Tuesday, October 12, 2004

The gates of heaven

Today we did Neutral Text scenes in my NonActors class. We constructed a 6-line scene, then played it in a variety of contexts & characters.

One scene was between God and Archangel Gabriel, about the just-cast-out St. Jason. In attendance, like great marble lions, sat Archangels Rafael, Michael, and Donnatello, as well as a girl angel standing in the back, holding two scarves draped between a light pole and a chair. At the last minute, someone ran up and placed a tupperware container of homemade cookies just past the feet of the angel. "There's cookies in heaven," she smiled and whispered as she flew back to her seat.

For a long moment we looked at it -- the gates of heaven, made from flattened cardboard boxes and brown plastic chairs, with glowing archangels, and a blue-lidded box of cookies. Outcast St. Jason sat crosslegged in front, rocking mournfully to himself.

In real life, the girl angel has lupus -- a hereditary disease that is eroding her at 25. Some days she can walk, some days she has a cane, some days she's in a wheelchair. At the point where it was only her, standing with outstretched arms and scarves between the chairs and boxes, the cookie box at her feet, I had everyone look. "Imagine heaven looks like this," I said. "You see the white light, and whoosh -- here you are."

We looked a long time. Heaven looked pretty good, actually.

Polish director Tadeusz Kantor is where I learned this, the power of group-created sets, built with only what's on hand. He believed the more ordinary the object, the greater its energy. He revered chairs and umbrellas. Working this way, you start to perceive the Mystery of Objects. Each is beautiful and strange, with its own nature and secrets. Old egg cartons become strangely perfect models on a science teacher's desk, next to an upside-down water bottle balancing on its cap. The lupus actor's cane becomes a crook for one of the angels, never touching the earth.

For the ice rink scene, we needed music. "That bad old 80's music?" asked an actor who has sung in bands for years. "Yes," I said. "Have you seen my baby," he sang, in an easy high tenor as three other actors snapped their fingers. Every time we ran the scene, it began with that same perfect cheesy music.

No comments: