Flux Theatre Ensemble

Our last Sunday of 2007 began with this quote from Trevor Nunn in the preface of Playing Shakespeare (originally a television series) and his experience with the Royal Shakespeare Company:
"The Company is founded on continuity. It is surely unique that a television series can field a cast of internationally and nationally famous performers who are present precisely because they feel themselves to be members of a theatre company, and who have shared the experience of trying to communicate the ambiguities and complexities of the greatest of all dramatists."
Two things struck me about this quote:
1.) Belonging to a theatre company can be a lifelong force of continuity in an artist's life, regardless of what measure of traditional success they do or do not achieve, and;
2.) Why are there not more companies committed to the "shared experience of trying to communicate the ambiguities and complexities of" living playwrights?

And this second thought has stuck with me. Certainly, actors and directors become known as premiere interpreters of this playwright or that; and companies frequently begin life as vehicles for a certain playwright and director. But the sustained commitment to a playwright's voice that exists in Shakespeare companies seems to me, for the living playwright, exceptionally rare.

But when such a continuity exists, in can yield things like Mamet's Atlantic, Brecht's Berliner, Chekhov with Moscow Art, etc. Yet the idea of providing a living playwright with the lifetime of connection with a specific group of artists necessary to fully achieve their work of "ambiguity and complexity"...well, it seems very difficult to realize.

Is Flux this company for me, and could it be for the other playwright gradually joining our community? I don't know. But it sure is fun to think about.

Anyway...our last Flux Sunday was a good one, and at the very least, the most relaxing session I can remember. We began by reading through the latest scene in David Ian Lee's Sleeper, and the staging scenes from Adam Szymkowicz's Open Hearts, Erin Browne's Trying, and Katherine Burger's Legends of Batvia.

Highlights included Christina and Jason finding the right balance of comic strip humor and human reality as Lisa and Peter in Adam's scene (and with an assist from first time director Jake Alexander); I will not soon forget Jason's heroic doctor ripping-off-the-glasses move.

In Trying, Kay Mitchell brought out the hills and valleys of the difficult love between two struggling sisters, and then the thrill of attraction in a second scene that featured Elise Link showing her range in a very different role as an aggressive yet vulnerable love-struck book store employee. It was exciting to be introduced to this new play of Erin's!

Finally, we settled into the delightful feast of language that is Katherine's Batvia. Highlights here included Jane Taylor's Irish Scotsman, as she tossed Katherine's aria paragraphs effortlessly into the air; and Candice's Anthea showing us the meaning of brisk haste.

And all I had to do was stroll from room to room and watch the action, and think big thoughts, and laugh at little things, and enjoy all these wonderful people. Read the full story

After our hiatus for Pretty Theft and the holiday, it was great to return to our weekly workshop series, Flux Sunday. We ended up at Tiffany's Robin Reggi space, a hip architectural loft with lots of space for different scenes rehearsing simultaneously.

And that was a good thing, because we had a record 8 scripts to wrestle with! To accommodate the number of pages and some late arriving Fluxers, some were read at the table and the rest staged. While I had a few tense moments trying to pair the actors with parts, making sure everyone had something worth their time, it ended up being one of our more vibrant Sundays.

We began reading Jaime Robert Carrillo's Simple. Flux knows Jaime as a versatile actor and passionate director (as well as an associate producer at Classical Theatre of Harlem) so it was great to see this side of his talent. A lonely man and his unusual sexual encounter in a strange hotel had a cinematic fluidity that gave the enigmatic action some urgency.

We then moved onto Brian Pracht's now classic Flux Sunday play, The Misogynist, or No More Mr Nice Guy. We developed this play at our last Flux Retreat, and Brian has continued to fine tune this dark comedy of frustrated male desire. This particular scene reminded me of the balance Brian strikes throughout the play of good vs bad intentions - no action any of these characters take is ever just one or the other.

Then onto Rob Ackerman's Icarus of Ohio, an epic memory play of one genius teenager's creation of a human ornithopter, i.e. human-propelled wings. We're really getting into the heart of this play now, and Tom DelPizzo brought all the arrogance and vulnerability that lives in our protagonist Jay's heart. Rob has all of the balls in the air now- the bullies, Jay's girlfriend Maggie, his now-surpassed mentors the Salt Brothers, the manipulating Admiral Crane trying to get the secret out of Jay- and now it is a matter to see how everything, well, falls. Rob just wrote that this play is going to be a part of staged reading series called hotInk, and I can't wait to hear the play in full. And a scene from Icarus will be in our next Have Another bar series on the 7th!

We then split into five groups with an hour to rehearse each of the scenes: Kay Mitchell directing David Ian Lee's Sleeper, Jeremy Basescu self-directing his A Wonderful Wife, David Douglas Smith directing Adam Szymkowicz's Open Heart, Jaime directing Johnna Adam's 8 Little Antichrists, and Candice Holdorf directing herself in Katherine Burger's Ah, Batvia!

I am always amazed by how even an hour's rehearsal can snap a scene into near production quality level of heat. That is always true of anything Candice does - her legendary series of performances at Flux always seem to involve costumes, props, and of course, razor sharp acting choices. In Ah Batvia, she played Katherine's divine Anthea, a Batvian were-panther married to a doddering English lord for devious purposes. She, Ken Glickfeld, Joe Mathers and Katherine's delirious language made me laugh out loud numerous times.

My sister Marnie and I landed the first scenes of Johnna's 8 Little Antichrists, the final play in her Angel Eaters trilogy. All three plays will be discussed more in depth in later entries, but this first scene really heightened my expectations for where this play will go (Mason conspiracies!) and acting with Marn is always great; though because this was a brother-sister fight, I found myself shaking a little afterwards. I think we fought more in that scene than we have in years of sibling hood!

Part of the thrill of Flux Sundays is our actors learning how to work within the worlds of our playwrights. With Adam's Open Heart, the sheer delight Tiffany Clementi and Brian Pracht took in his lunatic lovers showed me we're getting closer to understanding how his plays work; especially gratifying after Tiffany and Brian did such fine work in his Pretty Theft. Not to mention its really fun anytime you have playwrights like Adam, Johnna, Brian and Katherine all acting together in a scene.

Jeremy's A Wonderful Wife has been a wonderful opportunity to watch Cotton Wright wring both venom and longing from the simplest statements; in this scene, she played a character new to the play, Cynthia; and clearly articulated this young woman's journey into understanding, and using, the power her beauty holds. A rapt Jake Alexander gave the scene a surprisingly potent chemistry for a mere hour's rehearsal.

We had run out of time, and the playwright of Sleeper David Ian Lee had not materialized, and so for a moment we debated holding the scene until the next Flux. But graciously the group decided to stay, and we were treated to a melancholy dream sequence between lost father and grieving daughter (Rob Ackerman and Hannah Wolfe respectively), and then to the treat of Jane Taylor ripping the roof off with her potently offensive right wing talk show host. Our collective jaws dropped.

Eight scenes, twenty artists and three hours (and change) later, we emerged from the day more or less in tact, and already thinking about the next one. Read the full story