Theater Things

Greetings once again. I hope you all had a safe and enjoyable Halloween.
They don't really do Halloween in Kenya, but I bought myself a cookie to celebrate. Oh well.

Anyway, I have three main reasons for being in Kenya right now, beyond the obvious “have-a-good-time-and-learn-something-too.” One is to become fluent in Swahili. The second is to write this blog to fight against the idea of what I call “Lion King Africa” (I’ll explain more about that another time.) The third is to prepare for my senior thesis at Princeton. I plan to do a translation of the Swahili play “Amezidi,” and to produce it with the theater department in the spring of ’09. The play is a hysterical two-actor show featuring 7 characters in a somewhat irreverent look at the issues hindering development across Africa.

This week I have finally begun to take this third objective. By a stroke of good fortune, two of the members of REPACTED had performed on this play before. At Odu’s suggestion they spent a few nights last weekend reviewing the lines, and on Monday presented Scene 1 (of 10) for me in a very informal performance in the theater’s back yard. It was tremendously helpful. First and foremost, the play is written in very complex Swahili, and I continue to struggle with numerous passages. Their performance afforded me a terrific opportunity to pick up on details which I had previously missed. It also presented me with an excellent manifestation of the physical comic style that is clearly described in the script. They offered to continue reviewing the lines if I would return Tuesday with some new ideas for their performance. How could I refuse?

I went home and tried again to read the script. Scene 1 was much easier to understand after the performance earlier in the day. But beyond that I once again struggled. The language of the play is very complex, and my Swahili is still far from up to the task. I wasn’t sure what new ideas I could possibly have to offer. After a very long period of staring blankly at the inscrutable pages, I resigned myself to failure and went to bed.

Tuesday I arrived at the theater without any ideas. Afraid to admit this to my eager actors, I asked them to perform the scene again. I hoped against hope that they wouldn’t notice my stall technique, and that some inspiration would hit me while they performed. They play began. “Mtazameni!” Cried the first actor – “Look at this!” It hit me like a ton of bricks - he wasn’t speaking to the other actor, he was addressing the audience. Just like in the two plays I directed this summer (“The Matchmaker” and “Set & Drift”) the character was speaking directly to his audience. This one word had saved me; I knew exactly what to do.

“Stop!” I cried (in Swahili – part of our agreement is that I will direct in Swahili as much as possible, only switching to English when I can’t find the words to express a specific thought.) All summer long I was moving farther and farther away from the traditional concept of a play, opting instead to bring the audience into the action, eliminate realism, and allow impossible things to happen on stage. Amezidi is the logical continuation of these ideas. It uses 2 actors to play 7 roles, it takes place is 5 different locations in its 10 scenes. It is about as abstract as anything I have ever read.

“The playwright wants us to speak directly to the audience, to involve them” I explained, “ So let’s do it.” I walked in a small arc, dropping things from my bag every few steps until I had delineated a circle some 15 feet across. “Our audience is going to sit on the edges of this circle. Our stage is this little space, surrounded on all sides by one narrow row of mtamazaji (watchers.)” I spent the rest of the afternoon re-blocking (“blocking” is theater-speak for planning the movements that will accompany the lines) their scene using every theater-in-the-round trick I had ever learned. Two hours later, they were totally sold on the concept, and I was feeling like I was finally starting to live up to my end of the deal. We broke with plans to meet again in the morning.

Yesterday I arrived in town early and went straight to the one American-style coffee house in the city. (I’ve tried to kick the habit while here, instead drinking Chai – a fabulous sweet tea made with boiling milk instead of water – but today’s work would require an extra burst of energy only possible with Coffee.) I paid my 40 cents and found a seat, pulling out my notebook in the process. I thought back to my theater classes at Princeton, and especially the “creating character and text class” with (the outstanding) Professor Sandberg. With his help, three other actors and I created an astounding 30 characters and put together a full-length show featuring 12 of them. I recalled the techniques he used to help us develop the physical characteristics of each of our 30 people. He used to make us walk back and forth across the room, changing as many behaviors as possible each time. He taught us to emphasize different parts of our bodies to change the personalities of our characters. All people are remarkably adept at recognizing swaggering shoulders, fidgeting hands, swaying hips, limp wrists, and jutting chins. Each trait clearly conveys a personality type, and there are dozens more characteristics that are equally clear. I made a note – this would be an outstanding place to start.

I then thought back to my experience performing in Ruby Pan’s original “The Thousand Stringed Instrument” in 2006. She used the recently-developed ‘viewpoints’ technique to help us with the challenges and opportunities of performing in irregular spaces. Moving around an empty stage while focusing intently on the movement of your peers attunes your senses to your environment. You learn to sense when there is empty space on stage (generally speaking, a big no-no), and how to instinctively fill the space vacated by the folks moving around you. This is especially valuable in theater in the round, when stagnating in one place or abandoning a section of the stage often leaves large swaths of the audience out of the action. This would be a perfect second exercise.

A two-man show requires outstanding cooperation and the ability to predict your companion’s movements even before they begin. Bob Sandberg’s exercises once again - actors stand together and mirror each other’s every move. They learn to follow one another smoothly and completely, and to give and take as they alternate who leads. When this exercise is completed perfectly a spectator has no idea that one is initiating the movement and one is following along. Exercise number three.

As I prepared these lessons/exercises, I also thought about the single biggest lesson I garnered from the esteemed professor Tim Vasen – the audience will follow your production no matter what you do, as long as you are consistent with yourself. If you want every actor to wear big fuzzy hats, the audience will play along as long as you are consistent. A corollary of this is that changing the rules of the game halfway through the show is a recipe for disaster. If our Amezidi has the actors addressing the audience from the first line, then that has to continue throughout. In fact, it has to grow. The characters will interact with the audience, will talk to them, point at them, even sit in their laps. This part would require no preparation on my part, these are two of the most gifted improvisers and comedians I have ever met.

I arrived at the theater and we immediately set to work. Performers by nature and already familiar with the script, the actors took to every new idea perfectly. It was very apparent to me that although they had never seen these particular techniques, they are very experienced in rehearsal technique and are very interested in learning new approaches to their craft. For me, it was a beautiful exercise in cultural exchange, with me sharing the ideas I had recently acquired at school, and them sharing their own techniques and thoughts. The end result of yesterday’s work (once again only scene 1 – today we start to move on) is a really creative marriage of their own work and mine (okay, fine: mostly theirs). We performed it to an appreciative sample audience and it was met with much praise.

We’ve decided to do a performance next Wednesday (my last day in Nakuru), and we will spend the coming week or so preparing for that. It might not be perfectly ready, but it will certainly provide new ideas to all of us, and give me invaluable familiarity with the script before I embark
upon the still-daunting task of translating it. All in all, good news.

Take care,

Chris