Nightfall Ablaze -- Director's Reflections No.1

For the last few days I have been going over the script for my new show Nightfall Ablaze. I really want to get this “right.” That is to say, I want to create a show that everyone will enjoy, I want to be a strong director, and I want the actors working with me to feel a sense of growth from the process, and I want to impress my peers, former classmates, and teachers.

Since writing that first paragraph, I have completed my first blocking rehearsal. It was great. Allow me to explain to you exactly what great means.

I’ve been learning different things, bit by bit. I’ve been trying to keep the tidbits of information I gleaned while speaking with and working with Raymon during E. D. Feehan’s production of Within the Penumbra. He spoke of how objectives were the work of the director, and that through physicalization an actor can find all of the different actions and tactics that I have long found troublesome. I’ve read little pieces about directors and theatre styles, nothing substantial yet. So, while on one hand I wish that I had taken some time to read about, and learn about the vast wealth of knowledge that other directors and actors have learned, but on the other, it makes this project even more exciting. I’m taking the pieces I do know, and trying to find my own way with it. Trying to see what I can learn, before turning to the books. This is just a chance for me to experiment --to play.

I told my actors I have no idea what I’m doing, which may not be the best way to instill confidence in what we’re about to undergo, but I wanted everyone to understand that I want this to be a learning process for everyone. I want to see what we can do if we take these bits and pieces and ideas and theories that we’ve learned, mix them all together, and just try something. We can just go for it, and see what happens.

My first step was for everyone to come up with an objective. Something very basic, at the very root of what the character wanted. Whether grandiose or deeply personal, I wanted it something that could be very tangible and understandable at the root of that character. “I want to take over the world.” “I want redemption.” “I want balance.” “I want my own destiny.” I then asked them to create a gesture to encompass that desire. A full-body gesture that grows and shrinks and fills the room. I was basing this on the work with psychological gesture that we learned. I want to take this further, to make it so that we no longer need to think of an objective for the gesture, but that the gesture is the objective. Through pure physicalization we can see what every character wants and what they need from the other characters. That’s what I’m hoping to create.

Nightfall Ablaze will be performed completely in silhouette and candlelight. The use of gesture and physicalization will be key. I’m excited to see where we can take this and how far we can go. I’m not sure if we can do everything I want in the time given to us, but if we can start to scratch the surface on something interesting and powerful (which I hope this will be), then I think we’d have accomplished what we set out to do.

So yeah, first rehearsal was great. I can’t wait until next week.