Tiny Imaginary Play #8

A giant velvet curtain covers the stage.

A particularly fantastic portion of Handel's messiah plays and the curtain begins to rise.

A woman is revealed standing onstage atop a small pedestal.

She is wearing a corset cinched around her middle and a long petticoat and would look like a half-dressed Elizabethan but for the dark sunglasses.

CORSET: I am here to tell you something very important. Thank you for coming, I was afraid no one was going to make it on account of all the rain. The message I bring you is not just from myself, it's a gift from the beyond, no, not God, and not aliens either, though I'm sure there's more life out there somewhere, aren't you? I am talking about history -- all of those that have come before, whose flesh begat ours, who've strutted and fretted their lives upon this planet, they're still here, no, not ghosts, though I'm sure ghosts exist also -- but more like cellular memories that inhabit me and you and that chair and that curtain. We are all vessels for that which has been, and today I'm going to speak, because that chair cannot and today you're attending to me, for which, did I mention thanks? So. Anyway. Here I go.

She takes a deep breath.

CORSET: Hold on, I think I have to take this off. Hard to breathe.

With expert hands she unlaces the corset rapidly, creating satisfying whipping noises. She pulls the laces all the way out of the eyelets.

In the moment the corset drops off her body, the woman's image wavers, then, in an instant, dissolves completely, leaving only a few sparking atoms in the air where she once stood.

The curtain falls.

(Written 3/5/11, after Solo Training Session #8)

Tiny Imaginary Play #7

Two genderless beings are having tea. They drink out of delicate porcelain cups with matching saucers.

The teapot, which has a candle under it so it will stay warm all day, is almost out of hot water. Wet chrysanthemums crowd the tea strainer.

HABUS: I've been wanting to talk to you about something delicate...
TABUS: Just spit it out.
HABUS: You smell.
TABUS: Fuck you!
HABUS: Not really you, actually, I think it's your deodorant.
TABUS: Of course my deodorant smells, that's what it's supposed to do, smell to keep me from smelling.
HABUS: But it smells worse than you do.
TABUS: Oh

They sip their tea for a moment in silence.

TABUS: Can you smell it now?
HABUS: Yup, can't you?

TABUS sniffs.

TABUS: Maybe. But I like it. It smells...safe.

The tea-shoppe proprietor, or perhaps her assistant, approaches them.

MARIE: More hot water?
TABUS: Can you smell me?
MARIE: All I can smell is chrysanthemums. Would you like more tea?
HABUS: Excuse me, I think you have something on your shirt.

Habus reaches out for what ze thinks is a small caterpillar that has attached itself to Marie's shirt, right below her sternum, but as ze pulls it, ze finds that it is attached, through a small aperture, to the inside of her body. Ze keeps pulling and the caterpillar unfurls itself out of Marie's chest until the table between them is covered in meters and meters of yellow and black caterpillar fur.

Finally, with a strange rush of wind, the far end emerges.

Marie's eyes roll around in her head and for a moment it looks like she is about to faint. Habus and Tabus stand up, preparing to help her. But then her vision clears and she picks up the teapot decisively.

MARIE: I'll go get you some more hot water. Sit down! Be comfortable! Oh, and just brush that off onto the floor okay? I'll come sweep it up later.

She exits. Habus and Tabus look down at the table with suspicion, then sit awkwardly down again. What will happen to the strange mass between them?

(Written after Solo Training Session #7, 2/25/11)

Tiny Imaginary Play #6

A crowd of people stand at the top of a hill on a sunny windy day.

Half have their hands jammed into their pockets to fend off the cold.

The other half have their arms stretched out into the air like they could take off at any moment.

The wind sounds like a symphony and the birds seem to cry welcome.

BIRD #1: Craven crawlers, crispy palms
BIRD #2: Sun snuggle noonday down the hard therefoot.
BIRD #1: Ceasing up? Down a long dawn side.
BIRD #2: Richer then fullsong louden alltune time
BIRD #1: Now ringthen?
BIRD #2: Ring to then.

One person with his hands in his pockets pulls out a harmonica and starts to play.

Barely audible over the whistling air, the tinny chords sound strangely noble.

Two of the ones with arms outstretched move closer and reach down to hold hands, their rigid limbs softening as they meet each other. Together, they run down the hill towards where they can hear each other more clearly.

Lover #1: It's warm if you lie right there, on the dark rocks where the sun bakes.
Lover #2: You first.

Lover #1 lies down in the dark rocks. Lover #2 lies down next to her. If they strain, they can still hear the harmonica.


(Written after viewing the video documentation of Solo Training Session #6, 2/23/11)

Tiny Imaginary Play #5

A pock-marked man in uniform looks out over the grey sea.

He can feel the salty wind on his face, its noise almost drowning out the clanging sound of some piece of equipment bouncing against the ship’s hull.

A second man approaches, also in uniform. He’s wearing sunglasses.

SHADES: Don’t do it.
POCKS: Hrm?
SHADES: Don’t look out over the grey sea and ponder the uselessness of it all.
POCKS: M’not.
SHADES: Can see it in your eyes.
POCKS: Just looking.
SHADES: You should look when no-one else is looking. At you looking.
POCKS: Shouldn’t you be somewhere?
SHADES: Got tired of playing World of Warcraft with teenagers in Tennessee.
POCKS: Tired of getting your ass kicked you mean.
SHADES: I don’t play because I’m good, I play because it’s fun.

They look out at the grey sea and ponder the uselessness of it all.

POCKS: I love her I miss her I don’t know if I love her or if I’m just lonely I don’t know how to talk to her I don’t know how to touch her she’s a foreign country without a consulate and I don’t know the local customs and I can’t stomach the food and I know she knows me but she also doesn’t know me and I can’t tell if the me she knows is me or not and if it isn’t do I want to become that me or is it a trap she’s luring me towards so that all the other me’s that may or may not be realer than her version end up vanishing into the ether and what happens to this me the one without limits the quiet one I feel moving in the nighttime and speeding with the sky the one that loves the rush of acceleration and the absent breathing stillness of no one watching I’m afraid that this one will die I’m afraid to lose the most abstract corners of myself I don’t want to map their contours I don’t want to plumb their depths and I’m afraid she won’t let me leave anything vague and sometimes I want more than anything to be left in peace in vagueness.

SHADES takes off his sunglasses and looks at POCKS for a moment.

SHADES: Wanna go play Crysis?
POCKS: Sure.

They exit.


(Written 2/16/11 after Solo Training Session #5)

Tiny Imaginary Play #4

Two people sit in a large bathtub, heads on opposite sides.

They are sorta blissed out, each in their own way.

PERSON #1: Can you turn on the jets?
PERSON #2: Shhhhhhhhhhhh
PERSON #1: What?
PERSON #2: I'm thinking
PERSON #1: Can't you think with the jets on?

Person #2 shakes head.

Time passes.

The ceiling dissolves and above the bathtub swirl constellations and meteors and new galaxies only recently discovered and captured by Hubble photographers. The moon rises through the astral dust til it's perching above them where it begins
to pulse and hum.

Person #1 turns on the jets.

The ceiling quickly returns.

PERSON #2: Goddamn it!
PERSON #1: Can you pass the loofa?

Person #1 throws the loofa at Person #2.

PERSON #2: You always gotta do that kinda shit.
PERSON #1 (loofa-ing): Can you run the hot? Water's getting cold.



(Written 2/3/11, after Solo Training Session #4)

Tiny Imaginary Play #3

Two women sit in an urban park throwing bread crumbs to pigeons.

One has hair so long it twirls around her body to the ground, where it blends in with the autumn leaves.

The second has fingernails so long that their curlicues dance with every gesture. She is visibly pregnant.

They look at the birds.

ONE WITH THE HAIR: The first time you really think you're going to die. Each contraction feels that much closer, and you keep thinking of all the women throughout history who've died in childbirth, and all the animals that die immediately after giving birth --

The woman with the fingernails gives her a look.

HAIR: Sorry.

They go back to feeding the birds.

HAIR: When my second was born, though, it felt like an orgasm.

FINGERNAILS: They say death feels like that too.

HAIR: Men get erections, right?

FINGERNAILS: I think that's just in Beckett

HAIR: No, really, I think it's rigor mortis or something.

FINGERNAILS: I mean better, like the release.

HAIR: Who says?

FINGERNAILS: I guess it's a hypothesis.

Suddenly a pigeon falls out of the sky with a splat, landing in front of them. It stands up, tries to take a few steps, and then falls over dead.

The women look at each other.

FINGERNAILS: I wish I could just skip to the second time.

(Written 02/02/11, after Solo Training Session #3)

Tiny Imaginary Play #2

A bright world full of light and sand.
A young woman in white, veiled, spins slowly.
She looks like an angel or a prophet or a nun or the virgin Mary or the sacred whore Magdalene or a particularly poised belly-dancer or the Western fantasy of a mystic Hindu saint.

She starts to sing, at first so quietly you can barely hear her. No words, just wails and warbles.

Her song grows louder, filling with strange resonances and dissonant overtones. Soon you realize that it isn't her singing after all. It's a recording, you can feel the amplified reverberations in your bones.

She stops abruptly. Suddenly the world is dark and silent and the woman is on her knees. Her muscles clench, her body heaves, and from her throat, past her lips, into her hand emerges a crystal-clear jewel, dazzlingly brilliant.

She heaves again and, like a cosmic hairball, coughs up another jewel.

Holding one in each hand, she rises quickly, as though she's heard something coming. (Do you hear something?) She turns around in the space, listening intently.

The music begins again and the woman begins a slow-motion battle with an invisible enemy. She wields the jewels like weapons and they seem to glow in her palms.

Shadowboxing.
Sciomachia.

She fights for so long that the audience eventually gets up and wanders off.

She keeps fighting. It's beautiful and sad. And boring.

(Written 1/21/11, after Solo Training Session #2)

Tiny Imaginary Play #1

Empty stage.
Upstage right, a drumset.

A drummer enters, sits down, starts fooling around on the drums, amusing himself.

Three women enter, wearing black coats of various styles (leather, overcoat, ski jacket, etc) over dance-training apparel. They are barefoot and look vulnerable, protected only by their bulky jackets.

They dance. It involves lots of elbows and angles. Their coats simultaneously inhibit their movements and make their dance more interesting.

The drummer continues playing. He's not accompanying the dancers. Rather they seem to accompany him.

A large, beautiful woman in a red sequined dress enters downstage left. She and the drummer greet each other. She gets into his groove, she begins to sing

WOMAN:
What do ya say to the hole?
What do ya say to the hole?
What do ya say, tell me what do ya say
to the hole in the bottom of the well?

We start to hear the dancers as they move. Not words just sounds, animalian and breathing.

They begin to remove their coats, each in her own way. It's a struggle.

Playful struggle?
Frustrating struggle?
Hopeless struggle?

As each coat is removed, something is revealed on each woman's body. A hidden prop, a jagged scar, a bleeding wound, a fresh tattoo?

They look at the audience for a long beat, then exit. The woman in red sings the final verse of the song, and lights dim.

WOMAN:
What do ya see in the hole?
What do ya see in the hole?
What do ya see, tell me what do ya see
in the hole in the middle of the sky?

(Written 1/14/11, after Solo Training Session #1)

Embodied Practice as Research

Current theatre scholarship, especially in this country, is beginning to adjust to the notion of embodied practice as a form of legitimate research into questions of performance, philosophy, psychology, subjectivity, relationality and community.

The academic study of theatre and performance has historically relied on observation and analysis as primary knowledge-generating processes. Practice as research confounds this process because observer and observed are collapsed into one. How can I write objectively about my own experiences? How can I remain distanced enough to reflect upon performance and training when the heightened states they evoke seem to eliminate the very distance between the self-that-acts and the self-that-watches?

Of course, in a post-structuralist paradigm, the authority of the outside observer's objectivity is already in question. What do we lose in privileging this perspective over the inside, internal, intimate, view?

I've begun a solo training practice that I am using as part of my research into performance and philosophy. My goal is to court the void and my own fears, and to bring the questions I wrestle with in my mind into the medium of my moving body.

Writing about this kind of research is difficult. How does one transfer the information garnered from subjective experiences (many of which are non-discursive, technical, or just boring) to a larger audience? And to what end?

My current solution to this problem is twofold. I've created a separate blog which you can find here that will serve as a journal-style record of my studio experiences.

Secondly, after each session I am going to write a short text for performance (aka a "Tiny Imaginary Play") which I will share on this blog. In the spirit of Suzan-Lori Parks' 365 Days/365 Plays, I'll write these brief pieces immediately after my training practice. I find transforming experiences from one form to another quite generative. Translating the non-verbal, non-linear "text" of my improvised training practice into the highly structured medium of the performance text is a form of auto-remix that I hope will bring out aspects of the research that might not be captured by video or journal-style writing.