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…
Sarah Ruhl
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