~It seemed silly to end this blog with no big song and dance, so I thought I'd include a little something to top it all off. My final paper, ladies and gentlemen.~
What have I learned in this class? That it’s impossible to write your typical 5-paragraph theme thesis paper in a theatre class. The bits of my brain that spew flowery collegiate prose for political science papers disengage when it comes to theatre - when I’m in my ‘theatre mode’, my creative side kicks in and refuses to shut off. Therefore, my theatre papers always come off more like novels than textbooks. But that’s the nature of theatre, I suppose. The purpose is to tell a story that begs to be told. As with any good story, half of the experience is in the method of the telling. If I were to write a 5-paragraph theme, it would have to have certain implications that I had woven into the telling. But I don’t. Hence, the telling of the story matches the material itself. It’s my own story. So I am stream-of-consciousness-ing it. With paragraphs added for clarity.
As per the project requirements, we divvied up responsibilities in the first assignment relating to our final project. The trouble with this was, after TK was elected director, the rest of the jobs were somehow distributed, I’m not sure how, and I caught only a glimpse of that assignment before it was turned in. Somehow I gathered that I was to be a designer, but I had no idea who was doing what else. I felt a bit off-balance, so to speak, in that I wasn’t exactly sure what we were doing. I was ‘gung ho!’ and ready to begin approaching this project as if it were a mainstage show, but we didn’t really get started until a while after, and I think our group drifted for a while, not knowing in which direction we were headed. As it turned out, I did become the sound and lighting designer, but the set designer responsibilities fell to Ben. Interestingly enough, I don’t think that the other production groups had designated sound and lighting designers, or if they did, those responsibilities were paired with other responsibilities and not given quite so much attention as my approach. Then again, lighting design isn’t new to me, so I knew how to go about it, and I wanted to dig deeper into lighting and approach these limitations and new challenges ready to learn and grow as a designer.
In beginning my approach to the lighting and sound design for this project, my first step was to determine the overall mood and tone of each scene, and how each could be emphasized by means of lighting and sound. With lighting, I began by taking into account the limitations of the space we were using - I knew that I didn’t have eighty-odd lights with a full set of gels at my disposal; I only had a few florescents, six floodlights, and whatever I could bring in from home to work with. Keeping that in mind, I began to discover just how far I could push past these limitations to create a lighting atmosphere that would enhance the show. My biggest inspiration for this work came from the guest speakers at our design lecture, Matt Lefebvre and Sarah Leigh, who both held that in design, one should always begin by dreaming big, designing for a perfect world, then adapting that design to fit your limitations.
So, in dreaming big, I knew that in order to present the epilogue in the way I wanted it to be presented, I would need to have a blackout and a spotlight. For the rest of the show, I wanted it lit in such a way that would suggest a real subway station, and then to change the lighting to show that the world of the play had moved outside the space of reality. I don’t remember TK ever finalizing our theme or underlying message of the show, so I interpreted the themes as best I could from my vantage point - being an actor (and, unexpectedly, the star?), I had a feel for what the show was about, and tried to sneak my own interpretation of the script into the lighting and sound design, as well as acting. However, not wanting to step too far outside of the boundaries of the consensus of our group, I followed orders from TK to light the subway in such a way that would suggest first reality, then a transportation to an alien world. In achieving this, the use of some gels procured from my old high school aided my task considerably. As a lighting designer, I knew that colored light can improve the look of a show enough to spell the difference between amateur and accomplished. For whatever reason, I approached this show in the same way I have basically every show I’ve done design for, although this class has taught me again and again that the mainstream shows I’ve done in the past are but a tiny piece of what theatre really is. However, I did realize that towards the end of the production, my reservation from doing the project was replaced by my usual fervor in making the show just right, and I fell into the mode of working that I always have, doing all the shows I’ve ever done.
The sound design was, in some ways, easier than the lighting, because I didn’t have the same limitations. Once I had the sound system set up, I could choose any music I liked to create the scene. There were a few limitations, though - at first, I wanted to have a realistic soundtrack for the second scene, with background crowd hubbub and real air and train sounds on cue. However, I couldn’t figure out how to mix several different sounds together into one track, and didn’t have a way to cue the train sound to match the text, so I ended up picking a soundtrack for each scene instead. However, as a result of this limitation, I realized that I liked using music through all of the scenes better - because it enabled me to contrast that with the background hubbub to be played after the puppet scene, showing the coming back to reality that my character went through. An example of how creativity arises out of limitations, I guess. My research for this mostly involved a lot of library CDs and a few lucky finds within those CDs. One of the resources I approached this project with was a video game called Deus Ex, of which I had the soundtrack to, because the world of the game is mostly dark alleys and subway stations, and the mood seemed to meld very well with our scene’s overall mood. So, I listened to each song in the on that soundtrack, and ended up using a few of the songs in the final cut. In addition to sound, I even used some of the game’s screen shots in my research for lighting, because of the fantastic use of shadows to create atmosphere and drama. But aside from Deus Ex, not a lot of ‘research’ was done, in the traditional sense... I’ve been learning that in the field of theatre, that which is classified as research is only sometimes done with libraries and books. Theatre is a science of sorts; research is done in the field, with experiments. I couldn’t learn all I needed to know in a library; the most efficient way for me to design was to simply try things out and to call upon my own memories and experience.
Unfortunately for our production, timing constraints and the fact that we began from ground zero, without even knowing what show we were going to put on, I didn’t get a chance to even begin to think about design until a week or so before our day to perform. So, the bulk of my work on the show, if it can be called ‘work,’ was as a collaborator and designer of concept. Early in the process, the engaging of artistic differences was rampant within our group. Which is the theatrical way of saying that animosity was everywhere, we couldn’t work well together. But looking back on the experience, I’ve spent this whole semester learning about the world and, especially in the past few weeks, myself. In the collaboration process, I was matched for the first time with groupmates whose dedication and knowledge of theatre were akin to my own. Rather than making for smooth sailing, this created friction within our group, specifically, between me and everyone else.
Although I claimed again and again that I didn’t want to be the director, I had this vision in my head of how our group was going to perform scene ten from Our Country’s Good, how we were going to convey the idea of theatre being a way to escape the hopelessness of reality, etc. etc. ad infinitum. Everyone else in our group latched on to the David Mamet piece right away, and was excited to be doing that. I’m ashamed of myself now, how I didn’t believe that the David Mamet piece could be presented in a meaningful way, with what we were doing. Because of the way I felt, I decided to quit collaborating, in a way. In my stupid, stubborn way, I think that I was thinking, if we can’t do OCG and we can’t do it the way I’m seeing it, then let *them* do whatever they want. I opted out of the project. I suppose I had my reasons for doing so, but I’m still ashamed of what I did. Which is why I won’t be going into the whole reiteration of my thought process of the early stages of the project. For more information, please refer to
As far as smooth points in the process go, I’d have to say I was very impressed with the way that rehearsals always went smoothly. All of the time, with few exceptions, everyone was there on time, and we were very focused as a group to the task at hand. We also had enough rehearsal time, in spite of my pessimistic outlook at the outset that we would only be able to have one or two rehearsals before performance. I was also very impressed with the acting talent in my group - TK as the director didn’t have to dictate specific acting choices, she merely made suggestions that were quickly integrated into characters. Even Marla, though she denies it, did very well in becoming her characters, and was very believable, when she was acting. I really felt honored to be working with such a talented group of people. Though it might have been against my most fervent wishes to be working on this play instead of OCG, if I had to have been doing this particular show, there weren’t any better people to be working with.
All in all, I can’t say that this production was as fantastic as I’d dreamed it could be, but I doubt that any play in the real world could live up to the standards of the plays of my dreams. I do remember Natalie saying that this project wasn’t supposed to be the be-all, end-all play of plays, but I knew that I wanted it to be. Even if it’s just a school project, I see it as an opportunity to show the world a little bit of something that I feel needs to be shown. In this case, it was my own personal theme, how theatre can serve as a refuge from the hopelessness of reality. When we read Our Country’s Good, and especially when I saw it the first time, that particular theme rang true for me, most likely because I was in a situation where I felt a desire to escape from reality. Since then, I have been trying again and again to find the best way to convey that theme, to what ends I am uncertain. I’m not entirely sure what I am trying to accomplish with this, but my best guess is that I’m trying to tell the world a story, that in a way is about me. In this past year I’ve really come to realize that it’s the storytelling aspect of theatre that intrigues and excites me, and I expect to be a storyteller for all of my life. In this production, I hope only to have shown a tiny bit of this theme, for as Emily Dickinson put it, “If I can stop one heart from breaking / I shall not live in vain.” As this class project undoubtedly will not be the last piece of theatre that I work on, I know that I have the rest of my life to create a paramount piece of theatre that will live for ages and speak to millions. However, I look on every chance I have at creating good theatre as a learning tool - each time I’m getting better at this whole theatre thing. And theatre can also serve as a stress relief for me, the ‘theatre as an escape’ spiel. Again, for further information, refer to
Okay, to sum up all of the fluff expressed in the last paragraph, I think I’d like to be a light designer. At least for the short term. Until I lean how to play nice with others and become a director. At the present moment, I’d like to learn how to best convey messages in theatre by using technical tricks. Unfortunately for this production, I wasn’t entirely sure of what our overarching theme was, since TK or anyone else never specifically articulated that, but standing at this point I’m standing at now, I can see the possibilities running off into the distance. So to metaphorically speak. I can’t get the aphorism out of my head that the wise man is that he knows he knows nothing. Instead of teaching me everything about theatre design, and instead of being the ‘bring down the house,’ people-dancing-in-the-streets epic piece of theatre of my dreams, this project was the first step towards something much greater. So, in the game that we played on the last day of class of stepping towards the center of a circle to indicate our level of learning, I’m ready to respond to my own journey of life in theatre. The center, I realize, is probably unreachable, and there are hundreds of yards between me and the center anyway, but I’ve stepped off the circumference of the base circle. One step towards the center, and I’m eager to eat up the rest of the distance now. I’ll make up the rest of the way somehow.
As this little girl with starlights dancing in her eyes looks up, the lights fade until there is nothing left but a single footlight, only a desk lamp really. The sun has gone down, which to some may metaphorically mean the end, but once the night envelops the earth, the thespians come out and play. The lights of the theatre go up, and the world is good once again. Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark, an English officer in the first convict penal colony of Australia, gave this advice to his players: “I ask you to keep in mind the play, to cling to the play as the thing which will give you your spirit back.” The true meaning of Our Country’s Good takes many forms, and I believe it is universal. Now to tell the world.