Project for Tuesday

What are we trying to get out of this experience, and what do we want the audience to leave with?

It seems to me that most people only start to grasp historical occurrences once you parallel the event to one of the present day; Arthur Miller did it with the Crucible, T.S. Eliot did it with poetry, etc. I believe Jacob shared an article relating the Hastings fire to the BP Oil spill. While I worry about the scope of this comparison, I'm always interested in exposing the inability of mankind to learn from its mistakes.

If a strike of this magnitude were to occur today... well let's just stop right there. Too obvious.

I would like to engage in some sort of discourse with the audience. I attended a piece by Mitch Dickman called Mediamockracy following the Democratic National Convention. It discussed the role of media, twisting and bending truth beyond recognition. Actors broke the 4th wall and had elevated discussion and debate amongst audience members, ripping participants out of observance and into engagement.

This sort of discourse could be beneficial in evaluating the act of dissent in the 21st century, compared to the start of the 21st century.  The point of addressing the massacre of 1914 to me is to state the true "freedom" we have of dissent in the 21st century. I would go further to state that we have a much better appearance of freedom, a veil draping the Patriot Act.

The group splits into 2 teams, one representing the miners of 1914, and the other as the working class of 2014. Honestly, theatrical antics aside, I just want to have a debate about the pros and cons involving the two groups, ranging from the pros and cons of mass media, to the ease of silencing dissent depending on the era. I want to see if we can come up with a strong set of values/concerns/improvements in worker relations, job quality, as well as discuss if it would not only be easier to organize support in the modern world, but at what cost? In short, my project for this week pulls away from the experiential, and steers towards the connection which can be easily digestible.

First of all, I want to apologize to everyone for my late post. I've been very sick since last week and this is the first time I've been able to sit at my desk for any period of time.

I found the Union Meeting very intriguing. For the first time I was able to truly put myself in the miners' shoes. I think you can experience this intellectually and even emotionally as a human without experiencing it as THOSE humans did. The meeting brought me closer to experiencing what they experienced, I feel. Putting myself in a position of someone wanting change but not sure that the union could provide that for them, I was overwhelmed by distrust. I felt angry when George's character started asking me questions. I seriously contemplated leaving at that point, yet, I stayed. I listened to the others' stories which reinforced my desire for change, however, the miners' doubts and the distrust I had for the union organizers reinforced my decision to NOT unionize. When your supporting a family in such an isolated location you can't just pick up the want ads and look for another job - especially if you are only paid in script! That fear hit me in the face when I was sitting there. Although in the end my character decided to join the union even though he was reluctant - I wondered why he would do that - and then I realized that he had already made up his mind the second he walked through the door. He was going to join no matter what - what choice did he have?

Just another quick point to that exercise - I realized that I had tied the red scarf on at the end of the meeting but then felt compelled to take it off and stuff it in my pocket the second I left the meeting.

I felt doubt, insecurity, and distrust were at the heart of the experience.

On another subject, I too have been thinking a lot about an installation/performance piece - especially after the union meeting and the paired performances. I agree with Sinjin's post that we could have the audience or "experiencer" move through a piece but then incorporate places along the way that would be "performances areas".

I have been thinking about a tunnel of tents laid out like a coal mine. We could use projections, shadows and light play on the walls - ex. swiftly moving mine walls moving past the "experiencer" giving the sense of being thrust down a mind shaft, projections of flames like (Em and my performance piece), we could have the tent material change from white to that semi-transparent material and have that tent inside a larger black tent with the miners and their headlamps moving around the "experiencer" like Craig and Ryan's piece a few weeks ago, or a tent made of only a skeleton of a burnt wood frame - again inside a larger tent - where Red Cross workers search the aftermath of the incident and come across the pit - like Em's piece a few weeks ago.

Then, the "expeiencer" could make their way to the center (like Sinjin suggested) where there would be an open area where, for example, a union meeting is taking place. They could sit and listen to the stories of the workers. Move to the corner where company spies are taking notes. They could decide to add their name to the list - or not - like in our meeting exercise. Then work there way back out another series of tent-tunnels.

I think I am leaning towards a more immersive piece because I don't feel a traditional audience/stage separation will do this event justice. Even having the audience sit in one place and making it interactive still feels not powerful enough. Having the audience have to make their own way through this piece, make their own choices, make them actively experience it will have a more personal impact on them.

Anyway, that's all. Hope this makes sense... I'm on a lot of NyQuil.

-Brian

The Challenge Rooms_Next Class

For next class I want to play with the idea of putting participants in challenges against each other.

I want to create three rooms of fabric or obstructions that are small and confining and place an artifact in each one. A can in one. Barbed wire in another. And a shoe perhaps in the third. Setting two-three people in each room, I want to write simple directions for them to accomplish, and give each person secret instructions. They have 3 minutes to complete a task that means one of them will be left behind, alone, to confront The Company. Everyone is a worker, deciding whether or not to strike and the company is on the move.

Meanwhile, to signal the time passage, the sounds of discordant music gets louder and louder, mixing with the sounds of fire and of gunshots. Until everything goes silent and dark. Anyone who has not escaped has been captured.

Chavez's Hole After Fire

Here is the outline for something I would like to explore on Tuesday. I would like to play with smoke and the pit and possibly shadows on the side of the canvas like the tent.

Chavez's Hole After Fire

Introduction

And so I stood, hands in my pockets, unable to breath

Like the bodies down below

And the ruins all around me

Frozen in a moment

Like the dew before it drips

Clinging onto life

Like the sweet leaves of yesterday

But anticipating the drop

The fall, the pain down below.

And so I waited, unable to breathe.

Until I inhaled

And with the air came smoke

And fear and ash and ruin

And ghosts.

The ghosts spoke to me,

Frozen in a moment

Between sweet life

And agonizing death.

They longed for what they lost

And yearned to tell their story

Before they were blown away

Away into the unknown.

Monologues performed

Number 47 (George)

She Said

The Earth (Sinjin)

Conclusion

The Anarchist (Ryan)

Thoughts/ ideas

Sinjin and Craig's presentation was intriguing since we heard the voices of both company men and miners on the same instance. There words combined created a sort of whirlwind of confusion.

Being in the tent waiting for something happen terrified me! The anticipation made the actual gun shots jar me, and every time a shot was fired I jumped.

I loved the speech that was given to us in the third group. However, I could hardly hear any of the dialogue. It was interesting though that I went along with the crowd and yelled and hollered even though I didn't know exactly what was going on....

My idea for an instant involves the child's shoes and the men's shoes from our artifacts. I like the image of a mother deciding what to do with these left over shoes once her son and husband have either been lost in the mine, or killed during strike warfare.

GK Thoughts

Report back to the company:

- One man sits awfully far, alone, by himself.
- One man is overly eager to be here.
- I think he suspects me.
- General dynamic of the room: down trodden.
- A lot of doubt.
- Consent may follow.

Brian doesn't really know why he's here. Been here 6 months, has a family.
Sinjin has 8 children, some are workers.
Tom wants fair treatment, and has two children.
Emily's daughter is sick and her request for fair treatment was denied.
Hostility increases.
I don't feel safe anymore.

----

Something interesting I noticed is how dangerous and scary doubt and unsureness can really be. Unlike a definite yes or no, I wasn't sure what they would bring to the table next and whether they would suspect me or attack me. Greeting, isolation and unity. That's how I separated the mentality stages of the meeting, at least in our improv session.

9.28 The Thoughts and the Script

I've been meaning to post some of these thoughts for awhile.

ON 9/28: There was something unimaginably somber about the meeting. Would they have been eager? At what point does anger overcome fear? I did not want to join but I did. There was nothing else to do. In the end I knew that it was best for my daughters. What example would it set for them? Can't be afraid.
I felt so connected to the stories themselves. And, personally, I was paralyzed by fear. I wanted action but it was nearly impossible for me to bring myself to do it.


Generally, I think, if we were to do this for the show or again we could ad-lib it. I like the truthfulness of it in that way. To make it more urgent, perhaps ad a time limit when the Company will show up.

Concerning the Mother Jones documentary. I loved it simply because of her character. I think she is pivotal to have in the final product. In fact, I'm going to write a play about her.


An idea that occurred to me, along the lines of the stuff we were talking about 2 weeks ago (the idea of making a tunnel-esque walk-through experience for an audience where they are thrust into the world and which directions they choose dictate the type of experience they have), was to have that but with big events that perhaps happened in the middle of the space, that the audience could view through peep-holes or something. Events, like the union meeting, that provided big ideas to them in intriguing ways and occurred throughout the evening in different forms. I like the idea of smaller events happening and bigger events shaping their experience...perhaps also with the things that Craig and I were playing with. Perspective. Maybe the events look completely different from different angles and where you are sort of dictates how you perceive the event.

On that note, what follows are the two monologues that Craig and I used:

Craig: Company Reporter
Company Report on the mine explosion of August 2nd 1913.
Investigations into the explosion demonstrate negligence on the part of the miners in shaft 16. Gas lamps not properly maintained ignited coal dust causing cave in's in local tunnels and shafts.
The company was not at fault.
43 Units lost.
Due to fault resting with the miners no compensation is due.
It was an unfortunate loss of coal.


Sinjin: Worker
August 2nd, 1913.
My brother was killed in a mine "accident". No one checked to see if it was stable. No one was around to help in shaft 16. So he died, alone, no one around to help.
It was the company's fault.
All in all 43 people died.
Fourty-three brothers and sisters, moms and dads. I only lost one...I couldn't imagine losing more.
It was a horrible loss of life.


My hopes for what to do next week to come!