A Creative Mama’s Story

The first two weeks of rehearsal for The Laramie Project have been plagued by cast members quitting and cast members with schedule conflicts. We lost one cast member before the rehearsals started - pregnant (we know what causes this now). Another after the first night of rehearsal - wife had surgery (this one I have lots of compassion for). And another after the first week of rehearsal - sick and tired (not much sympathy here). Oh, and my AD moved to Colorado.

So we are heading into week three with 3 new cast members all having various parts of the blocking working hard to catch up. I exhausted myself this week trying to grin and bear it, keep rolling along, making do, and giving it my best. When in fact I wanted to “plotz” - this means cumble into a heap in Yiddish. I’m a “goyah” (more kindly referred to as a WASP) who lived in Brooklyn for 12 years and I learned that sometims Yiddish is the only way to describe what is actually going on with a person. Anyway, enough with the plotzing - moving on with this post.

I have a wonderful cast of 14 people now and a lovely and talented AD. These are the folks who stuck and we will do this play together. We’re a family for the next month and a half. That’s wonderful. And bless them, they are working hard.

But for the past two weeks all of my energy was focused on the people who couldn’t or wouldn’t play with us. I spent so much time focusing on who wasn’t there - who could I ask, find, or pull in off the street to play with us instead. And, in one case, I wasted a lot of time resenting that I hadn’t cast someone else in the role. It just wasn’t an enjoyable week mostly because of my focus on who was missing instead of who was present. I put my head down and kept plowing through, but I couldn’t enjoy it.

I need to remember this - focus on those who are there and let go of those who cannot play. Find people to play with who are happy and enjoyable to play with. Bless those who don’t want to play and send them on their way. Enjoy the playmates you have - does this sound like a song?

Last week we finished blocking Act I of The Laramie Project. I have to say I could not have done it without Dave Matthews. The latest, Stand Up, seems to fit the themes of the play (and my life). So I crank up my little E1 Rokr before the actors arrive to get my Matthews fix and that bit of inspiration I need to make it through two and a half hours of telling people where to go. I am thinking I am perhaps not cut out to be a director for the following reasons:

1) I hate telling people where to go.

2) I hate it more when I tell someone where to go and they ask my why.

That would mean I’m not cut out to a mom either. But, I am a mom so the point is mute.  (See how this all blends together into one senseless blur?)

Yesterday we had over 100 tornado warnings in the Midwest. The sirens telling us to take immediate cover went of at 4:45 pm and again at 10:00 pm - just after I had gotten a stressed out, hyper, over excited 6 year old to sleep. The first time at 4:45 my daughter didn’t want to go down to the basement without her toys. The second time at 10:00 she wanted to go down to the basement immediately and I didn’t because I was tired and it’s cold in the basement. We made a compromise and ended up sleeping on a twin matress in the hallway surrounded by stuffed animals. The hallway is internal. I closed the doors to all the rooms and we squished ourselves in between the coat closet and the linen closet. At 1:30 AM it was over and we got up and moved into my bedroom. I don’t like the whole tornado, hurricane, earthquake, mudslide, forest fire extravaganza that mother nature frequently throws our way. Where on this earth is the absolute safest place to be? I’m taking my child and moving there.Yeah right.

This week, we start in on the blocking of Act II and try to get the whole thing finished with a good solid stumble through on Thursday. It would probably be a good idea if I started thinking about where I want to tell people to go.

We had a fun rehearsal for The Laramie Project on Tuesday. We finsihed reading through Act III and then we went around the room and discussed characters. Each actor read a representative piece of dialogue from one of their characters and shared what impressions the dialogue gave them about who the character is and how they dress, walk, talk, feel, think, react, etc. It was fun because I love exploring that stuff.

Then it sort of turned into a discussion about how all of the characters in this play are real people. And the words the actors will be speaking onstage are all direct quotes from these real people. There is a wealth of information online about Laramie, WY and the Matthew Shepard case. Romaine Patterson who was a friend of Matthew’s became an activist because of her outspokenness reagarding the case and became famous for “standing toe to toe” with Fred Phelps. She has a great website for her new book, The Whole World was Watching. And her main website is called Eat Romaine.

I think this is the first time that I have ever been involved in a play in which the characters are 1) real people AND 2) still living. Yes, the irony of that last statement is a bit odd considering the whole thing deals with Matthew Shepard’s murder and he, of course, is not still living.

One of the actors brought up the HBO film. He wanted to know if it was okay for him to watch it. He was asking my opinion/permission. I have the DVD on loan from another actor in the play who has watched it - several times. And I have yet to put it in my DVD player to watch it myself. I just haven’t committed to it. Because I don’t know if I should or not. I need to do my homework and do my research, but does that include watching a movie based on the play, based on the actual events, based on …

I told him that was up to him. Of course, he can watch it if he wants to watch it. But, I stressed that I wanted him to portray his characters the way he, himself sees fit to portray them and not base his performance on what Steve Buscemi did. Because that would ruin his time onstage and the performance would not be authentically his. That’s what I think about watching the film myself. Some of my favorite actors and actresses are in that film. I have always wanted to watch it and have always intended to rent it until I was chosen to direct the play. Even the little snippets I have seen from previews and commercials have stuck in my brain and I find myself having to push them out of my head to think about what we can do with this script theatrically with the actors we have here and with the resources we have here. And film is a 100%different medium than theatre. It just is. There is absolutely no way to recreate a film onstage. You have to create a play onstage. Yeah, yeah, yeah - I’m not saying anything anyone else doesn’t know. I am trying to work my decision out in my head as I write this.

Should I watch it or should I not? There is no should or should not. I will not. I have decided I won’t. I will do other homework. I will read, re-read, and listen to the words in the script every day. I will research. I will look for photos and headlines and try to understand the nature and venom of a hate crime. I will take what I know about trauma and apply it to my director’s choices. And I will look at people and look at the actors onstage and do my best to help them BE who they are as they are BEING their characters. Decision made. To view or not to view? View not.