Mineola Twin Reflections
So now that Mineola Twins is dead and gone I get to do one of my least favorite things after finishing a show; reflect. I like to move onto the next project right away. Sometimes a show can feel like a sweet sweet lover (or a cold heartless bitch) that you just don’t want to leave behind, but you must. Lucky you can always go onto the next show forgetting the last one and you won’t get any angry e-mails or cold glances from the former lover.
Now, I understand the reason for reflecting and I encourage it. It is a terrific way to avoid making the same mistake, or repeating a success. This in mind, there is no reason for me to lie or soften the blows of the truth. Not that I image my fellow actors/directors will read this, but if you do, this information is not meant as gossip. So keep it to yourself. Most, if not all issues with the show can be traced back to me. Besides, most of what I have to reflect on has nothing to do with that typical theatre drama.
Auditions/ Callbacks:
Advertise your show much much earlier and have a better description of the style of the rather than the facts of the show. People will interpret the way the show will be directed, even if it’s not true. If I read that a show is about a person playing two twins that explore America through three decades, I wouldn’t be interested either. Be a salesman.
Being extra fucking friendly, even to the point of pucking only makes the actors happy. They perform better. I get better results. They need to feel like I want to cast them, not judge them. And this is true. What the fuck do I care if someone sucks or not.
Having a Stage manager that smiles is a plus. Also, not that it applies to this production, but I’ve noticed that some stage managers have grown a real hatred for actors. They think of them as petty and self centered. I have no idea why they would feel this way, but I digress, it adds a real negative feel to rehearsals and should be avoided.
I like my shows to be set in a large corporate building… on dress down day. Shits getting done, but the competition and EXTREME professionalism is gone.
The Rehearsals:
Although it was unavoidable, try even harder to avoid double casting with a fellow director. Abe was really good about it, but the energy of the actors is shot after the first rehearsal.
After you have warm ups, do not take any time to do something else, even discussions about the scene, before you jump into scene work. The actors will get pissed and they have every right to be. Just tonight in Boys’ Life rehearsals we did all this energetic warm- up stuff and then a trivial question was asked and we spent ten to fifteen minutes answering it. We spent the rest of rehearsal trying to get that energy back and it just didn’t happen.
Something that I didn’t do well was setting a distinct time for designers to both attend and participate in rehearsals. I assumed that once before tech week they would watch the show and then get to work on their individual tasks unless otherwise needed. Megan, the dance choreographer obviously needed to be there more than say the costume designer did. I should have written out a rough schedule (because I couldn’t write out a real one due to double casting with Abe and Nick) so the designers had more of an idea when their shit needed done.
Also, that way the designers won’t stop me as I’m trying to get into a scene.
In this production I tried out having my actors double as designers. Susan ended up as costume designer as well as hair and make-up designer. Nate was TD and general knowledgeable fella and Addam was lighting. I know this was probably a bad idea but I wanted to see just how bad it could be. It turned out pretty well.
One of the reasons that I wanted to do this was as an experiment. I wanted to prove that I treated designers and actors the same. That people didn’t get treated better or worse. And if they did, then someone would come forward and tell me so. This did not happen. If there was any case of this happening I would have to say that Scott may be the one that I treated differently. This is because I expect more out of him. When I have people that I have worked with before, and there are a lot of them, I want them to improve, as I should be. Scott has hit a plateau. I know this, but I don’t know if he has, and I don’t know if anyone else would notice it. I have worked with him in several areas for some time. I intend to amend his laid back attitude that has caused this stale, over the next year.
Something that I set out to do for this show was to control my temper around the cast. Also to have a positive attitude without being either a push over or a kiss ass.
I feel as though I am on the road to making this work. The cast (for the most part, I’ll get to this.) trusts and respects me, especially the repeat performers. Even when things that angered them a great deal happened, I kept myself under control. This is something to continue to work on, but I have improved greatly in this area.
The two or three actors that didn’t respect me, Ryan, Veronica to a very slight extent, and Addam for the first three or four rehearsals had their reasons.
With Veronica, she came into the game very very late. Also, I don’t know that she fully understood the fully implication of getting involved in the show and how much work it would be. I am satisfied with the end result and I think she is too, but I should have explained things more clearly to her from the start.
With Addam, who I had a great time working with after the first couple of bungled rehearsals, it was more of a lack of understanding of how these rehearsals were going to be ran. I believe, and I could be wrong, that Addam has been used to a very unprofessional work habit when dealing with student directors. I don’t think that they’ve pushed him for all of his potentional. I didn’t either, but he did understand his place within the rehearsal process after we spoke and his importance within it.
The person that I feel I never redeemed was Ryan. The issue with Ryan was that he never cared about being in the show. From the start I think he had the wrong impression. During Callbacks he was tried out for both male parts a lot, but he didn’t get either of them, he got the agent. I was seriously considering him for both male leads, he just didn’t get the parts. Also, he didn’t get a script. This was in some ways my fault. Though the budget was extremely limited (and by this I mean we could only get scripts and right) I’m sure I could have figured out a way to acquire a copy of the script, even if he doesn’t have any written lines. The last thing I did wrong was when I was trying to make an effort to not waste anyone’s time. In twelve dreams there were days were someone would sit around for no reason. No one complained. But I felt bad. Anyway, I didn’t bring Ryan around unless I needed him, which wasn’t much. Then, when I did need him the fallout from Anything Goes kept him from being there.
As far as a solution goes there isn’t much. I should probably schedule specific ensemble days much like how Rick has done with Boys’ life. And definitely get scripts to everyone no matter what the part.
Tech Week:
There is nothing that can prepare you for the hell that is tech week. You may think that you have everything covered, but you don’t. Someone’s aunt will die or a designer will quiet or the theatre will shut down for a week and change your show date. A variation of all of these things happened.
Yet I remained calm, and what I mean by that is I kept it inside and used that anger in creative ways like writing or drawing.
As for things that I learned;
I learned that I’ve gotten very good at predicting when a designer was going to quiet. Simone did, when the correct way to say it is “She left the project”. While I was capable of noticing it coming, I have yet to master how to deal with it. I think that I was professional about it, I should have acting sooner, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. Susan ended up having to cover her. She had not completed any work up till four days before the show so Susan started from scratch.
Ways to avoid this is to work with people you know and trust well. Unfortunately, Simone was one of those people, but I stick by my statement. Lay out a strict schedule for your designers. If they aren’t sticking to it, or if they tell you that it’s done and they’ll show you soon, don’t believe them. Do not give them the impression OR except the impression that you are receiving a favor from them. Both times I’ve had problems with my designers (on different shows) I was given the impression by them that I was receiving a great favor from them. Both times they were good friends too.
Show Run:
It’s hard to go into what I learned from the show on the show nights as the whole thing is a presentation of a month’s worth of work. I suppose that if nothing else, it showed that I can work outside of my style. I love the style I like to work it, but now I know that I am not limited to it.
I learned that sometimes non-theater people are better audiences. Theater people are built to pick apart things and judge them. Non – theater people don’t have to question if what they laughed at deserved the laugh. It’s interesting because most people that will see my work later in life will not be people within the business. Theoretically.
If I let myself go with an idea, rather than shoot it down immediately, I might find something really cool. The finale with the confetti and tricycles was an example of suggesting something stupid to Scott, and then realizing that it was a good idea dressed in really bad idea clothing.
Yup. That’s it.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Week 1 and 2 of rehearsal
Rehearsals have gone well up till this point. as previously stated it has been difficult to get into a space and because of this and due to sharing Ashley with Abe (Who has been fantaastic at getting her out of his rehearsal and into mine in a timely fashion) and because Ashely is in ROTC and house manager for Anything Goes....well it's been hard finding time to rehearse. The blocking went really well. I had Scott, the set designer, on hand for that week so that we could adjust the elements, furniture, whatever to better fit the scenes. It also helped him come up with some ideas. I would like to have more warm-ups at the beginning. I used to have very long ones. This is because we at Waller become very stressed and need to have them in order to remove the tension from earlier in the day so we can focus on the show at hand.
In this show there are three different kinds of actors. The first is the generally good natured, hard working actor that will eventually work themselves to the point that they pass out and die. I like these ones the most. Then there are the ones that work hard, but can't focus on the production they're in or become impatient thus setting the porduction back. Then....then there are the actors that really liked acting in high school. because it was fun and they enjoyed chatting with their friends back stage before the show, after the show, fuck why not during too? I hate these actors and wait for them to waste all of their money on college only to turn into some yuppy office worker. Jesus, have you worked on a real show before.
Yet, I feel that the thing that I have grow much better at is keeping my patience. This is something I was not known to have a great deal for early on. I hope to keep the same amount of quality and collabration on a show, as well as keep my dignity, without having to chew people out. I have accomplished this with a more inward approach to correction of actors who don't actually want to be there. Most know this as the disappointed father look. It sometimes azames me how little the actors actually want to act. I've been in situations, as an actor, where I don't want to act, but it's because the director was incompatent or I had to wear a cock sock or the play was horrible. But in this case the actors seem tired, hell, sickly. After the first hour they really get into it. But that's after an hour.
A way that I've dealt with this is by doing really absurd warm-ups. I've had them dance while Nate plays the piano. I've wrestled with Will. He likes that and it really works to chill him out. I don't know why. Ash normally has to be talked through it, but if she doesn't want to be there, if she's hungry, or just really tired....you're screwed. I took Kelsey's shoe to Nate's head at one point (gently) to keep him from thinking too much. He's very heady. Something I have a problem with as well. He, out of the rest, appreciated the da da like experience that I have to offer. Susan has to be constantly reasured that she's not screwing up. I explained to her that acting is like having an asshole and me, as director, well... all i want you to do is poop. If you are uncomfortable, tired, angry, stressed out, or unconfident...you're not going to have a good poop. I want an actor to relax, have a good poop, let all of the emotion out and ignore the feeling to shrink back into yourself. This seemed to help Susan. Then there are the two dancers/agents. They really just like to hang out and talk. Death threats have worked the best with them as talking in out and asking nicely does shit. I believe that there parts just don't mean as much to them as they are small parts. I have talked out there characters with them and how they fit into the story. I give them as much direction as everyone else and treat them as importantly as the rest of the cast. It's not really a problem as it is an annoyance.
Overall i am fairly pleased with the show thus far. I'm just trying to get it to performance level as quickly as possible without losing anything. Time is my biggest problem.
Now I'll leave you with a portion of the last directing assignment we had. It applies to my feelings about the show and should be read in order to fully understand how I feel personally about my show.
"..... several directors and the talked about the personality of the director coming out in the shows that they do. One said that they noticed that the acting style that they enjoyed acting in was also the style of acting they want out of their actors. I believe this is true in my case at least. This actually made me feel better about my show. In all honestly I don’t think that this is my kind of show. I intentionally picked a show that I liked, but didn’t love. I like shows like , Jungles Hold No Tomorrow or Twelve Dreams. That’s why I did them. Because (As the one fella said) You are just an audience member that knows what they’re talking about and gets to tell the actors so. I’m just an audience member that is talking to the actors. I want to see dark shows with a bit of humor and a science fiction like plot twist. This show doesn’t really apply, but I wanted to do something different so I could hopefully grow. Watching rehearsal I can see that the show is going well at this point. Put I know that I’m not going to get my rocks off like jungles of twelve dreams. This, I now realize, is because its not the style that I act in as an actor so it doesn’t compute on some level. So, um, thanks directing guys."
In this show there are three different kinds of actors. The first is the generally good natured, hard working actor that will eventually work themselves to the point that they pass out and die. I like these ones the most. Then there are the ones that work hard, but can't focus on the production they're in or become impatient thus setting the porduction back. Then....then there are the actors that really liked acting in high school. because it was fun and they enjoyed chatting with their friends back stage before the show, after the show, fuck why not during too? I hate these actors and wait for them to waste all of their money on college only to turn into some yuppy office worker. Jesus, have you worked on a real show before.
Yet, I feel that the thing that I have grow much better at is keeping my patience. This is something I was not known to have a great deal for early on. I hope to keep the same amount of quality and collabration on a show, as well as keep my dignity, without having to chew people out. I have accomplished this with a more inward approach to correction of actors who don't actually want to be there. Most know this as the disappointed father look. It sometimes azames me how little the actors actually want to act. I've been in situations, as an actor, where I don't want to act, but it's because the director was incompatent or I had to wear a cock sock or the play was horrible. But in this case the actors seem tired, hell, sickly. After the first hour they really get into it. But that's after an hour.
A way that I've dealt with this is by doing really absurd warm-ups. I've had them dance while Nate plays the piano. I've wrestled with Will. He likes that and it really works to chill him out. I don't know why. Ash normally has to be talked through it, but if she doesn't want to be there, if she's hungry, or just really tired....you're screwed. I took Kelsey's shoe to Nate's head at one point (gently) to keep him from thinking too much. He's very heady. Something I have a problem with as well. He, out of the rest, appreciated the da da like experience that I have to offer. Susan has to be constantly reasured that she's not screwing up. I explained to her that acting is like having an asshole and me, as director, well... all i want you to do is poop. If you are uncomfortable, tired, angry, stressed out, or unconfident...you're not going to have a good poop. I want an actor to relax, have a good poop, let all of the emotion out and ignore the feeling to shrink back into yourself. This seemed to help Susan. Then there are the two dancers/agents. They really just like to hang out and talk. Death threats have worked the best with them as talking in out and asking nicely does shit. I believe that there parts just don't mean as much to them as they are small parts. I have talked out there characters with them and how they fit into the story. I give them as much direction as everyone else and treat them as importantly as the rest of the cast. It's not really a problem as it is an annoyance.
Overall i am fairly pleased with the show thus far. I'm just trying to get it to performance level as quickly as possible without losing anything. Time is my biggest problem.
Now I'll leave you with a portion of the last directing assignment we had. It applies to my feelings about the show and should be read in order to fully understand how I feel personally about my show.
"..... several directors and the talked about the personality of the director coming out in the shows that they do. One said that they noticed that the acting style that they enjoyed acting in was also the style of acting they want out of their actors. I believe this is true in my case at least. This actually made me feel better about my show. In all honestly I don’t think that this is my kind of show. I intentionally picked a show that I liked, but didn’t love. I like shows like , Jungles Hold No Tomorrow or Twelve Dreams. That’s why I did them. Because (As the one fella said) You are just an audience member that knows what they’re talking about and gets to tell the actors so. I’m just an audience member that is talking to the actors. I want to see dark shows with a bit of humor and a science fiction like plot twist. This show doesn’t really apply, but I wanted to do something different so I could hopefully grow. Watching rehearsal I can see that the show is going well at this point. Put I know that I’m not going to get my rocks off like jungles of twelve dreams. This, I now realize, is because its not the style that I act in as an actor so it doesn’t compute on some level. So, um, thanks directing guys."
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Auditioning
I just finished casting the show. This is the part where I reflect on the process. This is mostly for those of you who haven't auditioned yet.
What went right:
What went right:
- I remembered to put up the cold reading BEFORE the auditoin so people could read them and not stutter.
- I was overly polite, but not to the point were they thought they had the role for sure.
- I didn't have to rush to get an audition form done.
- People had a good attitude and enjoyed doing a warm-up as a group before the things started. It helped them feel less competative and comfortable about auditioning for me.
- I didn't go insane.
What went not right:
- Some douche bag took down all but one of my audition posters.
- Twelve people showed up for a cast of six. I mean, hey, that's like a fifty/fifty shot of getting cast if you audition, right. So cool for the actors, shitty for me.
- Festival bent me over and made me wait nearly a week before I could have callbacks.
- The audition space was locked when I went to have callbacks. Remember to sign things out. And then you should assume that if it's a weekend, it's going to be locked anyway. I miss you Bob.
- People will always tell you that they will audition and then not show up. Trust no one.
That being said I hope you can learn from my pain, or at least brace yourself for the impending doom.
Um.... and I'd also like to throw out there that the problem of not being able to cast your show in the spring has been a wretched whore for years now and I don't know why we don't just do the Directing Studio shows in the fall.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
10 Golden Questions
The Mineola Twins – Jack Culbertson
Script Discovery - 10 Golden Questions
How do I get to know this play? Read it several times. Have a group reading of the play in which you just listen to it out loud. Cast the show in your head with several different groups of people when you are rereading it so you get different versions of the same scenes. Look up odd references or references, names, and locations that you don’t understand in the script. Read several different versions of the play. Read different plays by the same playwright. I’m watching movies from the three different time period and noting the style of acting. I also took notes on the ideas that I got during audition from the experienced actors even if I didn’t cast them. I have collaged in the past and found it helpful, especially in getting the tone and feel of a piece out in image. I haven’t done it on this one just because I don’t have anymore magazines lying around.
What are the most compelling Images? Myra removes a bag of weed from a Mister Potato Head. Myna bent over several soda shop stools. The decaying faces of high school children. Myrna praying to a painting of Ronald Reagan. The shriveled remains of Jim the bank teller. The Count from Sesame Street laughing as lightening strikes. Two sisters holding each other while the apocalypse, the only moment that they will ever allow themselves to be sisters. Myrna’s silhouette stabbing Myna’s silhouette. Roses burst from her head. Orderlies dance with an insane woman. Giant manila bag of cash.
Movie Image Reference. Dream portions: Eyes Wide Shut. Buffy Season four finale. Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. Arkham Asylum (Graphic Novel). The 50's portion: Rebel
Without a Cause. Picnic. No Country for Old Men. Reefer Madness (1938). 1969: Midnight Cowboy. Fritz the Cat. Bonnie and Clyde. 1989: The Fisher King. Wall Street. Angels in America.
Breaking the Script Down: This has been done in my copy of the script. Also the play is broken down into scenes already which helps. Each scene generally follows Freitag’s Pyramid as does the over all play. I’m starting out blocking each scene by two or three beats and then rerunning it after six or so.
Given Circumstances:
Mineola Rhode Island. 1950's. Great Neck Rhode Island 1969. Nassau Valley Rhode Island 1989. New York 1969/1989.
Myrna and Myra are twins that are completely opposite. Myrna has very large breasts while Myra does not. Both have sons, but each son is more like their aunt than their mother. There parents are not mentioned.
Jim is engaged to Myrna. Myra sleeps with him. She is a slut. Jim works at a Ford (1950) then at a bank (1969). Because of Jim cheating on her Myrna goes to the asylum for a bit. Myra and her mom signed her in.
Myrna works at a radio show and with conservatives. Myra works at planned parenthood. Myrna tries to blow-up planned parenthood. She succeeds.
Both sisters have nightmares about each other. They both share thoughts and phrases. Both dream about the apocalypse.
Both show lesbian tendencies, but only Myra is open and happily lives with Sarah.
Myrna is a radical conservative. Myra is a radical liberal. Both are feminists.
Environment:
Dream 1: A sleek red hell in a museum of badly painted portraits of people from Myra’s past. It melts into the shadows as she flees to the womb from the apocalypse.
Scene 1 Diner: A soft warm soda shop with an old person smell and coke bottles. A jukebox plays bad music with girls in poodle skirts dancing around it. Stools cluster around the bar area that’s never dirty and glitter shines on.
Scene 2 Motel: The real side of the 1950's. Beat poetry is stuck in mouse holes keeping the rats out. Clothes with spunk make a carpet of sin on the floor. Mismatched sheets with floral designs are crumpled up around sad wasted youth. A crappy portrait of a cabin in the woods hangs off center above a side table with a beat up bible in its empty stomach.
Scene 3 Bank: A desk with pamphlets, a collection of fake smiles and long numbers, sits off to the side. Rope vines from pole to pole leading people to a mighty shrunken God of American money. A man in a new suit and a once proud mustache. A portrait of the bank president, a dick among dicks. Anger is just unfermented irony.
Dream 2: A Saint-Saens ballet. A virgin cloth soiled in whores blood. A twisted laugh that spins the floor of checks, black and white. Blue flowers climb out of desert sand and God light pours into your eyes from stone smiling teeth, a vengeance achieved. Red and Blue.
Scene 4 NY Flat: Midnight Cowboy with a couple more bucks. Pot and coke and speed. A bong made out of an apple half eaten. A mattress with rusty springs and a Mister Potato Head with a bag of weed up it asshole. Spiders that eat small children. Windows with newspaper over them. A fire in a room that never stops burning. A couple that rape and fight and cut and look through holes to see the lives of people worse than them, but most importantly, two people far to stoned to see any of this going on around them.
Scene 5 Radio Hall: Gillian sized marble floors with Reagan God portrait shining on in American hearts, an eternal reminder of the “American Dream” and a stairway to heaven. A new couch with uncomfortable cushions and a glass table, forever smugless. Copies of unread political magazines dance onto of it. Silhouette cardboard cut outs yell poetry and gospel into the minds of topless conservative rebels through a microphone patched into Satan’s pubic hair. Obviously a ginger and always smiling.
Scene 6 Parking lot: Lawerance of Arabia. A long empty land marked with exaggerated white lines. Perfect little boxes for perfect little boxes to park and perfect little boxes to step out of.
Dream 3: The Womb, a dirty glowing line shows down the middle. A used condom, a sock, a nail in the right hand of Christ by Judas’s betrayal, but less expensive. A soft bed. Just out of reach of the monsters, the end, the shriveled lifelessness that comes as the credits role. No, a bed with a soft comforter, both cotton and two warm arms just like her own lacking breasts, but the otherwise perfectly symmetrical body to it’s near mirror double holding each other as 2012 cuts through our world. Only then does the nail come out and the sisters live happily.
Character Breakdown:
Jim: He has a mind a fear of being stuck in the world he was shown by his father and friends at the mail room. A desperate boy who longs to be a man in the late 60's. this is why he goes to Myra, but the society that has borrowed into his mind has filled him with catholic guilt. He then becomes a banker. Why cheat on Myrna. He does love her. It is because he fears that he will be stuck in a situation that he is not ready for yet and like so many men is makes a desperate grasp at escapism by sleeping Myra. He doesn’t do it for sex. He knows he will get caught and his engagement with Myrna will be over.
Sarah: Life partner to Myra. She is the most level headed person in the play. She has a family, a developing career, problems, and lives the late eighties as typically as everyone else does. She will not exhibit any one the lesbian stereotypes that may occur earlier in the shoe because her personality doesn’t not support that kind of behavior. In any other play Sarah would be terribly boring, but in this play she plays comically off of the absurdity of the rest of the over the top characters.
Ben: He will one day grow up to be a strong, stubborn asshole with a wife that matters very little to him with sons that have reverted back to the men of the fifties in mind set of male bravado. He is overly smart for someone so short sighted. He does however love his mothers but resentment has caused him to be such an asshole. To make this character work for the show I will have to have him come on very strong in the first 1989 scene. Very similar in strength and over the top Republican like his aunt and then as the scene plays on he shrinks back as he sees just how insane his aunt is..
Ken: He, in any other play, would be the main character. He is a young ambitious boy who is born into a family that doesn’t instant his rebellious and forward thinking ways. He wants to escape the small town and go off to be somebody. Unfortunately for this play he is more of a plot device to get this rolling for the second half of the show. To counter this I’m really going to have to play up the relationship between him and his aunt as well as the humor that is inherent in the scene.
Myra: Built to pick at the norm and all that she sees as wrong. She is embarrassed to know that her sister is the prototype for all things perfect. She is ambitious and desperate to escape being a regular person. She is the reactor to Myrna after the first two scenes. She is slightly more sensible, but only barely.
Myrna: She wants what she’s told to want. She is the good twin for the first two scenes and after that she becomes the bad lesbian. She drives the show by antagonizing Myra. She has the most obvious arc as a character. She goes from being perfect to losing everything. Then going mad to being redeemed. He sister is the vessel for this to happen.
Climax: This is all of Scene 6 for the most part. Myrna brings the bomb to end the work of her sister. She then finds out that her sister might be in the building. There is the theme that runs throughout the show that only when there is a nuclear apocalypse then will they become close again. This actually happens symbolically through the bomb almost killing them all and Myra tries to save Myrna from the building. What I like about the play is that it doesn’t just show the two sisters hugging at the end and apologizing for years of being bitches, but rather that they both are slightly remorseful. That’s more believable and a much more satisfying kind of hope (For me.)
Conflict: To be honest this is normally something I like to find out during the rehearsal process as it gives me little bursts of excitement when I do find them. I’m also pretty good at detecting subtext as I’ve lived my entire life around people that never actually say what they mean. I just assume that there are two meanings to everything someone says.
What does it mean: You can do this play two different ways. The first is the political way where you highlight the treatment and mind sets of women throughout the thirty-year span. The other is the relationship of the sisters. The second is a harder thing to pull off. It is also more interesting to me. I always want to up the difficulty level with each new project. Also, I think that if played correctly, by down playing the political side of things, you awesome that the audience is smart enough to make the right decision about women’s right. There is no persuasion going on. You are simply calling those people who disagree with women’s rights stupid by not even arguing with them about it. Paula was writing plays when women were still getting crap, especially for being lesbians. If the audience (Especially this audience) hasn’t changed their minds by now then the frankly are stupid and need to feel that way. For the rest of the audience this is a relationship piece between family members.
Script Discovery - 10 Golden Questions
How do I get to know this play? Read it several times. Have a group reading of the play in which you just listen to it out loud. Cast the show in your head with several different groups of people when you are rereading it so you get different versions of the same scenes. Look up odd references or references, names, and locations that you don’t understand in the script. Read several different versions of the play. Read different plays by the same playwright. I’m watching movies from the three different time period and noting the style of acting. I also took notes on the ideas that I got during audition from the experienced actors even if I didn’t cast them. I have collaged in the past and found it helpful, especially in getting the tone and feel of a piece out in image. I haven’t done it on this one just because I don’t have anymore magazines lying around.
What are the most compelling Images? Myra removes a bag of weed from a Mister Potato Head. Myna bent over several soda shop stools. The decaying faces of high school children. Myrna praying to a painting of Ronald Reagan. The shriveled remains of Jim the bank teller. The Count from Sesame Street laughing as lightening strikes. Two sisters holding each other while the apocalypse, the only moment that they will ever allow themselves to be sisters. Myrna’s silhouette stabbing Myna’s silhouette. Roses burst from her head. Orderlies dance with an insane woman. Giant manila bag of cash.
Movie Image Reference. Dream portions: Eyes Wide Shut. Buffy Season four finale. Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. Arkham Asylum (Graphic Novel). The 50's portion: Rebel
Without a Cause. Picnic. No Country for Old Men. Reefer Madness (1938). 1969: Midnight Cowboy. Fritz the Cat. Bonnie and Clyde. 1989: The Fisher King. Wall Street. Angels in America.
Breaking the Script Down: This has been done in my copy of the script. Also the play is broken down into scenes already which helps. Each scene generally follows Freitag’s Pyramid as does the over all play. I’m starting out blocking each scene by two or three beats and then rerunning it after six or so.
Given Circumstances:
Mineola Rhode Island. 1950's. Great Neck Rhode Island 1969. Nassau Valley Rhode Island 1989. New York 1969/1989.
Myrna and Myra are twins that are completely opposite. Myrna has very large breasts while Myra does not. Both have sons, but each son is more like their aunt than their mother. There parents are not mentioned.
Jim is engaged to Myrna. Myra sleeps with him. She is a slut. Jim works at a Ford (1950) then at a bank (1969). Because of Jim cheating on her Myrna goes to the asylum for a bit. Myra and her mom signed her in.
Myrna works at a radio show and with conservatives. Myra works at planned parenthood. Myrna tries to blow-up planned parenthood. She succeeds.
Both sisters have nightmares about each other. They both share thoughts and phrases. Both dream about the apocalypse.
Both show lesbian tendencies, but only Myra is open and happily lives with Sarah.
Myrna is a radical conservative. Myra is a radical liberal. Both are feminists.
Environment:
Dream 1: A sleek red hell in a museum of badly painted portraits of people from Myra’s past. It melts into the shadows as she flees to the womb from the apocalypse.
Scene 1 Diner: A soft warm soda shop with an old person smell and coke bottles. A jukebox plays bad music with girls in poodle skirts dancing around it. Stools cluster around the bar area that’s never dirty and glitter shines on.
Scene 2 Motel: The real side of the 1950's. Beat poetry is stuck in mouse holes keeping the rats out. Clothes with spunk make a carpet of sin on the floor. Mismatched sheets with floral designs are crumpled up around sad wasted youth. A crappy portrait of a cabin in the woods hangs off center above a side table with a beat up bible in its empty stomach.
Scene 3 Bank: A desk with pamphlets, a collection of fake smiles and long numbers, sits off to the side. Rope vines from pole to pole leading people to a mighty shrunken God of American money. A man in a new suit and a once proud mustache. A portrait of the bank president, a dick among dicks. Anger is just unfermented irony.
Dream 2: A Saint-Saens ballet. A virgin cloth soiled in whores blood. A twisted laugh that spins the floor of checks, black and white. Blue flowers climb out of desert sand and God light pours into your eyes from stone smiling teeth, a vengeance achieved. Red and Blue.
Scene 4 NY Flat: Midnight Cowboy with a couple more bucks. Pot and coke and speed. A bong made out of an apple half eaten. A mattress with rusty springs and a Mister Potato Head with a bag of weed up it asshole. Spiders that eat small children. Windows with newspaper over them. A fire in a room that never stops burning. A couple that rape and fight and cut and look through holes to see the lives of people worse than them, but most importantly, two people far to stoned to see any of this going on around them.
Scene 5 Radio Hall: Gillian sized marble floors with Reagan God portrait shining on in American hearts, an eternal reminder of the “American Dream” and a stairway to heaven. A new couch with uncomfortable cushions and a glass table, forever smugless. Copies of unread political magazines dance onto of it. Silhouette cardboard cut outs yell poetry and gospel into the minds of topless conservative rebels through a microphone patched into Satan’s pubic hair. Obviously a ginger and always smiling.
Scene 6 Parking lot: Lawerance of Arabia. A long empty land marked with exaggerated white lines. Perfect little boxes for perfect little boxes to park and perfect little boxes to step out of.
Dream 3: The Womb, a dirty glowing line shows down the middle. A used condom, a sock, a nail in the right hand of Christ by Judas’s betrayal, but less expensive. A soft bed. Just out of reach of the monsters, the end, the shriveled lifelessness that comes as the credits role. No, a bed with a soft comforter, both cotton and two warm arms just like her own lacking breasts, but the otherwise perfectly symmetrical body to it’s near mirror double holding each other as 2012 cuts through our world. Only then does the nail come out and the sisters live happily.
Character Breakdown:
Jim: He has a mind a fear of being stuck in the world he was shown by his father and friends at the mail room. A desperate boy who longs to be a man in the late 60's. this is why he goes to Myra, but the society that has borrowed into his mind has filled him with catholic guilt. He then becomes a banker. Why cheat on Myrna. He does love her. It is because he fears that he will be stuck in a situation that he is not ready for yet and like so many men is makes a desperate grasp at escapism by sleeping Myra. He doesn’t do it for sex. He knows he will get caught and his engagement with Myrna will be over.
Sarah: Life partner to Myra. She is the most level headed person in the play. She has a family, a developing career, problems, and lives the late eighties as typically as everyone else does. She will not exhibit any one the lesbian stereotypes that may occur earlier in the shoe because her personality doesn’t not support that kind of behavior. In any other play Sarah would be terribly boring, but in this play she plays comically off of the absurdity of the rest of the over the top characters.
Ben: He will one day grow up to be a strong, stubborn asshole with a wife that matters very little to him with sons that have reverted back to the men of the fifties in mind set of male bravado. He is overly smart for someone so short sighted. He does however love his mothers but resentment has caused him to be such an asshole. To make this character work for the show I will have to have him come on very strong in the first 1989 scene. Very similar in strength and over the top Republican like his aunt and then as the scene plays on he shrinks back as he sees just how insane his aunt is..
Ken: He, in any other play, would be the main character. He is a young ambitious boy who is born into a family that doesn’t instant his rebellious and forward thinking ways. He wants to escape the small town and go off to be somebody. Unfortunately for this play he is more of a plot device to get this rolling for the second half of the show. To counter this I’m really going to have to play up the relationship between him and his aunt as well as the humor that is inherent in the scene.
Myra: Built to pick at the norm and all that she sees as wrong. She is embarrassed to know that her sister is the prototype for all things perfect. She is ambitious and desperate to escape being a regular person. She is the reactor to Myrna after the first two scenes. She is slightly more sensible, but only barely.
Myrna: She wants what she’s told to want. She is the good twin for the first two scenes and after that she becomes the bad lesbian. She drives the show by antagonizing Myra. She has the most obvious arc as a character. She goes from being perfect to losing everything. Then going mad to being redeemed. He sister is the vessel for this to happen.
Climax: This is all of Scene 6 for the most part. Myrna brings the bomb to end the work of her sister. She then finds out that her sister might be in the building. There is the theme that runs throughout the show that only when there is a nuclear apocalypse then will they become close again. This actually happens symbolically through the bomb almost killing them all and Myra tries to save Myrna from the building. What I like about the play is that it doesn’t just show the two sisters hugging at the end and apologizing for years of being bitches, but rather that they both are slightly remorseful. That’s more believable and a much more satisfying kind of hope (For me.)
Conflict: To be honest this is normally something I like to find out during the rehearsal process as it gives me little bursts of excitement when I do find them. I’m also pretty good at detecting subtext as I’ve lived my entire life around people that never actually say what they mean. I just assume that there are two meanings to everything someone says.
What does it mean: You can do this play two different ways. The first is the political way where you highlight the treatment and mind sets of women throughout the thirty-year span. The other is the relationship of the sisters. The second is a harder thing to pull off. It is also more interesting to me. I always want to up the difficulty level with each new project. Also, I think that if played correctly, by down playing the political side of things, you awesome that the audience is smart enough to make the right decision about women’s right. There is no persuasion going on. You are simply calling those people who disagree with women’s rights stupid by not even arguing with them about it. Paula was writing plays when women were still getting crap, especially for being lesbians. If the audience (Especially this audience) hasn’t changed their minds by now then the frankly are stupid and need to feel that way. For the rest of the audience this is a relationship piece between family members.
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