3/24/06 Reactions to The Wooster Group's "The Emperor Jones"
Reactions to Wooster Group's Emperor Jones (St. Ann's Warehouse, NYC, 3/23/06:
Before performance:
St. Ann's Warehouse: A strange walk from the York Street station. Dark, empty streets under the Manhattan Bridge (my first visit to DUMBO, obviously). Finally found the theatre. I'm sitting in a big, high-ceilinged, cement-floored lobby, rough and very nicely done, as the audience gathers under framed posters of The Wooster Group, Mabou Mines, Laurie Anderson, "Under the Radar" Festival, etc. Seems like a nice crowd of consciously hip (or hoping to be) but unostentatious people. Or maybe they're just longing for a good theatre experience.
House: rows of folding chairs slope sharply up from stage. 200 capacity? Stage is a platform raised 18" on open steel supports, about 30' across and 15' deep. Poles at corners connected by light steel frame above (not a grid). Stage floor white linoleum (except for about two feet on upstage edge). Additional thicker vertical pipe with lots of thick wires about 12"-18" long sticking out of it. Two smallish palms at u.l. and u.r. and rolling "throne" preset left. Two audio technicians sat at tables off s.r. edge of platform.
Florescent strips suspended above and behind frame (just on u.s. and s.l. sides?). Other light provided by conventional stage lighting. Large t.v. monitor (not flat screen, not projection screen) placed behind platform u.c. Three or four large unlit instruments (parcans? bigger) mounted at back wall (u.s.).
Immediately after performance:
Yes. That is it. Perfect. Incredible choices.
Later I need to get specific about what exactly so right about those choices. For now: It was SO CLEAR. The signs were clear and clean and performed with exactitude. Effortless, even--in a way--when Vaulk/Jones was in the final frenzied throes. No, that's not it. There was total commitment and perfect focus and I had not doubt that she was totally connected, but there was no doubt that the everything was being signed. Partly because of the framing and production choices (microphones and all that went with it, for example) but also because of the way those choices were performed. The dances were an extreme example: performed effortlessly and with full concentration, not tossed off but not insisted upon, either; not even presented, merely offered.
No question whether or not the three performers were present.
Nothing got in the way of what was being conveyed to me.
(I'm saying nothing about what the piece said. Well, that's not true, the form said almost everything. But the literal content went to the heart of race construction, minstrelsy)
Auction/whipping scene(s?): seemed to get under the constructed character to an essential experience. Is that wrong? Is that my sentimental reading of the performance?
The music was perfect and got REALLY LOUD.
Performance details:
Lights out
Image on TV Monitor upstage center (behind acting area): negative high-contrast image of woman (Kate Valk in blackface?) speaking and humming in black dialect.
In dark, Valk sits n chair dlc (she looked immensely tall as she came on in dark). Lights up reveal Valk as Jones: Very black face w/ red lips and neck (unpainted hands). Black wet-looking long hair tied back. Costume layered, heavy brocaid (?) coat, pants, w/ Japanese obi-looking thing wrapped around waist; skirt or long coat (over pants?); tall, black boots. Sitting in wheeled chair which she rolls around acting area using her feet. Holding large wireless mic on 3' "boom" with handle at other end (reminiscent of a scepter though not in any literal sense).
Jones/Smithers scene 1: Smithers is seated behind acting area (slightly left of c.) facing off left (looking at video monitor in wings); he speaks into a microphone and keeps eyes on his monitor. Valk rolls around front of acting area eyes focused above and cutting from one side to other as she talks to Smithers (she's actually looking into to video monitors mounted high over 1st row); consciously uses microphone w/pole as she speaks into it.
[Valk's performance is amazing: speaks in heavy dialect very reminiscent of minstrel shows/Amos 'n Andy. I notice in particular that every time she say "I" she opens her mouth wide and speaks from back of throat, similar to the way she laughs. Her movements are unforced but very strong and definitive; she almost hits a pose before she speaks (though not quite as stylized as that would indicate--moves as she speaks but with clarity & control). She's definitely acting "in character" but her speech and movement are clearly performed as "signs", as demonstration rather than exactly inhabiting the character. And yet she gives herself entirely to the moment as she performs. Absolutely focused and in a sense effortless because not a trace of strain beyond what is called for. It's incredible: the clearest example of what seems to me to be what Brecht was calling for that I've ever seen. Very, very powerful and very, very present.]
[Shepard's performance Smithers is also terrific. What strikes me most is his effortless quality similar yet different from Valk's--the effortless is part of his character yet separate from it. He's at the back of the theatre (off the raised stage) doesn't move, he's not looking out (profile only visible) yet he's absolutely present.]
The first scene is long and, in one sense static (though Valk is foregrounded and very active in gesture and movement of her wheeled chair) but actually incredibly dynamic. Again, both actors are absolutely present. [A third performer becomes apparent: the Stage Assistant (Ari Fliakos, who performs Smithers on alternate nights). Throughout the performance, he positions the chair, prepares and hands props, etc.; he also performs in a couple of the "dances" later in the play. All his movements are executed with absolute efficiency, choreographed really, and performed with a bit of a flair which I found a bit too much; I found myself wondering how the piece would change if he we more like that stage assistant I remember from the traveling Chinese Opera troupe in Malaysia: cigarette hanging out of his mouth, efficient but apparently bored.] Another very interesting component of the scene was that when he was not speaking words, Shepard made strange sounds into his mic which combined with other ambient electronic sounds (I think, at this point) to underlie Valk's speeches. Some of his sounds included drinking out of a large wine bottle in quick, stylized movement & sound.
Through the entire scene and throughout the performance, there were images on the upstage video monitor which seemed (usually) to be a distorted b&w picture of Valk doing the scene (?) but definitely not a live feed. For the most part, this use of video didn't contribute much to the scene for me, but it was used very effectively at certain times.
After the opening scene, Valk and Shepard don tall flat conical hats (like feudal Japanese royalty?) and perform a dance to music without words in which they perform the same movements side-by-side with total attention but absolutely no effort; something about the effortlessness of the dance seemed to me to be saying, "See, this is what we are doing at all times, even if it doesn't exactly seem like it." It was clearly a demonstration of moves and gestures, some of which reminded me of the Hustle in a funny way (I feel silly making that dated reference). It was an integral and necessary part of the performance but I can't, right now, say exactly what was going on. They were unsmiling (was Valk smiling just a little) but seemed to be enjoying themselves. I found it delightful. The dance interludes came back in different ways as the play progressed and the tension mounted, until the last one (performed, as I recall, by Shepard & Fliakos with Valk in her chair moving her hands (one hand?) in an agonized reference to her earlier full-bodied pleasurable performance (I think).
Scene 2: One interesting thing about this scene (hunting for stash of food marked by white stone) is that there were three stones placed on stage but not used in the action: Valk mimed turning over stones (with a simple and effortless gesture accentuated by a change in the constant underlying music). In fact, I'm not even sure the stones were there during the scene: I didn't notice them until the next scene. A curious separation of sign & signifier, I guess (do I know what I'm talking about?).
A motif for the shooting of the six bullets was set up in this scene: I can't remember exactly what was on the screen during the buildup to firing the pistol (though it was definitely b&w) but when the shot was fired, the music intensified and the screen showed a pulsating orange circular pattern (I think). Very effectively bumped up the tension in a very distanced way (real effort was made not to make the video to present: relatively small screen behind acting area, usually b&w with distortion and "noise" in picture).
I need to look at O'Neill's script, but I think in subsequent scenes, the performance had more interaction between Valk/Jones and Shepard/Smithers that is scripted (interpolated scenes?). I remember Shepard onstage with Valk: at one point he lowered what seemed to be a folding backrest (Crazy Creek?) built into his costume--which was similar to Valk's in its layered, vaguely Japanese look (his eye makeup added to that effect)--and reclined on the stage. At another point (where was this? later in the play), he sits centerstage with legs out, Valk sits in his lap, pulls up her skirt, and his legs become hers (his knees up at this point). He holds her microphone w/boom and they have a dialogue. In another scene (or dance? but with dialogue), Valk & Shepard do a kind of fight/bullfight with him standing center trying to strike her with fly swatter as she charges him holding wine bottle.
Particularly memorable moments: Valk/Jones prays for forgiveness (struck here and elsewhere as she becomes more desperate by the extremity of her acting: absolutely impassioned and absolutely controlled); Valk being whipped (scene 6?)--sound cracked out, Valked reacted with extreme physical gesture (while seated)--almost moment of greatest intensity for me (sentimental empathy? intended?); when Valk has vision of witch doctor, Shepard performs dance of lunging from u.r. into center towards her while wearing strange teeth (other costume change?)--seemed to me to invoke a terror of Whiteness, he was a real white devil figure. Led up to shooting the final (silver) bullet so the tension & tempo were very intense (it was perhaps during this scene that the Stage Assistant would run on from s.l., gyrate with pelvic thrusts, and run off 2X.)
This is frustrating: I can't remember the moment when the big lighting instruments spread across the upstage wall and aimed straight across at the audience came on (not quite blinding. Choice of moment seemed right but I can't remember exactly when. Firing of final bullet? Later? Just stayed up a moment, then faded again.
At a certain moment near the end, the steel frame which had appeared to me to be supported by poles at the corners was lowered almost to the floor. I guess the intent was to entrap Valk/Jones. Just about the only aspect of the production that seemed extraneous, superfluous to me.
Toward the end, Valk was on the floor using the mic on a microphone stand so that it was very near the floor but she didn't have to hold it; again, speaking into the mic was a central part of the image and somehow a very, very powerful aspect of the scene.
For the final scene between Smithers and the native chief, the chief was represented by an image on the video monitor (color, or tinted); I guess his voice was pre-recorded unless somehow Valk was providing it (at this point she was far s.r. on knees facing u.s.). Shepard was back in his chair at the back of the stage facing away from the central monitor. After the chief explained that they had killed Jones, Vaulk walked to the center of the stage and lay down, face up, with her shirt open revealing a bloodstained undershirt. After lying there for a bit, she got up and walked to stage right again. Thus, the performance ended not with a bang but a whimper, which seemed right. Rather than an emotional catharsis, I was left with a cool, calm feeling of, "Isn't that interesting," and an unbounded admiration for the work.
Before performance:
St. Ann's Warehouse: A strange walk from the York Street station. Dark, empty streets under the Manhattan Bridge (my first visit to DUMBO, obviously). Finally found the theatre. I'm sitting in a big, high-ceilinged, cement-floored lobby, rough and very nicely done, as the audience gathers under framed posters of The Wooster Group, Mabou Mines, Laurie Anderson, "Under the Radar" Festival, etc. Seems like a nice crowd of consciously hip (or hoping to be) but unostentatious people. Or maybe they're just longing for a good theatre experience.
House: rows of folding chairs slope sharply up from stage. 200 capacity? Stage is a platform raised 18" on open steel supports, about 30' across and 15' deep. Poles at corners connected by light steel frame above (not a grid). Stage floor white linoleum (except for about two feet on upstage edge). Additional thicker vertical pipe with lots of thick wires about 12"-18" long sticking out of it. Two smallish palms at u.l. and u.r. and rolling "throne" preset left. Two audio technicians sat at tables off s.r. edge of platform.
Florescent strips suspended above and behind frame (just on u.s. and s.l. sides?). Other light provided by conventional stage lighting. Large t.v. monitor (not flat screen, not projection screen) placed behind platform u.c. Three or four large unlit instruments (parcans? bigger) mounted at back wall (u.s.).
Immediately after performance:
Yes. That is it. Perfect. Incredible choices.
Later I need to get specific about what exactly so right about those choices. For now: It was SO CLEAR. The signs were clear and clean and performed with exactitude. Effortless, even--in a way--when Vaulk/Jones was in the final frenzied throes. No, that's not it. There was total commitment and perfect focus and I had not doubt that she was totally connected, but there was no doubt that the everything was being signed. Partly because of the framing and production choices (microphones and all that went with it, for example) but also because of the way those choices were performed. The dances were an extreme example: performed effortlessly and with full concentration, not tossed off but not insisted upon, either; not even presented, merely offered.
No question whether or not the three performers were present.
Nothing got in the way of what was being conveyed to me.
(I'm saying nothing about what the piece said. Well, that's not true, the form said almost everything. But the literal content went to the heart of race construction, minstrelsy)
Auction/whipping scene(s?): seemed to get under the constructed character to an essential experience. Is that wrong? Is that my sentimental reading of the performance?
The music was perfect and got REALLY LOUD.
Performance details:
Lights out
Image on TV Monitor upstage center (behind acting area): negative high-contrast image of woman (Kate Valk in blackface?) speaking and humming in black dialect.
In dark, Valk sits n chair dlc (she looked immensely tall as she came on in dark). Lights up reveal Valk as Jones: Very black face w/ red lips and neck (unpainted hands). Black wet-looking long hair tied back. Costume layered, heavy brocaid (?) coat, pants, w/ Japanese obi-looking thing wrapped around waist; skirt or long coat (over pants?); tall, black boots. Sitting in wheeled chair which she rolls around acting area using her feet. Holding large wireless mic on 3' "boom" with handle at other end (reminiscent of a scepter though not in any literal sense).
Jones/Smithers scene 1: Smithers is seated behind acting area (slightly left of c.) facing off left (looking at video monitor in wings); he speaks into a microphone and keeps eyes on his monitor. Valk rolls around front of acting area eyes focused above and cutting from one side to other as she talks to Smithers (she's actually looking into to video monitors mounted high over 1st row); consciously uses microphone w/pole as she speaks into it.
[Valk's performance is amazing: speaks in heavy dialect very reminiscent of minstrel shows/Amos 'n Andy. I notice in particular that every time she say "I" she opens her mouth wide and speaks from back of throat, similar to the way she laughs. Her movements are unforced but very strong and definitive; she almost hits a pose before she speaks (though not quite as stylized as that would indicate--moves as she speaks but with clarity & control). She's definitely acting "in character" but her speech and movement are clearly performed as "signs", as demonstration rather than exactly inhabiting the character. And yet she gives herself entirely to the moment as she performs. Absolutely focused and in a sense effortless because not a trace of strain beyond what is called for. It's incredible: the clearest example of what seems to me to be what Brecht was calling for that I've ever seen. Very, very powerful and very, very present.]
[Shepard's performance Smithers is also terrific. What strikes me most is his effortless quality similar yet different from Valk's--the effortless is part of his character yet separate from it. He's at the back of the theatre (off the raised stage) doesn't move, he's not looking out (profile only visible) yet he's absolutely present.]
The first scene is long and, in one sense static (though Valk is foregrounded and very active in gesture and movement of her wheeled chair) but actually incredibly dynamic. Again, both actors are absolutely present. [A third performer becomes apparent: the Stage Assistant (Ari Fliakos, who performs Smithers on alternate nights). Throughout the performance, he positions the chair, prepares and hands props, etc.; he also performs in a couple of the "dances" later in the play. All his movements are executed with absolute efficiency, choreographed really, and performed with a bit of a flair which I found a bit too much; I found myself wondering how the piece would change if he we more like that stage assistant I remember from the traveling Chinese Opera troupe in Malaysia: cigarette hanging out of his mouth, efficient but apparently bored.] Another very interesting component of the scene was that when he was not speaking words, Shepard made strange sounds into his mic which combined with other ambient electronic sounds (I think, at this point) to underlie Valk's speeches. Some of his sounds included drinking out of a large wine bottle in quick, stylized movement & sound.
Through the entire scene and throughout the performance, there were images on the upstage video monitor which seemed (usually) to be a distorted b&w picture of Valk doing the scene (?) but definitely not a live feed. For the most part, this use of video didn't contribute much to the scene for me, but it was used very effectively at certain times.
After the opening scene, Valk and Shepard don tall flat conical hats (like feudal Japanese royalty?) and perform a dance to music without words in which they perform the same movements side-by-side with total attention but absolutely no effort; something about the effortlessness of the dance seemed to me to be saying, "See, this is what we are doing at all times, even if it doesn't exactly seem like it." It was clearly a demonstration of moves and gestures, some of which reminded me of the Hustle in a funny way (I feel silly making that dated reference). It was an integral and necessary part of the performance but I can't, right now, say exactly what was going on. They were unsmiling (was Valk smiling just a little) but seemed to be enjoying themselves. I found it delightful. The dance interludes came back in different ways as the play progressed and the tension mounted, until the last one (performed, as I recall, by Shepard & Fliakos with Valk in her chair moving her hands (one hand?) in an agonized reference to her earlier full-bodied pleasurable performance (I think).
Scene 2: One interesting thing about this scene (hunting for stash of food marked by white stone) is that there were three stones placed on stage but not used in the action: Valk mimed turning over stones (with a simple and effortless gesture accentuated by a change in the constant underlying music). In fact, I'm not even sure the stones were there during the scene: I didn't notice them until the next scene. A curious separation of sign & signifier, I guess (do I know what I'm talking about?).
A motif for the shooting of the six bullets was set up in this scene: I can't remember exactly what was on the screen during the buildup to firing the pistol (though it was definitely b&w) but when the shot was fired, the music intensified and the screen showed a pulsating orange circular pattern (I think). Very effectively bumped up the tension in a very distanced way (real effort was made not to make the video to present: relatively small screen behind acting area, usually b&w with distortion and "noise" in picture).
I need to look at O'Neill's script, but I think in subsequent scenes, the performance had more interaction between Valk/Jones and Shepard/Smithers that is scripted (interpolated scenes?). I remember Shepard onstage with Valk: at one point he lowered what seemed to be a folding backrest (Crazy Creek?) built into his costume--which was similar to Valk's in its layered, vaguely Japanese look (his eye makeup added to that effect)--and reclined on the stage. At another point (where was this? later in the play), he sits centerstage with legs out, Valk sits in his lap, pulls up her skirt, and his legs become hers (his knees up at this point). He holds her microphone w/boom and they have a dialogue. In another scene (or dance? but with dialogue), Valk & Shepard do a kind of fight/bullfight with him standing center trying to strike her with fly swatter as she charges him holding wine bottle.
Particularly memorable moments: Valk/Jones prays for forgiveness (struck here and elsewhere as she becomes more desperate by the extremity of her acting: absolutely impassioned and absolutely controlled); Valk being whipped (scene 6?)--sound cracked out, Valked reacted with extreme physical gesture (while seated)--almost moment of greatest intensity for me (sentimental empathy? intended?); when Valk has vision of witch doctor, Shepard performs dance of lunging from u.r. into center towards her while wearing strange teeth (other costume change?)--seemed to me to invoke a terror of Whiteness, he was a real white devil figure. Led up to shooting the final (silver) bullet so the tension & tempo were very intense (it was perhaps during this scene that the Stage Assistant would run on from s.l., gyrate with pelvic thrusts, and run off 2X.)
This is frustrating: I can't remember the moment when the big lighting instruments spread across the upstage wall and aimed straight across at the audience came on (not quite blinding. Choice of moment seemed right but I can't remember exactly when. Firing of final bullet? Later? Just stayed up a moment, then faded again.
At a certain moment near the end, the steel frame which had appeared to me to be supported by poles at the corners was lowered almost to the floor. I guess the intent was to entrap Valk/Jones. Just about the only aspect of the production that seemed extraneous, superfluous to me.
Toward the end, Valk was on the floor using the mic on a microphone stand so that it was very near the floor but she didn't have to hold it; again, speaking into the mic was a central part of the image and somehow a very, very powerful aspect of the scene.
For the final scene between Smithers and the native chief, the chief was represented by an image on the video monitor (color, or tinted); I guess his voice was pre-recorded unless somehow Valk was providing it (at this point she was far s.r. on knees facing u.s.). Shepard was back in his chair at the back of the stage facing away from the central monitor. After the chief explained that they had killed Jones, Vaulk walked to the center of the stage and lay down, face up, with her shirt open revealing a bloodstained undershirt. After lying there for a bit, she got up and walked to stage right again. Thus, the performance ended not with a bang but a whimper, which seemed right. Rather than an emotional catharsis, I was left with a cool, calm feeling of, "Isn't that interesting," and an unbounded admiration for the work.
posted by Graham at 1:53 PM
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