Building a play is like building a ship. A ship on the ocean, a ship in the air, a ship surrounded on every side by night. Words for sails, light for wind, wood for the floor becomes the wood of the deck. It shouldn’t float. It shouldn’t fly. Only human will, contained for this purpose, makes it buoyant. A shape. A shape moving across the void.
In a couple of more nights, ANTIGONE opens. I’ve sort of abandoned this whole ‘diary’ project, only so much energy to go around – once we started rehearsing and building and growing, ruminating upon it wasn’t part of the budget. But last night, watching the show, it struck me – maybe I should try to say some of these things. It’s the height of the eclipse – my time with the show is ending as the performances begin. The best directors render themselves extraneous, in my opinion. Strong cast, strong crew – if you’re still somewhere on the boat paddling, you didn’t do your job. Maybe some of this comes from being a performer for a long time before I ever directed anything, but this is the time that I often find sad. A show doesn’t truly live until the first audience, doesn’t truly start to become itself. A whole new journey, but I don’t get to go.
I can say that I am tremendously proud of this production. I can draw a straight line from my earliest experiences with theater, through many experiments and experiences, to right now — and ANTIGONE suddenly sits as a weird spine to the whole thing. Shows are small, rolling nightmares – ‘being strapped to the anxiety train’ as I call it. With so many variables, moving pieces, effects, sound, light, breathing chaotic humans, endless and infinite details from every level of zoom — very often you are still nailing the ship together as the curtain opens, holding the sails together with your hands. Many of my colleagues (lovingly?) have mocked me for my constant quest for sterility – to reduce the variables. Focus on the simple, the essential. Words, space, light, time. I’ve long threatened to do a show that’s just four actors in leotards with no set, two chairs, and a single candle.
I think this is that show.
It’s clean and confident on the page. It borrows from Greek theater, but dismisses it when convenient. It’s poetry, it’s mundane. It’s an argument, a history, an incitement to rebellion. It’s exciting, it’s funny, it’s vicious as a naked blade. It’s a goddamn play.
Our production is warm and human – upsetting and raw, a proper tragedy. I’m so glad that if I did nothing else correctly, I got the right people in the same room and got out of their way as much as possible. I’m so proud of this damn thing that I’m going to force myself to remain visible throughout the run, instead of vanishing into the underbrush as is my preference. I want the credit for all this talent I’ve stolen, I will shove every silver coin down my pants.
If art is a diary, and every show is a page – let this be the one that says ‘fuck you i did it‘. Underlined. Who am I saying this to? I have no idea. I don’t know who this opponent is but let me be clear, I still won.
spell-sword.com 