Open Rehearsal: The Court Theatre Blog
January 18, 2011
Three Tall Women: Previews
Edward Albee and his mother in 1962. (Bert Morgan/Getty Images)
We can never predict how audiences will respond to our productions, or what questions each play will provoke. That’s why the first weekend of previews is an exciting time for those of us who have witnessed the play’s journey from its selection up through its final rehearsals. Those first few audiences complete our act of interpretation; they crystallize the play’s meaning, hopefully affirming the reasons we selected the play in the first place, and sometimes even showing us a facet of the text we hadn’t seen before. This weekend, we learned three important lessons about Three Tall Women:
1. Never underestimate the audience’s intelligence. A major conceptual shift occurs midway through this play, and we questioned how well audience members would “get it.” The responses we received demonstrated that audiences don’t need us to hold their hands through difficult material.
2. Audience members recognize their loved ones in Lois Markle’s character of A. Several people who stayed for our post-show discussions told us that the physical and mental deterioration of A, in its complex tragicomedy, reminded them of a mother, grandmother, or spouse who had gone through a similar process of dying.
3. Certain audience members questioned our program’s description of Albee as an “adopted” son, especially given that the play itself doesn’t refer to the character of the son (a fictional version of Albee) as adopted. Many of these comments came from men and women who work in adoption services, or were indeed parents of adopted children themselves. We did indeed have internal conversations about this issue in advance, and we made the choice to print the fact because Albee himself sees it as an important fact of his life. Moreover, we found this quote from Albee important: “I’d like to think that I can be more objective than a lot of people can. I think my objectivity began very early as an orphan. Being adopted, I didn’t have the feeling that most kids have, that these were the people who made me. That sense of familial obligation wasn’t clouding up my responses to them.” We found this sentiment significant in relation to Three Tall Women, which is rooted deeply in Albee’s own real relationship to his mother.
There are three more preview performances of Three Tall Women remaining before Saturday’s opening, each one featuring a post-show discussion with artists from the production. Come out and share your thoughts with us!
Court Theatre’s Three Tall Women runs Wednesday through Sunday until February 13, 2011.
1 Response to Three Tall Women: Previews
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I hope that I won’t be sorry I read these comments. I prefer not to be influenced by other people’s impressions and feelings. I am definitely looking forward to the play and am glad that others liked it.
By ernestine austen on January 19, 2011 at 2:29 pm