Showing posts with label Autumn Horne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Autumn Horne. Show all posts
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Flux Sunday, July 6th

Monday, July 21, 2008 0 comments

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THE HAPPY RETURN OF FLUX SUNDAYS!
Well, after a long break courtesy of our production of Midsummer, Flux returned to our weekly workshop process, Flux Sundays. And it was good to be back! For those of us who worked on Midsummer directly, it was the perfect cure for the post play blues. And for those who didn't, it was good to jump back into our three hour fix. Autumn Horne brought her photographer friend,
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THE SELVES OF THESE KIND ARE BUT WALDOS
"Were you ever instructed by a wise and eloquent man? Remember then, were not the words that made your blood run cold, that brought the blood to your cheeks, that made you tremble or delighted you,—did they not sound to you as old as yourself? Was it not truth that you knew before, or do you ever expect to be moved from the pulpit or from man by anything but plain truth. Never. It is God in you that responds to God without, or affirms his own words trembling on the lips of another."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
But Rob didn't just direct this Sunday...he also brought the first scene of a VERY exciting new play about a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson who may or may not be possessed by his famous ancestor. Call Me Waldo features some working class guys rattled when one of their own suddenly starts uttering Ralph's raptures. Lee, played by Isaiah Tanenbaum in one of his finest Flux performances, only wants to keep his life together, and wants none of the attention his wife (Gretchen Poulos) and co-worker Gus (David Douglas Smith) start pouring on him. This was a really exciting first scene (well directed by Brian Pracht) funny and heartfelt, and we are all excited to see what comes next.

THE FITTS OF THIS DAVID ARE BUT CANDICE
(OK, I'm running out of steam with these headers). We then looked at my now favorite scene from Johnna Adam's Oneida, Servants of Motion. Oneida is set in an historical utopian community run by the charismatic founder John Humphrey Noyes. Noyes' creates a communistic heaven on earth, where every resource is shared and a complex marriage is practiced. Men and women take partners as they choose (often prompted by Noyes' eugenics), with the men practicing a male continence taught to them as pubescent boys by woman past child-bearing age. But wait, don't move to this paradise just yet! This scene picks up as Tirzah, denied her love for music and Edward because favoritism doesn't belong in Heaven, is playing the piano on the body of her uncle/lover Noyes in her sleep. Pregnant with a child she is determined to name Haydn after the music she and Edward were playing when they fell too much in love, Noyes realizes he must show Tirzah the harsh truth of her now exiled lover Edward if her heart will ever belong to the community again. Anne, the head of the Criticism community and the only non-direct relative of Noyes to rise to power, produces a series of letters from Edward in the outside world where he denounces his love for Tirzah and their child. David played Noyes, Candice Holdorf a gentle and unsettling Anne, and Amy Fitts a haunted but still passionate Tirzah in this lovely scene.

THE BEST OF THE BODIES ARE BUT OTHERS
We ended with a rewrite from our Fringe play, Other Bodies, with Heather Cohn getting white knuckle performances from Aaron as Terry and Jane as Time.

It was good, very good, to be back.
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Flux Sunday, March 16th

Tuesday, April 1, 2008 0 comments

ALONE AND TOGETHER
One of our most exciting and well-executed Flux's that I can remember, our work together on the 16th seemed to coalesce around themes of aloneness and togetherness. Those themes were especially lovely and unsettling in Johnna Adams' play Oneida, Servants of Motion, about the Perfectionist communist christian utopian community that thrived for 33 years in upstate New York in the mid 1800's (picture to the left). The Oneidans share everything, including and most famously there marriage - all the women of the community were married to all of the men - and in this "complex marriage" (as they called it) women were encouraged to have multiple partners and the men required to practice male continence. The incredible closeness of this community lead (for some) to an equally strong alienation; and those themes echoed through the rest of our work.

SIMPLE: WHAT ALONE SOUNDS LIKE
In Jaime Robert Carrillo's play Simple, that alienation was at its strongest. Director Kate Mark and a cast of Joe Mathers, Gretchen Poulos and Jake Alexander found theatrically evocative ways to stage Jaime's themes of disconnection: one actor would turn upstage and say the lines as another actor silently acted saying them. Simple, but effectively disturbing, and Joe as the Clerk and Gretchen as Gigi and the Waitress found the humor surrounding Jake's portrayal of Perry as an open walking wound. We'd read these scenes at a Sunday last year, but Kate's staging really brought these first scenes to a disturbingly vivid life. Perry tries increasingly asocial ways to establish any kind of social connection.

ONEIDA: ALONE IN A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE
In contrast, Mary has an entire utopian community married to her to help her through the pain of her stillborn child. But in this next scene of Johnna's Oneida, that only makes her feel more alone. Because the Oneidans also practiced open and vigorous group criticism, Mary's failure to bring a child to birth subjects her to not only the group's concerned love, but also their concerned criticism; particularly at the hands of Ann, the head of criticism fiercely played by Flux newcomer Nitya Vidyasagar. In order to make up for her failure, Mary (heartbreakingly played by another newbie, Autumn Horne) asks for more and more severe criticism. This unsettlingly funny and sad scene was well staged by Jaime and featured additional great work from Jane Taylor, Ken Glickfeld, and Jason Paradine.

TEXAS TOAST: OTHER MARRIAGES DINING TOGETHER
In contrast with the 'complex' communal marriage of Oneida, Katherine Burger's Texas Toast again contrasted the vital and cruel marriage of the Texan Bo and Sally against the fragile and kind marriage of East Coasters Claire and Andrew. I was lucky enough to direct a dream cast of Richard Watson, Elise Link, Amy Fitts and David Ian Lee; and in a dinner scene between the two couples, watch how subtly Katherine exposes the fault lines and shifting allegiances between them. The theme of childlessness from Oneida carries through into Claire's chilling public declaration of her own barrenness; and as Andrew continues to hide the secret of his dalliance in Thailand, our hopes for this couple come under increasing siege.

BIRD HOUSE: TOGETHER UNTIL YOU'RE NOT
But if Texas Toast hints at the impending doom of a couple, Bird House gives it to us direct, albeit in its trademark vaudevillian style. Syl and Lousy have the banter of mutual shut-ins shut-in for a very long time - playwright Kate Marks even has ancient versions of them occasionally commenting on the action. But Syl, inspired by the hints of war and death and full of her own ability to change things, leaves the musty safety of Louisy behind; and in the silly comic banter that ensues, a little of the loneliness these zanies may find creeps in.

A WONDERFUL WIFE: ALONE WITH YOURSELF
The denouement of Jeremy Basescu's A Wonderful Wife served as a lovely and apt denouement to our days' work: whereas the other four plays' scenes dealt with breaking apart and disconnecting, Wife ends with June coming together in herself. She doesn't need Carl, Max, or the vampiric Angela to find beauty any longer; she has found it in herself. She has become, in the memorable words of Max's girlfriend (and Angela's defiant daughter) Christine, almost like the air in a room; her presence expanding to fill everything while at the same time giving room for others to move within. Rob Ackerman's reading of Carl the husband's letter to his lost wife proved a melancholy counterpoint to June's newfound independence - he is finally all the way alone and his only grace, knowing he is the sole cause of it.

After all the scenes were done, we had just enough time to circle and discuss one moment in the day's work that had some 'heat'; and all five plays received well-deserved attention. And I left feeling lucky to be a part of Flux's own, ever evolving and always complex marriage. Read the full story