Love's Labors Lost: Feedback (Stuff I Can Answer Now)

May 25, 2008

Feedback (Stuff I Can Answer Now)

Now that I've had time to think about it, I'll clarify and articulate some of the feedback I'm looking for.

I pretty much take Matt Freeman's stance toward playwriting and feedback. Blogging my process is NOT my natural way of doing things, but because this is an experimental piece, I think an experimental approach to process is appropriate.

In my previous post I described at the kind of environment I wanted to foster. Now let's talk methods.

I like the "Yes, and..." concept:

As I post my ideas about theatre tribes, I get many comments that seek to knock down some idea, or seek to applaud it. But what I wish for is someone who wants to extend it. Someone who wants to build on an idea, strengthen it by adding a support beam, illsutrate it by providing a personal story or some other example.

Why not apply something similar to feedback for works in progress? Without getting too technical, the general idea is to do 4 things:

1. Describe which part(s) resonate with you and why.
2. Follow up with a question (or questions) related to that.
3. Share an observation about the style/content.
4. Follow up a question (or questions) related to that.

For example . . .

Sample Poster said:
"I was really enchanted by how you describe the trees. I guess it's because that's so different from how we usually conceive of the natural world. [snip explanation]

Several times you reference the audience when you describe what happens. That's not something you usually see in a script. What was the idea behind that?"

4 comments:

anonymous5/27/2008 2:49 PM
Hey, RVC, I'd be curious to read about why the fairy tale concept inspired you. My follow up question (which I actually don't want you to answer yet, because I obviously haven't read the whole piece, but which I've been thinking about a lot) is what is the new viewpoint on these fairy tales you're leading us towards? I am enjoying the very visual storytelling style and imagining dozens of iterations in performance. But am anxious to read the rest, as I'm sure that will give me a better picture of what would best serve the piece, as opposed to just what are all the different cool things I can think of. If that makes any sense. At any rate, I would love to hear a little bit about your fairy tale inspirations...
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RVCBard5/27/2008 4:58 PM
Laura,

Thanks for being the first to try this out! It's a great example of what I'm going for.

To answer your question, though, I've always liked fairy tales. What resonates with me about fairy tales is their enchantment. It's difficult to articulate, but I will try. Enchantment is a process and a state of mind that sees ordinary things as endowed with mystery and power. People, items, creatures, landscapes, events, etc. A simple and prevalent example is a mundane item that possesses extraordinary abilities.

Enchantment is a realm of twilight straddling light (where all is clear and known and knowable) and darkness (where all is hidden and unknown and unknowable). This in-between place is where they talk to each other in the language of dreams.
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anonymous5/28/2008 8:54 AM
Do you see enchantment in the mundane objects in the world around you, or do you think the idea of enchantment is about escaping from the real world?
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RVCBard5/28/2008 10:42 AM
I'm of a mystical temperament (in the truest sense), so I can experience enchantment whenever I'm free to do so. It's not an escape - at least, it doesn't feel that way to me - but an engagement with a deeper reality.
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Words, Words, Words

. . . a lot of it [fostering rather than smothering students' playwriting] has to do with finding a way to construct a dialogue about ongoing work that empowers the writer. A lot of it has to do with making sure there's a diversity of voices around you. A lot of it has to do with thinking of the writing program as a brain trust for writers, not as some infantilization in which the dramaturg gets the power. And basically trying to find a place where everyone's aesthetic in the room grows larger rather than smaller. There are many ways to do that. It's really not a hard thing to do.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

Here is what seems to me an elementary truth that must precede any other: namely, that the theater, an independent and autonomous art, must, in order to revive or simply to live, realize what differentiates it from text, pure speech, literature, and all other fixed and written means.
--Antonin Artaud, letter, 9/15/1931

I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all I need for an act of theatre to be engaged.
--Peter Brook, The Empty Space

My work is characterized by one thing above all --- invention. In theatre we imagine the world, we do not record it, we are not documentary makers. I hold all social realism and journalistic theatre in contempt. It is a sordid habit. And the social realists have the impertinence to pretend they are 'telling the truth…'
--Howard Barker, interview

Women and writers of color are still seen as threats because, in essence, when a woman or writer of color is defining a play world, there's another definition of what our society is, and that's very threatening.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

Through this experience [working on " . . . and last week it was a mountain"] I learned the importance of the life and the dynamics under the words, and began to see the power of working from the silent space within - the emotions, the images, the experience and the feelings - rather than relying on the words.
--Sande Shurin, Transformational Acting: A Step Beyond

How does it happen that . . . the Occidental theater does not see theater under any other aspect than as a theater of dialogue?
--Antonin Artaud, Theater and Its Double

All conventions are imaginable, but they depend on the absence of rigid forms.
--Peter Brook, The Open Door

I never 'say' anything in my work. I invent a world. Let others decide what is being 'said'. Nor do I claim to tell the truth or enlighten people. We are suffocated by writers who want to enlighten us with their truths. For me, the theatre is beautiful because it is a secret, and secrets seduce us, we all want to share secrets. That is also its politics, if it has any politics at all. And modern democracies hate secrets, they want everything transparent. Obviously the critics collaborate in this desire to expose everything to the light of day, they are the police force, after all.
--Howard Barker, interview

I think that form is content . . . I've always been more interested . . . in the formal devices and the structure rather than in the subject matter . . . I really am a follower of Viktor Shklovsky, who said that in some ways the subject matter doesn't even matter. It's whether or not we see the subject matter anew that matters.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

I am well aware that the language of gestures and postures, dance and music, is less capable of analyzing a character, revealing a man's thoughts, or elucidating states of consciousness clearly and precisely, than is verbal language, but who ever said the theater was created to analyze a character, to resolve conflicts of love and duty, to wrestle with all the problems of a typical and psychological nature that monopolize our contemporary stage?
--Antonin Artaud, Theater and Its Double

The mediocre artist prefers not to take risks, which is why he is conventional.
--Peter Brook, The Open Door

"Transcendence became my life theme. I wanted to be lifted beyond everyday circumstances and everyday reality."
--Sande Shurin, Transformational Acting: A Step Beyond

I actually think of writing for the stage as not writing . . . It's about structuring, about gaps between the language that are really filled in by the collaborators and the process. It's all about indirection rather than a direct statement . . . It's like a three-dimensional chess game in a way. If I say this, will the director go in this direction? If I say this, will the actor respond? And one of the delights of the process is actually not having your intention fulfilled, but finding out at times that other people's interpretation or intention is actually more interesting than you originally thought of.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

The person who has an idea of what this language is will be able to understand us. We write only for him. --Antonin Artaud, letter, 9/28/1932