Scott's Thoughts - Feb 2010

Recently, it has seemed that there has been a need to inject some new (old?) questions into the working process, as we have been challenged by audiences, size of venue, repetition, and familiarity among other things.

We played a very large (for us) theatre last week, and there was some concern about the work getting far enough off of the stage to read in the further reaches of the house. It seems we won’t have big houses to deal with often, so perhaps, the concern will dissipate again for a while. I have gotten more practice in delivering to a smaller group of audience, that I can comprehend in front of me of an evening...

I have been thinking that this work asks an audience to consider their very own personal relationship to the events on stage or in the theatre. There are events that have happened during shows, audience leaving during the pauses on stage, or directing questions at the players, or leaving the theatre. I feel a bit like we have opened up a smallish can of worms asking people to think. And if what we have made is an object?
Is the object mutable? Plastic?
Who are the appropriate persons to mutate the object?
The players, the audience, the director, the writer, dramaturge, etc?
Is the object mutable? And if so, what are the contingencies?

Are we acting?
Is acting more or less appropriate to the work? In what measure?

During the run of this production, I have begun to notice a kind of angst arising in my performance. Irony is maybe a difficult quality to sustain, without giving in to its darker side. It’s probably more practical to love an audience, than to hate an audience.

Look at me just look at me.
Don’t look at me, just don’t look at me.

The new production crew is good. Kick back and let them do it good.

The tour is full of holes. Holes in the schedule. Its a different kind of tour. I come home often. There is plenty to do.

People/the public seem to be finding things in the work to ponder, some of them. Others ponder other things. What people like, what people dislike.
I think the work wanted to ask some questions of conventions. The rub, has caused some heat, here and there.
I can’t tell if we are hip. Or not.
Depends on who you ask.

At any rate,
Thank God she went on. It has changed our lives, forever.