Friday, July 23, 2004

 

Aaron Sorkin, Call Your Office

Mighty Girl is working the Democratic National Convention, and living scenes from The West Wing.

posted by Dan 11:46 AM
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Thursday, July 22, 2004

 

IMPORTANT INVITE

I'd like you -- and I mean each and every one of you living in the tri-state area -- to come down to the reading of my new full length play, At Sea with Sieves and Liars. After you see it, you can help me come up with a new title.



At Seas with Sieves and Liars
A reading of a new play by Dan Trujillo
Presented by Imua! Theatre Company

Manhattan Ensemble Theater
55 Mercer Street @ Broome St.
New York City, NY
Tuesday, July 27th, 7pm.
FREE ADMISSION

Christian missionaries perform much of America's charitable work abroad, including in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos. While working there, one man discovers that his fellow missionaries are seeking to martyr themselves and him, as a demonstration of faith. Working to escape death, he pays a high price to a local soldier, nourished by the charity and scarred by the crimes of the West. A story at the intersections of belief, paranoia, fear and compassion.

posted by Dan 11:44 AM
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Wednesday, July 21, 2004

 

Follow the Leader

Isaac's latest guest-blogger Abe Goldfarb at Parabasis has thrown down the gauntlet to every communal, give-and-take director who has ever turned to an actor and said, "What do you think the scene's about?" He declares himself master of all he surveys:

I'm of a reasonably old school when it comes to directing: that every inch of the production must be touched and guided by the director. Essentially, I ask all who work with me to do what I say, and then, by virtue of their undoubted talent and intelligence (why else would I cast/hire them?), make it better as only they can. The lighting should look the way I want it to. The sound should be exactly right for me, exactly as I said it should. No department should work independent of me for too long. The thing should be blocked in one or two nights, if possible. It should all be worked out beforehand. I hate nothing more than the idea of spending days and days "exploring" the blocking of a scene, doing little exercises to draw the meaning out as one would extract a delicious poison from a ripe, candied snakebite. The shape and purpose of every scene must be clear at the outset. We're not having a class, we're creating a show. I need to know how it all plays before I walk into the room.

This stems from his plans for his upcoming production:

I'm directing Titus Andronicus this fall, and my friend's comment is something that, at first subconsciously, informed my thinking about it. The common wisdom is that Titus is a travesty, a melodrama of such excess that it can't NOT be played for laughs. I've never seen a production that really thought about each act of violence in it as part of a cumulative tragedy. What we're watching, really, is the very slow demise of a man, mind, soul and body. Imagine a production that didn't invite the audience to laugh at the sheer proliferation of beheadings, dismemberments, murders, rapes, acts of cannibalism, etc. Imagine a production that took the textual humor at face value, likewise the horrors.

All well and good. All potentially interesting. But Abe's enlightened tyranny is greatly aided by Shakespeare being really most sincerely dead.

I, like Mac, admire Abe's fire in the belly. Still, I think his philosophy illustrates a core reason behind the conflict between playwrights and directors.

I don't know what Shakespeare was after with Titus, and neither do you. While this is less relevant when dealing with an older play, where the challenge primarily lies in finding what the essence of the drama is and how it speaks to a contemporary audience, the director would be wise to give it passing thought. When dealing with a new play, the playwright's intentions are (argued the playwright) paramount.

Abe doesn't go into this. He seems to be speaking strictly of revivals. Although revivals can get famously contentious too. Just try to stage a major production of Beckett that reinterprets Beckett's specific directions; you'll get a face-full of irate estate lawyers. But Abe's directorial philosophy illustrates why the sparks fly as soon as a breathing playwright enters the picture. The director has a vision, and everything would be copasetic, except that there's this annoying scrivener in the corner saying that the way she's playing Act II Scene iii is wrecking the whole thing!

That's why some directors implement a strict "no writers" rule in the rehearsal room. It's because that writer is the only person who can protest not just details but a whole concept with some degree of authority. In Abe's hierarchy of production, this can't stand. It's as Lenin said to Trotsky, or any Immortal Highlander will tell you, There can only be one.

Walk through a mental exercise with me. Say that Shakespeare was alive today. Furthermore, let's suppose that his intention with Titus was to bring to the stage "a cartoon [that] would be really funny and risky and modern," as Abe decried recent Titus's. Here's a recipe for sparks. Presumably Abe would turn down the job (if there's no pay) or hold his nose and do it Bill's way (pay). Now let's say that Shakespeare's vision is mostly aligned with Abe's, but there's some disagreement on one major issue. Bill believes that Lavinia's stump-armed carving of her rapists names into the dirt is a moment of comic relief, of a sort. He thinks the actress hsould put a little pratfall into it. Abe (I'm guessing) balks at this, preferring a painful exploration of what it's like to handlessly scratch out names with a stick in the dirt. This argument continues, right up to opening night. Now, you're the actress playing Lavinia. Setting aside your own aesthetics, whom do you heed?

I think I know what most answers will be, but I'd still love to hear them.

posted by Dan 1:50 PM
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Tuesday, July 20, 2004

 

Heavens to Mergatroid!

How I let things go so easily. My schedule's been all tied up with writing and family. If this is how busy grad school will be, then there will have to be some changes around here. Less of a writer, more of a linker. Not that I'll have time to read anything to link to.

Quick! Name three excuses why you haven't updated the blog, Dan!

1. Rewriting my play At Sea With Sieves and Liars for a big reading. Tuesday, July 27, 7:00 pm, Manhattan Ensemble Theater. Be there.


2. Sudden deadline dropped into my lap. 10 minute spec script needed in 48 hours. Yikes. Lost a few z's to that one.


3. My grandfather died.

Excuses all present and accounted for? At ease!

By the way, I have need of a few things, if anyone can help a honky out:

1. An actress in her late twenties/early thirties for said reading above. Needs to be a plausible Texan (And that's my next play title: The Plausible Texan.)


2. A used, inexpensive laptop computer with modem


3. Approx. 20 extra hours in a day

So very tired...

posted by Dan 10:11 AM
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