Good-bye Chicago

We have come to the end of our month in Chicago and it has been a very full and rich experience.  The 18 hour drive home is a welcome time to sift through the different classes and questions still turning over from this month.  I am happy to go home with questions, burning with a sense of what to work on and where to take things next, but the question still remains - will I challenge myself?  Will I believe enough in this need to be different to persevere?  We have been fortunate to meet so many interesting people in Chicago, but we have been especially fortunate to have had such a strong and committed set of teachers who met us where we were and pushed us to something beyond.  It has been a wonderful experience and so many more surfaces to work on and to see theatre through.  Thank you for traveling with us through this blog as we've kept a log of our time, it is a month not to be forgotten.

Surprises to live by

As the end of the trip draws near, I realize how many things I have learned about myself through this experience. The most recent thing I learned that surprised me, was how much sound I can create! Yesterday during our voice lesson with Christine, I felt my voice open up and I felt the vibrations running through my body. I had never thought of my voice as all that powerful, but when I was calling across the room, the amount of sound and life coming from me was surprising and actually really exciting. I have also realized that I am not a natural leader or follower - as much as I don’t want to follow, I also don’t want to lead. The encouraging part is that I can make the daily effort to stand up and take the lead every once in a while. In an improv scene, I can push myself that little bit farther to take the lead and make those decisions, or not to waiver when someone might conflict with my ideas. This realization is important for me in my normal life and in theater, and I am inspired to move forward with this new knowledge. The sadness I feel about the trip coming to an end is matched by my excitement and anticipation moving forward. 

I never realized how much fun it would be to beat each other up! Not literally, of course. In our Stage Combat class with our instructor Nick, we were assigned two person scenes that contain physical fights. It’s our job to look at the scene with our partner, memorize the lines, and come up with a fight sequence based on the text. Oh man! It’s been such a fun project. Each scene is so unique; some between couples, some between mothers and daughters. I get to do a Little Brother- Older Brother fight, which is always fun. Nick can just look at what you are doing, and say, “That’s really cool, but here’s another idea you could add here too! Every little brother hates it when his older brother does this.” And he'll offer a suggestion that makes the scene stronger and more real.  Looking around the studio at everyone as they work out their scenes, I can’t help but laugh. They look so realistic, it’s a little bit alarming! Who knew that watching people you know beat each other up could be so funny sometimes! After all, its all fun and games until someone really gets hurt . . . right? 

Get Moving

We've been experimenting with gestures in our voice work, working our speeches with the Laban Effort/Shapes of push, punch, wring, slash, float, dab, flick.  As we apply each one, we discover how they affect our thought and therefore voice and emotion.  It's amazing how the same words said while making a slashing motion, come out entirely differently when said while flicking your hand.  This "body language" has become an important way for us to explore the many possible meanings in our text - and a great way to enter the text physically and get our head out of the way.

Something Kestutis said last week has been churning around in me.  We had just finished another round of "tug-of war".  This time - all the men on one side and all the women on the other, an imaginary rope between us.  The idea is, we have a game of tug-of-war while saying our lines from a scene from "Pillars of the Community" that we've all memorized.  What should happen is that we move, as a group, in response to the text, gaining or losing ground depending on how the words affect you.  We finished the scene (amazing that you can sweat just as much in an imaginary game as in a real one!) and he said, "well, I could see the rope and that's great but no one really moved much which means your will is greater than your ability to give."  It was a simple observation and he moved on, but it stuck with me, and I've been thinking, when I choose to be "safe" instead of as vulnerable as a scene requires, when I want to hang on to something when the text (or maybe a life circumstance) requires me to let go, am I allowing my will to be greater than my ability to give?

Soaking it up

The other day in Improv class we worked on "WHERE" driven scenes.  We've been looking at improv from different angles, basing a scene on WHO you are, WHAT you're doing and then WHERE you are.  The idea with the where approach is to play out a scene in a specific space while doing anything but what the space was actually intended for - I ended up 'making sushi in a morgue' - who knew.  It's a challenging exercise that requires us to be very specific about our movement and yet flexible enough to flow with our scene partner if it becomes apparent they are not seeing quite the same thing we are.

 Being brand new to the world of acting - I have been soaking it all up - it's been awesome, and I mean that in every sense of the word.

To arrive where we started...

Sometimes, when we’re away on trips like this, I start to panic. We’re past halfway now. Am I learning enough? Will I produce enough to justify the expense, the time away from family and work? Am I doing justice to this craft and this vocation that I love?

Funny, but for me this obsession with “doing” seems to be the very thing that gets in my way – here (in Feldenkrais, in scene work, in voice work, in improv), but at home too.

I want a dramatic result. I want big, extreme swings to prove to myself and everyone else that something is happening inside this person here, who sometimes feels like she’s just banging her head against a wall. I want to make something that I can stand back and see and say, “There – now that is progress.”

But this morning, I remembered good old Mr. T.S. Eliot. I remembered these words that reduce me to a puddle every time I read them. I have this final part from the Four Quartets tacked up on a bulletin board by my desk at work. I haven’t read it since the end of July. But I think I’m going to put it up here in Chicago, so I don’t forget it for the rest of this trip. And I’m going to just keep exploring.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

T.S.Eliot
From Little Gidding V

Where are you

The other day in Improv class we worked on "WHERE" driven scenes.  We've been looking at improv from different angles, basing a scene on WHO you are, WHAT you're doing and then WHERE you are.  The idea with the where approach is to play out a scene in a specific space while doing anything but what the space was actually intended for - I ended up 'making sushi in a morgue' - who knew.  It's a challenging exercise that requires us to be very specific about our movement and yet flexible enough to flow with our scene partner if it becomes apparent they are not seeing quite the same thing we are.

 Being brand new to the world of acting - I have been soaking it all up - it's been awesome, and I mean that in every sense of the word.

Life Exercises

Another incredible day!  In Feldenkrais what started as a simple stretch ended with us literally rolling around the floor in circles (or at least some of the  younger ones of us!) Amazing to learn more about what parts of our skeleton are connected and how small adjustments can change how we move.  In Improv class, split up into pairs, we wordlessly enacted everyday scenes that showed "where" we were by what we were doing. 

The challenge seems to be to make our actions specific and deliberate enough for the viewer to understand exactly what our activity is.  Which means WE have to really believe what we're doing.  For our Ibsen scene class we played some wild games including "verbal mirror".   This was new to us - in this exercise you face your partner and one starts making up a story while the other tries to speak what the story-teller is saying simultaneously.  After a few seconds, the the call would come to "switch" and the person copying becomes the story-teller.  The stories took fantastical and funny turns. Interesting, a lot of the work is about listening - not jumping ahead or lagging behind with your scene partner.  Hopefully something that will benefit our work and our lives.

 

An interesting thing happens when a group like Elements travels to a new location (London, NYC, Chicago) to study together for a month.  The first morning we all pretty much stuck to the map, walking to Ruth Page Center for the Arts and climbing the 4 long flights to Studio IV in a building from 1927.  As days flow into weeks, our circle of experience widens.  We notice for instance, that if you look out the window of one apartment and down the street, you can glimpse the horizon past Lake Michigan - and looking the other way, you can see Trump Tower, built on a bend in the Chicago River.  Gradually we venture into new neighborhoods to shop, see plays and sight-see.  We make friends with people we meet at the corner restaurant and greet them like old friends when we pass by later.  As the interior core, the familiar, the trusted, becomes more secure we adventure, get lost and find out way, and expand our experience.  And, everyone has now found a new way to get to the Studio in the morning without a map!

Behind the Scenes

As Elements stage manager, I came to Chicago for a week to go to some classes with Elements, but mostly to learn more about my job from professional stage managers. It was a great week - I had several meetings with production managers and stage managers from two of the larger theaters in Chicago - their generosity in sharing their craft was overwhelming. They gave me numerous practical tools, literally spent hours answering my questions, told me their stories, and have opened the door for keeping in touch with them as we head into our next production, "Pillars of the Community" by Henrik Ibsen.

I love stage managing and talking with others who have been in the business for 20 and 30 seasons, has been gratifying, energizing, and extremely inspirational!

There is no holding back with Ibsen on the line!  Yesterday we dove headfirst into scenes from various Ibsen plays with two of our teachers.  In the morning, Nick had an array of exercises to help us connect to our characters physically.  Later, with Kestutis, we explored the intentions behind our characters  So many layers to look at!  In improv class with Rachel, using a line of text from "Pillars of the Community", we literally created music with words and sounds as a group.  So passes another full day in Chicago....living to the fullest in every moment.

Breath

It's good to be breathing again.  This week we started our voice work in earnest with Christine Adaire and much of the focus is on breath. Breath being a blue print for speaking, breath being the basis of thought, intention, life and being.  The simplicity of breath, learning to be breathed - trusting myself to my breath believing that it needs no help other than my willingness just to be.  

 

 

Today I couldn't help but think back to our time in New York. These cities are so different from each other -- in Chicago, I don't think twice before I go out the door, whereas in New York, I'm embarrassed to say it would take me half and hour to figure out what to wear. I love the energy and the vibe of New York -- don't get me wrong! -- but if New York is a stiletto, so far Chicago is more like...a flip flop, and I love it. I sent up a prayer of thanks for our teachers, all of whom we have definitely "clicked" with. Everyone's style is different; they add a new color to our canvas and no doubt we are all growing. But back to New York --
Louis Colaianni gave us this word on one of our first days with him. Through all of our work together, no matter what city we're in, or what production we're working, it's still my goal.
-----
To be what I am.
To live the life that was set for me to live.
To voice the things that only I can voice.
To bear the blossoms that are commanded of my heart.
This is what I want, and surely, this cannot be presumptuous.
-Ranier Maria Rilke

Yesterday was our first class with Kestutis Nakas, Associate Professor of The Theatre Conservatory at Roosevelt University in Chicago.   He wanted to just get to know us so he gave us a couple of exercises to get us going and give him a chance to learn a little bit about us.  One exercise was, he had us each tell two stories about ourselves to the group, one that was true and one that was a lie.  Each one had to be something a bit risky - and the rest of the group would guess which was true.  It was eye opening to me how well I know the other people in the group - but also how much I DON'T know about them!

Probably only with a theater company like Elements could this father of three and grandfather of five find himself looking forward to our second day of instruction in Stage Combat bright and early today! Our last class was killer! -well not literally, but it was SO-O-O cool. I especially like the hair pulling and the take downs...and soon we get into the slaps, punches, and swords. It's OK to admit it - I'd be jealous, too!

Falling and Falling

So, day one of classes yesterday and we started with a bang - literally - the bang of our bodies falling to the floor in stage combat!  Our teacher, Nick Pullin, of DePaul University and Fight Director and choreographer for countless regional theatres, colleges and opera companies, was teaching us the basics of falling - and I think a lot of us were feeling it last night!  Improv class with Rachel Slavick, also with DePaul Theatre School, brought some more falling - and some great new games to help us turn off our heads and turn on our instinct (not so easy for some of us who like to think things through and have a plan before we leap)  After our final class, Feldenkrais with Patrice Egleston, Associate Professor at DePaul, we were ready for some good Italian food and a performance of Chekhov's Three Sisters at Steppenwolf Theatre.  What a day - and we get to throw ourselves at it again tomorrow!