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Week 2

Posted by DCA Theater on January 26, 2009 in January-June 2009 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Black Sheep Productions

by Vance Smith, director

On Saturday (1-17) we received from Steve a new version of Scene 5 with a few notable revisions and a completely overhauled Act 2.  About half of it was brand new and much of what remained from earlier drafts had been restructured.  The changes increase the stakes considerably.  First we worked on Scene 5.  The new changes made a big difference, and the earlier problems with motivation appear to have been eliminated.  Then we all sat to read the new Act 2.  The cast seemed excited by the changes, so I decided to go ahead and put it up on it’s feet.  We staged it and gave it a run through.  Something was off.  The new draft is a big improvement, but the characters and situations, while admittedly often absurd, no longer seem grounded in realty.  A pitfall of a piece like this is to play the funny at the expense of the darker and more emotional elements of the script.  I think I staged it too soon.  We should have spent more time at the table discussing what’s at stake for these characters.

On Sunday (1-18) we had our first run of the show.  I began by talking to the actors and reminding them that everyone is this play has lost everything and is hanging by a thread.  As Steve has pointed out to us, even though some of what happens in the play seems outlandish, all of it is based directly on things that are happening right now.  Much of the humor is rooted in pain and anger, and I encouraged the cast for this run through to attempt to disregard the jokes and focus instead on grounding these characters emotionally.  I’ll be the first to admit, that while watching the first couple of scenes, I wondered if this little experiment had been a mistake.  But somewhere in the third scene, the actors began to find some truly touching moments of real connection.  Afterwards, several actors said they were glad we had done that work today, and it certainly gave Steve and me a clearer sense of where the script stands.  I think the basic structure of the second act is sound now, which puts us in an excellent position to start shaping it.