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Community Performance Inc.

May 19, 2008

Rehearsals remind me of the atumfron--probably not spelling that right--the West African rhythm orchestra whose complexity owes not to the difficulty of an individual musical line, but to the layering of simple rhythms which become complex as they overlay one another. When the rhythms are simple I can rise, breakfast, blog, do office work--other projects or email--lunch, nap, meeting(s), run or yoga on alternate days, shower, coffee, rehearsal. There's a lot of time in there. But then the rhythms start overlapping differently. Rehearsals get longer, for instance. Prep work intensifies--all morning I work to solve issues that I'll explore that night in rehearsal. This happens after table work, the first week or so. Today for instance, I had the culminating scenes in the play "March in the Rain," and "I Can See the Future." and four others, plus music. Preparing for this I took all the hours of the day. Then I stayed up late talking shop with Steve Mitchell, the new assistant director. And then the sun rose up, and I couldn't sleep again. I stay up later, one rhythm. I awake and my mind doesn't let me fall back to sleep, another rhythm, the rhythm of being deeply in the production. I don't have time to nap because of the work load, another rhythm of simple mechanical preparation for rehearsal. I awake in the middle of the night and fall to thinking--or worrying--another rhythm of the show taking over my creative dream space. Soon, I'm being stalked by the production. It wants my blood, to grow. People in Shakespeare's time thought the pelican fed its young from the blood of its own breast, and so the pelican symbolized the act of transformation through sacrifice and it is a Protestant symbol to this day. Over the years I've habituated to the cycle of sleep deprivation, but as I age, it takes a greater toll. Yet it enlivens me too.

I call it entering "sacred time, sacred space." Preparing for the play uses me up. Not so much because of how much work I have in a day, but how the layering rhythms affect me. When I'm so excited I can't nap, for instance, I get tired. I love it. It's something like a mother must feel as the pregnancy shifts from her being pregnant, to the pregnancy being her. When I get into that deficit, it is hard to recover. So that's what I'm trying to do tonight. I'll be asleep in half an hour. I'm falling asleep now as I type and my fingers shift and my words esca[e omtp tsp,e mever mever ;amd. I'll write more tomorrow. After sleeping.

I arose this morning, back frozen in morning seizure, normal, thinking of the amazing Steve Mitchell. Steve jokes about his height--short. He's got a luxurious Kenny Rogers head of white hair and favors Hawaiian shirts. He's a funny man. I wrote about him ten days ago when I first worked with him. He's the one suggested a lyrical thread of two girls to wind through the scene "Hard Times." Since that encounter and my diagnosis of him as a director, he's proved me right. He comes to every rehearsal for the entire rehearsal and adds to it in many ways. Not since meeting Jules have I encountered such homegrown directorial talent.

There are so many ways that directing community performance does not work. If one's ego peeps about the results are disastrous. One unkind word and an actor will dissolve. I already trust Steve to the point that last night I had him work with one young girl that had come to tears in her last rehearsal working with me. I wanted to ease her back, and I already knew Steve, with a daughter Sarah, that age, would be loving.

Steve is both a funny actor and can find and direct humor into a scene. We were doing "Roads" the other day and I'd blocked the granddaughter to follow in imitation of her granddad and walk and act like him. Steve suggested a change in blocking that I didn't think would work as well. He was right. It opened up the humor in the scene, brought it closer to the surface. Then working together we went further with it and the scenes looking good.

Ego eliminates most everybody from the job that Steve's doing. I have some talented help in other places, but it's help that can get hurt feelings or hurt the feelings of others. Steve has a way of not doing that. He's humble, caring, funny. He even comes in a nice package, not over awing, huggable, short. He said it.

Steve played the mule today in Good Medicine. He'll be Doc Chamberlain's mule. The mule head (ala EQUUS) perches atop his head, but there are few concessions to mulishness. Instead, the mule is like an old wife, tolerant of her husband's ways, busying herself, or simply sitting quietly, browsing or mending. Yes, mending, on a little stool pulled from the wagon, Steve sews the banner that will proclaim the new "Doc Tommy Scott." It's a style of comedy I love, the kind you see only if you're really watching for detail.

The day is coming soon when I'm going to talk to him about using his in-charge voice. I think. But maybe he'll be like Iega, and will never need to speak LARGELY, for attention's sake. Iega uses laughter. He calls people to quiet by laughing at the chaos their noise is creating. It's too high a spiritual practice for me.

   

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