The Rake Magazine

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...

Another op'nin, another play

In Shakopee or at Dor'thy Day

But usually it's the VOA...

Most professional theatres have opening nights. There is glamour, maybe just a faint whiff, but it's in the air nevertheless: press and theatre cognoscenti are out front along with family, friends and scores of "hope you're great" or "hope you die" colleagues. The buzz of the audience before the show has a special electricity that's infectious. When the cast arrives at the theatre there are often bouquets of flowers, notes, chocolates and other giftie goodness waiting for you in your dressing room. The show goes on and it's great or it's not and then afterwards, there's some kind of party or reception, either in the theatre lobby or a nearby restaurant, where some of the best unrecognized acting in the Twin Cities happens. People come up to you, eyes a little too bright, smiles a little too wide and enthusiastically embrace you so you can't see their faces: "Darling, you took great risks!" "You should have been where I was sitting!" "Only YOU could have given such a performance!" "Your makeup was fan-tastic!" are just a few of the memorable comments lobbed in my direction over the years. I think there should be an Ivey Award for best post-show performance by an audience member. And bless our actor hearts, we fall and feed greedily on each stinking lie. Hearts are made to be broken, but please, just not tonight.

That's most professional theatres. TTT has an opening day. Almost always at the Volunteers of America Women's Correctional Facility. Located in Roseville, the VOA is set well back from the road and if you weren't looking for it, other than a discreet sign at the drive you'd never know it was there. It resembles a suburban high-school, albeit with a lot more locks. TTT always performs in the common room adjacent to the cafeteria.

Our first performance is scheduled for 1pm on Feb 14 (Valentine's Day) and the company is supposed to arrive at noon to give us time to unload the set, props and musical instruments off the van, set up and otherwise prepare for the performance. Driving east from Mpls on I-94 I am a little nervous still about my lines and start mumbling my way through the play. I'm relieved to learn that I still remember everything but alarmed to learn that I've missed my exit. I call Nancy Waldoch, our amazing stage manager, effusively apologize and promise that I'll only be ten minutes late. "That's OK, glad you're all right!" she chirps brightly but I can decode the reproach: "Guess you'll miss the load-in, Hendrickson. How conveeeeen-ient!"

My battered Subaru roars into the parking lot to see that the van is indeed empty and parked. Shit! I grab my costume garment bag and stride across the icy pavement as briskly as I can. I am met at the door by a stern uniformed matron with a clipboard and a "just where do you think you're going?" expression. But after I announce I'm with the band her face brightens, she says hi and I sign in. After passing through three sets of locked being held open by staff, I'm in the common room, where all is motion and controlled chaos. The inmates are still finishing their lunch in the open adjacent cafeteria The set is in a jumble in one corner and the rest of the company are pushing sofas and chairs into the next room to clear our playing space. I've played the VOA six or seven times now so I know the drill. Our dressing room is a tiny library off the common room. The doorway has been festooned with a homemade banner welcoming us and inside, plates of cookies and bottled water await. I cross the common room borne on a non-stop round of apologies for my lateness, drop my bag in the library and, without even pausing for a cookie, go out to lend an extra-big hand in setting up.

After putting the room more or less into performance shape, the actors re-group in the library to get into costume. It is said (by me, at least) that actors have no modesty and TTT actors even less. The library is maybe 10X10 feet with two tables. One large table holds the cookies, water and Valentine goodies brought by some of the cast, another, smaller table is piled high with garment bags dumped there when each actor arrived. No mirrors, no hooks or hangers and absolutely no privacy. There we are, three men, three women, stripping down to our scanties and back into costume with nary a shrug of uneasiness. The room is bright with anxious chatter about pending Valentine's Day observances (or lack thereof), complaints about the cold weather and last minute blocking adjustments to accommodate the new space. Our director Larissa Kokernot arrives, still in the fearful grip of La Grippe, but looking cheerful and bearing lovely cards for each of us. Michelle Hensley pops in to let us know we're on in five and we scurry to finish dressing and take our places. The audience have seated themselves and the room is packed- not an empty seat to be had and people scurry to find a few more chairs. Michelle always makes a short speech to the audience, giving them a bit of background about the Orpheus and Eurydice legend and playwright Sarah Ruhl's conceit of having the land of the living and land of the dead sometimes occupy the same space at the same time. She finishes up, there is a polite round of applause, and we're off...

Next: The First Performance

Hello, my name is Hector E. Ramos-Ramos, and I intend here to share with you my observations, opinions, and concerns while I am abroad (primarily in Scotland), courtesy of the study abroad program at St. Paul's own Macalester College.

Although I am not originally from Minnesota, the home of Bunyan and Babe has grown on me in a way I could not have predicted that first winter in 2005. Back then I constantly asked myself why I had forsaken the perpetual balminess of my hometown of San Juan, Puerto Rico, for this. Eventually though, just like the videos at the Light Rail stations tell you, even the harshest winter becomes tolerable after you've understood how charming Minnesota really is.

In any case, I'm in Scotland now, at the University of Edinburgh, and I'm behind blogging schedule, so now I have to make up for my laziness with some earnest storytelling.

I left San Juan around noon, was briefly stationed in New York City, flew from there to London (our in-flight movie was Tootsie), and then, it was just a brisk hour-long hop to Edinburgh. It had taken more than a day, but when I arrived at the airport I received my hard-earned prize: torrents of hard, cold sleet. Welcome to Scotland.

I followed a trail of visiting university students. We all piled into a bus. None of us spoke to one another, and everyone seemed exhausted and eager to get some sleep. When I was dropped off at my university flat, the absence of bedding in my room gave me a reason to go out into the Scottish capital and explore.

Highlights from Week One:

The next day, orientation was held at a large lecture hall. I sat next to my flatmate, Vilhelm, from Sweden. He is one of four guys who live in our apartment (from now on, "flat"). We patiently watched some very nice Scottish university employees talk to us about the beauties of their country and the ins and outs of opening a bank account. Their accents were impenetrable, and the only way I sort-of understood what they were saying was by looking at a massive PowerPoint projection.

Pubs happened soon after and would continue throughout the otherwise commitment-free week. Discovering a new pub is like finding a new home away from home away from home. It was during one of these introductions into the world of pubs (accompanied by my new friends, all of them from continental Europe), that I got my first lesson in local drink-culture. I went to order a pint of lager (beer) at the counter, and one of the brands, Tennent's, caught my eye. I told the man what I wanted, and some young Scotsmen behind me in the queue reacted by chortling. One of them made the reason for my risibility very clear, "Tennent's is for poofs." Since I have seen a number of British sitcoms, I know that poofs = limp-wristed weenies. Not wanting to be the source of Scottish mirth, I turned to the man behind the counter and said, "Erm, excuse me, could I get a Caledonian instead." No laugh track accompanied my change of drink.

Highlights from Week Two:

Already a week into classes, things had started to get slightly less fancy-free. My friends and I did a fair amount of touristing though. The school provided us the option of paying a few pounds for a daylong trip to the much sung-about Loch Lomond. We decided to bite the bait and hopped on the bus to the Loch. After three hours of cramped travel, we were there — Loch Lomond: 80% mist and 20 % shopping mall. After the fog cleared up and I saw the ducks doing their thing in the vast expanse of grey water, I turned to look at the awful strip mall opposite the Loch and thought to myself "What kind of schmo let this happen?" The Loch is so large that I was told by a park ranger that it would take several days on foot to go around the whole thing; I only had a few hours, so I proceeded to feed most of the ducks in my immediate surroundings. At Loch Lomond, I also found out that my flatmate, Vilhelm, has a mild case of cynophobia. This emerged after I saw him get stiff as a lamppost when two beautiful German Shepherds decided to nuzzle playfully at his feet. Later, he told me with the severity of a character from a Bergman movie that "dogs get more attention than they ought to...they don't deserve it, not one." 

I got to know my other flatmates, Knut and Mathieu, better this week. Knut is from Norway, but he speaks in perfect British "received pronunciation," sometimes sounding like a youthful Richard Attenborough. Mathieu is from France and he is soccer-mad, seemingly planning his life around television matches and trips to see some of his favorite teams play. The first is rather fond of dry humor, and it is comforting to know that we both share a love of classic British comedies like Yes, Minister. Mathieu is more happy-go-lucky, but he has a marvelously good attitude to everything.  He makes Marcel Marceau look like an undertaker. 

This week, my friends and I also went to Calton Hill, where many Scottish luminaries are buried. I got a special kick out of seeing the mausoleum David Hume commissioned for himself. I am a big fan of Hume, and I appreciate praise Edinburgh heaps on him, in the form of big buildings named after him and big statues portraying him. On the hill, we also saw the National Monument, a half-finished (yet, indeed, monumental) thing in the style of the Parthenon. Begun in 1822 to commemorate the Scottish soldiers who died for Britain at Waterloo, plans to finally finish construction are tentative. I like it the way it is — aren't most of those old Greek things in ruins anyway?

The differences between the first dress and second dress are three:

1. It's our second dress rehearsal.
2. We have moved from our cramped basement rehearsal space at the Quaker Meeting House to the spacious, bright, airy, and day-lit upstairs meeting room.
3. We have a small audience of Michelle Hensley (again) and Michelle Woster (TTT Managing Director) — who has brought along four women friends. Also present are the meeting house caretaker and his daughter, who looks to be about four years old. Apart from the two Michelles, none of these people are theatre professionals, and, most importantly, nobody is carrying pens and legal pads. They're just here to see the play.

Larissa — who throughout the entire rehearsal period has been struggling valiantly against a nasty, persistent racking cough that has limited her to 2-3 hours of sleep a night — looks rested and, surprisingly, cheerful. She makes no attempt to take me aside and explain, eyes averted, that she has conferred with Michelle and Peter and that all agree a huge mistake has been made, and that one of the other Steves of the Minneapolis acting community — Yoakam, Pelinski, D'Ambrose, Lewis, or Sweere (fabulous actors all, btw) — will be going on with script in hand and perhaps it would be best if I gave back all my salary, packed my things quietly, and left by the back door.

Instead, Larissa spends the first two hours giving notes and going over particular scenes, tightening, adjusting, finessing with a sense of confidence and surety. The comments she has from Peter and Michelle all appear to be smart, observant, constructive, and effective.

Our audience arrives at 12:45, and at 1 p.m. we're off. Sonja and Marc (Eurydice and Orpheus) start the play and instantly the energy of the room changes to something we've never felt before. The change is the rapt attention of our tiny audience. They are riveted, engaged, enthralled. They laugh! Omigod, the play is funny! After three and a half weeks of rehearsal, we had kind of forgotten that. But even better, the laughter is coming from recognition and identification. They cry! The end of Eurydice carries a bittersweet melancholic mixture of empathy and loss that seems almost unbearable to witness. The play ends, and we stand to face the friends of Woster. Their mouths are creased with wide smiles and their eyes damp from tears. Yin and yang — marvelous!

Larissa and Michelle look relaxed and elated. Larissa has notes for us; there are always notes, but they're the notes a cast gets when the director feels the play is on the right track — more than that — that the play has tuned itself to the right pitch and is working, is playing the way it's meant to. Glitches are addressed, minor issues are discussed and solved, but the air is vibrating with the sense that the audience was compelled, moved, and we're onto something special here. Tomorrow we give the play it's first real audience: the VOA Women's Correctional Facility in Roseville. Ready or not, rehearsals are over.

Next: Opening Day

First dress rehearsal:

As I mentioned earlier, TTT makes camp in all manner of places not designed for theatrical performance and uses whatever light is present in the room. Occasionally we perform someplace that has natural light from windows, but it's mostly artificial lighting and mostly fluorescent. That means that, unlike sitting in a darkened theatre, our audiences see Eurydice in full light. They can see the actors of course, but they can also see each other, which is sometimes unnerving. But more importantly, we the actors can see the audience. This often requires a radical adjustment for actors used to performing in the comforting, cloak of darkness — did for me at least. With the audience sitting so close and in full view, it's practically impossible to not include them as participating members of the experience. This always works well with Shakespeare, where soliloquies and asides are meant to be shared directly with an audience. But as we rehearsed Eurydice, we found the solution to a problem often lay in finding a way to open the scene to the audience. (For more perspective on this subject read about my moment of TTT epiphany as described by American Theatre Magazine.)

Eurydice had two dress rehearsals, and the first one was especially unnerving, at least for me. Remember that when we're rehearsing there is no audience except for Larissa, our director, and any actors who aren't in the scene, who perhaps decide to sit and watch instead of going to the bathroom or finding a quiet nook to run their lines. So, up until dress rehearsals, the actors are imagining the audience: speaking to and looking at empty chairs.

For our first dress rehearsal, along with Larissa we had two other audience members: Michelle Hensley, the TTT artistic director, and Peter Rothstein, the brilliant artistic director of Theatre Latté Da and director of TTT's upcoming spring production of Once On This Island. Larissa, Peter, and Michelle settle themselves among the seats, giving the actors at least three living breathing faces to react with. Except that Larissa, Peter and Michelle aren't actually there as audience members, they're on hand to help Larissa get some perspective on the play- they're there as consultants. Sympathetic, encouraging consultants to be sure, but for an actor, anytime somebody sits down to watch you act with a pen and legal pad on their lap they are no longer your friend. They are a critic.

In Eurydice my first appearance is a monologue (I don't want to give away any more of the play than I have to so I won't say what the monologue is about). I have worked with Peter Rothstein once in several new script workshops and have found him a wonderful director: affable, encouraging, intuitive and imaginative. Moreover, he has never seen any of the previous rehearsals for Eurydice. So for my first connection with the I audience, I choose Peter. I look at him in the eye, begin to speak, and before I'm halfway through the sentence, his head is down and he is writing furiously on his pad. I keep going, but my inner actor, the little dickie bird who sits on my shoulder any time I'm performing, immediately goes into a paranoid panic: what's he writing down, and why is he writing so fast, and is it about me? Why isn't he paying attention? It's because I'm terrible! He hates me! And he's writing down that he hates me and why he hates me! Mayday! Mayday! I turn away from Peter and look at Michelle, and omigod she's writing too! Sheets and sheets about how I totally suck! Where's Larissa? Oh, there she is, journaling away eight to the bar on the pluperfect putrescence of my so-called performance. I haven't spoken five sentences and I know, I know, I'm a complete failure.

What were Peter, Michelle and Larissa writing? I don't really know. It may be that they were commenting about how awful I was. But just as likely they were making notes about sight lines, blocking or how much they were enjoying what they were seeing. This kind of note-taking happens in practically every dress rehearsal of every play ever produced. The difference is that in most theatres, the note-takers are sitting in the dark. The actors can't see them scribbling madly and, in those cases, ignorance is our friend. At the end of the first dress rehearsal, Peter and Michelle smile at us (me) encouragingly, but I know they hated it (me). Then they dash off. They will call Larissa that evening to offer their thoughts and the first thing they will say to her is Steve Hendrickson has got to go.

Next: Second dress rehearsal.