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Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Quote of the Night, Process Notebook 2.12.13
"Y'all don't have night vision. Pick up a carrot."
Kieran aka Greta to Maude & Ben Franklin as they were pointing out the difficulties of coming through the stage blacks.
Kieran aka Greta to Maude & Ben Franklin as they were pointing out the difficulties of coming through the stage blacks.
Holding Up Thoughts and Making changes, Process Notebook 2.11.13
2nd to last Rehearsal, we went from Krissy holding up Jenn's new idea about the show so that she wouldn't forget them while we discussed a few changes. We are now keeping David onstage through 'constitutional convention' so that we can strengthen the conflict between David and Benjamin Franklin. Thus building an emotional connection for the audience when the fight occurs.
We also decided to strengthen the narrative of the American Dream in the story. So now when David re-enters as the American Dream after Ben in France he will be dressed in David's contemporary clothes from the beginning of the play. We are literally saying that the American Dream is a coked up mortgage bundler and that is who Benjamin Franklin challenges to a duel.
We also decided to strengthen the narrative of the American Dream in the story. So now when David re-enters as the American Dream after Ben in France he will be dressed in David's contemporary clothes from the beginning of the play. We are literally saying that the American Dream is a coked up mortgage bundler and that is who Benjamin Franklin challenges to a duel.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Honest Sam Upham Gets the Last Word, Process Notebook 2.6.13
"Fuck you Freddy, it's My Scene." (Alex, the actor playing Sam and Freddy.)
We discovered today that the moments when Freddy is the most successful are when Freddy and Sam are on two different tracks. It's key that Sam reacts to what Freddy is saying, which is no easy feat when your an actor playing Sam and Freddy.
Aaron also gave us the final line for Scene 4, which is Sam's "Yes we shall Freddy, yes we shall." Effectively closing the scene with Honest Sam Upham getting the last word.
We discovered today that the moments when Freddy is the most successful are when Freddy and Sam are on two different tracks. It's key that Sam reacts to what Freddy is saying, which is no easy feat when your an actor playing Sam and Freddy.
Aaron also gave us the final line for Scene 4, which is Sam's "Yes we shall Freddy, yes we shall." Effectively closing the scene with Honest Sam Upham getting the last word.
What's behind the End of the Play? Directors talk Inspirations.
After tonight's run through, I had a quick chat with Krissy about her inspirations for the post-fight end of the play sequence. Although there are various inspirations for the exercise Krissy and Jenn engage the actors and audience in at the end of the play. The two main inspirations are:
1. The Wooster Group, check out their amazing blog with lots of video here: THE WOOSTER GROUP
2. The Rude Mechancials, check out their website here: The Rude Mechanicals
The audience's Journey at the end of the play, Process Notebook 2.5.13
In the script Aaron describes the end of the play as follows:
Ben knocks out the American Dream. He’s down. And on his fall, everything else stops,
the song, the striptease, everything. The work lights come on and the
costumes come off, the wigs, the makeup, everything. The vaudeville
show is over. The characters are gone, now it’s just the actors playing
them as each becomes the other, Sam and G and C and Maude and Ben
Franklin, all but David, they’re all one, they’re all each other, they’re all of
us together. And as the American Dream slowly, so so so very slowly rises
up from the floor, the others repeat the whole show, a whirlwind, acts
from before overlapping, multiplying, reversing, everything wrapped up,
torn apart, coming together, again and back over, the never ending story
of us.
And yet as it all falls apart, these layers of reality collapsing onto and into
themselves, one thing remains – or perhaps becomes – startlingly clear:
the present moment of us, here, together, pretending. Here we are, a
bunch of people, in this room. We feel it in our bones, all the way down to
our unearthly cores, blinding us and binding us.
And then as the actress playing Maude comes back to the third verse of
“Only Money,” we see the American Dream has risen almost all the way
back to his feet. The other actors stop to watch.
Jenn and Krissy have chosen to explore this moment by having each actor re-act their character tract in the show. With importance paid to location and dropping characterization. Which creates a super interesting experience as an audience member. We tracked the audience member's journey as: Confusion, Delight, Confused, Absurdity ie "are they really going to redo the whole play?", to a meditative state, then you come out of it and the actors are still redoing their characters and then everything stops when Annie/ Maude begins to sing. And the pay off in that moment is really internalized, making a very personalized audience experience out of chaos and spectacle.
Ben knocks out the American Dream. He’s down. And on his fall, everything else stops,
the song, the striptease, everything. The work lights come on and the
costumes come off, the wigs, the makeup, everything. The vaudeville
show is over. The characters are gone, now it’s just the actors playing
them as each becomes the other, Sam and G and C and Maude and Ben
Franklin, all but David, they’re all one, they’re all each other, they’re all of
us together. And as the American Dream slowly, so so so very slowly rises
up from the floor, the others repeat the whole show, a whirlwind, acts
from before overlapping, multiplying, reversing, everything wrapped up,
torn apart, coming together, again and back over, the never ending story
of us.
And yet as it all falls apart, these layers of reality collapsing onto and into
themselves, one thing remains – or perhaps becomes – startlingly clear:
the present moment of us, here, together, pretending. Here we are, a
bunch of people, in this room. We feel it in our bones, all the way down to
our unearthly cores, blinding us and binding us.
And then as the actress playing Maude comes back to the third verse of
“Only Money,” we see the American Dream has risen almost all the way
back to his feet. The other actors stop to watch.
Jenn and Krissy have chosen to explore this moment by having each actor re-act their character tract in the show. With importance paid to location and dropping characterization. Which creates a super interesting experience as an audience member. We tracked the audience member's journey as: Confusion, Delight, Confused, Absurdity ie "are they really going to redo the whole play?", to a meditative state, then you come out of it and the actors are still redoing their characters and then everything stops when Annie/ Maude begins to sing. And the pay off in that moment is really internalized, making a very personalized audience experience out of chaos and spectacle.
Meet Playwright Aaron Weissman
Anatomy of our Fight Scene, Process Notebook 2.4.13
The fight scene between the American Dream and Benjamin Franklin is assuredly one of the most climactic moments in Counterfeiters.
So here's a little behind the scenes breakdown, the fight begins with the American Dream and Benjamin Franklin doing a series of moves in sync. And then after three rounds of this solo mini fights, they bump into each other, spin around to face each other and start swinging.
The thought behind the American Dream moving in slow motion is that he is passing through time as he fights. While the original idea was to base their fight off bare knuckle 19th century boxing. A la Sherlock Holmes and Far Away (Clips of which are posted earlier in this blog.) That was the style choice when the American Dream was fighting Sam.
The fight sequence between Ben and the American Dream is styled on more modern street fighter boxing technique. The American Dream's knock out punch to Ben Franklin was taken from this video about street fighting, a strait uppercut to the jaw. J & K really wanted to make Ben and the AMD's fight dirtier and more gruesome to incite a stronger reaction from the audience.
So here's a little behind the scenes breakdown, the fight begins with the American Dream and Benjamin Franklin doing a series of moves in sync. And then after three rounds of this solo mini fights, they bump into each other, spin around to face each other and start swinging.
The thought behind the American Dream moving in slow motion is that he is passing through time as he fights. While the original idea was to base their fight off bare knuckle 19th century boxing. A la Sherlock Holmes and Far Away (Clips of which are posted earlier in this blog.) That was the style choice when the American Dream was fighting Sam.
The fight sequence between Ben and the American Dream is styled on more modern street fighter boxing technique. The American Dream's knock out punch to Ben Franklin was taken from this video about street fighting, a strait uppercut to the jaw. J & K really wanted to make Ben and the AMD's fight dirtier and more gruesome to incite a stronger reaction from the audience.
Process Notebook 2.2.13, Race in Counterfeiters
Post today's run through, playwright Aaron Weissman brought up a question of how race is portrayed in the show.
Since the show follows 5 white counterfeiters and Benjamin Franklin, are we presenting an appropriate collage of the American Experience? And do the few lines that refer to race do so in a way that doesn't come across as flippant or minimizing?
Fellow Dramaturg Brittany had some great thoughts on this in that the American dream is a very white dream and the whiteness of the cast or characters doesn't take away from the story we are trying to tell. The insertion of race issues at this point would not only be difficult but might verge on tokenization.
As to the lines in the text that do refer to race, there is the moment in which Freddy, the counterfeit confederate bill uses the N-word and immediately after Sam apologizes to the audience for him. The other reference to race comes via Ben Franklin in Ben in France. But it occurs during a moment when Ben is selling the virtues of the American Dream to France, and this act of selling the dream ends up as the inciting incident for when the American Dream becomes corrupted in the show.
Since the show follows 5 white counterfeiters and Benjamin Franklin, are we presenting an appropriate collage of the American Experience? And do the few lines that refer to race do so in a way that doesn't come across as flippant or minimizing?
Fellow Dramaturg Brittany had some great thoughts on this in that the American dream is a very white dream and the whiteness of the cast or characters doesn't take away from the story we are trying to tell. The insertion of race issues at this point would not only be difficult but might verge on tokenization.
As to the lines in the text that do refer to race, there is the moment in which Freddy, the counterfeit confederate bill uses the N-word and immediately after Sam apologizes to the audience for him. The other reference to race comes via Ben Franklin in Ben in France. But it occurs during a moment when Ben is selling the virtues of the American Dream to France, and this act of selling the dream ends up as the inciting incident for when the American Dream becomes corrupted in the show.
Behind the Top of the Show, Process Notebook 1.30.13
Today we worked the top of the show.
here are some notes on the thoughts behind the movement and direction of the prologue, and Scene 1, constitutional convention.
With the prologue we want a dark and menacing tone. Almost this sense of soullessness. Of wall street and mortgage bundles and money scams. But we didn't want to isolate the audience from playing the lottery so we know we're walking a middle ground. David's drive in the prologue is to go from the the highest point, and then fall down to the absolute lowest point, then build to the highest point again, only to fall even lower. We are really looking to establish this boom and bust cyclical nature from the top of the show.
(*every time I watch the prologue Aaron nails this American Pyscho-esque interpretation of the wall street party boy!)
Scene 1, Constitutional Convention. We tightened the movements of the four actors behind Benjamin Franklin. Each one is playing one of the founding father's he references. So that Alexander Hamilton, Jimmy Madison, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are represented onstage through the silhouettes. Each silhouette makes a really defined movement right before Ben mentions what they said, that way when Ben speaks for each of the founding father's he copies the gestures the silhouette made.
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*so the top of the show feels like from American Psycho into the Founding Fathers. It'll be interesting to note after we open which scene will seem creepier.
here are some notes on the thoughts behind the movement and direction of the prologue, and Scene 1, constitutional convention.
With the prologue we want a dark and menacing tone. Almost this sense of soullessness. Of wall street and mortgage bundles and money scams. But we didn't want to isolate the audience from playing the lottery so we know we're walking a middle ground. David's drive in the prologue is to go from the the highest point, and then fall down to the absolute lowest point, then build to the highest point again, only to fall even lower. We are really looking to establish this boom and bust cyclical nature from the top of the show.
(*every time I watch the prologue Aaron nails this American Pyscho-esque interpretation of the wall street party boy!)
Scene 1, Constitutional Convention. We tightened the movements of the four actors behind Benjamin Franklin. Each one is playing one of the founding father's he references. So that Alexander Hamilton, Jimmy Madison, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are represented onstage through the silhouettes. Each silhouette makes a really defined movement right before Ben mentions what they said, that way when Ben speaks for each of the founding father's he copies the gestures the silhouette made.
*so the top of the show feels like from American Psycho into the Founding Fathers. It'll be interesting to note after we open which scene will seem creepier.
Fight Scene and Audience Engagement Questions, From Process Notebook 1.29.13
When it came time to rehearse the fight/ end of the play, Jenn and Krissy brought the questions they were struggling with to the cast and rehearsal room at large.
1. How do we move the audience (when the fight happens) in such a way that it engages them in the space?
2. How do we activate the audience so that everyone is up and out of their chairs, watching the fight?
Since the end of the play only takes about 20 minutes, at most we're asking audience members to stand for 20-25 minutes. We discussed having a designated sitting are but felt that that might give away the ending. We don't want people to expect that their going to be asked to move.
K & J (Directors, Krissy and Jenn) shared that they want the audience to feel like it's an upheaval. They want the audience to feel displaced.
We worked out that Ben and the American Dream will come down to the edge of the stage, and the AMD will informed the audience, "We are going to have a fight, right there in 30 seconds." Then they'll begin the countdown, ":30-29-28-27..."
While that's happening the remaining cast members will verbalize to the audience the necessity of moving while literally pulling tables and chairs out of the way. Our goal is that the disruption and verbal commands to move will be enough to engage the audience in the fight.
Process Notebook 1.29.13
Today's rehearsal kicked off with Scene 4, Sam and Confreddy The Confederate Bill.
To better the intricacies of a ventriloquist performance we looked specificly at moments in the text when Freddy is speaking to Sam versus moments when Freddy is speaking to the audience. This gave Alex (aka Sam) the chance to really block out Freddy's movements. From when Freddy wipes his brow, to tossing one leg over the other and occasionally scratching his crotch.
To better the intricacies of a ventriloquist performance we looked specificly at moments in the text when Freddy is speaking to Sam versus moments when Freddy is speaking to the audience. This gave Alex (aka Sam) the chance to really block out Freddy's movements. From when Freddy wipes his brow, to tossing one leg over the other and occasionally scratching his crotch.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Process Notebook 1.28.13
Today's working of the G & C opening scene was all about precision of movement.
We tried to create a vocabulary for poses so it becomes more purposefully. We also realized that a dynamic in the text that we haven't explored is status. How does status affect their relationship.
The actors explored status in the opening of "How We Do it" and discovered that C aka Conrad is higher status than G, Greta. This affects Conrad driving Greta out of audience interactions and into the top of their scenes.
Status also plays a role in their interactions with the manager and waiter. The manager and waiter are lower status than G & C. (Kieran and Caroline realized playing them as dumb Mobster w/ NYC accents was the perfect foil for G & C)
One thing I realized is that during their re-enactment of the waiter/ manager exchange, Greta plays higher status than Conrad, as Greta is playing the manger and in terms of their comedic sketches, Greta drops the punchlines. The fascinating thing about that is that all of G & C's interactions really embrace the interchangeability of their relationship. Even in status they cross lines and break rules. Which feels very G & C. And very vice.
I've also included this great Vaudeville Comedy duo clip. As the precision of movement and language that G & C hammered down for their manager/waiter re-enactments really solidified their comedic timing.
We also realized that the current casting of audience members for this scene was too complicated. If you watch in the video above, while Lee and Shaw call out to the audience they maintain the comedic timing of their scene by keeping it simple. Just them onstage, and their bits are well rehearsed. With so much audience interaction the drive to the central question of would you accept art as money was getting lost.
So we re-worked the audience interaction, to just one moment, where one audience member is cast to say yes, YES, they will take G/C's drawings of money!
*Footnote: Vice = maintains the integrity of the vaudevillian world we are trying to create!
We tried to create a vocabulary for poses so it becomes more purposefully. We also realized that a dynamic in the text that we haven't explored is status. How does status affect their relationship.
The actors explored status in the opening of "How We Do it" and discovered that C aka Conrad is higher status than G, Greta. This affects Conrad driving Greta out of audience interactions and into the top of their scenes.
Status also plays a role in their interactions with the manager and waiter. The manager and waiter are lower status than G & C. (Kieran and Caroline realized playing them as dumb Mobster w/ NYC accents was the perfect foil for G & C)
One thing I realized is that during their re-enactment of the waiter/ manager exchange, Greta plays higher status than Conrad, as Greta is playing the manger and in terms of their comedic sketches, Greta drops the punchlines. The fascinating thing about that is that all of G & C's interactions really embrace the interchangeability of their relationship. Even in status they cross lines and break rules. Which feels very G & C. And very vice.
I've also included this great Vaudeville Comedy duo clip. As the precision of movement and language that G & C hammered down for their manager/waiter re-enactments really solidified their comedic timing.
We also realized that the current casting of audience members for this scene was too complicated. If you watch in the video above, while Lee and Shaw call out to the audience they maintain the comedic timing of their scene by keeping it simple. Just them onstage, and their bits are well rehearsed. With so much audience interaction the drive to the central question of would you accept art as money was getting lost.
So we re-worked the audience interaction, to just one moment, where one audience member is cast to say yes, YES, they will take G/C's drawings of money!
*Footnote: Vice = maintains the integrity of the vaudevillian world we are trying to create!
Friday, February 8, 2013
Anatomy of a Scene, Pas De Deux
The crux of Pas De Deux is that David needs people that are going to fall for the scam. That are going to happily take his counterfeit money without suspicion, he's as much a Con Man as a counterfeiter. And when Maude appears we decided a seductive dance number would be the best way to show how David manipulates people. He makes sure Maude see's the money and then he withholds until the end of their dance sequence.
We then realized that because Maude takes money from David, she's a prostitute. Which J+ K took a moment to think about and then said, "I'm ok with that."
Images from Left, A drawing titled “The Genius of Advertising” from an 1880 issue of the National Police Gazette shows men outside a brothel gazing at pictures of some of the attractions awaiting them inside. And a 19th Century Prostitute, Google Images
We then realized that because Maude takes money from David, she's a prostitute. Which J+ K took a moment to think about and then said, "I'm ok with that."
Images from Left, A drawing titled “The Genius of Advertising” from an 1880 issue of the National Police Gazette shows men outside a brothel gazing at pictures of some of the attractions awaiting them inside. And a 19th Century Prostitute, Google Images
"You should never spot a person, there always gunna move."
Anatomy of a scene, meeting Maude the songstress
One of the first conversations I ever had involving the character of Maude was about the costume mechanics of her having an inflatable pregnancy belly.
Seeing as the opening stage directions for Scene 2, Maude –– You Don’t Wanna Know Me include:
Maude takes the stage, stunning in her flapper gown. Sam’s at the piano.
At some point, we realize that Maude is also quite pregnant.
At some point we knew Maude had to be pregnant. But it puzzled us. Maude is a woman making money, literally ironing out her counterfeit bills. The song she comes out to sing while she performs this ritual of "ironing" is about her being able to do anything a man can do. And that thing is counterfeiting money, not only is she a kick ass feminist but she's our premier female counterfeiter.
And while watching her belly inflate as she sang, and then seeing her give birth to money avec prebirth seemed like a strong visual, it became a stronger idea to keep it simple. To stick with Maude's story, her song, and play upon the natural assumptions the audience will have of seeing Maude as she walks onstage beautiful, bellyful of baby and potentially barefoot woman. To start there and then reveal that she's not pregnant, she's not a good little wifey poo but a counterfeiter who "doesn't want to know you."
Through Maude's domestic actions we are peeking at the sexuality of ironing, pregnancy as a fetish and female identity and ownership. The video below is titled Beautiful Lines of Woman Triumphant, it's a video of a woman modeling lingerie.
While the twenties may have this feel of heightened sexuality, women were still props. For her time, Maude isn't scandalous, she's a radical...
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