the old-familiar

I am currently rehearsing a show I did about 120 times (!) all over America between last winter and this spring. Over the summer I planned a wedding, got married, was in a different show, went abroad, and now here I am for the second mounting of this show, which hits the road on Sunday.

About half of the small cast has returned, and half of the cast is new. It is so lovely to work with some of the same delightful people again, but it is also helpful to have new energy and new impulses to work with, especially since I was nervous about, well...going stale! My character is 120 shows old, after all. Theatre-centenarian!

This is my first time reprising a role. And it's not even just that -- the whole production is the same (same company, same costumes, same set, same choreography...etc etc etc). The only difference is the new actors. This presents a two-fold challenge <pushing glasses up nose>: a) Remember the old, and b) Find the new within the old.

So, yes, I lived with this character for quite a while the first time 'round. But with all that major stuff packed into the summer months, I thought for sure that she had left my body.  I remembered all my lines (which, though not many, are essentially in another language), and I remembered my song. I even remembered most of my blocking (for you non-theatre-folk: my path of movement in each scene). But I thought for sure that I would get up to do my first scene, and her walk--did I mention she is a toddler?--would just be GONE. And my attempt to waddle like a toddler would FAIL and I'd be a FOOL and they'd laugh me out of the room scornfully. 'Cuz theatre people are HARD-CORE!

Yeeaaahh, you can probably guess that that did not happen. Instead, I got up and BAM!, there she was! My brain was astounded, but my body knew exactly what it was doing. I was thrilled. My bosses threw roses. They gave me a raise. They chanted my name with a growing crowd of eventual millions.  Muscle-memory can be absolutely heroic.

It can also be a real &^*%#.

There are things about the show that I remember based on a former scene partner (be they human or puppet). I pretty much had to re-train myself for certain moments, so I wouldn't respond bizarrely or not at all, since my body was waiting for a certain feeling (a tug, a hand on my back, the weight of a puppet in my arms) that was suddenly different or absent. The good thing about this challenge? It has helped me stay awake! I don't mean rehearsals are a snooze. I mean to say that our HUGE (I am all about capitalization today, huh? I HAVE IMPORTANT THINGS TO SAY, APPARENTLY!) charge as actors is to find a way to keep not just every play or every scene but every *moment* of the play we will do for a weekend, a few weeks, a few months, whole yeeeaaars FRESH. This can absolutely be accomplished with good, thoughtful actors who have worked with each other for months. I know that my last cast could have done this. But it can happen quite easily with people who are new to each other, literally giving each other unexpected reactions.

Now the great challenge will be to keep ourselves and each other awake after we have done the show many times together. And again: we have circumstantial help. Audiences of hundreds of squealing children!! If their reactions don't keep things lively, nothing will. (Kid-audience-quotes to come. You'll thank me.)

So really, my job is pretty easy.
Just. Stay. Awake.

baby ninja theatre

My joints hurt. My quads are killin’ me. There are bruises on both my knees and I could sleep for a day.

Baby theatre is all about playing, and I play hard. 

*   *   *   

...in truth, I didn’t do enough yoga leading up to our recent workshops, and I foolishly went sans knee pads.

Also in truth, ALL theatre is about playing!

The illustrious Dictionary of Tia states that playing means “to physicalize imaginings.” What made my two 4-hour sessions in a yoga studio with my husband (director), a producer and a musician extra playful? Well, I was moving about as if I were a preschooler, and we had no script yet. We had the idea of a character and the idea of a situation. These sessions were to find our script. And it showed up in some ridiculous and delightful places.

After some introductory chatter, hubby literally said something akin to “Now just do stuff.” A rational person might’ve freaked out at this vague command. My bass-playing cohort and I are apparently insane. I don’t even remember what I did first, but he was right there to score my spontaneous actions on the fly, and come up with sound effects for the little events that took place. (You should hear what a slinky sounds like to an upright bass! Yowza!) He even created instrument-to-actor conversation at times, finding notes to warn me to be careful, or to encourage a choice.

The room was littered with objects. Household objects, noise-makers, toys. I know that I immediately took to the 3 stuffed animals, carrying them around and including them in everything I did. It wasn’t until the end of that first part of rehearsal (a full HOUR of unscripted, nonverbal and undirected PLAYING) that I realized my 3 buddies were different sizes. Here is what I was working on when hubby called a break:

Every buddy holds a buddy! Hooray!!

What we understand about baby theatre so far is that it is not so much based on a typical narrative structure with beginning, middle and end, but a series of episodes...little tasks for the character(s) or events that happen, each organically leading to the next. Toddlers don’t need to know who or even what you are, but they seem to respond to a character’s focus...for a few minutes, at least. Then you have to change things up! A new task, a new discovery.

The most exciting moments of that first hour--the ones that will inform our script--were complete discoveries. I would do something just to DO it, maybe just because I felt like it, and then the four of us in the room would realize that it wasn’t an arbitrary thing, but it meant something. Like the buddies-holding-buddies, for instance. In the moment, I was simply thinking that I wanted everyone to hug. But then, look! I learned something about sizes and levels and pieces fitting together. I hadn’t at all meant to create a little lesson; illumination found me.

Each of the 4-hour days involved freely playing followed by a discussion of what happened and what was found, then repeating that. But each time we played, it got more focused. Hubby would start to chime in and guide the play a bit. I likened it to a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. The musician and I would go down one path together, but our director was there to allow us to cheat...”what if you backtrack and choose this other path?” He was also there to remind me that every single object I encountered was a revelation. If you don’t yet know what a scarf is, how will you know that this swath of fabric goes around your neck? Maybe you want it on your head. Maybe on your upright bass’ head!

...wait. You guys didn’t have an upright bass complete with bass player in your playrooms?

scenes from a reading

A few minutes past 6pm, our quiet little apartment was suddenly brimming with people, and buzzing with conversation. We squeezed into the living room (after bringing in two extra chairs, two people still had to sit on cushions on the floor) and everyone grabbed a copy of Wondrous Machines, fresh from Kinko's. All these lovely people had gathered to read my play to me.

You would've thought something far more nefarious was afoot, by the ridiculous pace of my heart. But it turned out to be a remarkable event. Hearing actors (and theatre-loving neighbors:) read my words with that kind of care, and thoughtfulness...it was a gift. These people told me my story. It felt like the final step in an act of creation. Now, I could see the play as a thing apart from myself. A thing that can have a life outside of my head, and my notebooks. 

I got to hear my husband read a role that he inspired. Watched my friends *really* play out scenes with each other even though they were simply sitting in an apartment, holding scripts and nursing beers (I loved catching those moments, when someone was waiting for their scene partner to look up from the words and just have a moment with them...). 

There is a character who is seen but not heard for many pages. When the actress spoke that first line, I got goosebumps.

There is a rather funny character who was played by an incredibly funny friend. But the way he delivered a line near the end...so sincerely, so full of heart...moved me.

It's a funny thing, to enjoy something you had a hand in. But I have to think it's o.k. I remember reading an interview with Toni Morrison where she said she writes books that she would want to read.

Someone said my work made her think of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Someone else said The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. I think both of these comments elicited an "Awesome!" from me:). Another person thought of a book, which sounds fascinating: The Triggering Town, named for the fictional town a writer made up that he revisits now and again, adding characters and stories to its framework, and pulling from it for his various works over the years. I love the idea of a creator stitching together the whole universe of their work over time--linking things somehow. David Mitchell does this. He is a masterful contemporary novelist whose works can be read independent of each other, but for the perceptive fan, there are tiny connections between them. For instance, a young character from one novel "grows up"and becomes the old lady encountered by the protagonist of a different novel. For someone who has read the other work, this encounter is a little gift. We get a brief continuation of that other story, another quick dip into the pool of that other world. What a joy.

Flipping through the scripts my friends left, I found my own little surprises--continuations of the previous evening. I myself am an active reader. I love marking phrases or passages that strike me, for whatever reason. I leave you with some anonymous scribbles by my active play-reading pals.