Breathing

From Joanna Horowitz, Communications Department

Exhale. That's sort of the general feeling around here. We opened My Name is Rachel Corrie last night after a media storm (front page of the Seattle Times anyone?), controversy, anger, elation...and that's just from the promotion side. As you can read from Marya's gorgeous blogs below, the artistic process has also been exhausting, wonderful, scary. Now the production can fly on its own. That's not to say the work is done—from our end we'll be constantly dialoguing with the audience, making sure the work remains the focus of any controversy—but the piece can really have room to breathe now.

I saw the show on Tuesday, the final preview. I felt like I was holding my breath the whole time. I was caught up in Rachel's words, in Marya's pitch-perfect, vibrant portrayal, in every nuance and turn-of-phrase that she and director Braden Abraham overturned. The play is truly a journey and by the end I was a little shell-shocked. I stood with the audience in an ovation and it was then that I started crying. I let out the breath I was holding and the play finally really seeped into my blood. Afterwards, I couldn't stop thinking about it, talking about, which seems to be common impulse. The lobby stayed packed for a quite a while afterwards as audience members shared with each other their thoughts about the story.

For me, I was most caught up in the passion that Rachel had to make a change in the world. I know I've written about it before, but it's what is the most striking to me. I talked to my friend Diane afterwards, and we both shared this sentiment that the play makes us feel so sheltered, so spoiled, so ineffective. Yes, we are working at a theatre that is producing art that is encouraging people to talk about really important things. I don't want to discount that. But both of us feel like how can we possibly ever truly understand the privilege we have without being faced with people who don't have it? Rachel Corrie talks a lot about that in the play, the idea that we must leave our comfort zone to try to understand humanity. Of course, that's really the goal of art, isn’t it? To help us understand or at least consider our place in the world? But I have to commend Rachel for leaving the comfort of a privileged life to try to figure out what she could do—as an artist and just as a human—to make a difference. Maybe it wasn't the right choice to make, but she made one.

This is one of the first pieces I've seen at the Rep where I really didn't feel like there was a wall between the art and me. This isn't a criticism of the theatre I've seen here in the past—I work here because of the caliber of plays we produce and their ability to spark dialogue. It's just a testament to the acting and direction of My Name is Rachel Corrie, to the willingness of Marya to completely open herself up to the audience and let us into her world, Rachel’s world. We are on the journey with her, in her bedroom, in her head. This play gets under your fingernails, in your mouth in a way I have only experienced in small, intimate theaters. And even though the Leo K. isn't tiny and I was sitting in the back row, I felt the immediacy. This isn't an in-your-face confrontation like Thom Pain (which I also loved, though the style was off-putting to some). This is Marya/Rachel taking your hand and saying, "Let me show you something." It's an indescribable feeling.

Rehearsal: An Actor's Blog, Second Day of Tech

From actor Marya Sea Kaminski, playing Rachel in My Name is Rachel Corrie.

A ten out of twelve tech today for MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE. That means we're all there from noon to midnight, with a big, strange two hour dinner break. Today was tougher than Sunday, the second day of school is never as romantic as the first. We are fastening the pieces into the puzzle, and then smoothing out the edges. Working transitions. Rather than listening to the sound, and seeing the lights, and hearing the words, it feels like we're experiencing the play. As a whole. As a sum greater than its parts. It is an exciting, exhausting time.

I got a little wobbly towards the end of the night. Stepped back from the edge of the raked stage after fleeting visions of tumbling into the first row. When I opened IN DISDRESS NOW: REDUX at Washington Ensemble Theatre in January, I slipped on an icy bit of sidewalk on the way home from the opening and broke my wrist. I feel a little less indestructible than I did last December. I'm going to try not to break, or even deeply bruise anything during the run of this show...

The exhaustion is welcome, though. It's instructive. Robyn Hunt, one of my incredible mentors and an unbelievable actor, always spoke of exhaustion with admiration. In the midst of our Suzuki training, it was only when we started to get tired that the work began. When you don't have the energy to put anything on top of your performance, or the will to add 'flare' or 'meaning' to a moment, is the time when the honest moment can actually emerge. That is where the art lives, Robyn would imply, on the other side of that threshold. It was good to teeter there tonight.

I'm excited to get an audience. And, admittedly, scared. While the work is definitely starting to settle into my bones, ninety minutes of lines is still alot to hold inside my head. Feels a bit like a house of cards right now, and the audience is going to bring another whole deck to the table. That's when the play is going to breathe, though. When I will find its rhythm, discover where the play wants to rest and where the text wants to run. I suspect the first couple of previews are going to be baptisms by fire. A long journey finally coming, crashing home.

Edward Albee doesn't hate everyone...

From Joanna Horowitz, Communications Department

One more thing. I meant to blog about this earlier, but you'll just have to forgive me...

In Michael Caines' March 2 theatre blog for the London paper The Guardian, he writes "Why does Edward Albee hate directors?" about some comments that Albee has made implying (and flat out saying) that in the play creation process the writer should be in charge no matter what and that directors often just get in the way. Caines writes "Perhaps Albee, now in his 70s, simply hasn't met the right director yet."

I find that an interesting point to consider because we just staged The Lady From Dubuque here last month with our artistic director David Esbjornson at the helm. David and Edward have worked on a number of successful projects together, including the premiere of The Goat, Or Who is Sylvia? on Broadway. So, Edward clearly has found a director he doesn't mind working with. The thing about Edward's plays is that the characters are so specifically drawn that there isn't much space in there for interpretation of intent. The directors really have to rely on and trust what is given to them.

I saw Edward and David speak together at our Stage Voices event during the run of Lady and Edward really had nothing but positive things to say about his collaborations with David. That makes me wonder if David just trusts Edward's scripts more than any other director or if Edward just trusts David more than any other director. Or maybe it's both.

Rehearsal: An Actor's Blog, First Day of Tech

From actor Marya Sea Kaminski, playing Rachel in My Name is Rachel Corrie.

"I am given to making very important lists."
Rachel.
tech.
daylight savings.
stayed up too late.
anxious.
first day of school.
christmas morning.
dressing room.
tulips.
a turquoise bathrobe.
and a lovely woman named leslie.
two pairs of matching underwear.
two pairs of matching jeans.
two pairs of matching tshirts,
boxers,
tanktops,
long sleeve shirts colored a purplish blue.
set everything in order.
mascara.
powder.
new makeup brushes from rite-aid.
calm nerves.
into olympia.
a bedroom like every bedroom i've ever slept in.
except missing one wall.
and two cats.
energy.
sound.
lights.
nalgene.
paint supplies.
duct tape on the bottom of my feet.
stop and go and stop
and go go go go.
lb at his desk.
pushing buttons and then there was light.
obediah at his computer.
creating rain.
traffic. gunshots that make my heart stop.
kati with her notebook in the third row.
jolene quiet and fastidious in the upper right.
jen making faces at me from the back of the house.
braden speaking gently speaking direct.
like he is starving and finally smells food on the stove.
erica runs the show. a heartbeat in the sixth row.
david on the stairs.
is he always here on sunday?
long dinner break.
i hate taking breaks.
want to go and go and go.
into jerusalem, through khan jounis, finally
violently arrived into rafah.
my boots feel at home on that ground.
steady. even with the rake.
hover on the window ledge while a world
falls down around
the downstage left corner.
i will be able to hear you breathe, i think.
i'll try and pay attention.
the audience is going to be close enough
to smell sweat and smoke and fear.
the day is so long.
but no messages on my voicemail.
this is the everything.
rem.
stand.
the place where i live.
tuesday we'll start on february 7th.
i will have lived in palestine for two weeks.
and one hour.
saved for daylight.