Open Rehearsal: The Court Theatre Blog
The Mystery of Irma Vep
November 14, 2009
Irma Vep Preview #3
I’m blogging a quick note during the intermission of preview #3 for The Mystery of Irma Vep. Every night, the show is getting tighter and brisker, and so far I think it’s really found its optimal pace. Farce really is a sensitive infernal machine; the cutting of a few seconds here and there makes a disproportionately large difference. At last night’s talk back, Sean proudly announced that the backstage team had shortened the quickest costume change down to 7.5 seconds, while the best Ludlam ever achieved was 9 seconds. So come out and see records broken!
The Mystery of Irma Vep runs Wednesday through Sunday until December 13.
November 12, 2009
First Preview Tonight
I’m not an official production dramaturg on The Mystery of Irma Vep, so when I saw the show’s final dress rehearsal last night, it was really the first time I’d seen the show in any fully realized form. I have to say that this show is going to be a blast to watch during previews. Our director Sean Graney has tricked out the production with a number of special effects and derring-do costume changes that even Charles Ludlam never attempted, and while it’s going to take a few performances to smooth out the technical bumps, Erik and Chris are completely owning their performances and they’re a joy to watch. You know you’ve got the right actors when you actually look forward to the technical snafus, as Erik and Chris have been accepting them not as mistakes but as playful proposals of further comic business.
I should also mention that every performance of The Mystery of Irma Vep begins with a mini-concert on guitar and banjo by Erik Hellman and Chris Sullivan, where they cover their repertoire of “spooky hits.” Come out and play with us!
The Mystery of Irma Vep begins previews tonight, November 12.
(Photo by Michael Brosilow)
November 3, 2009
Mystery Allusion #4
Charles Ludlam’s knowledge of literature was formidable, and he peppered The Mystery of Irma Vep with canny allusions. We’re featuring several of those allusions every week until the opening of The Mystery of Irma Vep. Today’s selection is:
HAMLET by William Shakespeare
BACKGROUND: Universally regarded as the navel of Western drama, deemed by T.S. Eliot an “artistic failure,” it received its first performance sometime around 1602 by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men with Shakespeare starring as the Ghost.
THE ALLUSION: This one’s a twofer:
| THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP | HAMLET |
| Lord Edgar: From his fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring! | Laertes: Lay her in the earth, And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring. |
| Lord Edgar: Enid, there are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophies! | Hamlet: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. |
And for your edification, 3 Hamlet‘s:
1. Sir Laurence Olivier’s “Yorick” speech:
2. Charlie Newell’s Hamlet at Court Theatre (with Yasen Peyankov as the Gravedigger):
3. The Wooster Group’s Hamlet, performed in front of the Richard Burton Hamlet:
Check this blog again for a brand new Ludlam literary trick!
November 3, 2009
Irma Vep Snapshot
IN REHEARSAL: Chris “Sully” Sullivan as Egyptian Princess Pev Amri (standing) and Erik Hellman as Lord Edgar Hillcrest. (Photo: Michael Brosilow)
October 29, 2009
Erik Hellman on his “daily grind”
ERIK HELLMAN, one of the two actors for Charles Ludlam’s The Mystery of Irma Vep, took a moment to wax philosophical about professional acting, cross-dressing, and rocking out on the dulcimer.
“The supreme theatre is intuitive. The artists of this theatre…are spontaneous and lucky. Their secret is that of the ancient Chinese marksmen whose every arrow was found in the dead center of a chalk circle. They shoot their arrows first and draw the circle afterward.”
-From Seven Levels of the Theatre by Charles Ludlam
Recently I was asked to participate in a workshop at Court Theatre. The idea was to share a model of collaboration with another sector of the professional world, to suggest that there was something in the way theatre artists solve problems of interpretation and creation that would help administrators solve the problems they face. Ever since then I have been thinking about how my job is different from other people. The surprising answer is that it is not. Fellow actor Chris Sullivan and I climb into my Honda Civic and crawl down Lake Shore Drive each morning like so many other commuters. We arrive at work and exchange pleasantries around the coffee machine with our colleagues. We unpack our briefcases and put on dresses (a necessity of our job that, though perhaps unconventional for many males, still puts us in line with nearly half of America’s workforce), Assistant Director Eric Hoff prepares his legal pad (for notes), Assistant Stage Manager Sara “Damage” Gammage prepares her withering look (our barometer of comedic quality) and we go to work. Only instead of making washing machines or sorting census data we are working on creating a piece of theatre, ideally, a piece of “Supreme Theatre,” the highest circle of Ludlam’s metaphysical universe.
Erik Hellman as Valentine in Court Theatre’s Arcadia, with Mary Beth Fisher
Just out of school, working for off-off-Loop houses for little more than camaraderie and beer money, the young actor longs for the clout and resource of professional theatre. Later, spear-carrying for uninspired productions that pay the rent, he remembers when his investment in the play itself was payment enough. Actors balance these desires all the time: want vs. resource, remuneration vs. inspiration. Every now and then one gets both. Here is a list of problems that I have been paid to solve this week:
-What is the funniest mispronunciation of the word “wolf “in the singular and plural form?
-While holding a feather duster upside down, what is the best hand with which to hit a fellow actor in the crotch?
-How does a woman sniff her own armpit?
-What classic rock riffs are easily adaptable to a dulcimer?
I don’t claim that we have managed to solve all these problems to everyone’s satisfaction, but I can say that the way we have gone about trying to solve them would serve as a model for any organization. The actors propose solutions and the director filters them though his experience as an outside eye; the director proposes solutions and the actors filter them through the experience of performance. It is a conversation that builds to an answer larger than any one collaborator could have come to on their own. We shoot arrows, we draw circles and at the end of the day we have a testament to our accuracy as marksmen, even if the targets were the last thing in place. In a now much quoted rehearsal report Stage Manager Ellen Hay wrote, “…we all concluded that we did, in fact, get something done during rehearsal.” In other words: we drew the circle where the arrow fell.”
It is hard to be consistently spontaneous and lucky. Not every day is successful, sometimes we erase circles we’ve drawn, sometimes someone gets an arrow in the face, but despite the occasional failure or puncture wound, it is the only way we know to work. At the end of the day Chris and I climb into the Civic for the long crawl north. As we join the blue and white collar crowds inching towards home we talk about the day and the strains and glories of working in the creative arts, of being the kind of archers that aim for spontaneity, the kind of archers that make their own luck, of our unique position in America’s great, dress wearing, workforce.
—Erik Hellman
The Mystery of Irma Vep opens November 12.
