Re: RAT Words

["chris mac" <cmacdona@adobe.com>]

Dear Ann:

I think I love you, but my flowers won't make it on time. 

I directed a play recently and kind of stumbled through some Viewpoints
stuff. My aim was to get my actors to make physical choices kind of riffing
off the text. Physical choices that went against what I saw as their natural
habits, postures, and ways of navigating through stage life.

They made physical choices that I never would have thought up, and they were
surprising and somehow very true to the script.  They also came up with a
great improv using a few words of text from the script. This was terrific
theater in an of itself.

I also did a lot of stuff with all types of music, and we kind of found the
world of the play through that. You know this moment could be what you did
when the cello music was on, and the next moment is something you found
while Bowie was on. Bla bla.

So, on this bright and sunny morning (Seattle) allow me to piggy back onto
your e-mail.

Oh yeah, what were your impressions of SITI? I studied Suziki here and I
miss it, and was wondering how Ann B. tied it all together. Did you do the
Saratoga workshop?

Please inform.

...Chris (an Annex guy)



----------
>From: Anntracy1@aol.com
>To: rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
>Subject: Re: RAT Words
>Date: Sun, May 23, 1999, 10:31 AM
>

> hi there.....
> this is Ann Tracy from Beyond the Proscenium in Sacramento....
>
> vis-a-vis the Anne Bogart thing....  having done a workshop with her
> Viewpoints and with her SITI company...  I probably have a slightly different
> perspective....
>
> I think  her ultimate aim is to reunite the actor's mind and body with her
> technique.  Let's face it most American actor training... is very
> intellectual, head-oriented....  there are very few people out there trying
> to do this, that I know of....  it's just a different way to work.  might
> work for you, might not.
>
> When I was in Europe and then performing in Edinburgh at the Fringe, I
> noticed that many of the German and Polish companies I saw seemed to have a
> fuller total body committment to their work - they were very physical... In
> fact, some of the best theatre I saw was in German and Polish... and even
> though I didn't know the language, I did understand the shows... of course
> many of them were variations on Shakespeare, so I did know the basic plot
> lines and characters...  but even in the more obscure plays that I wasn't
> familar with, the actors had so unified their heads and bodies, that the work
> was dynamic and brilliant.
>
> so... I guess what I'm saying... is that you can be in your head (as we all
> are typing these words on the screen) but I wouldn't knock something unless I
> had direct experience with it....  so check out Bogart's work, or do a
> workshop and see what happens....
>
> ann
>
>