The Rest is Finally Silence

Duun...duun...duuun...

DU-NUH!

(dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, duh...)

That's the Also Sprach Zarathustra, made popular of course by the Kubrick film, 2001. I could have gone on with my rendition, but I figured it was so obvious that your mind would naturally fill in the crescendo progression. I know mine is; over, and over, and over.

Blueprints is done! Whoopsie Daisy is done! Let there be much rejoicing! Also: I'm sad to have it be over so quickly! Aww. Some days you just can't win for losing. Are we relieved that we pulled it off? Certainly. It also felt surprisingly good, this show. We found a synchronicity, a unity, to our varied performances that we didn't necessarily deserve, given how little time we actually worked in the same room together. It felt good. It felt right. Patrick, Melissa and I discussed how natural it was to work together (especially in the West End Theatre, site of so many of our other collaborations) and personally, I feel the unity we found had as much to do with our common creative origins back in 2001 as with anything else. Even Friend Kate was on hand for Friday night's performance, so we had a full Yurtian accord for the first time in years.

We had a problem with audience, due largely to the last-minute notice we were able to give, but miraculously I had very important people to me in the audience both nights. Friends Laura & Daryl attended Friday night, which was a little like introducing a new girlfriend to her possible in-laws. I've done lots of work with these two, particularly Daryl, but it's all been relatively straight (read: not circus-y nor expressionistic), scripted theatre. Introducing them to my silent-film clown, Lloyd, and some of the work (in-progress) I create for myself was slightly harrowing. Then again, they received it well enough, and perhaps my eccentricities are not quite as latent in daily life as I'd like to perceive them to be. Sunday, Michael and Joanna from Bond Street Theatre were in attendance, which was a complete surprise. It's nice to think that they followed up on last week's collaboration in that way, especially given how busy they both are. Afterwards we talked in some detail about my work, which was also nice, having two experienced clowners and physical-theatre types from whom to receive critique.

And what was there to critique? Plenty; but as an acknowledged work-in-progress, I thought my piece went off rather well. Most of all I was struck by how delicate a thing I'm trying to build via all this throwing myself about (oh man--pun above totally unintentional, I swear to you). Eliciting laughter through a character's confusion about, suffering from, and ultimate adaptation to a new environment (or a new perception of his environment) requires a careful journey, no matter how many pratfalls happen along the way. It requires an extremely intimate responsiveness to the audience, and I rather shut myself off from that possibility by giving myself restrictive music cues. The timing, in other words, was more dictated by the music than by the moment. If I could have, I would have changed the piece to take more time between our opening and closing performances, but I backed myself into a corner there with what I had orchestrated. That's a definite lesson for next time (right up there with making sure I have more than a week in which to prepare). Some of my other lessons included techniques and bits that definitely worked, however, and I can hardly wait to try them again.

What I ended up building was essentially an exploration of a couple of things:

• The themes and tropes of silent film clowning I want to utilize in Red Signal, including transformation; and


• The use of the surreal in relationship to comedy and our recent (current) history.

Lloyd starts out as an uptight, shut-off New Yorker, going about his daily business. The beautiful and surreal come at him in a couple of ways, through some "inanimate" objects (a flower and a hat) and a woman, all of which quickly break down his ability to adhere to his routines and function in the world. As a result, he has to start over with everything, soup-to-nuts. Also as a result of this, he's suddenly aware of the audience's presence, which terrifies him. Resisting this, he tries to flee, but finds himself trapped in the theatre. Recognizing this, he tries to at least shed the trappings of this new perception, and goes into violent attempts to be rid of the "sticky" hat that suddenly appeared on him. All fails, in spite of a (hopefully) overwhelming array of physical stratagems, until he sticks his head off-stage and tries to pry the hat off that way.

And this where it starts to get surreal (yes, the prior seems completely normal to me). When his head pops back out, it has a different hat on. Instead of a black fedora, it is a grey top hat, in turn wearing welding goggles on itself. Lloyd reaches up to investigate, then heads toward the off-stage to see about where the new hat came from. He doesn't get far, quickly retreating from a small, bright light that skitters across the floor toward him from out the wing. He retreats from it, to escape through the other wing, when a second comes shooting out. He crouches upstage, away from both, then remembers the goggles on his hat and lowers them over his eyes. Thus protected, he approaches one of the lights crouched, like a cat. He bats it around a few times, then pounces on it and puts it in his mouth. Then he pounces on the other and does the same, standing to reveal two glowing cheeks. He quickly starts to retch, however, and when the lights pop out, he palms them so they face the audience side-by-side and become eyes, his fingers the eyelids/lashes. They look around the audience, blink drowsily, wink at someone, etc.

Suddenly, one of the "eyes" goes berserk, flying about erratically. The other soon follows suit. They fly into proximity to one another and flip about there for a bit, then part to explore away from one another; now they are like mating fireflies. One suddenly hovers, focused on something in the darkness upstage. His/her mate eventually notices his/her absence, and flies to join him/her. They zoom upstage and illuminate the woman, and look her up and down. Then Lloyd places the lights as lenses in his goggles. The woman smiles at him, takes his hand, and together they leave the stage, his "eyes" lighting their way.

That's the short play what I made. I don't know how much of the reasoning (the abundant reasoning) behind it was clear to the audience, but given the exploration of the surreal I was aiming for I'm content to have people make of it what they will. I learned a lot about the exploration of transformation involved in my script for Red Signal, mainly that people get and appreciate it best when they have a little distance from it. This was made awfully evident for me in the moment of recognition of the audience. It served as a very clear indicator that his world had changed, but only worked for me when it was very deliberately comic. When I did it with very precise double-take timing, it elicited a laugh, and the audience felt enough sense of perspective to appreciate Lloyd's plight without feeling responsible for it. So, I believe, they felt safer to empathize and identify with him. If I did it at all naturalistically, it created, rather than released, tension for my audience. They identified with his fear too immediately, perhaps, and felt a need to rationalize his (their) existence rather than go along with the humor. The film, if I can ever get it made, needs to steer a careful course between observation and empathy.

As for the surreal . . . well, what can you say about it, really? It was fun to do, I can say that. Certainly people enjoy having their expectations boggled a bit. My question about it was whether or not something made today in the spirit of the old silent-film comedies ought to step up the surreal aspects a bit. I mean, the silent comedians were often surreal in their creations; Buster Keaton particularly, and he was practically revered by the Surrealists who plied their philosophies after him. Yet all that surrealism came from fairly rational sources, used in supposedly irrational ways. Do we as audience experience the same lifting-out of the mundane as the audiences of Chaplin's and Lloyd's (Harold) films? With all the strange twists and turns art and culture have taken in the past century, might a contemporary silent film benefit from reinterpreting its moments of "surreality" into more abrupt or inexplicable forms? In his time, Keaton's use of a bass as a boat and a violin as a paddle were absolutely surreal, but now I wonder that it might only be perceived as "clever." When we can hardly tell what's CGI anymore, our surrealists must take a somewhat harder tack. My hypothesis for this little experiment was that a contemporary audience must be confronted with something a little more abrupt, a little less sourced, if they're to experience any real sense of surrealism.

I think it worked. I think, actually, it really worked. In a sense, all I really did was to subvert the order of transformation for the objects a bit, so that their immediate given purpose may not have been as obvious. (Frankly, I don't really understand the intended purpose of those weird little light things.) The hat and goggles contradict one another's associations -- assuming you're not a big steampunk proponent. The lights immediately behave differently than one might expect -- an idea that came to be, by the way, from reading Sophie's World. All the action was a sort of fluctuation (or flirtation) around the intended use of the objects until finally the lights become Lloyd's actual eyes. (Incidentally: They definitely weren't made for that; I owe myself a little more work to make those little sums-of-riches stick in there.) The effect, I think, was to initially baffle, but coupling it with a laugh (the surprising change of hat off-stage) made it non-threatening. Lloyd was threatened, then playful, then interactive, which allowed the audience along for the ride a bit. It's hard to say just how good the result was, but I think I'm at least on my way to something really positive, unique and satisfying.

That's what it's all about, really. I'm excited to keep the momentum going, both on my own work and on collaborating with Patrick and Melissa (and maybe even Melissa's dancers, Zoe and Madeline -- they're Tony-the-Tiger grrreat). The holidays can be a real sluggish time for me in terms of my creative work. There's just so much else to do. But somewhere, in the back of my head, I'll be revisiting this harrowing and lovely experience. If you see me with a distant look on my face, I'm probably imagining how I might do a handstand whilst blinded by my own brightly shining eyes . . .

Burnt Foliage

I know that you've been fervently checking in on Odin's Aviary to find out how this week's adventure in last-minute original work turned out for our intrepid hero. Hourly, nay -- minute-ly, you direct your browser this way, hoping for some whiff of report on last night's show, the final follow-up to this week's chain of entries charting the development of my earth-shattering new work:

Whoopsie Daisy.

Well, I've news indeed, and thanks for tuning in: I'm not going to write about

Blueprint

yet. It consists of two performances, we've had one, and I'll tell all after the last opportunity everyone has to see it for themselves, this Sunday evening. It's my Aviary. I can do whatever the hell I want.

Plus, I'd be surprised if anyone reads any 'blogs on purpose over the weekend. Apart from yours truly, that is.

I do hope my readership will return to this entry on Monday, however, because I'm here to finally write a bit about another big event in my work this week; specifically, the closing performance of my second staged reading of

Burning Leaves

. I wrote briefly about having the first of two readings of this play on

Monday

, before the incipient madness of my creative process for

Whoopsie Daisy

had taken root. Thereafter, I've been understandably preoccupied, but that isn't indicative of any shortage of effect that

Burning Leaves

had on me. Rather, I wanted to get the other piece of work on its feet so I could turn my full energy to evaluating my latest experience with

Tom Rowan

's play; may it not be the last.

The second and final presentation took place under strenuous conditions for me, and I don't just mean its coincidence with my other process this week. It wasn't until 9:00 pm Wednesday, which was an altogether long day anyway, with a full day of work, then a rapid introductory rehearsal for

Blueprint

on the upper west, a dinner with friends, and finally the night was freezing and the theatre wasn't all that much better. So there felt like a lot to overcome; which isn't necessarily a bad thing for us actors, but there's always some question about whether that obstacle will add to the performance, or override it. All-in-all, I was actually more satisfied with the climax in the second performance, but prior to that I felt a bit flat. It piqued my desire to work on the play under a longer rehearsal process. My character, Matt, has a such a complex inner landscape at the point in his life with which the play concerns itself, there was very little chance of my getting a credible handle on it for a reading. Unless, I suppose, we do six or seven more of them.

There was a very interesting range of ages and experience in our cast, and I was a bit preoccupied by it throughout the process. I suppose that has as much to do with my recent rites of passage as with my comrades-in-arms.

In addition to Tom and

Gaye-Taylor Upchurch

, my fellow collaborators for this process included

Kevin Confoy,

Abigail Gampel

,

Allison Goldberg

,

Hana Kalinski

, and

Alexander Paul Nifong

. I was a little thrown at first, to be honest, by the sheer impression of youth Alex gave as the high school boy with whom Matt becomes involved. It's completely appropriate to the age of the character, but it also made me rather automatically a little more defensive in performance. In my previous experience, the actor playing his character, Jesse, brought a sense of control and intention to it that allowed me to accept with more ease the depth of affection Matt might develop for him. With Alex's Jesse, at first, I worried about what was to be made of my character falling for someone so obviously naive. We found a balance through rehearsal, but that balance really paid, off, I thought, in Wednesday night's performance. I can't say what caused it (which is a little frustrating) but I thought Alex gave a very grounded, nuanced and intentional performance of Jesse that night, one which pulled the whole thing together for me in a lovely way. His work was good throughout, but Wednesday it was great.

There was much discussion of acting "technique" during this process, and more than a little breathless excitement over this and that from the younger actors of our cozy tribe, all of which I found to be very interesting and, speaking frankly, a little funny. Not to say anything against these actors! Indeed, they were an inspiring reminder of how great it is to do what we do. What was funny to me was how distant from such discussions I have become; I don't think of it that way anymore. (I'll leave it to you, Gentle Reader, to determine if that's progress, or simply laziness.) Funny, too, was this kind of subtext or suggestion beneath the questions that there was some kind of answer to the question: Just what process makes for the best performance? When asked by the woman reading stage directions (she asked me twice, for unknown reasons) what technique I used, I answered that I use whatever works best moment-to-moment in the story, then mentioned that I found a lot of usefulness in Meisner work. I couldn't be sure how satisfied she was with this answer. There is, in my opinion, no concrete answer to the question. There is only good craft, well-applied -- a thousand paths to the same summit.

Plus, we're not all that freaking important. Actors are often, at their greatest moments, cyphers. It may seem like a somewhat hollow occupation, but I don't think so. I feel it's one of the most transcendent roles a human being can fulfill.

Tom has written a great line for Jesse, who is just starting a study of acting: "The words hurt, if you really say them." It's a moment of discovery for the character that we not only get to witness, but participate in, as we've just watched him connect emotionally with a text he's performing. This is what

Burning Leaves

is for me, one of those stories that I connect with, wherein the words hurt (and make me laugh, and make me think). I'm not remembering a long-lost love when I fight through the tears, nor am I imagining some other scenario, nor am I using psychological gesture. When I'm doing it well (not "right": well), I'm saying the words, and letting them work on me. I'm also feeling my audience's presence and allowing that to work on me, and I'm listening to my body, and my fellow actors, and my imagination, and its all just funneling through me. Is that easy? Hell no. Do you need to train for it, and use technique? Hell yes. But leave Stanislavski and Meisner and Hagen in the rehearsal room. On stage, you're not there for them, nor even for your craft, but for everyone who happens to be in that room, in that willing community of surrender and imagination.

Bleyargh. What am I doing up here? Where'd this soapbox come from?

So obviously

I'm

a little biased, but I think Tom Rowan's play deserves to have a hell of a long life. I hope he gets it produced soon, and have some ideas about spreading the word of it in my little way. Is this simply because I identify with it personally? Sure, but what other criteria shall we use for theatre? I'll leave the promotion of existential drama and Shepard plays to others (there are certainly enough of them to support it all). For my money, a heartfelt story that's clearly expressed is worth a dozen Bogart deconstructions. (At least.) This was a tremendous experience, and I hope to work on it again with the same people, theoretical discussions and all.

Give us a grant. A big one. That is all.

The Rest is (Yes, Still) Silence

{This entry is a continuation of 11/18/08 & 11/19/08...}

Well: Maybe not every single moment. Though I am having more waking ones than sleeping, at the moment. Yesterday was a lo-o-ong day (that's a three-syllable "long," right there) and I didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night. In addition, some of that time had to be devoted to the closing reading of Burning Leaves (Hi Tom), a play that, in my opinion, certainly deserves what devotion it gets (Hi Tom). I'm afraid my reading may have suffered a bit from my multi-tasking and the lateness of the hour. But more on that in a later entry (Bye Tom). For this sleep-deprived moment, it is all Whoopsie Daisy, all the time.

Yesterday was not full of time in which to play out my ideas. I could come-to-think-of-it have retreated to the back hall of my daily workplace for some tumbling and hat tricks but, then again, perhaps it's best I didn't. The copier's back there, and my discovery mid-handstand would have been inevitable. ("O hai.") So my rehearsal was limited to my imagination. This turned out to be a good thing. I'm always craving organization, and it isn't a compulsion that always benefits my creative pursuits, but it just so happened that at this stage of the game that was exactly what was needed. So after venting on yesterday's entry, I brought up the dreaded blank MSWord(TM) page and set about getting down the ideas from the prior days' rehearsal and them what have introduced themselves since.

It was, in its way, tremendously comforting. Too comforting? Perhaps. It is always easier to theorize a performance than to confidently prepare it for presentation. Still, I had the prior night's practice fresh in my body, and managed to keep my perspective about what I can and can not do. I even have tentative music to use. As soon as I got home Tuesday night I sat at my computer and sought out instrumental music that would support what I had thus far in my imagination. With these things in mind, I started to outline, chronologically, step-by-step, a scenario for my performance. It was a bit like working on my clown screenplay, in the best ways, and I was reminded of Buster Keaton's assertion that a good movie ought to be able to be expressed in a few sentences, to fit on a postcard. Simplicity's hard for me when I'm gathering ideas, but easier when it comes to writing it all down. One thing leads to the next, to the next, and to the next. Particularly in physical comedy.

By the end of my "work day" (HA!), I had a complete outline, subject of course to revision, and raced up to the venue to try and catch the final half-hour or so of Melissa's rehearsal. Even getting quite lucky with transfers, I just made it for thirty minutes' worth of time. I walked into the warmth in time to see about the final five minutes of Patrick running his contribution, and it set me at ease anew -- the space is so familiar, and here was my rehearsal partner from the night before filling it very naturally. We can do this. I came to realize, in fact, that a sense of community had already permeated the space; it just took me awhile to catch on to it. Suddenly I realized I was not, in fact, flying solo. We were all in this together. I can already tell that is going to make a world of difference from my experience with EAT's Laugh Out Loud last Spring.

My brief time in the space was spent enlisting the aid of one of Melissa's dancers (I have discovered I need another character), getting a new lay of the land and sketching through my show for Melissa's benefit. Patrick and Zoe Bowick were also around for that and, though I was really just outlining most of the sequence, some positive responses from them helped my self-esteem tremendously. Melissa, of course, is just the most supportive colleague ever. It's her way, and I think it explains why she works so durn much. What I didn't get done in the space was: a run, technical details or even really a reading on just how possible the piece I imagine will be. Here's a short list of things I must do tonight to be ready for tomorrow:

• Buy, then rig to behave the way I need it to, an artificial daisy.
• Collect string lights.
• Finalize costume.
• Rig props.
• Finalize, download and burn a disc of all sound and music cues.
• Practice all tricks and acro as much as possible (already using elevator rides for hat-trick practice).
• Run entire sequence several times.
• Stretch.
• Stretch.
• Stretch (some more).

All of this from (or in-and-around) the comfort of my apartment, 'cause I'm not shelling out for another rehearsal space the day before tech and, frankly, I need the comforts of home at this point. I sacrifice space needs for psychic ones. Fortunately for me, I have no other commitments tonight, and the place to myself for a few hours. Lots is still only going to be done in the space, during tech (the day of the performance), for me. Which is all to say: No longer eyeing oncoming traffic as a method of escape from this assignment; still experiencing pangs of sheer terror.

Keeps me sharp!

The Rest is (Remaining) Silence

{This entry is a continuation of 11/18/08...}

So Friend Patrick and I met and rehearsed for about three hours last night, after I got off of work. I'm not at all sure I can properly call what we did "rehearsal," at least insofar as my part of it went. Patrick is farther along on his process for the upcoming performances (starting Friday, starting FRIDAY) so we spent much of his time in the space doing character exploration and discussing possible adaptations to his "I propose a toast..." piece. It's really interesting stuff, actually. This is a piece I've seen him do a few times, and he's interested in getting it better adapted to the stage (it's normally performed at events, particularly ones involving drinks). This is almost exactly what I was aiming to do the last time I performed solo clown work (see 5/28/08). I don't want to write too much about Patrick's work here without his consent, of course. You'll just have to attend to see the results!

As to my process, last night it mostly consisted of me talking a blue streak whilst occasionally putting ideas on their feet (my feet?). In fact, it must have been a little like watching a five-year-old for dear Patrick. You know when a little kid pulls you into a room and says he's going to put on a show for you, and he has gathered some puppets, but you quickly begin to get the suspicion that not a whole lot of table sessions and research went into his so-called "play"? Yeah. Like that. For an hour. It was reminiscent of the process behind some of our more rushed Zuppa del Giorno shows, too. When we had to get a show ready in a hurry for our last trip to Italy (see 5/30/08), everything was done out-of-joint. We had a title first, we developed some acrobalance moves, we figured out our story, we returned to the acro and found we couldn't do it anymore, for some reason I still don't comprehend, we ended up choreographing one of the most satisfying sections the day before we premiered it . . . you get the idea. And in spite of all this, the process can not be rushed. Let me emphasize this slightly: THE PROCESS CAN NOT BE RUSHED. You are where you are in the process, no matter what sequence it takes, nor how urgent your need is to "complete" it.

Which can be a bitch sometimes.

What I knew going into last night's "rehearsal" (man -- the sarcastic quotation marks are really flying in this entry -- sure sign of insecurity) was the title I had already provided Melissa, Whoopsie Daisy, and the program blurb I also sent her way. Note that I have definitely cultivated a skill in well-structured description that nonetheless promises nothing:

"Lloyd Schlemiel is new in town. Actually, he doesn't remember how he got here at all. There was a flicker of the light, a rattling noise (like some old machine whirring to life), and here he is. Also: He doesn't wear hats. Who wears hats anymore? Please bear with him. He's got a lot to learn."

Bully. What I had to dump into this whole Whoopsie Daisy assignment I rather gave myself was a few solo performances, only one of which took place on a stage, a partial clown screenplay, and whatever I can come up with between now and then. So where does one begin?

Well, I began with completely freaking out. That's often a good starting point. It provides a whole lot of false starts and bad ideas, and that's good. No really; it is. There's no faster progress to be made than that which results from big, multitudinous mistakes. So trying to find a special type of ladder, only to find it wasn't going to work for the show, then spending over an hour trying to resolve video issues on my computer Monday night . . . that was all necessary to catapult me into what would prove more useful. So I believe, and so I keep reminding myself when the panic sets in again. What I gathered instead for my work with Patrick were as many hats as I had, and some prop items with which I was simply curious about playing. Throughout my work-filled day, I contemplated several different approaches to take to creating action, including entertaining for some time the (fortunately, ultimately abandoned) notion of using a day-job-ish environment somehow.

By the time I was journeying from work to dinner, I realized I could lean more heavily on the ideas I'm using for the screenplay than I had previously thought. I knew I wanted to tell a story of transformation, and I had some ideas about how this could be accomplished in a theatrical setting. (It helps, very much, that I'm quite familiar with the West End Theatre.) In short, I suddenly felt like I had it all figured out. Yep, I've written this story already, in fact. No worries. None at all.

Of course, this is why rehearsal is so important: It shows us how little we truly know. Maybe mid-way into my descriptive rant at Patrick, it became clear to me that I had a long way to go. Yes, I want to tell a story about transformation, and yes I've given some thought to that already, and yes I have stock bits to use. BUT: I need a through-line, I need a central action, I need, I NEED! We made some progress on pursuing these things, but over the next two (TWO!) days, I need to hustle, and keep the ideas coming.

I can't rush the process. What I can do, is make sure I give it every single moment of my time, waking and sleeping.

Return of the Lloyd

Friend Melissa contacted me recently about contributing to something she's putting together for Six Figures' Artists of Tomorrow (AOT) festival. Specifically, she asked if my silent-film clown, Lloyd Schlemiel, could be a part of it. I mulled it over for a bit before responding. It's pretty late notice (performing November 21 and 23), and I'm just dipping my toes back into the waters of performance after some time away. Add to that my last experience performing solo Lloyd, back in May, which can best be described as a learning sort of experience, and I felt justified in having some hesitation. I gave it a day, and when I came back to it today the thing I realized was that in spite of all the rational reasons not to take it on I wanted to take it on. So I am.

I don't know what I'll do yet, exactly, though I do know I want to book some time to work on Lloyd shtick in a rehearsal room, preferably with an outside eye lending me insight. Melissa told me right off that video projection was a possibility, so I have thoughts about utilizing some of my amateur video, if I can get it together in time. The first thing I did, though, was to write Melissa back, accept her offer and ask her a little about what she was looking for. It turns out she wants to theme her work around her most recent dance exhibition for Estrogenius, which is collectively entitled Blueprint. Though I've been reading her 'blog in reference to this work, I didn't see it, so I asked for a description. She writes:

"Blueprint was a wide open assignment -
just taking the word and riffing with a piece of some sort -"

Okey-dokey. In addition to this, I knew Melissa had utilized (a) large blue hat(s) and lipstick in her choreography. So there's that. Lloyd most frequently has used a large, round orange hat in his act, so that's a funny coincidence/contradiction/complement. Finally, though, Melissa writes what I find to be interesting observations about my noseless clown:

"I think anything Lloyd is a blueprint piece - he is so curious and exploratory that he is always wondering what something is made of and his relationship to it - which in my mind is also wondering what he is made of -"

This would make the second time that my clown has been described as a guy who needs to figure things out, though it's difficult to remember whether or not Mel and I have talked about the similar observation that Mark McKenna made. I find her observation, either way, quite accurate and insightful. I never looked at it before as Lloyd trying to figure himself out through his relationship with objects. (Lloyd is of course, me, and I hope you'll understand the ease of referring to him in the third person) It's a fascinating angle from which to approach new work with him. Not literally, of course. The first decision I would have to make in a rehearsal room would be whether he is even aware of that kind of introspection. At present, I'm inclined to say it is all subconscious. That seems funnier in concept, but until I play around with the idea, who knows?

It would be nice if this performance could advance my other work with Lloyd in its process, specifically my interests in making a silent film or two. I have a collection of amateur clown-ish shorts -- raw footage, really -- that is all haphazard and unedited and generally useless at the moment. This could be an interesting opportunity to get it organized, at least, and maybe use something of it for the performance. I've seen and done a lot of work under the auspices of the AOT festival, the last being As Far As We Know, way back when it was still called The Torture Project. During that time, Six Figures was using the high domed ceiling of the converted nave space for its projections, and if the same is true this time around it could create some very interesting moments of focal shift. In addition, exploring my clown from the point of view of his own introspection (or lack thereof) is a cool way to begin my experimentation of playing Romeo in a clown style.

Whatever happens, I'm certainly destined to be pretty busy for the next couple of weeks.