SHIPWRECKED! Rehearsals

Wow! I don't think I've ever been more challenged as a director.

A little background on the play: Playwright Donald Margulies (he of the Pulitzer-prize winning play Dinner with Friends) was initially commissioned to write a piece of children's theatre. Ultimately, this play became Shipwrecked! , a fascinating hybrid of highly theatrical playfulness and an exploration of some fairly profound questions about the nature of art and truth and fame.

The script is deceptive in its simplicity. On the surface it looks like an adventure story, narrated by a charismatic raconteur and acted out with the assistance of two fellow performers, a plethora of props and costume pieces, and (in our case) a sound effects artist armed with a dizzying array of musical (and non-musical) noise-makers.

However, what is ultimately compelling for me about this play is that once we've built up this theatrical artifice, it all starts to crumble and we witness a man - perhaps a charlatan, perhaps just an overly enthusiastic dreamer - forced to confront the consequences of his deceptions.  And we are left to ask, when we have been entertained by a thrilling story, and we have been told it is true; does it matter in the end if it is actually true or not?

So, there is the overall challenge of blending the two intentions of the playwright - the desire to engage the audience in both the magic of theatre and the larger philosophical questions he poses.

And then there is for me and the rest of the creative team the even larger and more immediate challenge of creating sailing ships and blistering typhoons and a giant octopus and several  Aboriginal tribes all in the tiny confines of FlynnSpace using minimal props and costumes.

This was the challenge that both excited and terrified me going into the first day of rehearsal.  For example, the stage directions in the script say "The ship is caught in a giant whirlpool." How, exactly, will we do that in a way that is convincing and exciting and magical and clever? And then do it again and again and again, with the intention of surprising the audience each time, engaging their imagination, taking them on a adventurous ride, appealing to their sense of fun and play?

I knew I could never come up with all of the ideas on my own, so on the first day of rehearsal, I decided to experiment with a somewhat unusual strategy. I told the cast and the design team that I was open to every single idea they might have and that they were free to share them at any point in the rehearsal process. In a sense, I was telling them that they all had permission to direct the play. I would serve as arbiter, editor and referee, but I wanted there to be a free flow of ideas so as to get as many possibilities on the table as we could, as quickly as we could.

Any directors reading this (or anyone who has been in charge of a creative team) might think that this is a recipe for chaos. And they would be right.

For the last four days, as we have put the basic physical structure of the play in place, I feel like I have been caught up in that tempestuous whirlpool the script describes. And one of the things it did was completely distort my perception of time.  On the one hand, it seemed as if we were moving at breakneck speed.  Often it felt like 15 ideas were coming at me (and from me) at once, and it was my job to juggle and sift through them all to find a few that seemed worth trying. Or we would try them all, in very quick succession, just to get a taste, and then choose one to flesh out. And so time seemed to fly.

On the other hand, there were moments that take only a few seconds to play on stage, but it would take an hour or more to work through the details so that it could be as smooth and effortless and magical as the vision in my head. On those occasions, I wondered if we would ever get through the play.

To be honest, I am not usually a fan of chaos, even this fairly controlled kind. And I can imagine that it was frustrating or disorienting to some (or all) of my fellow artists.

But I will say this:  It was exhilarating! It is certainly not the most efficient way to work, and there may have been better ways to reach my desired goal, but the thing is that after one short week of rehearsal (and I mean short - we were only on our feet for four days), we have roughly staged the entire play. But more than that, we have explored myriad ideas, many of which are working fairly well, some of which will work eventually, some of which will ultimately have to be discarded and replaced, and a few of which are working spectacularly.

My intention for week two (of three) is to now take a firmer hold of the reigns.  I'd like to release the actors from any responsibility for creating the staging ideas and instead allow them to put their attention on fully realizing and inhabiting the ones we've already created, as well as filling out the emotional and psychological lives of their characters.

Onward!

February 22nd, 2010