Aesthetic
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Christie Gibson
Feb 21, 2013, 3:14:45 PM2/21/13
to Good Person Staff, Alan Sevigny, Alexander Roy, Amanda Sheehan, Francesco Tisch, Jeff Marcus, Kathleen Lewis, Kelly Chick, Kevin Groppe, Lindsay Eagle, Marc Miller, mary driscoll, Maya Sugarman, Olivia Brownlee, Paola M. Ferrer, Esq., Rebecca Lehrhoff, Rick Winterson, Ronald Lacey, Sally Nutt, Sarah Asbury, Tasia Jones, Todd Sargent
Dear Cast,
I've heard questions bandied about about why are we doing all this stuff with the production: Why the white makeup? Why the paper hair? Why the transition choreography?
I tried to explain a little of this as we went, at the read through and then the first movement weekend especially, but with people coming and going, I'm not sure I ever had everyone there.
We started off with not wanting to do this as a period piece. Firstly, we didn't have the budget or the staff resources to do an excellent period production, and secondly - what period would we do it in? Early 20th-century China? 1930s Germany? Now in the US? None of those really works thoroughly, so we decided to make up a world that is parallel to those, but different. One where people are identified not so much by their names as by their function in society, which is the way the script is largely set up. The characters would have a base-layer costume which was then augmented by items that defined who they were in this society. We figured this would also help set up the themes that surround functioning in society and help to clarify who was who in what is at times a very crowded stage.
The traits we decided to mark were largely economic status and gender. In the world that Brecht created for this play, those seemed to be the things that most defined how people treated and talked about each other. The higher class characters have the brightest, warmest colors, the lower class characters duller and cooler. The Gods we wanted to have metallics. We also wanted to set up Shen Te and Yang Sun as opposites.
We chose paper to build the set because it was the best and most cost-effective way to build the fans that Anne had designed and achieve transparency and durability for the screens. From there, we also wanted to connect the actors to the system set up by the set, and since we were creating this alternate universe, paper seemed a great way to make everything recognizable but clearly not real. This making things recognizable but not trying to make them try to look real, is one of the major ways I am trying to honor Brecht's distancing ideas. My hope is that the audience will clearly understand what is happening, without trying to equate it too closely with themselves via empathy. This world is very visually engaging, which also helps keep people interested even as the scenes refuse to unfold strictly linearly.
I'm happy to talk about the production aesthetics more with anyone who is interested, and am sorry that there wasn't more time in the rehearsal process to address these types of questions. This production has definitely been a learning process for me (in case you don't know, it's my first full-length directing assignment), and for a show of this length and cast size I would definitely add another week of rehearsals the next go-around!
I've heard questions bandied about about why are we doing all this stuff with the production: Why the white makeup? Why the paper hair? Why the transition choreography?
I tried to explain a little of this as we went, at the read through and then the first movement weekend especially, but with people coming and going, I'm not sure I ever had everyone there.
We started off with not wanting to do this as a period piece. Firstly, we didn't have the budget or the staff resources to do an excellent period production, and secondly - what period would we do it in? Early 20th-century China? 1930s Germany? Now in the US? None of those really works thoroughly, so we decided to make up a world that is parallel to those, but different. One where people are identified not so much by their names as by their function in society, which is the way the script is largely set up. The characters would have a base-layer costume which was then augmented by items that defined who they were in this society. We figured this would also help set up the themes that surround functioning in society and help to clarify who was who in what is at times a very crowded stage.
The traits we decided to mark were largely economic status and gender. In the world that Brecht created for this play, those seemed to be the things that most defined how people treated and talked about each other. The higher class characters have the brightest, warmest colors, the lower class characters duller and cooler. The Gods we wanted to have metallics. We also wanted to set up Shen Te and Yang Sun as opposites.
We chose paper to build the set because it was the best and most cost-effective way to build the fans that Anne had designed and achieve transparency and durability for the screens. From there, we also wanted to connect the actors to the system set up by the set, and since we were creating this alternate universe, paper seemed a great way to make everything recognizable but clearly not real. This making things recognizable but not trying to make them try to look real, is one of the major ways I am trying to honor Brecht's distancing ideas. My hope is that the audience will clearly understand what is happening, without trying to equate it too closely with themselves via empathy. This world is very visually engaging, which also helps keep people interested even as the scenes refuse to unfold strictly linearly.
I'm happy to talk about the production aesthetics more with anyone who is interested, and am sorry that there wasn't more time in the rehearsal process to address these types of questions. This production has definitely been a learning process for me (in case you don't know, it's my first full-length directing assignment), and for a show of this length and cast size I would definitely add another week of rehearsals the next go-around!
Christie Lee Gibson
christieleegibson.com
christieleegibson.com
Ida Aronson
Feb 21, 2013, 3:19:50 PM2/21/13
to goodper...@googlegroups.com
Hell yea. The aesthetic rocks. (Just sayin.)
Ida
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