Open Rehearsal: The Court Theatre Blog
Page 36 of 40 pages « First < 34 35 36 37 38 > Last »
March 13, 2009
WAIT UNTIL DARK Opens this Weekend!
March 12, 2009
Tonight was our penultimate preview, and we were lucky to have our technical consultant Beth Finke join us for the post performance discussion. She has been a tremendously valuable collaborator during this process, and has been open to helping us in many ways. One evening Beth and her husband hosted Emjoy at their home to watch Beth move around the space. Earlier this week, Beth came to tour the stage with the cast and Ron, and to discuss what kinds of movements she could and could not hear, as well as when she could perceive other people near her. Tonight she attended a full performance for the first time, and it was exciting to hear her responses. She said she laughed vigourously when Susy scolds Roat that ‘it’s not that hard’ to navigate around the midnight black living room. And she cried at the end when Gloria returns to the apartment and instructs the policemen to leave Susy alone because she can manage by herself. It’s been so illuminating for all of us to hear Beth’s perspective on Susy’s world throughout this process, and a delight to discover this new creative partnership.
Previews have been going really well. It’s been fun to see how vocally and physically audiences are reacting to the drama in Act II. There are nightly screams and gasps–something which doesn’t often happen in the theatre. During curtain calls, John Hoogenakker, who plays Roat, has been getting playful boos for his portrayal of the outrageous villain Roat.
We now look forward to opening weekend, and hope to see you there!
–Kate Bredeson, Resident Dramaturg
February 17, 2009
Do I have to be the world’s champion blind woman?!
We invited Beth Finke, a local writer who lost her sight in early adulthood, to come speak to the cast of Wait Until Dark about her experiences. She wrote about the two-hour conversation on her own blog, which you can read here:
http://bethfinke.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/wait-until-dark/
Thanks for the kind words, Beth, and thanks again for all your help!
February 11, 2009
As they say, there’s no one quite so gullible as a con man in love.
Back to the rehearsal hall!
Wait Until Dark started rehearsing last Tuesday. It’s directed by Ron OJ Parson, Resident Artist and mastermind behind Fences and The First Breeze of Summer. Ron is easily one of Chicago’s best directors of realism (and is nationally known as one of a couple go-to directors for the plays of August Wilson), but in the past couple years he’s started pushing himself and his designers into territory that’s a little more abstract and theatrical—like the tableaux in First Breeze or the final image of Flyin’ West—elevated moments that heighten the emotional impact of the scripts he directs.
Cree, our casting director, likes to brag that this cast is entirely new to Court Theatre, which is pretty cool. Charlie and Ron, the two directors who work here most often, do tend to cast from a pool of their favorite actors, people they’ve worked and developed a shorthand with (for instance the all-star ensemble of The Wild Duck). But WUD (as it’s become known in emails among the staff) is different. It’s a new kind of show for Court Theatre: a populist Broadway hit that most people know from the movie version, and also a thriller. This is a genre of play that no one seems to make anymore, outside of the annual International Mystery Writers’ Festival (at which Ron has won “Angie” awards in past summers). So we’ve got a new kind of cast for this show. It’s usually a star vehicle (Marisa Tomei played the lead in a disastrous New York production a few years ago), but we’ve cast non-Equity up-and-comer Emjoy Gavino in the lead role of Susy, the blind woman attacked by con artists. You’ll hear from Emjoy on this blog in the coming weeks.
The design presentations are very exciting.
Jack Magaw, our set designer, has created a meticulously-realized garden apartment, built all the way out to the back door, which the audience never even sees. But since the sound of entrances and exits is hugely important to the plot and the atmosphere of the play, he’s designed geography out to the street in front and through to the back bathroom (of which certain seats in the audience will have a clear view, while others will only hear the stuff that goes on back there). That’s another thing—Jack and Ron are taking advantage of Court’s semi-thrust to give each audience member a totally different perspective on the action, instead of building way upstage or designing a vast, uncluttered environment so everyone sees basically the same thing. This all contributes, we hope, to the tension.
Unlike the generic preppy outfits of the film version, our WUD, designed by Rachel Laritz, is going to take full advantage of the 1960s Greenwich Village setting. The renderings we saw at first rehearsal are heavily influenced by the setting’s art world, drugs culture, and high fashion. The characters, instead of existing in a “timeless” limbo, are clearly connected to the era and class strata in which they operate. Sam (Susy’s husband) is a fashion photographer, and Roat is a high-level drug dealer with a theatrical bent—drab is not the order of the day.
Sound is, of course, extremely significant in Wait Until Dark, since it’s Susy’s primary source of sensory input about the men in her apartment. There will be plenty of live effects, as well as a full-on background score (!!) by Ray Nardelli. In general, the production is going to look and feel more like the stylized world of film noir than the realism you might expect. After all, Knott’s bizarre, twisty plot hinges on all sorts of fun secret codes and Byzantine con games that would, frankly, seem a little preposterous in a full-on kitchen sink world (not that we won’t have a kitchen sink).
What do you think? Are you excited about Wait Until Dark? Skeptical? Outraged? Indifferent? What questions do you want answered before you see the show?
January 20, 2009
No Stillness In the Land of the Wild Duck
Remarks by Resident Dramaturg Kate Bredeson. Enjoy!
There’s something refreshing about Court Theatre’s approach to the preview process. At Court, there are not just a couple of previews, but a whole week of them: seven performances total. And every night, following the performance, there is a post-show discussion between audience and artistic staff (usually led by me and director Charlie Newell). The thing that’s really exciting is that not only does Court actively solicit the opinions of audience members, but that things drastically and entirely change within the course of previews, often based on those shared comments.
Last night, after Sunday evening’s performance of The Wild Duck and the subsequent production meeting, the artistic team convened to discuss the production. We talked about what was working, what wasn’t, what questions we have, what we love, what we don’t, and the last half hour of the conversation was devoted to a possible huge re-writing and re-staging of the final scene of the play. Richard Nelson, who wrote the new translation/adaptation of Ibsen’s play expressly for a début at the Court, spent the weekend with us to see the production and discuss the process, and suddenly in our meeting, he began discussing the tricky last scene, and pulled out his script and drew sweeping arrows, made slashes through dialogue, and scribbled new words in the margins. We don’t know yet if this will indeed become the final five minutes of the production, but Charlie is excited to try it and see what happens.
Today was our first day off in a week, and tomorrow (after the inauguration) we are back in the theatre at the MCA to explore new ideas, incarnations, and experiments. Characters are still evolving and growing, the set and lights and clothes continue to change. We still have questions, and, five days before opening, we still have time to explore—-which is a good place to be.
January 12, 2009
Time stands still in the land of the wild duck.
Essay written for the production by Kimberly Kenny, Senior Lecturer in Norwegian at the University of Chicago.
The Wild Duck, the fifth in his prose play cycle of twelve, introduced a new phase in Ibsen’s drama. The first of Ibsen’s psychological plays, it followed Enemy of the People, which concluded the so-called social plays. Ibsen himself noted the singularity of this drama, saying that “it occupied a place of its own” and that its method was “in many respects a departure.” Still, The Wild Duck was hardly Ibsen’s first foray into innovation. In A Dollhouse, he set the theatrical world on its ear when he subverted the concept of the well-made play, denying the expected resolution of conflict and, instead, had Nora slam the door on her way out. His subsequent offering, Ghosts, ruthlessly depicted a corrupted family and a hypocritical clergy; while Enemy of the People, a quasi-comedy, provided a protagonist who characterized his fellow men as ill-bred mongrels. Repeatedly, Ibsen sought to challenge his audiences both in terms of form and content. Yet even in this larger context of provocation, Ibsen insisted on the newness of The Wild Duck, “I think that The Wild Duck may possibly lure some of our dramatists down new paths, which I would consider desirable.” What did Ibsen mean by “new paths”? Clearly, he meant a new mode, a new type of drama, one that resisted the labels of comedy or tragedy; and, certainly, there are both tragic and comic elements in the play, but what is the effect of this combination? The poignancy of the tragedy derives immeasurable power from the use of comedy, while the sharp contrast between light humor and terrible distress contribute to the pathos of the final climax.
Still, Ibsen meant more by “new paths” than this blending of tragedy and comedy. Already in Enemy of the People, he had signaled philosophical changes, revealing an increasingly contemptuous attitude toward humanity. In The Wild Duck, Ibsen shifts focus to the individual soul and a new type of psychological interaction. The central event is not, as was previously, the revelation of past sins or secrets, although there are, of course, secrets. Rather, it is the way in which Gregers bonds with Hedvig and asserts control over her mind that provides the basis for drama. Utilizing the wild duck as his verbal instrument, as symbol, he promotes her equation of herself with the wild duck. Her sacrifice is the predictable substitution of one quantity for another. Hedvig and Gregers connect via one old-fashioned, poetic phrase, “in the depths of the sea.” (på havsens bund). Here, as with the wild duck, Gregers relies on verbal magic to establish a bond with Hedvig, who is vulnerable, caught between childhood and adulthood, between literal and symbolic meaning.
Indeed, symbolism nearly overwhelms the play, asserting itself as the most significant difference in Ibsen’s dramatic technique. It is hardly new for Ibsen to choose a title of symbolic weight—A Dollhouse or Ghosts, for example—but the wild duck, proves to be a remarkably plastic symbol, lending itself to any number of equations. In terms of a broad category, the wounded duck gathers together all of the defeated dreams of the household. In addition, the tale of the wild duck corresponds neatly with Gregers’s mission to bring the Ekdal family up from the mire, just as Old Werle’s dog retrieved the wounded wild duck. Potential symbolic value for the wild duck does not end there. Perhaps it represents the enfeebled state of the modern imagination. Consider the potential pun—vildand (wild duck) versus vild aand (wild spirit). In fact, some have argued that the wild duck is so potent a symbol that it forces the action of the drama away from the realism of Ghosts and in a new direction. Earlier, symbols had served as points of reference or to underscore a central theme, now Ibsen extends his metaphoric structure, allowing it to pervade the stage sets and the scenery.
Ibsen acknowledged these tactics, referring to them as “galskap” (crazy tricks). Consider the looming symbol, which is the Ekdals’ home. Ibsen’s stage directions situate them in “a loft… with great panes of glass.” The changing light corresponds to the various moods of each act. Below them are found Relling and Molvik, who are occupied with drinking, etc. (Hjalmer will at one point descend to their level.) The Ekdals’ living space is divided between the photography studio in the foreground and the attic, the “natural refuge,” behind. Furthermore, the symbolic value of the home’s occupants demands attention; the paradigm is Christian. Gregers, like Dr. Stockman before him, is a strongly parodic, Messianic character, and, like Stockman, an unsuccessful truth-bringer. If Gregers is the apparent Messiah, then Old Werle is the supreme power in the world of the play. A mysterious figure, operating in the shadows, Werle rules both the lower world of the Ekdals and the world of Høidal (high valley), the higher world, from which his son descends to raise up the Ekdals. But where is the Holy Spirit? Could Hedvig in the form of her double, the wild duck, fill this role? Finally, rounding out the party and serving as counterpart to Gregers, we find the Dr. Relling, the satanic figure of deception and purveyor of the “livsløgn” (life-lie), who operates in tandem with the priest-candidate, Molvik.
Eventually, however, we have to set aside Gregers and Relling, and ponder the real struggle, between the ideal of truth and the usefulness of the life-lie. No longer on a “new path,” we find ourselves in familiar Ibsen territory, reminiscent of the closing scenes in A Dollhouse and Ghosts, grappling with questions which defy resolution.
