Language play, car karma

We did our first Stumble of Act One, for Communicating Doors last night. I was heartened.

It's a language play. The playwright is good enough that, as with Shakespeare, each scene stands on its own. Just lay them next to each other, and let resonance take care of the rest.

Ayckbourn, the playwright, is an Enlish author. We are doing the play without accents, but the language still requires that pace, to unleash. Like Shakespeare again -- or commedia -- you find it ON the line.

"Think faster," says Bart Sher.

It makes a big difference, which actors are speaking prose and which are speaking poetry. The language needs to lift, float, fly, bite.

My other discovery is something much more ephemeral -- at 2:00am last night I woke bolt upright, realizing, "The rehearsal room has become polluted. Too much of the real world has crept into it." To clean it up is simple but serious. Re-establishing sacred space is crucial.

I have been so worried about mastering speed-blocking, that I haven't been tending to the spiritual side of the work. At some level, I've been resenting speed-blocking, and the need for it. But now that I've gotten the hang of it, and can relax and look up -- plus, no doubt, having a good Stumble helped -- NOW it's time to settle in to the spiritual zone.

This is also true, fractally, on the life level -- I have been so worried about generating income & finding a job, that I haven't been connecting to god or tending to my spiritual needs.

We have had wild car karma around this play -- cars are blowing up, breaking down, running down, disappearing, reappearing. A major destruction vibe -- with something wilder, more Coyote in the feel.

That was Act One. We are ready for Act Two.

What struck me during check-ins last night was how broken-open and human the room was. There is nowhere a group of open humans cannot go. We are rough and raw and soft enough now, hang-listening and lost. Like bread that has been kneaded, and can now spontaneously grow and rise.