As promised, a list of the parameters of our experiment that I read aloud at our Friday, Aug. 30th class meeting.
- Theater is a space of imagination, thoughtfully informed by worlds, times, and experiences outside its space.
- Within Uncle Vanya characters’ realities are driven by feelings and their ability/inability to be articulated through language and action.
- The purpose of character teams casting is to offer actors a chance to unlock a shared, yet separate, understanding of complex characters by making specific, detailed choices born in the space where language and physicality meet. This approach offers an audience the chance to pay close attention to character construction through actor performance.
- We seek to disrupt our audience’s nostalgia about historical realism by focusing their attention on our fabricated world within the walls of Sheafer. We are offering the audience a glimpse into the process of constructing theatrical reality — just as the characters seem to be processing the notion of “how did I get here?” in their lives. Everything is transparent and open but not improvisatory, simplistic, or unprepared.
- Baker writes of her approach to the text,
The goal was to create a version that would make Chekhov happy; to create a version that sounds to our contemporary American ears the way the play sounded to Russian ears during the play’s first productions in the provinces in 1898.
We seek a similar, lofty goal: to create a version that appears as something new, unseen before and yet ultimately recognizable and relatable to our contemporary Duke University audience.
And a few of the items Jeff mentioned about performance conventions:
- We will be thinking about Chekhov’s vaudevilles and the swing of the pendulum in his major works between farce and trageey; laughter and tears.
- Some characters will be broader in their performance than others based on their actions and given circumstances.
- Audience members (both on and off-stage) are always aware that we are watching a rehearsal/performance of the play (as in Vanya on 42nd Street).
- Music is used for transitions and, in vaudeville terms, interludes (possible song & dance moments).
- Character teams work together, helping each other prepare for their chance to tell the story.
- Age will be achieved with costume, props, movement, voice. Not makeup.
