Blood and Transitions: Inside Production Meeting II
I was not in attendance at our first Neverwhere production meeting and Paul's blog post on that particular meeting gives you a great idea of the roles the various contributors to the artistic process of producing a play. I was delighted at the way our second production meeting started with our director, and birthday celebrant, Paul, announcing that we needed to talk about blood and transitions.
It made me laugh and it highlighted the difference between what it means to read a book or watch a film and what it means to stage a play. Questions like: how a death will be handled? Will there be blood? Will it still be on the stage floor in the next scene? Will it be on the costumes and should it be on the costumes in the next scene? If not how will it get off? Will this costume work in a fight scene? Which weapon is right for Hunter? When can we visit the dump together?
Most people never get to see the men and women behind the curtain (so to speak) in theater or know that we meet months in advance to hash out these sorts of questions so that there is a shared aesthetic and continuity to a production. Theater continually amazes me in that it is an art form that can not be practiced alone and it amazes me further that you there are a room full of artistic and enthusiastic people working together for a shared goal.
It is also inspiring to see set sketches and hear sound inspirations and costume collages, having colleagues to feed each other's work is worth the challenges of collaboration. I should also point out that this meeting involved a pile of weapons in the middle of the room and listening to Tom Waits. (I wish I had a photo of the impressive pile of weapons to share with you all).
It also struck me that that blood and transitions are the crux of almost any good story and good life, well maybe blood on the floor or clothes is not a good thing but certainly action and transition.
It makes me think of the line from the Player King in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,
"We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see."
There is something of the roving band of players in any modern theater group who come together to try by alchemy, sweat and late nights to create magic. It is fun to be a part of a rag tag band that shares a goal. It is the making of an adventure.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Here Be Monsters Mapmaking and London Below
I have been a tad neglectful in my blogging but not in my reading.
Here is a link to a fantastic article in the Guardian about Henry Beck, the who created the famous map (he would call it a diagram) of the London Underground.
Neverwhere makes use of the fact that London has so much beneath it. It is built on the remains of the earlier cities that were London past. it also has the intestines of the underground railway that wend their way underneath it.
I wanted to share a picture from Bath actually where the layers of civilizations have been excavated and coexist. Here you can see the Roman baths built after the displacement of early Celtic peoples and above you can see Bath Abbey looming in the background. In the Abbey, which was first Catholic and then after the dissolution of the monasteries Anglican, you can see the layers of tombs and memorial placards. The Abbey was bombed in World War II and only recently were renovations completed. I indulge in this digressive story about Bath because it illustrates the layers of history, religion, geography and human experience compressed into a single space. It is the compression of London Below. London Below still has Roman soldiers and black friars. It hasn't forgotten the history merely added to it. I can only imagine that those early Roman soldiers must have been so happy to have found the magical hot waters of Bath having left their warm climate to travel in this strange, cold, and to them god-forsaken country. Being able to build baths like they had at home at to feel amazingly civilized.
Speaking of compression I also wanted to share a bit more on the London Underground which is featured in Neverwhere. More specifically, the map of the London Underground which we know so well. This map (diagram)was designed by Henry Beck and it was a leap forward in map making. Beck realized that a map of the underground did not need to show actual distances but the relative positions of the of the stations along a route. All maps in someway alter reality. They are smaller than the thing they claim to represent. They leave out details. The exaggerate the shape of Greenland so that they can show a round globe on a flat surface. I have always found maps fascinating because they hint at something not seen at that moment strange places. In Neverwhere, these places are strange places but they are also more what you would imagine if you were just reading a map. Shouldn't Blackfriars have black friars?
In addition to this the Underground does have closed stations that are not used and it makes you wonder what might be there. Much in the way that early map makers put monsters on the edges of the map where they were uncertain what might be there. At the edges of the earth at the edges of reality you might fall off the map. You might meet monsters.
This is perhaps why the places one visits in Neverwhere feel so real, or at least possible even while feeling magical and impossible. We've seen these places on a map or at least imagined them. Like the Roman soldiers that arrived in Bath and London these places were off the map and full of monsters. That is why it is so exciting to go with Richard off the edges of the map.
In addition to this the Underground does have closed stations that are not used and it makes you wonder what might be there. Much in the way that early map makers put monsters on the edges of the map where they were uncertain what might be there. At the edges of the earth at the edges of reality you might fall off the map. You might meet monsters.
This is perhaps why the places one visits in Neverwhere feel so real, or at least possible even while feeling magical and impossible. We've seen these places on a map or at least imagined them. Like the Roman soldiers that arrived in Bath and London these places were off the map and full of monsters. That is why it is so exciting to go with Richard off the edges of the map.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Mom writes in
... my mother wrote the following to me in an email response to the previous blog entry and I want to share it, it's good...
...thanks mom...Is it too simplistic to think this is a coming-of-age story for Richard? Although plenty old enough in years, Richard starts the story awfully immature in all the areas you mentioned (responsibility, self-direction, purpose, etc.) He (to an almost self-destructive effect) allows his dreaminess, his not paying attention to the real life of a grown up, to sabotage the things he does believe he values--Jessica, for one. In a way, to me, he starts out as a Boy.
Because of his Good Heart (he certainly does not seem to be thinking, deliberating, choosing), acting on instinct only, on "a feeling" only, he rescues Door. A more grown-up "old" man would not have done this. Jessica (as I recall) has a list of sensible alternatives to get the girl cared for and the two of them on with their adult life full of adult plans and responsibilities. Grown-up men cannot risk behavior like Richard's--to scoop up in your arms a strange girl from off the street (strange, dirty girl) walk away from your fiancé and install this girl in your bachelor apartment. Once done, this simple act starts him off on a quest from which there is no return.
Coming-of-age is also a no-return deal. You just relentlessly forge ahead, meet those various demons and challenges, some of them disguised, to cope with and conquer as best you can. In the very end, he cannot return to his former hum-drum paper-pushing life because it is a Boy's life and he is now a Man.
In the back of the book there's a short interview with NG in which he says that this story is a lot about the homeless people in London and that the Underground was always going to be the setting. He also says "I wanted to write a story about someone growing up and changing." and this really makes the story very meaningful to me.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Marinating and Pondering Journeys
Been a while since I posted - sorry for that. I've been enjoying some R&R after the holidays and simply marinating on some things, reading and making notes.
Under the tree for me this year was "Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman" which is a passionate guide to Gaiman's work published before Fall 2008. A great reference of the behind the scenes development of the man's career and just a fun read. In it I learned that Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar make an appearance in "Mr. Punch" which means I must stop by my local comic shop and investigate.
On Saturday the 2nd, Maren and I went to the Art Institute of Chicago to visit the collection of Victorian photo-collage art that recently passed through, our interest sparked by the art of the music video costume designer Elizabeth Wislar shared with me a few months back. Ultimately the art is not relevant to our production values but was an illuminating immersion into the bizarre and fantastic minds of the idle Victorian woman, influenced heavily by Darwin and Lewis Carrol.
Last Wednesday I had a fascinating chat with Rob over some beers and BBQ. He's in the midst of some thinking and pondering on the script before diving into more writing probably in February he shared with me notes and thoughts and ideas from feedback given to him after our reading a few weeks ago. Our discussions continue to delve deeper into Richard's character arc; where is he at the beginning, where is his shift, and where does he end up. There is something very interesting to me about Richard being a blithe participant in the modern cultural machine, a cog, a brick in the wall, at the beginning of the play. He's absent minded and doesn't seem to be able to make any long term goals. He has no vision and little purpose. As he gets wrapped up into the adventures of London Below, he continues to go along with what's demanded of him, more or less with bravery but without much personal investment. He feels somehow deep inside that he must intervene and protect Door when and where he can. When he loses Anesthesia on Night's Bridge, he experiences what may be his first profound sense of responsibility. Further trust and emotional investment and even vulnerability with Door deepen his personal connection to the quest before him and in The Ordeal Of The Key there is a deeper, more radical shift.
What The Ordeal is, what it actually symbolizes and provides for Richard, has been a challenge for Rob and I to articulate. There is a tricky combination of Richard struggling with his sense of what is Real vs. what is Imagined and his being urged to off himself. What he ultimately wins, besides the key, is a grounding - he feels more deeply and truly that he has purpose and that he is Doing The Right Thing. And he gains that knowledge by rediscovering Anesthesia's necklace and confronting that guilt and loss. He then becomes something of a leader, more confident, less whiny.
Fighting the Great Beast of London is the next evolution of Richard's character, but one I wonder if it may be even more felt later, when Richard returns to London Above. At that point in the story, when Hunter dies and passes a torch of sorts to Richard, he must quickly go forward to complete the quest. Time is of the essence and self-reflection is a luxury he cannot afford. But when he finally gets what he's been wanting all along, like Dorothy, to just go home again, he's left feeling deeply dissatisfied. At the moment of killing the Great Beast and painting its blood on his face, he becomes The Warrior. How could he go back to paper pushing then?
Our next production meeting is coming soon. Between now and then I am:
Under the tree for me this year was "Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman" which is a passionate guide to Gaiman's work published before Fall 2008. A great reference of the behind the scenes development of the man's career and just a fun read. In it I learned that Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar make an appearance in "Mr. Punch" which means I must stop by my local comic shop and investigate.
On Saturday the 2nd, Maren and I went to the Art Institute of Chicago to visit the collection of Victorian photo-collage art that recently passed through, our interest sparked by the art of the music video costume designer Elizabeth Wislar shared with me a few months back. Ultimately the art is not relevant to our production values but was an illuminating immersion into the bizarre and fantastic minds of the idle Victorian woman, influenced heavily by Darwin and Lewis Carrol.
Last Wednesday I had a fascinating chat with Rob over some beers and BBQ. He's in the midst of some thinking and pondering on the script before diving into more writing probably in February he shared with me notes and thoughts and ideas from feedback given to him after our reading a few weeks ago. Our discussions continue to delve deeper into Richard's character arc; where is he at the beginning, where is his shift, and where does he end up. There is something very interesting to me about Richard being a blithe participant in the modern cultural machine, a cog, a brick in the wall, at the beginning of the play. He's absent minded and doesn't seem to be able to make any long term goals. He has no vision and little purpose. As he gets wrapped up into the adventures of London Below, he continues to go along with what's demanded of him, more or less with bravery but without much personal investment. He feels somehow deep inside that he must intervene and protect Door when and where he can. When he loses Anesthesia on Night's Bridge, he experiences what may be his first profound sense of responsibility. Further trust and emotional investment and even vulnerability with Door deepen his personal connection to the quest before him and in The Ordeal Of The Key there is a deeper, more radical shift.
What The Ordeal is, what it actually symbolizes and provides for Richard, has been a challenge for Rob and I to articulate. There is a tricky combination of Richard struggling with his sense of what is Real vs. what is Imagined and his being urged to off himself. What he ultimately wins, besides the key, is a grounding - he feels more deeply and truly that he has purpose and that he is Doing The Right Thing. And he gains that knowledge by rediscovering Anesthesia's necklace and confronting that guilt and loss. He then becomes something of a leader, more confident, less whiny.
Fighting the Great Beast of London is the next evolution of Richard's character, but one I wonder if it may be even more felt later, when Richard returns to London Above. At that point in the story, when Hunter dies and passes a torch of sorts to Richard, he must quickly go forward to complete the quest. Time is of the essence and self-reflection is a luxury he cannot afford. But when he finally gets what he's been wanting all along, like Dorothy, to just go home again, he's left feeling deeply dissatisfied. At the moment of killing the Great Beast and painting its blood on his face, he becomes The Warrior. How could he go back to paper pushing then?
Our next production meeting is coming soon. Between now and then I am:
- rereading the script and pondering the logistics of the transitions and what they may mean tech wise
- considering the many pros and cons of using liquid blood on stage - a HUGE question
- investigating the use of puppets (rats, pigeons and the Great Beast) and thinking logistically of which actor will do what and how should they be seen, what are they in the world when they are manipulating a puppet
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Last post of 2009
Before the year comes to a close I am excited to share with you the news of the last weekend. On Saturday the 19th our production team met for our first Production Meeting. Then on Sunday the 20th the cast assembled to read Rob's latest draft of the script, which has gone under some revision in the past month through banter between him and I.
A Production Meeting, in case it needs explaining, is a gathering of all the designers involved in the play, the writer, director, assistant director and production manager, and occasionally the artistic director of the company producing the play is there too to have a greater idea of how all resources will be used in realizing this sprawling urban fantasy. We all sit in a circle and after confirming details like dates, rehearsal schedules and deadlines, we start a creative discussion of all the aspects of the script that require that special art of stagecraft to do.
The theatrical medium is unique different than movies/television. We take the arts of sound and lighting design, the technologies of craft and sculpture and flash animation projection, the textile fashion creative art of costume design, the creative architectural magic of scenic design, the thoughtful and exciting passion of combat choreography and the inspiration of puppet techniques to try to create a cohesive world that will help us tell the story of NEVERWHERE. There were 12 of us in the room and for about four hours we bantered over everything. From the look and feel of the costuming to the use of projections to create mood and atmosphere. We always struggle with budget and scope and think out loud on how to creatively work around a our resource limits to fit the storytelling we are all so motivated to get right. It takes a group of very smart and experienced people, all of whom must be motivated by the play itself as well as inspired by their contribution to the whole, and I am overjoyed to say this meeting illustrated how right this group of collaborators is for this production. When you come to the NEVERWHERE on Lifeline's "postage stamp" sized stage, you will be transported to another world.
Sunday's reading was terrifically exciting as well. My job as director involves wrangling the various gifts of the desingers into a cohesive whole as well as casting the show and guiding those actors to perform their lines and move in a way that effectively conveys the emotional and grippingly adventurous through line of the quest. Again, all in the room are enthusiastic and engaged by the material and bring a wealth of experience, intelligence, passion and imagination to their work. Hearing it read aloud is such an exciting thing, you feel the beginnings of something incredibly special going on. After the reading, many of the cast stuck around to talk about the script, ask questions about it, wonder aloud at plot points and give Rob some things to think about as he makes another revision before we start rehearsal. One of my joys was being present when stage directions (those parts of a script that aren't character lines but describe Rob's vision on how special effects are staged) were read. My assistant director Jessica would read something along the lines of "She walks to a bookshelf with her hand outstretched. A small panel on the side swings open and DOOR reaches inside. She pulls out a sphere of brass and wood, polished copper and glass. She picks up a small platform from the desk and places the sphere atop it. The sphere begins to spin and a beam of light projects onto a nearby wall." and everyone would start laughing at me - it is apparently very funny to them that I will have to somehow make this happen. :)
I can't help but smile, sure there are demands in signing on to stear a ship this big and wild, but it feels right, and I am in a comfortable place to be filled with questions and wonderment over answers. Something my mom mentioned to me yesterday (she just read the book) is that quest stories speak to all of us because they magnify something very universal. We all face challenges not knowing whether fortune or fate will make us fly or fall in our endevour. We chose to go outside and face a world that can be dangerous, we take risks and go on quests every day. That's what makes us rock stars.
I'm proud to be a member of this team of rock stars and wish you all a very safe and splendiferous New Year of bold choices and risky adventures.
A Production Meeting, in case it needs explaining, is a gathering of all the designers involved in the play, the writer, director, assistant director and production manager, and occasionally the artistic director of the company producing the play is there too to have a greater idea of how all resources will be used in realizing this sprawling urban fantasy. We all sit in a circle and after confirming details like dates, rehearsal schedules and deadlines, we start a creative discussion of all the aspects of the script that require that special art of stagecraft to do.
The theatrical medium is unique different than movies/television. We take the arts of sound and lighting design, the technologies of craft and sculpture and flash animation projection, the textile fashion creative art of costume design, the creative architectural magic of scenic design, the thoughtful and exciting passion of combat choreography and the inspiration of puppet techniques to try to create a cohesive world that will help us tell the story of NEVERWHERE. There were 12 of us in the room and for about four hours we bantered over everything. From the look and feel of the costuming to the use of projections to create mood and atmosphere. We always struggle with budget and scope and think out loud on how to creatively work around a our resource limits to fit the storytelling we are all so motivated to get right. It takes a group of very smart and experienced people, all of whom must be motivated by the play itself as well as inspired by their contribution to the whole, and I am overjoyed to say this meeting illustrated how right this group of collaborators is for this production. When you come to the NEVERWHERE on Lifeline's "postage stamp" sized stage, you will be transported to another world.
Sunday's reading was terrifically exciting as well. My job as director involves wrangling the various gifts of the desingers into a cohesive whole as well as casting the show and guiding those actors to perform their lines and move in a way that effectively conveys the emotional and grippingly adventurous through line of the quest. Again, all in the room are enthusiastic and engaged by the material and bring a wealth of experience, intelligence, passion and imagination to their work. Hearing it read aloud is such an exciting thing, you feel the beginnings of something incredibly special going on. After the reading, many of the cast stuck around to talk about the script, ask questions about it, wonder aloud at plot points and give Rob some things to think about as he makes another revision before we start rehearsal. One of my joys was being present when stage directions (those parts of a script that aren't character lines but describe Rob's vision on how special effects are staged) were read. My assistant director Jessica would read something along the lines of "She walks to a bookshelf with her hand outstretched. A small panel on the side swings open and DOOR reaches inside. She pulls out a sphere of brass and wood, polished copper and glass. She picks up a small platform from the desk and places the sphere atop it. The sphere begins to spin and a beam of light projects onto a nearby wall." and everyone would start laughing at me - it is apparently very funny to them that I will have to somehow make this happen. :)
I can't help but smile, sure there are demands in signing on to stear a ship this big and wild, but it feels right, and I am in a comfortable place to be filled with questions and wonderment over answers. Something my mom mentioned to me yesterday (she just read the book) is that quest stories speak to all of us because they magnify something very universal. We all face challenges not knowing whether fortune or fate will make us fly or fall in our endevour. We chose to go outside and face a world that can be dangerous, we take risks and go on quests every day. That's what makes us rock stars.
I'm proud to be a member of this team of rock stars and wish you all a very safe and splendiferous New Year of bold choices and risky adventures.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Spoiler Alert!
The Lifeline Theatre Ensemble and Board is in early planning stages for our benefit this year, being held at the Cultural Center in the Preston Bradley Hall on April 19, 2010. The board and event committee are moving forward whole-heartedly and enthusiastically with a "Neil Gaiman's Floating Market" theme. Our managing director Allison Cain is bursting with ideas, ensemble member and NEVERWHERE scenic designer Alan Donahue has devised a plot for designing the event and we're gathering entertainment, food, slient auction items and volunteer character actors to populate the event with weird and wild personas. We already plan on showcasing some combat from the show and I'm talking Rob into being a twin weirdo carney barker type MC with me somewhere along the lines of the Fop with No Name.
If only we could have open flame indoors - I'd see if I could import this nut seen here at the Jubilee Walkway. Right before I started recording, he took a giant swig from a jug of kerosene, which you can see he's holding in his cheeks...
If only we could have open flame indoors - I'd see if I could import this nut seen here at the Jubilee Walkway. Right before I started recording, he took a giant swig from a jug of kerosene, which you can see he's holding in his cheeks...
Friday, December 11, 2009
The Floating Market at Harrods
The night I made my way to check out the location in Harrods famous department store where Hunter is hired to be Door's bodyguard, my camera decided to take some shoddy pictures. Regardless...
I ended up at Knightsbridge, of course.
(Interesting tile work here at Hyde Park Corner, one stop away.)
Harrods was decked out in green not for the holidays (too early for that) but for the 70th anniversary of the movie The Wizard of Oz.
"The Meat and Fish Hall" inspires by name the image of a spacious, cavernous room. Meeting by the "fish statue" evokes a museum like space, populated by artwork and marble. Well, it's almost like that. But with the amount of intense fighting involved, there is just too much in this room! It wouldn't fit an arena - these masters of combat are fighting in cramped, ornate quarters!
The titular fish statue, I believe... the only one I found.
I wanted to hang out at the caviar bar and sip champagne, maybe eventually making my way to the oyster shucker, but I was pressed for time. So I went next door to the cheese shop, to see if I could find a contest on "silliest walk."
Imagine this scene at night, the perishables put away, and in the aisles a menagerie of stalls, vendors, smells delightful and gutwrenching, crowded with people shoulder to shoulder of all different shapes, sizes, colors, dress, dialects, shouting, pushing, vying for your attention, some looking like they'd pick your pocket, some looking like they'd slit your throat, some looking at you with hungry, cold eyes.
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