Steppenwolf Theatre Company Blog – Chicago Theater, World-Class Ensemble

I’ve recently been asked by quite a few people what I personally think Kafka on the Shore is about. What is Murakami truly getting at? What is the overall meaning of the play?

Honestly, that’s something I’m still trying to figure out. Despite living and breathing in this show for two months, new discoveries are being made with every performance.

The novel is complex, to say the least, and the play does little to subdue this complexity. Murakami brings up question after question along Kafka’s journey and seldom provides answers. It is therefore up to the audience to come up with their own conclusions. Based on the experience of the individual, the play will mean something different to everyone. How one chooses to interpret the events on stage will greatly be influenced by the events of their own life. Some people will agree with what I think the play represents, and some won’t. Read the rest of this entry »

Week two and we have plunged into the abyss. It’s Tom and Amanda Day, Mom and Son. We spend six hours digging into one another, toiling to make each moment ring with beautiful, heartbreaking truth. Yasen, our director, is very precise. I can tell he loves actors and encourages exploration. It’s liberating. I haven’t worked in Chicago since 2004, and this is quite the homecoming: Great play, great theatre, and a great company of artists.

Shanésia Davis is playing Amanda. I love watching her. We are so different, yet so much alike. I’ve never made anything with her, but I look forward to the time ahead. She is “in the room.” We spent an entire rehearsal building the Amanda/Tom piece of the pie. Tom and Amanda shouted at each other, spoke kindly, then insulted and badgered one another. All of those wonderful juicy things we explored for six hours. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve done it. We’ve opened. What does that necessarily mean for actors? At this point in my career getting past opening means now having a firm blueprint for my character’s path in the play that I no longer have to worry about changing. It also means that now I can continue to get more and more comfortable with the complexities of the technical elements of the show, in this one there are many, and focus even more closely on deepening each moment I have in the play. With time and repetition come confidence and the freedom to play and find even more effective ways of telling the story. An actor’s work is truly never finished.

The process of moving from the rehearsal room and onto the stage for the beginning of technical work on the show continues to be a painful peeling off of everything you’ve come to trust in the rehearsal. It is always an exhilarating experience to move into the space in which you share the story and stand on the stage that has held the weight of so many before you. Hold onto the image of both of those things to keep you grounded, because you are about to be uprooted and displaced by a whirlwind of lights and sound and left twisted and confused. That’s really dramatic but literally I would say 70 to 75 percent of my blocking changed before we finally reached opening. This may sound silly after all it is “just blocking.” But after you have spent a month finding the organic way of moving through this dream world, and motivating to the best of your ability the path your character takes, it may be a little devastating to start from scratch in a time when rehearsal is no longer designed to give you time to work your new journey. Read the rest of this entry »

When I think of the story of Kafka on the Shore, it has resonances for me in such stories as Shakespeare’s Pericles and Homer’s The Odyssey. Kafka our 15 year old hero, is on a quest to find out who he is as well as finding his mother. During his quest he comes along many different characters, all feeding him and aiding him to get to his ultimate destination. In many ways, that same quest/journey has been similar to my experience working on this production thus far.

Over a year ago, while working on after the quake at the La Jolla Playhouse, we gathered together to do an informal reading of a new adaptation of a Murakami novel created by Frank Galati. It was to be the first reading of the first draft of Kafka on the Shore. Written out in long hand, the script was fairly thick and still lacked the final elements of the story. We read for a little over an hour and a half, not even coming close to finishing. Frank stopped us and immediately went back to work adapting the novel. It goes without saying that it was an exciting moment for me to be a part of the piece at such an early stage of its development.

Now a couple days after its opening at Steppenwolf, it amazes me to see how this play has evolved from that warm summer night a year ago. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember that first day back to high school after summer break? That bizarre sense of compulsory reunion, with people who populate your life based only on proximity to the local high school? Well imagine that scene, except with students who actually like each other – and have chosen to reunite not for the daily grind of high school, but to promote theatre for young audiences across Chicago. Welcome to the Steppenwolf Young Adult Council.

I am a new addition to the Council. As a recent hire into the Steppenwolf for Young Adults Department, I am coming onto the scene three years after the Council’s inception. In those first three years, the Council created the high school-geared MaTEENe series, facilitated teacher and student workshops and regularly met with Steppenwolf staff to better understand the inner-workings of professional theatre. However, aside from these quantifiable accomplishments, the Council members have obviously reaped other, intangible benefits from their time at Steppenwolf: a trust between each other, and an impressive vocabulary with which to speak about theatre in Chicago. Read the rest of this entry »