Cracking the play, finding the cane

There is a point when a play -- or scene, or character -- "cracks". Where some level of resistance and mask drops away, and the true essence of OUR play is revealed.

We have not hit that yet. Until we get there, I always feel like I am going out of my skin. It is always hard, always a search, always the first time. Cracking comes out of the unconsciouses involved. All you can do is seed it, and pay attention. Just because the last play cracked, does not mean this one will. Each time you must find the cliff and walk off it.

"Acting is playwriting is directing," says playwright John Patrick Shanley, of this search. We all start blind.

Some of the best stimulus for this, so far, has come from Lara & Keith, who are as wrapped around this script as they are around their own films. Keith said the other day, he sees them eventually becoming a creative force like the Lord of the Rings director/wife team -- and I agree. They already feel that way. It feels like I am collaborating with professional filmmakers -- creative, soulful, intelligent, and businesslike, but with completely different chops & references from mine. For the first time in a long time, I feel uneducated.

Lara is having unique visions of each character. Her visions are more specific than either mine or the actors', at this point. This is a first for me, and incredibly delicate & powerful.

Keith spotted a spidery metal medical cane the other day, while Lara was costume shopping -- which was tall, wobbly, with four splayed feet at the bottom. With it, suddenly Reece's 70-year-old character blossomed. Everything changed, lightened. The other actors giggled. He began leaning, lunging, and favoring like a pro.

In our town, the ballet, opera, two big theatres, and sports arena are all right next to each other. So the biggest factor for rehearsals is whether the Sonics have a game -- when they do, traffic mires. I like that, in a chaotic "everything's connected" sort of way.

But still -- until things crack, I'm like a caged tiger.

I believe this building pressure is actually part of the key to cracking -- at some point, abandoning all rational knowledge is finally preferable to the intolerable pressure. This time, I am also searching for different tools to crack it -- most of the tools I normally use, require time we don't have.

"Make time," says Leonid.

"Part of the skill of having the skill, is being able to do it fast," says Bart.

Joseph Lavy just looks.

My teachers are calmly ruthless.

I also need to consciously do the practices that accelerate cracking for me. Leonid says, the director is the little wheel in a diesel engine, that must turn steadily before the big wheel of the actors begins to turn. "For two hours, the little wheel of the director must turn," he says, "Before the big wheel will move."