theatre gnosis

A people and B people

2012-01-18T21:57:00.000-08:00

As far as I can tell, they only let 6 of us in to the Chicago City Council chambers. By us I mean the uninvited, non-mainstream press and non-relatives-or-personal-friends of Maggie Daley. The non-aldermen, non-lobbyists and the non-mayors. In other words I mean the public.

I put on my best Mitt Romney costume and set off against the 6˚ windchill. Leaving Humboldt Park at six forty-five I arrived to City Hall at 7:30 in the morning. Rahm Emanuel's proposed ordinances concerning appropriations and preparations for the May G8 summit were scheduled to be read into the record at 9 A.M. I had planned my first day off in three weeks, expecting the proceedings to run long into the afternoon.

The group was small when I arrived, but they were very lively and awake. Most of them were clearly demonstrators. They passed around buttons and friendly propaganda. For every person under thirty there were two over forty. As the crowd grew, it became more and more diverse. Eventually the lobby to the City Council Chambers became packed with people from all walks of life.

I waited by an old metal detector at the front of a line being guarded by several police officers. News cameras were mounted in front of the mural in the back of the lobby. The wait became a chance for people to share more literature and political flair. Someone running for congress handed out homemade quarter-sheet fliers cut out of printer paper. A cherubic little man kept trying to spark a chant or a cheer, but was largely ignored. When the crowd reached it's high water mark, some folks held a press conference.

The city employees peered out meekly from inside the elevators as they made their way to higher floors. Someone from the National Lawyer's Guild told me that the G8 proposal would be pushed into the afternoon. At the last minute the City Council decided to take up resolutions eulogizing Maggie Daley. The chambers were to be closed to the public until the resolutions were finished, though we were invited to watch behind noise-proof security glass on the third floor gallery. Only friends and relatives of the Daley family were to be admitted until the honorary resolutions were passed. Aldermen and their staffers looked stressed, and they didn't waste time walking past the crowd.

People started shouting and chanting. It seemed to some that resolutions were a tactic to bring down the number of protesters present inside the council chambers for the G8 measures. Some union officials wondered allowed if the City Council was trying to pack the chambers with the Mayor's cheerleaders. They admitted well-rested socialites and frenetic city workers with badges. A pair of older women in matching black mink coats were admitted while the mob looked on in disbelief. The demonstrators were crestfallen when they realized they weren't getting in. It was as if their flight was cancelled while they were in line at the DMV. No one really knew where to put their frustration. Some spewed vulgarities aimed at Maggie Daley. Others dozed off on the lobby floor.

I was standing next to a young lobbyist during the speeches. We talked a little about her routine, how she has a seat inside the chambers that she always goes to and how she was certain she would eventually be let in. She said that it was common for the City Council to take up resolutions at the last minute, but that the resolution portion of the legislative assemblies were rarely if ever closed to the public.

Guerrilla theatre broke out in the middle of the crowd. A woman in a grey pantsuit with a Rahm Emanuel mask directed a "police officer" to arrest and handcuff the demonstrators in the lobby. The "officer" beat people with a foam sword for getting too close to the mayor. Then he "handcuffed" and "gagged" the demonstrators with masking tape. Before long, a third of the remaining crowd was sitting in, sending text messages with their hands taped behind their backs.

The real police came in all shapes and sizes. Some of them were obviously veteran City Council guards. Younger female officers seemed like backup - they were dressed in uniforms less formal than militaristic. They formed two entries, one for the public and one for the people who would actually be allowed inside. Occasionally they would let a demonstrator cross the entry to use the bathroom under guard. The young lobbyist was allowed in when an alderman spotted her in the crowd. A young journalist had his press pass scrutinized, then was instructed to watch from behind the glass in the third floor gallery.

An officer winked at me when the demonstrators voiced their indignation. I got the winking officer to talk to me when I rolled my eyes at the whining tide. He complained that since he never went to college he never got to call the shots. He said if it were up to him he'd let all of us in, and then he told me about how three of his kids were in college and one was a sophomore at DeLasalle. I told him I went to Saint Ignatius and we talked about Jesuit education. We stopped short of comparing moustaches, though I entertained the idea at one point.

People started filtering out of the chambers, and it became clear that the resolutions were winding down. As more and more people left the closed-door session, the two dozen or so demonstrators left in the lobby reached the height of their frustration. Some of them gave up hope that they would be allowed in at all. They also lacked cogent plan for what they would do if they got inside. The original plan was to mass arrest themselves in front of the city council, but they used up all their zip ties in the guerrilla theatre piece before.

A young woman emerged from the chambers. She was smartly dressed, but I couldn't discern her function in the City Council chambers from her appearance. She looked at us sadly on her way to the elevators, stopped, and doubled back to give us the news. "They've already started without you. They're reading the mayor's G8 proposal into the record right now."

The indignation turned into electricity. The crowd started chanting "LET US IN NOW!" and "WE VOTE NO!" A large man with curly black hair addressed the front line of the demonstrators. He said the chambers were full, that there was nothing he could do, and that he'd let us in as soon as more people left. While he said this, a dozen or so staffers and friends-of-Maggie-Daley walked behind him on their way out the chambers. A skinny, middle aged man kicked the metal detector from behind me. I looked sympathetically at my mustachoed police officer friend, then I turned around and told the skinny demonstrator to cool it.

The representative from the National Lawyer's Guild mic-checked the crowd. He told us that it wasn't the police's fault that we weren't being allowed in the chambers. The City Council had decided that we shouldn't be admitted. This boiled the protesters. There was a moment of hot chaos. The lawyer couldn't finish his mic-check, the crowd was so angry. I was angry too. I was swept up by the energy of the room. For a moment, a loud nothing was happening. All of the angst in the room suddenly became personal. I felt like I had to do something. Then I shouted louder than everyone else.

"Mic check!"

"Mic check!"

"The Chicago City council is cutting you out of the democratic process!"

"The Chicago City council is cutting you out of the democratic process!"

"Remember this when your alderman asks you for re-election!"

"Remember this when your alderman asks you for re-election!"

As soon as the crowd said "alderman" my mustacheoed officer and his partner removed the barricade and hurried me through the metal detector. I was the first person they had admitted into the chambers. An officer rifled through my papers, inspecting bits of scores, receipts and my copy of Legend. A reporter with a microphone muttered at me. "What was that?" I asked.

"I said nice work."

ALL OF THIS HAPPENED EXACTLY AS I JUST DESCRIBED IT.

As I approached a dais guarded by a police officer in traditional blues, I appeared alone for the first time that morning. The officer, also mustacheoed with balding salt-and-pepper hair, looked puzzled as I approached. I asked him for directions to the city council chambers, but he stuttered as he processed my question. Who is this peckerwood? I imagined him thinking. What does he think he's doing? I asked him again for directions. "Who are you with?"

"I'm with no one, I'm myself, I'm alone."

"Who said you could come in? Who are you with?"

"I'm independent."

Three more demonstrators came in behind me. The officer gave up and pointed to the entry. "Use the ramp!" he said. "Don't use the stairs! They don't go anywhere." Past a suit and up the ramp and I was in.

I was alone again. The chambers are quieter than I expected. There's no marble echo, just dead carpet, and the only audible voices come from a highly compressed sound system. Some people looked at me. I slipped a polite smile and looked for a seat. There were seats everywhere. I saw a bank of six and headed straight for it. I was unaware of any impression I was making on anyone. I couldn't tell if they knew that the dike had spilled over.

As soon as I sat down I buried my head in my smartphone. I had been narrating the experience on twitter the whole morning. I had to tell my smartphone that I was inside! My smartphone simply could not wait! I barely noticed that the 4 other demonstrators that made it into the chambers filed in next to me in the bank of empty seats. I moved over to fit them all in, sitting next to an older gentleman who nudged nervously away from me in his chair.

That's when I looked up and saw him.

Rahm Emanuel is a short man, slight and oddly tanned. He earned his impeccable suit, which he showed off by constantly fidgeting with its buttons. He stood beside his high chair, spinning it like a bored teenager. Some middle-aged white male alderman was praising him while he looked on with a cool indifference. Everyone could hear the chanting. It was intelligible from behind the third floor gallery glass and the doors leading out to the lobby. Mayor Emanuel slipped his wedding ring from finger to finger as the scene played out.

I found myself unable to imagine what he could possibly be thinking in that moment. Only a year ago he took office, and now this. I tried to observe dispassionately, but I couldn't help but feel some empathy for the man. How quickly his vague popularity had soured into melodrama. Beneath him Walter Burnett praised him from backing down on a few well-publicized issues. Rey Colon and Ed Burke made specious comparisons between the May G8 protesters and the 2011 rioters in London. Everyone equated demonstrators with rioters. Burke called them terrorists. Then he wistfully hearkened back to his own days as a police officer in 1967 and 68. Mayor Emanuel swaggered a little in his droll replies to their praise. He was surrounded by a congress of congratulators. They voted. Only four Nays. The Mayor spun the gavel in his right hand. The demonstrators behind the gallery glass grew even louder. The City Clerk read the roll call and one of the occupiers next to me stood up. His mic check died in the carpet. The other occupiers meekly repeated him. Only 6 of us made it inside, not enough to make an impression. Two police officers pulled the mic checker off the floor and escorted him out of the room. Another officer told the other demonstrators to stand up. I kept my mouth shut, I hadn't said a word yet. One of the nurses stood up, and all the demonstrators were escorted out. I was alone again. The voices from behind the gallery glass suddenly got quieter above us, and the Clerk completed the role call. One of the aldermen objected. Mayor Emanuel spun to his left, facing the news cameras, toward the voice of the dissent from below and said something like: "In the spirit of democracy I adjourned the motion." I was too awestruck to remember what he said exactly. The moment was too large, I was too small to make sense out of any of it.

I blinked down toward my smartphone and when I looked up he was gone.

As soon as Rahm Emanuel left the chambers, the news cameras began tearing down. I tried to think of something witty to shout, but nothing seemed clever or meaningful enough. The council lost all potency the moment the Mayor was gone.

The aldermen moved on with their agenda. Some people noticed me as my leg bobbed nervously. People started to leave the chambers like Sox fans leaving the nosebleed seats at the top of the seventh inning. The aldermen passed an empty-yet-politically-charged resolution declaring Chicago a "Torture Free" zone. They repudiated the entire human world history of torture, obliquely referencing Chicago's own recent newsworthy revelations towards the end. Some members of the City Council left their seats and milled about the room.

One alderman introduced a last minute resolution of recognition. He wanted to pat one of his interns on the back, on the record, while the kid stood up before the chambers. The alderman rattled on about how the intern recently turned 21, how he was a great kid, how he was a noteworthy intern, how he had so bravely come out of the closet, how much he had achieved. He talked about fear and how it kept people from speaking out and being honest. He praised his intern for taking a stand. The aldermen spoke of how the intern had done so much in spite of the fact that he was gay, how he had recorded a youtube video for the it gets better campaign, and how praiseworthy he was for these things and more.

The twenty one year old intern, his generation locked out of the room, nervously occupied his suit. The aldermen applauded him from their swivel chairs, the audience sitting and watching in bored silence. I felt I could say nothing of consequence anymore. I wanted to shout nonsense. The word, "NONSENSE!" I missed my chance. The meeting was over.

On my way out, the balding officer with the salt and pepper mustache told everyone to use the stairs instead of the elevators. David [Daniel?] Orlikoff was being arrested in the Lobby, and they didn't want us to see that as we exited the chambers. On my way to the stairs, I heard the officer say "I'm impressed, you didn't get ejected. You said you were independent and you were true to your word." I told that although I'm independent, my sympathies were with those who had been tossed out of the chambers. I only missed my chance to speak up.

He shrugged a little. "Maybe next time."

tl;dr The only real purpose of today's Chicago City Council is to read political advertisements into the public record.

The title of this blog is really arrogant, isn't it?

2012-01-17T13:27:00.000-08:00

That's what I get for starting a blog in my early twenties.

I could just start a new blog with a new title, but that strikes me as even more vain.

Like all other mistakes I've made in my life, I'm going to have to learn to live with this...

WHAT I AM THANKFUL FOR

2011-11-23T13:49:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Easily my favorite holiday. I'm not the biggest fan of tryptophan turkeys, and I don't love it for the leftovers. The gathering of friends and loved ones is great, but that happens a couple times a year.

I love thanksgiving because no matter how shitty I feel, no matter how glorious or disgraceful the year has been, it forces me to remember to be grateful for at least something.

With that in mind, here's my list of things I'm thankful for.

I'm thankful to be on a planet in a solar system in a galaxy hurling through a universe that somehow allows things as delicate as dandelions and human beings to exist, albeit momentarily.

I'm really grateful to live and work around people who are caring and supportive enough to call me out on my bullshit. Even when I know I'm right, it's good to have my best friends and siblings fact check me.

I'm so so so very thankful for Dog & Pony theatre company. If it weren't for that community of artists, I think I would have quit working in theatre long ago, rendering my undergraduate education in English and Theatre arts a fun diversion of my twenties.

I'm thankful for Barack Obama, even if he doesn't seem like the man I voted for in 2008.

I'm thankful for the Art Ensemble of Chicago. I just realized a few weeks ago that they are at the core of my musical upbringing, and the lens through which I look at all other musics.

I'm lucky to be born of two decent and loving parents, who are supportive and wonderful in every way possible. On that note, I'm existentially grateful for all of my ancestors, without whom I would not exist.

I'm thankful for the sprawling web of Pollution, Misery and Corruption that is the City of Chicago. Our smiles are naturally selected to shine in spite of everything the town does to make us frown. Others have intimated the same feeling much more eloquently than I can.

I'm so pleased I got to see one of my best friends marry the love of his life this year.

I'm thankful to you for reading this.

π in the sky

2011-09-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

I've got high hopes lately.

Two really fun projects coming up, far enough away that they can be pulled off right.
It strikes me that the anticipation is my best friend and worst enemy now.

Best friend: All this anticipation is keeping me on track, working hard and regularly. If I want to see results, then I need to put in the effort, right? Especially in storefront. I've never been one to turn my homework in on time, but when it comes to projects as exciting as these...

Worst enemy: What happens when the show closes? Anticipation leads to suffering...

More on them and their process as soon as I'm free to announce.

Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously to be taken seriously at all.

2011-09-06T02:57:00.000-07:00

or at least I do.

It's hard for me to care about my career when there's so much else out there that deserves my care and attention.

2010-06-23T11:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in the midst of great success and amazing artists, an emptiness lingers within me. I question what use my work will be when the show has closed and the audience has moved on to the next spectacle. At my most depressed, I look back at my resume and see a graveyard: great works, passed on, never to live again.

When Peter Brook talks about "Living Theatre" he isn't talking about zombie resurrections of successful shows of yore. Sure, those shows can earn/adapt/grow in their reiteration, but they hardly have a living impact outside of the seeing place. Brook is talking about a company that tries to make waves. The Living Theatre may have been among the weirdest of the weird, but at least they believed in something outside of their medium.

I'm starting to believe that the only way to avoid this emptiness that haunts me even during the most impeccably rendered productions is to guide more of my personal work toward the reality that exists outside the theatre. If I have to start making theatre on my own, then I have to make responsible work. Work that looks out at the world immediately surrounding it. In other words, to capture reality and bring it in to the theatre. I want to start making real theatre.

Theatre that scares the right people.

Theatre that doesn't let the audience escape, because there is no escape.

There must be a way to entertain while retaining our sense of reality.

Remember when it was hip to want a better world?

There's got to be a way to keep it real.

To stop looking past the things that make us feel uneasy.

After all, it's worked in the past.

intelligent (((sound))) design?

2009-04-26T16:39:00.000-07:00

earlier today a fellow sound designer and i were discussing the fact that we have never seen any decent literature dedicated to the aesthetics of sound design for theatre. we both arrived at the conclusion that to actually speak on the subject of what constitutes a good sound design would only really measure our immediate feelings, losing a sense of the bigger picture on the subject.

nevertheless, we both realized that it was incumbent upon us to lend some clarity for those who might searching.

in order to be as productive as possible in this discussion, i will try to keep all of my clauses brief. some of these assertions may open up to further exploration later, but these are basic principles. i invite any and all scrutiny.

here goes nothing

1

the goal of all productions is to be meaningful.

no one rule can describe the creative role sound design has in theatre.
the rules describe themselves from production to production.

a large sound effects library is worth the world.
clear expression of your imagination is worth the universe.

all of the technical know-how and pristine equipment on earth won't give you a good idea.
adaptation and improvisation with crappy equipment can unlock many interesting designs.

speaker placement, levels and equalization are the instrument of your design.
concepts and ideas are the music.

you think by making connections between ideas in your head.
a design is thoughtful when it connects ideas in the play.

some designs require a deep understanding of physics.
some designs require a departure from reality.

sometimes a sound designer is really a space designer.
sometimes a sound design is really a character.

when designing, imagine the production overflowing with sound.
when you are in tech, strip it down to its barest essentials.

when a sound design is too prominent, everyone thinks it is perfect.
when a sound design is correct, everyone thinks the show is perfect.

2

when devising the sound for a show, the primary text is not script: it's the production.
make no absolute decisions until you have seen a run, then consult the script for guidance.

scenic and costume designers always furnish renderings.
sound designers get to make mixtapes.

endeavor always to be respectful to your stage manager and/or board operator.
their work ultimately decides whether or not your design is expressed.

sometimes your director will not know what they are talking about.
this doesn't mean that you can't know what they are talking about.

sometimes your director will like anything you do.
when granted this freedom, be your own fiercest critic.

when a director disagrees with you, don't defend your idea until you know what they are looking for.
you may find that you both share the same idea.

since you are the designer, you can solve any problem in the design.
often this means that you are blind to the design's problems.

making mistakes is not a source of suffering or shame.
fixing mistakes is a source of joy and satisfaction.

there are tricks that sound can perform, and there are ideas that sound can serve.
tricks should only be in service to ideas.

since all design ideas must flow from a central concept, all sounds must belong to a single landscape of ideas.
if there is no central concept, there can be no design.

3

the concept is the birthplace of the sonic landscape.
the landscape is the birthplace of ideas.

meaning is relational.
all meaning comes from the marriage of ideas.

your first idea will always come from your sense of taste.
as such, you should always seek to broaden your horizons.

your sense of taste is meaningless.
the sonic landscape is where meaning lives.

every aspect of every choice you make can be meaningful.
ask yourself if the design is functional.

sometimes the simplest ideas are the most hidden.
sometimes the oldest ideas are the most original.

listen to random, atonal sounds.
all sounds are by nature musical.

some of the finest designs are too subtle to be noticed.

all theatre should be this coordinated

2009-04-18T13:14:00.000-07:00

a work of art which, through one filter, could be seen as the marriage of free will and destiny...

time transfixed

2009-04-15T21:17:00.000-07:00

theatre is a practice taking place in space and time. this is not an abstract notion to be taken lightly. spacetime is a recognizable part of the fabric of our experience. other artists explore the event of our consciousness moving through time in their media as well.

take for example, rene magritte. in his "man with a journal" he compresses our notion of time into a two-dimensional image which can be viewed as a whole in one moment. upon close inspection, we engage with the piece within a span of time (now i look at the man in panel one, now i compare the clouds between panels two and four, etc.). space time is the fundamental object of this piece. the man, transient, is an agent through which spacetime is explored. do we have any idea what the order of these panels are intended to be? my visual training leads me to believe that the upper right hand panel is the earliest point in time, but whose to say, really? first he's there, then he's not. or perhaps he wasn't there until he was there forever. i'm willing to wager that magritte would argue that he is not a man at all, merely an image of a man.

later, magritte takes this one step further with time transfixed. is it absurd to see a train coming through a fireplace? what if the fireplace is there in one moment of time and the train is based in another? when both occupy the same space at disparate times, perhaps this is the image one would encounter? magritte indeed compresses the subjects to give us a greater sense of what his image of is. he includes a clock on the mantle (as well as a candle stick that may or may not be disappearing in time) to point us in the direction of his title.

take a moment to notice time. notice right now.

time gives and takes just as any other part of the universe. often a perceiver of time is led to think of its passing, and thus, their own. thus, many many many creative works of the imagination have been dedicated to pushing forth our understanding of what it means to die when time itself is navigable.

one such compelling work is the subject of the first opera. the story of orpheus and euridice takes us through an explanation of death and time as factors which can be perceived but not manipulated. euridice is nearly returned to life, and orpheus' head sings for all eternity. what is essential to this lasting myth is that it allows the imagination to consider time's very substance by turning it into a narrative. the remove that storytelling places us from temporal experience allows the exploration of time (and thus, mortality) to become a subject in it of itself.

opera is a prime local for such exploration, because the audience partakes in a carefully orchestrated event, which occupies a place in space time. some would ask if each performance isn't a distinct composition in it of itself. your senses are immersed in a place for a duration. your consciousness takes note of the start and the end. from the beginning until the performance's demise you may laugh, cry, sleep, eat, drink. what's more, you share this experience with an enormous gallery of people. sounds like life to me.

theatre is wrapped in narrative these days. "naturalist" works, musicals, most plays manipulate time for the purpose of storytelling. the french renaissance playwrights (and the greeks for that matter) had to adhere to strict compressions of time, fitting their narrative in the span of one day. this was the so-called "unity of time".

here comes the point. it's going to happen right after this sentence.

what if time is the event itself? we keep exploring the experience of love and passion, jealousy and betrayal, the demand for satisfaction and suffering. why is it so simple for us to take for granted the experience of time? the abovementioned experiences, while all very real, warranting of discussion and worth staging in the seeing place, are all human experiences.

if theatre is an investigation of the human condition, should it not explore that which is universal and inherent among all peoples?

my god, if you have their attention in the room for 90+ minutes, why not ask them what the experience of 90+ minutes is?

l'homme au journal

time transfixed

long beach opera's orpheus and euridice

and finally, of course, the wooster group.

wooster on youtube

2009-04-13T00:02:00.000-07:00

this:

reminds one of this:

which calls to mind this:

which is at the core of my argument. we are living in a dream.