More random dialogue...

"Have you ever been falling asleep, and quite inexplicably been woken with a twitch? That's the puppetmaster, plucking a string, telling you you're not done with the day."


"What does it mean?"
"What does what mean?"
"The story.  Punch and Judy.  What does it mean?  He gets away with everything, tricks and murders everyone in sight, and laughs right through it all.  There's domestic elements, supernatural elements...what does it all mean?"
"Nothing.  It means nothing."


Running gag: "Go see if it's still raining."  Exits, torrential sound, returns.  Pause.  "It is, yes. Frogs now."


"Don't touch my puppet(child)!  S/He's mine!"


"I'm automatonophobic.  I'm serious.  Don't bring a doll or mannequin near me, seriously.  I will pee.  Involuntarily.  It won't be pretty.  Don't even sweep with that broom like that.  If you so much as suggest anything anthropomorphic about anything at all, I'm likely to pass out.  And pee.  Involuntarily."

Raised by Puppets

Well, we were.

The actors and I are all around a certain generation that, generally speaking, experienced two things: 1) Television as babysitter, and 2) lots of shows and movies that involved puppetry.  We could call this The Age of Henson without getting into terrible trouble, but that would also be leaving out some key players from our youth, such as Fred Rogers, Captain Kangaroo and H.R. Pufnstuf.  And it of course goes back farther in television history, to Lamb Chop and the earliest children's television, Howdy Doody.

Maybe it's just me, but the traditional Punch'n'Judy tent even reminds me of those old rolling-cabinet television sets (er, um: vice versa?).  Big thing full of unseen doings, made as portable as possible with a really rather proportionally small viewing area in which the face of the entertainment takes place.  All of this shape descends of course from proscenium staging, hence our proposed set design of a delineated proscenium, as well as archways and masked areas where unseen goings-on go on.  It's a bit ironic that the commedia dell'arte staging could practically be defined by a lack of this framing, by open-air and fourth-wall-destroying address.  Then again, those "households"; defined by what?  Doorways, if nothing else.

The point is, we were raised by puppets, which led us to accept some rather strange tropes and conventions. It's still strange for me to see the Muppet puppeteers below their creations, their arms raised in frozen exultation, and I don't even think twice about being asked to accept that a doll tossed across a screen is actually Gonzo or Grover in flight (dangerous to be blue in Henson's world, it seems).  For that matter, experiencing puppets through a T.V. comes with all those television conventions we take for granted, and make sense of in our subconscious: theme music, cuts, asynchronism, and the camera as character.  Our generation has gone on to create Avenue Q, a musical that emulates the Muppets with adult lifestyles, and exposes the puppeteers as part of the performance.  And even in that show, at one point at least, we're reminded of the camera-as-character when we're granted an overview "shot" of two of the characters in bed.

Found here.

It also means we identify with puppets very immediately, even beyond the usual stuff of simulacra and pareidolia.  This is interesting to me too, because it's pretty specific to the puppets to which we've been exposed, I think.  For example, if you just put a couple of dots on a glove of felt, I'm quick to say, "Hey, neat minimalist puppet."  I'll bond with the little guy, maybe even name him if you don't beat me to it.  But I can look at the gorgeous shadow puppets of the Wayang Kulit for several seconds before I even recognize them as something more than intricate paper art.  I wonder about the uses we can find for both responses.  Will people bond with a puppet before finding out it's not actually a puppet?  "That? No, that's my laundry bag. Puppet's over here..."  Can we also shock people with the discovery that something on stage is actually a puppet, like a pile of cardboard boxes that animate and contribute to an ongoing conversation?

How do you think your early exposure to and relationship with puppets has influenced your responses?  To objects?  To entertainment?  To bearded dudes wearing colorful headbands?

Found here.

Laughter

Excerpted from a lengthy (and very crudely "adult," but intelligent) online post I read recently about one man's two-year stint in a prison.  One of the things he lists as being the best part about finally being out:

"Laughter 

"No one laughs inside. You might occassionally fake a laugh when someone does something stupid, or gets what they deserve. But inside you laugh at straight up irony. Nothing is really funny when you're locked in a concrete bunker with seemingly no hope of getting out. 

"When I went inside, my favourite things were horror movies and violent video games. But now I can't stand the thought of them. I've seen too much real violence for one life time. 

"Instead I've burned through three seasons of 30 Rock. I haven't laughed so hard in my entire life. I find myself laughing at s&%$ that a couple of years ago I would have been too jaded and cynical to laugh at, or thought that it wasn't cool to laugh at. Now I find myself cruising through Metacritic for the funniest films of the last two years. I liked to think that I used to be funny, but now, I realise I'm not. That I look in the mirror and there is this kind of grimness there. 

"So don't take laughter for granted. It can actually be taken away quite easily."

In Spite of It All

I don't think this one is exactly one to research, but someone who's better at research may have better results than I.  What I'm thinking about are the ways in which we combat and in some cases overcome times of hardship, even if it's just for a little while, with some sort of folk or home-spun entertainment.  The first examples I can thinks of are the harmonica and the "jig doll," which I always associate with the Dust Bowl for some reason.  In fact, that form of dancing doll dates back to 18th century London, and an even earlier form, incorporating a string, goes back to...well, what do you know?  Italy, in the 1500s.

Obviously, these home-spun entertainments lend themselves to puppets, but I think other things as well.  The point is that people devise entertainment from what is cheap and widely available - we could even consider the Internet itself to fulfill these requirements for vast numbers of young middle-class westerners. Taking it back to pre-computers, however, some forms that initially come to mind:

• Music - singing, beatbox, varied percussion, jug band, cigar-box ukulele, berimbau (capoeira), whistles and flutes
• Storytelling - simple, formal, theatrical, visual/painted, collaborative, sung, danced
• Sports - improvised balls, war games/skills, tug-o-war, dance competition, combat, gymnastics, races
• Games - checkers, chess, tidily-winks, pick-up sticks, jacks, card games, gambling
• Craft - whittling/carving, pottery, sculpture, weaving
• Practical jokes

So how do these things elevate our minds and spirits, help us to carry on through tough times?  I find it interesting that all of these things thrive in contemporary situations of deprivation, such as prisons or true rural communities.  What does it mean to overcome trying circumstances?  Is it a material victory, or a more personal one?

"Hamburger"

Check out this incredible video (incredible both for its content, and its presentation) featuring an interview with Del Close:

Lots of what he has to say resonates for me.  Some highlights:

• Improvisational theatre gets a much better audience buy-in when it's referred to as a sport or game, even if what it's doing is more akin to performance art.
• When what you're engaged in takes concentration, there's no time to work at entertaining an audience.
• Collaborative art is very sincere art (this is something I extrapolate).
• Everything that's said or done contains emotional intention - it might be a good idea to be as paranoid as possible on stage.
• The audience comes to see reactions and discoveries (unexpected synchronocity?).

I'm reminded in particular of the "hamburger" improvisation you all performed.  There was so much intention there, and the sense of game I mentioned in our discussion was extremely clear.  Elizabeth, I think this was also the improv in which you explored this idea of a techno-savvy internet-savant.

PS Characters . . .

PS When it comes to characters and relationships that are interesting to me, I like the generational gaps that develop because of technology. A pre-teen hooked into the web and game boy (or whatever it is these days). A know-it-all kid always teaching his parents info because of what he read on the web. The difference between people building and playing with their hands: real craftsmen vs. everyone being able to do everything because we can all just learn it on youtube (as Todd mentioned). And also, the gap (which my father's blog mentions) between kids fiddling with things until they get it right versus their parents who sit down and read the manual from front to back.

Blog-A-Blog-A

Wow! I can't believe it has been almost a week since we first met. And I have to say, before I get into more detail, how much fun it is playing with my co-collaborators. Which, as it turns out, brings me to another theme that we talked about and which has been resonating with me lately: PLAY! Play in theatre, play in education, play in the work place, big companies bringing in improv peeps to remind them how to think creatively and communicate with one another. Games as life. Play as learning.

Now, I LOVE games: Pictionary, Scrabble, Settlers of Catan, Frogger, Taboo, Scene-It. You name, I'll play it. I've always loved them, and think that this idea of PLAY taking over the world and transforming the ways we think about learning and being and interacting is an exciting place to develop from. What if the recession weren't a serious economic travesty, but instead a "Go Directly to Jail, Do Not Collect $500.00?" What if as you move through the game of "Life" or "Zuppa" you get stuck in certain roles, as certain characters and have to PLAY your way out of them? What if PLAYING is the only way to escape oppression, repression, pain, stupidity? Is our character defined by us, or by the 'roles' we play in world?

Now, here's a thought in my little rant: does the idea of play then become puppet-like? Might play shift to a do-a-good-trick-to-proceed-to-the-next-level way of thinking? What if the world turned so dark that even the idea of play was about success, approval? A darkly competitive puppet world . . . I mean, isn't play competitive too? Where and when does play time turn to a capitalist jungle gym? What is the relationship between play and money and entertainment and money? And what sort of fearful place are we operating from if even playtime becomes scary and in need of external approval.

Some of these questions are things I notice myself asking or struggling with and some are inspired by my father's blog, a blog on creativity, in our schools and in the workplace.

(http://billwilliamsblog.blogspot.com/)

I'm not quite sure where I am going with all this except that: we are doing a PLAY, we like to PLAY, we PLAY roles, and for us this is the WORK that we do for a living. And I love it, I would not change my career for the world. However, I also recognize that a battle I have in myself is moments when PLAYING becomes scary because it suddenly seems that my livelihood is on the line. I experienced this, this past weekend during the clown interview exercise. I didn't even know what I was interviewing for in this completely imaginary set-up and my clown was terrified and yearning for approval. And then Jeff said, "Do you want to get this right?" Timid and scared, my clown nodded yes. Don't we all want to get it right at a job interview these days? And then is it really still PLAY, or does it need to be redefined all over again, to try to finally "get to the next level."

Oirlend

I'm off to Ireland today for some reason or another. I'm sure I'll find something to do or something.
So Jeff as far as characters that we were interested in so far, I liked the zanni-like superintendent guy that ruined the Feng shui session. I was kind of basing it on the guy who fixed things in the Bog apartments, though with much less obscenities.
I'll be on-line to a certain degree in Ireland, but I won't be crying if my hotel doesn't have a future box.
AAAAAANd I'm out.

Simulacra & Pareidolia

sim·u·la·crum  (smy-lkrm, -lkrm)

n. pl. sim·u·la·cra (-lkr, -lkr)

1. An image or representation.

2. An unreal or vague semblance.

---

[Latin simulcrum (from simulre, to simulate; see simulate) + -crum, n. suff.]

Found here.

pareidolia  (ˌpæraɪˈdəʊlɪə)
	the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist, as in considering the moon to have human features
[C20: from para- 4  + eidolon ]

Found here.

One of the ideas I mentioned in our first discussion about themes for the show had to do with these two concepts - our tendency to "recognize" faces in objects, and our tendency to create objects with a "face" of some kind, even such objects as don't require one.  I think these are intrinsically related, and that both are pretty ancient aspects of human behavior.

First, simulacra.  I'm sort of assigning this word to the phenomenon of building faces into things (borrowing from the gnarly Skull-a-Day 'blog), when in fact now-a-days it actually refers more to poor imitations.  If someone can find a better word, please be awesome and share it.  I think we put faces on things for three basic reasons: subconscious patterning, a craving for identity, and finally a creation/recognition impulse:

1. In terms of the patterns in which we think, some of our first acts of comprehension come from those faces thrust inquisitively into our cribs.  In other words, our earliest and best-framed visual interactions are with faces.  Those interactions are even coded, by facial expressions, and it's the first code we get to crack.  That becomes a recognizable pattern which we reinforce throughout our lives, trying to figure people out, so when we make something ourselves we tend to include a design that incorporates a similar pattern of some kind.
2. Identity is very important to us, whether we contemplate it consciously or not.  Every time we make something, we want to sign it, put our stamp on it, say we were here.  One of the first drawings any of us learn is the circle, lines and dots of a face.
3. When we make something, we're recreating an act of parents and gods.  It's a natural impulse that lives in all of us - to create - and along with it comes the idea of a piece of ourselves travelling out past our influence, having a life of its own.  It should share our features in some way, be made in our own form.  It should recognize us as its maker.

Many of the same instincts apply to our tendency toward seeing faces in things with whose creation we had little or nothing to do - pareidolia.  We see faces in woodgrain, water stains, toast.  You name it.  Of course we're inclined toward this for a variety of reasons, but what interests me about it are a few possibilities outside the realm of anything logical:

• Maybe we're more inclined to pareidolia when we're lonely, or feel great need of some kind.
• What if, instead of seeing faces because of a need, we're seeing them because we in some way recognize an object in front of us in some personal way?
• What if pareidolia leads to a relationship, the way the supposed recognition involved in "love at first sight" can?

At any rate, these are ideas about human behavior that I find some relevance in when thinking in terms of puppetry, especially with puppets made from found objects.  Plus I've been wondering about how we could maybe extend the Zuppa trends of playing multiple characters and the in-joke of playing scenes with ourselves to include puppets or other inanimate objects.  That's often all a clown piece consists of.  In this scene from Benny & Joon (derived from Chaplin and Keaton) the hat, snot and handkerchief are all scene partners.  In fact, one of the classic Arlecchino lazzi has to do with eating an imaginary fly, who offers all the obstacle and emotional challenge a scene could need.

Some of these ideas of mine have come in the form of "lines" for some eccentric character or other who is keyed in to these concepts in a particular way.  Not dictating anything here!  Just sharing them as a furtehr possibility on how we could go from ideas to actions:

• "You think you're funneling some life into a dead thing, no?  It's a common misconception.  That 'thing' has its own life, without you.  You're just invading it for a time."
• "We see faces in everything.  Why should we be so surprised when one of them sees us right back?"

Meeting Recap: Oct. 2-3 in NYC

The Cast: Todd d'Amour, Elizabeth Hope Williams and Conor McGuigan.

Last weekend we met for the first time as a cast: Todd d'Amour, Conor McGuigan, Elizabeth Hope Williams and I all gathered in Paradizo Dance's studio for the weekend and went through a thing or two.  Here's how we progressed in our first preparatory meeting for our rehearsal period:

October 2nd:
We got a bit of a late start, which was just as well, since it meant that I could catch Conor and Elizabeth up on some basics of acrobalance.

• For roughly an hour we worked on basing and flying angel and thigh-stand.
• Once all met, we reviewed some of the basic commedia dell'arte characters and their physical characteristics, eventually branching out into interpreting them into more modern contexts.
• From there we moved on to some scenario work.  We took one of the Scala scenarios - Flavio's Disgrace, a production of which I had just directed with the students of Marywood - and worked on how to learn a story by the story and incident, rather than by lines or character.  This included:
• Breaking down a story into simple, single actions
• Learning how to memorize simple action sequence
• Learning the sequence from different perspectives
• Varying the basic circumstances of the scenario
• In the scenario work, we examined some style elements; namely:
• "One thing at a time."
• Committed physical choices and gestures.
• Rhythmic unity.
• We moved on to examining clowning from there, including:
• Practicing "just being" with an audience.
• "The Interview" exercise.
• Brief review of "1-2-3" clown types.
• We ended the day with conditioning by working with the commedia animal forms we learned from Angelo Crotti:
• Dog
• Cat
• Frog
• Lizard/Crocodile

At the cap, we had some casual conversation about the show to come.


October 3rd:
The day began with discussion, and moved into exploring themes, largely through improvisation.

• There was much ecstatic dancing to big brass music.
• Acrobalance: In addition to practicing thigh-stand and angel poses, we worked with head- and hand-stands and learned shoulder-sit.
• We began a discussion of themes and ideas for show content.  Some of this content included (Players - please add to this list as you remember; both for new subjects I missed and ones you want to fill in.):
• Vast economic disparity, then and now.
• Spending vast amounts on entertainment in times of great struggle.
• The entertainment people resort to when they're poor.
• Culture gaps between the young and the old, and the conflict that creates.
• Todd's story: Mom finally getting to Yankee Stadium.
• New archetype relationships: e.g., master & apprentice.
• Inherited knowledge as something going extinct; are our brains changing into ciphers instead of strongholds?
• Seeing faces in everything (pareidolia) and making faces in everything (simulacra).
• Puppetry as themes, puppetry as practice.
• Practical actions performed live on stage (i.e., building something, cooking, etc.).
• Possible preference for "base characters"; definite priority for getting in-depth with a character.
• The differences of demeanor when you change who you're around.
• Unexpected transformation.
• We warmed up with a little further scenario practice.
• We applied some of the themes through two basic improvisation scenarios:
• Teaching, Building & Destroying: A master teaches a student something, and eventually an interloper destroys that thing.
• Pizza Making - Master: E; Apprentice: T; Interloper: C (this is also the one that made me realize the WEIRD initial thing)
•  Carpentry - Master: C; Apprentice: T; Interloper: E
• Feng Shui / Painting - Master: T; Apprentice: E; Interloper: C
• Self-Defense - Master: T; Apprentice: C; Interloper: E
• Old, Young & Compromise: An older person and a younger one come into a conflict through a disagreement in culture, and eventually a third enters to resolve the conflict.
• Video Games - Old: C; Young: E; Interloper: T
•  Lost / "Coke Machine" - Old: T; Young: C; Interloper: E
• Math - Old: E; Young: T; Interloper: C
• After a break, we examined acting with objects.  After choosing an object from the room, the performers improvised a scene with that object as though it were new to them, and they were having a dialogue with it that included emotional response.
• As a final action, we did a few things for the video camera:
• Improvised marionette dancing incorporating acrobalance and oral accompaniment.
• Two improvised scenes along the lines of the others.
• We closed out with upper-body conditioning - push-ups, pull-ups and one-minute handstands.

All-in-all, a great weekend.  I look forward to the next one in November.  In the meantime, let's collaborate here! Look for thematic posts from me in the coming weeks, and start a little writing yourselves about whatever you will (but be sure one or two have to do with character[s], too).  Avanti!

5 minute.com - So last second..."How to have a Lazy Sunday Picnic"

This was an improvised 5min.com video. Obviously a "bit" tongue in cheek. Nathan just sent it to me out of the blue. Coincidence? I think not.


How to Enjoy A Lazy Sunday Picnic

Games in Everything - Pervasiveness of Technology

Nothing

This was amistake.

My PBS Memories

I always really loved the vacancy of the background on The Letter People. I felt there was a world so much bigger beyond the puppet. Unlike real life where you can see the end of everywhere you look, this show left a black void behind the action. I feel this is much like a theatre. Also this show let me see, as I said to Jeff the other night, the cracks in the facade. People love to see the fingers of the puppeteer. It's like seeing the hands of the creator and they are in on some big secret. Later on, the Letter People, which was from a local PBS station in the midwest, received more money and built sets. It still had a similar feel but not like the early vacancy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzdd0FnVHJQ

Under Pressure

This is such a strangely apt combination of the elements we were talking about last weekend that I had to share. Poverty and entertainment, humor and compassion and ridiculousness. Enjoy.