Season Seven: Week 34

Tuesday
 

We had a guest tonight, filming a piece that we’ll be able to share with you soon! We pretty much went about things as usual, with a few interviews sprinkled in. It was great to have him!

After checking in, I asked the ensemble what they wanted to work on with the camera there. They unanimously agreed on Act I scene i – the visuals they’ve come up with in that scene are really striking. Our First Witch began by bursting through the curtain, letting the fabric linger on her arms like wings, cackling an incredibly eerie cackle. “My heart’s beating from my chest!” exclaimed one woman after the scene was complete. “I was talking, and I was like –” she showed us how she’d frozen to watch. We worked on staying rooted in the earth and adjusted some blocking so that the witches could exit together at scene’s end, rather than splitting focus.

I saw our Porter sitting in the back of the house with another ensemble member, and she looked upset. I went over and asked what was going on. She said she was freaking out about memorizing her lines. She’s having a really hard time, especially with the monologue, and was practically in tears. I tried to calm her down, saying that she could do whatever she wanted with these lines – that the Porter doesn’t impact the story at all and could be cut entirely, so the lines can be altered in almost any way without screwing things up. All we need is the humor, to know she’s drunk ,and for her to take forever to answer the door. I shared the story about when, years ago, our Romeo and Benvolio were so freaked out about their lines that they stopped coming to our meetings. The rest of us decided that preserving the ensemble was more important than preserving the lines, so we cut every one of theirs that we possibly could. It meant that most of the play’s comedy was gone, but our ensemble members came back, the plot still moved forward, and we counted it as a win. That made her feel a lot better, and we strategized a bit about what to do with the monologue. I asked her to get creative and surprise us!

We said goodbye tonight to a longtime ensemble member who was being paroled prior to our next meeting. She told us that she was glad to leave prison, but very sad to leave Shakespeare. We echoed that: we were ecstatic for her to go, and we knew that we would really miss having her in the ensemble. I said that no one could ever say that she hadn’t been dedicated to SIP for even a second – that, in fact, she ranks as high as anyone on that scale, and higher than many. No one could ever have doubted her passion, either. Or her talent.

I’ve been working with this woman for more than three years, and she’s gone through an absolute sea change in that time. She’s done some very challenging work, and not just in terms of her acting. In the beginning, she had a lot of anger and frustration that she didn’t quite know what to do with, and it often expressed itself in her being caustic with other ensemble members – and very hard on herself. There were times when she’d be so shut down or in her own head that no one seemed able to reach her. Except me. I found that I could always get through, and that I could often help her navigate whatever challenge she was facing. I developed sort of a sixth sense for it; I could often see it coming and swoop in to help her stem the tide. We worked together on that. We even had a code word for a while.

At first, and for some time, she frequently said that she was selfish, self-centered, and that she didn’t care about other people; that she was a bad (even evil) person. We pointed out the many times when she proved herself wrong, and she began to recognize her own capacity for empathy – and to put it to work. This past season especially, I’ve been struck by her increasingly personal involvement with others who were going through hard times: her compassion, words of wisdom, holding of space, and checking in, even with those who were not close friends. She’s opened up a lot. I didn’t note even one occasion this season when she treated anyone with disrespect, even when she was upset with herself or anxious about something in her personal life.

I have a lot of respect for every person who walks through the door to work with us, and that admiration only grows for those who stick it out. This woman has always been so frank about her struggles (and her victories) that I’ve been able to do more detailed work with her than I’m usually able to do with others, so the bond goes pretty deep. It’s also worth noting that, with her departure, there is only one person in the ensemble (other than me) who was involved in SIP earlier than fall of 2015. So it feels like the end of an era; like the youngest member of the “old guard” has left the building.

With our newly-given approval to be in touch with, and even work with, alumni when they’ve left prison, I have a lot of hope that we’ll hear from this woman soon. I’m incredibly excited for her to return to the outside world, settle in, and make her mark. Because I believe she’s going to make a big, bold, very loud, incredibly funny, extremely witty mark. My fingers are crossed that I’ll get to be along for the ride.
 

Friday
 

Several people shared good news during tonight’s check in, but one person was feeling pretty down. In order not to break confidentiality, I won’t share details here, but she’s been dealing with a pretty negative situation in her unit. The group gave her a lot of support, even to the point of silliness, and she was laughing and relaxed by the time we were ready to lower our ring.

We had planned on continuing to work through the play chronologically, but facilitator Assata has stepped into the role of Doctor, and, with her about to be absent for two weeks, our Gentlewoman asked if we could work on the sleepwalking scene. That made perfect sense, so we did it! This woman has become very assertive and enthusiastic about wanting to work on her scenes, and we absolutely love it.

A while back, one of our ensemble members introduced the idea of using a hand mirror in this scene so that Lady Macbeth could talk to herself, but it hasn’t really come into play. She mentioned some places in the scene to use it, but those are lines where Lady is clearly talking to Macbeth, so we tried to find other places – we never want to fight the text. We found a few options and decided to let our Lady do it in the moment if she was inspired.

Immediately after that first run, which felt pretty disconnected, I asked Lady if she’d found a spot to use the mirror. “No mirror,” she said, but the ensemble member who’d had this idea began to strategize about ways in which the mirror could still be used. She suggested that perhaps it could be set on a table mid scene. I asked what other function the table would serve; we don’t usually want to use set pieces if they’re not necessary because they just complicate things. Lady made it very clear that she didn’t want to do that, either, and another ensemble member jumped in to suggest that if the table were set very far stage right, there could be a way to use it that would make sense.

At this point, everyone (on either side of the debate) was pretty frustrated, and Lady asked if she could watch someone do the scene so she could get an idea of how it could work (or not). The ensemble member whose idea this was complied, and she went with the option of placing the table far right.

The woman actually playing the role now said she was ready, but, after beginning the scene, she became increasingly frustrated and stopped. I reminded her that she feels better about her work when she centers herself before going on stage; it’s tough to pull off a role like this going in cold. She asked if the woman playing Macbeth could walk behind her with her script, drop in the lines, and be there for her to talk to directly before her exit.

As the Doctor and Gentlewoman restarted the scene, she planted her feet on the ground, placed her hands on chest and back (warming the ideal center), closed her eyes, and then raised her hand to mime holding the taper. She entered the scene completely focused, with a totally different energy than she’d had two minutes before, and really seemed to be sleepwalking through the space. She was so sad – not unhinged, but sad and guilty. She sank to her knees, putting the candle down on the ground and rubbing her hands not only together, but on her thighs, her shirt, her face, the floor, increasingly desperate, but, again, not crazy. She did this just inches from me, and it gave me chills. It was absolutely beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it from her, and she’s been in the group for a long time. It was one of those performances when you start to wonder where the person ends and the acting begins, and, honestly, if I didn’t know for sure that she was using techniques to keep herself emotionally safe, I would have been worried about her. My notes from those moments say, “I buy this 100%.” She got up, drifted across the stage, then turned sharply to Macbeth and spoke directly to him. And then she drifted off.

It was amazing. We were all floored. “What happened?” I asked. “I blanked out,” she said. I asked her what that meant. She paused and then said, “I can’t tell you nothin’.” She shrugged her shoulders, mystified but very pleased. I said that that’s what happens when you’re truly in the moment: it can be difficult or impossible to analyze what you’ve just done. As we lauded Lady Macbeth with praise, our spunky Gentlewoman jokingly piped up, “Was anyone looking at me?!” We all laughed and told her that she’d been great, too.

The energy shifted, though, when we went back to Act I scene v. I wanted to recommend that we hold off on that scene for another night – it’s exhausting to do what Lady Macbeth had just done, and I thought it would be a better idea for her to rest – but I deferred to the group and didn’t say anything. We began joking about how Lady Macbeth always seems to enter from stage left, with one woman saying, “That’s ‘cause it’s your best side. You know.” She turned her head back and forth as if she were posing for pictures.

We rolled through the scene, but Lady Macbeth didn’t seem able to focus, and she didn’t do the kind of work she’d wanted to. She sat down as the group gave her feedback – and it was a lot of feedback. Too much. I could see that she was becoming overwhelmed, and I tried to subtly get everyone to move on, but that was a challenge. They finally did, and I beckoned to Lady to join me off to the side.

I asked her how she was feeling, and she said she was overwhelmed – that she had wanted to scream and run out of the room. It had been too much feedback, and she was spent after the previous scene’s work. I encouraged her to let everyone know that next time. “You have no problem telling me to shut up,” I smiled (she does this by saying, “I got this. Frannie, I got this.”). “You can tell everyone else to shut up, too!” She said that she wanted to defer to the group, not to be selfish. I replied that actors need to be selfish to a certain extent; we need to do whatever it is we need to do to give our best performance, and our team mates will support us in that. I encouraged her not to be afraid to tell us what she needs – we can only give it to her if we know what it is.

She really was exhausted, but she said she felt a bit better after that conversation. I touched base with the other facilitators afterward to give them a heads up, and we’re all going to make sure that we pay close attention so that she doesn’t get that overwhelmed again.

Season Seven: Week 33

Written by Kyle

Tuesday

During check-in, two members had a confrontation dramatic enough that we had to focus on trying to mediate, rather than doing the work we had planned. Both parties were pretty irate and unwilling to concede anything; in the end, they left the auditorium with the conflict unresolved. It hurt our morale, truth be told, and it was well into the evening before we really felt like we were back in the groove of working on Shakespeare. We do our best to mediate conflict and minimize its impact on the group, but sometimes we have to recognize our own limitations as facilitators. I hope some kind of understanding can be reached, but it was clearly not going to happen Tuesday night so we had to let it go.

We managed to have a good night, though. I am really proud of the group for bouncing back and being able to keep the goal in mind by moving forward. A few ensemble members started working Act I, scene iii: one of the witches’ scenes. They worked specifically on their physicality, and another ensemble member had some really great insight for them, which is always ideal. When the direction comes from them, it is all the more empowering, both to the individual and to the group. Despite many of the women having different levels of comfort with conflict, work still happened, and we were all able to leave smiling.

Friday

Friday was a much more productive day, in as much as we were able to work on more of the play. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood; perhaps, with the conflict reaching finality on Tuesday, the group was able to breathe a sigh of relief. Perhaps it had been weighing on us more than met the eye, and sometimes you can only feel the true tension in its absence. On the other hand, after a long winter it was the first truly spring-like day, and I’m sure a little sunshine played a part as well! Whatever the reason, the good spirits were very welcome after Tuesday’s session.

The first item on the agenda was to pick the play for next year. Ensemble members were encouraged to make a “One-Minute Pitch” for the play for which they would wanted the others to vote. Like everything in SIP, a seemingly straightforward assignment was met with abundant creativity, and it ended with my face hurting from smiling. There were rebuttals, pleas, tag-teams, and a dance-off. In the end, Twelfth Night was chosen in a landslide victory. Honorable mentions went to Julius Caesar, and The Winter’s Tale. The overarching sentiment was that the group wanted something lighter after working on Macbeth (and, for some of them, Richard III… and Othello…). A particularly funny moment in the debate was one of the women brought up some of the logistical problems with Twelfth Night. She said there’s a lot to keep track of, and a lot of “cross dressing.” One woman responded, “We’re all cross dressing in every play, anyway, so what’s the difference?!” It was a really great way to start the night: light, fun, and looking to the future.

After we chose the play, we had to reassign some of the roles that had belonged to women who’d left the group. I was assigned the role of Lennox, and was told in no uncertain terms that I would not be given an extension for learning my lines. After that, we actually worked many Lennox’s scenes, so I was on stage a lot, and my notes got a little spotty. The ideas were flowing all night, particularly when trying to get everyone on the same page with just each characters’ objective. We stayed mainly in Act V, which can get a little dicey when it comes to logistics. Entrances, pacing, the crux of each scene; all still need a fair amount of ironing out. The cheerfulness continued throughout the night, with the ensemble member goading each other on, challenging each other to “pump it up” and shouting “good!” when the actors hit their mark. All in all, it was a great way to end a difficult week.

Season Seven: Week 32

Tuesday

We spent the evening shooting footage for our Sonnet Project film. Needless to say, we didn’t take many notes, and I don’t want to spoil the film by giving anything away, so… I’ll just say that, even though some ensemble members were dealing with some very dark personal issues, we all came together and did some solid, special work. Later, when I uploaded the footage and began listening to some of the audio, it struck me how much ease we have with each other. This is a group of people who know each other well and work together well. I can’t wait for you all to see the film, whatever it ends up being.
 

Friday
 

During check-in, one of the women said, “I had a nightmare.” She described a dream in which she hadn’t known any of her lines and was freaking out, waking up even more committed to studying her script. “Congratulations,” I said. “You are now officially an actor.”

Our Banquo pointed out that it had been a long time since we’d touched on his murder scene, and, even though we won’t have a visit from our fight choreographer for a couple of weeks, we decided to at least get a good start on it.

We tried a few different entrances for the murderers, with the woman who’s in an offstage role giving most of the direction while I whispered questions to her about her ideas. We finally arrived at the third murderer entering separately from the other two, brandishing Macbeth’s dagger as proof that he is who he says he is.

We began to move on in the scene, but then our Banquo was possessed—maybe actually possessed…—by an idea. She flew throughout the playing space, shouting (not talking) us through it, acting out all the parts and moving the others around the stage like giant action figures. Someone asked me if that was the way our fight choreographer had worked things out. “No,” I said, “But clearly he’s gonna have to adjust.” I asked if we could take it back and go step by step so I could draw it out for him. Our Banquo continued on with that high energy, now joined by the woman who’d been tossing out ideas before, both running and jumping, rolling around, staggering away after being wounded.

We were absolutely delighted by all of this. “[Woman 1] and [Woman 2] get down and dirty!” laughed one woman. “Yeah!” replied one of them. “My armpits are sweaty!” As we all burst out laughing, I wrote down the exchange. “You got that, Frannie?” asked one person. “Oh yeah,” I replied. “It’s going in the blog!” More and more laughter.

We arrived at Act IV scene ii, the murder of Lady Macduff and her son. There was a mix up about casting when this was most recently worked, and we wanted the actors to have another go at it. After the first run, the actors said they felt pretty “meh” about it. I had a feeling that this was due to an avoidance (conscious or not) of the vulnerability necessary to carry it off, but I didn’t want to head off a group discussion by putting all of my cards on the table immediately—plus, the ensemble often comes up with better ideas than mine, and I never want to shut that down. I suggested we take a step back and remind ourselves of why this scene is in the play. What do we need to get out of it?

“There’s a hidden meaning,” said one woman. “Macduff reacts the way you should when someone you love dies. Macbeth doesn’t.” Another woman said that we need to see how vulnerable they are and how senseless this is—that they pose no threat. I asked if we could focus a little, acting wise, on the language about birds that both husband and wife use; that we channel images of a hen and her chick as we worked. I also guided our Ross through some of her lines that indicate that he’s talking around something. She’d played him as so upset that she was yelling, and I asked if she might try it more tamped down, to avoid causing them panic.

Our Lady Macduff asked her son to run on first, saying that she would frequently look over at him during the conversation with Ross. I’m always struck by this woman’s deep understanding of the text. She doesn’t broadcast it—possibly because she’s not completely conscious of it—but she is really, really good at this. I built on what she’d said, encouraging her to think of her son as a battery and recharge with every glance.

The scene worked much better this time, with each actor diving deeper and bringing what they found back up to the surface for the audience. We found ourselves vocally reacting, but quietly; we didn’t want to disturb the scene. When it ended, we applauded, but at first no one spoke. “How did that feel?” I asked the actors. “Better,” they all said. There was another silence. “That was really interesting,” I said. “Did anyone else get the feeling that now the son is comforting the mother?” The answer was a unanimous yes, and the feedback came spilling out. Nearly everything they’d done had been different, and it made us understand the scene in a completely different way.

A couple of people suggested major adjustments, but they were overruled. We wanted to honor what had just happened and stick with these actors’ new interpretations. A few of us gave some suggestions for how they could take those further, and their third run was even quieter and more intimate. All said that they’d “felt it more.” Another ensemble member first praised the work that had been done and then suggested that they “bring it down a notch;” she felt like there’d been too much yelling at times. The actors agreed, with Lady Macduff saying she just wasn’t sure how to ride the rollercoaster. I suggested that they sit together and score the scene like music, making adjustments till they found what worked.

We left rejuvenated and moved by the work we’d done. It was a really lovely way to end the evening.

Season Seven: Week 31

Tuesday

Written by Kyle

We started off the session on a high note, finding out that one of our ensemble members got her GED, which had been a real source of frustration for her. Everyone was ecstatic for her and cheered immediately. She has checked in about struggling with the math section for weeks, brought her math study materials to the group, and frequently left worried about the test; so we all felt like we were part of that success and were happy to share in her accomplishment.

After check-in, we began to work the scene with Malcolm and Macduff. It is, in my opinion, one of the hardest scenes in the play. It is long, involves someone pretending they are something they are not, and difficult to cut because it contains big plot points – in short, it’s a doozy. To be frank, the ensemble members in the scene struggled with it; they felt wooden and disconnected, the blocking felt stuck, and the rest of the ensemble agreed. “I’m not putting enough feeling into it,” said our Macduff, and we set out to talk about what each of the characters want. We tried approaching it in a few different ways, till finally Macduff said, “I think we need to go work on it in the back and bring back.” We all agreed to move on and circle back to Malcolm and Macduff when they were ready.

The next scene we worked was the scene where Lady Macduff and her son are murdered by Macbeth’s henchmen. To be honest, I always worry about this scene. It has a lot of violence that happens on stage, some of which is inflicted on a child. The scene is pretty unsparing as far as it goes, and I always feel like I need to tread lightly as it is approached. That being said, we worked the scene successfully, without incident, and no one voiced any sense of discomfort with the scene’s content. After a little confusion about who was playing which bit part, we really got moving. The scene sparked a really rich discussion about the nuance of our timing as actors. It seemed apparent to the group that a split-second could have a pretty profound effect on the overall success of the scene: the henchmen don’t move until a certain word, and the curtain begins to close only after the sword is drawn, etc. A millisecond too late or too early seemed to throw everything off, and each run incited debate as to what the final product should be. We made our Macduff’s son rehearse her falling over at least eight times before we felt like we had gotten it right. She was a very good sport about it until about the sixth time through, when she decided not to get up again, making us rehearse around her. It was a funny way to finish an otherwise difficult scene.

After the Lady Macduff scene, we circled back to Malcolm/Macduff. They had gone to the back and worked with another experienced, enthusiastic ensemble member; though I did not hear the direction she gave them, it must’ve been good, because they returned with the scene on a completely different footing. They incorporated a real sense of emotional connection, and that seemed to recharge the whole room. Everyone seemed to lean in to see where the scene was going to go and cheered them on as they went. We tried to refine the blocking a bit, but it seemed to be overloading them with direction. In the end, we moved on and promised to come back to it.

At that point, we figured that we would wrap a little early, as most people were leaving. Three members said, “I’ll stay and keep working till 8:30!” which I thought was great. One of our members, who will be paroled very soon, said that she would love to work a monologue she has been exploring from The Winter’s Tale. We were ecstatic to see her perform; she has an incredible command of the language and the stage. We talked about her trying to find some dynamics in the text and crescendo to a climax, corresponding to what her character wants to achieve. We’ve been working with her on finding her own voice in her work as opposed to a character-voice. I think it’s empowering for her to see different iterations of herself expressed in these characters. She struggled with the lines a little bit, and so we finished with me “dropping in” and feeding her the lines so she could focus on her emotional commitment. Each time, she tried it a different way, with a different objective; it was, as always, an electric moment of theatre happening on our stage. She has expressed a desire to pursue theatre professionally once she is paroled; I’m so excited for her, and if she can continue the work that she has done in the group she will undoubtedly go far.
 

Friday

Written by Frannie

Tonight was mostly spent on further brainstorming about the sonnet project that we’re filming on Tuesday. I’m going to save all of that for now so the final product won’t be spoiled!

When some group members pretty clearly wanted to do something other than continue to brainstorm, a few of us huddled in the back of the classroom to wrap up the process. It was a lot of fun. We frequently leapt to our feet to demonstrate our ideas, made sure we all understood each other, and riffed off of each other. Sometimes one of us, watching the others intently, would gasp as an idea came to us, and the rest would stop short to listen.

These ideas are cinematic, exciting, and emotional. I truly hope we can capture all of them!

Before we left for the night, our small group joined the rest (who’d spent the night playing theatre games and talking), and we talked about which plays we were interested in exploring next season. I’ll be bringing in summaries of the following plays for consideration:

•    As You Like It
•    The Winter’s Tale
•    Twelfth Night
•    Julius Caesar
•    Hamlet

It’s incredible to already be thinking about next season. This one is just flying by!

Season Seven: Weeks 29 and 30

Tuesday
 

We began the evening with Michael Chekhov’s Imaginary Bodies exercise. We did an abbreviated version, and some people got more out of it than others, but we were glad to have done it. Some scenes have been worked more than others, and we decided to focus on those that have gotten less attention. One of these was Act II scene i, in which Banquo encounters Macbeth in a bit of foreshadowing, and Macbeth has his “Is this a dagger…” soliloquy.

Our Banquo had a lot of fun with the Imaginary Bodies exercise and did a great job letting her discoveries carry over to this rehearsal. I encouraged her to relax a bit – to let her interpretation be informed by her imaginary body, but not to be dominated by it. We also messed with the entrances to the scene a bit until we were satisfied that they worked well for us.

Our Macbeth then explored the dagger speech. She is mostly off book for it, which is great! As we talked about it – and talked about it – and talked about it – I jumped in to suggest that the time for deep analysis is over, as much as we love it (this is a group of thinkers, to be sure). We now need to focus on going from our collective gut – trusting that the work we’ve done analyzing the play is in us and will take care of itself. We need to stop thinking!

Our Macbeth’s performance became more spontaneous after that, which is exactly as it should be! “God, she is so good,” said one woman.

We gathered on the stage to work through the scene in which an old man and Ross talk about how strange things have been and then encounter Macduff, who is suspicious and will not join the others at Macbeth’s coronation. We decided a while ago to eliminate the character of the old man and adjust the scene to accommodate that. We realized, as we went over the scene together, that we wanted to keep the old man’s descriptions of recent events, and we pondered how we could do that between Ross and Macduff.

One woman said, “Macduff is a no-nonsense guy, though. He doesn’t talk like that.” We all agreed, and then this woman and our Ross hit on a solution: we would turn the dialogue into a monologue that Ross could deliver to the audience. It’s a very cool idea, and, when it was read aloud, it was immediately apparent that it works beautifully. Really awesome team work, and a great solution!

Tuesday
 

Kyle, Matt, and I spent the past few days at the Shakespeare in Prisons Conference, and we took some time during check-in to share about our experience there. It was an amazing conference and a very moving experience, and it was great to share as much of it with the group as we could while not taking up all of our time!

When I asked what we were going to be working on, our Porter immediately said, “My monologue!” She later told us that it hadn’t totally been her idea to work this tonight; turning to another ensemble member, she said, “I’m glad you told me to do it. You called me out yesterday, so I thought I’d beat you to it… I’m really grateful to you.” Apparently this other woman had said that if she didn’t get up and work today, she was going to do something to embarrass her. It worked!

Making her way slowly to the door at the end of the monologue, our Porter dragged her feet, moving incredibly slowly, saying, “I’m coming! I’m coming!” to all of our delight. That sparked a bunch of ideas in the rest of us; I asked if it would be funny for her to open the door and then collapse on the stairs. It was, and that led to more: one woman jumped up and said, “Oh! Can I make a suggestion?” She’s an incredible actress but has been hesitant to contribute much as a “director;” she has fabulous instincts, though, and I’ve been pushing her on it. But she didn’t need any pushing tonight. She demonstrated some hilarious ways of clowning, rolling around on the stairs.

She started to return to her seat in the house, just as our Macduff said, “Does anyone have any ideas for what I should do in this scene? Because I’m feeling really awkward.” The first woman spun around without missing a beat and said, “Well – yes!” We all laughed; there are some extremely talented actresses in the ensemble, but no one has a knack for comedy like hers, and all of her ideas were more than welcome. Another woman said, “Macduff’s a no-nonsense kinda guy. He’s not gonna think this is funny.” We all agreed and collaborated on a few notes for her.

We ran the scene again, and both actors incorporated the new ideas extremely well – particularly our Porter, to her coach’s delight. Another woman, who has excellent directing instincts, bounded up, saying, “I have a suggestion, but feel free to reject it –” she turned to me with a smile and said, “See, Frannie?” We laughed – that’s something I say all the time –  and she kept going. I had talked with her at the beginning of the session about some directing strategies, since she’s so good at it – how to pick and choose from the notes you want to give in order not to overwhelm actors.

I looked over to see one of the women lying on the stairs, demonstrating another idea. There is no way this woman would have done that last season! She’s really loosened up. As we geared up to try the scene one more time, one of the women said, “Hang on,” and then, pointing at our Porter, she said, “I just wanna say – I saw your nose-painting. I saw what you did!” She demonstrated how the Porter had rubbed her nose on her arm in the way that someone who’d just done cocaine would do, and that gave us a good laugh. We’d all caught it, but no one had called it out – and I’m glad she did, because knowing that that instinct was effective has to have been a boost for the Porter.

We ran the monologue once more. Our Macduff, standing near me as we watched, said, “She’s blossoming.” I began to ask her if she’d shared that with our Porter but was interrupted when the woman who’d provided all the comic coaching came bounding over, complimenting our Macduff on being able to squat in the scene for so long. Clearly I couldn’t interrupt THAT. As their conversation ebbed, I asked Macduff the question I’d begun. She said she hadn’t, and I suggested that she do so.

As our Porter left, our Macduff said, “Hang on a second.” She took her by the arm and said, “You’re blossoming. From where you started to where you are now, you’ve come so far. You know what you’re saying, and you’re finding your character. I’m really proud of you.” Our Porter positively beamed and hugged her.

I rejoined the group to find our Ross in the midst of her new soliloquy, pieced together from the Old Man’s lines. She was animated and fully committed to getting it right. She was a dedicated and serious ensemble member last season, but this year she’s positively driven. And it’s infectious.

She felt like she was having trouble landing all of her descriptions, so we used the “you know” exercise; after each key phrase, the actor pauses and says, “You know?” or something similar to the audience. After the exercise, the actor does her speech again, without those additions. It almost always does wonders, and this time was no different. “I got your attention,” she said. “It got across the when, where, and how… I felt better because I slowed it down, and I got attention paid to the details.” But I wasn’t the only one who’d given helpful suggestions. “Everybody gave me a little bit, and I took it and put it all together,” she said.

Friday
 

We began tonight by continuing our work on The Sonnet Project, which we’re planning on filming soon. We needed to finish writing it first, though! We’re working with #35. As a reminder, it’s this one:

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense--
Thy adverse party is thy advocate--
And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
Such civil war is in my love and hate
    That I an accessary needs must be
    To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

We read it aloud, and I asked what our thoughts were – we had low attendance when we worked this last, and it was new for some people. One of those immediately said, “It’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.” We asked her why. “Because, to me, I think the poem was written at a point when this person said, ‘No more’… Everybody makes mistakes, but it doesn’t define you.” She got extremely emotional at that point and stopped because she didn’t want to lose control crying.

“Every person has different sides,” said another woman. “Sometimes people see your good side, but people have issues, you know? Like, the thief is like a drug – you know you shouldn’t, but you do it anyway.” The first woman agreed, “It’s a battle with yourself.” Another said, “It means to forget what you have done.” The first woman nodded, “This is a reason to let go.”

“The first line is what caught my attention,” another woman agreed. The first woman added, “This is who we are and what we’re aiming for.” She then shared the ideas that the poem sparked for her, which were right in line with what we’d talked about before: scenes of forgiveness, ending with the ensemble together in the ring.

One woman said that the image of a rose popped out at her. She saw an upturned hand crushing a flower. “The thorn pricks you when you crush the flower, and then, when you release your hand, the flower re-blooms – like forgiveness.”

“Don’t regret the things from your past,” mused another woman. “You can’t have beauty without ugliness… Everyone’s past is muddled in regrets and ugliness. And if you don’t have the ugliness, you can’t appreciate the beautiful things you have.” She looked again at the poem. “Somebody is lamenting something they’ve done.”

We talked more about the scenes of pain followed by uplifting, and one woman gasped, “Oh!” The conversation stopped as we waited for her idea. “What if we did it as a chain reaction?” she asked, explaining that, as one person is uplifted, she could move to the next person and uplift her, and on and on, “like they’re carrying a message.” We all LOVED that idea.

We talked about how to divide up the lines of the poem – I won’t have a great microphone on the camera, so we’ll have to do this as a voiceover. We liked the idea of sharing lines, although one woman cautioned us that we’ll need to make sure we preserve the build of the poem. “I don’t want to see this choppy or cut off,” she said. There is a woman in the ensemble who is extremely gifted at performing poetry, and we decided that, however we do this, she will coach everyone to ensure that the build is there.

One woman then exclaimed that she had another idea – to use auras of color to show the words and energy flowing between us. We joked about whether or not CGI was in our budget, and I said that I could try to figure out how to do that, but I’m an amateur editor and couldn’t guarantee it.

One woman said, “I love ‘excusing thy sins more than thy sins are.’ That’s… that’s… really something.” We talked more about what the piece will sound like. We may add soft sounds like crying and sighs, and we may intersperse the poem with whispers of the first line. Someone suggested that we say the first line again after the sonnet is finished, and then I asked if perhaps it would be effective to start the entire poem over, since that instinct came from the idea of forgiveness being an ongoing process.

One woman said, “Aren’t we trying to show that hope that we saw in this poem? Hopefully to somebody with some more money?” We all laughed – we joke a lot about the process of funding SIP. I responded that we really do need to consider the visuals, then; we need to show our audience the hope rather than simply telling them about it. Another woman mused, “Yeah… I wasn’t taking the line about the rose so literally. I was thinking that one of us – a woman – represents the rose, and then she turns, and there’s a scar on her face.” We loved that!

We decided to take a break until the folks who’d needed to leave briefly returned. It turned out that our Macbeth had challenged Lady Macbeth to memorize the scene that occurs just after Duncan’s murder, and they wanted to show us the result. They ran the scene, and it was clear that they understood what needed to happen, but our Lady Macbeth kept laughing, getting more and more frustrated (but not angry). Our Macbeth stuck with it, but it definitely wasn’t what they wanted.

I asked our Lady Macbeth how her character felt in the scene. She said that she was nervous, agitated, and wanting to make sure that everything went off without a hitch. I suggested that she get out of her head and work with the image/feeling of having electricity coursing through her body – providing the physical tension and heightened alertness that she wanted. She liked that idea, but then she paused. “Sometimes I feel like I just don’t have it. Like, I understand what you say, I know what I want to do, but sometimes it doesn’t… doesn’t… I just can’t do it. I feel like I’m more creative.”

We assured her that she could. “All actors have to deal with this,” I said. “You’re not the only one. You’ve gotta find a way to put that aside – fire that critic! If you’re constantly judging yourself, you’ll stifle your creativity. Let go and do what you need to do.”

“All right,” she said. “I’ve got it now. I’m ready.” They launched into the scene again, and, immediately, it was exactly where it needed to be. Lady Macbeth paced, but this time with urgency. She didn’t get bogged down in the lines, and her anxiety was palpable. When our Macbeth entered, she jumped and moved to her immediately. They fed off of each other, heightening the tension more and more. We were entranced. When Lady Macbeth said, “Go get some water, and wash this filthy witness from your hand,” it was as powerful as I’ve heard seen that line delivered. I literally gasped, and I wasn’t the only one.

Man, was it ever good. One woman said she’d listened to it with her eyes closed, as if she were hearing it for the first time. “I really could follow it. I understood it perfectly,” she said. That’s high praise – to be able to understand Shakespeare without a visual is no small thing, and it speaks to the clarity with which the scene was performed. I asked the actors how they felt. “It flowed better that time,” said Macbeth. “What made it flow better?” I asked. They looked at each other, smiled, and Lady Macbeth said, “The electricity.” I encouraged her to keep working with it.

This entire ensemble deals with the same thing that has always limited me as an actor – we just think too damn much! Luckily, because I’ve struggled with this so much, I can tell when it’s happening, and I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve for how to help others let go and stay in the moment. And watching them do it helps me better understand how I can do it for myself. I am always learning in this program!