Tag: ten thousand things

Eurydice closes tonight, so this will be my final entry as a
guest blogger for The Rake. Thanks to them for inviting me to do
this, and thanks to all of you who took the time to read of these
adventures.

TTT is well into its second decade, but until now its work has never been seen outside the Twin Cities. Eurydice
is a landmark because, for the first time, the show is playing a tour
date: Bemidji! A four-hour drive up on Monday, a public performance
Monday night followed by a very early high school performance the next
morning. But in between… Michelle Hensley tells us that we’re staying
at the Palace Casino Hotel, and the senses of the company swim! Booze! Gambling! Adjoining rooms! One night only! Let the bacchanalia begin, baby—Ten Thousand Things is off the leash!

All through rehearsals and the first week of performances, people start making plans: Is there a hot-tub? How much gambling money are people bringing? Who’s rooming with whom? Now there’s
a thought—some pretty dishy people in the cast, and as we’ve all been
slyly saying to each other so often it’s become our mantra of
immorality: What happens in Bemidji, stays in Bemidji. I
wind up with musical genius Peter Vitale as my roommate. Peter is the
second-oldest man in the company and a father like me and I sniff a
faint whiff of fogey-dom collecting around my ankles.

Michelle
asks if anybody wants to carpool with her, and I jump at the offer.
There’s no way I can get lost if I’m riding with the artistic director,
and since there’s bound to be another person along I can probably
stretch out in back and snooze most of the way. Oh, this trip is
shaping up nicely! No driving up or back, only two performances and a
night of rich and exotic promise. I briefly ponder packing my tuxedo. I
mean, we’re gonna be right next to a casino,
dude—what red-blooded American male hasn’t wanted to sit at a chemin
de fir table in black tie, casually flipping cards and suavely purring
"Banco" and "Suivi" to the dealer while raking in piles of chips as
eye-patched Largo scowls and darkly fingers his SPECTRE octopus ring. The crowd murmurs in French and elegantly gowned/coifed women gaze with
longing. The problem is I don’t actually know how to play chemin de fir and don’t know the French phrase for "I just lost my wife’s 401K." So I decide to keep it casual.

The
first bat-squeak of disillusionment arrives in an email from one of the
company. The Palace Casino Hotel is alcohol-free. It says so on the
website. In fact, it SCREAMS so on the website. I suffer a momentary
neural shutdown and stare at the screen. I see the word casino and then, very close to it, the words alcohol-free. Casino. Alcohol-free. These
words can’t be so close together. They hate each other! How do you
operate a casino without serving liquor? Isn’t that how casinos work? Yeah,
I vaguely understand enough of the math to know that the house will
always beat you in the end, but isn’t it the free vodka martinis,
shaken or stirred, that keep you at
the table in a pleasant buzz, losing track of time, tossing $100 chips
onto the baize like Famous Amos cookies until the odds catch up with
you and you stagger back to your comped hotel room with nothing but
lint and ATM slips in your pocket?

The
second ominous piece of news arrives the Sunday before we leave.
There’s no second passenger in Michelle’s car! We’re riding up
together, she and I, alone.
Now, one might think it odd that the prospect of spending four hours
alone in a car with a woman who has directed me in 5 or 6 TTT
productions would unnerve me, but it really does. Michelle is, well, ultra- — ultra-talented, ultra-kind, ultra-generous, ultra-passionate, and most
important in this context, ultra, ultra-intelligent and ultra, ultra, ultra-intimidating.
She went to Princeton and has won lots of awards and is writing a book
and ran this company alone with her bare hands for five years at least.
She’s far better-read than I am, more articulate and opinionated on
current events and politics, and I have no idea what we’re going to talk
about! Not that I’m a dunce, but I am definitely a Watson to her
Holmes, as I am to many writers and directors. I’m a guy of average
intelligence who happens to be able to do this one weird thing, acting,
fairly well. And for that I get to spend many of my working days with
lots of hyper-intelligent people with whom I have learned to mostly keep my
mouth shut and listen.

Have
you ever spent a night in a bar with a group of writers, dramaturgs, and
directors from the Playwright’s Center? The wit, the banter, the
telling observations zip by like Bob Feller fastballs. It’s
flipping intimidating is what it is, and once settled in the car I
figure the best remedy is to acknowledge my anxiety and confide in
Michelle straight up. "Michelle, I’m frankly very nervous about
spending four hours in this car with you and boring you silly."
Michelle’s eyes widen, "Really? Why?" and the next thing I know we’re
stopping for lunch, and then the next thing I know we’re in
Bemidji. The art of a great conversationalist is being able to
effortlessly make a lesser conversationalist feel like a great
conversationalist. Michelle is a ultra–great
conversationalist. I never felt a thing. It turns out we both travelled
this route as children en route to family lake cabins. We recall being
packed in the car the night before and waking up on the road, watching
the hypnotic linear dance of the overhead telephone wires as the car
speeds northward. It’s surprising to discover such pleasant, kindred
memories with Michelle. That and the fact that she’s addicted to The Wire, same as me.

We’re
the first to arrive at the Palace Hotel, and we have about two hours
before our 5:30 call at the theatre. I’m dying for a nap and don’t even
glance at the hallway leading to the casino as I find my room and
collapse. Peter Vitale comes in at some point — I don’t even hear him. I
do hear my cell phone ringing, though, only minutes, it seems, after I
put my head to the pillow. It’s Nancy Waldoch, our SM, letting us know there’s
been a mix-up and our audience thinks our performance is starting at
6 p.m. instead of 6:30, so we need to get a move on now.

Still
fuzzy with sleep, we grab our costume bags, stumble into cars, and head
to the Wild Rose Theater in Bemidji. The Wild Rose is housed in the
Bemidji Masonic Temple Meeting Hall, which happens to be the perfect
shape for your stadium-style seating arrangement. Our audience is a
melange of local arts patrons, college students, and occupants of
Bemidji Battered Women’s and Homeless Shelters.

For
the most part they are quite attentive, although someone has brought
along a small boy who starts wandering in and out, and Michelle
gallantly takes it upon herself to distract him in the lobby with
cookies, cider and, for ought I know, duct tape.

The
performance goes well, but I think I speak for everybody when I say
that a certain small percentage of our attention was focused on our
post-show activities: where will we eat, and more importantly, where
will we drink? During the post-show load-out of our set, Vera Mariner succinctly summarized our concerns when she said, "God, if they don’t have beer, I will tear my eyes out!"

We’re into our final two weeks of performances, so rather than give an account of each, I’ll offer thumbnail impressions of some of our performances to date:

FEb 14, VOA Women’s Correctional Facility (Opening Day)

The VOA is normally a high-energy audience: lots of commentary and back-talk to and about the actors as the show is being performed. Not today. They are uncharacteristically quiet. Attentive to be sure, but not very responsive. As I watch the women watch the opening scene, a bat-squeak of anxiety starts chirping inside my head: "Is it (are we) boring them?" But I underestimate Sarah Ruhl’s writing. It’s a quieter play than a Shakespeare play, but the language is more accessible. They’re not bored; they’re listening… intently. And by the end, they’re in tears. The show finishes, and the cast lingers in the paying area. The women surround us (well, mostly young heartthrobs Sonja Parks and Marc Halsey), saying thank you, saying this is the first play they ever saw, shaking hands, touching arms, embracing, asking us where else we will be performing, asking us to sign their programs. I wonder at that gesture. It happens a lot in the prisons and shelters, inmates and the homeless asking for signed programs. Why? What do they do with them? Do they help them to remember, to re-imagine the play? At night, in a cell, in a life, perhaps barren of hope, barren of beauty, barren of that which touches or moves them, what might it mean to look at that program and its signatures of strangers who, briefly, were not? To recall the story, not of a distant figure of myth, but a girl like them facing an impossible choice? A story, written in their lifetime, by a woman they will never meet, who nevertheless found a way to speak to them of them. Is it a comfort, an inspiration to have a brief experience of illumination, or another frustration- a glimpse of something beauteous but forever, in their minds if not their lives, out of reach.

• Is it for all time, or merely a lark?
• It it the Lido I see, or only Powderhorn Park?
• Is it a fancy not worth thinking of?
• Or is it at long last love?

---

Feb 19, St. Stephen’s Center
A church basement shelter in south Minneapolis. Dinner is just finishing up when we arrive. Lots of people eye us warily as we bring in the set and equipment and start clearing away tables and chairs in the cafeteria to make a playing space. It’s a brutally cold night — below zero outside — which may help boost attendance. Cookies and cider are laid out: snacks, a free show, and the heat is on, ladies and gents. This is a public performance. Unlike the prisons, which are closed, anyone can come to performances in public places, and they have gotten so popular that TTT has placed a reservation requirement and a cap on reservations so as not to squeeze out the intended audience, who can get a little intimidated when too many nicely-dressed, obviously not-in-need-of-a-free-meal types start taking seats. Tonight it looks about half and half. The other thing about public performances is people can leave if they’re bored or just have other priorities. Michelle Hensley always warns the acting company not to take it personally when people up and scarper during the big scene you’ve worked yourself into an emotional lather over for the past four weeks. They’ve just got more important things to do.

That’s true — most of the time. Tonight, however, one man wearing two winter coats watches the first two scenes and then, in the middle of the third, stands and emphatically starts walking to the exit announcing in a VERY loud and disgusted voice, "I do not BELONG HERE!"

Guess sub-zero temperatures didn’t sound so bad for this soul after all, compared to sitting through some Greek bullshit play done by patronizing mostly white folks who wouldn’t last 12 hours walking in this man’s shoes. However well-intentioned and welcomed we are, I am often reminded of the opening scene, of the classic opening scene of My Man Godfrey, when the ditzy socialites descend on a depression-era Hooverville looking for homeless man as part of a scavenger hunt party entertainment. "What fun! What larks! The poor people, they’re so, I don’t know, so authentic! Let’s take one with us!" I hope our walk-out stuffed his pockets with cookies so his evening isn’t a total loss. I’ve walked out of plays too, but never when the stakes (staying warm, staying fed) were so high. That night that guy showed the courage of his convictions, and while I didn’t want to trade places, I gave him high marks for character. I hope he had a warm place to go for the night, and some hot java with his cookies before bed.

---

Feb 20, Dorothy Day Center

D-DAY. How apt. When TTT plays Dorothy Day there is always a definite sense of launching yourself up against a hostile beachhead. D-Day is huge — large enough for two full-court basketball games. The biggest venue TTT plays, as well as the most boisterous, un-acoustic, frenetic, and just plain LOUD! And yet, I have a secret fondness for D-Day. For one thing, it was the site of my big Measure For Measure epiphany moment nicely accounted in last year’s TCG/American Theatre Magazine profile article. Mostly, though, D-Day has always represented for me the Broadway of any TTT tour. If we can make it here, we can make it anywhere. And today our work is cut out for us. The good news is that there are a lot of well-wishers and friends in the audience. Nobody gets turned away from a D-Day performance. Apart from the chairs set up in the Eurydice stadium-style seating patters, there are abundant tables and chairs everywhere, most filled with people waiting, not for our show, but see the man about food stamps, get on line for the evening meal, or just keep warm. The bad news is that the room is never still. People are always moving in and out, talking, shouting, getting on with the legitimate warp and woof of their lives, and they ain’t got time for any goddamn plays, thanks all the same.

In Shakespeare, the energy of the language can push against this background cacophony — but Eurydice is a quiet, contemplative piece, and the competition for the audience’s attention is going to be brutal. Oh, more good news: there’s Graydon Royce, the Star-Tribune critic, settling into his seat to see our play in its most pitiless venue. Swell. In his review of this performance, Graydon remarked he was puzzled, "why Ten Thousand Things thought this delicate and intimate play would do well in a raucous community center, with a constantly migrating audience whose interest level waxed and waned." It’s frustrating for me when critics pose those questions in print. I mean, we were all right there. If he had thought to ask me, I would have told him that nobody plans for any play to do well at D-Day. If TTT picked its plays by their suitability for D-Day all we’d do were endless revivals of Hellzapoppin and Jesus Christ Superstar. In the end it doesn’t make the slightest difference what you do at D-Day. It’s like performing atop erupting Mt. St. Helens or in the eye of a cyclone — no time for subtleties, me hearties, boost your energy, volume, smack those end consonants, and hope we’re all still alive at the end of the day.

It’s tough going. There’s one man who is actually quite excited about the show and who can’t help dancing about, mimicking the action, much to the distraction and continued amusement of the rest of the audience during some of the quieter moments between Orpheus and Eurydice. People help themselves to the noisy vending machines and shout greetings and instructions across the room. But we have our moments. Leif Jurgensen’s tricycle turn as Lord of the Underworld takes the native hilarity of the environment and channels it, Aikido-like, into a response that builds laugh upon laugh. Lisa Clair’s delightful musical vamping of Orpheus quickly commands the attention of every man in the room between 8 and 80. But some quiet moments are able to compel attention too. Building the string house settles the crowd into an uneasy quiet (well, most people like to gawk at any construction site and see what it’s going to turn into). The father’s river directions speech also seems to momentarily quiet the room, if only because I try to look as many people in the eye as I can while I’m talking, giving the directions directly to them in a way that suggests that they better write this stuff down or at least pay attention!

The play ends on its poignant, quiet note, we stand to some smattered applause and whatever pause the room had taken to accommodate our play is swept away by more pressing matters — getting in line for dinner, straightening out a landlord-tenant issue, and trying to grab an empty laundry machine to do your load of colors. Even so, there are a few hardy souls, a few survivors who, despite the urgent tasks of simply getting through the day waiting upon them, take the time to step up moist-eyed to say, "Thanks, it was wonderful." And it was, although everyone in the cast could use a stiff drink after this show to strip our sleeves, show our wounds, and share our war stories. We reached some few, some happy few that afternoon, and it felt great.

And that, dear readers is why TTT celebrates D-Day.

Next: Eurydice on the Rez…

Another op’nin, another play

In Shakopee or at Dor’thy Day

But usually it’s the VOA…

Most
professional theatres have opening nights. There is glamour, maybe just
a faint whiff, but it’s in the air nevertheless: press and theatre
cognoscenti are out front along with family, friends and scores of
"hope you’re great" or "hope you die" colleagues. The buzz of the
audience before the show has a special electricity that’s infectious.
When the cast arrives at the theatre there are often bouquets of
flowers, notes, chocolates and other giftie goodness waiting for you in
your dressing room. The show goes on and it’s great or it’s not and
then afterwards, there’s some kind of party or reception, either in the
theatre lobby or a nearby restaurant, where some of the best
unrecognized acting in the Twin Cities happens. People come up to you,
eyes a little too bright, smiles a little too wide and enthusiastically
embrace you so you can’t see their faces: "Darling, you took great risks!" "You should have been where I was sitting!" "Only YOU could have given such a performance!" "Your makeup was fan-tastic!"
are just a few of the memorable comments lobbed in my direction over
the years. I think there should be an Ivey Award for best post-show
performance by an audience member. And bless our actor hearts, we fall
and feed greedily on each stinking lie. Hearts are made to be broken,
but please, just not tonight.

That’s most professional theatres. TTT has an opening day.
Almost always at the Volunteers of America Women’s Correctional
Facility. Located in Roseville, the VOA is set well back from the road
and if you weren’t looking for it, other than a discreet sign at the
drive you’d never know it was there. It resembles a suburban
high-school, albeit with a lot more locks. TTT always performs in the
common room adjacent to the cafeteria.

Our
first performance is scheduled for 1pm on Feb 14 (Valentine’s Day) and
the company is supposed to arrive at noon to give us time to unload the
set, props and musical instruments off the van, set up and otherwise
prepare for the performance. Driving east from Mpls on I-94 I am a
little nervous still about my lines and start mumbling my way through
the play. I’m relieved to learn that I still remember everything but
alarmed to learn that I’ve missed my exit. I call Nancy Waldoch,
our amazing stage manager, effusively apologize and promise that I’ll
only be ten minutes late. "That’s OK, glad you’re all right!" she
chirps brightly but I can decode the reproach: "Guess you’ll miss the load-in, Hendrickson. How conveeeeen-ient!"

My
battered Subaru roars into the parking lot to see that the van is
indeed empty and parked. Shit! I grab my costume garment bag and stride
across the icy pavement as briskly as I can. I am met at the door by a
stern uniformed matron with a clipboard and a "just where do you think you’re
going?" expression. But after I announce I’m with the band her face
brightens, she says hi and I sign in. After passing through three sets
of locked being held open by staff, I’m in the common room, where all
is motion and controlled chaos. The inmates are still finishing their
lunch in the open adjacent cafeteria The set is in a jumble in one
corner and the rest of the company are pushing sofas and chairs into
the next room to clear our playing space. I’ve played the VOA six or
seven times now so I know the drill. Our dressing room is a tiny
library off the common room. The doorway has been festooned with a
homemade banner welcoming us and inside, plates of cookies and bottled
water await. I cross the common room borne on a non-stop round of
apologies for my lateness, drop my bag in the library and, without even
pausing for a cookie, go out to lend an extra-big hand in setting up.

After
putting the room more or less into performance shape, the actors
re-group in the library to get into costume. It is said (by me, at
least) that actors have no modesty and TTT actors even less. The
library is maybe 10X10 feet with two tables. One large table holds the
cookies, water and Valentine goodies brought by some of the cast,
another, smaller table is piled high with garment bags dumped there
when each actor arrived. No mirrors, no hooks or hangers and absolutely
no privacy. There we are, three men, three women, stripping down to our
scanties and back into costume with nary a shrug of uneasiness. The
room is bright with anxious chatter about pending Valentine’s Day
observances (or lack thereof), complaints about the cold weather and
last minute blocking adjustments to accommodate the new space. Our
director Larissa Kokernot arrives, still in the fearful grip of La Grippe, but looking cheerful and bearing lovely cards for each of us. Michelle Hensley
pops in to let us know we’re on in five and we scurry to finish
dressing and take our places. The audience have seated themselves and
the room is packed- not an empty seat to be had and people scurry to
find a few more chairs. Michelle always makes a short speech to the
audience, giving them a bit of background about the Orpheus and
Eurydice legend and playwright Sarah Ruhl’s conceit of having the land
of the living and land of the dead sometimes occupy the same space at
the same time. She finishes up, there is a polite round of applause,
and we’re off…

Next: The First Performance

The differences between the first dress and second dress are three:

1. It’s our second dress rehearsal.
2. We have moved from our cramped basement rehearsal space at the Quaker Meeting House to the spacious, bright, airy, and day-lit upstairs meeting room.
3. We have a small audience of Michelle Hensley (again) and Michelle Woster (TTT Managing Director) — who has brought along four women friends. Also present are the meeting house caretaker and his daughter, who looks to be about four years old. Apart from the two Michelles, none of these people are theatre professionals, and, most importantly, nobody is carrying pens and legal pads. They’re just here to see the play.

Larissa — who throughout the entire rehearsal period has been struggling valiantly against a nasty, persistent racking cough that has limited her to 2-3 hours of sleep a night — looks rested and, surprisingly, cheerful. She makes no attempt to take me aside and explain, eyes averted, that she has conferred with Michelle and Peter and that all agree a huge mistake has been made, and that one of the other Steves of the Minneapolis acting community — Yoakam, Pelinski, D’Ambrose, Lewis, or Sweere (fabulous actors all, btw) — will be going on with script in hand and perhaps it would be best if I gave back all my salary, packed my things quietly, and left by the back door.

Instead, Larissa spends the first two hours giving notes and going over particular scenes, tightening, adjusting, finessing with a sense of confidence and surety. The comments she has from Peter and Michelle all appear to be smart, observant, constructive, and effective.

Our audience arrives at 12:45, and at 1 p.m. we’re off. Sonja and Marc (Eurydice and Orpheus) start the play and instantly the energy of the room changes to something we’ve never felt before. The change is the rapt attention of our tiny audience. They are riveted, engaged, enthralled. They laugh! Omigod, the play is funny! After three and a half weeks of rehearsal, we had kind of forgotten that. But even better, the laughter is coming from recognition and identification. They cry! The end of Eurydice carries a bittersweet melancholic mixture of empathy and loss that seems almost unbearable to witness. The play ends, and we stand to face the friends of Woster. Their mouths are creased with wide smiles and their eyes damp from tears. Yin and yang — marvelous!

Larissa and Michelle look relaxed and elated. Larissa has notes for us; there are always notes, but they’re the notes a cast gets when the director feels the play is on the right track — more than that — that the play has tuned itself to the right pitch and is working, is playing the way it’s meant to. Glitches are addressed, minor issues are discussed and solved, but the air is vibrating with the sense that the audience was compelled, moved, and we’re onto something special here. Tomorrow we give the play it’s first real audience: the VOA Women’s Correctional Facility in Roseville. Ready or not, rehearsals are over.

Next: Opening Day