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Home and Hearth
Aug. 23rd, 2006 04:00 pmBack home in Brooklyn as of yesterday afternoon. Bills waiting for us (dammit). Checks for past jobs also waiting for us (yay). All well, the cats have been crazy -- and they greeted us as we came home with the first hairball we've ever seen from them (yuck). They spent the rest of yesterday being alternately affectionate and defiant, climbing up to places we don't allow them ("You've been gone for weeks, meatbags, the place is ours now, and we own the whole thing!"). So lots of hugs and yelling last night.
Today, we're all curled up together on the couch as I work on the next steps of Temptation by Vaclav Havel for the Havel Festival.
The show opens November 2. I plan to have the show cast by a week from today. I've emailed the 14 people who've expressed an interest in being in the show, who I thought would be good and had asked to read for me, to begin setting up audition times this coming weekend, plus I've asked a couple more I didn't think of before as being right for the show. So I look to be seeing 6 or 7 women for 4 parts, and 6 to 8 men for 6 or 7 parts (there's one role that I may have to cast from outside my circle). Edward Einhorn thinks he could possibly also find me a couple of young actors to play the small, non-speaking roles of "The Lovers." I'd like to keep those parts, but I don't know anyone I'm willing personally to ask to take them on.
So now, I'm waiting for all the responses to come in, seeing when I can get the biggest group of people together to read in various lineups, and find the place/time to bring them all in to read together. The thing is, I may wind up with only six men reading for six parts, but I know these six men could play these parts, in several different configurations -- it just becomes a question of which roles the guys are willing to play, and then also which ones of the women also fit the parts and the ensemble.
So Berit and I typed the whole play in, and I made a PDF of it so we're all on the same page, literally. I didn't have a huge amount of changes to make in my "director's draft," where I usually add/remove stage directions to clarify the production that will be made from this script for the actors. For almost the whole script it was simply changing "the curtain rises" and "the curtain falls" to "lights up" and "blackout." I made some changes in the final, long stage direction that ends the show, as the original includes something impossible to actually stage in this production (the main character is set on fire and runs around the stage, on flame), so I modified it slightly.
I did add some stage directions right around the last five lines of the play that I guess change things somewhat . . .
As I read the play over and over, and transcribed it into the laptop, I got more and more annoyed with a certain aspect of the ending. As the play comes to a close, the Faust character, Foustka, a respected scientist working for "The Institute," has been tricked into evincing a belief in the supernatural in a crafty test by The Director of that Institute -- a belief that will cost him his job, his academic standing, his personal reputation, and possibly much much more. Foustka, broken, confronts the Director and all of his colleagues, accusing them of a kind of closed-mindedness to new ideas that borders on the satanic.
Fine and good, BUT . . . there is a possibility that the scene could be read (and color the whole play to be read) with an anti-science/pro-sloppy-new-age-bullshit-thinking meaning -- which is not, I believe, Havel's intention. I can't get behind that message in any case, and think it, in fact, a dangerous position to take in this country at this time, where anti-rational thought is on the rise. The message, I believe, is against dogma, against repression, and Foustka says as much, and that he is certainly not "anti-science," but the way in which he says it is disturbingly familiar of the pushers and practitioners of what Michael Shermer of Sceptic magazine calls, with some understatement, "Weird Things."
So here's the last five lines of the play, and the beginning of the long stage direction that ends the play, as originally written by Havel:
*****
DIRECTOR
I know your opinions, Foustka, and therefore I understand this metaphor of yours as well. Through me, you want to accuse all modern science of being the true source of all evil. Isn’t that right?
FOUSTKA
No, it isn’t! Through you, I want to accuse the pride of that intolerant, all-powerful, and self-serving power that uses the sciences merely as a handy weapon for shooting down anything that threatens it, that is, anything that doesn’t derive its authority from this power or that is related to an authority deriving its powers elsewhere.
DIRECTOR
That’s the legacy you wish to leave this world, Foustka?
FOUSTKA
Yes!
DIRECTOR
I find it a little banal. In countries without censorship every halfway clever little hack journalist churns out stuff like that these days! But a legacy is a legacy, so in spite of what you think of me, I’ll give you an example of how tolerant I am by overlooking my reservations and applauding your last testament!
The DIRECTOR begins to clap lightly, and all the others gradually join in . . .
*****
So, yes, this can be read many ways, but I want to be sure that the "many" stays open, and that the very possible "one, wrong" way of reading this exchange does not predominate, so in my director's draft, I add some stage directions, and this now becomes . . .
*****
DIRECTOR
I know your opinions, Foustka, and therefore I understand this metaphor of yours as well. Through me, you want to accuse all modern science of being the true source of all evil. Isn’t that right?
During the following, the music changes to a heroic orchestral fanfare, and the lighting brightens on FOUSTKA, bathing him in triumph.
FOUSTKA
No, it isn’t! Through you, I want to accuse the pride of that intolerant, all-powerful, and self-serving power that uses the sciences merely as a handy weapon for shooting down anything that threatens it, that is, anything that doesn’t derive its authority from this power or that is related to an authority deriving its powers elsewhere.
The fanfare concludes and there is the sound of multitudes cheering. FOUSTKA poses as though he can hear them, and has won. Then, as though a switch were pulled, the lights bump back to where they were and the cheering cuts off. A long silence as the others stare at FOUSTKA with pity and his pose becomes ridiculous.
DIRECTOR
That’s . . . the legacy you wish to leave this world, Foustka?
FOUSTKA
Yes!
Another long pause in the silence, as the DIRECTOR stares at FOUSTKA and the others glance at each other, barely hiding their grins.
DIRECTOR
I find it a little . . . banal. In countries without censorship every halfway clever little hack journalist churns out stuff like that these days! But a legacy is a legacy, so in spite of what you think of me, I’ll give you an example of how tolerant I am by overlooking my reservations and applauding your last testament!
The DIRECTOR begins to clap lightly, and all the others gradually join in . . .
*****
So . . . a slight difference in attitude there, I guess . . . but I really couldn't go into rehearsal with it the first way.
Of course, I could have just done this in the staging, and not bothered to put it into the text now -- most directors would -- but I felt it was important for the actors to have the play including this moment as it is now, to understand where the ending is heading, and what we're really talking about here.
The thing is, Foustka is our protagonist, and we are meant certainly to feel something for him, and be pained by his fate, but he is a major ass. However, once, when I was wondering why I cared so much about the horrible end of Diane Selwyn in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive -- she is a truly awful, murderous, evil person, and yet her fate always brings me to tears -- Berit noted correctly, "Empathy does not require sympathy."
Right.
So the trick is to keep the feelings of empathy for Foustka alive in the audience, even as he is a first-class jerk pretty much throughout. Doable. Even after he punches and kicks his girlfriend good and hard. Empathy, not sympathy -- he's a fool, but he doesn't deserve to be destroyed for his foolish thoughts. The evil isn't Science, or even "closed-mindedness-to-alternate-viewpoints," but pure and simple repression of dissent, a very different thing.
As always, I wind up with fascism lurking behind the scenes, or at the edges of the scene, yet again . . . gotta figure out some day why this always comes up for me . . .
Today, we're all curled up together on the couch as I work on the next steps of Temptation by Vaclav Havel for the Havel Festival.
The show opens November 2. I plan to have the show cast by a week from today. I've emailed the 14 people who've expressed an interest in being in the show, who I thought would be good and had asked to read for me, to begin setting up audition times this coming weekend, plus I've asked a couple more I didn't think of before as being right for the show. So I look to be seeing 6 or 7 women for 4 parts, and 6 to 8 men for 6 or 7 parts (there's one role that I may have to cast from outside my circle). Edward Einhorn thinks he could possibly also find me a couple of young actors to play the small, non-speaking roles of "The Lovers." I'd like to keep those parts, but I don't know anyone I'm willing personally to ask to take them on.
So now, I'm waiting for all the responses to come in, seeing when I can get the biggest group of people together to read in various lineups, and find the place/time to bring them all in to read together. The thing is, I may wind up with only six men reading for six parts, but I know these six men could play these parts, in several different configurations -- it just becomes a question of which roles the guys are willing to play, and then also which ones of the women also fit the parts and the ensemble.
So Berit and I typed the whole play in, and I made a PDF of it so we're all on the same page, literally. I didn't have a huge amount of changes to make in my "director's draft," where I usually add/remove stage directions to clarify the production that will be made from this script for the actors. For almost the whole script it was simply changing "the curtain rises" and "the curtain falls" to "lights up" and "blackout." I made some changes in the final, long stage direction that ends the show, as the original includes something impossible to actually stage in this production (the main character is set on fire and runs around the stage, on flame), so I modified it slightly.
I did add some stage directions right around the last five lines of the play that I guess change things somewhat . . .
As I read the play over and over, and transcribed it into the laptop, I got more and more annoyed with a certain aspect of the ending. As the play comes to a close, the Faust character, Foustka, a respected scientist working for "The Institute," has been tricked into evincing a belief in the supernatural in a crafty test by The Director of that Institute -- a belief that will cost him his job, his academic standing, his personal reputation, and possibly much much more. Foustka, broken, confronts the Director and all of his colleagues, accusing them of a kind of closed-mindedness to new ideas that borders on the satanic.
Fine and good, BUT . . . there is a possibility that the scene could be read (and color the whole play to be read) with an anti-science/pro-sloppy-new-age-bullshit-thinking meaning -- which is not, I believe, Havel's intention. I can't get behind that message in any case, and think it, in fact, a dangerous position to take in this country at this time, where anti-rational thought is on the rise. The message, I believe, is against dogma, against repression, and Foustka says as much, and that he is certainly not "anti-science," but the way in which he says it is disturbingly familiar of the pushers and practitioners of what Michael Shermer of Sceptic magazine calls, with some understatement, "Weird Things."
So here's the last five lines of the play, and the beginning of the long stage direction that ends the play, as originally written by Havel:
*****
DIRECTOR
I know your opinions, Foustka, and therefore I understand this metaphor of yours as well. Through me, you want to accuse all modern science of being the true source of all evil. Isn’t that right?
FOUSTKA
No, it isn’t! Through you, I want to accuse the pride of that intolerant, all-powerful, and self-serving power that uses the sciences merely as a handy weapon for shooting down anything that threatens it, that is, anything that doesn’t derive its authority from this power or that is related to an authority deriving its powers elsewhere.
DIRECTOR
That’s the legacy you wish to leave this world, Foustka?
FOUSTKA
Yes!
DIRECTOR
I find it a little banal. In countries without censorship every halfway clever little hack journalist churns out stuff like that these days! But a legacy is a legacy, so in spite of what you think of me, I’ll give you an example of how tolerant I am by overlooking my reservations and applauding your last testament!
The DIRECTOR begins to clap lightly, and all the others gradually join in . . .
*****
So, yes, this can be read many ways, but I want to be sure that the "many" stays open, and that the very possible "one, wrong" way of reading this exchange does not predominate, so in my director's draft, I add some stage directions, and this now becomes . . .
*****
DIRECTOR
I know your opinions, Foustka, and therefore I understand this metaphor of yours as well. Through me, you want to accuse all modern science of being the true source of all evil. Isn’t that right?
During the following, the music changes to a heroic orchestral fanfare, and the lighting brightens on FOUSTKA, bathing him in triumph.
FOUSTKA
No, it isn’t! Through you, I want to accuse the pride of that intolerant, all-powerful, and self-serving power that uses the sciences merely as a handy weapon for shooting down anything that threatens it, that is, anything that doesn’t derive its authority from this power or that is related to an authority deriving its powers elsewhere.
The fanfare concludes and there is the sound of multitudes cheering. FOUSTKA poses as though he can hear them, and has won. Then, as though a switch were pulled, the lights bump back to where they were and the cheering cuts off. A long silence as the others stare at FOUSTKA with pity and his pose becomes ridiculous.
DIRECTOR
That’s . . . the legacy you wish to leave this world, Foustka?
FOUSTKA
Yes!
Another long pause in the silence, as the DIRECTOR stares at FOUSTKA and the others glance at each other, barely hiding their grins.
DIRECTOR
I find it a little . . . banal. In countries without censorship every halfway clever little hack journalist churns out stuff like that these days! But a legacy is a legacy, so in spite of what you think of me, I’ll give you an example of how tolerant I am by overlooking my reservations and applauding your last testament!
The DIRECTOR begins to clap lightly, and all the others gradually join in . . .
*****
So . . . a slight difference in attitude there, I guess . . . but I really couldn't go into rehearsal with it the first way.
Of course, I could have just done this in the staging, and not bothered to put it into the text now -- most directors would -- but I felt it was important for the actors to have the play including this moment as it is now, to understand where the ending is heading, and what we're really talking about here.
The thing is, Foustka is our protagonist, and we are meant certainly to feel something for him, and be pained by his fate, but he is a major ass. However, once, when I was wondering why I cared so much about the horrible end of Diane Selwyn in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive -- she is a truly awful, murderous, evil person, and yet her fate always brings me to tears -- Berit noted correctly, "Empathy does not require sympathy."
Right.
So the trick is to keep the feelings of empathy for Foustka alive in the audience, even as he is a first-class jerk pretty much throughout. Doable. Even after he punches and kicks his girlfriend good and hard. Empathy, not sympathy -- he's a fool, but he doesn't deserve to be destroyed for his foolish thoughts. The evil isn't Science, or even "closed-mindedness-to-alternate-viewpoints," but pure and simple repression of dissent, a very different thing.
As always, I wind up with fascism lurking behind the scenes, or at the edges of the scene, yet again . . . gotta figure out some day why this always comes up for me . . .
