Friday, January 29, 2016

The Process

One of the most exciting aspects of having participated in Story Theater’s teen show since its inception two years ago is getting the chance to witness the development of myself, my peers, and my director, Kivan Kirk. As we have helped one another to grow, the quality of the shows has only gone up, and this year, I suspect, will be no different. This, of course, is and should be secondary to the experience that we have in creating each show and, in that regard, this process has been like no other I have ever been a part of.
There are downsides to a show that consists exclusively of vignettes; the risks of the show feeling disjointed or of a cast not bonding are very real. These are problems that I feel our production avoids (perhaps, because of our Saturday work-days or our preparatory rehearsals when we all come together to try and create the town of Almost). However, one huge advantage it offers is the chance to dive into the relationship of the two actors on stage. It narrows the focus to just them and then allows them to experiment with how they can live together at the same time in the same space. This gets at themes very central to Almost, Maine.
The unique way that Kivan has helped us to be in those moments is by adopting the ideas of Sanford Meisner. Meisner was an American theater practitioner who developed a divergent technique from the “Method” acting technique that began with Constantin Stanislavski. As opposed to using emotional memory, wherein you conjure up and use your personal history to get into a character’s head, and placing the focus internally to portray a character’s emotional state, Meisner tried to get actors out of their heads. Kivan, too, has been attempting to turn our actions into instincts. Everything is a reaction to the environment and the other person.
Last week, for example, I had rehearsals for my scenes Seeing the Thing, with Lena, and They Fell, with Travis. On Monday, for Seeing the Thing, Kivan began by having Lena and I scoot around on the rolly chairs (“snowmobiles” in the context of our scene) as we each attempted to score a goal against the other (by dunking a pillow into the other’s laundry basket). All the while, Lena was encouraged to trash-talk me. He then had the two of us armwrestle while repeating the same lines of dialogue over and over again. Both of these activities were intended to build the friendly, bro-like rapport that our characters, Rhonda and Dave, have with one another. When armwrestling, the goal was to get us to stop thinking about the words we were saying and how we were saying them and instead make the lines an extension of the physical action. In other words, we said the same thing until it became natural. This is Meisner at his core.
I discovered, in the process, just how frustrating it must be for Dave to continue trying to get the resistant Rhonda to see him as something more than a friend. Not only did I realize this and think to myself “yes, that must be the way that he is feeling”, but I also felt it myself. I didn’t become Dave or anything crazy, but I did inhabit his struggle. I knew exactly the way he was feeling because it was how I felt, and I felt it more honestly than I would have had I dug up some analogous moment from my past (which might have come with its own set of messy or imprecise emotions) because our experiences were identical.
For the remainder of the rehearsal, we ran the scene according to the units that Lena and I had agreed upon. Units are, essentially, the parts of a scene where the same thing is happening. Often times, they follow a single objective (what a character wants) or tactic (how a character gets what they want) and the unit changes when one of those two does. However, we did the scene without scripts in hand. Instead, we played with loose improvisation, knowing what our characters wanted and how they would get it, but not saying the exact lines in the script. All the while, we kept in mind their given circumstances - being the people they are in a small town like Almost, they aren’t always the most direct of folks. We basically just let each unit take its course, moving when we felt the impulse and butting heads with our character’s contradictory wants. Kivan would often side-coach us, telling us to do more or to go somewhere or to move on, and then we’d stop and take count of what had just happened and how we could improve it.
This way of rehearsing really helps me get into the scene. Once I forget about saying the right thing, I feel free to say what I need to (to the best of my character’s ability). Being a very cerebral person myself (I often overthink things or censor myself), this style of rehearsal helps me to just speak without thinking about how it sounds and do without thinking about how it looks. I’m free to simply listen and react to Lena, who, being an excellent partner, gives a lot to work with. Of course, it doesn’t happen right away but, with work and time, we find a place where the scene can just play out. Those moments that benefit most are the ones right on the edge of being cheesy which, if the focus weren’t on pursuing our objectives and reacting honestly, could very quickly become precious (a word Kivan likes to use a lot when he wants us to avoid overdoing something in an artificial and self-conscious way).
It’s also helped the scene, as a whole, along immensely. Without stopping and starting for specific blocking notes or to run a particular line until it sounds “right”, the scene has found its own pacing and movement that feels natural (like an extension of what is taking place in the relationship between our characters).
My work with Travis in They Fell was just as rewarding. We followed much the same model as we did in Seeing the Thing, beginning with me trying to wrestle Travis to the ground (to make him see my love) and Travis trying to get me up (to return the world to status quo). As before, we also repeated lines of dialogue from the show as we did this. After that, we ran each unit in improv mode.
Travis is an extremely smart individual who I’ve seen come a long way in a short time at Story Theater Company. He’s found an honesty in our scene that I scramble to keep up with (although I manage simply because we are so relaxed in the scene and, when everything's going right, neither one of us cares much about saying the right thing). One thing that makes our scene feel so relaxed at the beginning is that we are just two buds, hanging out. With only a vague outline of who these two men are and how they ended up here, we’re able to go off on tangents and still arrive right where we’re supposed to. The men are sharing painful memories, yes, but it’s made easier by the other’s presence. There’s plenty of work left to do with pacing and the like, but the scene is already feeling like it’s in the right place (as are the others). In these hour and a half long sessions, we’ve already created plays, finish to end. Now, they just need specific lines and blocking to flesh them out a little.
So far, these rehearsals have been amazing because they’ve been so focused on the process of becoming the people in these situations. A space and method has been set up to discover what these characters are all about, not through analysis and close reading, but by sussing out their emotions and feeling alongside them.
Before going into a scene, Meisner proposes an actor must become emotionally prepared. This emotional preparation can take many forms (in scenes where he had to enter angry, Meisner, who was jewish, would repeat Hitler’s name over and over again to get him to a point of boiling rage). All preparation, however, is focused on coming into the scene in the right mindset so that, from there, you can simply be with another person. The rest takes care of itself, if you simply allow yourself to be open and vulnerable. I think our rehearsal process is the same way. I look forward to adding the script back in the following weeks and switching between it and the improvised dialogue until they are one in the same. This is what will make our scenes ring true. 
I think this will be one of the most rewarding experiences any student at STC has ever had. If only we care to listen. 


Ben Sulzerger
East/Chad/Dave