Tag Archive for: LIDLESS

WORKING WITH PLAYWRIGHTS

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One of the things that I love about my job is the opportunity to collaborate with the living playwright. My passion for directing new plays began in Graduate School. Directing a new play is risky because new plays are produced without a safety net of tradition…there is no production history to fall back on. Everything involved in doing a new play is done from scratch. The success of a new play is invariably founded on the successful collaboration of the artists involved. This is what we do at the Contemporary American Theater Festival…we develop and produce new work with the playwright. And this experience really turns me on.

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with Michele Lowe (INANA) and Max Baker(EELWAX JESUS) while I was in New York. We looked at preliminary set designs and discussed production concepts etc. Hearing their ideas and feedback was incredibly important. It is exciting to collaborate with these writers during this important pre-production period.

I have been in constant communication with J.T.Rogers RE: WHITE PEOPLE and Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig (LIDLESS) and I have been trading emails RE: my directors concept for her play. Frances is in China doing research and J.T. is in Afghanistan working on his latest play BLOOD AND GIFTS. Our conversations have been stimulating and productive.

All five of our 2010 playwrights will be in residence in Shepherdstown at various time throughout the rehearsal and performance process. They are an important  part of the creative process. They play a vital role in developing their plays at our Theater Festival. We are a playwright inspired theater and we listen to our playwrights. We encourage and welcome their ideas and suggestions. We involve them in every step of the creative process. For example: Yesterday… Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig and I were  discussing the Sound Design for LIDLESS. I emailed her my idea to create a percussion soundscape of “cell doors/cage doors/locking doors opening and closing.” I also suggested using “birds” in the soundscape. Here is her response:

“I really love this bird idea, and it makes me think about nature soundscapes as a whole–and using sound as an element that provides different information from what you see visually. For example, since the grays, the chain-link fence, is already suggesting the entrapment, the getting stuck/being in a cage is already expressed visually, I wonder if the soundscape would be effective focused around things like birds, ocean, wind, static, etc. It is interesting to me that the ocean is something that can always be heard at Gitmo, and that white noise is used to disorient, and that white noise often sounds very much like the ocean, played at a different pace…And then of course Bashir talks about how he always found ways to change terrible things(i.e. moans and screams) into wind whistling through trees, etc…So that could suggest something too that any noise that sounds ominous has a transition point to a nature sound, etc…So maybe since visually we are getting the chain link fences, the harshness, the metal, that an organic soundscape could open things.”

I asked Frances if she heard any specific music in her play. She offered this intuitive suggestion for me to consider in the Sound Design:

“If there is any kind of music/tonality, I imagine that perhaps it is used during Bashir’s hallucinations, and when he talks to his daughter…perhaps the acapella voice of a woman singing a Pakistani ballad/lullaby. Without instrumental accompaniment. We never feel the presence of Bashir’s ethnic heritage in language, etc…so maybe there is a subtle way to integrate it into the soundscape. This could also be used to add a haunting element, as Bashir is haunted by the past he left and  that is gone forever to him…(his dead wife, his young daughter.)”

As you can imagine…this is terrific feedback from the writer. Her intuitive ideas are something that I can really run with. I can integrate her suggestions into my concept for the production. It gives me a starting point as I begin my collaboration with the Sound Designer.

This is one example of the kinds of conversations that I have with our writers. I am interested in hearing your reaction to this playwright/director conversation. Please share your comments on this blog.

Ed Herendeen

DIRECTOR’S CONCEPT LIDLESS

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I have a 9am phone conference today with Bob Klingelhoefer our Set Designer to discuss my concept for LIDLESS by Francis Ya-Chu Cowhig. I want to share some of my ideas with you RE: this very important and original new play. Let me begin with an excerpt from a recent email from the playwright…in her own words: FYI: Frances is currently in China.

“Great to hear from you-and thank you so much for selecting LIDLESS to produce in your festival. I’m thrilled that the play will be shared with your community/audiences and hope it will spark some meaningful dialogue…In terms of insights/research notes–here are nine items that proved most useful to me during my research for the play:

1. MY WAR GONE BY, I MISS IT SO by Anthony Loyd…gives great insight into psychological  addiction to war/trauma as heightened experience.

2. THE NIGHT PORTER (film)

3. DEATH AND THE MAIDEN (film/play)

4. A FIELD GUIDE FOR FEMALE INTERROGATORS by Coco Fusco

5. FIVE YEARS OF MY LIFE by Murat Kurnaz…best detainee memoir.

6. MY GUANTANAMO DIARY by Mahvish Rukhsana Khan…a memoir

7. ENEMY COMBATANT by Mozzam Begg…a memoir.

8. EIGHT O’CLOCK FERRY TO THE WINDWARD SIDE by Clive Stafford Smith…written by Gitmo attorney.

9. THE INTERROGATORS by Chris Mackey…written by a former Army interrogator.

In terms of insights, ideas, notes–I just worked on the play for two weeks at Seattle Rep–and learned that the play works best when objects are kept to a minimal, transitions are lightning fast and the whole play happens in almost a streak or dream of motion–no traditional lights down between scenes–they just fall on top of each other and keep moving, as if (as suggested in the title) the audience is just being forced to watch a stream of action without having time to blink or breath. Running time is about 70 minutes–so it can really be one fluid motion from start to end…The play works best outside a proscenium staging. I thought about LAST TANGO IN PARIS a lot when I was thinking about Bashir and Alice’s relationship–there is a raw, erotic tension that is a silent non-verbal almost subterranean current between them throughout the play.”   Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig

My Director’s Concept for LIDLESS :

TIME/PLACE: A day in Guantanamo in 2004. A week in Minnesota, fifteen years later. Minimal, not realistic. Set pieces should transform instantly from scene to scene.

WORLD OF THE PLAY:  A prison/a cage/a box. The play begins in a prison surrounded by chain-link fences in 2004 and in Minnesota 15 years later. But all the characters are trapped in a prison of their memories. They can’t escape their individual prisons until they come to terms with their past. Bashir was held captive in Guantanamo…in a cage. Alice is held captive by her inability to remember her past. Lucas is held captive by his former addiction to heroin. Rhiannon is held captive by her lost identity. Riva is held captive by her memory. All the characters are trapped in their own cages. I want to create a world that traps the characters in a lidless cage. I want to set the action of this story in a lidless cage surrounded by chain-link. The only way out is through redemption and forgiveness. There is no “lid” on redemption.

PREDOMINANT ELEMENT:  CHARACTER/STORY:  LIDLESS is a story told by characters. This is a character/story driven play. I want to focus the audience’s attention on the characters telling this story. The scenery/props should be minimal and suggestive…a unit set environment. Let the characters be the focal point. Can we surround them and trap them in a lidless cage?

METAPHOR:  A CAGE/A CHAIN-LINK PRISON:  I am struck by the image of the Zunzum bird (a humming bird) Bashir say’s “It can fly through the chain-link cells.” Another powerful metaphor in the play is “boundaries.” I am also struck by the image/metaphor of the “Iguanna”…an endangered species. “The Iguanna has cells that, when activated by trauma, can regenerate a new tail completely. It doesn’t have to ask for anyone for help. It can just lie on a warm rock and mend. It’s completely self-sufficient.” Another powerful metaphor is Rhiannon’s high school  “Oral History Project.”  And finally the image/metaphor of the human liver. Bashir needs a liver transplant. The liver is where the soul lives.

MAIN IDEA:  LIDLESS is a play about redemption and forgiveness. It is a story about coming to terms with one’s past…one’s guilt…dealing with and remembering the past. It is a story about the search for one’s true self…one’s true identity.

These are some of my thoughts regarding my concept for directing this powerful new drama. I hope that this will give you some insight into my directing process…especially during this pre-production phase. Over the years I have learned to trust my first impressions of a play. I always begin by listening to my intuition. I believe in the intuitive process when ever I begin to direct a new project. I am interested in hearing your response to these beginning ideas. Please fell free to comment on this blog.

Ed Herendeen