Day Twelve at the LCT Directors Lab

Macbeth presentations were held this morning, and my project went first, since I was letter "A". My cast stayed true to the kind of work we had been doing, and adjusted in subtle ways to the presence of a larger audience. Anne announced "Group A" and I said nothing. The room became quiet and after a few moments the actors began, as they usually do if I just stop talking.

It is worth describing what I remember happening. All of the actors "did" the things or "were the way" they have been exploring doing and being, but no action was ever actually was fixed, though we had developed an "outline" through our experience together (but not by much explicit discussion or direction).

Often things happened simultaneously or gave way to solo or pair moments. Portions of text were skipped, overlapped, or brought back. Contemporary conversation was invented. The actors centered their work in the middle of the square as planned, but did more playing among and around the audience, too. Overall, they took everything a little farther and allowed things to "change" compared to yesterday, though of course nothing was exactly the same because there was no fixed staging in the first place. I do not want to say it was "improvised" either, because to most people that implies some kind of fictional premise uniting the cast, with actors inventing information to fit. In this case, the premise that united the cast was sensitivity, independence, spontaneity, and awareness of the unfolding audience response.

Brook describes his improvisations in his years in Africa being based on objects and other people in the present, not on any fictional circumstances. In this case, we had the play text, which in rehearsal we had discussed in only the most thematic ways, such as "this play explores the gap between reality and imagination" or "in Act III, the play turns", "the issue of recognition should be explored", etc.

"K" lay face down on the floor and blew at his script, occasionally asking the other actors or sometimes an audience member plaintively for "some help?" Explosively he violently jumped about the playing area, repeating these actions freely, and at will. At the same time "R" and "N", sitting with audience members, began a discussion about scary films with a kind of well-worn casualness, ignoring K and "J", who stood close to them, like a sentinel. I say they were "ignoring" but also they let everything affect them in a present sense. Eventually N left R and R began some of Shakespeare's text when Macbeth asks Banquo, "Ride you this afternoon?". "M" walked the inside of the square tracing the air with her outstretched hand. K spoke the text of Lennox from late in Act III regarding all the murders that take place-- sporadically, to audience members. B sat behind one of the audience members on the floor, peering around in sunglasses, slowly slowly crawling under the chair... the text continued, roughly in the order in which it is written, with skips and returns and some repeats...

There were too many details to keep up the description in this way, but memorable moments included the repeated return of "Macbeth" and "Banquo" to casual conversation regarding scary movies (even while N played Banquo's ghost), the writhing "scrum pile" of J, B and K as the murderers, N's repeated satirical demonstrations of Banquo dying, his red socks revealed as his shoes were removed, M's deepening sorrow as Lady M and her intense sense of intimacy with R (Macbeth), and R's eerie and unconscious sense of internalizing all referenced moments of Macbeth's story into a shifting and painful present. How did the other actors know when to leave the space to Macbeth and when to return? We never discussed anything like that, but it all happened organically just the same...

The whole thing lasted about 35 minutes I think. The air in the room felt theatrical throughout, as though anything could happen, and I think we created a theatrical experience. There was a surprising humor in the event, and the humor turned to serious attention in an instant a number of times, back and forth. For me, that we had essentially "troped" non-literally and non-realistically on Shakespeare's Act III and still gave the sense of the underlying dramatic movement of the story was an achievement of this way of intuitive play-working. R decided to exit the rehearsal room with his last line "we are yet but young in deed" and after three beats I said "That's it" -- and that was it.

Working in this way, one could create both non-traditional or traditional (but fresh) versions of the story, simply by choosing what the actors created almost entirely on their own, within more developed parameters that might also emerge as part of a group process.

I wondered if my initial hunch about the play being concerned with reality and imagination might be more immediately described as "the future is never what it seems."

One director described the experience as "post-modern", which is certainly not what I had set out to achieve, but which I enjoyed hearing. A couple of others felt they had "seen the play." A few folks at the end of the day were very interested in how I achieved the results, and were surprised to hear how little traditional direction I had given the cast, having seen some of the results as clever ideas being executed. If you've been reading this blog, you know that I was not working on either externals or on "choices" or "good ideas" but rather the intuitive presence of the group. The "results" were simply what happened in this vein.

After the other three presentations (B, C & D), we held a discussion focused on the actors' experiences. They made insightful and amusing observations. One actor made an impassioned speech about the corporatization of theatre in America being related to the prevalence of unimaginative realism in American acting. Many observed that most rehearsal rooms are generally "dead spaces."

After lunch, we had a large and long discussion led by Anne intended to be about design and architecture, i.e., focused on the issue of our being in non-traditional, and then different, spaces. It was hard for the group to stay on topic however, and the issue of the limited financial ability of directors to pursue their design (and other) visions more generally was raised, and then dominated a long portion of the discussion. More questions and answers involving the project directors might have been more valuable to us as practitioners. I think all four Macbeth directors felt that the space-changing was at odds with our original intents for the week--and in particular that we kept being surprised by new parameters. In side conversations, I learned that many felt this was not especially useful.

However, the experimental plan of the week was earnestly conceived, and provoked additional thought and discussion outside of official Lab hours. For me, I feel that having rehearsed in the ramp area provoked distinct responses from the actors that we were able to work with in in the traditional rehearsal rooms. As a design "idea" however, being at the ramp would probably not lead to any kind of representation of the ramp in a hypothetical "full production." I would want to filter intuitive images through the actors and designers in the room to create something unexpected.

We had the opportunity to view the participating designers' portfolios, and the day ended relatively early.