Very good weekend in Los Angeles and Long Beach last month with readings of Co-Creation: Fifty Years in the Making at three house concerts. Then up to the other end of the state for a reading at Arcata Playhouse and visits with some dear friends at nearby Dell'Arte.

This month it's Sonoma County theatres. Friends at three area theatres have invited us to do presentations there. April 5th we're with Pegasus Players, a long-established, enterprising group at new quarters in tiny Rio Nido, up in Russian River territory. Then on April 12th to The Imaginists, a Santa Rosa ensemble combining innovation with strong community involvement.

And on April 25th back on a familiar stage under new management, Main Stage West (formerly Sonoma County Repertory) in downtown Sebastopol, where we staged Drake's Drum, The Tempest, and other endeavors. For us, it's a celebration of the richness and diversity of the local scene, and we're proud to be a spirit flitting about in it.

We're changing the format a bit, as we invariably do: we're inveterate tinkerers. Along with the reading, we'll present two of our short comedy sketches that have been with us for decades, "Dreamers" and "Peace Negotiations" -- seems strange, otherwise, to talk for an hour about our theatre work without actually showing any of it.

And, without making it a "seven secrets of happy marriage" lecture, we're focusing a bit more on what's really, for us, a central theme of the book: "Riding the Changes." How do a couple of people survive fifty years of radical evolution and actually feel good about it?

And Looking Ahead...

In June we'll be back with readings in Sonoma & Mendocino Counties, then at the end of the month to the Denver/Boulder area. Still open dates in both areas. Talk to us about hosting a party, gather your friends, join the fun.

In May...

Well, there'll be a newsletter out on May 1st, but my head is into the planning now. We're preparing to spend two and a half weeks in Europe, first to visit our daughter Johanna & her guy Fra in Tuscany, visiting there five days and then scattering to the winds.

Elizabeth will proceed to Zurich to visit our long-time friends Erica and Peter of Kammertheater Stok, part of our lunatic tribe. Then on to Belle Isle, a tiny island off the coast of Britanny, near the standing stones of Carnac, which has become a kind of pilgrimage for her. And at last to Amsterdam to visit another lifelong friend, and then home.

Meanwhile, I'm to Spain -- four days in Barcelona, five in Madrid -- visiting Goya, Velasquez, et al, but mostly just walking the streets and working on our new novel Galahad's Fool. Haven't been there since 1969, when it was under the fist of Franco. Will probably arrive just in time for civil riots -- word is that the gov't is laying in large supplies of tear gas anticipating reaction to "austerity measures." Should be fun.

Miscellany...

Now circulating our first novel Realists -- only 5 rejections so far. We won't take ourselves seriously as prose fiction writers until we have at least 300.

Still slowly plodding forth with the editing of our Frankenstein for DVD. It'll happen, I'm determined, by May.

Into regular rehearsals for our fall show Duo. Slow work, solving tech challenges as we proceed -- good prospects, I think. Right now it's really cold in the studio. But that's because it's raining, and we need the rain.

Peace & joy--
Conrad Bishop

***

Nobody Reads Plays...

But if you're the exception, check our website. Several of our plays are published (see Media on the site), but full scripts of 29 of our original plays are on the website for free online reading. Take a look.

For sheer joy, I recommend Love's Fools, Loveplay or Tapdancer. For intellectual challenge, maybe Drake's Drum or Marie Antoinette. Serious realism, Long Shadow, Hammers, or Mine Alone. You can sample excerpts, then read the whole thing if you like. Something really weird? Action News.

There are information pages and production photos of many of these by clicking the title of the play on the listing. And if you do dip in, let us know your responses.

***

Quote of the month...

From Co-Creation...

We're probably not so much telling the truth as discovering the truth as we go. We have an urge to please and to entertain, so proceed with caution. We're not much given to self-analysis, so expect it only in spurts. We hope you find some meaning in this, but we're not sure what it is: that's the journey we're on as we write it. And we often feel we're riding the Earth in a reckless loop around the sun without having the foggiest idea who's driving.

Our plum trees and feral cats are confused. Our wall furnace is asking questions. It's dry shirt-sleeve weather in February, when in Sebastopol it should be rainy and chill. What gives?

Well, can't help but think "climate change" and expect the worst for the human race. And with the rumbles of election time, it's hard to frolic out into the spring.

But let us not hold back from stepping out into the day, breathing in the air, and saying "Ye gods, what a gorgeous day!" We need those in-drawn praises of life to hold through the dark times. More and more, I hold the irrational thought that we have to feel the spring before it's willing to come.

Co-Creation...

Our reading & performance tour of Co-Creation continues on. See the calendar to the right, and join us. Email us about hosting us in your living room, coffee house, arts center, gallery, or wherever you can assemble fifteen friends. Late June in Denver/Boulder, late summer or early fall in the Midwest and East, most any time in the greater Bay Area.

Our Duo Show...

First draft is finished, and we start rehearsals this week. First showings late summer. It might even have a title by then. Several old pieces are incorporated in it, including "Freeway," which has reappeared in several shows, but now revisited in a new context. More as we go.

Strange Evolution...

How things catch fire. In 2003 I created a solo story-telling show, Survival Tips for the Plague Years. I played a couple of performances in Sebastopol, adapted it to radio, then canned it. It seemed to have strong audience response, maybe too strong: several friends found it highly depressing, especially one story, "Galahad's Fool." For all practical purposes, it was dead meat.

Recently, a friend who makes puppet films sent me a first-draft script for comment. It was on the theme of St. Joan, and as a framing device he used a filmmaker struggling to cope with that theme. Later, he went a different direction, but the spark struck. Now, I'm launched into work on a novel about an artist wrestling with a Sir Galahad journey, both of them on their quests for the Holy Grail, whatever they conceive it to be. Damned thing about novels: there are so many words.

Sometimes an idea lies fallow until someone empties the slop bucket, and suddenly it's the magic catalyst. Right now what's emerging is a big, messy tsunami, but a very personal one. We'll see.

At Play...

Our daughter Johanna and her mate have just bought a 14th Century stone mill house in Tuscany, and now launched into the process of making it their own. Our son is beginning work illustrating a fantasy graphic novel to be serialized on the Web.

We gave readings of Co-Creation this month for the San Francisco Bay Area Puppeteers Guild and the Sonoma County Pagan Network -- diverse audiences indeed -- and performed short sketches for a local Valentine's "Love Salon" cabaret and for Arcata Playhouse in Professor Willikers' Puppet Slam, a thoroughly jovial affair.

We're not wild social beings, but gradually we've evolved a bit more contact with the rest of humanity. We attend a periodic poetry salon and Shakespeare reading group, quarterly meetings of the SF Bay Puppetry Guild, a small full moon circle, Sunday morning coffee at Hard Core Espresso, and recently lots of friends' parties, which have resulted in both of us gaining five pounds, despite faithful trips to the gym. Life is good.

Peace & joy--
Conrad Bishop

***

Quote of the Month...

From Co-Creation...

Great demands require great patience. In a rehearsal, you learn gradually that the sudden breakthrough, the perfect solution, that moment of blinding truth won't necessarily come today. Maybe it won't come tomorrow or till you're halfway through the run of the show. You push as far as you can, and then you lie back and wait. Sow seeds and wait for the sprouting. Truth, oneness, trust -- they likely won't come as lightning bolts. As the Christ-like space alien teaches in Stranger in a Strange Land, "Waiting is." Meanwhile, celebrate.

A great start to our reading & performance tour of Co-Creation. Our third event at Sebastopol Gallery went well, and a bunch of new bookings in process. We've put out the word for additional hosts in the Denver/Boulder and Los Angeles areas for trips in spring or early summer, and we're now determined to drive East in summer or early fall.

Our Duo Show...

Currently untitled, but burning a hole in our heads. All we know right now is that (a) it's the two of us; (b) it's loosely inspired by Tennessee Williams' Out Cry and by our own Action News, a strange caricature of the two of us; (c) it's intended for living rooms and very small public venues; (d) most performances will be by donation; (e) it begins with a mad improv we just did, trying to recall the lines of a sketch we've performed about a thousand times; (f) it'll probably start showings in late summer or fall; and (g) all props, puppets, costumes & tech will be only what can fit in two suitcases.

And the project after that? I'll wait a month or so before broaching it. It's a bit too scary for me to put out there at my tender age.

As I wrote last month, we're exploring the "house concert" venue as a new theatrical story-telling form, forcing us into a yet-to-be-devised expressive vocabulary. From what's now 40+ years of performance on the road and at home, we know how strongly people's responses are shaped by the occasion of the story-telling. Are we playing for "consumers" or for friends? I love the big stage, the dazzlement of lights, music, set, the dynamics of a large cast, and wouldn't likely pass up an invitation to those goodies if it were offered along with some bucks. But what's calling our souls right now is to be in immediate presence of our fellow creatures, to offer an experience that's as unforgettable as birth.

Heady ambition, and we don't know quite what we're talking about. But whatever we mean, we mean it.

Writings...

Over the years we've written in many dramatic forms, about sixty shows in all, plus our radio series, plus four plays that've never been produced. From time to time we've ventured into other genres, accumulating an unpublished novel and two vagrant screenplays. Not our realm of expertise, and requiring an immersion in the networking mechanics of strange subcultures that have been beyond our horizon. Nevertheless, we're back at the starting gate on multiple fronts.

With our friend Arturo Castillo, we've completed two new screenplays, Willing and Salvage -- both serio-comic, both romantic with a mystery element, both with damned good actors' roles and strong responses from people who know screenplays. We've not yet prepared our Oscar acceptance speech, but some contacts are developing, and in a world where it's all a total crap-shoot, at least we're in the game.

And Elizabeth & I have just finished a rewrite on our novel Realists. It's based on a play we created during a residency at Juniata College about seven years ago -- a dystopian comedy wherein the War on Drugs has evolved into a War on Dreams, with the US population on dream-suppressant medication, resulting in mass psychosis and severe warps in Reality. Possibly we're channeling Kurt Vonnegut, though more likely the daily news. First trying some small presses, and then go from there.

And halfway through Chemo, another.

At Play...

Intensely looking forward to May, when we fly to Italy to visit our daughter Johanna. She and her guy are just in process of buying a 14th Century mill house and taking on the challenges that involves. And then Elizabeth visits friends in Zurich and Amsterdam, and stones in Brittany, while I spend a week in Spain, where I haven't been since 1969. I'm studying Spanish, and my Spanish is very bad. But it gives me refreshed awe at the nature of language itself.

New Year's...

Resolutions? Just to take more joy in the doing of the work, more connections with friends, more trips to the ocean and to our hot tub, and more gratitude for our incredible blessings.

Peace & joy--
Conrad

***

Quote of the Month...

A word about laughter, from Co-Creation...

We see movies where the lovers generate volcanic passion, but clearly the relationship couldn't survive ten minutes in the presence of small children. It seems we all have a half-assed survival instinct to lock ourselves into an emotional attitude that passes for an identity, whether it's fear, rage, frivolity, solemnity or humiliation. Laughter is an invitation to unzip the straitjacket, or to let the helium balloon loft us just out of the reach of the sharks, or to celebrate all being together in the same leaky boat.

In the Sumerian myth, when the goddess Inanna descends to visit her sister the Queen of the Underworld, she passes through seven gates. Each opening is so narrow that she must strip off a piece of her finery. Through loss, she reaches her destiny.

In other myths, you utter the magic word to open the gate to the treasure. But our own passages -- whether personally or in the history of our infernal bride The Independent Eye -- have been more like Inanna's, scraping away all certainty to face an unknown future. When she passes the final gate, her challenges have only begun.

But gates do lead forward. Often, for us, we have only a hazy map scribbled on the shirttail of a dream. We seldom know where we're going until we've arrived, and then we discover we've arrived at another gate.

Welcome, then, to our next passage.

Finally reaching the age of consent -- 70 and 72 respectively -- we're returning to our roots. Forty years ago we left college teaching in search of an audience and a connection with audience that was more authentic, more direct, and more fruitful than what the subscription-season model could provide. That brought us into cross-country touring in every conceivable theatrical style, into public radio, into puppetry, even back to the subscription-season model a couple of times. We've put down deep roots, then pulled'em up, usually at about seven-year intervals.

You can't step into the same river twice, you can't go home again, you can't always get what you want...

But when we were growing up, the movies showed continuous double features. If you sat there long enough, even if you came in in the middle of the film, you could see it again. "This is where we came in," we'd say, and at that point leave. For us now, this is where we came in ... but we're going to watch the rest of the film because -- take a look! -- it's never the same twice.

We're going back on tour. Back to non-theatre spaces. Back to word-of-mouth promotion. Back to the days of cheap or free seats. We're going back to telling stories with no more than a couple of suitcases full of props and enough light to be seen by.

This newsletter is part of the journey, so are our YouTube videos, our DVDs and our books. And so too do we hope to be around about in the flesh, across the country, soon.

Peace & joy--
Conrad & Elizabeth

***

Host Us--

Are you in the Bay Area? Southern Cal? Pacific Northwest? Southwest?

Do you have a favorite bookstore, gallery, coffee house, arts center or social group, or just a living room large enough to cram in at least fifteen friends and the two of us?

From February thru May 2012, we're looking to tour the West Coast with readings of our memoir Co-Creation: Fifty Years in the Making, the saga of our 50 years as mates and artistic partners. The readings are really performances, and we've had tremendous response.

It's free -- of course we'll hope to sell enough books to pay for the gas -- and we ask hosts only for a place to crash overnight, help with contacts and promo if it's public, or just inviting your friends if it's a private gathering. Refreshments as you desire -- we encourage BYO.

Interested? Email to explore further. We promise a rich adventure.

***

Quote of the month...

From Elizabeth in Co-Creation...

We made art, we made kids, we made a life, and in a very real sense we made each other. I was a very wobbly first draft of myself in the fall of 1960, all edge and no center, and it was a miracle to fall head over heels in love with someone whose creativity was unstoppable. He became not only my lover, he became my gyroscope and my work list. I was too busy to fall apart very often or for very long, and as the years went on I found I'd been growing a soul while I wasn't watching.

We have a costumer now. First meeting next week or thereabouts.

Tuesday we went to a theatrical telecast of the National Theatre's acclaimed production of Frankenstein, a huge London hit directed by Danny Boyle, with script by Nick Dear. I'm glad to have seen it, pretty much agree with the critics that the staging is quite wonderful, the script terrible, and the Creature's performance quite astonishing.

I can't pretend to be unbiased regarding the script, of course, and I'm not the one to make a case against deviations from the novel. Problem for me is that as dramaturgy the scenes are shapeless and much of the dialogue on the level of an educational play about dental hygiene -- gets said what needs to get said, but that's about it. It's commendable that there's some hint of Mary Shelley's own background as daughter of prominent freethinkers, but in clunky, tacked-on language. And it's commendable that the Creature is given a voice, as in the novel.

Like most adaptations, Victor becomes a dull, one-note character: he's obsessed with his mission and his genius, but we really have no idea why except that the story is supposed to be about the dangers of science or some such thing. But the poor actor has little to play except rant, rant harder, and rant hardest.

Indeed, Victor inevitably comes off as a bit of a twit in his flight from responsibility, his neglect of Elizabeth, and his infinite self-absorption -- not unlike Percy Shelley in many ways -- and our own adaptation even underlines this for comic effect. And for me in playing him, it's a special challenge in that I often play dry, tormented but emotionally distant men, and it's very easy for him to fall into a well-worn groove. But somehow I have to discover how an audience can feel empathy with him even as his floundering destroys everything around him.

This performance of the Creature involves a physicalization somewhat based on cerebral palsy victims, very contorted and hyperactive, sometimes coming into more control. It's a remarkable feat of physical execution by an actor with a beautiful physique, and along with the scenic effects make it clear why it's a hit.

For me, though, the performance is self-defeating. I could never stop thinking, Wow, what an incredible performance, and instead actually feel deeply for the Creature. And the choice of the physicalization in combination with the make-up -- a bit of scarring and dirt smudges, but no actual deformity -- makes it puzzling, on a realistic level, that the sight of him so shocks those who come in contact with him. The thinking seems to be that his palsied contortions are intrinsically terrifying, but as this leads us to think realistically, it's hardly credible, given that any Londoner could probably have seen beggars on the street in worse condition every day.

It's a good idea not to resort to the monster-makeup of the movies, as Shelley is very vague about his actual appearance. But it seems to me that as soon as we lead the audience into thinking realistically, then our realistic answer has to be air-tight. My own solution has been to make it entirely a "metaphoric" reaction to a creature whose sin is that he looks completely human, beautiful, in fact. The deformity is what others project upon him, and what he soon internalizes. We'll see how that works.

Still, it was useful to see this production -- well worth seeing despite my complaints -- and I was immensely relieved that it bears not the remotest resemblance to anything we contemplate doing.

-- Conrad

This past weekend, we had our first rehearsals with our full three-person contingent, and what happens, of course, is that much of your planning goes out the window. No, Elizabeth has to be Stage Left at the end of the scene so she can hit the light cue, but can she get around back in time for the entrance? No, those two puppeteers can't be directly behind the table because the third is squatting behind it. No, that third hand that appears at this magical moment is already holding a puppet -- I mis-counted.

Nevertheless, the storyboard is an important beginning. As in writing, for me I'm a better re-writer and re-stager than I am a writer and stager. It's a bit like an artilleryman firing off some test rounds as range-finders, and in this case, fortunately, the puppets don't fire back. The puppeteers, well, they're there to help solve the problems, and the healthy juggling of ideas from all sources is stimulated by our urge to keep warm in a chilly studio.

And now we have our third actor. Initially, our plan was to perform it entirely as the Bishop/Fuller duo, with a tech person to run cues and provide an extra hand when needed. But gradually Elizabeth came to feel that the Victor/Creature dyad needed a male-to-male energy, contrasting radically with the lone female, the fictional "Elizabeth." That decision made, the first thought that came to us both was -- our son Eli. He performed a few years back in our cast of [[Code Red]] and long ago as the Boy in [[Waiting for Godot]], and an incredibly moving performance in our radio drama [[Abbie]], but we've never been on stage with just the three of us. A first. It'll be a logistical challenge, as he lives in San Francisco, works in Oakland, and is the co-caretaker of a bouncing German Shepherd. But in this outfit, Logistical Challenges R Us.

***

3. STUDY

In the dark, Voice of Mary, rapid, as if making notes. The voice overlaps itself, accelerating.

[[VOICE OF MARY: The dying process. Many paths. Begin to withdraw. Decline visits from friends. Food less appealing. Hard to swallow. Altered perception. Pick at the sheets.
Breathing irregular. Rapid breath. Rattles. Random jerks. Mottled feet. Purple lips. Bluish nails. Glassy stare. Breath very rapid or very slow. Release of urine or faeces. Death.]]

15- LIGHTS UP SHARP. Victor at his desk DR. Elizabeth distant, UL, sitting.
VIDEO OF SLOW-MOVING FOLIAGE, OVERLAID WITH HIS CHILD FACE.
Elizabeth holds a mirror. When she speaks to Victor, it's into her mirror image.

[[ELIZABETH: Dear Victor, I miss you. I hope your studies are going well. The lilacs are out. Please write.]]

Victor swats at a fly. Swats again. At last he squashes it in a book. [SM hand is Victor's second hand.]

[[Victor, I miss you. Please write.]]

Victor opens the pages of the book, pokes at the fly.

[[Remember we were little, I was dreaming I still had a mother, and then I woke up, and cried. And you heard me: "It's ok, when I'm big I'll make it so nobody dies." Then your mother died.
Victor, please write.]]

Victor scrapes up the fly, puts it on desk. Looks in book. Makes signs over it. Pours something on it. Looks.

[[But I've always felt safe with you.
There is death, yes. To change that is childish fancy.
But there's birth. There's love, and then birth, and life.]]

He touches the fly. It begins to buzz.

[[Victor, please.]]

LIGHTS OUT on Elizabeth. VIDEO FADES.
Victor watches the fly come to life, then to fly. He is stunned, overjoyed, clapping his hands in glee. Suddenly, he realizes that his clapping has squashed the fly.

16- AUDIO: MUMBLING OF PROFESSORS.

17- SM slides in Toy Theatre grooves behind him: a set of PROFESSORS as two-dimensional cutouts. Their arms rise in union at intervals as their MUMBLING punctuates the scene. Victor piles more books on his desk. Clerval appears DL; on the table in front of him, an electric adding machine. During the following, Victor studies, Clerval adds.

[[CLERVAL: Victor, you haven't written.
VICTOR: I've been working.
CLERVAL: Elizabeth is worried.
VICTOR: Elizabeth.
CLERVAL: Your father says hello, and Wilma.
VICTOR: Who?
CLERVAL: Wilma. Your sister. Little Wilma.
VICTOR: Wilma.
CLERVAL: Wilma.]]

MUMBLES and gestures of Professors.

[[Well, Victor, I'd better be going. I need to butcher some friends for lunch.
VICTOR: Yes. Enjoy. What?]]

18- He looks around his own study. Realizes Clerval is joking. They laugh, seeing each other for the first time.

[[I'm sorry. It's my studies.
CLERVAL: Well I'm envious. You in college, being brilliant, and me working for my dad.
VICTOR: Getting rich.
CLERVAL: And keeping Elizabeth cheerful.
It's disgusting. She speaks to me with passionate longing ... for you.
They all say, "Won't they make a lovely young couple!" Since you were ten years old. Where do I fit in?
VICTOR: There was so much time.]]

19- MUMBLING of Professors. Victor reaches out to Clerval, brings him around behind the Professors. Focused on his own inner torment, Victor launches into a vehement speech, all in mime. Clerval gives words to what he's hearing. Professors gesticulate at intervals.

[[CLERVAL: You came to study science, and all you'd read were old rare books in your father's study.
Paracelsus -- the divine animation of matter -- the philosopher's stone -- Albertus Magnus -- elixir of life.
And your professors laughed themselves silly. You were ridiculed.]]

CANNED LAUGHTER. Victor in a frenzy of mime.

[[But you mastered them. You mastered all they had to teach. Your progress became legend. You won every honor.]]

Professors into spasmodic fibrillation. They disappear.
20- Victor returns to desk DR, Clerval DL.

[[VICTOR: But it's farcical! Science shows me a banquet of riches, and I'm sick of it. The more I gorge, the more ravenous I am.
I want what those old clowns promised, the alchemists, the magicians. They promised me Life.
CLERVAL: You look alive. Just barely. Victor, what's really the problem?
VICTOR: Life.
CLERVAL: Is it money? Drugs, are you on drugs? You're in love? You've got somebody pregnant?
VICTOR: Life.
CLERVAL: You've thought about suicide. But everybody does. Or cholesterol, herpes, Armageddon. What is it, Victor? Tell me!
VICTOR: Life. I want there to be no more death.]]

21- Victor is transfixed. He comes into C. Behind, VIDEO OF CHILDBIRTH, OVERLAID WITH SEA.

[[Birth brings with it Death.
Your eyes open in blood, bathed in motherblood, and it's only a matter of years.
We court women, cajole them, and they give us tiny corpses, little slugs that beshit themselves, and it's only a matter of years.
What if we made birth obsolete? No more spewing seed that flies to the wind. No womb to bleed out the debris, the hopes, illusions, cans and bottles, candy wrappers, kleenex, the litter of loving.
Make our own child, without a woman.
Child of no mother, who cannot die because he has not been born. He is fully formed of our intent.
He rises to meet us, his father, in all his glory, and there is no more mourning. Never.
Henry, I'm very close to creating Life.
CLERVAL: Victor, what's really the problem?]]

22- Long moment. At last, Victor comes L to Clerval, claps him on the shoulder.

[[VICTOR: Well ok, you're too smart for me. It's-- I'm failing math.
But it's ok. I'm getting medical attention. ]]

Clerval embraces him.

[[Give my love to Elizabeth. Now I have to work.]]

23- Clerval, deeply moved, embraces him repeatedly, finally departing off L with his adding machine.

24- Victor, exhausted, collapses at his desk. The fly animates and buzzes away. Victor is astonished.

TO BLACK. MUSIC

But during these two weeks, I've seen several films that registered strongly on me as related to this play. [[Man Bites Dog]] is a deeply disturbing French film, in the style of a documentary, about a contract killer and sociopath whose life is being documented by a young quartet of independent filmmakers. As he continues, the crew's aesthetic distance is compromised more and more, and they finally become his accomplices. An absurd premise, and often intentionally as farcical as it is hideously violent. [[Triumph of the Will]] is Leni Riefenstal's documentary of Hitler's 1934 party rally in Nuremberg, acknowledged to be one of the great achievements in film history and probably the most forceful expression of [[power]] ever filmed.

What has this to do with [[Frankenstein]]? For me, both of these "heroes" have an obsession very close to that of Victor. They seek a world subject totally to their will. Their gestures never betray a hint of uncertainty or weakness. Women are irrelevant objects -- for the sociopath creatures to mock and rape; for Riefenstal's lens, their rapt adulation, their cheers, and their Nazi salutes offer soft, humane contrast to the hundreds of thousands of marching males. Their moral sense is entirely subsumed by their will.

We need to understand Victor's desire to create life, to conquer the cycle of birth and death, as being of equal intensity. Of course he burns out much faster, renouncing it all the moment he sees the living Creature. And then, like Bruno Ganz' portrayal of Hitler's last days in his bunker in the film [[Downfall]], Victor has only desperate spasms of will. Possibly our text doesn't give enough weight to Victor's struggle before the Creature's animation -- we'll look at that.

But I think I can build a physicality in Victor's gestural action based on Hitler's. We're accustomed to satiric portraits of Hitler's oratory, but in fact every gesture captured by Riefenstal is specific, powerful, essential, and as powerful as his verbiage. It's not the extravagance; it's the absolute certainty.

Enough for now. Next week, more of our storyboard.

--Conrad

This week, the beginning of our storyboard. As with our previous staging of [[The Tempest]] we've found that planning the production much as one does with a film -- is essential. Things will change radically as we go into rehearsal, but in the meantime we have to start building the puppets and the stage structures, and you can't do that without thinking things through very thoroughly, trying to solve staging problems as you go along.

So this is just the first rough draft of text and staging: what's being said, what do we see?

***

1. THE SEA

LOW SEA SOUND.
01 - VIDEO IMAGE OF MARY SHELLEY, WRITING WITH A QUILL PEN AS SHE SPEAKS.

[[VOICE OF MARY: It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me--]]

Hands appear above/behind her, with various objects: a hypodermic, a hammer, a knife, an egg-beater.

[[--that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes...]]

02 - OMINOUS MUSIC, BUILDING. As she speaks, a FIGURE with a rubber "Frankenstein" mask staggers forward, UR to DR. Suddenly, with live voice:

[[MARY: No!!!]]

The Figure stops, looks at her, confused.

[[That's not the way it was. Never.]]

03 - Figure slowly removes the rubber mask, revealing the VICTOR puppet.

[[VICTOR: Never. Never never never.]]

Mary disappears.

VIDEO: SEA IMAGES/SEGUE TO BLIZZARD/ICE.

[[VICTOR: This is what I told him. I told the Captain. ]]

04 - Victor tilts to lie on DR Diagonal, arm extended L. SEA CAPTAIN appears behind him. [3rd wheels in Toy Theatre grooves.] SAILORS appear as two-dimensional cutouts LC. Their arms rise in union with Sea Captain's gestures. He searches with a telescope.

[[VICTOR: When I went north, and I walked for many weeks, and I was in the Arctic--
CAPTAIN: North!
VICTOR: Ice moving under me, and the ice broke, and I was adrift--
CAPTAIN: North!
VICTOR: There was a ship and I called out to the ship, and then I collapsed and they cared for me.
And the Captain said "What are you doing here?" and I said "What are you doing here?" And he said--
CAPTAIN: I am on my quest!
VICTOR: And I said "God help you."]]

VIDEO: NORTHERN LIGHTS, DANCING.

[[I told him my story. He was amazed.]]

05 - Sailors off. Captain horrified, staggers UL, looking at Victor reaching to him. Captain off.

[[After that, they made it into a movie. But this is how it happened.]]

TO BLACK. AUDIO BRIDGE.

2. CHILDHOOD

06 - TWO PUPPETEERS in Skull Masks appear, DC tilted posture. [They wear these during preceding scene, but with a black scrim over the face which is pulled back to reveal the mask; it can be replaced at any time we want them to disappear.]

07 - They produce three stick puppets representing the child Victor, Elizabeth and Clerval, fingers for arms, loose shirts dangling from the heads. Skulls stay visible.
The Children play. Freeze. Clerval speaks:

[[CLERVAL: This is my friend Victor. And Elizabeth, she's Victor's cousin. Her mother's dead. I'm Henry. Hi.]]

[[We play a lot. We play family.]]

08- Tableau.

[[We play kings and queens. ]]

09- Tableau.

[[We play doctor, and we make a monster.]]

10- They sculpt a live hand as Clerval's.

He chases them about, catches Victor.

11- Tableau.

Elizabeth breaks out.

[[ELIZABETH: Then I got sick. And Victor's mother nursed me.]]

12- MOTHER DOLL appears, nurses the puppet Elizabeth.

[["Poor Elizabeth. You'll get well. Drink your soup."]]

[[But then she got sick and died.]]

13- Mime of illness. Mother lies down, tries to rise. Victor is frantic to revive her. Then the Mother is up-ended. Sand pours out, leaving a limp rag. Victor realizes that it's real.

[[VICTOR: Mama?]]

14- No response. He shakes it.

[[Mama?]]

Horror.

[[Mama!!!]]

Embracing her. Freeze.

[[CLERVAL: After that, he was way different.]]

Full-size Victor appears. TO BLACK.

***

And life gallops apace. Last week we saw a gorgeous solo performance by Eliot Fintushel doing an evening of Walt Whitman poems, with an array of gestural action and weird musical instruments. This coming week, it's another show, this time with veteran artist Fred Curchack in a new piece. Wonderful to see a couple of genuinely topflight performers back-to-back.

And finished the first draft of SALVAGE, a new screenplay. Will be doing an hour's Skype conversation with our collaborator Arturo Castillo this Friday.

Built a rolling table for [[Frankenstein]] and now on the casting stage of the first Victor Frankenstein head -- there'll be about three. Winds up with a startling similarity to the young Bertolt Brecht -- perhaps influenced by just reading a 720pp biography of him, a problematic individual, to say the least. As am I, though probably a bit more honest.

--CB

So with [[Frankenstein]], I've been spinning my wheels. There are lots of technical considerations: The seats will be set on a wide angle, so the downstage verticals of the set frame (we're using our 10x8X8 aluminum frame that supports both set and lighting) can't block the view of the rear projection screen at the back. We need side and rear masking for entrances. We need a rolling table to support the toy-theatre images, the corpses, etc., and some way to get it on and off stage. We need a low "playboard" in front to anchor the reality of the puppets. We need enough simplicity to allow for touring.

But what's the essential visual metaphor? The swooping, stained sailcloth of [[The Tempest]] made a powerful statement both of movement and of stasis & decay. For a time I was playing with the idea of acrylic mirrors -- large, sterile plastics that reflect Victor back onto himself, us back onto ourselves. The weight and fragility of the material, easily scratchable, would make it a nightmare for touring -- we'd done something similar years ago for [[The Shadow Saver]] -- but finally it felt too clinical, too high-test high-tech. It's not a piece about the wonders and dangers of modern science; it's about a young man, appalled at the idea of death, whose invention is cobbled together in the garage or basement.

We had a huge plastic tarp that we'd taken on our one trip to Burning Man. Heavy, slightly textured, grimly industrial. That was the basis of the set fabric, hung flat in not-quite-symmetrical rectangles. We tested it for fire resistance; it seems to work ok. At S.C.R.A.P., a San Francisco outfit that recycles old crap for art projects, I bought a sack full of -- well, it's black rubber sheeting that some sort of decorative shapes have been stamped out, animals or flowers, maybe. I'm exploring ways of affixing this to the tarp fabric as texture -- dark gray on a lighter and shinier gray. Things created, things missing.

Another element also derived from salvage. In our little community, there's a "FreeCycle" website whereon people offer things for free. We've gotten doors, computers, rugs, etc., and also dumped a few good-riddances. Someone advertised what amounted to five large garbage bags of foam rubber, a puppeteer's godsend. But after picking it up, I was disappointed to find that it was in 18" squares, an inch and a half thick, and all blue.

Oddly, there was something about the blueness -- I don't know why -- that called to mind an performance-art installation I'd seen long ago focused on a Coleridge poem: small sculpted figures crawling along a walkway, dangling from the ceiling, etc. That image had found its way into one of our unpublished novels. Now, suddenly, I saw blue figures crawling along the pipes of our aluminum frame, frantic to get somewhere. The color gave life to the dismal hangings. I had serious doubts about my skills as a foam-rubber sculptor, but I had plenty of material to practice on, and after a while they started to look adequately human.

For a while, I had thought of using words or word fragments lettered on the set, as we did with [[Tempest]], perhaps the magic spells that Victor tries unsuccessfully in his creation of life. But in starting to play with the blue figures, I started to see more of a focus on the human figure. This crystallized in a discussion with Hob, our toy-theatre designer, who was concerned that his figures might be too much out of style with the other puppetry. Part of the solution, I felt, was to use enlarged outline shapes based on these two-dimensional figures -- spray-painted reverse silhouettes -- on the flat panel hangings. That's only roughly indicated on the model. The same motif will be used on a black scrim hung in front of the rear projection screen, disappearing when there's a projection but at other times bringing the rear of the stage into more organic relation to the rest of it.

And the red fabric emerging from a crack between two levels of the front masking? Well, [[Frankenstein]] is about death and birth. So that's for shock value.

So now we're just starting the build. The aluminum frame is up, and Elizabeth has some engineering adaptation to do, some of the "sticks" being re-drilled for different locations. I'm building the rolling platform, and we're about to start the cutting on our 18x24 ft. tarp. For me, cutting into anything is high anxiety -- there's no turning back. I feel a lot more confident with words or potter's clay.

Next week I'll post some of our story-board.

***

The rest of life gallops apace. We're about to finish the first draft of a new screenplay with our friend Arturo Castillo, and the characters are really finding a life of their own, I think. We continue work on our memoir, scheduled for August publication. We're pleased to be invited to perform [[Hands Up]] at the FURY Factory Festival in San Francisco in June. And I'm about to start the sculpting on Victor.

Several days ago we drove down to Marin County to see an evening of short plays presented by Tamalpais High School's extraordinary drama program. Two of our playlets from [[Rash Acts]] were on the bill -- two of the most difficult ones, in fact -- and we were very pleased to see their work. There's always something surprising. And this week we'll be talking via Skype with a drama class in Auburn, Alabama -- a lot easier than driving. They use [[Rash Acts]] as a text.

Enough. More next week.

--Conrad Bishop

The "and Friends" phrase refers to the fact that our creative work, whether in writing, staging, performing or just sitting at our fireplace feeling our souls grow, can't be compartmentalized.

[[Frankenstein]] will be performed by myself and my partner Elizabeth Fuller, along with a stage manager/puppet assistant we'll hire. In two years, we've created three major puppet productions, and yet, except for [[Hands Up!]] the casts have been too large for touring, and most actors in this area have day jobs. Puppetry encourages an opulent imagination, you just need that one extra pair of hands, so every piece has expanded beyond itself. We were lucky in being able to give [[The Tempest]] a school tour to ten locations in our county, but for [[Frankenstein]] we want to reach further.

First question to ask: who are the puppeteers? In [[The Tempest]], they were masked spirits of the island, slaves to Prospero, and Prospero himself, barefaced, operated his own Prospero puppet as the controlling visionary of the vision. I had thought of Victor and the Creature having the same dual personae as puppet and as actor. But gender is a central factor in this story, and having a male-female identity as puppeteers doesn't fit.

The action is driven by Death. Victor's fear of death, his combat with death, means that Death dictates every action, Death is the prime mover. And so the puppeteers will, when we're seen, wear skull masks. I recall seeing Brueghel's shocking painting in the Prado, "The Triumph of Death," wherein the hundreds of tiny figures, soldiers and victims, are all skeletons, bedecked in armor or silks or homespun as their station dictates, but linked in Death's triumph.

I've finished skull half-masks, and when we want the puppeteers to fade into the background, we can pull black scrim veils over our masks. There may be a few places where our faces are seen: that's yet to be discovered.

Right now:

* I've finished a first-draft script/scenario/storyboard that I'll start posting next week.

* I've sculpted ten of the twenty-odd heads.

* We've had a first discussion with Hob, the San Francisco cartoonist who'll be designing the two-dimensional "toy theatre" figures that represent the Creature's encounter with civilization, and a session with Michael Nelson of Magical Moonshine Theatre, who's done many toy-theatre stagings and will consult on the mechanics. Elizabeth has dug up the mini-disk music cues from the previous production and is starting to review them prior to undertaking revisions on the score.

* I've finished thumbnail sketches of the entire company of puppets -- working out which style of puppet works for each character; the number of different costumes; heads and bodies; and a general sense of the costumes. These will change a lot as they're refined, but they serve as a guide to the initial sculpting.

* I just finished the set model and a working prototype of the toy-theatre figures.

* We've contracted with Sixth Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa to co-produce the play on their second-stage season, opening Sept. 30 and running for five weeks. They'll provide facilities, box office, and some subsidy, and it'll be a perfect space for the show.

Next week, I'll post a photo of the set model and talk about its design.

***

The rest of life continues.

Our memoir [[Co-Creation: Fifty Years in the Making]] is proceeding on schedule. Just finished a difficult decade, our years in Lancaster between 1977 and 1991, and launched on our decade in Philadelphia. We're two-thirds of the way through the first draft of a new screenplay with our friend Arturo, working title [[Salvage]]. Talking weekly via Skype, then I hit the keyboard and we talk again. Just finished the outline of the final section, feeling very good about it. Meanwhile, we're circulating our first joint screenplay [[Willing]]. So far it was a finalist in a contest, but no cigar. And we're studying Spanish, struggling to get our half acre of Mama Gaia under control, and running in all directions.

And next week we go down to Mill Valley, where a high school is doing two of our short sketches from [[Rash Acts]] on a bill of one-acts directed by students. These have been done a lot around the country, and we try to see them whenever we can. Quality varies, obviously, but there's always something new and surprising, even in pieces that we ourselves have performed hundreds of times. And they've chosen a couple of crazy, difficult pieces. Looking forward to it.

Peace & joy--
Conrad

A sixteen-year-old girl, of notorious radical parentage, is swept off her feet by a would-be poet who's been expelled from college, married and fathered children. They flee the country, impoverished save for heavy borrowing from friends. At 18, she's lost one child and is pregnant with another. As an entertainment among a small circle of social misfits, she accepts a challenge to write a horror story.

The result is Frankenstein, a work that's had as wide a range of interpretations as any ancient myth. Usually it's seen as a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, of seeking forbidden knowledge, of Man usurping the role of God. But for us, in our 1998 adaptation with Touchstone Theatre and our plans for further adaptation to puppet staging, its resonance is deeper.

In Mary Godwin Shelley's novel, Victor's obsession with creating life has its genesis in his mother's death, which may echo her own mother's death in childbirth. His scheme is a grand "denial of death," the quest to bypass conception and birth in order to conquer mortality. The result of this denial-of-death is death. We can draw parallels in our present-day alienation from the natural world, our attempts to save nations by destroying them, our drive for bigger bank accounts, bigger cars, bigger bellies to make ourselves too big to fail -- whatever strikes you.

Shelley was cutting very close to the bone. Victor's abandonment of his creation echoes her lover/husband Percy Shelley's own mix of idealism and irresponsibility. The Creature's first murder is a child named after Mary's dead first-born. The principles espoused by her parents, the radical philosopher William Godwin and notorious feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, permeate her vision of the Creature's innate goodness, yet fall to the assaults of the real world.

For those unfamiliar with any but the movie versions: Victor is a student, not a mad scientist. He has no dwarfish assistant. We don’t see electrodes buzzing or cauldrons bubbling: it's not clear how Victor animates the Creature. Nor do we know what makes him appear "monstrous," except for vague descriptions of watery eyes and unusual size. There's no mistaken transplant of the brain of a criminal, and he learns to speak eloquently. There's no torch-bearing mob of peasants: Victor and the Creature pursue each other into the Arctic, Victor dies, and the Creature is lost on an ice floe.

On first reading, for me, the novel was disappointing. Years later I came back to it, and despite its dated style and lack of the cinematic hot spots, I was stunned. We staged it with a trio of LeCoq-trained actors from Touchstone Theatre in Bethlehem, PA, with great success.

We envision this new Frankenstein with our usual form of puppet: a 2/3rds-lifesize figure, one hand inside the head (moved by wrist and fingers, weight supported by a fingerless glove), the other hand as the puppet's hand. We also expect to use shadows, video projection, and an enlarged form of toy theatre with 15" cut-out figures -- the civilization the Creature encounters -- all set in our 10x8x8 ft. aluminum-frame cube, with lighting apparatus self-contained and readily portable.

Why puppets? To tell a large story with a small cast. To create the fractured reality inhabited by both Creator and Creature. To maintain realism of detail while expanding its mythic dimension. And simply because we believe in the enormous power of puppetry.

Work has started on both sculpting and storyboard. More to come next week.

***

Life continues, not always requiring puppets. Elizabeth and I midway through a memoir of our creative life together, called Co-Creation, and we're looking to finish it for self-publication in November to coincide with our fiftieth anniversary. With a friend, we've finished a screenplay, and that's being shopped around. May 3-14, we'll be in Blue Lake, CA, at the Dell'Arte School of Physical Theatre working with their MFA students on dramaturgy for new work. Next week, our son is on his way to Portland, Oregon, to exhibit at a comics convention, and our daughter is visiting from Italy!

-- Conrad Bishop

Our TEMPEST is coming up to its fifth and final weekend, going very well. Shooting video of every performance for dvd editing, and it's truly humbling, in starting the edit, to see every minute of the show, 107 minutes, 14 performances to date, and how !#%$!!X%!!! far away from "perfection" we are. I recommend this process highly as an
essential, though painful, learning experience. Thankfully, our audience doesn't see it that way. As a friend pointed out, we see the two media with entirely different sets of eyes.

We've had lots of wonderful written responses. But this one (prefaced by very effusive positives) evoked some thought, and I wanted to share it.

>I did not like Caliban - that is I didn't like the puppet representation.
>I wish you had made him as evil and other worldly as was Ariel --
>an imaginative sprite and other worldly. The Caliban
>puppet reinforced that great myth of the US white society: that men
>of color are evil, bad, etc. I do regret that you chose that configuration.

***

My response:

Dear ______--

Thanks for all your responses, this included. I'd like to follow up on this Caliban question, as I feel it's a serious and provocative one. I don't want to pass it off lightly.

"Evil and otherworldly" I can't see. In some ways, he's a metaphorical contrast to Ariel. But to me the power of the character is that he's totally concrete: He's born on this island to an exiled Algerian woman accused of witchcraft; he's deformed; he's in his late twenties; he was adopted into Prospero's care, was a companion of Miranda, and felt love and tenderness for the first time in his life; he did something, details not specified, that Prospero saw as seeking to "violate the honor of my child"; he was enslaved and continues to be subjected to systematic torture; he's filled with rage; and, like Ariel, he desperately longs for freedom. Those facts don't add up to
"otherworldly." He has to be given a real and specific face. Nor do I think they add up to an embodiment of pure evil, though indeed they've had the same effect that oppression often works on people: they've made him a rage-filled, dangerous, easily-corrupted creature. And one who, heartbreakingly, still retains some humanity, a sense of beauty, and a dream of something better.

I don't think that nexus of traits is untrue to life. Prospero likewise is an amalgam of extreme contradictions, as is, for that matter, Ariel, combining that Robin-Goodfellow playfulness with the implacable, amoral force of an Elemental, and only at the end showing a startling glimmer of human empathy.

But I realize that doesn't speak to your main point: that making him non-Caucasian reinforces a false stereotype. And this is a huge problem in contemporary stagings of masterpieces from a culture that saw "blackness," deformity, and illegitimacy all as evidence of an evil nature; that was deeply anti-Semitic; that saw inherited hierarchies as God-given; that saw the treatment meted out to Kate in SHREW an occasion for merriment; etc. So a fantasy-style Caliban might be a means of getting around this. But to me, that's not possible without significantly rewriting the play. Likewise, though I agree with the political intent of it, I feel that attempts to reverse the equation, to suggest Caliban as the wronged but noble-hearted native under Prospero's imperialist heel, just flatten the play - it'd require a total rewrite to work, and that's been done though I think not very successfully.

As a theatre artist, I'm not able personally to avoid ugly elements in characters who are at-risk for "stereotype." If I create a generic, two-dimensional evil black man, swishy gay, dumb blonde, fanatic Arab or greedy Jew - whether as realism or as farce - then I'm being both stupid and irresponsible. But if those are concrete elements in a multi-faceted character, then I feel I'm reflecting an image that helps us see these "types" as real individuals. And that's responsible artistry.

So the best I can do for Caliban is just to bring out the reality of the contradictions in his character and in his relations with Prospero, with Miranda, and with his drunken would-be liberators. If those aren't very specific and clear, then I agree that it's possible for the audience to jump to seeing only the stereotype. And as in innumerable other challenges of the play, we're maybe only half successful. Our 90 hrs. of rehearsal should have been double that. As with our puppet MACBETH, which we had in touring repertory over a span of 15 years, at this stage there were elements we were only beginning to explore. It's a matter of constantly honing in on the clarity of moment-by-moment truth.

So, just offering this for thought. And again, I'm grateful to you for raising this provocative question. If I have a chance to restage this TEMPEST in the future, I'm pretty sure to stay with my design and interpretation of Caliban. But that moment-by-moment evolution of the character will definitely be informed by serious tussle with the issue you raised. Many thanks.

***

And received a very gracious response. Definitely this issue should be addressed in the study guide we prepare for the school tour.

***

I've been startled by the response to a particular moment in the play: a kiss between Ferdinand and Miranda at the end of 3:1. A number of people have expressed rapture at it. Stage and movie kisses are a dime a dozen, and young love -- unless it's tragic -- is more often than not an object of amusement. It's very well played by the puppeteers, and probably their necessary care in making sure the puppets' lips don't bonk translates as the tenderness of Miranda's first kiss. But what is it that makes that moment such an object of wonder?

My thought is that it's an indicator of the power of the puppet medium. The very artifice of it brings about what Brecht termed the Verfremdungseffekt, making us see this thing we take for granted as "strange," as something new. Prospero's aside, "At the first sight they have chang'd eyes," extends to our eyes as well.

Could it be done as movingly by live actors? Probably, but I've never quite seen it have that effect. The only comparable moment that comes to mind was in our staging of THE WINTER'S TALE with Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, the moment when Leontes (Whit Maclaughlin) took the hand of the statue of Hermoine (Laurie McCants) and whispered, "Oh, she's warm." There, Shakespeare likewise has used a Verfremdungseffekt -- the fantasy of the statue coming alive -- to focus us with almost unbearable emotion on that moment, the miracle of renewal.

Peace--
Conrad

I feel I'm registering pretty well as Prospero and startng to find the necessary modulatoins. In the long storytelling of the first act, I feel there must be a passionate energy driving him, or else the scenes are flat exposition. Yet a half-hour of blast-furnace energy will destroy all rapport with the audience. Fnding that roller-coaster rhythm is elusive, but starting to happen. Only once in six performances have I played it without line glitches, and that's a consequence of insecurity in the overall thru-line.

Some responses. No press reviews -- that's common here -- and one radio review is just being transcribed. But these are from audience members:

***

* The puppet stage itself is a marvelous sight and also very practical, allowing many areas for the 3/4th lifesize puppets to perform within. It is draped with fabric painted in golden clay colors, twisted and turned, creating the framed playing areas. Short familiar quotes and words from Shakespeare are painted on the fabric in large "Olde English" script.

* My take on Prospero's gigantic mid-life crisis is that he is functioning at the throat chakra, the crossroads between good and evil. Which path will he choose? The throat chakra is also the area from which speech cometh, and Prospero rages and verbalizes in the best Shakesperian manner. Great stuff, Mooncalf, great stuff!

* Something rare and thrilling happened for me as I viewed this production, something I seek at every puppet show I attend. The puppet Miranda came "alive" for me. Was it a combination of her facial sculpting and exquisite right-on manipulation, or that her love glow threw enchantment over her? All of the above. I occasionally amused myself by trying to see her again as a puppet, not a real woman, but there was no turning her back into a puppet.

* I attended The Tempest last evening and found it a wonder! I must say that puppet kiss to end the first half was . . . mmmmm! And the soundtrack, beautifully integrated. The set, simple yet extraordinary.

* You seem to be born for Shakespeare, and you and your puppet likeness were totally magical. Thank you so much for bringing such a unique and beautiful production to our humble Sonoma County.

*Conrad was sensational as Prospero! With the puppets, the arms and especially the hands become huge vehicles of emotional expression, and even the inanimate masks seem to change expression depending on their positions, the angles at which they're held and the lighting. Many delightful and imaginative uses of shadow-screens, overdubs, and other theatrical resources; and whatever puppets can do than humans can't, they do, and to our amazement and delight!

*Fabulous and exciting production! Congratulations!!

* I feel privileged to have such thrilling, innovative, soul-touching theatre right here in our little town!

* Thanks for the amazing work . . . dedication and mastery.

* Fabulous.

* Astonishing/compelling.

***

More to come. We've started to do nightly talk-backs wth the audience, and response is very good. One woman asked a curious question: "What do you think Shakespeare would have thought of this production?"

Don't remember what I said, but I've thought about that some more. What's meant, I guess, is how faithful it is to the author's intentions, and of course that's unanswerable. My feeling is that the only negative feeling he'd have had -- other than all the notes give to the other actors and to myself -- is that he wasn't getting any royalties from it. I think it's "faithful" on three counts: (1) That character and scene interpretation are based very concretely in the text. One could certainly quarrel with them, but there's a reason for everything. (2) The elements of "innovation" are really no different in kind than the enormous amalgam of theatrical techniques from multiple traditions that were part of the English stage of 1611. (3) The fullness of gesture and vocal expression that this form of puppetry allows is much closer to the style of the great actors he wrote for than we normally find in Shakespearean productions today.

Coming up to four more performances this weekend. Dreading the exhaustion, but enormously looking forward to the challenge.

--Conrad

***

Here are some photos of the final puppets. I haven't labeled them; if you know the play, guess.

And a miscellany of the notes I've given actors in the final week. Notes to myself are too numerous to begin to log.

***

1:1
Bosun: Can you come in faster with the mast?

All: Needs to be more physical reaction every time you hear a big surge. You're not reacting to what we're hearing. After the stop on "What, must our mouths be cold," start the swaying again with a sharper lurch to the left.

All: As the scene is starting to flow and the technical elements, swaying, etc., are getting cleaner, it's going to be a real stunner. Biggest need now is the flow. It's a scene about a bunch of people fighting for control, while there's a force outside them that makes that an absurd struggle. ("We are such stuff")

Bosun: First 'Hey me hearts" speech after Ship Master, connect the lines tighter, no pauses there. Needs to launch the scene actively. Can be a tight pause before "Blow till thou burst" but not before.

Alonso: Your first entrance, you can do a bit more stagger & losing balance before you grasp the mast -- that'll also motivate your delay with your line.

Swaying was badly coordinated. When the Bosun goes downstage, he needs to first be aware of where the mast is so that he can start by matching it. After that, the people on the mast need to follow him. But also the Bosun was swaying a bit too fast to follow.

Bosun: Take in the topsail, lower lower - no pauses here. He's throwing out commands before they can conceivably execute them, and that's ok. He's businesslike but panicked.

Ant: Even though you're yelling at the Bosun, your focus has to go totally to Sebastian's sword when he draws it, till you know he's not going to use it. You can look back over your shoulder a couple of times at the Bosun, but keep main attention to Seb.

Bosun: Your final exit, not sure what to suggest, but somehow it needs more "character" in its departure; right now just looks like an actor rushing off. Maybe he staggers forward slightly, takes another big swig, and reels off?

Gonz: Watch the video behind you as the lights fade, and make sure you don't start carrying off the mast until the video is out completely. You have plenty of time there.

1:2
Mir: "Had I been any god of power" -- need a strong change of focus here -- maybe back to him? It's a new beat, but she's not changing physically right now. Suggest too that you not weaken that statement with going pleading/teary on "the ship & souls within her" -- carry the strength all the way through the end of the line.

Mir: "Heavens thank you for it" is sincere, but wants to come in very fast and automatic, to get to your real question. "Mine enemies brought to this shore" -- need sharper reaction at this: it's huge news.

Ariel: "Is there more toil?" Don't use an emotional color of complaint - wants to have more the feeling that he's going to resist, telling Prospero not to push on this: steelier. Good on "My liberty."

Ariel: Need a real convulsion on "malignant thing" -- suddenly he's bound, and it's intolerable. Sharp struggle. Then when I go away from you, the binding stays, but you can have sudden bursts of struggles against it.

Sycorax: Movement can be about half the tempo you're doing -- it's much too fast now.

Ariel: Whenever you're behind Prospero, be just over one shoulder or the other. If you get further out, it's not as concentrated. When you're doing the large movements on stage, move from one place to another even faster, if possible. And when you arrive, there's a pulse of arrival. Stronger pulses of hand & head on "promised" and "liberty" and other key words.

Ariel: Not sure if this will work, but try it: When with Prospero, each time Prospero speaks, come to an absolute freeze; then move on your own. You can have physical reactions within his speech on specific beats, but don't sustain any movement. When he's entrapped you, you can quiver and twitch, but not other times. Let's see what that does. Looking for a sense of near-absolute unity between Prospero & Ariel, not as if they're entirely separate beings.

Caliban: Try more contrast between "I must eat my dinner" and the sharp attack on "This island's mine." Dinner is more a throwaway, dismissing the threat.

Caliban: Much better on the head movement, but need still more. For example, on "Cursed be I that did so," you have a strong vocal emphasis on "cursed" and a gesture, and you jump the whole puppet upward -- but the head itself doesn't move.

Caliban: A strong moment on "Thou didst prevent me." It really wants a longer beat after it for us to assimilate that. Try taking a full breath to recover before "I had peopled else."

Mir: Her rant at Cal can use stronger head movement. I think gesturing at him doesn't work very well with that hand -- maybe once or twice, but probably you're better to play it mostly out front and use gesture accordingly.

Caliban: When Miranda rushes away after looking at you, try turning away also -- you're as strongly affected by the look as she is.

Ferd: You take a total stop on "allaying" before going on with "their fury" -- sounds weird. You can do something like this with a catch-breath if you inflect the word so that we know something's coming after, or do the same sort of emphasis by extending its vowel. But often you do breaks like this within lines that sound like end-stops -- sounds unnatural.

Ariel: On Ferd's "It begins again' let your arm extend out widely, as if to suck him back toward you to begin the swaying. Let your hand then actually caress him. Ferdinand: Sense of body being drawn back to Nymph, more backward pull until you get into her embrace.

Sea Nymph: Your arm is very inactive, always bent at the elbow, just a little movement in the wrist. Think of leading with the arm, that the arm's part of the movement of seaweed -- more stretch in the hand as well, more the musculature of Balinese dance.

Miranda: What is't, a spirit? Can be even more sense of "Oh yes, I've seen these before, you've put on little shows for me, they're cute." You look at it a moment, but you're not in the mood to be charmed. Then look around again with surprise, a whole new thing. This is coming across, just keep it vivid.

Ferd/Mir: Think of these sharp movements across the stage as breath *in-takes* that come out of the sudden emotion of the characters' interaction, not as movements done by the spirits. Ferd works ok, Miranda is flung a little too broadly. Make it more spring-action. Yes, it's real melodramatic, but it's based in their profound astonishment.

Mir: On "Why speaks my father…" go very fast to the audience with this, asking them for urgent counsel. Can't just muse about it. This will help me, as right now I'm in limbo, Ferd not having answered me.

Ferd/Mir: What's Ferd's focus on Prosp "They are both in either's powers"? I think you're looking at Miranda, but it looks like you're looking at me. Possibly it'd work if Miranda is looking toward Ferd when he says "I'll make you queen of Naples," and then turns away -- that would impel him to turn away in response, feeling he'd gone too far. Then I can get my aside in, and you can turn back to me when I address you again.

Ferdinand: Farther left after you're disarmed -- you adjusted a bit toward the center and it crowds the Prospero//Miranda quarrel. Need to be right in the corner.

Ferdinand: At casting the sword spell, good. It needs a sharper movement into it, so there's a feeling of being hit by a surge. Also, keep Ferd's face up more so we see him more focused on the charmed sword, more amazed at what's happening. Release and follow-thru are very good.

All: Act One is moving very well, I think. Each character is distinct, strong emotion but very concrete. Main thing now is my own modulation of Prospero, strength with less tension. Generally, we should all look for the contrast moments in the characters: where more secondary lines are moved through faster, where the strong ones contrast, where you contrast with a peak, etc.

2:1
Gonz: You can be a bit more overtly angry, more abrupt, at the two gents on "minister occasion to these two gents."

Alonso: Even more commanding on "further search for my poor son" and "Lead away." There's still a kind of hopeless tone about it. We need that surge of energy.

Sebastian: I don't see Sebastian actually looking at his garment as Gonzalo talks about it. This needs to be very obvious, as Ant is doing.

Sebastian: Nice moment looking up on "crown falling on your head".

Seb/Ant: Can you draw your swords before "One word"? It'd be a lot more threatening if we actually see them come out then.

Seb/Ant: Then when coming down to them, don't actually start thrusting: just hold your swords up in position to thrust, but then walk down: you're going to get close, plant yourselves to give yourself good fotting to plunge it in deeply. If you actually start the thrust, as it seems like Antoinio is doing, you're not going to be able to stop.

Seb/Ant: You can have a more sudden startle back at Gonzalo's rise: it's just that sudden jump at something totally unexpected, as if a car horn blasted behind you.

Seb/Ant: How do you hold your swords during the following dialogue? Not sure what it wants, but somehow they're hot evidence that you're conscious of, as if you had a big fish in your hand and you couldn't explain why.

All: I'm thinking about putting a video behind part of the blackout here. Would that cause any backstage problems during the change, if you had 10 seconds beforehand or after it to get across to the side you need to be on?

Antonio: "Temperance" - Sounds like you're saying this to the general public. I think it's just to Sebastian, more a comic-throwaway with the sense "Remember we shared Temperance at the brothel -- she was hot."

Ant/Seb: As you're listening to them, you can have small reactions, small shifts. Mainly you should keep them alive by breathing. Your other movements look fine, but they often don't come at specific rhythmic points: a stress, a punctuation. Need to do so, or they fall out of the scene.

Sebastian: There should be as much heat in your move away from Alonso after "So is the dearest of the loss" as there is in your verbal attack on him; this time it seemed merely apologetic.

Ant/Seb: These movements aren't the same as the Spirit swoops in Act 5 - they're the characters' reactions just expanded.

Ant/Seb; The melodramatic swoops are good, but now they're becoming a bit mechanical, and broad swings of the puppets, which doesn't work. They only work if you prepare them verbally, if they come out of the psychology of it -- the rhythm builds it up to the "launch."

Ant/Seb; You've both got a lot of nuance in the scene now, and I don't want that to go. But it's losing some of the intensity that it had when your inflection was flatter and more rapid-fire. I think you can get the nuances you're playing without "crafting" the lines so much.

Alonso: At the alarm, it's ok for you to delay a moment getting up, but when you do it should be with great energy.

Ant/Seb: When Alonso starts moving C, both of you need to move over toward the L, otherwise it gets jammed in the UC.

2:2
Caliban: Your dropping the log this time suddenly made it lightweight. Just before you let it go you held it with full eight in one hand.

Trinc: The head is still a bit rigid. Use tilting as well as nodding. He's getting faster and more colloquial & natural in his speech, and that's good. He's the fool who tends to run off at the mouth. When he's into a lot of expostulation, he's not so interesting. "Strange fish" isn't so much astonishment as a confused reaction to having put your hand on Caliban's groin, which doesn't somehow feel like a fish's groin.

Trinc/Cal: As soon as Trinc is getting under, we can hear noises and objects from Caliban. We REALLY need sound under that: that's the essence of the comedy - nothing funny about seeing a lump move back and forth- it's about two guys with sharp elbows trying to share a single cot. Play it up.

Trinc/Cal: When you reverse the shoes, that needs to be part of your struggle -- this time you did a little struggle on Cal's line, stopped, put down the shoes, then picked them up. Impression was that for some unknown reason the two characters' feet fell off.

Caliban: Try to move head a little bit (doesn't need much) during the under-the-blanket sequence. Otherwise it looks like he's trying to make a corpse drink.

Cal/Trinc: Right now Trinc is getting settled under the blanket, then you start the pulling back and forth, then we hear some vocal sound -- all seems very mechanical. Need to hear something loud from Caliban as soon as Trinc is getting under, and then ad lib grunts & sounds of pain, exasperation, anger, discomfort, complain -- two kid brothers fighting over the bedclothes -- until the feet come up.

Stephano: Still finding it very hard to pin down his predominant voice. I think it's because his first entrance is the rollicking song, then fright at the monster, then miscellaneous babble - goes all over the map. I like best the lighter, breathier voice, as it's so unlike what he aspires to. Your roistering aspect is right for what he's aspiring to, but he's not the real pirate, he's the computer geek wishing he was. There were a few passages last time -- "if I could get to Naples with him" "Four legs and two voices" -- that had a common element, assertive but breathy, no clogging up the throat or over-projection. From his position in the court household, he'd develop that kind of voice that's always trying to be hushed even when giving orders to the flunkies, always trying to be calm & ingratiating even when he's spilled wine in the lap of the Grand Inquisitor.

Stephano: Might also think of that opening as more to yourself: he's not performing it for us, but to keep up his own spirits, to fill the silence of being utterly alone. Seems that, unlike Trinculo's, Stephano's asides are more to himself than to the audience -- he's not a performer. All your instincts on his reactions, emotions, etc. are good, but too often you're enlarging them way more than needed, and that diminishes the comedy.

Steph/Cal: At end of leg pull, don't heave your own body far to the right on the third pull -- still looks like you're pulling off his feet.

All: End of the "scamels" bit. Cal can take his hand away, and that's the moment they see there's nothing in their own hands. Try to see the other guy, so you can do your reactions to your hansd simultaneously. If your puppet & hand turn both slightly to the outside it'll be more clearly visible.

Caliban: Farther to the right before "Farewell master." You can watch them part of the time, but we need something else from you that's inwardly directed: something like pounding on your chest as if to say Yes! Yes! Yes!

Trinc: When he hands your horn back, right now you're just taking it as if you expected a horn full of vomit and starting to shake it out. But the comedy is in your reaction when you see it: you can't believe he just did that. So take that reaction, and only after that try to do something about it.

Trinc: You can control the bottle best if you take it by the neck, so when you're drinking you can put your thumb beside your mouth and not have the bottle wander all over the puppet's face.

Trinc/Steph: Let it flow faster and more naturally from the time of the vomit recovery to looking over at Caliban -- it's a celebration.

Cal: When you go into the food speech, right now you're just going on in the same emphasis & rhythm & intensity as the previous speech, so it just seems more of the same. Try grabbing their attention on the first words, and then change into a much more sensual tone -- more like "the isle is full of noises." -- it's the changed tone that'll really draw them in.

Trinc/Steph: Good goosing.

Cal: On "be my god" not clear where you're looking. Maybe need to focus on the bottle, because it's too stunning to look directly at God.

All: On Caliban's "Hast thou not dropped from heaven?" I literally can't tell who's talking. Caliban has very slight head movement; Trinculo and Stephano are both in movement by the middle of his line. More clarity of speech movement needed, and if you move within the other person's line, it has to be very sparing and clear in reaction.

Cal/Trinc/Steph: "Let me show thee." You need to get the attention of both right on the beginning of this speech. Your pleading hesitancy doesn't work for that -- they're just continuing defocused. Change tone: you've got something that you know is immensely valuable. You need to really turn their heads with "Let me show thee." Both Trinc and Steph can draw over tighter behind him on this.

Caliban: When Steph calls Trinc to him and you counter R, his emotional focus is unclear, just kinda watching them from a distance. Not sure how to express this, but you've just asked this man to be your God, and he's accepted you: you've just won the Lottery, fallen in love, been embraced by Jesus Christ, walked out the gate after 12 years in prison. That span of time is your inner preparation for your song of liberation.

3:1
Mir/Ferd: The moment of Ferdinand reaching at "My husband, then?" is different than what we did previously, but I think it works this way. On "my husband," Ferdinand reaches toward her face. In response to that, Prospero averts her face. For Prospero, it's his anxiety about the touch -- something he wants to see happen but is painful for him. For Miranda, inwardly, it's about the touch, something she intensely desires but is momentary small panic about. Let me know if you have a problem with that, but in watching it on the video it looks right.

Ferd: Your small laugh after Miranda goes out is wonderful. And I've always liked your laughing as you go off, but I'm concerned that to some people that laugh might read as a kind of self-satisfied male-triumph sorta thing -- maybe it's the regularity of its rhythm. Definitely it needs the sound, but I think the key is to keep a kind of "wonder" in it, an "omigod" feeling.

Mir/Ferd: Both have very good feeling & response in this scene. The only thing not quite working is the tempo. You can certainly take the pauses, but when you're expressing to the other, let it flow more trippingly on the tongue -- it's the *flow* we're missing -- you tend to be wrapped up in your own feelings rather than skiing down the slope, and while that's the way love sometimes is, it doesn't work for the suddenness of this bonding. It's not like you're dating and gradually becoming aware of strong feelings -- after the first tentative talk, you're finding yourself saying things before you even think of them (and knowing they're totally true). I mean that just as a matter of degree: I don't want you to "race" the scene. Just let the language flow as freely as it's written, and emphasize the linking of the lines.

3:2
Steph: On opening, good playing. Try smaller, breathier voice doing what you're doing, just not projecting so much. Good moments of a kind of brisk, throwaway feeling: "And so shall 'Trinculo." "Canst thou bring me to him?" Sense of a person assuming he has authority.

Caliban: It looks as if you never look over at Trinc & Steph. You don't want to be fixated on them, but it's strange when they're arguing and you're just looking into the air -- find times when he has more specific focus, even if it's inner. Otherwise there's no sense of intention.

Caliban: With Miranda veil, leave the smelling to Stephano -- maybe caress it along your cheek instead. Your getting up after the Miranda sequence is kind of indeterminate. Stay down thru the Trinc/Steph apology till you say "Will you destroy him then?"

Trio: The comedy here is that they're just nattering on, brainless. And then it suddenly gets fierce. If you let them stop and think, it reduces the sense of forward momentum.

Cal: Can launch the "As I told you before" even more forcefully. On the "possess his books" speech, you can let your rage move you ahead even faster, till you get to the Miranda section.

All: Really urgent on "within this half hour - will you destroy him then?" He becomes enormously impatient, and this carries directly into his next scene.

Caliban: You're focused mostly in toward Stephano, and it's weak somehow -- play it more front, so that you can make a point focusing on them.

Steph: When you're DR with Trinculo, his face is mostly in the dark. Would help to find some times when you tilt up a bit more. I like all your business in this scene, but rubbing the scarf on your groin is a bit too literal.

3:3
All: Very fast commentary after the Shapes serving banquet -- the speed is from trying to cope with the wonder and terror of it. All are also sometimes looking around to make sure somebody else isn't coming.

Seb: He can be tilting on the verge of madness from the time they wake up again, and then suddenly explodes in your exit line -- sense that Alonso's panic releases yours.
All: Clean moment when you all do the big in-draw as you see the Spirits. Then, as Benj & Jessica become Spirits, they can together make a big sound, something like a "Hello" in spirit language, as they start to come down.

Spirits: The sounds should start as soon as you start moving downstage. Jessica & Benjamin, you can really go louder with the sounds == sort of a parody of experimental performance art.

All: When the spirits return, you need an in-draw exactly like the one you started with. The spirits can best cue this, probably. Faster. You can step on the last person's word, so there's a sense of such astonishment that you have to immediately Twitter it.

VIDEO: Take out banquet video at C65. Then bring in new at C66.

Sebastian: "Left their viands behind" You're gesturing toward it, but give it a broader indication, as if it's a whole banquet table.

Gonzalo: On "You need not fear, sir," you could gesture broadly toward the banquet they've laid out -- you're saying "go ahead and eat."

All: When you're coming down to eat: Alonso, you initiate the reaching out to pick up a piece of food, others take their cue off you -- but all of you reach further out and with more a feeling of wonder -- is it going to be the most amazing stuff you've ever tasted, or will it explode when you touch it? For Alonso, even though he speaks of it casually, it's reaching out for something to sustain life. It's not just cheese and crackers.

All: The reaction spots in the Harpy speech are: --belch up you.X --made you mad. X --that's in my plume. X --against your peace. X A bit more of a convulsion when released out of the spell at Prospero's exit.

Alonso: Here, you're very good vocally. But the more powerful he gets vocally, the stranger he seems with almost no head movement. He doesn't want a lot of small stuff, but he needs at least one very distinct head movement per pentameter, on whatever's the strongest impulse: one side to the other, tilted, upward, downward -- something clear and strong. You're moving him as you would as an actor, and it'd be effective; but as the puppet, he's disconnected from the voice.

4:1
Ferd/Mir: You missed the final reaction on "you shall hate it both." Mesh with each other closely on these -- this is one point where you should watch the other's puppet, so they start and finish exactly together.

Ferd/Mir: When Prospero wakes you with "Look you be true," there can be a bit more startle/disorientation before focusing.

Ceres: You can let your hand come up much more slowly, shouldn't have arm all the way up till "wife of Jupiter." She's a plant growing. When you're going back down, make sure your R hand is slowly reaching back toward the light so it enlarges greatly on the screen.

Juno: When we see the pregnancy, try to emphasize it more with hands & belly & spine. I can put more padding in if necessary, but right now it doesn't quite register. Your contractions can be even more extreme. It still looks as if you're just kneeling down; let the 2nd one TAKE you down. Raising Caliban comes out of that same rhythm.

Ferd/Mir: Your father's in a passion-- never saw him so distempered--" You can both have a faster tempo, more unsettled. Sounds as if you're contemplating a serious issue, but it's too contemplative. It really unsettles you.

Ferd/Mir: Out front more on Revels now -- can go from looking at each other to comfort each other, then out on "Like the baseless fabric." I wonder if, at the moment Prospero says, "leave not a wrack behind," you might embrace/clutch more tightly together. It's a chilling moment in the midst of your betrothal: you, your kids, all human life will vanish in the wind. It doesn't want to be a big response, because it's something they can't quite conceive; but I think instinctively they come more protectively together.

Ariel: Do you love me, master' isn't a flip question; it's a real question, exploring the strange nature of human beings.

Caliban: You should start "I pray you, tread softly" the instant you see the lights starting up - right now you don't start the line till you're almost center stage. We want to feel that the action is accelerating here.

Trio: The presentation of the weapons is kind of a dead beat. I think you're finding that it doesn't mesh with the draggledy-ass state they're in, so it's kinda mechanical. Maybe it won't work, but try this as a way to motivate it:
* For Caliban, he's tasting the blood, he's seeing the culmination of all his rage. And so even though he's warning them about noise, his focus is on that knife, and he presents it as the culmination of his speech.
* For Trinculo and Stephano, they have been dragged thru Hell's cesspool. But they haven't totally lost their lust for freedom, for booze, for Miranda's ass. So that moment of weapon-thrusting is their attempt to get back on track. Then after that they dissolve into complaint and despair, and Caliban has to push them on to their resolve.

Trio: You all need to raise the stakes here. For all of you, you've had this tremendous vision of riches, liberation, transcendence; now it's fading like a dream. It's serious; they don't see themselves as "the clowns" -- it's as if every hope you have in your own life was suddenly becoming distant, and you too arthritic, too impotent, too stupid & feeble to grasp it. The comedy is that this intense need and objective can be so instantly distracted, that they're really incompetent as action-adventure heroes. But the need is absolutely real. Problem right now is that you're trying to play "comedy," i.e. a more petulant, trivial upset. But it's funny only if the intensity of their need is in ironic contrast with their inability to see what's real. There's a real urgency here; the complaints come tumbling out, as does Caliban's replies. Then the big change: the frippery comes up like the Second Coming of Christ. A huge response from Trinc and Stephano to this, and instant panic and rage from Caliban, who sees it for what it is: total illusion. This is a fierce sequence. Right now it's petty. You don't need to get louder, just express the emotion through reaction and attach on the cues.
Caliban: "The dropsy drown this fool." This speech you have great emotion on, but the emotion is squeezing it out very tight and slow, so it doesn't seem as if you're really urgent.

Trinc/Steph/Cal: Cue pickups much tighter -- right on top of one another -- keep the total exhaustion.

Trinc/Steph/Cal: When you see the frippery up, remember your drawing together in a big in-draw of awe -- it's crucial to their suddenly being sucked into this illusion.

Trinc/Steph: When you come down, you can do broad slo-mo gestures, even though you're carrying your weapons -- sense of moving through thick fog to see the vision of a glorious golden castle -- floating in illusion.

Trio: "Pray you tread softly." can be quiet but fast. Pick up cues fast, one line right over another. They're all out of control. Enormously impatient with each other.

Trio: Should be a sharp mutual spasm the moment you hear "Hey Mountain hey!"

5:1
Alonso: Don't anticipate Prospero's embrace. Let me come to you. His head is dead as you're talking to Prospero: wants a couple of clearer movements in the first two lines, then you could go front, maybe hand on head, clearing your mind, then focus back on him as you start to kneel.

Seb/Ant: After the first swoop, I think they can both be transfixed by the sight of Prospero. You might have a look or two at each other, but the main focus is either on him or on the depths of your souls. I think what's happening is that now you're playing a reaction of guilt or "oh hell, we have a problem," and looking away or conveying their discomfort. But it's too soon for that: this is absolutely staggering, a man who's supposed to be dead, coming right out of your having descended into madness. I'm not sure exactly how this passage should be played by them, but experiment with it -- you're downstage, so very obvious, and it's vital we get a sense of their thru-line here.

Seb: When you say, "The devil speaks in him" and Prospero says, "No," it might make you jump a bit, or some sort of fright reaction. Prospero's vehemence startles you, if nothing else. It's nice, then, your kinda unruffling your tail feathers and then staying focused down.

Antonio: The struggle with the Spirit doesn't quite work: maybe because it's such a broad movement that we lose Antonio's presence. I think we need a sharp moment just when the Spirit first appears -- a frozen flash, then the struggle, but keeping the puppet's head very active in response.

Ferd/Mir: We haven't talked much about their chess game or the tone of it. I'm thinking now that it's a little cute & coy. What's needed is the sense that they're truly exploring one another. The metaphor is the game, but the sense is almost like the discovery of the individuality of erotic response, of the wonder of the other's body. Those moments of love-making (rare for some people, sadly) when there's a gentle humor that's also filled with joy. Then suddenly they're thrust from this sweet intimacy into the public, but then instantly confronted with another amazement.

Alonso: We need a sharper movement after I take away the chess game when you actually recognize Ferdinand. When Prospero banishes the game, immediately come into the C position sharply: you've just seen your son, can't believe it, and then can take a beat to really take him in before you speak and move forward. Right now your reaction is hidden. Hold your embrace till Prospero has finished "Tis new to thee." Otherwise your break takes focus right in the middle of this other moment. That means that you move immediately from the embrace to "What is this maid--" An extreme transition, yes, but that's the nature of this scene -- people being plunged into wonder after wonder.

Ferd: "She is mortal." Let your hand lead your body: the length of the arm conveys the strength of the emotion. Right now you're waiting to reach for her hand till you're near her. This is the extraordinary intensification of the moment. We might think of the style as "larger than life," but to my mind it's really a giving in to the largeness of life.

Alonso: "--must ask my child's forgiveness." "There sir, stop--" We haven't really explored this moment. I think you sound a little too pro forma -- kinda formally penitent, but not feeling the intensity of the moment, suddenly understanding that you were responsible for almost destroying this lovely creature. And for Prospero: I think this needs to be the strongest moment of intimacy between them, sharing the "heaviness that's gone." Not sure how to play this myself, but somehow very close and personal.

Ship Master: Stay faced pretty much front during this report -- he's still dazed.

SM/Bosun: Maybe needs a final little punctuation on it: at end of Bosun's line, look at one another, with a laugh of triumph & thanksgiving. Not a big thing, just a kind of little "wow."

Gonz: You're rushing your final speech. Nice quality, but it really wants to change tempo here. He's an old man, and after these many, many years, something absolute stunning has happened: he's seen a miracle.

Alonso: Response to Bosun sounds now like you're not really impressed by the strangeness of the business. On the contrary: the news of the ship is maybe the most astonishing thing of all -- it's concrete, not psychological, not accidental like Ferdinand's survival. Through this scene, you're always hovering on the brink of falling back into madness -- otherwise Prospero has no motive for saying "Do not infect your mind--" He might have a really strong physical response to the Bosun's news: the fact that it's good news, fabulous news, makes the response all the greater.
Alonso: When Prospero speaks to Ariel ("Set Caliban and his companions free") - you might be in a state of trying to recover your senses -- hand to forehead or something like that.

Trinc: Faster on first lines when you come in. Need to reach for Stephano immediately at "fly-blowing", otherwise he can't come in with his "do not touch me." What's your emotional response to Alonso's question? Seems to me you'd be scared shitless.

Alonso: During the conversation between Caliban and Prospero, best if you turn Alonso's face R -- otherwise he becomes psychologically part of the scene. He doesn't really want to spend time looking at Caliban.

Caliban: When he lands from the entrance, try going instantly into a protective posture. Don't move back and forth, but center it all in his breathing, which can be very heavy. Keep him very flat and at the point of exhaustion during his apology. I want to feel that Prospero and Caliban here are both at the furthest point of hopelessness, and it's at that point where they genuinely connect. At last they see each other. Don't ever look up at Prospero until the very last moment, and then tilt the face upward a bit more to catch better light.

***

That's the launch of it. Four more weeks to grow, and then after that, we dunno.

Peace & joy--
Conrad