It was a grueling but rewarding week. Opening was Wednesday June 11, but the official “press” opening was Thursday (confusing). Despite the heart-stopping technical snafus (the most nerve-wracking one being the death of the DVD player in the middle of Thursday’s show, rendering 2 out of 3 of Ikuko & Mark’s scenes sans subtitles and therefore non-intelligible to those who do not speak Japanese), the cast has made leaps and bounds towards making the show cohesive and fulfilling.
I was reminded of the Borges’ story The Circular Ruins in which a man attempts to create another man through the process of dreaming — but fails to breathe life into his creation. I felt that was an apt analogy for this process. No matter how intricately I dream the details of each moment in the play, it all falls as flat as a dead Frankenstein unless the actors can inhabit and play in the structure given them. But I am happy to find that they have been finding their path to the be beating play-heart, with great courage and passion.
For me it has also been helpful to embrace the fact that this and all plays will be imperfect, and that the imperfection is where the opportunity for surprise lies. I start seeing my own tendencies as a writer, and how I compensate for that as a director, as much as my resistance to the literal as a director keeps me running around as a writer. Self-deprecating or self-effacing impulses aside, I feel good about the show and good about the responses we’ve been getting. Looking forward to the next three weeks!
The opening of a show is such a stressful momentous event, and like all momentous events, makes one question all sorts of things. Like why am I doing this anyway? How can I do it better? How can I balance my vision and yet allow the performers full freedom to seize the play with their own hands? Tech is definitely a process that shakes things up, and in many ways, keeps these questions at bay — because everyone is just struggling to solve the issues at hand.
Now that we’ve opened (although tonight is the official “press” opening) we’ve got a beautiful ugly bloody slimy puking shitting gurgling laughing screaming baby on our hands. It feels scary and great. The audiences will be different every night, the play will be different every night. I’m excited (for me and for the cast) to live through the next 4 weeks…
I cannot reiterate what an amazing job all the designers have done, and also and especially Juliet Chia my production manager, in getting the space ready in a few days. These photos are from the first day of actors in the theater. Thrilling and scary. Thrilling because things are becoming very real very quickly. Scary because, well in many ways this is the beginning of the process of the play leaving me — which is great and wonderful and sad and amazing. We go into two days of heavy tech starting tomorrow.
Sorry the posts have been sporadic. The work has been intense in rehearsals. On Monday we began load-in and the designers and crew have been doing amazing things in the theater, with the amazing organizational talents of Juliet Chia, our Production Manager. Here she is with Sound Designer Rich Kim.
And here with Jonathan, the associate set designer who has been a rockstar as well.
I went through paper tech with Stacey, Nicole, Rich and Jeanette this afternoon which was also very helpful in preparing for our 12 hour days in the theater on Friday and Saturday.
Here is the WALL in its full glory. so clean and white! oooooh….
And the view of the stage from off stage right:
If you didn’t know, HERE has been going through MAJOR construction and renovations the last several months, and oph3lia will be the first show in the mainstage space since re-opening. The whole space has really transformed — it’s amazing!
The actors move into the theater tomorrow!!!!!! It’s an exciting and scary time when all the ideas come into being — the meeting of reality and ideals, which if often a frustrating and revelatory process. Our last rehearsal in the bank vault tonight, we worked heavily with putting music together. We set up a little sound tech table for Rich and Andy. I love these guys.
Thursday June 19 performance of oph3lia will be a special benefit evening. For $50 tickets, following the riveting performance audiences will enjoy a “kampai” (toast) with the artists, silent auction with great items (including fancy dinners, salon haircuts and more!), live music, and wine reception.
Sure to be a lovely event — and the $35 from each ticket (as well as all profits from the silent auction) go to support knife inc.! Tell your friends!
Silent auction items generously provided by:
John Dellaria Salon
Organized by the fabulous Kayoko Akabori, founder/writer of hit food blog umamimart, and Nicole Greene, who also is Assistant Stage Manager for the show.
We’re at a point where the only real way for us to get a sense of the play and what needs work is just running. Last Wednesday was actually more of a technical rehearsal to nail down transitions. Dawn’s camera was free-roaming handled by actors and caught some great rehearsal poses.
This reminds me, Mark could NOT STOP LAUGHING at rehearsal yesterday. It was pretty funny. I guess it is hard not to laugh when you have to open your eyes to this unbearably cute person:
Some amazingly talented people created this video interview of me talking about the 3 interwoven narratives in oph3lia. Pete McCabe interviewed, James Scruggs shot it, Karina Mangu-Ward, who is like my new favorite person edited. Check it out! (I can’t figure out why there’s this huge gap here… scroll down)
You can tell how tight a group of people are by how comfortable they are in sharing their bodily functions. Not that it is always pleasant or even desirable for people to be farting and etc. during rehearsals, but the fact that these things occur, with regularity, and are met with mild encouragement, I think, is a testament to this group’s trust in each other.
Lately, the bagel has been haunting me. Specifically Connie’s bagel. It appeared one day in a schoolgirls’ rehearsal, and it just keep coming back and coming back. I even forbade bagels in rehearsal, but that only made things worse. Today I even found an actual bagel in my bag — someone had planted it there.
Here is that bagel alongside Connie’s bagel, with her permission.
A few weeks ago, I met up with Pete McCabe (dramaturg at HERE Arts Center as well as writer/director/actor) at the recording studio/office of WPS1, P.S. 1’s radio station, which happens to be located inside a detention center building in downtown Manhattan. Seriously I walked past this building about 5 times because I honestly did not think that there would be any radio station in this building. I really wanted to take pictures, but I didn’t have my camera that day.
But behold, if you take the elevator all the way up to the top floor and take a flight of stairs, there is a whole entire floor of recording studios. Lucy Simanjuntak was our recording engineer, and Pete interviewed me about oph3lia for about 45 minutes.
The interview is available on-line now, and it is in the broadcast rotation already! I can’t bear to listen to it (I might die of utter embarrassment) but here it is.
