Suburban Planning
Posted by Tony Werner on 8/27/2010
(Tony is the Assistant Dramaturg of Detroit)
Locusts saw through the sound system in Yondorf Rehearsal Hall. Afternoon light falls. And when the play begins, neighbors engage each other with atypical small talk at a dinner beside a burning backyard grill. We’re in week three of rehearsal for Detroit, a stunning new play by Lisa D’Amour.
The play reminds me so much of growing up in the Midwest. I am a Chicago transplant from Omaha, Nebraska. Detroit is set in such a place: not necessarily Detroit, but the “first ring” suburb outside a mid-sized city, to be exact. Omaha is such a place: in fact, the city is ring upon ring of suburban sprawl. The city is a time capsule of urban planning and architecture. As you move from downtown to the suburbs - yes, I know, as ridiculous as it sounds, Omaha has a downtown - you encounter various time-zones: the brownstone houses of the ’40s, the ranch-style homes of the ’50s jet age, the dead malls from the ’70s, the dead malls from the ‘80s, the dead malls from the ’90s, etc. Omaha, like so many mid-sized cities, is a place of boom architecture.
So in the play, when they discuss shoddily laid cement foundations for backyard porches, the moment holds a certain truth for me.
I’m the Assistant Dramaturge for the show. My responsibilities include audience talkbacks, requested research, and most integral to this part of the rehearsal process: script coordination.
A play is a living thing and frequently transforms through in the rehearsal process. Once on its feet, questions arise from the actors about motivation and arc. Or the director interrogates the pacing of a scene. The playwright can and usually does address these issues, all while refining the play’s language and rhythm, because lines may sound differently in the quiet of an apartment than in the hands of Steppenwolf’s formidable actors. So inevitably there will be some adjustments to the text. For example, chunks of dialogue can re-ordered for a better rise of emotional and conversational beats. Endings will get reworked for a better sense of flow.
So as changes come in, it is my responsibility to track these and give the actors new pages while successfully archiving the old. I have a binder on my table in Yondorf, and in it are the various drafts of the play. It also contains the numerous experiments we try out in rehearsal - longer versions of scenes, different endings, etc.
This binder represents the evolution of the play, and over time, this binder seems a more abstract Detroit, one of numerous eras of development. It’s a curious thing when the actual process of play rehearsal calls to mind the subject of the play itself. Looking at my binder and the progress of this fantastic play, I can’t help but be reminded of a growing city.
August 28th, 2010 at 8:55 am
Clever description of the urban succession–dead malls of the 70s, followed by ead malls of the 80s, followed by dead malls of the 90s. On our website we talk about ways to breathe life into a dead mall, but with consumer debt so high, maybe complete re-use is the way to go.
I’m looking forward to being able to seeing “Detroit,” presumably a play about a city that has become the poster child for hopeless urban places.
September 14th, 2010 at 10:47 am
A Love Letter to Detroit….
I saw the play last Sunday, and was knocked-out. Absolutely some of the best dialogue I’ve heard in any new play, delivered with terrific comic timing by the cast. The set design was amazing, and worked well to support the flow of the play. I particularly liked seeing the crew set up each new scene–they created a nifty oscillation between the theatrical reality of the script, and the experience of the audience sitting in the theater seats.
This was my first play at Steppenwolf–my friends and I jumped ship from the Goodman, after the Johnstown Flood massacre. Thanks for re-establishing that new plays can be a wonderful experience, and thank you for all your hard work–ya done good…..
September 22nd, 2010 at 5:03 pm
Why, why, why is this play called Detroit, if the setting is “not necessarily” in or near Detroit? Just seems nutty, raising expectations that aren’t fulfilled, leaving people scratching their heads.
October 11th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
I saw “Detroit” this past weekend and was slightly disappointed. I felt there was an excessive amount of monologuing compared to the lesser amount of dialogue between characters. This was such a weak point for me that it required a concerted effort to avoid mentally checking out during some of the extremely lengthy monologues.
In spite of this flaw in the script, the actors performances were all impeccable. They were able to make the characters believable and interesting, even when all they were doing was listening while another was ranting. Were it not for the talent on stage skillfully keeping this script alive, the message might have been lost in the monotony of the long winded rants.
November 8th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
Martha Lavey’s introduction to this play made it sound so promising. The set was brilliant. The play, however, was a colossal disappointment–an orgy of frenetic incomprehensibility. Not a single character to care about. Not a concept clearly developed. Just a few nihilistic laughs to appease the Zeitgeist. Rocky start to the new season.