TED Talks: A demonstration of the Puppetry behind \"War Horse\".

War Horse on Broadway: the play was nominated for a Tony. And everyone who I’ve talked to who has seen the show has been very moved by the emotional power of this “puppet show”.

Conversely, my sister invested in a show in London, “The Umbrellas of Cherbourgh”, that used puppets -and she was perplexed and unsatisfied with their appearance in the musical. And the musical closed quickly on the West End this spring.

I’m using “Mixed Media” in one of my scripts ~ as in performance art/surreal action and circumstances. I don’t know how a theatre can “perform” some of these ideas – but the images of “War Horse” really inspired me. Can a six foot eagle’s nest have dialouge? I guess I might find out….

>An article about dramaturgs – that gave me – pause.

Here are some of the comments following the lead article:

“Many plays are ruined by dramaturgs who have an agenda such as feminism or strict rules for writing a play. All plays aren’t the same. It used to be that the director or producer-director acted as dramaturg, such as Elia Kazan with Tennessee Williams. By the way, the singular for phenomenon is NOT phenomena. Your logos are blocking this box so I can’t see what I’ve written completely!”

“This article seems to start from an assumption that playwrights need help. My formula for New Play Development is pretty simple: Listen to the playwright. Trust the playwright. If a playwright knows what she’s doing, then just get out of her way. If she doesn’t, she can ask for help. Either way, she steers the ship.”

This article and these comments have given me – pause – for some of the thick/thin skin revealed in this process. I’d like to think that playwrights could be as robust as actors are in rehearsal to taking “notes” in “NPR” – (a grouse here: must we abbreviate everything to a code instead of using the words that describe our actions?)

At any rate, this article gave me a lot to think about and I wanted to share.

Friday night I went to the REDCAT Theatre at Disney Hall to see a Dance peformance of “Faith”. I’d been submitting my work to the REDCAT Theatre’s “new works” series and they offered me a couple of comps to see how their theatre works, and what they do.  I love Disney Hall, (and how music sounds in Disney Hall) and I hadn’t been inside their experimental theatre space, REDCAT, and I wanted to be able to “see” what my works might look like there.

A few minutes before curtain, my cell phone rang. I never have my cell phone on – at any time – it’s always off until I turn it on to make a phone call. So I was very surprised to hear someone’s really annoying cell phone ringing in the lobby, and realized it was me.  I picked up the phone and talked to a friend, who was in tears and greatly upset: she had called to let me know that a mutual friend had just died.  Our friend, Leticia, had fought cancer for two years.  It started out as cervical cancer, then lung cancer, liver cancer, spleen cancer, brain cancer.  She was 36 years old and had three young children.  I had been part of her support/meals/spa as therapy group and I knew we were in the “end stage” of her illness.  She had just died at the hospital with her family gathered around her, and she is now, gratefully, finally, out of pain.  I’m relieved that she doesn’t have to suffer any more, or be afraid of what treatment/chemo/clinical trial awaits her.  I’m glad her illness is over.

I just didn’t expect her to die then.  I thought she would die…..later. We ended the call, and then I went in to see the performance.  I knew I was “upset” but I thought I could sit through the event and process my feelings later.

I’ve never been to the theatre before with the specter of death as a companion, and let me tell you, it really changes the ride.  I know at any given moment babies are born, and people die, and puppies learn to walk, but when you sitting on the razor blade of grief with death, watching theatre/dance/performing takes on a different perspective.

I wondered – how many times in my life as actor, did people in the audience come to the theatre knowing that someone they loved had just died?  How many times have I worked with people, stage crew, ushers, actors ~ who checked into the theatre, put on their make up, and gave a brilliant performance, as someone they loved just died.  (I know of one actor, who managed that feat, and I wondered if the actor’s ability to compartmentalize their roles had anything to do with his amazing ability to just…put it…away from him that night.)

The performance was strange and stunning:  I found myself moved to a place of contemplating the history of grief as seen in paintings and dance.  I experienced grief in a public place in a very unexpected way.  I’ll be thinking about this for a long time.

The review of \”Faith\” from the Los Angeles Times

This interview with Lauren Bacall has a rather bracing take on the idea of a nostalgic visit to the golden days of Hollywood.  (Just don’t take too long to open her chocolates…..)

Vanity Fair interview with Lauren Bacall

“Bacall continues, “I don’t think anybody that has a brain can really be happy. What is there really to be happy about? You tell me. If you’re a thinking human being, there’s no way to divorce yourself from the world.””

The interview has some interesting insights into the sting of nostalgia – and what was or wasn’t said in the past.

Last night I went to a  meditation class ~ I’m trying to find ways to hit the pause button on my monkey mind; and our meditation teacher taught (or tried to teach) a lesson on “the insight of stopping”.

I can’t begin to tell you how infuriating it was.  “Stop the impulse.”  “Stop the wanting”  “Stop, stop, stop.”  And I’m trying, but I seem to have an overactive, ADD, coffee candy control addicted, sugar spun-out mind that only wants stories, interaction, distraction and the next thing.  What ever that is.  I can see that it’s pretty hard to find insight and inspiration amongst all that freeway noise. But I’m used to my carnival of chaos; at least that’s what I know.

This morning I went back in my archives to find this. 

Jill Bolte Taylors Powerful Stroke of Insight

It did make me pause and think.  And if I didn’t stop, at least I slowed down (a little).

This is what happens when you write about ghosts; they follow you from the darkness. They follow you offstage. They slip into the bathroom. They cross over from realism to surealism to magical realism. 

Magical creatures onstage don’t have to obey the “laws” of those real lives – they can fly/float/appear in other times/as other people/other voices/other animals/other languages.

And then they don’t always obey the playwright.  As in shut up when I’m done writing.

The ghost I’m writing about now – follows me around sometimes like a helium balloon during the day – and hovers over my head when I’m trying to go to sleep.  Mostly she’s in my thoughts, trying to escape the ordinary.  Whatever that is.

I thought the attached link was an interesting “find” in the natural world.  Of course the images at the VERY END of the(16 minute) piece are what I was most interested in.  They resembled characters waiting for the playwright to bring them to life.  Or, at least, to bring them a strong cup of coffee.  Substance and Absence: An artist shows/demonstrates

One of the writers in my writer’s group goes to the Sundance Film Festival every year, and comes back to share stories of what she’s seen. It sounds like a Harry Potter experience, to be able to see these wildly original films, ready for marketing (or not), and to be part of a small group of industry insiders who get to see those efforts.

What I loved hearing from her this year is that all of the films that she saw (and she only saw a sampling of what was offered there), the films that she saw –  were written from a very personal point of view.  The films were “intimate” and “story-focused” and “emotional”.  Now granted, these are films, not plays. But I think that there is an influence from theatre to cinema, just as there is an influence of cinema to theatre.

I was thinking about that influence of cinema on theatre when I saw this clip on Anna Deavere’s Smith’s new play.  Look at the visual effects for this one woman show – it looks like a scene out of a big budget motion picture. And yet, there’s an intimacy in her writing, and obviously, in the people she’s portraying. 

The Clip from the News Hour on One Person Shows

I remember when I did a one woman show on Emily Dickinson, all I had was a desk and a fainting couch for a set, and some pretty low budget lighting.   (“And lights up.”  “And lights down.”) Would the show have been better served with a scrim projecting images of Amherst, and Emily’s handwriting, and beautiful photographs of the natural world, the beauty, the despair, that she wrote about?  Perhaps, and especially in the media/photo saturated world we lived in now – but I like to think that theatre is also about asking the audience to imagine a cowboy holding a beer at a bar, or an enraged patient at a doctor’s office.

I still think about using scrims with projected images for background images onstage.  But I just haven’t made the leap. Yet.

I hope you get a chance to read this essay by Wallace Shawn; he explores the world of acting and writes about the freedom inherent in moving between roles and society.

Wallace Shawn post

I remembered this post a lot this weekend as I finished up a writing project that I’ve been working on for the past year.  I resembled an insane person as I talked out the various voices: gesturing to the air, scaring the cats with imaginary arguments, figuring out how an arthritic recluse would clutch a tea cup, yelling at dust bunnies on the floor.  But somehow I was in that zone of letting it come out of me, all the noises, all the steps ahead, to let the story uncoil and have its own path. It was a 15 hour writing marathon, and on the other side of it I’m amazed. I’m amazed I drank so much coffee and survived.  And the cats…well, they’re glad that this weekend is over.

“You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you’re working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success – but only if you persist.”

– Isaac Asimov

When I was a child I was a scavenger: pebbles, sticks, feathers, dead bugs, seed pods were the coin of my realm.  The natural world was my buffet plate and I scrounged through all kinds of treasures.  I once found a completely intact dried snake skin, (and cried when it crumbled in my over anxious hands).

After struggling through a season (or some) of despair, I’m finding my way to enjoying writing again.  Maybe its more accurate to say that I’m finding ways to enjoy parts of my life again and that’s reflected in my writing.

Now I find that my kind of inspiration needs to have the same kind of guilt free piracy:  the  gifts to be found in the natural world that I can bring with me to my writing are still around me, and I’m trying to awaken the same kind of wonder and appreciation.

I’m reading more; seeing more art work, trying to see more friends and get out of the smallness of the past few months.  I especially appreciate reading the LA FPI blogs – to know that there are like minded spirits and writers here is very comforting.

Here is a website I go to for an occasional jolt of positive thinking:

Here’s to finding the feathers and sticks needed for new ideas.

I’m at a business conference this week where I’m listening to speeches given by business executives.

Its remarkable to witness, that no matter how wonderful or awful the script is, if the speaker can’t use their own breathing when they’re talking – the words don’t really matter.

I know about breath control from being an actor, (and from the training in iambic pentameter), so I know about how breath illuminates spoken text (or not). But I was surprised to see how much nerves and tension and competiveness prevented a lot of today’s speakers from effectively using their words. They had some great phrases to use – but a lot of them just dumped their words out on the table like pieces from a puzzle.

One of the speakers, the CEO of the company, took his time to deliver his messages. Yes, he did seem a bit…ponderous…maybe even older in his vocal quality. But his messages had more weight and meaning because you could frame their connection to your understanding of where he was going in his speech.

I had the chance to go see THE KINGS SPEECH this past weekend, and there were some glorious moments, not just in story telling, but in the power of what words are, and how they can be used – and overcome.

I think I’ll be writing with more of a consciousness of the breathing between and in the words I write. At least for a little while.