I've been thinking about a question that I think it was Skye, mentioned awhile ago about the Russianess of the story, and how much of Russia we were going to incorporate into our play.
I have a few thoughts on this, spurred in part by Anne Bogart:
Russian theatre is probably the biggest influence on American theatre in the last century. Stanislavsky method is the prevailing acting system learned, and smaller American artistic movements were pretty much crushed when the movement started by stanislavsky and the moscow arts theatre reached America.
American theatre also spends a lot of time wishing it were European, and to that end, I am interested in how we can make this Russian story pertinent to an American setting and audience. By setting I mean where we are putting it on, not necessarily the world of the play.
If there is an American way of thinking, way of structuring things, sense of humor, sensibility, which has been endlessly influenced by Russians, how can we address this or embrace it through the creation of this play?
It may be a good idea to reach back and do some research on American theatre traditions like vaudeville, silent movies, expressionism like martha graham, as somewhere to start.
To shove just a little bit more Bogart in here, i have a weensy little quote:
" We enjoy a rich, diverse and unique histroy and to celebrate it is to remember it. To remember it is to use it. To use it is to be true to who we are".
also: I know that we aren't at school right now, and that summer time is blah time, but please guys, respond and read. please?
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sounds like a great way to have that common thing we can start to build our world from.
ReplyDeletea little more concrete then say, timelessness.
It's interesting that you bring up Vaudeville. When you said were talking about an American way of structuring things, what came to mind for me was attention span. To me the variety show is very American, also mixing comedy into tragedy. I think right now we are, as a culture (phnewphnew) in some ways more self-conscious about having short attention spans. No intermission in the middle of a long movie. Performance which sacrifices any kind of funny moments to seem super-intense. This really seems like a Stanislavsky thing to me because. Bogart says that one of the problems with that system is that it gets actors so in their heads that they say "My character would never do that." (Eva, reading list buddies) So if all their characters are serious, we never see anything funny.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm getting at is maybe as part of what you're talking about we might want to go back to a form where variety is great... or something.
one stop chitaqua!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, the attention span thing, totally.
ReplyDeleteI think we want to aim for a voice that's authentic to us and authentic to where we come from, not trying to be too russian or too fairy tale, and that voice will be of course incorporate humor and seriousness. yeah?
yes,starting with a fairy tale is good because its already relateable to people and then adding our own stuff from our experiance and creativity will make it truthful but not unapproachable
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