New York Neo-Classical Ensemble

Lake George/Midsummer - File this one under things Steve realizes each time he acts in a Shakespeare play, and should remember, but he doesn't

1. Avoiding doing the “obvious” ends up making you avoid doing the scene

As I’ve said here previously, I have a lot of ideas about what I’d like to do in Midsummer.  I have my little notebook of ideas and thoughts and sketches that hopefully I can execute in a way that allows the character to come to life.

Last week, Cale/Peaseblossom and I/Puck were working on our little exchange at the top of 2.1.  I wanted it to be a bit more laid back, giving the impression that Puck was more informed and using his superior knowledge to undercut the other fairie.  Daniel wanted me to try it again and to start a fight, to use every bit of text to get the other fairie to go and get Titania and make sure she hightailed it out of the forest.

As an actor I felt this was too obvious, and wanted to do something different, unexpected.  I acquiesed and tried it again.  It still felt off, Daniel wanted more.  Eventually I got into this talk about how I felt I didn’t have the text to do what he wanted me to do, and tried to demonstrate what I meant.  Daniel said essentially that that was exactly what he wanted.  So we did it again.  And I wasn’t aware of what I was doing, or what it looked like from the outside.  And Daniel was happy.  I remember saying “I can’t tell what it is, so it’s probably right.”

When we get the text truly off of ourselves, and it’s all about the other person and what we want from them and what we want them to do, we lose control over how we’re perceived by the audience.  Just how people in real life cannot control how other people perceive them.  It’s terrifying b/c I’d much rather be in control and monitor my performance than give over.  However, I ALWAYS FIND that once you give over, you grow, and get better, and suddenly it takes off and you’re not in your head.

I’ve found this repeatedly, trying to make my character do Z when the scene is simply asking for A.  And trusting that just by the virtue of ME doing A something new and surprising will come out.

To return to the words I first used when I wanted to reject Daniel’s idea “I felt this was too obvious.”  The scene seemed like it was going to be an argument about getting the other fairie out of here.  So. Maybe. I should do what the scene is as opposed to something else.

Bottom line, just do the work, be the vessel, stop being smart and clever and start just doing things.

2. Stay in the play you’re in, don’t jump on the bandwagon

I like the funny stuff.  I like it when people laugh, and I like doing things that cause people to laugh.  And so when I watch the mechanicals I get envious and want to join in the play they’re in.  However, as I’ve slowly learned through rehearsal, I’m off to the side, often listening and observing and then speaking a little bit and then disappearing.  My job isn’t to do the prosey comedy and nail the laughs.  My job is to make the central mistake of the forest scenes (Lysander getting the love juice on his eyes as opposed to Demetrius) happen, and then to fix it as fast as humanly possible.  I’m a doer, I’m someone in a moment of personal/professional crisis with a boss that could destroy me with his magic/thoughts.  My central relationship is with Oberon, and making sure he’s pleased and hopefully getting to cause a little chaos or torture some people along the way.  My play seems to be a bit darker, my stakes are higher, and I rhyme in fairie talk.

I also occasionally have these dark invocations that I seem to say (“I’ll follow you I’ll lead you round” speech, “up and down up and down” speech and “now it is the time of night” speech), and I have no idea what they do but I stop the show and deliver them.

I’m also out there alone in the end telling everyone that if they didn’t like it maybe they’re dreaming it. 

I don’t know what my play is, and it’s driving me a little crazy.  Hopefully, it’ll reveal itself to me in the next two weeks.

I’m excited to see what happens when we start playing things in sequence, and without stopping. 

I’m a confused actor, and I’m trying to accept it and learn from it and be open to whatever the process presents.

LAKE GEORGE/MIDSUMMER - The work I do so I can do the work

HOW HE LOOKS

Peaseblossom’s missive of “farewell thou lob of spirits” in our first exchange BEFORE he realizes who I am leads me to believe he’s making that assumption off of my physical appearance.

DEFINITION OF LOB according to the Arden - “country lout among…”

So here’s my math.

Peaseblossom is Titania’s servant, all descriptions of Titania’s activities throughout the play are dainty/dancy/ephemeral kindof the traditional “fairy” behavior.

So the simple circumstance is a member of that “class” or group looks at me and sees a country lout or hick or bum or other that is somewhat scruffy and less than.

Extrapolating from that, my first simple decision is to let my beard grow, including the area below my neck, for about a week and a half/two weeks prior to the show.  I’ll look unkempt, a little wild. 

Also, I want Puck to feel as if he doesn’t quite belong in this world, that this is where Titania dances, and Oberon keeps his revels, and Athenians sometimes come, but he is from elsewhere, someplace darker, someplace older.  I’m taking his descriptions of humans not as bemused “oh aren’t these fun things to watch” but as his own superiority over them.  He looks down upon them, especially bottom for some reason.  So I want him to feel somewhat alien.

So if our venue is this beautiful, somewhat sleepy lakeside resort town of nice-upstanding people, I feel I have to look like I come from the opposite environment.  I’m unsure of the particulars but I want his clothing to appear somewhat stolen and maybe even a little hip and metropolitan.  Like he killed a hipster than wander off the beaten path in the wood somewhere and stole their clothes and doesn’t quite know how to wear them correctly. 

I’ve also been thinking about tribal tattoos and mystic symbols.  I think I want tattooing to be visible beneath his clothes, specifically “sleeves” and a slight bit creeping up the side of his neck.  Again seeming rough, tough as opposed to the typical bouncy, mischief-maker.  The tattoos themselves (if i can come up with a way of applying them that a) i won’t sweat through and b) doesn’t take me 4 hours a day to do) I think will look vaguely celtic, rune-ish like they’re from a distant, forgotten time.  So though he has this modern clothing, there’s something ancient about him.  Like he’s existed forever.

NOW I can throw away any piece of this in an instant.  None of it helps me do my iambics, my rising line, my antithesis or my rhyme better. 

What it DOES do for me personally, is make me less self-conscious, and makes me feel more emotionally connected.  It gives me a place from which I feel I can invent and refine better.  So if I combine our text work, with the overriding belief in positive action and playing to win, and these simple physical/visual cues help me emotionally invest myself further in the scene, I feel they contribute and open doors as opposed to shut them.

Other things I’m concentrating on -

PERFORMING WITH EASE

Learning my little song so well that I can do it subconsciously while I do a bit of physical business. The way people sing to themselves at work or under their breath.

Relaxing physically even in the extreme moments of emotion and movement, so my voice can maintain with no reinforcement whatsoever.  I had some trouble last year maintaining even over the week. I hope to avoid that issue this year.

His moments of magic being smooth and simple, the way we open doors, or drink coffee, or move about in our daily lives.  Casual use of telekinetic abilities contrasted with one or two moments of transformative, fearsome magic.  That the threat of it comes from a much easier place, the way great practitioners of the martial arts expend very little effort but have a great deal of impact.

BUILDING A CHARACTER ANTITHETICALLY

I’ve also been thinking that if my main scene partner Bill/Oberon goes on a large journey during which he profoundly changes I feel I, as his opposite for a great deal of the play, shouldn’t.

Shakespeare often has characters that defiantly continue to be themselves at the climax of the play (Toby from Twelfth Night, to some extent The Duke in Measure).

They have learned small lessons, but overall they remain themselves. I think Puck, who describes the time of night that he frolics as one filled with lions roaring, wolves howling, and the time when woeful people think of death, is something primal and animal. Who looks at people with the same moral indiffernce that wolves look at their prey.

His biggest emotional relationship is with Oberon, and I’m enjoying unpacking it and seeing what it transforms into. We have moments of debate and anger and hurt as well as cruel detachment.

I’m approaching it with an open mind, not looking for answers but for whatever the truth of the scene is today at this particular rehearsal. Soon I’ll need to built and become reliable, I’m holding onto my freedom for as long as possible

We do the work so we can forget it and play, and I know I need to do all this other ridiculousness so I can buckle down and do the work.

—Steve/Puck

Lake George/Midsummer - Session with Louis Scheeder

Our Fearless Leader, Daniel Spector, has been called to serve as a juror and so our daytime rehearsals have been postponed.  However, a few days ago we were lucky enough to have a session with the man himself, Louis Scheeder.

I came in at the tail end and caught roughly a half hour of work on 1.1 (specifically from Theseus’s exit lines through Helena’s “How happy some o’r other some can be”).

The concepts explored were the simple yet unbending rules of our work - positive argument, rising iambic line, observing/using the verse line endings, how to use the rhyme, wanting things and playing to get them, and the multitude of antithesis (from textual antithesis “high/low,” “old/young” to how you can construct a scene antithetically).

POSITIVE ARGUMENT

Brandon/Lysander has a line after Theseus’s exit.  Hermia has just been sentenced to a nunnery or death if she disobey’s her fathers will that she should marry Demetrius. 

Brandon’s first line after this hellish scene is “How now my love why is your cheek so pale?”

As opposed to playing the line with generalized concern over the problem they now have, Louis encouraged Brandon to simply ask the question (jokingly) “like all guys do.”

Lysander’s blithe ignorance of the stakes of the situation ended up providing Becca/Hermia with a strong emotional charge and allowed her to start an argument back at him on “Belike for want of rain which i could well/beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes.”

So her line, instead of being about how emotionally hurt and scared and sad she was about Theseus’s threat to her became all about her scene partner, and she began an argument with her lover.

Also, random interesting Louis insight - Lysander always has a solution, “always has an angle.”  Or as Brandon said “supreme confidence” that allows him to flout the system which Demetrius rigorously obeys - Antithetical character construction.

OBSERVATION OF MAYA/HELENA’S SPEECH - How Happy Some O’er Other Some Can Be

The combination of the rising iambic line (the notion that a line of verse is gradually ascending beat by beat until the final accented beat of the line takes on the primary position of importance - “How happy some o’er other some can BE”) when combined with the rhyme, and committing to the rhyme without the need to make it interesting but still emphasizing it opens up the performer emotionally and makes their actions go outside themselves and into the world around them.  Daniel was leading me down this road the other day with my rhyme as Puck.

COIN THE LANGUAGE FOR THE FIRST TIME/MAKE IT UP

Lysander argues to Hermia that the “course of true love never did run smooth”  which when you strip it of its “OH THAT’S WHERE THAT COMES FROM!”-ness and when spoken by a person winning an emotionally charged argument, becomes a very interesting line and not a cliche.

ANOTHER RANDOM LOUIS INSIGHT

Theseus talked to Egeus/Demtrius, Hermia, Titania on his exit and if Bill/Theseus chose to speak to those three in a pointed fashion as opposed to talking to Lysander we got something more out of the scene.

ANTITHETICAL SCENE CONSTRUCTION

The more ecstatic Becca/Hermia is at the end of her and Brandon/Lysander’s first scene, the more miserable Maya/Helena should be.  Thus giving them the maximum emotional distance in their argument.

WANTING THINGS - Helena’s list “ear/eye/voice”

From the moment Maya/Helena entered the scene Louis’s direction aimed to keep her emotionally open - everything from encouraging her to WANT EVERYTHING including the midline “sickness is catching, O were favor so!” he would also say simple things like “you’re miserable.”  When Maya committed to wanting things moment by moment “my ear should catch your ear, my eye your eye, my toungue should catch your toungue’s sweet melody” it not only demonstrated HOW invested Helena was in wanting to be what Demetrius wanted, it also seemed neurotic, pathological, sad, and extraordinary in equal measure.  JUST by concentrating on getting or wanting moment by moment and letting no piece of text fly by and observing her line endings she was able to work herself into such a state that Becca/Hermia’s advice “i give him curses yet he gives me love” gave Becca/Hermia the chance to simply solve Helena’s problems. Becca/Hermia then refused to play the problem of “I don’t do anything to encourage this behavior from Demetrius so don’t feel threatened by me Helena” but instead somewhat joyfully listed the myriad of hurtful things she does to Demetrius and how he still loves her for it.  Hearing this list of abuse as solutions she couldn’t possible use, Helena simply became more and more emotionally battered thus giving her a terrific place to begin her soliloquy.  AND IT KEPT HER ACTIVE THROUGHOUT HERMIA AND LYSANDER’S STORYTELLING.

ANOTHER RANDOM LOUIS INSIGHT

Stuff is charged BEFORE they go to the forest, people are already emotional and engaged.  The play is traditionally associated with what happens when we go out of society and how we go crazy as opposed to the baggage we bring with us driving us crazy

The scene wasn’t the same scene iI’d seen or directed and it was different not b/c of the interpretation he PLACED on it, but through simply encouraging the actors to play with certain concepts and allowing them to make their own choices.  The scene was “built” but still remained open and playful.  A great place to begin, and to improvise from.

Midsummer/Lake George - Rubbing Stomach/Patting Head

Thus begin-eth my Lake George Theater Lab blogging.

I’m playing Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by NYNEO’s own Daniel Spector.

This is the first time I’ll be performing Shakespeare since last year’s Lake George outing.  This has been the longest stretch since I began this work that I’ve gone without performing a Shakespearean part (having admittedly directed 3 NYNEO shows in the interim).

In the meantime, I’ve been acting pretty much nonstop on new works by living breathing (and often in the room) writers.  I’ve come to believe that it’s important to step away from this work, to remember HOW to do things differently, to work with individuals who really don’t care what your process is so long as the RESULT is effective.

I’m stepping into this process with my own goals in mind, and reminding myself of the aspects of this work that I have difficulty with and what my pitfalls tend to be.  So I’m in my head a bit, which is natural when you speak as relatively little as Puck does, and when you’re playing a part like Puck that has soooooooo many traditional assumptions of how it should/must be played, AND when I’m playing a part I’ve generally always assumed I’d play at some point and have a bunch of baggage having previously directed it.

Assumptions I’ve discovered thus far:

1.       He’s funny

2.       Mischievous means quick, wacky, spastic

3.       He’s a good time

4.       He knows what he’s doing.

5.       He’s a physical character.

Ideas I’m exploring this far (none particularly revelatory, just where I am at this moment):

1.       How to USE the rhyme – this is always an issue, and what I’m discovering with Daniel’s help, is that the effect it has is out of hands.  It obviously activates the argument, helps me play to win, etc.  But what it does seems to occur in the audience’s heads, and I can’t control it.

2.       How to be still, move only when I must.

3.       How I listen.

4.       How to invest myself in the dilemmas/stakes of my immediate circumstances.

5.       What I want/what my actions are/etc.

6.       This is a very non-NYNEO concept but – what he looks like. I’ve found I play actively best when I feel I’m out of myself, and something that helps me do that is whatever the shell is.  Now it can change, the lines, “interpretation” etc can change.  I need to make decisions in order to then change them and go to a more open place.  It seems counterintuitive, but it opens me, makes me play better.

So some of what I’m doing is directly useful in the room, in the moment. And some isn’t. It all goes into the mix, and I’ll slowly, methodically take away what’s unnecessary.  And I’ll try to fulfill what Daniel asks of me, while still fighting and searching and grappling with the things I’d like to try.

I’ll let you know how I do.