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Bits and Pieces
Apr. 11th, 2006 09:12 amAnother morning, checking the theatre blogs, brewing coffee, and trying to pay attention to the cat who's jealous of the laptop and keeps trying to roll over on it to get my attention.
Yesterday, lots of assembling on the sound for TWWHF. Just assembling, no editing yet. I'm a bit nervous of starting that fearsome task. Actually, there's no point in going into it until I start working with the cast.
TWWHF is going to be the first time I've ever walked into a rehearsal room with a cast and had less than 90% of what I wanted in mind already. In fact, less than 30% at least this time. I don't even have a script. I have a series of sound cues that say something to me about the USA, religion, and money from 1945 to now, which somehow scream "theatre piece" to me, without being any more specific on the matter.
Watched some of my favorite early Peter Greenaway films last night -- A WALK THROUGH H, VERTICAL FEATURES REMAKE, and THE FALLS. Didn't mean them to be "inspirational" but they kinda came off that way, but in a slightly worrying way. They're all about structure and systematic ways of organizing material, which is an obsession of mine and usually how I begin any piece I'm working on -- by defining the master structure and then gradually refining and increasing the complexity of the whole system until the "proper" work emerges. In the case of TWWHF, I'm starting with very vague notions of that structure, and everything will have to emerge in the rehearsal period instead of being known in advance. I keep having structural ideas come in, but they're kind of simplistic and "not the piece," I think.
The problem is that I'm trying to create an honest-to-god Patriotic piece out of pieces of, mostly, patriotic kitsch. Basically, I agree with the sentiments expressed in a lot of these sound fragments, but I don't believe that the creators of these songs/speeches, etc. were really exactly full of spirit when they wrote/recorded them, except the spirit to get paid a quick buck for a hackneyed piece of tripe.
I worry of creating a piece that comes off as a boring piece of "downtown irony" -- "oh, aren't people who have patriotic feelings so SILLY!" -- when I'm trying to deal with the disparity between good and high ideals and the failure to express those ideals in action. Certainly an element of camp, but as with any good camp (real camp, I should say) it needs to come from a deeper place than just simple parody or that "overstatement with a wink" that passes for "camp." I don't know.
Oh, dear. "I don't know." The words a director should never say to a cast no matter how true they are. To me, saying "I don't know" about any part of a show to the cast is a dereliction of one's duties as a director. Even if you DON'T really know, you should never say it. Go ahead with something wrong if you don't know what's right, and you'll probably find the correct thing, or at least a more correct thing, while working with the wrong one.
I may have to say that quite a bit during this process. This is why I've only asked aboard actors I trust enough that I think they'll believe I'll find the correct way with their help.
God, I've got eight hours of sound to potentially use for this 2-hour-tops piece. Lots of listening and editing to do. But I guess I have to wait on most of it until we're working.
Yesterday, lots of assembling on the sound for TWWHF. Just assembling, no editing yet. I'm a bit nervous of starting that fearsome task. Actually, there's no point in going into it until I start working with the cast.
TWWHF is going to be the first time I've ever walked into a rehearsal room with a cast and had less than 90% of what I wanted in mind already. In fact, less than 30% at least this time. I don't even have a script. I have a series of sound cues that say something to me about the USA, religion, and money from 1945 to now, which somehow scream "theatre piece" to me, without being any more specific on the matter.
Watched some of my favorite early Peter Greenaway films last night -- A WALK THROUGH H, VERTICAL FEATURES REMAKE, and THE FALLS. Didn't mean them to be "inspirational" but they kinda came off that way, but in a slightly worrying way. They're all about structure and systematic ways of organizing material, which is an obsession of mine and usually how I begin any piece I'm working on -- by defining the master structure and then gradually refining and increasing the complexity of the whole system until the "proper" work emerges. In the case of TWWHF, I'm starting with very vague notions of that structure, and everything will have to emerge in the rehearsal period instead of being known in advance. I keep having structural ideas come in, but they're kind of simplistic and "not the piece," I think.
The problem is that I'm trying to create an honest-to-god Patriotic piece out of pieces of, mostly, patriotic kitsch. Basically, I agree with the sentiments expressed in a lot of these sound fragments, but I don't believe that the creators of these songs/speeches, etc. were really exactly full of spirit when they wrote/recorded them, except the spirit to get paid a quick buck for a hackneyed piece of tripe.
I worry of creating a piece that comes off as a boring piece of "downtown irony" -- "oh, aren't people who have patriotic feelings so SILLY!" -- when I'm trying to deal with the disparity between good and high ideals and the failure to express those ideals in action. Certainly an element of camp, but as with any good camp (real camp, I should say) it needs to come from a deeper place than just simple parody or that "overstatement with a wink" that passes for "camp." I don't know.
Oh, dear. "I don't know." The words a director should never say to a cast no matter how true they are. To me, saying "I don't know" about any part of a show to the cast is a dereliction of one's duties as a director. Even if you DON'T really know, you should never say it. Go ahead with something wrong if you don't know what's right, and you'll probably find the correct thing, or at least a more correct thing, while working with the wrong one.
I may have to say that quite a bit during this process. This is why I've only asked aboard actors I trust enough that I think they'll believe I'll find the correct way with their help.
God, I've got eight hours of sound to potentially use for this 2-hour-tops piece. Lots of listening and editing to do. But I guess I have to wait on most of it until we're working.
