It's 5AM, and I've been joyfully playing a computer game. It's a text-based multiplayer game called Avalon. By text-based, I mean it feels like an interactive book. There are no graphics. It is all imagined. The world of this game is over 20 years old, crafted meticulously by people who clearly love it. I am in love with this game. It does not cater to the lowest common denominator of gamer, like most modern games. It instead assumes your intelligence, while guiding you and easing you into its world. It doesn't feel so snobby as to have created a vast world and expecting you to research it in order to understand what's going on. That's a purist approach. However, the world is there. They've just made it accessible, player-driven, and fun. When I say player driven, I really mean it. Not in the gimmicky way that games have today, but the governing figures of those decades-old world are actual players who have worked their way up.
What I love though is the whimsically described locations. Every screen is a different location, and of course it must be described to you in order to get a visual in your mind. The great thing about these word pictures, is it looks different in my mind than yours, yet we are in the same world. Exactly like a book.
This got me to wondering, as I often do, if such an amazing world can be created in theater. If there is an acting/play development technique buried in there. I love the medium of theater, as it is alive and raw and beautiful and moving and organic.
What if....
1) A company of actors developed and honed their improv skills together, so that they could give over to the "improv gods" and easily create scenes, characters, worlds together.
2) The actors wore the characters of "Gods" and came together to create a world together. The improv exercise would be one in which the gds in charge of creating new worlds held a God Council meeting to decide what world they wanted to build. At the end of the meeting they will have created a setting for the next explorations.
4) The world is honed. A cumulative world history is created. A geography is created. A vibe is created. All through impovs of various means to tap into the world - which already exists, just needs time to unearth.
3) That world is zoomed in on and honed down smaller and smaller until an agreeable setting for a scene is achieved.
4) Characters are adopted by actors and embodied in scenes together. Improvs are done to get to know these characters until the actors feel they can wear them as easily as a coat.
5) With the world and its people created, a plot is necessary. Playground time. Improvs around "what if this happened" "what if this guy decided he wanted to marry this other guy's wife" "what if the Wormham tribe chief ran out of batwing dust and had to go on a quest for it?" Perhaps a rapid-fire what-if game in which a dozen are thrown out, written down, selected at random to play with.
6) The juiciest improv is expanded upon. What happened before and after it?
7) A play is born. But the play is merely a story of a fragment of a world and characters created by US.
I'm sitting here churning the idea in my mind to mine it for more specifics. I'll resist that urge for now, and let it lie. Rather, let it bubble. I have to resist the urge to perfect it instantly. It's a new idea. At its heart, I think, is the idea that a group of people can create worlds together. Just like this game.
THE DIRECTOR: I see the need for a "head God" to act as a guide. Akin to a head writer, but less cerebral. Further in the process, this may translate to director in the traditional sense. But this "head God" has the power to summon any member of the council, or any citizen of the world in order to clarify any bit of history, or explore any potential scene. The head god brings the focus in when necessary. He is a Weaver, patching the quilt of the world together, using the other actors as conduits of creatures.
CEREMONIAL ITEMS: The "head God" should have a throne. A more fun version of a Director's chair. In an ideal world, we would have a fixed, set rehearsal space with a permanent throne. Whichever actor is the HG would take that throne. Each actor would have some ceremonial t-shirt, hat, or something to denote, ceremonially, that they are entering this space to give over to the power of their imaginations in creating worlds. The space (temenos, perhaps) would be sanctified, and marked out by an always-used rope. Or ritual circle created with a march. Calling upon the powers of the universe to allow the space to be holy ground in which the world shall live and the story shall be told. Oooo! I love the idea of a ceremonial "Creation Kit" that we ritually set up each rehearsal. Maybe it's tiki torches, maybe it's everyone wears our special pendants that we only bring out for rehearsal, maybe it's that rope. Maybe everyone dons tribal paint.
Wow. I'm jazzed up about this. I keep hearing a voice in my head, saying "yeah, but isn't that just, a director?" and "isn't that just collaborative writing?" etc. Voices that do not see this as revolutionary and rife with possibility. I anticipate that being the response to colleagues I put the idea to. They'll say "I don't get it, what's different from what you've done before?" I think the difference is in working organically, through characters, for the entire creation process. Playing with a whole new process! Calling things different names, inspiring names, to avoid our own pre-conceived notions about theater. I want to purposefully avoid using theatrical convention. What if the space was not on a stage? What if the lights were not run from a booth? What if the costumes were different every performance?
Maybe this summer I can work at Sterling, as a director, and experiment with this idea while I'm there, on the off time. Just got a funny vision of a news team recording our rehearsal while a show of ours is running. Rehearsal clips are mixed with interviews of me, talking about what we do, while dressed in some ridiculous looking getup. With tribal paint. Saying "I know to outsiders this looks cultish, ridiculous, childish... but look at my face. I'm having a fucking blast. This is a sacred space where we can look like fools and not care. I mean that. Legitimately only caring about this grand scheme of ours to pull forth characters from the ether and see what they have to show us."
Hmmm... what if different actors snapped into the same character at different times during rehearsal. Would be interesting to see the meld of one actor embodying the character, then flip it on its head for another. Maybe they could be in the same scene! These things are making me giddy with possibility. I picture myself giggling in awe, watching it unfold. Also, it's 6AM now and I haven't slept. The dreams of tonight may need a dose of reality tomorrow, but for now, let the dreams come! I believe they are the true heart and soul, the rest is just to facilitate them happening in our current world. The world in my head is not this one, but when they combine, it will be magic.
See you on the other side.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Friday, October 26, 2012
Still Night
Ok, so I had something of an epiphany on the train. I saw two Indian (racist/ignorant description, perhaps) sitting next to each other. Usually two guys sitting next to each other on the train would have a seat between them. No, they were comfortably right next to each other, yet showed no sign of being disturbed.
My epiphany came as I walked on to the train after a long night of work, and an abnormally long closing procedure. I sat there alone after everyone had left work in a quiet corner, and heard the voices in my head. It became crystal clear in that quiet space how much the voices in my head chatter. Most of the time they're not even my voice. My inner voice is drowned out by the chatter of others. I sat looking at a stage in a dark theater, hearing all these opinions of what I should be thinking, or what theater should be... and I stopped. And I imagined each of those individual voices as a little capsule burdening my mind. I imagined it breaking off like a chunk of glacier and falling away, still encapsulated. And an awesome thing happened. That voice actually stopped. I proceeded to continue doing that with every voice I could pinpoint, until I was close to quiet in my head. Then I saw and felt the space for what it is. And from there I could reverberate through my soul how I felt.
Every person on earth has a different soul. They have different eyes (the windows to the soul) with which to see. Different experiences which distort or color what they see. But beneath that, there is their soul. The unchanging, still waters that are only theirs. What good are we if we shut that up in favor of the voices in our head. Our mind says, "try to think of things this way." or "try to see things this way" Why try? Ok, trying to think or see things a different way is like trying on shoes. Or it should be. Shoes for the soul. Soul soles (oh man... I'm gonna be RICH!). Anyway, I mean, you're just trying something on to see how it catches you. You and your mind are the observer.
So sitting on the train, I began to translate that into everyday experiences. Why should anyone be afraid of anyone else? It is fear that keeps me from talking to strangers, even when I desperately want to start a conversation. Imagine a world where we all just threw off the voices in our head, the ego, the voice of the society, the voice of our parents, the voices of our friend's opinions, and spoke from the soul. Reconnect to the source. In other words, imagine if everyone allowed themselves to be themselves.
Yet, there's a problem. We get bogged down. Who am I? What am I doing with my life? Am I living my dream? How do I get there? How do I take my dreams and manifest them in the real world? What about money? I don't have enough money to do that. I need a better job. I need a girlfriend. I need a better apartment. All of these hit me. Every day. Except it's all backwards. All of those thoughts are distractions from my still soul. I know what to do. Everything I say, everything I do, if it came from a true place deep within, would automatically make me A) happier, and B) closer to where I think I want to be, and C) the person I really am. The person I'm destined to be. The person I've always been, who's been buried, hiding, unsure of how to surface. But always there. That's the key. It's always there.
Every man is a prism. Experiences shine in, through the soul, and get blasted out in rainbow light from the mouth, hands, to do thing and say things. The mind is your sidekick. The mind is there to help analyze. But it may only go so far, I believe. The truth is deep within. It's what reverberates when you hear that song. It's the chord of truth.
My epiphany came as I walked on to the train after a long night of work, and an abnormally long closing procedure. I sat there alone after everyone had left work in a quiet corner, and heard the voices in my head. It became crystal clear in that quiet space how much the voices in my head chatter. Most of the time they're not even my voice. My inner voice is drowned out by the chatter of others. I sat looking at a stage in a dark theater, hearing all these opinions of what I should be thinking, or what theater should be... and I stopped. And I imagined each of those individual voices as a little capsule burdening my mind. I imagined it breaking off like a chunk of glacier and falling away, still encapsulated. And an awesome thing happened. That voice actually stopped. I proceeded to continue doing that with every voice I could pinpoint, until I was close to quiet in my head. Then I saw and felt the space for what it is. And from there I could reverberate through my soul how I felt.
Every person on earth has a different soul. They have different eyes (the windows to the soul) with which to see. Different experiences which distort or color what they see. But beneath that, there is their soul. The unchanging, still waters that are only theirs. What good are we if we shut that up in favor of the voices in our head. Our mind says, "try to think of things this way." or "try to see things this way" Why try? Ok, trying to think or see things a different way is like trying on shoes. Or it should be. Shoes for the soul. Soul soles (oh man... I'm gonna be RICH!). Anyway, I mean, you're just trying something on to see how it catches you. You and your mind are the observer.
So sitting on the train, I began to translate that into everyday experiences. Why should anyone be afraid of anyone else? It is fear that keeps me from talking to strangers, even when I desperately want to start a conversation. Imagine a world where we all just threw off the voices in our head, the ego, the voice of the society, the voice of our parents, the voices of our friend's opinions, and spoke from the soul. Reconnect to the source. In other words, imagine if everyone allowed themselves to be themselves.
Yet, there's a problem. We get bogged down. Who am I? What am I doing with my life? Am I living my dream? How do I get there? How do I take my dreams and manifest them in the real world? What about money? I don't have enough money to do that. I need a better job. I need a girlfriend. I need a better apartment. All of these hit me. Every day. Except it's all backwards. All of those thoughts are distractions from my still soul. I know what to do. Everything I say, everything I do, if it came from a true place deep within, would automatically make me A) happier, and B) closer to where I think I want to be, and C) the person I really am. The person I'm destined to be. The person I've always been, who's been buried, hiding, unsure of how to surface. But always there. That's the key. It's always there.
Every man is a prism. Experiences shine in, through the soul, and get blasted out in rainbow light from the mouth, hands, to do thing and say things. The mind is your sidekick. The mind is there to help analyze. But it may only go so far, I believe. The truth is deep within. It's what reverberates when you hear that song. It's the chord of truth.
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