In a recent e-mail I suggested that streams of comments often read like electric exchanges in a piece of dramatic poetry. This, I proferred, was a good thing. Such a good thing, I think, that I would like to take it a bit further: why not use our comment streams as opportunities to rehearse and work out material for our performance pieces?
Let’s call it “playing in the stream.” Think of children playing in a stream: floating twigs, throwing stones, making slight canoes out of leaves, piling up small dams with rocks and mud, furrowing canals, splashing. It’s easy and costs nothing and anyone can play. Okay, Dale, get ready to fire some bullets. Here’s how it could work using this post as the source of the stream (feel free to try out any and all strategies, however):
1) Click on the comments word for this post.
2) Write the title of the piece you want to work on (Art of Telling the Truth, Wm. Blake, etc., or even designate it nothing in particular).
3) Put down your text. And I know I don’t need to delimit or proscribe here. Everything is permitted. Throw something out into the stream. Throw several things out.
4) If you visit the comments section and want to respond to something someone has written, just do. If the person has put down several things, you can copy and paste and offer your responses. You can create several comments. It’s pretty limitless.
5) If you wish to change to a different piece, type in a new title and add to the stream.
6) Think about how the comments stream unfolds; try to make your contributions play well in the space. Factor in rhythm, syntax, timing, visual impact, differal, ellipsis, etc.
7) Play with ideas, voices, choice of words, riddles, jokes, poetry, you name it.
We can actually pull the playing out of the stream and make it part of the piece we’re working on, i.e., dialogue, etc.
10/7/06: Because of spam comments, commenting has been turned off on this post. If you would like to make a comment, email Dale and he’ll post it for you.
ART OF TELLING THE TRUTH
This is a sad bid to be one of the gang. He never led a pine cone war battalion. He’s campaigning. It’s because we like our leaders to have engaged in military service. Or at least to have played football.
Football. What a joke. He’s a dreamer. He might serve as pilot on a flight of fancy, but that is as close as he’ll ever get to commanding.
This…this…tribal display. Please.
I’m only lying about what we threw. We threw stones. Trapped the animal in our midst. Raised its head on a pike. I nominated myself high priest.
…drums…
It’s got a good beat. I can dance to it.
It was better than Cows.
NEW TRUTH:
It was a dark and stormy night.
(Calling his bluff, but with warm encouragement): And…?
He wandered about the kitchen, fitfully searching for an outlet for the restless energy that filled him. Stopping one moment to rearrange the canisters on the shelf, stopping the next to briefly turn the lights to the den on and then off again, he grew more frustrated by the moment.
He finishes reading what he has just written, squinting at the bright screen, lips moving, head bobbing in an effort to tap into the rhythm of the prose: “…he grew more frustrated by the moment.” He gets up and goes into the kitchen, paces to and fro between the refrigerator and the knife block. Then he opens a cabinet door and moves the cannister marked “Flour” out of the way of the cannister marked “Sugar.” He notes with curiosity the absence of cannisters marked “Brown Sugar” and “Rice.” He shuffles into the den and contemplates the idea of watching television, then debates whether or not to watch with the lights on or off. If he opts not to watch, it means he returns to the computer and must invent a reason why his protagonist is frustrated. Attributing it all to “the moment” seems a bit of a cheat. And it may not be an “outlet” for his “restless energy” leading him to search the kitchen. He reflects back on his own search of the kitchen…
He decides to watch reruns of Cagney & Lacey and ponder Tyne Daly’s career.
With one candle burning.
Not that the candle was some sort of tribute to her career. It was to provide light for his knitting.
Knitting up the raveled sleeve of care…
…worn sweater, a treasured hand-me-down from his favorite grandfather. The knitting, taught to him by his grandmother, helped him focus, clear his mind, relax and reflect. It was becoming obvoius to him where the evening had been leading him: cabinets, cannisters, computer, Cagney, candle. Clearly his protagonist needed to go to “sea” to escape from his torment or to find direction.
A sea’scape. And a crisp, cold sea, full of crabs and crustaceans and crusty cudgels. Not a place for cisterns or centipedes or Caesars.
The chaos of the churning sea and the crisp chill in the late evening bordering on early morning air, brought his senses to high alert. Nothing escaped his perception, physically or metaphysically.
Wait a minute. How would he know if anything escaped his perception, physically or metaphysically? Or is our narrator omniscient? And that would be like saying, “He perceived everthing I perceived, and I can perceive everything.”
“It’s just a figure of speech.” Okay…but…
What would be some theatrical ways to render the kind of clarity of perception Jeff depicts?
“…Jeff alludes to…” Depiction, that’ what they pay us the big bucks to do.
Depict. Depict. Come on, people. Bones, I want answers!
Sudden clarity I would associate with bright light and an absence of background noise so that everything on stage is fully appreciated by audience members. Also, at times in my life when I seem to have experience that state of heightened sensitivity, things seemed to happen in slow motion. What other touches can others add?
But I’m just a doctor Jim, I’m not a bricklayer!
Makes me think of Robert Wilson’s “operas.” And of our production of *A Visit to William Blake’s Inn*, of course.
Old hippy psychologists on faculty at West Georgia would reference Maslow’s “peak experiences.”
The Holy Grail of our quest at this point would involve inspiring Craig to offer an opinion on the possibility of a theatrical representation of shamanic experience. “Theatrical” does not equal “corrupting” in my mind.