10/4/10 Dr. Kirkland
Advanced Directing 1
Critical Review: Leaving Iowa
Leaving Iowa was a delight to watch and to perform in. As an actor it offered me the challenge of playing multiple roles and switching from character to character within seconds. As a production, the company—led by Eric Harrell—had a similar but grander challenge: a memory play that shifted locations and time periods numerous times, but somehow primarily stayed inside a station wagon.Harrell utilized the thrust well, but after a lot of headache . In the end, there were still seats in the house that he preferred no one sat in. The station wagon that the majority of the play was performed in consisted of two car seat/benches that were utilized in a variety of ways other than a vehicle: they were a couch in the living room, seating for a civil war reenactment and a place for contemplation. The play ran the risk of becoming stagnant because so much of it centered on the family car, but Harrell found a lot of creative ways to keep the action moving like a twisting two-lane highway through the fields of Iowa. For example, one of my characters entering as a hotel clerk with a desk on wheels did a complete figure eight pattern on the stage and then backed into his final place for the scene, all the while dealing with a customer on the phone.
The ground plan was simple: three benches lining the downstage area, an obscurely shaped ramp or “road” where the car sat at a decline and what came to be known as the “amoeba,” another oddly shaped platform surrounded by stalks of corn. Entrances could be made from all corners of the stage and down the center aisle . This allowed the lead character Don to literally be attacked from all sides by his memories. Locations were made clear by an ever-changing billboard as images were projected to denote where Don was at the moment and numerous other small set pieces that could be wheeled in and out. All of this worked quite well. It was interesting to learn that when you have numerous locations in a play, your safest bet is to have a minimalistic set.
It was the transitions that gave the entire company the most stress. There were essentially no blackouts in this show, the light just shifted from one location to the other and another unit of the script was shown by the sound of a car passing. Costume changes for most of the characters were very fast and because most of the entrances had to be made from the house, props could not be preset and needed to be handed to the actors by crew members. As difficult as these transitions were, they could make or break the show if something went wrong. This play flowed like a well-constructed piece of music. My only complaint would have been the car passing sound effect. Because there were so many, they all started to sound the same after a while. This could have been on purpose because the director didn’t want people focusing on the sound of the transition and rather wanted the audience to begin to trust the sound cue to take them to the next part of the play. I am not saying this wasn’t executed well, only that there could have been a difference in car sounds.
Other than some boring sound cues, my only point of contention with the process of doing Leaving Iowa was some of the acting coaching. I started this process excited to work with Eric because he usually speaks my language when it comes to coaching me through a character’s life on stage. Most of my characters were found by exploring Michael Lugering’s expressive action continuums. I felt it necessary to work from the outside-in because the dramatic function of my characters were mere pit-stops on the lead character’s journey through self-discovery. This all seemed to work fine until we hit one particular character of mine that literally speaks the central theme of the play. It was as if both Eric and I realized some false sense of importance about this character that comes and goes in a matter of seconds. In short, I felt I was over-directed . All of the coaching became about adjectives instead of objectives, nit-picky physical adjustments instead of the reality of doing. It was not until two days before opening that I rid myself of everything I had been told, found a simple objective, an “as-if” to emotionally prepare and throw myself onstage. The result: Everything Eric was looking for .
As I mentioned before, this show was a delight to be a part of. My only true regret is that because of the nature of my role (or roles) there are chunks of this show that I never got to see for numerous reasons. I heard them through the monitor, and from that I gathered that audiences enjoyed them very much. This show was a success overall: the audience laughed and cried, I did not kill anyone doing my quick changes, and most importantly I learned things that I can take with me to future productions.
Jeff,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on both process and product. You hit upon some interesting insights. One in particular, the “over-directing” issue, is the result of episode that may stick with you—and impact upon your own approach to directing actors as you move forward from here.
- Dr. Kirkland