Milo's Notes from First Rehearsal

From Milo:

Mother Courage Music and Sound Goals:

 - In rehearsal, to create/cultivate a setting of sound-in-time based receptivity and response rooted in mutual experience and understanding, and eventually to transfer/bridge this means of collaboration into space. 

- To generate and increase “co-incidence”, first by isolating the threads of focus by which we exchange our impulses in order to experience and become accustomed to this manner of action as an ensemble, then layering/putting together the components as our awareness and concentration allows. 

 - Introduce systems/forms that will help the ensemble to function in communicative exchange with increasing sensitivity and spontaneity.

 - Either place forms within the framework of the music and scenes so to guide and shape ensemble action, or become fluid and facile enough in this interplay that the systems themselves are no longer needed. 

 

Components:

1.  Facility of the songs written thus far.  Lyrics, melodies, harmonies, song forms, counts, etc., in order to build on, branch off of, alter, improvise within in and change in process.  Assertive learning.

2.  Devised, experimental structures for improvisation set into action with the intent of mining one or more of the following:  

- compelling/interesting material for further exploration within the production.

- Refinement in ensemble performance communication.  Articulate, dynamic, precise.

-  refinement in the improvisory structures themselves , either more specific or better suited for the ideas, images and themes of the production.

3.  Open, neutral, exploratory approach, willingness to risk failure and to act and assume responsibilities of musicians regardless of musical background.   

Rehearsal structure:   

1.     Warming up and part learning. 

2.     Exploration of the above mentioned ensemble communication. 

3.     Generating possible material.

 4/1, 14 – heavy work toward 1 and 2.  Less 3 

4/19, 21 – less 1, heavy 2, moderate 3. 

4/25, 28 – very little 1, less 2, heavy 3.

Rachel's Notes From First Rehearsal

From Rachel:

The Play & Production

The play follows the journey of a shrewd businesswoman and mother of three over the course of her war profiteering career.

It is written in classic Brechtian style—an epic story told through a sequence of scenes and songs depicting events from Courage’s life. Brecht rejected the traditional narrative structure of plays; he believed theatre should present ideas to the audience with the goal of inciting action.

Guiding principal of epic theatre is “one thing after another”  - not focusing on the building, inevitable causality of events to a fated end, but that events happen one after another and there exists the possibility of another action, one that can be taken but is not.

A quote from Brecht on Theatre (p 71): 

“The dramatic theatre’s spectator says: “yes, I have felt like that too—Just like me—it’s only natural—it’ll never change—the sufferings of this man appall me, because they are inescapable—that’s great art; it all seems the most obvious thing in the world—I weep when they weep, I laugh when they laugh.

The epic theatre’s spectator says: ‘I’d never have thought it –That’s not the way—that’s extraordinary, hardly believable—It’s got to stop—the sufferings of this man appall me, because they are unnecessary—that’s great art: nothing obvious in it—I laugh when they weep, I weep when they laugh.” 

Mother Courage is one of his most notorious subversive calls for social revolution. The play has the feel very easily of an epic (ie grand) narrative tracking Courage’s struggle, demise, or perseverance.  But this was not Brecht’s intention.

dog & pony dc’s Courage is “an political theatre revival”—a melding of Brecht’s production aesthetic with the structural elements of old-time revivals.

• Revivals were designed to awaken and renew the faith of believers as well as gain new members, the “converts.”
• A revival’s overall presentational structure was designed to evoke a strong audience response throughout the event and the centerpiece was always the sharing of ideology and doctrine through a sermon.
• While traditional religious revivals were several consecutive meetings occurring over multiple days, Courage condenses the structure into several consecutive events occurring in one night.
• Courage is an interactive, episodic theatrical event intended to “convert” the audience to an artistic and political message: be an active participant in your life and world—take action.
• “Art is not a mirror held up to society but a hammer with which to shape it.”

dog & pony dc’s Courage focuses heavily on engaging the audience as an integral part of the execution of the production. Even the actors’ objectives in performance are articulated in terms of persuading and winning over the audience.

Music

Milo composed eight original songs, drawing from Brecht’s lyrics as translated by David Hare from his Mother Courage.  Kurt Weil, Tom Waits, and Gogol Bordello as well as Shape Note and hymnals inspired the orchestrations. The commonality between them is the sound of “everyday people singing.”

Performers draw found objects from Courage’s wares to use in larger musical numbers; audiences can pull from this “instrument stock” to play along as well.

Audience will be incited to rise, dance, sing along; lyrics will be distributed for audience, and the chorus of one song will be wildly repeated to draw audience into the act of singing. 

Thoughts on this process so far

From Milo:

1. Be ready for blessings in disguise. This affirmation keeps arriving. Its message: “Remain open to the shape of your work evolving throughout your process.” It reminds me of an idea I was introduced to while I was struggling to direct this large, unwieldy, community production while in school. “Human beings are the bridge between heaven and earth,” my teacher told me. She went on to explain that our ideas exist, our visions and our intent, our thoughts, inspirations and dreams, they exist already, outside and above our selves in the “heavenly” realm. The earth is the reality we encounter every day. The ground we walk on, the food we eat, the rooms we stand in, the light of the daytime and the sound of the fan in the studio where I type. Humans are the intersection between these two dimensions. We bring about the physical form of our ideas and visions, our heaven, in the time and space we occupy. Their realities however, are never born just the way we see. They compromise with space and time, with breath and flesh and bone. Our visions must stand and face reality, whatever that may mean from one moment to the next, from one day or month to the next. And we can be sure that it will mean something different each month, each day and each moment. We always have a vision for how something will take place but which is more challenging, to make something exactly like we see it, or to yield and remain open to the natural occurrences that shape art (and life), within specific moments in the studio, and over the course of time? I’m not sure of the answer really, but I suspect that the only sane option is the second. And it lands in our laps. My hope is to struggle less and allow more. To watch and witness how many once conflicts are redeemed over time to each eventually be called blessings. Can I put my money where my mouth is? It’s not an easy order in my belly, for certain.

How does this apply to Brechtian Brechtisism? Anyone? Anyone?

2. I confess. To this day I don’t know why I was asked to write music for this piece. I didn’t know anyone from dog and pony dc to have ever heard any of my work. In addition, when I agreed to join forces, I no idea how far my own style of songwriting was from what I would be putting together. And that means they certainly couldn’t have known, either! I can write a basic song in basic song form. Verse, chorus, verse, verse, chorus, maybe a bridge, maybe not. Perhaps that is why I am here. The best part about it however, has been what I have learned from taking on work that has asked me to part with my own aesthetic. I have never written music like this before, and now these songs are me, too. So finding ways (and reasons) to step outside what you create normally, I recommend it. The solitude (and doubt) that accompanies such an endeavor, although engaging, has not been so romantic. There were these long periods of solitude in between one and the next conceptual meeting where our ideas about the production and the music were exchanged. I would come up with song fragments, and send recordings away to dpdc for review. And then there was solitude. It must be said now that solitude does not equate with silence. My mind was not at all silent. The time challenged me to face how fragile and needy my ego is. To need approval for your work and encounter solitude… is awakening. I sat, with my thoughts racing. It’s like going over to Granville Moore’s, hungry, to find a two and a half hour wait. You go and have a seat at the bar, watch everyone eat mussels and blue cheese burgers while you sip on a beer. For two and a half hours!! What is it to create something, then to sit with your thoughts, to watch and see them for long enough that they become naked, and exposed for what they are – your own desire to have groupies. Or, more accurately, to feel like others approve of your work. I thought I was past that, at least in part. Well, hopefully after the solitude, some of the extra is burning off to help in the reach to a deeper level…

3. Last thing for here and now is to address this faint, yet nagging call to try something I’ve never tried before as a musician, as a leader of musicians. The opportunity is here. To try something new within the rehearsal process is, I remind myself, the intent of the workshop production to begin with. “To find our pathway” so to speak. Though these songs are written, I think there remains room to find more music together, more sound to explore while together. My hope then is to find time when we can become musical and artistic geniuses together. My responsibility toward that end I believe is to temper that powerful desire to have our act polished and presentable, which so often leads us into tightly held, outcome driven rehearsals, with space for what I forget often in production – play. Actual, genuine play. Not He-Man, Transformers or G.I. Joe, but grown-up play. An intense, playful interest in group sound making is the wish of the day. I think it will require us to work efficiently through the song learning, but for me to be able to sit with my thoughts while it isn’t polished and create space for some carefully planned improvisation.

Inspiration from another medium

From Rachel:

At Lorraine's suggestion (via a class at VCU she observed) I rented Dogville, a film by Lars von Trier staring Nicole Kidman, Paul Bettany, and an amazing supporting cast (Chloe Sevigny, Stellan Skarsgard, Lauren Bacal, among others).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogville

http://www.iconmovies.co.uk/dogville/

Hard to describe its aesthetic but looks like a starkly produced play on a giant black box stage... and I do mean stage and not theatre. There was no perception of being in a structure. In fact, there were no structures at all. The perimeters of the buildings were line-drawn in white on the floor and in the middle of the "rooms" were written "Edison House" or somesuch definer. There was a small collection of furniture pieces as well (i.e. a desk covered with notes and books with a chair, a rocking chair, and a cabinet with medicines was all that was in one home).

It all suggested and represented a small town without showing outright an imagined/conjured small town.

The "production design" combined with titles preceding the nine different scenes and the almost constant narration of the action and the inner lives of characters heightened that the film was a fabrication, devised to be watched for some purpose. Ultimately that purpose was, I believe, to serve as an illustration of a moral lesson about charity, tolerance, and understanding -- which also happens to be the same thing one of the townspeople is doing when he invites Nicole Kidman's character into the town.

VERY BRECHTIAN! VERY A-effect (alientation-effect)!

And very inspirational as I near the finishing line of preparation for this workshop.

A quote from Brecht on Theatre I just read which relates:

"The object of of the A-effect is to alienate the social gest underlying every incident. By social gest is meant the mimetic and gestural expression of the social relationships prevailing between people of a given period.

It helps to formulate the incident for society, and to put it across in such a way that society is given the key, if titles are thought up for the scenes. These tiles must have a historical quality.

This brings us to a crucial technical device: historicalization.

The actor must play the incidents as historical ones. Historical incidents are unique, transitory incidents associated the particular periods. The conduct of the persons involve in them is not fixed and 'universally human'; ... [it] is subject to criticism from the immediately following period's point of view."

First Music Rehearsal

From: Lorraine

Last night we had our first music rehearsal. It was small - a couple of guitars, a bass, and a mandolin. Our percussionist and violinist will be joining us within a few weeks.

I was sitting along the wall listening in, trying to get some dog & pony work done, and wishing desperately to be playing along with them. It reminded me of when I was a little girl and would go with my dad to his jam sessions in the mountains. There was a lot of stop and go, exploration of chords, finding the rhythm of a piece. It was fun to listen to and every once in a while I would get goose bumps. Milo's music is amazing. I've been listening to the files he sent on my computer, pieces he's put together strumming the guitar and singing along and I've really fallen in love with the music - but it is no match for hearing the pieces live and fleshed out.

So far my favorite songs are Rabble and Home. Home tugged at my heart a little, especially hearing Jen Kaleba sing it. Below are the lyrics:

You plant a rose in March
You see it grow
A garden blooms
It's what a home is for
The seed becomes the bud
Becomes the flower
The blossom fades
In time you plant some more


The seasons change
The roof you made in June
Come November
Protects you from the snows
You're safe
You watch the blizzards
Through the winter

Home is where the heart is
Home is where the heart is
Goodness knows.

The Workshop Goals

From Rachel:
The concept of a "developmental workshop" is somewhat antithetical to a girl like me. While I embrace considerable change and re-imagining in rehearsals, I want to start my journey with my collaborators (actors, musicians, etc) holding a clear vision of the final product in my head. But that's not the way we are or should begin this process.

We are using this time to forge the path that will lead us to the starting place of the journey to the final, fully-produced play.

Did you follow that metaphor-chain? It must be worth repeating...

The purpose of the workshop--rehearsals and performances combined--is to explore how to make the paths, make a few, see where they take us, and determine in the end which one connects to (or comes the closest to connecting to) where we should begin envisioning the full production. So I am trying to fight the urge to imagine the final product in my head beyond a few key points:

1. It has original music.

2. It is following the spirit of Brecht's methodology and aesthetic.

3. It is engaging the audience in the creation of the production.

4. There is a big-ass wagon on stage which has things that light-up and move.

I would be lying if I said I had no other images, partial or polished, floating around because let's face it--of course I do! However, I want to embrace the workshop process and use it for all its worth. I don't want to know what it is going to be and make it; I want to play out the possibilities.

......

Related to the title of the post.... here's an official message about the workshop's goals as they stand now:

Courage is an American Political Theatre Revival, shaking up the concept of theatre, igniting political thought, and inciting action (in the production and the world). It's targeting active members of the artistic/theatrical and politically aware/active communities, and working to gain new members, "converts." What's the message? Be an active participant in your life and your world—take action.

When mounted in full, Courage is like to be dog & pony dc's most complex production to date. So the workshop is designed to address these areas and subsequent:

Points of Focus for Workshop

1. Approach to the script (creating a shared vocabulary and practice)

2. Creation and Incorporation of Music

3. Interaction with the Audience

4. Effect of Location on Production

Questions

1. How do we approach performing Bretch’s work in the spirit in which he intended?

2. What role does music/song play?

3. How do we interact with and include the audience? (How does the audience become integral to the creation of the production?)

4. How does the location effect the production for performers and audience?

....

(And for all those counting: this is my first blog posting ever, all by myself. Forgive or praise away.)

Pilgrim

From Wyckham:
Rachel and Milo are talking about using one of my all-time favorite oldy-timey songs in the show. Pilgrim. Here are some thoughts from the liner notes of Spine, by Cordelia's Dad. Written by Tim Eriksen, the guy you hear singing. "I don't know a better depiction of the soul homesick for heaven than this one by Samuel Stennett, an English Baptist. The hymn was extremely popular in the late 18th century US, and I bet we know a dozen tunes for it that are still in use."

I had sort of heard it when I was young I guess, because when I first heard this version of it, the melody came back to me instantly. I think the first 20-30 times I listened to this CD, I didn't even hear the words just the haunting sound of their voices, but then the story started to creep out of it and in to my ears and I was dumbstruck. I am not a terribly religious person, mostly because I don't like to name things i.e. heaven, God, etc. Naming something takes the power and mystery away and makes it pedestrian for me. However, music creates a terrific spirituality in me that is overwhelming. When I was back in New Hampshire for a spell, I sang in my church choir every Sunday. It was an incredible meditation for me, but sometimes I would literally burst in to tears while singing. My mouth would be wide open in the middle of a note and I would gasp for air as tears streamed down my face. Luckily, we were in the organ loft behind the congregation so I stayed fairly anonymous in my seeming outbursts.
So, maybe those are my moments with God or whatever you want to call it. If I ever witnessed God, it was surely while watching someone sing--Bobby McFerrin to be exact, yeah that Don't Worry Be Happy guy, trust me, listen to his other stuff, he is blessed by something not of this earth.
Anyway, all of this is to say, I'm terribly worried about singing this song and not being able to finish because I'm a big baby blubbering all over the place. It's a song with some power.

The words...
On Jordan's stormy banks I stand and cast a wishful eye,
to Canaan's fair and happy land where my possessions lie.

Oh, the transporting, rapturous scene that rises to my sight!
Sweet fields arrayed in living green, and rivers of delight.

There generous fruits, that never fail, on trees immortal, grow.
There rocks and hills and brooks and vales with milk and honey flow.

O'er all those wide extended plains shines one eternal day.
There God, the sun, forever reigns, and scatters night away.

No chilling winds, nor poisonous breath, can reach that healthful shore.
Sickness and sorrow, pain and death, are felt and feared no more.

When shall I reach that happy place, and be forever blessed?
When shall I see my Father's face, and in his bosom rest?

Filled with delight, my raptured soul can here no longer stay.
Though Jordan's waves around me roll, fearless, I launch away.

Wyckham wonders

Rehearsals begin in exactly three weeks...
The cast is nearly assembled, Milo continues to write amazing music and emails the clips (each time making me wonder more and more if I can really sing this stuff), instruments procured, and the band starts jamming on Tuesday! There is nothing like the excitement of throwing a bunch of artists in a room, unleashing a beast of play and seeing what happens. Here we will try to record as best we can some of what happens in said room.
Stay tuned...