Love-Lies-Bleeding Week 2
Posted by Martha Lavey on 4/07/2006
We’ve just completed our second week of rehearsals. Our rehearsal schedule was a little wonky. We backed up our first day to the Friday before March 28th to accommodate the schedule of one of our actors. After he was cast in Love-Lies-Bleeding, John Heard was cast in an episode of 20 Questions that was scheduled to shoot March 28th through March 31st. Not wanting to lose John from our cast, we added the extra rehearsal days before his shoot so that we could all start rehearsals together with the playwright, Don DeLillo. Then John would go away for his TV shoot and those of us remaining would continue to rehearse scenes in which he does not appear.
What originally appeared to be a blip in our plans turned out to be a perfect adaptation to the play’s needs. John plays Alex, a character who has suffered a stroke and appears in the present tense of the play in a compromised physical state, and, in flashback, in a state of wellness. So he is both a presence and an absence in the play. Our revised rehearsal schedule accommodated this reality of the play: we began rehearsals with John present and then, like the characters of the play, we experienced his disappearance. With John gone, we, the remaining actors, worked on the scenes in which his character is incapacitated (and in which condition, is played by another actor). By the time that John returned to rehearsals, those of us playing his family members (referred to in the play, aptly, as “the three survivors”), had formed a bond among ourselves. Somehow, this rehearsal dynamic appropriately feeds into the psychological dynamic of the play. (We have our secrets and he has his mystery.)
I think the experience that we are all having of the play is one of ever-deepening discovery. Because Don is such a thoughtful, skilled, and profound writer, the play disclosed itself in surprising (and hugely gratifying) ways. We find ourselves stitching back and forth between the situation of the play and our personal life experiences upon which the play touches. This is pretty standard practice for a rehearsal process – an enormous amount of self is disclosed in building the connection between the actors and director of the play and the text. The more comfortable the room, the more willing the collaborators are to be searching in their connection to the play, and the more personal and specific the work becomes. This, in the end of all, is the real value of our actor-based, ensemble theater. The culture of repeated creative relationships that foregrounds the actor in the theatrical process produces a rehearsal room that is collectively owned, that is fundamentally democratic and embracing.
Something else I want to mention in regard to the dynamic of the rehearsal room: as you would expect, present in the room are the actors and the director. The director generally has an assistant, in this case, Brant Russell who himself is a young director. The understudies for the cast come to rehearsals when they can (there is a designated minimum attendance to which they are contracted).
Perhaps less known to those of you who have not experienced a rehearsal process is the presence of the stage managers. Steppenwolf is hugely fortunate to have a group of stage managers who work regularly at our theater and have done so for many years. The stage managers are crucial in setting the tone of the room. In the case of Steppenwolf productions (and we are hugely fortunate in being able to provide this), we have a Production Stage Manager (PSM), an Assistant Stage Manager (ASM), and a Stage Management apprentice. In rehearsal, these three folks sit behind a table (with the director usually sitting nearby) and they manage all of the physical realities of the show. Before rehearsals begin (the “pre-production” week), they tape out the set (to its precise dimensions) on the rehearsal room floor. Throughout the rehearsal process, they fastidiously track the use of every prop, they orchestrate the physical reality of every scene change, and they track every costume change (and its timing). It is their responsibility to provide the link between the magic of the imaginary space of the play into the physical reality of the stage. Every stage manager on earth has a stopwatch around his/her neck and a tackle box full of tape measures, spiking tape, and a host of tools (and pain relievers). Stage managers are the amazing link – the folks who keep grounding the ephemera of theater to the space and time of the theater. Their personalities and their style – the way they “call the show” – are fundamental components in the making and the maintenance of the theatrical act. Steppenwolf is blessed to have stage managers so sensitive to the artistic process and so committed to the ensemble process. To our stage managers on Love-Lies-Bleeding: Malcolm Ewen, Christine Freeburg, and Kathleen Petroziello, all hail. And thanks.