You two weren't just drinking from the bottle (or box, as the case may be)--you were drinking from the Well. Talk about ratcheting up the excitement.
-----Original Message----- From: weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Suhler, Jayne Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 2:01 PM To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Weeklong-l] For Your Consideration
Hi all:
We woke up this morning hung over and wondering what the heck we had written. No, just kidding. Are you kidding? We could hardly make it past 10:30 before calling it a night. I'm afraid our all-nighters may (I said may) be behind us.
But we did wake up still feeling pretty good about the "scene morphing" idea. So we were truly excited and happy to see that some of you think it worthy of discussion! Alice, tossing the king a crown to transform a scene, yes. Terry, sharing the stage and making this even more collaborative than ever, yes. One thing that we thought this might do is keep us from having to spend a lot of our time split into small groups during our week.
We even - dare we mention this? - let our minds consider what might happen if we made the stage a tavern. A pub. A public place, where all things can happen. Wrestling matches happen in pubs, Merry Wives have happy hours in pubs, wives call out their husbands in pubs, people sit by themselves and brood in pubs, Romeos meet Juliets in pubs. Songs are sung and dances are danced in pubs.
That may be going way, way too far, but we also recalled that this sort of discussion is exactly how we always spent the first weeks at Winedale every summer. Letting our imaginations run wild. Maybe we then pulled back, but always, always we took something important from those creative sessions.
Thanks, Doc, for giving us this opportunity one more time and thank heavens for email!
Kathy is on her way back to Austin for a busy week of work and I'm leaving town for a week. But we look forward to reading all the incoming mail....
Kathy & Jayne
P.S. Jackson: The wine was a nice pinot grigio in a box, selected by the wine specialist at Costco ________________________________________ From: weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Stan Kern [stan@texashealingarts.com] Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 2:33 PM To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Weeklong-l] For Your Consideration
I am sitting here in tears of joy as I read through my emails. What fun. Yes, yes, and yes. stan
Kirsten Kern,PhD, LMTI Texas Healing Arts Institute School of Massage, Day Spa and Clinic 7001 Burnet Road Austin, TX 78757 stan@texashealingarts.com 512 323 6042
-----Original Message----- From: weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Alice Gordon Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 1:44 PM To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Weeklong-l] For Your Consideration
Jackson, you are reminding me why in 1973 I walked around with my jaw chronically dropped at your energy level and wisecrackery. Thanks! (Bringing a chin strap this summer.)
Xo a
From: Robert Jackson rjax@netcom.com Reply-To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Fri, 21 May 2010 14:02:39 -0400 To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Weeklong-l] For Your Consideration
Here's my vote:
We take Matt's "narrative arc" construction of Gail's
"storm/reconciliation"
concept, using Jayne Suhler's technique of "flowing/melding/morphing
scenes
directly from one to the next, without break" (e.g. Macbeth/Banquo become Hamlet/Horatio and weird sisters/ grave-diggers), while the rehearsal process would include improvizing with Gail's "Cheek by Jowl" ideas.
The
overall "narrative program" - for lack of a better pharase - will create
its
own meaning - or not - but--
(--Jeez, I just got the feeling we are going back to an original Winedale, cir.1971 - hopefully doing it better- before we did our first full length play performance "The Tempest" in what? '73?.)
In one of his frist emails, Mr. Pees had a great set of scenes already catagorized . . .
Do we necessarily start with Prospero and end with Prospero? . . . I mean for this "program".
Thank goodness we have "Doc and The 6 Gals" (great name for a band) to put all those ingrediants in that receipe, with the time restraints, etc.....
And, of course, add lots of 'bawdy fun" for Terry and me, who'll be
sitting
in the backyard drinking . . . wine.. . .
Or, alternatively, we just do a production of Love's Labor's Lost. Whatever.
Now, if we just had an old barn or something....
(nap time)
----- Original Message ----- From: "McDonald G." G.McDonald@soton.ac.uk To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 12:24 PM Subject: Re: [Weeklong-l] For Your Consideration
Dear Everybody,
Continuing in this vein of simplicity, I was lucky to see the company
Cheek
by Jowl in March and wrote to Mary then about this way of working I loved:
I saw last night the Cheek by Jowl company's new production of Macbeth.
The
two women wore long back skirts over leotards, the men black cargo pants
and
t-shirts. The set was wooden boxes of various heights. It was all so simple and you therefore heard every word. Everything, from death to
sword
play was mimed, with minimal sound effects (often made the actors) who
stood
by watching in various configurations. I was high as a kite afterwards
and
couldn't fall asleep til nearly 3 a.m. It just got my juices flowing. OMG, I thought, we could do this: we can be simple and not worry about fancy costumes and just be massively creative and smart. I was over the moon. We are so going to have fun.
Two months later, the backyard, wine-drinking women reminded me of that night!
Best, Gail ________________________________________ From: weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Robert Jackson [rjax@netcom.com] Sent: 21 May 2010 16:32 To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Weeklong-l] For Your Consideration
Me too...uh, was that a Samantha West, Pinot Noir, 2006? - just curious. Sorry... reading, reading, reading...
----- Original Message ----- From: "McDonald G." G.McDonald@soton.ac.uk To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 11:19 AM Subject: Re: [Weeklong-l] For Your Consideration
I completely love this idea and this way of working. Wish I'd be in the backyard with you all.
Best, Gail ________________________________________ From: weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Suhler, Jayne [jsuhler@mail.smu.edu] Sent: 21 May 2010 03:58 To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Weeklong-l] For Your Consideration
Kathy and I are sitting in my backyard drinking wine. Sound good? It is.
We
are talking about what we remember most from Winedale: laughter,
wonderment,
discovery. Here are some of our thoughts, halfway through our first
bottle.
Picture if you will: A series of scenes from different plays, flowing/melding/morphing directly from one to the next, without break. The people already on stage become part of the next scene and so on.
Accessories
and props can help in the transformation. (The rubber chicken, as always, will be in Kathy's pants.)
Imagine, if you will, Lear and Falstaff on stage together, if only for a moment. Wonderment.
In some ways - follow us here - this allows us to consider scenes in a different way. It raises new possibilities, new revelations. As Lear and
his
Fool finish, a man from the back table rises and sees a dagger. He becomes Macbeth. Or maybe a woman on a bench rises and goes into "What a rogue and peasant slave am I..." She is Hamlet.
Someone yells out from the side aisle, and Petruchio enters and all left
on
stage become servants, including Hamlet. Laughter.
This would take some serious thinking to put together scenes that could reasonably follow one another. But we think it's possible. We wanted to throw our idea out here in the spirit of brainstorming and exploration. Discovery.
Minimal, simple costumes. Black pants/skirts, white shirts? This would
allow
everyone to turn around and become someone else immediately, on stage, before the audience. Sometimes people would leave and come back, maybe the stage would be empty for a moment, or one person might be left standing to perform a sonnet or a song. He is joined by Kate and it is Petruchio and Kate, and they are joined by the weird sisters around their cauldron, and that becomes Bohemia, which turns into fairies and so on until finally, at the end, Prospero is left standing. "Our revels now have ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, are all spirits and have melted into air. Into thin air..."
Obviously, it doesn't have to be ANY of these scenes we've mentioned. It
can
be all of those wonderful scenes everyone else has thrown out for consideration. We can have partial scenes, soliloquies, songs. And a
little
bear baiting and a back trick or two.
Again, we're just writing out loud, submitting our thoughts into the conversation. Maybe it sounds like we're talking more process than substance, but we're not. We really believe that we can find connections
and
discover themes that we never knew before. Unless that's the wine talking. Let us know.
Kathy & Jayne
From: weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Maggie Megaw [maggie@bizaffairs.com] Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 12:58 PM To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Weeklong-l] thoughts from an old brain
This is fun! and such a change from the usual contents of my in box on an average morning. Given, say, two weeks I¹d love to do two plays, but I think we will mix it up more and have more opportunity to play if we go
with
a variety of scenes. So here¹s my vote for suites of scenes from a
(small)
handful of plays. The problem I kept butting up against in trying to find one scene each from a number of different plays organized around‹for instance‹the theme of reunion/ reconciliation is that it seemed heavy on
the
dessert table, leaving the savory dishes aside. Both for the players and for the audience, that seemed a less satisfying prospect than this does. Lots of endings with no beginnings. Mary and Gail seemed to be heading in this direction a few days ago, and now Bruce and Matt and Jackson have
made
the point that taking several scenes from 3-4-5 plays would allow for a range of scenes that would make better sense together, add up to more to sink our teeth into, more fun, more texture, more meaning. That and the fact that this structure would allow us to take off from very different starting points‹AYL v. Lear v. Comedy v. Winter¹s Tale v. iHIV (Gail¹s failed reunion idea, which I love) v. Taming v. MSN, for instance‹to
arrive
at their final but very different expressions of reconciliation (and in
some
cases magic). I think once we have the plays, the choice of scenes will almost take care of itselfŠ
-----Original Message----- From: weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Robert
Jackson
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 8:21 AM To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Weeklong-l] thoughts from an old brain
I was looking forward to working on scenes from a number of plays, even it
meant two scenes each from, say, ten plays (however, the time works out),
i.e. Gail's idea of the storm and the reconciliation, and I, and I thought
others, going back to the beginning of the discussion, were hoping to
study
a wide range of plays, juxtaposing Shakespeare's different approaches to
two
or three themes. And making each scene as rich as possible; the iceberg
where 7/8's of the mass is below. That's a lot of work!! But it's a lot
of
putting word to the action, action to the word, and much good thinking
about
both.
On the other hand, doing two full plays in a week will mean we spend all
our
time running lines! Is this Winedale? Or an anxiety dream of regional
theater? Perhaps I'm too blunt, and possibly need to take a nap. I'm
terrible at this email conference. And keep swearing to keep my mouth
shut.
I'll say no more. And be a hermit. Mum.
-Jackson
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Meyer" Bruce.Meyer@UTSouthwestern.edu
To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org; kozusko@mac.com
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 10:48 AM
Subject: Re: [Weeklong-l] thoughts from a brain that is spendingtoo
muchtime
in the
Actually, i AM serious about the two play suggestion - massive
undertaking, so just the kind of impossible task that we are best suited
for....
-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Kozusko kozusko@mac.com
Sent: 5/20/2010 8:20:53 AM
Subject: Re: [Weeklong-l] thoughts from a brain that is spending too
muchtime in the real world....
Dear All,
A grinning and excited second for Bruce's suggestion that we consider
longer chunks of fewer plays so that we can get some of the playlong
arcs into our storytelling. And two full plays is a great idea, I
think, if you're serious.
Matt
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