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Something out of Nothing

Posted by DCA Theater on October 18, 2010 in July-December 2010 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Sideshow Theatre

by Mike Steele, Strangerland ensemble member

At one point in time, I was not here.  I did not exist.  Furthermore, neither did you or him or her or any of us.  Every second of every day the past is eaten by the future.  Time, one might argue, is nature’s most bloodthirsty cannibal.  Not only do our cells get replaced by new ones over time but moments, thoughts, ideas, emotions are temporary as well – who I am in this moment is different from who I was in the last.  I never stop evolving.  Just like we entered this world, as something out of nothing, so too are we constantly creating originality in ourselves and in the world.  It’s not always easy to see, but the re-creation of ourselves is ceaseless until the day we die. 

Hi!  I’m Mike Steele.  This is a picture of a former version of myself from two days ago.

Of all the things we cram into the definition of “Theatre,” I believe that first and foremost it is a form of active observation of the human condition.  This is why, in creating Strangerland, we pushed our ensemble to create based on the substances of their own personal lives; to pull a nascent impulse from real life to begin the process of writing our play.  But an impulse is momentary.  The real work emerged in pushing that initial impulse into something that propels one or more actors onto a journey of discovery.  It is our task as devisors to push at those impulses, to create an environment that allows them to evolve from one moment to the next until we’ve reached a series of impulses that bind together in our version of a “scene.”  Moreover, whenever we revisit those initial impulses, it is the actor’s work to not create the original moment all over again, but to live in it anew.  The scene that gets created retains a certain plot or architecture, but the journey through it will be filled differently every time.  Live theatre is an act that can never be accomplished in exactly the same way twice.  It’s an act of observing the human condition live, in real time, as it subjects itself to an act genesis.  Every performance is not a repeat of the night before, but, rather, is a new, further evolved version begot by yesterday’s.  Each rendition is the son or daughter of the last.  Similarly, each rehearsal is a re-invention.  The same way that, in any moment, we, as people, are the re-creation of our former selves.

But what the hell does all this mean in practical terms?  For an example, there is a scene in Strangerland where two indivduals, a man and a woman, have been exiled from their community.  They find themselves alone, for the first time, in an unfamiliar location.  It was my task, along with the fine acting talent of Nate Wheldon and Nicole Richwalsky to find out what happens between them.  What we found was the journey that two people take in finding shelter in one another – how the loneliness induced by a large, mysterious, vacuous space can urge two people to lose themselves in each other and discover a smaller universe.  You might call it love, communion, companionship or any number of terms.  But by approaching the work without any preconceived notion of those definitions, we ended up laying bare the base humanity that leads us to such acts in complete, child-like innocence.  The most exciting moment came in a discovery of how two people with no former knowledge of affection, stumble upon our most common expression of love: a kiss!  How did it happen?  COME SEE THE PLAY TO FIND OUT!!!  MUAH-HAHAHA!  And now I leave you with a short video from the final segment of that scene in rehearsal.  Enjoy, and see you on the 25th!