Day One at the LCT Lab

It's a fairly rare experience to spend a day with a new group of people and experience almost no bullshit of any kind, but that's what happened today at the LCT Lab.

Anne Cattaneo, who directs the Lab (and founded it with Andre Bishop), really seems to "get it," which is to say she genuinely believes in openness, respect for artists and, more importantly, that the theatre is a constantly evolving possibility.

There's a lot that will go on in the next three weeks, much of which was outlined today. But it seems that there is also room for things to happens which have not yet been planned...

Today was pretty straightforward, and, since none of us know one another, they structured it in advance, along with the next two days... and it is very well supported: there is a staff of stage managers to make it all run smoothly. We met in the lobby of the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center (where South Pacific is currently playing) and had a group photo taken on the stairs (by some well-known photographer it seemed). We all applauded at something and a near-elderly ticket buyer in the lobby bowed to us in response.

Then we went down into the "Large Rehearsal Room" and had an orientation. It's all very nice at the Lincoln Center Theatre. Nice signage, show posters, shiny floors. Anne talked for about an hour. Bernard Gersten and Andre Bishop also made comments. Among the many things that Anne stressed is that the Lab is a "break" from our working life, an "Eden" so to speak, not a continuation of it. This is the ethos. And that actors and designers matter--alot. She also noted that the Lab is intentionally "big" and intentionally "long", as workshops like this go. There were returning members and she discussed a new international initiative in the works relating to religious plays...

It seems that I am one of about 8 directors (out of the 58), who have been asked to rehearse investigations or new material for a period of time (mine is Macbeth next week). 8 others are doing presentations on well-known directors and another 4 are doing "technique" presentations. It seems that more directors may lead sessions if the need or interest arise. There are two directors from London, and one each from Germany, Finland and Israel and perhaps more countries...

Styx Mhlanga, from Zimbabwe, was delayed due to visa issues, but we hope he arrives tomorrow. He will being leading rehearsals of Oedipus and we will all be serving as the Chorus. (This is all a bit odd since I've worked on both Macbeth and Oedipus in the last few months.)

There are other notables coming to speak with us, but I'll wait to blog about all that when it happens...

Tonight we were visited by the leaders of the company The Civilians, who are an "investigative theatre." They are currently in the midst of a production they created about evangelical Christianity in Colorado Springs, which has been about two years in the making, starting with interviews of the inhabitants. They told us about it for about an hour, and then hopped a cab to go to the Obie awards downtown.

After that, the artistic director of Theater Mitu, Ruben Polendo, spoke with us about his company. They work on what he calls "Whole Theatre", intended to stimulate eyes, ears, mind, heart and spirit. They travel the world, gleaning techniques from other theatrical traditions and adapting them to their own use. They are not interested particularly in "multi-cultural" theatre, but rather in the diversity of methods use to create, or strive toward, a spiritual experience in the theatre. (The Noh technique of imitating painting, or Aluetian tribal rituals, or Tibetan throat singing, to name a few.) They are based at New York Theatre Workshop and are doing a show soon called Apostle, about the moment in the life of any follower when the leader disappears... They are also working on a piece about the history of western acting based on the old silent film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." I thought he was really wonderful to be with and listen to.

Andre Bishop said something unintentionally provocative I think, in his brief remarks. In addition to encouraging us to be open to one another--that the Lab was both for us and made of us being together--he said he thought that we are in a "golden age" of theatre in America, and have been for some time now. Most of us do not believe this I think, because the life of a freelance artist is so disempowering, and institutional theatre makers are so constantly worried about money, and, and, and, blah, blah, blah--which is why it was a provocative statement. But he remarked that the sheer amount and diversity of theatre going on now is unparalleled in our history, perhaps in the history of any single nation.

It's a strange experience being in a room full of theatre directors, in ways I had expected and in ways that I hadn't. Directors are fairly shy if they are not the one in charge; I expected that. Directors want to make friends with one another but don't know how; I expected that, too. All directors come with strong agendas, which is a given. What I don't think I expected, though probably should have, is that everyone in the room seemed very smart and also quite aware of what was happening around them most of the time. This quality was not at all off-putting, but quietly enervating even though we have barely begun to speak with one another.

My final observation is that there is an ongoing tradition in evidence here, even though one purpose of the Lab is to "cross-fertilize" one another with ideas from our own distinct histories. The tradition I mean is that of theatre as a serious and important human enterprise. The theatre of just about every company or figure you can think of (from Artuad to Broadway to Stanislavsky and Shakespeare, Brook and Bogart) was mentioned today and immediately evoked as to be imagined--not as knowledge to be studied--by the way people in the room listened. I suppose that means that the Lab is not about theatre as commerce or career or institution-building. Nor is it about theory or any particular movement. The official theme of this year's Lab is "process" (as opposed to "working with playwrights" or "classics" for example). "Process" is a theme so all-encompassing that it feels like a culmination of sorts of the Lab's 15 years in existence.

Theatre has been in the midst of dynamic change for more than a century now, concurrent with the emergence of the modern director. This change includes the regional theatre movement and state-funded public theatres, the international ensemble movement, multi-media, cross-genre, community-based, theatre-outside-of-the-theatre, physical, total, object, dynamic design, whole, the Shakespeare explosion, systematic actor training, political theatre, technological theatre, you name it--all part of modernism's and post-modernism's overarching preoccupation with how culture creates culture.

I suspect that by the end of these three weeks, the evident reality will be that it is right about now we can see that the change that has been taking place in the theatre for all this time is a process of understanding how a multitude of theatrical activities--across time and across continents--are actually unified. By working away from one another, we have actually been coming together. Theatre the world over may just be the way in which we encounter one another on as many levels at once as we can realize, in just about any way we can imagine.