Scene Two

"Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations"

-- Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

Somehow we're into our 3rd week of rehearsals, and while it feels in some ways that we're still at the beginning of this process, time as it always does is accelerating.

All the conversations about finalizing set design and ground plans, and prop lists and sound cues, andandand are all under way, but the most important thing remains that we continue to dig into this text, and as I always say to keep myself calm, I'm just going to keep putting one earnest foot in front of the other.  And keep asking Questions.

From the perspective of the TCNJ classes that are an important part of our audience, we've acknowledged different tangible themes in this play,  like the impact of stories on our lives, and how men and women communicate differently  and how they communicate in the workplace.

But this play's also different from any other I've ever directed (I think different from any I've worked on as an Actor too).  

A really interesting group of characters has been brought together in this play, and things start off in this pretty understandable place, but over time, more and more surrealistic things happen.  We're having lots of conversations during rehearsal about What's "really" happening, and the Why, why certain things happen -- and the WHY is as weird as the WHAT.

That WHAT I guess is akin to plot, and there is a plot in this play of course, but I don't think the plot is the point here.   At this moment I don't think the WHY is quite the point either.

I think the point here is seeing this group of diverse people, and watching the unexpected,  moment to moment choices they make in this environment.  The point is the cumulative, visceral effect that everything has on the audience, this mounting sense of...unreality, something magical maybe... enroute to an incredible destination.

 And we're drawing the map as we go.

-- j.q.

2.5.20