A sample, if you like

Posted by DCA Theater on December 15, 2008 in July-December 2008 Season, INCUBATOR Series: The Plagiarists

by Gregory Peters, Plagiarist, writer and project facilitator

What have we been doing this week? I’m calling it “exploding scenes.” We get into small groups, define the scene a little, and then try to think of everything that might go into the scene - where the characters are at in their journey, what their motivations, relationships and opinions might be, what the historical context is, why the scene seems important to the play as a whole, what information & themes might be covered, and all the iterations of structure we can think of. Then we present to the group as a whole and get even more ideas, critiques, and questions. The result is a clear guide, everything you might need to write a scene. Here’s an example:

Survivors Awarded Legion of Honor

Scene: In 1831, the survivors of the raft were awarded the Legion of Honor. After the ceremony some of the survivors gather and talk at a public house.

Characters:

-Correard: Freshly returned from England, has gotten into trains but is still politically active. Is he unhinged & obsessed still? Or has he calmed down? Has he returned because Charles X is dead and the Bourbons are out of power, because of the medal, or both? Or neither?
-De Savigny: embittered, ill, no longer mayor of Soubise.
-Du Bellay: A mystery. Quits Schmaltz and Senegal and then vanishes from our records. Is he still apologizing? Does he feel worthy? Guilty? Has he become a revolutionary? Does he have a Judas/Simon peter problem? What is his relationship to the government & society as a whole?

Scene Details:

Do they enter one at a time or in a group or in groups? Is someone already there? Did they all anticipate meeting there or does one of them crash the conversation? Are they intoxicated? Is Du Bellay’s level of drunkenness/obnoxiousness at odds with the others?

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Week One, Done

Posted by DCA Theater on December 10, 2008 in July-December 2008 Season, INCUBATOR Series: The Plagiarists

Week One, Done - 11 Characters and 57 scenes

By Gregory Peters, Plagiarist, writer & project facilitator

So the first week was dedicated to discovering what this play is about. We came up with a lot of answers, here are some of them:

Main Characters

•      J.B. HENRY DE SEVIGNY, ship’s surgeon and raft survivor
•      CHARLOTTE PICARD, Medusa passenger and memoirist
•      THÉODORE GÉRICAULT, painter
•      ALEXANDER CORRÉARD, engineer and raft survivor
•      COLONEL JULIEN-DÉSIRÉ SCHMALTZ, merchant and French Governor of Senegal
•      GRIFFON DU BELLAY, Schmaltz’s clerk and raft survivor
•      François Joseph de Gratet, vicomte Dubouchage, Navy Minister,
•      Viscount HUGUES DUROY DE CHAUMAREYS, Frigate-Captain, Captain of the Medusa
•      ÉLIE DECAZES, Minister of Police, later Prime Minister
•      LIEUTENANT JOSEPH PIERRE ANDRÉ REYNAUD, second in command of The Medusa, Commander of the Governor’s barge
•      Richefort, Medusa passenger

Important Events & Scene Ideas

•      Appointment of De Chaumereys as Captain of The Medusa
•      The Medusa departs
•      Schmaltz lowered into the lifeboat while sitting in his armchair
•      Raft abandoned by the other boats
•      Unveiling of the painting
•      Correard/De Sevigney look at the painting for the first time
•      Someone ignorant of the event observes the painting
•      Richefort presents the Captain with the raft idea
•      Richefort gains Captain’s ear/control of him
•      De Sevigny decides to cut rations to the ones he judges too weak aboard the raft
•      Nightfall of the first day on the raft
•      Storm on the raft

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First ImpressionsB

Posted by DCA Theater on December 8, 2008 in July-December 2008 Season, INCUBATOR Series: The Plagiarists

by Ian Miller, Plagiarists company member

About a year ago I read the account of the Wreck of the Medusa and ever since have threatened to adapt the tale to stage. After much reading and research, pontification-but mostly hemming and hawing, I was confronted with a number of cures-though no action of my own, I assure you- that has given me the sense that the project is charmed.  Greg Peters was ravenous with the material.  It was Greg that found the firsthand accounts of the story and the dreadful (and wonderful) play that was written shortly after the disaster.  I found myself having to sneak glances at Wikipedia before every conversation just to stay sharp.  Greg began the writing process and has been managing it ever since.  Then the DCA offered a space to workshop the script.  It took about twenty-minutes with the group meeting on our first night to know that we had been given a opportunity that is rare for an artist. A clean, well light place, WITH an emphasis on, growth, development, experimentation-incubation. I come from a background of film where a workshop is usually sought deep into the process after voice and style have hardened and egos are sensitive.  With this process it seems we’ve been permitted to color again The third ingredient is that we have a terrific group of people. No haters. The ideas are free flowing. Everyone takes ownership of the material but no one ever dominates the process.  I feel we are looking within the story to find the moments that resonate between each us. After spending a year with the story of the Medusa in my mind like vapor, it is nice to reach in with the empathy of allies in this process feel something corporal and finite. 

First Impressions

Posted by DCA Theater on December 8, 2008 in July-December 2008 Season, INCUBATOR Series: The Plagiarists

By Gregory Peters, Plagiarist, writer & project facilitator

“In fact, there is no action so manifestly evil that it cannot be seen and described as a justifiable and purely defensive measure. But none of this should be allowed to confuse us.”
-Wallace Shawn

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: The Plagiarists have always been blessed with the caliber of people that choose to work with us. When we set out to do this, we had a plan, but we’ve already abandoned most of our early ideas and assumptions, because better ones have come from the workshop process. This group is so smart, informed, empathetic, articulate, and passionate that we don’t really need to do anything but open up the discussion for things to start coming together. Here we are, developing a play based on a 19th century maritime disaster, and people can’t wait to get started, to jump in and make things happen.  We started with some core themes:

1. Class & Political Tension
  a. What is an Anti-Meritocracy and what are its effects?
  b. Does social rank equal destiny in this society?
  c. How does an unjust social system endure? How does it change?
  d. How does an important event affect different layers of a society?
  e. What effect does this society have on loyalty to religion, truth, nation, class, or political persuasion?

2. Dealing With Trauma & Horror
  a. How do we deal with experiencing truly traumatic & horrifying events?
  b. Can we trust memories of such an event?
  c. How do we communicate or interpret these experiences?
  d. Can art communicate or interpret these experiences?

3. Morality
  a. Evil——Carelessness——Ignorance
  b. Heroic———Necessary——-Evil

4. Point of View
  a. How does the passage of time affect our view of this event?
  b. How does our changed social circumstances and psychology affect our view of this event?
  c. Why does the story hold significance for us?
  d. Can we be objective? Should we?

So, there it is. Next up, we’ll see how all this goes. For your pleasure, some alternate version of Gericault’s “The Raft of the Medusa”:
Vegatables (appropriate, you know, since they ate each other…)

Models

INFORMATION. INFORMATION. INFORMATION.

Posted by DCA Theater on December 3, 2008 in July-December 2008 Season, INCUBATOR Series: The Plagiarists

By Gregory Peters, Plagiarist, writer & project facilitator

“The annals of the marine record no example of a shipwreck so terrible as that of the Medusa frigate.”
– From Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816

In 1816, The Medusa ran aground on the Bank of Arguin and was abandoned. While high-ranking and well-connected passengers found refuge in the longboats, the rest were forced onto a makeshift raft and abandoned miles from shore. Of the 150 people on the raft, only fifteen lived to be rescued. When the survivors returned to France tell their story, they were blacklisted and slandered by a government desperate to cover up the truth. With a mix of monologues, scenes, and metafictional elements, much of it taken directly from first-person accounts, we tell the story of The Medusa’s wreck and her unfortunate crew and the disastrous circumstances that led to it, and the paranoia, madness, cannibalism, hallucinations, murder and daily mutinies on the raft itself.

We also tell the story of the aftermath – the struggle to make the truth known, the effect it had on the lives of the survivors and the country as a whole, and Théodore Géricault’s famous painting that the story inspired. It is a play about epic stupidity, small-mindedness, and selfishness – of privilege and appearance rewarded and defended against competence and honesty, but also about people making the truth known despite all odds, standing up to those who would have them silenced, and the struggle of art to capture and communicate the truth of harrowing experiences.

So, what the heck are we doing??

You might well ask. I’m wondering myself. Plagiarist Ian brought us this story almost a year ago, and we immediately seized on it as being a project we were all excited about. I mean, come on, it’s got everything. We worked on it, discussed it, read about, chewed on it, all while working on other projects and basically got nowhere. What we needed was a more focused and disciplined approach, a big chunk of time, and a bunch of smart people. So we got the chance to work at the DCA, we immediately knew what we had to do: we gathered a bunch of brilliant, talented, holistically-oriented theatre artists together to help us develop the piece. Our goals are to emerge with a clear idea of what the piece is and where it needs to go next and to get good drafts of quite a few scenes and such. Then, on December 22nd, to show everyone what we’ve been up to.

So, there you go. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about how last night went. And I’d like to close with this moment from *Ghostbusters*:

Egon Spengler: “… There’s definitely a very slim chance we’ll survive.”

Dr. Peter Venkman: “I love this plan! I’m excited to be a part of it! LET’S
DO IT!”

I agree. Let’s do it.

Théodore Géricault , Le Radeau de la Méduse (“The Raft of the Medusa”), 1819