Performing in Hamlet with Slipstream Theatre Initiative this month.
The play is setting in a women's asylum, in which the inmates are performing Hamlet as therapy and demonstration of their stability. Naturally, the whole thing goes a little awry and devolves into chaos.
The rehearsal process was surprisingly hands off, which was both freeing and confusing. We started just about every rehearsal with a group therapy session instead of acting games or warmups. We were encouraged to meet with each other outside of rehearsal to discuss our characters and make specific choices to bring back and use to fill out the world of the play. We rehearsed and developed the play within the performance space--a small, former recording studio just of 8 mile road. It's a bad ass little building that was under construction, just like us, while we worked.
My favorite rehearsal night was the one in which we began to do the play backstage as well as onstage. It was a run and during it, we played our asylum character's offstage--effectively figuring out and playing the story that the audience doesn't get to see. Filling in and filling up all of that space and time as logically and actively as it made sense with our characters. This was not something that we discussed as an ahead of time plan or something that the director asked of us. It was natural collaborative creation happening. It led to some really terrific discoveries and work that has impacted the onstage show as we keep performing, now with an audience.
I continue to be surprised and befuddled when I am treated like an artist who has the right to make choices, ask questions, and participate in creating a thing. Collaboration is scary. You are at once free to create together and beholden to the group.
In an interview about Theatre du Soleil, Ariane Mnouchkine commented that "The work of a group moves forward slowly, more slowly than the evolutions of an individual alone" (Williams 23). It's interesting to me, she's noting that when you collaborate, the process is responsive and reflective of many different minds and bodies, this naturally means the it will be a slower process as things come together and apart and coalesce through multiple avenues. One person may make a leap but the whole group making a leap together is the goal. One leap is of course quicker than a collective.
I have most often been in a place where I am working to supplement a director's vision or to hold a vision as director. But lately, I've been working in environments where my choices are valued, questioned, and adopted. I think this kind of collaboration is valuable. Indespensible even. And the audiences and critics seem to agree, which is kind of fun =)
First Ma'amlet review
Second Ma'amlet review
The play is setting in a women's asylum, in which the inmates are performing Hamlet as therapy and demonstration of their stability. Naturally, the whole thing goes a little awry and devolves into chaos.
The rehearsal process was surprisingly hands off, which was both freeing and confusing. We started just about every rehearsal with a group therapy session instead of acting games or warmups. We were encouraged to meet with each other outside of rehearsal to discuss our characters and make specific choices to bring back and use to fill out the world of the play. We rehearsed and developed the play within the performance space--a small, former recording studio just of 8 mile road. It's a bad ass little building that was under construction, just like us, while we worked.
My favorite rehearsal night was the one in which we began to do the play backstage as well as onstage. It was a run and during it, we played our asylum character's offstage--effectively figuring out and playing the story that the audience doesn't get to see. Filling in and filling up all of that space and time as logically and actively as it made sense with our characters. This was not something that we discussed as an ahead of time plan or something that the director asked of us. It was natural collaborative creation happening. It led to some really terrific discoveries and work that has impacted the onstage show as we keep performing, now with an audience.
I continue to be surprised and befuddled when I am treated like an artist who has the right to make choices, ask questions, and participate in creating a thing. Collaboration is scary. You are at once free to create together and beholden to the group.
In an interview about Theatre du Soleil, Ariane Mnouchkine commented that "The work of a group moves forward slowly, more slowly than the evolutions of an individual alone" (Williams 23). It's interesting to me, she's noting that when you collaborate, the process is responsive and reflective of many different minds and bodies, this naturally means the it will be a slower process as things come together and apart and coalesce through multiple avenues. One person may make a leap but the whole group making a leap together is the goal. One leap is of course quicker than a collective.
I have most often been in a place where I am working to supplement a director's vision or to hold a vision as director. But lately, I've been working in environments where my choices are valued, questioned, and adopted. I think this kind of collaboration is valuable. Indespensible even. And the audiences and critics seem to agree, which is kind of fun =)
First Ma'amlet review
Second Ma'amlet review
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