Alice said she would wait till the wee hours of the morning.... go for it.... remember how well the Actors from London perform seemingly extemporaneously... The one thing that has been bothering me is the arrival for the "weekend" people... that is usually the day we are feverishly trying to tie things together....
Your idea is indeed creative... Do it.... Alice will understand... Anon Sweet Mak!. ----- Original Message ----- From: Clay Strombergermailto:cstromberger@mail.utexas.edu To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 12:12 AM Subject: [Weeklong-l] pop a top... again....
Uh-oh, it's past midnight in New York, but I'll slip this one under Alice's door...
Thinking back to what Jayne and Kathy wrote about all the things that can happen in a pub (such as wrestling), and Bob's images of people suddenly grabbing tablecloths, and what Maggie says about things bursting out of frameworks -- what a chain of thoughts and ideas! -- it occurs to me that something really wild and uproarious like the AYL wrestling scene (1.2 middle) would be wonderful to hurl ourselves into -- tables and benches being shoved back, everyone whipping into an improvised scene full of characters. Doc opened our eyes in '84 to all the possibilities for ritual and performance surrounding that spectacle.
Also occurs to me that in such a setting some of the other kinds of writing we've talked about (Borges, Eliot, the sonnets) could be spoken, leapt into after a scene, by someone who just looked up from her/his mug of small beer up on the balcony. Someone who sensed it was the right moment for those words. And then someone else could pick up the second paragraph....
Mary mentioned the original RSC Nicholas Nickleby recently (look for it on Netflix etc., if you've never watched it -- amazing and beautiful) -- the company members were all onstage the whole time, playing a role, then watching, listening, then breaking into Dickens' narrative without missing a beat, from way up on a balcony, or while putting away a table, and this would flow from player to player, sometimes by phrases, sometimes by sentences or longer sections. It had many of the elements Gail described in the Cheek by Jowl performance, that same delight in returning to the most pared-down, truthful storytelling possible, the joy in playing.
Finally, another great thing about the everyone-onstage, improvised-costumes approach is that none of us have to miss anyone else's scenes. We're all (everyone there for the reunion performance) in the same space together the whole time.
cs
Clayton Stromberger Outreach Coordinator UT Shakespeare at Winedale College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin www.shakespeare-winedale.orghttp://www.shakespeare-winedale.org/ cell: 512-228-1055/ office: 512-471-4726
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