocre-to-downright-crappy blocking. Pointless movement. Pointless pointless pointless! Movement for the sake of movement, just out of fear that if something wasn't always in action on a large Broadway stage, the audience would tune out. You don't stage "I'm Still Here" or "Molasses to Rum" with the singer wandering aimlessly all over the place. Dammit.
FOLLIES also provided me with a general directorial rule, based on the staging of Treat Williams doing "The Right Girl": If you have 16 empty chairs on stage at the top of the song, and the actor is going to kick some over during the song, he can kick over ONE chair or SIXTEEN chairs -- anything in between is going to be subliminally unsatisfying to the audience, especially if the actor ends the song by throwing a breakaway glass into the upstage wall on the song's button (which is when Berit, ever the propmaster/production manager, turns to me and says "Twenty dollars.").
This "rule" is not at all meant specifically about kicking over chairs of course. It's more abstract than that. But chairs are always a good symbol of all kinds of useful things.
Williams kicked over 3 or 4 chairs. One of which became the most interesting things in the show as it unintentionally smashed on the metal moving staircase upstage left near the giant "Follies" sign (and boy would it have pepped things up if it had hit that sign and smashed some of the many many lightbulbs in it!) I then sat in suspense as the show continued, waiting to see what they would do with the broken pieces of chair upstage left, in the way. Was someone supposed to sit in that chair? How would they handle THAT? Well, by sending out a stagehand to furtively clear the pieces away (like a roadie resetting Iggy Pop's microphone after the Igster has violently knocked it down) while something happened elsewhere on stage. Not theatrical, guys. Not theatrical. Actually, all the chairs were cleared clumsily and inefficiently. Traffic cops, not directors, these people are . . .
Huh. I guess that's what I'd like as a director. To constantly have the audience feeling as surprised as if an actor has suddenly and accidentally kicked a chair, smashing it, and sending it into a sign full of lit lightbulbs, smashing a whole bunch of them, loudly. Of course, I'd want that kind of effect perfectly planned out, repeatable, and safe, but without the audience knowing that. I guess I achieved that effect best in TEN NIGHTS IN A BAR-ROOM, but interrupting a 1880s temperance play with zombie attacks will do that.
Okay, off now to work on sound cues. Don't think I'll be able to use the Art & Diane Linkletter single I've got playing now -- it's inspirational, though. Sometime I'll have to explain where I got these sound pieces from, why I collect them, and how they've inspired a show. Maybe next time.
Fell asleep soundly, happily, and early (11.45 pm) last night, and as sometimes happens, this means waking up at 5.00 am and being unable to return to sleep but it's too quiet and dark to really get up and do anything. The only light on is the laptop screen, which is almost painfully bright, but if I turn it down I can't see the keyboard to type. So very quiet. Just occasional sound and light coming through the window as an F Train goes by at the Kings Highway stop. And Hooker, the big tuxedo cat, yowling his complaints that I'm not paying enough attention to him. Started the coffee in the kitchen, and from the window in there I could see the sky to the east, a lovely dark blue.
Since I wrote the above, just ten minutes have passed, but the sun is somewhat up, and the cat is sleeping on my foot. I've started reassembling all the inspirational/potential THAT'S WHAT WE'RE HERE FOR audio tracks in the audio program I can use now (the old one I was using has a bug in it and won't open without crashing now). So, I've put together all 8 hours of stuff I collected for the show in a playlist again and am beginning to weed it down to 2 CDs worth to work from. Listening to a 1960s Coca-Cola jingle now -- a "hip" rock band version with the band complaining about being on the road and wanting their road manager to get them some Coke. Doesn't quite come off as the kind of coke they meant it to . . .
So today is a day to work on all this sound stuff. Maybe some visuals. I was lying here for a while before getting up trying to visualize the show some more, and I realized I needed to hear the tracks and probably make some sketches. Also I realized that I'm doing all this journal typing as much to get the ideas out where I can see them and react to them myself as to share them and the process with anyone else.
Last night was pleasant. I was going to put the DVD of KOYAANISQATSI on as background while I was working a bit/playing a bit at the computer, but Berit, playing games on a different computer, didn't want that on unless she could actually sit and watch it, so I put on the CDs of Glass's EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH (the '93 recording) instead, and let that flow over us. Always inspirational to listen to EINSTEIN at the beginning of a new project. Encourages ambition. Made me realize I did indeed have to do some sketches for TWWHF -- I need to think of each of the scenes as tableaux -- if I know WHERE each scene is . . . really have the landscape planned out . . . then a lot of the structure, so uncertain now, will take care of itself.
I have to find out when The Brick will know what furniture they'll have in house for the festival -- I'll need lots of tables and chairs, and I don't want to have to carry them all in myself for each performance.
The cats are adorable now -- both curled up next to me, cleaning each other . . . but the play is getting a bit rough. One of them's going to grab the other too hard soon, biting will start, and it'll all end in tears. Maybe I can head it off.
I've only realized I like lots of chairs on my sets recently -- or rather I like people sitting and talking, so lots of chairs, and then lots of tables and desks to make the chairs make sense. Is this "untheatrical?" Should I have more movement? No, I don't think so and I don't care. I move people enough, and movement for its own sake is annoying beyond belief.
I see almost no Broadway shows -- I think I've only seen 3 in the last 23 years, after seeing quite a few from 1974-1983. Not interested or not the money available. Of those three, two were the fairly recent revivals of 1776 and FOLLIES, my two favorite musicals, both of which productions were marred by some mediocre-to-downright-crappy blocking. Pointless movement. Pointless pointless pointless! Movement for the sake of movement, just out of fear that if something wasn't always in action on a large Broadway stage, the audience would tune out. You don't stage "I'm Still Here" or "Molasses to Rum" with the singer wandering aimlessly all over the place. Dammit.
FOLLIES also provided me with a general directorial rule, based on the staging of Treat Williams doing "The Right Girl": If you have 16 empty chairs on stage at the top of the song, and the actor is going to kick some over during the song, he can kick over ONE chair or SIXTEEN chairs -- anything in between is going to be subliminally unsatisfying to the audience, especially if the actor ends the song by throwing a breakaway glass into the upstage wall on the song's button (which is when Berit, ever the propmaster/production manager, turns to me and says "Twenty dollars.").
This "rule" is not at all meant specifically about kicking over chairs of course. It's more abstract than that. But chairs are always a good symbol of all kinds of useful things.
Williams kicked over 3 or 4 chairs. One of which became the most interesting things in the show as it unintentionally smashed on the metal moving staircase upstage left near the giant "Follies" sign (and boy would it have pepped things up if it had hit that sign and smashed some of the many many lightbulbs in it!) I then sat in suspense as the show continued, waiting to see what they would do with the broken pieces of chair upstage left, in the way. Was someone supposed to sit in that chair? How would they handle THAT? Well, by sending out a stagehand to furtively clear the pieces away (like a roadie resetting Iggy Pop's microphone after the Igster has violently knocked it down) while something happened elsewhere on stage. Not theatrical, guys. Not theatrical. Actually, all the chairs were cleared clumsily and inefficiently. Traffic cops, not directors, these people are . . .
Huh. I guess that's what I'd like as a director. To constantly have the audience feeling as surprised as if an actor has suddenly and accidentally kicked a chair, smashing it, and sending it into a sign full of lit lightbulbs, smashing a whole bunch of them, loudly. Of course, I'd want that kind of effect perfectly planned out, repeatable, and safe, but without the audience knowing that. I guess I achieved that effect best in TEN NIGHTS IN A BAR-ROOM, but interrupting a 1880s temperance play with zombie attacks will do that.
Okay, off now to work on sound cues. Don't think I'll be able to use the Art & Diane Linkletter single I've got playing now -- it's inspirational, though. Sometime I'll have to explain where I got these sound pieces from, why I collect them, and how they've inspired a show. Maybe next time.
