Wednesday, October 17, 2007

24/10: Sleepless in Eureka

I thought I’d forgo the extra drivetime and pay for the copies at the Kinko’s nearby in Arcata, but it was Saturday and it didn’t open until 9. I suspected the same would be true of Staples, but if I had to wait, I may as well get the copies free. So I drove out there and parked, as it turned out, next to Ken Gray Scolari. We caught up on news of our lives, but I still felt pretty weird, groggily standing and waiting for the Staples’ doors to slide open.

Back at the theatre, some playwrights were still out getting their copies, so I drank coffee, devoured Danish and got into a couple of conversations, one of which suggested another theme: feedback. People who put on shows get reactions from audiences, but often they don’t get much in the way of articulated response. They were looking forward to working with different people and getting different feedback, as well as the responses of others in the “talk back” session after the performance that night. I also got the feeling that the responses I articulate in my columns have some value for them. (And I also heard some give clear-eyed assessments of productions that would bring down an avalanche of letters on me if I’d written in those terms—but I knew that already, that theatre people have to realistically assess the work they’re part of and the work they see, in order to get better.)

When everyone was there in the main lobby, the next round of random drawings determining our destiny began. Each of the playwrights drew for a director. I held back—there was a director I felt really didn’t want to work with me, and I wanted to wait until that name was called. Finally, it was. (Later we had a brief but hopeful conversation, so maybe I was wrong. In any case, I wouldn’t feel that trepidation now. ) I picked next.

I drew someone I didn’t know, a young man named Joshua Koenig. I think he earlier had asked me if the cap I was wearing bore the Star Trek emblem. (It did.) So now I asked him if he was related to Chekhov (not the playwright—the Star Trek character played by Walter Koenig.) He said he wasn’t. This actually could have been a much funnier coincidence if I had gone with that first comedy sketch idea.

Josh had a few minutes to glance at the script before he and the other directors drew for the names of actors. Josh got in there early, and drew three actors who were more the ages of my characters in the first scene. He was delighted.

He and I went upstairs to that lobby as he read the play through. I noted where he laughed. He had one question, easily answered. He talked about the script in a way that told me he grasped its essentials immediately. It was pretty astounding.

Then our three actors joined us for a couple of read-throughs. After that, Josh and I talked about the script some more and about the actors. Again, I was gratefully surprised at how quickly he caught on to the dynamics of the script—of who was really talking to who, what they were really saying, and so on. And he knew where the jokes were.

I was also gratefully relieved. It looked to me that all he had to do was work with the actors until they shared his vision, discovering and contributing more (including stuff I didn’t know was in there) as they went along. They would have from then—roughly noon—until about 6pm to rehearse and get it together.

They also had to figure out how to accomplish the main structural challenge—how they would indicate that in the blink of an eye, the characters would drop 30 years and return to their college graduation day for the second half of the story. (My imagined solution had involved the actors moving far upstage before turning to come back--which turned out to be impossible, because the stage just wasn't that deep.)

Josh had an additional challenge. There had been one more hat drawing before we went upstairs—every director would be required to use one of three props. They all had to use the same one, but they could use it—even alter it—in any way they chose. The prop was selected by a drawing, and the prop we all got was a big slab of cardboard. (It could have been an inflatable raft.)

I left them to get to their work, and thought I should go home and get some sleep. I did drive home to Arcata, but I did not sleep, which didn’t surprise me. I’d probably be president of the world by now if I had only learned to nap.

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