Soothsayer

When I first directed Caesar, I wanted a three-person Soothsayer, singing the lines as one.

I wanted to experience a live foreteller. So in rehearsal, I asked the Soothsayer threesome to not think, just trust their instincts. Then anyone who had a question -- a real one, that mattered -- would walk up to the line, face the Soothsayer from across the room, and ask. The Soothsayers had to sing their answer simultaneously, without worrrying about whether they were right, or whether they agreed with each other.

Don't think. Don't think. Don't think.

"Will I get the job I'm interviewing for tomorrow?" asked one woman. "No - no - no" sang the soothsayer, serene and sure. "Will my grandma recover?" "Yes - no - no." "Will I ever have a son?" "No - No - Yes but you'll never know him."

It was jolting to hear placid women sing of a terrible future. They could have been hanging laundry.

I love this state of human beings: the deep actor state, the lover state. Where they are at once blinky, wrinkled, perspiring -- and at the same time, completely unknowable.