The sporadic ramblings of Emily C. A. Snyder - devoted to God, theatre, writing, and much randominity.
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Bring Me the Head of Jokanaan!
So last night, after said interview (which went well, we'll have an answer by next week, depending if she wants to make a bid for Ruth or not), I came home, collected Jules, traipsed over to Friendly's in Sudbury...where no one knows me (this is important - working in one's hometown has its disadvantages when grocery shopping)...and then came back happily marshmallow-mollified, attempted to capture images on Dad's computer, realized the keyboard wasn't plugged in and I didn't have the brains to try to plug it in, turned the whole thing off instead (oh the shock!), and then decided to watch Salome to put me to sleep.
I know, I know. I'm always talking about Salome. Get this girl a life, eh? But curiously, the past few years, whenever I sit down before putting on a play to watch selections of what I've done before (it's become something of a ritual - see where I've been, remind myself that I'm not heinous, etc.), I've only watched maybe the first fifteen minutes of Salome. The reason? I've been watching it off of the video tape we made from the HI-8. Bad quality. Tape-to-tape simply is. But last night I watched the original tape on the camcorder - what better quality! And watched the whole thing.
It was fascinating to me as an archaeological examination. Salome was the place where I first experimented with underscoring the entire play - something that I've more-or-less done for pretty much every play since then - and many places it worked. There were equally places where the music didn't work. But then, I remember that a) my musical library was far smaller then than it is now; b) the sound equippment was, by today's standards, ancient, so fine-tuning was nearly impossible and my sound technician achieved a miracle with all I desired of her THEN; c) I felt obliged to use somewhere Strauss's opera's "Dance of the Seven Veils" which - sorry Straussy babe - is simply bad music, no rhythm, no flow, no rise and swell, just a bunch of randomly strung together notes that occasionally elephant trumpet blast, gah. But I felt obliged for some obscure reason to use it. Whatever.
For the actual dance itself, I used "Carmina Burana: O Fortuna" which, were I to do it again, I might consider still using, but the dance...oy. Alright, I had an interesting idea for it, but I had no self-confidence in this aspect. I was so afraid of that d*** dance! Mainly because I thought I knew nothing about dance - and perhaps, at that time, I didn't (or not as much as I know now). And so that part, rewatching it, is laughably slow, clunky, poorly done, etc. Some interesting moves - things I might steal from myself later on! (If I've a guy big enough to sling a girl over his back and a girl strong enough to let herself down off his shoulders slowly.) But it doesn't have the flow that the blocking has! Silly. So it's nice to see I've improved in that, too.
The costumes, oh the costumes! With the possible exception of Bob's (the Cappadocian) scarves which come out mustard-yellow on the screen, I'm happy with the costumes. (Oh, and I would have gotten another cape for Salome pre-dance, but that's neither here nor there.) Lovely, flowey, rich vibrant colors - purple and red and gold make for a very great barbarism! And I'd forgotten all the jewelry we loaded on Herodias - only two fingers without rings, I think, and slave-bracelets all up her arm. Very happy with those. Had I the opportunity, I think I should have gotten gauntlets for Herod, but ah well. I also should have kept Salome's hair down during the dance - I think we tied it back because otherwise she wouldn't have been able to see what she was doing with all the flips, etc.
The set I would have decorated better, to make it just a tad less student-ish. But then, I had no money. The lights I was uber duber pleased with - true, there could have been more subtlety, but I miss really GOOD ellipsoidals and fresnels and the occasional par! Je detest le spot-lumier! It has its place, of course, but it is so NOT my first choice. It'll be nice to do Pirates with REAL lights - aaaaaaaaalelluia! And the strobe, and the knife - geesh. I'm predictable. As bad as Spielberg's backlit doors. Oy. Speaking of which, I'd forgotten that the backlit cyc essentially MADE shadows - I'm just always using shadows - but then I was watching a tad of Disney's Cinderella, and THEY use shadows and so does Gone with the Wind so nyah. *hrumph*
I was very pleased with the actors. Oh sure, there was this or that where I would have tweaked this or that but...gee, it was nice to work with actors who took everything and made it their own. It was a GREAT cast all over. I am so very proud of them! What wonderful things they played with, and their voices! Oh, I miss a good theatre space that doesn't eat sound! *sniffle* But as much as I was looking at the wonderful ease (wrought with NO ease at all, alas - at least I've learned to be more laid-back, thank God!), I could also see where I'd improved or developed in understanding, as well as what I'd nearly forgotten while doing mostly "big shows."
(Side note - wow, the animation for Treasure Planet is so good. Better than many of the "Golden Age" of Disney. Jules is watching it now - it grows on me every viewing. *sigh* Why wasn't it better received? It's so good! Should have won the best animated film for the Oscars, but NO - they go for what's the biggest box office. GAH!)
Which brings me back to theatre. (It's my blog, I'm obsessive compulsive, deal. Curious, this need since blogging is public to apologize for one's thoughts. Give me Christendom, when we should have just said, "Ah yes, coz, thou art focussed on what work God hath ordained for thee!" Sayers - where art thou?) Pirates esp. Whilst chatting with the potential assistant director to ascertain if we would work compatibly together - something that cannot be wholly ascertained until one actually works together and see if heads are butted or butts are kicked or what - I decided to risk straying onto my view of theatre as a whole. I might, I conceded, have frighted the potential AD off. Because, as I've said elsewhere, I'm interested in the final product, true, but I've come to see that the process is as important. (Hmmm, is this tied up with Scripture and Tradition? ;) In a nutshell:
The process is the thing.
Basically, I truly, truly believe that God has a rather large hand (no pun intended) when it comes to casting whom He will in a play. He will use the process as well as the performance to help mold the actor as a human, to teach him something, to guide him in some way, to open up an opportunity, to make him realize a part of his own personality. The casting is - by and large - not random, but merely a search for who God wants. I'm not going to negate, however, that capability, etc. come into it. It would be STUPID of me to knowingly cast someone who wasn't up to the part - please don't think that realism isn't important as well - but rather that while I'm working on all the technical stuff, God's quietly pushing this person to the forefront of my notice.
But a lot of actors - a lot of people in the world! - are afraid of such a concept. Actors spend so much of their day being someone else, and if they are wholly themselves a lot of them are actually creating a persona of who they wish they were or how they wish to be perceived, and so this is a mask as well. (I use a lot of masks in my plays as well - oy - those and capes - I think it's a hang over from frustrations with high schools. Lots of poetry on masks then, too.) For myself, as a director, I want my actor to put on the right mask (the Greeks knew something, mes chers) for the performance - but the simply, objective FACT is that he, the human, will continue after the play. The performances will run out, the person will not. And unless the person becomes honest with himself, he cannot become fully honest with his part. Yes, it should be a frightening thing. To have a good play, we will ALL change in some way. We will go DEEPER in - without the need for Freud, thank you very much! Keep thy vile couches to thyself, sirrah! - and in such manner search for truth. No telegraphing here, nor bleak "reality" a la Zola - but TRUTH in all areas. Ah, if I could go into the rafters and shout out TRUTH with George Emerson! (I should most like fall out of the rafters, as he fell out of the tree, but one would hope not.)
So, I think I might have affrighted the potential AD (the PAD?), but oh well. I'm inviting all comers to go on the most amazing journey ever. We're going to put on the most amazing, fun, silly, deep, sorrowful, amazing, hand-clapping, foot-stomping, eye-tearing, heart-pounding show ever - and we're going to make you come alive as well. If you sign on with me, you sign on to change lives - the audiences, your own, mine, too. Further up and further in! And for those times I've just "thrown off" a play - forgive me for not doing my part. And for those future, I shall do my best endeavour to give you all that can be given, to offer all that is the best, and to drag you up to the rafters with me to call out like Jokanaan himself the greatness and splendour of TRUTH.
Mood: Triumphant. (And now to the task of cleaning the chamber. Again. And laundry and.... %)
Music: Treasure Planet
What is Good: Emma Thompson as the Captain Smollet figure. Finishing Ashley's tape of plays she's done with me between 2002-2003. Having long fingernails to scratch one's arm with. Dangling prepositions. ;D
So last night, after said interview (which went well, we'll have an answer by next week, depending if she wants to make a bid for Ruth or not), I came home, collected Jules, traipsed over to Friendly's in Sudbury...where no one knows me (this is important - working in one's hometown has its disadvantages when grocery shopping)...and then came back happily marshmallow-mollified, attempted to capture images on Dad's computer, realized the keyboard wasn't plugged in and I didn't have the brains to try to plug it in, turned the whole thing off instead (oh the shock!), and then decided to watch Salome to put me to sleep.
I know, I know. I'm always talking about Salome. Get this girl a life, eh? But curiously, the past few years, whenever I sit down before putting on a play to watch selections of what I've done before (it's become something of a ritual - see where I've been, remind myself that I'm not heinous, etc.), I've only watched maybe the first fifteen minutes of Salome. The reason? I've been watching it off of the video tape we made from the HI-8. Bad quality. Tape-to-tape simply is. But last night I watched the original tape on the camcorder - what better quality! And watched the whole thing.
It was fascinating to me as an archaeological examination. Salome was the place where I first experimented with underscoring the entire play - something that I've more-or-less done for pretty much every play since then - and many places it worked. There were equally places where the music didn't work. But then, I remember that a) my musical library was far smaller then than it is now; b) the sound equippment was, by today's standards, ancient, so fine-tuning was nearly impossible and my sound technician achieved a miracle with all I desired of her THEN; c) I felt obliged to use somewhere Strauss's opera's "Dance of the Seven Veils" which - sorry Straussy babe - is simply bad music, no rhythm, no flow, no rise and swell, just a bunch of randomly strung together notes that occasionally elephant trumpet blast, gah. But I felt obliged for some obscure reason to use it. Whatever.
For the actual dance itself, I used "Carmina Burana: O Fortuna" which, were I to do it again, I might consider still using, but the dance...oy. Alright, I had an interesting idea for it, but I had no self-confidence in this aspect. I was so afraid of that d*** dance! Mainly because I thought I knew nothing about dance - and perhaps, at that time, I didn't (or not as much as I know now). And so that part, rewatching it, is laughably slow, clunky, poorly done, etc. Some interesting moves - things I might steal from myself later on! (If I've a guy big enough to sling a girl over his back and a girl strong enough to let herself down off his shoulders slowly.) But it doesn't have the flow that the blocking has! Silly. So it's nice to see I've improved in that, too.
The costumes, oh the costumes! With the possible exception of Bob's (the Cappadocian) scarves which come out mustard-yellow on the screen, I'm happy with the costumes. (Oh, and I would have gotten another cape for Salome pre-dance, but that's neither here nor there.) Lovely, flowey, rich vibrant colors - purple and red and gold make for a very great barbarism! And I'd forgotten all the jewelry we loaded on Herodias - only two fingers without rings, I think, and slave-bracelets all up her arm. Very happy with those. Had I the opportunity, I think I should have gotten gauntlets for Herod, but ah well. I also should have kept Salome's hair down during the dance - I think we tied it back because otherwise she wouldn't have been able to see what she was doing with all the flips, etc.
The set I would have decorated better, to make it just a tad less student-ish. But then, I had no money. The lights I was uber duber pleased with - true, there could have been more subtlety, but I miss really GOOD ellipsoidals and fresnels and the occasional par! Je detest le spot-lumier! It has its place, of course, but it is so NOT my first choice. It'll be nice to do Pirates with REAL lights - aaaaaaaaalelluia! And the strobe, and the knife - geesh. I'm predictable. As bad as Spielberg's backlit doors. Oy. Speaking of which, I'd forgotten that the backlit cyc essentially MADE shadows - I'm just always using shadows - but then I was watching a tad of Disney's Cinderella, and THEY use shadows and so does Gone with the Wind so nyah. *hrumph*
I was very pleased with the actors. Oh sure, there was this or that where I would have tweaked this or that but...gee, it was nice to work with actors who took everything and made it their own. It was a GREAT cast all over. I am so very proud of them! What wonderful things they played with, and their voices! Oh, I miss a good theatre space that doesn't eat sound! *sniffle* But as much as I was looking at the wonderful ease (wrought with NO ease at all, alas - at least I've learned to be more laid-back, thank God!), I could also see where I'd improved or developed in understanding, as well as what I'd nearly forgotten while doing mostly "big shows."
(Side note - wow, the animation for Treasure Planet is so good. Better than many of the "Golden Age" of Disney. Jules is watching it now - it grows on me every viewing. *sigh* Why wasn't it better received? It's so good! Should have won the best animated film for the Oscars, but NO - they go for what's the biggest box office. GAH!)
Which brings me back to theatre. (It's my blog, I'm obsessive compulsive, deal. Curious, this need since blogging is public to apologize for one's thoughts. Give me Christendom, when we should have just said, "Ah yes, coz, thou art focussed on what work God hath ordained for thee!" Sayers - where art thou?) Pirates esp. Whilst chatting with the potential assistant director to ascertain if we would work compatibly together - something that cannot be wholly ascertained until one actually works together and see if heads are butted or butts are kicked or what - I decided to risk straying onto my view of theatre as a whole. I might, I conceded, have frighted the potential AD off. Because, as I've said elsewhere, I'm interested in the final product, true, but I've come to see that the process is as important. (Hmmm, is this tied up with Scripture and Tradition? ;) In a nutshell:
The process is the thing.
Basically, I truly, truly believe that God has a rather large hand (no pun intended) when it comes to casting whom He will in a play. He will use the process as well as the performance to help mold the actor as a human, to teach him something, to guide him in some way, to open up an opportunity, to make him realize a part of his own personality. The casting is - by and large - not random, but merely a search for who God wants. I'm not going to negate, however, that capability, etc. come into it. It would be STUPID of me to knowingly cast someone who wasn't up to the part - please don't think that realism isn't important as well - but rather that while I'm working on all the technical stuff, God's quietly pushing this person to the forefront of my notice.
But a lot of actors - a lot of people in the world! - are afraid of such a concept. Actors spend so much of their day being someone else, and if they are wholly themselves a lot of them are actually creating a persona of who they wish they were or how they wish to be perceived, and so this is a mask as well. (I use a lot of masks in my plays as well - oy - those and capes - I think it's a hang over from frustrations with high schools. Lots of poetry on masks then, too.) For myself, as a director, I want my actor to put on the right mask (the Greeks knew something, mes chers) for the performance - but the simply, objective FACT is that he, the human, will continue after the play. The performances will run out, the person will not. And unless the person becomes honest with himself, he cannot become fully honest with his part. Yes, it should be a frightening thing. To have a good play, we will ALL change in some way. We will go DEEPER in - without the need for Freud, thank you very much! Keep thy vile couches to thyself, sirrah! - and in such manner search for truth. No telegraphing here, nor bleak "reality" a la Zola - but TRUTH in all areas. Ah, if I could go into the rafters and shout out TRUTH with George Emerson! (I should most like fall out of the rafters, as he fell out of the tree, but one would hope not.)
So, I think I might have affrighted the potential AD (the PAD?), but oh well. I'm inviting all comers to go on the most amazing journey ever. We're going to put on the most amazing, fun, silly, deep, sorrowful, amazing, hand-clapping, foot-stomping, eye-tearing, heart-pounding show ever - and we're going to make you come alive as well. If you sign on with me, you sign on to change lives - the audiences, your own, mine, too. Further up and further in! And for those times I've just "thrown off" a play - forgive me for not doing my part. And for those future, I shall do my best endeavour to give you all that can be given, to offer all that is the best, and to drag you up to the rafters with me to call out like Jokanaan himself the greatness and splendour of TRUTH.
Mood: Triumphant. (And now to the task of cleaning the chamber. Again. And laundry and.... %)
Music: Treasure Planet
What is Good: Emma Thompson as the Captain Smollet figure. Finishing Ashley's tape of plays she's done with me between 2002-2003. Having long fingernails to scratch one's arm with. Dangling prepositions. ;D
posted by Emily C. A. Snyder | 11:17 AM
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