Finished at last with Rash Acts, though not with editing the video. Having cleared out our studio for an annual party, I’m now filling it back up with crap. It’s been chilly here, so I’ve been sculpting at a work table in our office; hope to get stuff back out to the studio this week and also to set up the aluminum frame for the set before Elizabeth takes off for her acting gig in Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, I’ve been sculpting more heads. It’s scary to me. It’s the first time since 1978 (for Macbeth) that I’ve created puppets for an existing classic text rather than for an original piece, and there’s a unique pressure about it. In regular casting of actors, you go in with a certain kind of image in your mind, but then it gradually evolves as you see what each actor brings to the role — the Macbeth or Prospero that’s inherent in this face or that face, this or that voice, spine, etc. Gradually, a new vision assembles itself, and you go with it, for better or worse.

With puppets, you start with the same vague vision, maybe some sketches, maybe some photos, but when “casting” begins you’re faced not with actors doing their two-minute monologs but simply with a big lump of clay. There’s the advantage that, no, the actor playing Caliban doesn’t have to look remotely like Caliban, but on the other hand there’s the terrible responsibility on the designer (me) to create the definitive Caliban: the face, the spine, the clothing that have been lurking there in that story and those words for 400 years. You sit down, you spray some water on the clay, and you start digging with your thumbs.

Every actor, of course, wants to bring something true and unique to any of these roles, and many actors will transform their own appearance radically with makeup, etc. But somehow designing the character in every detail and locking it into fixed expression is especially daunting. What’s the profile, the eye focus, the musculature that reveals the essential soul of Prospero or of Miranda? How much should be withheld? How do you give it the illusion of changed expression? What creates the incongruities that are at the heart of every compelling character?

Fixing those decisions into sculpted finality is like trying to write a play on fine vellum, never blotting a line. But while I generally begin with some kind of sketch or visual source, I’ve started to learn how to let the clay speak to me. It’s infinitely malleable, often it changes its mind, and it never makes the final decision. But if you trust the clay and trust your fingers to think, eventually something emerges.

I began with secondary characters and am gradually working my way to the more challenging ones. Of the five Neapolitans (I’m cutting two small courtier roles), I began with Sebastian, the King’s brother, and Gonzalo, the elderly councilor.

SEBASTIAN—

He changed radically from sketch to clay. Here are several photos of the model after being built up in papier mache. It’s hard to visualize what the eyes, the hair and the costume will do—he’ll have beard and hat. I generally insert glass eyes as I sculpt, then remove them for casting.

Initially I saw him as round, blobby, rather clownish, a sort of weak-kneed Rush Limbaugh. As they’re plotting to put him on the throne, we need to ask what kind of king he’d be: to my mind, utterly incompetent. Morally vacuous, he’s quite willing to go along with Antonio’s plot (like Roderigo with Iago in Othello); but clearly Antonio is dominant in the relationship and knows it. So I saw him as rather round and featureless, with a kind of sour frivolity that would make his administration as corrupt as any in recent memory.

As I started to work on him, though, I felt he needed to have more fraternal resemblance to the King. So what does the King look like? I came across Steichen’s portrait of J.P. Morgan, and it struck me that Alonso must be all command, “every inch a king,” so that Ferdinand’s supposed death brings him a sensation he’s never, ever felt before: utter impotence. He comes to the point, through grief and shock, of melting, and that’s a huge journey if he starts from the point of ruthless majesty.

So in fact I started sculpting Alonso, but it just didn’t work: he kept winding up smaller, rattier than what I conceived, and at last I realized, aha, this is the brother. Strong features, but everything slides to the side. There’s a fixed sardonic grin that may have too much intelligence for Sebastian, but I think I can counterbalance that with slightly unfocused eyes and a dandy’s mustache. Alonso will have the same wide mouth but no-nonsense, and a more knotted Roman nose and brow.

Of course Sebastian must form a ’team" with Antonio, who in turn must have a fraternal resemblance to Prospero. I see Antonio with a coldness, a sharpness, that should provide good contrast to this Sebastian.

GONZALO—

The obvious things are these: he’s elderly, he’s garrulous, an object of sport to the others, and seems a bit obtuse. While he’s absolutely loyal to Alonso, he’s helped Prospero survive the coup and has a moral center and a strange visionary streak that have managed to endure Chicago politics.

What isn’t immediately apparent is his strength. He’s reduced to tears at the end, but still he’s the one courtier who isn’t driven mad by the Harpy. And in his sudden waking as he and the King are about to be murdered, I think he has a real physical vigor that makes it clear that this old man could still be a formidable opponent in battle.

So I went for a rather rotund, wrinkly face, but one that has decayed from a structure of strength. A withheld, non-committal expression, but brows and eyes that don’t miss a thing. Always aware, always ready, but capable of softness. In the first sketch, he was quite small-featured and flat-faced, and though I’ve gone a different direction I think the alertness is still there. And I like the cowl as head covering.

•••

Now in the process of casting five versions of Ariel. More about him next time. And also getting back to the Neapolitans, now in the first stages of Alonso. Elizabeth leaves March 29th for seven weeks in Bloomsburg, PA, playing the role of Ana in The Clean House, so she’s testing audio equipment—mikes, laptop, recorder, preamp, etc.—to take along to continue work on music. Oh, and her accordion.

Very pleased that nine of our puppets from Rash Acts and Inanna will be part of a gallery exhibit, “Playful Works,” at the Aurora Colors Gallery in Petaluma, March 21 thru May 2. Nice to be sittin’ there alongside actual visual artists.

No blog next week, as our website will be down due to the incomprehensible plans of our service provider. Next post in two weeks.

—Conrad