Devilish

Goodness, Breaders, where did a whole week go since last we spake? A week that led to today, the first day of tech rehearsals out here at the stunningly beautiful Bruns...but more of that later.

The last week in the rehearsal studio was a combination of detailed work on individual scenes along with runs of acts, and then the last two days, entire run-thrus. Fits and starts and leaps and bounds, much good work went on. There are long sections of this play that I'm not a part of, so it was great fun for me to watch scenes for the first time. I will say that the play has never been clearer or more illuminating. It's always amazing to me how you can think you know a play but each time you see or work on it as you advance in years, yes, get older, they just get better and mean SO MUCH MORE! How could I possibly have understood that moment, this situation, that political commentary, whatever, before now? I found myself scrambling for my script to underline certain highly apt and brilliant passages. I was particularly loving what the Devil had to say about "civilized" humans' hyprocrisy and war mongering. Never more apt than now. Sadly I think, each decade or so in the over 100 years since this was written, could say the same.

THE DEVIL: "And is Man any the less destroying himself for all this boasted brain of his? Have you walked up and down upon the earth lately? I have; and I have examined Man's wonderful inventions. And I tell you that in the art of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine."

"...This marvellous force of Life of which you boast is a force of Death: Man measures his strength by his destructiveness. What is his religion? An excuse for hating me. What is his law? An excuse for hanging you. What is his morality? Gentility! an excuse for consuming without producing. What is his art? An excuse for gloating over pictures of slaughter. What are his politics? Either the worship of a despot becuse a despot can kill, or parliamentary cock-fighting."

"...Over such battles the people run about the streets yelling with delight, and egg their Governments on to spend hundreds of millions of money in the slaughter, whilst the strongest Ministers dare not spend an extra penny in the pound against the poverty and pestilence through which they themselves daily walk."

Then DON JUAN (Jack Tanner) retorts: ""Pshaw! all this is old. Your weak side, my diabolic friend, is that you have always been a gull: you take Man at his own valuation. Nothing would flatter him more than your opinion of him. He loves to think of himself as bold and bad. He is neither one nor the other: he is only a coward. Call him a tyrant, murderer, pirate, bully; and he will adore you, and swagger about with the consciousness of having the blood of the old sea kings in his veins. Call him liar and thief; and he will only take an action against you for libel. But call him coward; and he will go mad with rage: he will face death to outface that stinging truth..."

"...Man, who in his own selfish affairs is a coward to the backbone, will fight for an idea like a hero. He may be abject as a citizen; but his is dangerous as a fanatic."

OK, enough of the quotes.

It's a beautiful night out here as we begin to go through lights and sound cues and grow accustomed to the space. The set is looking quite beautiful. I can't wait for you to see!

Til we meet again...

"Respectable"

Stumbling through Act One. Coming together beautifully. So fun to see all the good work that's been going on. Such interesting relationships and SO MANY great lines.

This is what Jack Tanner (author of "The Revolutionists Handbook") says to the conservative Roebuck Ramsden in the first act. Sound like people you know?

"We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins. The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is. Why, you're ashamed to buy my book, ashamed to read it: the only thing you're not ashamed of is to judge me for it without having read it."

Don't Call Me Whitey...

...Call me Witty! My character's name is Mrs. Whitefield. The mother of Ann Whitefield. There are two acceptable ways to pronouce this name in standard British dialect, we have chosen Wit-field, not White-field.

Now I know this is not earth-shattering information for you, dear Breaders, but I've felt remorse in not being in touch. Much more anon,

"It's a very queer world." (Mrs. Whitefield)

Geetings Breaders!

Greetings, Breaders! (that’s a contraction for “Blog-Readers”…I just made that up…I think…maybe it’ll catch on…)

Day two of rehearsals for MAN AND SUPERMAN. Nice to be back at Cal Shakes. After seven or so consecutive summers at the Bruns, I had a different kind of summer last year, directing up at Tahoe Shakes and taking what was perhaps only the second proper family vacation ever before our daughters graduate from high school and never want to vacation with the likes of us again. Or at least not for a while yet. It was a great summer, but it’s also good to be back in the rehearsal room on Heinz.

What an awesome cast and designers. And staff! I love sitting around a table with the likes of dialect and text master (mistress?) Lynne Soffer, and dramaturg (lovely Dr. Laura Hope), interns, assistants, top-notch stage management. And of course Jonathan Moscone energetically making the case for passionate intelligence, full-bodied head-heart-groin breathing, loving, sweating, thinking three-dimensional embodiments of Shakespeare, Shaw, Chekhov, Wilde….This is my sixth production with Jonathan. Fancy that. Fun.

And such a cast (did I say that already?) Dear colleagues such as Dan Hiatt, L.Peter, T. Edward, Andy Murray, Delia, and of course Suzie, my career “daughter” Susannah – this is my third time playing her mom (fourth, if you include the mom-ish Miss Prism to Cecily Cardew) And Steve Irish, Dianne Manning (who I went to ACT grad school with WAY long ago!?) and the dear and funny Ben Livingston who you could sort of call my son-in-law as he’s the REAL husband of Susannah Livingston (formerly known as Schulman). And the one new face to me, though I did see his wonderful performance (as did you?) in RESTORATION COMEDY last summer, Elijah Alexander. And then of course the three talented non-Equity guys who will play the Brigands, Hector, Tavis, and Alan.

Design presentation today by the extremely talented Annie Smart (set) and Anna Oliver (costumes). It’s going to be beautiful. Simple but whimsical and stunning Art Nouveau set, and period appropriate (with some sassy anachronisms in Hell) and sure to be lovely costumes.

Tomorrow we begin blocking (as in: up on our feet, moving around the rehearsal hall)

There are so many incredible George Bernard Shaw words in this play and in his notes on this play that I shall endeavor to leave you with a quote each time we chat:

“Any person under the age of thirty, who, having any knowledge of the existing social order, is not a revolutionist, is an inferior.” GBS