Pre-Monday

Posted by DCA Theater on May 29, 2009 in January-June 2009 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Rubicon Theatre Project

by Scott Allen Luke, Managing Director of Rubicon Theatre Project

As we approach the reading on Monday, it’s interesting that even for a one-night-only engagement, performance anxiety can take over.  Any actor can attest to the realness of performance anxiety.  Even the comfort of having the script in your hand during a reading doesn’t always make a difference.  It comes down to ego.  A lot of people get confused when I say ego, so let me explain.  Technically, ego isn’t that which makes us arrogant or overconfident.  Ego is the part of our brain that keeps the ID and the Superego in check.  Ego is the part of our brain that constantly surveys the situation we’re in and our surroundings.  Our own private watchdog, if you will. 

By nature, all humans want to be liked, want to be accepted.  And it is this ego that causes performance anxiety.  Sure it’s easy enough to take risks in rehearsal when you’re working with a director and several other actors you trust and who understand the process.  But it instantly becomes more difficult once you get in front of a bunch of people you don’t know.  What happens a lot (trust me, I’ve seen it myself) is that an actor will be brilliant in rehearsals, but then they flat-line come performance time.  Their ego causes them to stifle their impulses (even the ones they know are right) for fear that the audience may not find a funny part funny, or that the audience will be silently judging the actor for looking stupid or ridiculous.  With developing a new play, I think this anxiety holds true for the producer and playwright as well.  As the Managing Director of Rubicon Theatre Project, I can say that we are interested in parlaying this reading into a full production.  This workshop performance is only the tip of the iceberg in the grand scheme of a production.  We want the audience to enjoy, and what’s more, support, the work we have put our “blood, sweat and tears” into.  After all, we wouldn’t be showing you this work if we didn’t believe it to be worthy of your attendance, right?  And it is the subconscious self-doubt that we artists inevitably deal with from time to time; afraid that our story won’t be accepted readily by you, the audience.  I guess we’ll see how things go on Monday. 

Act 2.  Oy!

Posted by DCA Theater on May 27, 2009 in January-June 2009 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Rubicon Theatre Project

by James Whittington, Director of Becoming Ingrid

It was supposed to be a pretty easy rehearsal last night. The basic thought from the beginning of this entire process was that we’d block out the first act and sit and read the second.  This made complete sense a month and a half ago.  There’s something really mesmerizing about the shape and movement of the first act.  That’s what I wanted to concentrate our efforts on: shape and tempo.  The first act also required a lot of forethought concerning exits and entrances.  There are 26 French Scenes that happen in the first act and they race by at an amazing pace which required a certain amount of choreography for it all to work.  The second act is a piece of cake in comparison.  There are not as many scenes and not as many actors changing from one character to another.  We’d just sit and read through the second act and listen to the language, play with the tempo, and understand the wants…or so I thought.

Oy!

Last night, as a complete cast, we broke open the second act, everyone sitting in a semi-circle (a “traditional” staged reading pose) and started getting into the text.  Then, little by little, the blocking started to show through. Little notes like, “If you stand up out of your seat on this line, it’ll accentuate this moment”, to, “Once you’re standing there’s a bit of a cat and mouse game going on, circle round each other”.

It finally came to a head when I said, “Ok, we have to figure out how to get everyone off the stage except for the two main characters for this moment to work”. 

Not what I planned on doing.  Ever.

But I would be lying if I didn’t say I didn’t love it.  I like to think there is even a degree of metaphor now with everyone on stage slowing finding themselves reading, to acting out entire scenes, then exiting—leaving the two main characters to deal with themselves and their struggles.

What is a “staged reading”?

Posted by DCA Theater on May 27, 2009 in January-June 2009 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Rubicon Theatre Project

by Scott Allen Luke, Managing Director of Rubicon Theatre Project

Today’s entry really has nothing to do with the process of working on “Becoming Ingrid.”  I want to reflect on the idea of the “staged reading.”  Last night while some of the other actors worked, I started daydreaming about what would happen next Monday at the reading of this new play.  What’s interesting about a staged reading is how much weight is given to it and the audience’s response to it.  Here we are, a group of theatre artists, doing our best in the time we have to put together an effective, entertaining and meaningful story that you, the audience, will hopefully enjoy.  What if you don’t?  What if you hate it?  What if you find the content or the characters or the relationships between the characters or the story or worse, all of the above, boring and just plain bad? 

After next Monday, armed with this knowledge and with this response from you, do we go back to the drawing board and try to make this story “fit” in attempt to get a more positive response from the next audience we present it to?  That’s sort of a square peg in a round hole kind of idea, isn’t it?  Or do we scrap the idea all-together and give up, chalking the whole process up to having taken a risk and failed? 

Read more »

Rehearsal 5-21

Posted by DCA Theater on May 22, 2009 in January-June 2009 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Rubicon Theatre Project

by Scott Allen Luke, Managing Director of Rubicon Theatre Project

Tonight we started playing around with Act II, having worked exclusively on Act I to this point.  As I sat and listened to Meg simply read the words of the opening monologue of Act II, something hit me.  The character of Christine (the one who is “obsessed” with “becoming Ingrid”) says something to the effect of how “torturously boring the holidays were,” referring to the winter break between semesters at the school in Scotland where she’s taking class.  Christine is married, and normally the holidays are usually a pretty joyous time people get to spend with their family, right?  Christine is married too, which made me wonder why?  Does she hate her husband?  Is it simply a marriage of convenience or tax purposes for the couple?  Talking about how the holidays with your husband were “torturously boring” is a pretty bold statement.  She also asks Ingrid during a short meeting in Ingrid’s office during Act I (Christine is taking a writing class taught by Ingrid during Act I) what it’s like living alone.  She also goes as far as saying that she’d like to live alone.  I know I’ve talked about obsession quite a bit already, but the idea really fascinates me:  to be interested in something so deeply, so religiously, that everything else just fades away to the background.  I imagine that this stems from some past, emotionally-scarring event, but what?  Can any type of “obsession” be good?  Obsession to be the best at something?  Is that really what obsession is:  the yearning to be the best at something?  The yearning to have the most knowledge about something?  Is it more dangerous than that?  Furthermore, is this marriage able to be saved?  I encourage anyone to respond with their opinion about any of this.  I’ve never been “obsessed” with anything, so I’m interested in getting other opinions and thoughts. 

Research links

Posted by DCA Theater on May 21, 2009 in January-June 2009 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Rubicon Theatre Project

by Scott Allen Luke, Managing Director of Rubicon Theatre Project

Here are some interesting links about the topic of obsession that the cast has shared and used to springboard some of our scene work:

BBC-Science & Nature - Human Body and Mind - Obsessive Behaviour

On obsessive love:

Wikipedia

Merriam-Webster Online

Thesaurus.com