THEMES ON BELONGING: PROCESS & APPRECIATION
Kadijah and I were chatting one night, just after a performance of CPT’s SoftLaunch (a festival of interactive immersive performance pieces) where she was producing and I was performing/facilitating. We were talking about the value of learning new techniques and processes.
I waxed then, and I’ll wax now, that knowing more techniques or having a deeper curiosity into the methodologies that have been devised in hopes of harnessing creative beauty in theatrical performance makes a person more appreciative of that beauty. I love digging into Michael Chekhov and Laban and Viewpoints and David Craig and Meisner (occasionally) and Uta Hagen and a whole mess of other disciplines because they help give me language for the moments onstage that leave me speechless. Tonight I had the pleasure of getting to see some remarkable beauty onstage, and in this post I’d like to share some love and make like the slogan of the NYC subway stations encouraging: “If you see something, say something.”
[For the record: I’ve seen lots of great theatre this season all around Cleveland - this is not meant to diminish or underplay previous/current great art taking place - this is just a celebration of some additionally great art.]
Tonight I saw The Wolves at Dobama in Cleveland Heights.
Before the run closes, I hope you get a chance to see it (much like I hope you’ll get over to see Amerikin at the Pivot Center ;)). Here’s an array of things I found myself profoundly moved by:
The sense of the WHOLE (or ENSEMBLE). Chekhov has this notion that he refers to as the Four Brothers: 1. Form 2. Ease 3. Whole 4. Beauty. When these four “brothers” are all maintained, the storytelling succeeds. This was true in The Wolves. Form: the physical discipline and commitment of this cast was extraordinary, cycling through soccer drills whilst maintaining a beautiful sense of ebbing and flowing pace throughout scenes (aka form). This cast felt immersively grounded and self-possessed in the world of this play and in the bodies of these characters - there was not a single performer laboring to reach the demands of their character (aka ease). This cast knew so specifically how each role contributed individually to the group dynamic to find a stunning sense of harmony with one another. Each character was in the same play, picking up what others were putting down while maintaining the truth of their character’s individualism within the given circumstances. It’s a paradox to be both an individual and cohesively part of the whole, and they nailed it. And in the accumulation of these excellent qualities, there emerges a beauty that drives the story and further deepens and fuels these characters onward. From the first moment of the play to the last, a powerful sense of the WHOLE brought tears to my eyes.
ACTION in tension with ATMOSPHERE. Atmosphere is this idea that there is a palpable energy saturating a playing space. Sometimes there is an emotional energy attached to the atmosphere of a scene or a space, but it’s ideal to not get caught in the trap of playing at an atmosphere - rather let the character find tension in their awareness of that energy and fight against it. For instance if a scene has an atmosphere of contagious joy, a scene would be pretty stagnant if every character walked in joyously. It would be far more interesting to see a slew of characters in variable states of melancholy and frustration actively fight against or actively submit to that joyous atmosphere bit by bit. Whether it was intentional or happenstance (I can’t know, but would love to chat with Leighann DeLorenzo or any of the cast), but each scene has a palpable atmosphere and scene after scene I watched (sometimes jubilantly, sometimes achingly) these complicated and depthy characters actively play against those atmospheres, trying to regulate/conform/transform into states that will allow them to endure the circumstances around them. When characters are so thoroughly enmeshed in activity, they begin to reveal their own unique behavioral quirks. It’s the sort of elevated performance that separates a character that stands still and recites lines, to a character staking claim to stilling as a means of grasping for a sense of control in a space that feels dangerously out of control. Without having to telegraph those ideas to the audience, the stillness and character carries it all. On the surface, the two appear very similar, but there is an energy that can be felt in the space that is night and day.
Trust in the RHYTHMIC WAVE. In every script there is a natural rhythmic flow - some scenes driving full-steam-ahead while others demanding air and space for silence. In a fairly large cast, this sense of fluid pacing gets harder and harder: more ears and mouths to pick up cues and keep the lines tight in quicker scenes AND more impulses to assure that air is enough in silence-driven moments. There is a tendency in contemporary theatre that plays need to be tight and quick - that audiences don’t have the attention span (or perhaps the bladder control) to endure plays that exercise slower-paced scenes or moments. I challenge that the energy of some of those quiet scenes are some of the most tension-filled and captivating moments in the play, and (aside from the a few delinquent cell phones) the audience was hanging on every breath.
Themes of BELONGING. (***VAGUE SPOILERS***) I feel compelled to acknowledge the shared themes of belonging that I saw in this play in comparison with the notion of belonging we’ve been playing with in Amerikin. I was struck by house inverse these two pieces of Cleveland theatre resonate. For The Wolves there is connective belonging despite tragic circumstance, and in Amerkin there are tragic circumstances connected to the desperation for belonging. Both beg of the ensemble of characters to heal. Heal together vs. healing within oneself.
I could go on and on - find me at a show and I’ll share more thoughts. All this to say, there was sublime art-making taking place and I found myself thoroughly moved by the integrity of the storytelling and inspired (if not educated) by the execution of craft.
If you find yourself wanting to know more about Michael Chekhov, the technique, the tools, etc. - checkout our friends at Great Lakes Michael Chekhov Consortium!
These are all concepts we try to make time to center in our work at SOTP. I have a profound appreciation when I see art that knocks it out of the park whether that company focuses on these tools or not. I love having language to describe and compliment this kind of great work when I get to see it. It’s the kind of compliment that makes me feel more seen as an artist. OF COURSE a “Great Job!” feels good, but to have someone recognize that the actor had an extraordinary sense of ease as they inhabited a radically different physicality and found a compelling yet grounded sense of action amidst a very conversational play - that hits home. Great work to our friends at Dobama. After you see Amerikin, give them a visit. Or go see them, then stop on by at the Pivot Center for a very different take on “finding a sense of belonging” (weird how universal these themes are between two very different plays).
Either way you’ve got two weekends left!
