Friday, March 20, 2009
update from sonv
rehearsed in the space yesterday... we'll be in the round, in a gallery-type space. exactly what we were hoping for! kimi's sound cues sound great (including the singing!), the paper and plastic plates are nice and awkward, and i'm trying to chill out about struggling to remember philosophical statements that were originally written to be read, not to perform. we perform at 7 and 9pm tonight; 8pm tomorrow... kimi - wish you were here!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
script, third revision
As audience gets into place: two timers are set. Customer sits and reads menu. Waitress US of table. Movement sequence...
C: read menu
W: wipe spot on table
C: coffee/plate rim AND W: fill water, fill coffee
C: no coffee
C: read menu
W: take order (write) (drop pencil)
C: fill condiments
W: turn in order
W: fill condiments (drop condiment)
C: reach, write
C: drop pencil, write
W: carry heavy dishes
W: reach over to deliver food
C: coffee/plate rim AND W: fill condiments
W: wipe table
W: pour water SR
C: signal for check
W: pour water at table
C: no water
W: reach across to give check
W: leave, carry heavy dishes
C: remember tip
C: (drop change) AND W: (drop pencil)
C: signal waitress
W: signal customer
Customer sits in a chair US. Waitress goes to mic in audience.
Voice: Please be aware that someone might be watching you from a hidden camera, so you must be on your best behavior at all times. (Customer nods.)
Voice: Please turn on the television. (Customer nods again, goes to the timer sitting on a table SR, and turns it on.)
Voice: Please call the Learner in and flip the switch. If she does not comply with the rules, please switch the first button in front of you.
Customer nods, calls out: Go! (Waitress enters near chair with ticking timer.)
Customer flips a switch on the table. Waitress crosses to table, resetting timer. Customer crosses back to chair.
Customer slowly scans menu. Simultaneously, Waitress pours water in four directions.
Waitress turns timer to buzz.
Customer sings a list of objects. Waitress resets her timer, then balances two ticking timers – one in each hand. She tries to repeat words the Customer is singing, but gets them wrong. Each time, the Customer glares at her and Waitress freezes before they continue.
Customer:
The list...
Chair
Table
Desk lamp
Clipboard
Egg timer
Light switches
Memory cards
Buzzer
Rhinoceros mask
Cups of coffee
Shoe
Horn
Steam
Race
Helmet
Captain
Forest
Staple
Balcony
Waitress buzzes timer.
Recorded Voice: Each morning, they would put on the masks and perform their roles for the neighborhood; a signpost to the world that everything was as it should be.
Waitress delivers mask to Customer and says: Eggs?
Waitress goes back to table and takes mask for herself. Both put on masks. Customer faces US, Waitress faces DS.
Waitress (whispering): I once had a healer tell me that guilt is a useless emotion. I believe her. But then I begin to feel guilty about not feeling guilty. What is this? Meta-guilt?
Both: pick up change gesture; pick up pencil gesture; juggle mask away from face to right; mask back to face.
Customer: Is the guilt greater or lesser because of distance?
Both make half turn and one step closer; Waitress faces US, Customer faces DS.
Waitress: I once had a healer tell me that guilt is a useless emotion. I believe her. But then I begin to feel guilty about not feeling guilty. What is this? Meta-guilt?
Masks become trays; pouring water gesture 4 times, gradually getting closer to each other.
Customer: Is the guilt greater or lesser because of distance?
Waitress and Customer are extremely close; circle as they repeat (yell) their lines to each other. End Waitress facing US, Customer facing DS.
Customer begins polishing coffee cup gesture with plate.
Waitress: I can no longer live without you. (Goes to table and stacks plates on arm... plates get heavier and heavier as she sinks to the ground.)
Customer: There is no greater love than the love the wolf feels for the lamb it doesn’t eat. The other side of the scene is the paradoxical refined magnificent love of the wolf. It’s not difficult for the ewe to love the lamb. But for the wolf?
Waitress: That need overwhelms us.
Customer: The wolf’s love for the lamb is such a renunciation, it’s a Christ-like move, it’s the wolf’s sacrifice – it’s a love that could never be requited. This wolf that sacrifices its very definition for the lamb, this wolf that doesn’t eat the lamb, is it a wolf? Is it still a wolf?
Waitress: Why does the idea that you are going to eat me up fill me with such pleasure and such terror? It’s to get this pleasure that you need the wolf. The wolf is the truth of love, its cruelty, its fangs, its claws, our aptitude for ferocity.
Customer lays her plate on top of the stack and Waitress falls to ground, spilling plates everywhere.
Recorded Voice sings the following several times:
Forward, the Light Brigade!
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
During the singing, Waitress picks up the plates. Customer hands out light switches to audience members and instructs them to turn them on and off at will. When they do this, a buzzer will sound. Customer operates this buzzer. Each time buzzer goes, Waitress goes into shock, then continues her task. When song finishes...
Waitress (kneeling behind table): Mother, may I fill the glasses with water?
Waitress moves (gesture dance) by end of Customer’s monologue, ends near chair with plates held above head.
Customer (to audience): I’m really sorry. The researcher told me I had to do it. If she were here I could argue with her, but I don’t think she can even hear me. I feel really guilty, I mean, I could have been you in this experiment. If you want to switch places … but I think we have to stay in theses roles. You know the moves. Enter the room, stop, say Mother may I fill the glasses with water, proceed after confirmation, and fill glasses C, M, O, T, H, D, R, K, W, V, Q, A, L, E, and P, in that order. You know the moves. I don't think we really should be talking. Not that I don't want to talk to you. But I think in the rules it states that there should be no contact between us. I'm sorry.
Waitress spills all the plates again and freezes.
Customer: You didn’t say “Mother, may I fill the glasses with water?”
Waitress: The danger is when you create a world, designed as a whole and for a whole people, made up of two individuals. This world-of-two depends for its survival on a single other person.
Both begin to repeat gesture sequence from top of show.
Waitress: The world-of-two is immediately surrounded and threatened by death. Death closes in around it tightly. Love immortalizes me. Only that which gives me life can take it away from me. That which gives, gives to enjoy, that which gives to enjoy, gives to fear its loss. Give to lose. The gift and its opposite.
Customer: That is incorrect.
Customer lays down tip on table and repeats: That is incorrect.
Customer and Waitress continue gesture sequence, becoming more clumsy and extreme until Customer turns off both timers.
Customer and Waitress look at each other, flip off switches around their necks, and we hear recorded scream.
Waitress and Customer look at audience.
Recorded Voice: You have just taken part in an experiment. You voluntarily participated. You were the subject of our experiment. Thank you for your participation.
Waitress and Customer walk out.
C: read menu
W: wipe spot on table
C: coffee/plate rim AND W: fill water, fill coffee
C: no coffee
C: read menu
W: take order (write) (drop pencil)
C: fill condiments
W: turn in order
W: fill condiments (drop condiment)
C: reach, write
C: drop pencil, write
W: carry heavy dishes
W: reach over to deliver food
C: coffee/plate rim AND W: fill condiments
W: wipe table
W: pour water SR
C: signal for check
W: pour water at table
C: no water
W: reach across to give check
W: leave, carry heavy dishes
C: remember tip
C: (drop change) AND W: (drop pencil)
C: signal waitress
W: signal customer
Customer sits in a chair US. Waitress goes to mic in audience.
Voice: Please be aware that someone might be watching you from a hidden camera, so you must be on your best behavior at all times. (Customer nods.)
Voice: Please turn on the television. (Customer nods again, goes to the timer sitting on a table SR, and turns it on.)
Voice: Please call the Learner in and flip the switch. If she does not comply with the rules, please switch the first button in front of you.
Customer nods, calls out: Go! (Waitress enters near chair with ticking timer.)
Customer flips a switch on the table. Waitress crosses to table, resetting timer. Customer crosses back to chair.
Customer slowly scans menu. Simultaneously, Waitress pours water in four directions.
Waitress turns timer to buzz.
Customer sings a list of objects. Waitress resets her timer, then balances two ticking timers – one in each hand. She tries to repeat words the Customer is singing, but gets them wrong. Each time, the Customer glares at her and Waitress freezes before they continue.
Customer:
The list...
Chair
Table
Desk lamp
Clipboard
Egg timer
Light switches
Memory cards
Buzzer
Rhinoceros mask
Cups of coffee
Shoe
Horn
Steam
Race
Helmet
Captain
Forest
Staple
Balcony
Waitress buzzes timer.
Recorded Voice: Each morning, they would put on the masks and perform their roles for the neighborhood; a signpost to the world that everything was as it should be.
Waitress delivers mask to Customer and says: Eggs?
Waitress goes back to table and takes mask for herself. Both put on masks. Customer faces US, Waitress faces DS.
Waitress (whispering): I once had a healer tell me that guilt is a useless emotion. I believe her. But then I begin to feel guilty about not feeling guilty. What is this? Meta-guilt?
Both: pick up change gesture; pick up pencil gesture; juggle mask away from face to right; mask back to face.
Customer: Is the guilt greater or lesser because of distance?
Both make half turn and one step closer; Waitress faces US, Customer faces DS.
Waitress: I once had a healer tell me that guilt is a useless emotion. I believe her. But then I begin to feel guilty about not feeling guilty. What is this? Meta-guilt?
Masks become trays; pouring water gesture 4 times, gradually getting closer to each other.
Customer: Is the guilt greater or lesser because of distance?
Waitress and Customer are extremely close; circle as they repeat (yell) their lines to each other. End Waitress facing US, Customer facing DS.
Customer begins polishing coffee cup gesture with plate.
Waitress: I can no longer live without you. (Goes to table and stacks plates on arm... plates get heavier and heavier as she sinks to the ground.)
Customer: There is no greater love than the love the wolf feels for the lamb it doesn’t eat. The other side of the scene is the paradoxical refined magnificent love of the wolf. It’s not difficult for the ewe to love the lamb. But for the wolf?
Waitress: That need overwhelms us.
Customer: The wolf’s love for the lamb is such a renunciation, it’s a Christ-like move, it’s the wolf’s sacrifice – it’s a love that could never be requited. This wolf that sacrifices its very definition for the lamb, this wolf that doesn’t eat the lamb, is it a wolf? Is it still a wolf?
Waitress: Why does the idea that you are going to eat me up fill me with such pleasure and such terror? It’s to get this pleasure that you need the wolf. The wolf is the truth of love, its cruelty, its fangs, its claws, our aptitude for ferocity.
Customer lays her plate on top of the stack and Waitress falls to ground, spilling plates everywhere.
Recorded Voice sings the following several times:
Forward, the Light Brigade!
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
During the singing, Waitress picks up the plates. Customer hands out light switches to audience members and instructs them to turn them on and off at will. When they do this, a buzzer will sound. Customer operates this buzzer. Each time buzzer goes, Waitress goes into shock, then continues her task. When song finishes...
Waitress (kneeling behind table): Mother, may I fill the glasses with water?
Waitress moves (gesture dance) by end of Customer’s monologue, ends near chair with plates held above head.
Customer (to audience): I’m really sorry. The researcher told me I had to do it. If she were here I could argue with her, but I don’t think she can even hear me. I feel really guilty, I mean, I could have been you in this experiment. If you want to switch places … but I think we have to stay in theses roles. You know the moves. Enter the room, stop, say Mother may I fill the glasses with water, proceed after confirmation, and fill glasses C, M, O, T, H, D, R, K, W, V, Q, A, L, E, and P, in that order. You know the moves. I don't think we really should be talking. Not that I don't want to talk to you. But I think in the rules it states that there should be no contact between us. I'm sorry.
Waitress spills all the plates again and freezes.
Customer: You didn’t say “Mother, may I fill the glasses with water?”
Waitress: The danger is when you create a world, designed as a whole and for a whole people, made up of two individuals. This world-of-two depends for its survival on a single other person.
Both begin to repeat gesture sequence from top of show.
Waitress: The world-of-two is immediately surrounded and threatened by death. Death closes in around it tightly. Love immortalizes me. Only that which gives me life can take it away from me. That which gives, gives to enjoy, that which gives to enjoy, gives to fear its loss. Give to lose. The gift and its opposite.
Customer: That is incorrect.
Customer lays down tip on table and repeats: That is incorrect.
Customer and Waitress continue gesture sequence, becoming more clumsy and extreme until Customer turns off both timers.
Customer and Waitress look at each other, flip off switches around their necks, and we hear recorded scream.
Waitress and Customer look at audience.
Recorded Voice: You have just taken part in an experiment. You voluntarily participated. You were the subject of our experiment. Thank you for your participation.
Waitress and Customer walk out.
officially listed
performance descriptions:
http://www.sonfestival.org/performances.php
festival overview:
http://www.sonfestival.org/index.php
http://www.sonfestival.org/performances.php
festival overview:
http://www.sonfestival.org/index.php
Kimi's reponse to initial script
Thanks for the script! It’s a bit difficult for me to comment without actually seeing what’s going on, but I’ll try. I like inter-cutting with the Cixous … it brings a depth to the relationship between the waitress and customer. But in that vein, I kind of want to see that relationship evolve more ... to keep it from feeling too sado-masochistic. They do feel very distant from one another throughout (or is the dance when they become physically closer to one another and therefore psychologically closer? Is it the two of them against the researcher? What sparks this dance?) I think we need to consider carefully how the audience is invited to participate. In a sense, the Customer has become the Researcher. I almost feel like the audience ought to see the Customer shocking the Learner first. She apologizes to the Learner, and then surreptitiously invites the audience to do the same exact thing, thereby trying to relieve her guilt. The fear brings them together. One comment about objects … I think it might be more dramatic if you got plastic plates from Walmart (the kind for outdoors that look like they’re porcelein). When they fall they will clatter and make more of an impact. I’ll look into borrowing the portable audio recorder. What sort of tune should I use for the song? I’ll also look into that ibackup site. I think I need something like it for my Crane Wife project.
Monday, March 16, 2009
process
today we bought objects, including light-switches, red dog collars, red bungee cord, red rope, red paper plates, a cheap distortion mic, and 3 kitchen timers (we may only use 2). we do also have learning cards and gold stars, but i'm guessing we won't use those at that point.
we also developed the 15 gestures from our earlier lists.
rough script we developed from our three sets of 5 minutes is in the previous post.
tomorrow's schedule: in the late morning/early afternoon i'll be working on the gesture dances , and then brianne and i will rehearse together again from 4-6, putting the pieces together. kimi will be giving feedback and recording her sections.
other things to do:
- record "recorded voice" sections
- buy apron(s)
- find a table
- figure out beginning and end, particularly as it may involve the audience
- make masks
- buy more red plates?
- find and work with light
- make labels
we also developed the 15 gestures from our earlier lists.
rough script we developed from our three sets of 5 minutes is in the previous post.
tomorrow's schedule: in the late morning/early afternoon i'll be working on the gesture dances , and then brianne and i will rehearse together again from 4-6, putting the pieces together. kimi will be giving feedback and recording her sections.
other things to do:
- record "recorded voice" sections
- buy apron(s)
- find a table
- figure out beginning and end, particularly as it may involve the audience
- make masks
- buy more red plates?
- find and work with light
- make labels
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