Present: Dale, Greg, Dan, Marc.
The Problem of the Day: what to do about I.4-I.10, i.e., the War. On the one hand, we have stage directions like Enter the army of the Volsces and Alarum. The Romans are beat back to their trenches. On the other hand, we have eight men at the moment. What to do?
We set as our goal for the day the creation of a score for these seven scenes, since the solution clearly lies in combining sound and movement to create a stage picture which the audience can recognize as “battles” or “armies.” In other words, we had to map out the dance, to be choreographed later.
In this we were wildly successful. We used our sticky sheets to write “video/audio” descriptions of each moment in the sequence, and drew stage pictures to go with them. Dale has now transferred all that information to his notebook, so we’ll have it for reference.
Dale had brought in two six-foot staffs, 1-1/2″ round. We played with those as both weapons and set pieces. (We also pole-danced, but that’s another story.) If we get large pieces of blood-maroon jersey, we can stitch those down either side to create tubes into which the staffs can easily slip. One staff + jersey = flag/banner/waving thing. Two staffs + jersey = gate/wall, etc. Now we easily have the gates of Corioles, managed by two performers.
In fact, two of the women in I.3 will become the “gate-keepers” as their “sewing” becomes the gates. Volumnia and Virgilia drop character, catch the two poles tossed from the side, we have racks of staffs on either side of the stage, and we change scenes to the battlefield.
The Battle Ballet, as we’re calling it, will consist of the cast evenly divided into left and right, recalling the ritualized warrior poses we opened the show with. Much drumming and hollering. Martius is dead center, narrating the fight with his two monologues, as the battle flows around him.
We used the sidewalk/greenspace vs. the raised stage in a number of meaningful ways, so that was fun. We have drums coming from “backstage” as well as from behind the audience to indicate locations of the different areas of conflict.
And the Title Match, as we’re calling I.8, begins with the blood-red flags running across the stage, leaving behind the assembled cast, staffs in hand, facing up, and Martius/Aufidius revealed on the raised platform. They fight, Aufidius flees, and Martius, cheated of his hand-to-hand victory, is left. Segue into the triumphant Roman camp, praising a clearly frustrated Martius, who has to climb down and join his celebrating friends whether he’s in the mood or not.
NEXT: Wednesday, August 27, 7:00-9:00, Newnan School of Dance. We’re going to tackle the end of the show and as many of the other scenes in Act V as we can.
I began dubbing my old videotape of the BBC Coriolanus to DVD and watched some of it as I drifted in and out of the room.
I don’t think the whole thing could fit on one DVD, but I’m not going to check or finish it, because quite frankly the production doesn’t have anything to teach us. The performance style is stultifyingly stilted and so conversationally low-key that you’d never know that this was a political thriller. It’s just not good.
Seconded.
Are my memories of Alan Howard’s brittle brilliance false constructions?
This raises an issue near and dear to my heart. In performance, the physics of the medium shapes both the physical dynamics of the performer’s work and the psychological reality of what is played. You have no idea, as of yet, what it will mean to bellow these words out there on the green of the Greenville Street Park. It will inform and transform us, and we will be very different creatures from what we would be were we whispering and “being” in front of a video camera or even playing at a black box level of engagement. It transforms the material as well. It will be important to factor the physics in early once we begin rehearsing in earnest. We will have to get used to working “beyond the room.” Might feel strange, at first.
Alan Howard is not bad, certainly more lively than everyone else around him.
I likewise have a vivid memory of IV.5, with Aufidius caressing Coriolanus. I will need to go double-check that one. See if I get all tingly.
Trivia tidbit: The actor who plays Aufidius in the BBC version, Mike Gwilym, also plays Pericles in the BBC version. The things one remembers. I think I had a vested interest in knowing of actors who played Pericles.
That’s right–I had forgotten that! I remember liking their Pericles, so much that it informed my choice in choosing to do it.
BTW, I’m thinking we need to tackle Merry Wives next fall, something for the ladies to join us with.
One question we had on Saturday was what to do if it rained. David Kinrade thinks it shouldn’t be a problem to use the parish house at the Methodist Church.
If we do Wives, can we go ahead and get Glenn to commit to Falstaff?
That would dovetail nicely with a version of Henry IV, 1 & 2 I want to do set in America during the Indian Wars.
Falstaff as former army scout who’s somewhat “gone Native.” Henry as fort commander. Think F Troupe in iambic pentameter. (Relax, flip description.)
Shall we perform this as an epic triology? We could plop Wives in the middle of the two parts as the comic interlude. All in one day’s performance, of course.
“Chimes At Midnight: The Expanded (Waistline) Version”
Yes!
Something about the “thick rotundiity of the world?”
I’m all tingly.