Just One Slight Minor Snag

Ever since I started blogging about New Line Theatre's creative process back in spring 2007, it seems that at some point in every show, I write a blog entry about how hard it is. A year or so ago, I noticed this and wondered if I'm just a big whiny pussy. I'll leave that to you to judge. But it remains true that most of the shows we produce are really hard, though often in different ways.

Love Kills was hard because it was such a quiet, still, freakishly intense show -- much more like a play than most musicals are. (That's Zak and Alison in Love Kills, in the photo. They're both working on I Love My Wife.) Every second depended on amazing acting. Thank god we had the cast we had. The Wild Party was hard because the music was extremely complex and challenging, but also because the show was so highly stylized that every moment was essentially choreographed. It was totally unnatural in its physicality, but the acting had to be totally honest. And there was the weird device of characters stepping out of the action to comment on what's happening. But it wasn't the actors stepping out; it was the characters. It was tough for the actors to find a way to stay inside the character while stepping outside the story. But they did it with utter conviction.

Bat Boy and Urinetown were hard because they were both so outrageously crazy, but the actors could never "admit" that -- they had to play it hyper-serious, with hyper-high stakes. They could never "wink" at the audience the way shows like Drowsy Chaperone, title of show, and Gutenberg the Musical all do -- that's much easier to play but not nearly as funny. The more honest it is, the funnier it is. Every time.

Like all the others, I Love My Wife is hard too. It's a real bitch to memorize (the number one reason I am no longer an actor) because the scenes move very fast and pausing to remember the next line can drain all the energy out of a moment. And many of the lyrics are lists. List songs are notoriously hard to memorize because they don't have logic to help you get from line to line. It has to be just rote memorization. I brought the actors my beloved Focus Complex supplements -- I take this stuff every day and I've given it to other actors on occasion, who say it helps a lot.

The other thing that's tough is getting the characters of our Greek Chorus guys right. In the original production, there were four musicians onstage (and one or two offstage), and they were the chorus. They sang, they even participated in some dialogue scenes. That's kind of a cool gimmick, but I'm not interested in gimmicks. Our guys (we're using three instead of four) are right there in the scenes with the two couples. But though they sing a lot, they have such little dialogue that the script doesn't have much for the actors to work with. A lot of shows require participation from the actor in constructing a vivid backstory, but this time it's more work than usual, because the script literally gives them almost nothing. But we've been talking about all that, and I think they've all found the right road. I saw some really cool work from them tonight.

Still, as hard as it is, as complicated a piece of comedy as it is, this cast is doing wonderfully. I'd say 70% of the show is really cooking now. Really funny, really honest, and really easy for the audience to see ourselves (or considering the period, my parents) in these characters. The whole story builds to the moment when all four of these married people get into the same bed and break out a sex manual (in our production, it's The Joy of Sex). And though it's a very tough scene to play, it's already hilarious. It's a totally satisfying payoff for an evening's worth of set-up.

We also had a very hard time figuring out how to make the last moments of both acts play. But after a long talk after the run-through Monday night, I think we found the exact right answers. Both moments are really working now. Also Monday night I decided I hated the way I staged the Act I finale, "Sexually Free," so we re-staged it tonight, and it's so much better. Not only does it look better, but changing the focus -- without changing a word -- has turned this funny novelty song about sex into an integrated dramatic moment that leaves us with a great cliffhanger: Will the somewhat dorky Alvin and Cleo really go through with this "multiple love experience"? The song had been just a statement of theme, but now it's a character moment. Which is way better.

But tonight I also decided I hated the way I staged the Act II opener. It needs to be fairly minimal, but right now it just sucks. And it's not the actors' fault; it's mine. I have 48 hours to fix it. I have to have a better answer by Thursday night, because that will be their last rehearsal before Hell Week, when we add lights, the band, costumes, the rest of the props, etc. We open next Thursday, so I won't impose any new staging on them next week.

My favorite thing about directing with my longtime cohort Alison is that she's a genius at identifying the crux of whatever problem we're facing so that the right answer seems obvious. That happened with several moments in the show tonight. I feel like, except for the Act II opener, we've fixed all the rough spots, all the slightly awkward staging moments. It's really sailing along now. It's overflowing with truthful little "married moments" that make the whole thing work, that get us to identify with these people and get us emotionally involved.

I just gotta figure out that one last number...

This has been such a cool experience, not only rediscovering this piece of American cultural history and getting this close-up look at the demise of the Sexual Revolution -- and through a piece that was written at the time it's set. There's no twenty-twenty-hindsight here. It's really an insider's view. We get a glimpse of this legendary cultural war from out in the middle of the battlefield. It's a really different kind of show, sort of a hybrid of Company, Bat Boy, and The Wild Party.

I think audience are going to have such a great time with this show because it's extremely funny. And I think they'll see lots and lots of truth in it as well.

We're coming down the home stretch! Ack!!

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

First Draft of My Director's Notes for the Program

It's 1977. There’s no internet. No cell phones. No cable TV. Only three networks. And America is having a nervous breakdown.

I Love My Wife is a sex farce. But it’s also a lot more. This is a story about searching for meaningful human connection in the midst of massive cultural change, a theme as relevant now as it was thirty years ago. There were several musicals in the 1970s that were about this – Company, Follies, Pippin, The Me Nobody Knows, The Rocky Horror Show, A Little Night Music, Mack and Mabel, Runaways, and others.

I think this show is telling us that as fun as Free Love might have sounded, as exciting as the Sexual Revolution might have seemed, those were dangerous times emotionally, and only a really solid relationship, like a good marriage or a lifelong friendship, could be sturdy enough to get you through it. The 1970s were wild waters to navigate. It was only allegory in Rocky Horror but it was true in real life – the Sexual Revolution wore people out and left them feeling empty and alone.

By the end of the decade, Cosmopolitan magazine reported that “so many readers wrote negatively about the Sexual Revolution – expressing longings for vanished intimacy and the now elusive joys of romance and commitment – that we began to sense there might be a sexual counter-revolution under way in America.” In 1982, New York magazine published an article called, “Is Sex Dead?” Esquire published “The End of Sex,” which said, “As it turned out, the Sexual Revolution, in slaying some loathsome old dragons, has created some formidable new ones.”

Musicals are about emotion, but in this show (as in Company) most of the emotions are suppressed, hiding out in the subtext of the dialogue. These characters often say one thing and mean another. They fight about one thing but they’re really fighting about something else. Likewise, most of the songs don’t reveal character as much as provide social and historical context.

Working on this show is unusually interesting for me because I was born in 1964, right on the cusp between the Boomers and Generation X, and I want to understand the culture that shaped me as a child. I remember the 70s, but only from a kid’s perspective. So it’s been a lot of fun for me to rediscover this crazed decade and to understand the culture I remember, now from an adult point of view. I loved The Mary Tyler Moore Show when I was a kid, but now I understand how precisely it tapped into the cultural zeitgeist and how remarkably bold its statement about women was. It was a fascinating and disorienting time in our history.

Of course, we live in times just as turbulent today. Maybe if we take another look back we can understand where we are now.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Wally's Asked the Neighbors Over for a Little Orgy

We finished blocking the show tonight. It's already really, really funny. There's some extended physical comedy late in Act II that's worthy of Laverne and Shirley and I Love Lucy. I'm glad I have such an open, fearless, and funny cast. I continue my love affair with actors.

So I'm thinking about the show tonight, now that all the pieces are in place, first drafty though they may be. And I'm thinking in particular about the last moments of the show. Alvin sings the last song, "I Love My Wife," Harvey sings a bit of wrap-up narration, and then we see this very small, final scene. A few lines between Cleo and Monica, and between Alvin and Wally, then the other couple leaves and we have a final "married moment" between Alvin and Cleo as the lights fade. That last scene is dripping with subtext. The surface dialogue hides all the repercussions and implications of the sexual adventure they've had. As we watch them part company, we realize that what's most striking about that last scene is what is left unsaid.

And because it's so subextual, there are several valid ways to play it. As we choose, we have to be careful that we don't impose our current cultural norms and assumptions on these characters living -- and written -- in 1977. The most interesting choice of course is for them all to have different, even conflicting responses. Because the show focuses on the theme of friendship so heavily, I think we can assume that the authors meant us to believe that these friendships would survive. But in what form? With what differences?

The lyric to the final song, "I Love My Wife," is about how these guys will probably always look at pretty women and they'll always think about sex, but they only love their wives. But this isn't a 1920s musical comedy, this is a 1970s concept musical, so when Alvin and Wally sing those words at the end, we have to understand that in 1977 the title phrase may imply different things to different people. To one man, it may mean he'd never look at another woman. To the next man, it may mean he'll sleep with other people, but he only loves his wife. Looking at pretty women may well imply something more for Wally than it does for Alvin.

As I've written here before, this show is a lot like Company (1970) in many ways. One parallel is that in both shows, much of the dialogue hides the real meaning beneath it. People say one thing and we know they mean another. Two people fight over one thing but they're really fighting over something else. That's so real and so emotionally truthful. And that's part of the process the actors are going through right now, plumbing the depths of these interesting, complicated, neurotic people. We're finding wonderful little typical married moments, when they'll snap at each other or be annoyed or impatient. Maybe the message of I Love My Wife is similar to the message of Company -- that being married is difficult and frustrating and maddening and it's better than being alone.

This story is part Hero Myth, with Alvin as the Hero on a quest to find Ultimate Knowledge, and Wally as his Obi Wan-Kenobi, his Glinda the Good Witch. (Interesting that The Wiz opened in 1975, just a couple years before Wife.) Alvin's problem is that, as in Pippin (1972), this hero's guide isn't totally reliable -- he has his own agenda. Alvin's quest story uses all three classic struggles we learned about in Drama 101 -- man vs. society, man vs. man, and man vs. himself.

But this story is also the Eden story, with Alvin as Adam, Cleo (and maybe also Monica?) as Eve, and Wally as the snake. All about temptation. Also like Pippin. And Rocky Horror.

What was it about the 70s?

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

When You're Feeling Uneasy

Every show has its challenges. And every show also has a key that unlocks it. With some shows, that key is obvious; with others, it takes some exploring to find it.

At first, I Love My Wife seemed like one of the more straight-forward pieces we've worked on, but in many ways it's really not. I've said here before that I think the show's most obvious model is Stephen Sondheim, George Furth, and Hal Prince's 70s masterpiece Company. Both shows use songs that do not grow organically out of the scenes, the way most musical theatre songs do. Instead of the songs being woven into the fabric of the storytelling, they stand outside of that fabric, commenting on the action and characters from outside the scene -- more like iron-on patches, to extend my fabric metaphor...

Figuring out how to stage songs like that has been my own biggest challenge this time. Some of the songs really need stillness, either because they're very introspective and personal, or because they're so chock full of complex lyrics barrelling at us that we have to get rid of any distractions that will keep the audience from listening closely to the words. Some of the songs need some movement, but this isn't the kind of show that needs real dance. As it is with Company (that's the original cast of Company above), any choreography needs to look like these people -- moving guys, the owner of a diner, a PR guy, housewives -- are dancing. Not trained, rehearsed actors. The movement can't be too precise or too clean. For shows like this, we don't ask our awesome choreographer Robin Berger to stage the numbers; instead I stage them with what we now affectionately call "Millerography." The image I've given the actors for the choreographed numbers is that of middle school parents performing in a benefit variety show -- a little rough, but fun, good-humored, self-aware, and doing the best they can.

For the actors, it's a weird acting tightrope to walk. They're still in character, the relationships among them remain intact, but they literally step out of the action to sing in a completely non-naturalistic context directly to the audience. They often tell us directly what they're feeling and thinking in these songs. In some cases, the songs work like Shakespearean soliloquies, as interior monologues. In other cases, these are very Brechtian commentary songs that explore the themes of the show.

But the dialogue scenes -- or "book scenes," as we call them -- also have their challenges. One of those challenges is that, like Company, much of what's actually going on between these characters is underneath the dialogue. When these characters have a conversation, what they're talking about on the surface is often not what they're really talking about -- just like it is sometimes in real life. Like Company, all the most important stuff in the story is subtextual. That can be tough for an actor to play, but it's also really fun for them because it's so meaty and complex.

The other challenge of the book scenes is the style. Just before we started rehearsal I came across this amazing quote (somehow, I always find quotes like this at exactly the moment I need them). This is from a wonderful book on directing called A Sense of Direction by William Ball.

I believe it was George S. Kaufman who maintained that for a comedy to be successful there should be sound – relentless sound – for the entire length of the play. He repeatedly required actors to make all the words butt up tightly one to another. If there were a pause of any kind Kaufman would thrust some noise into the silent space: a door would slam, a phone would ring, a cash register would clang, someone would knock at a door, slap on a table, stamp a foot, crumple a paper, shake a martini, ring a gong, fire a gun, beat a drum; or someone would cry, sigh, scream, sing, mumble, cheer, grunt, gasp, giggle, or groan. Great comedic director that he was, he realized the enormous value of the momentum gained by a relentlessly uninterrupted flow of words. And if the words had to be stopped, some other agency of sound would slap, bang or clatter to keep the comedic rhythm cracking. Then, of course, on those few occasions when he introduced a moment of silence – for a double take or for a slow burn – the effect was like a train wreck.

But I'm here to tell you, that's not as easy as it sounds...! Actors like to act in between the lines, they like to let us see the gears turning in their characters' heads. And with most shows, that can be very cool. But in this style, if a character makes a decision, we have to see that decision happen during the lines leading up to it. Reactions have to happen during lines, not after them. There's an onstage phone call in this show, and the actor can't leave the pauses you would normally expect in a phone call -- the other person's side of the call has to be compacted to almost nothing. The pacing is very similar to the very best sitcoms -- All in the Family, Barney Miller, Cheers, Friends, Mary Tyler Moore, The Bob Newhart Show, Seinfeld, Good Times, etc.

But part of what's hard about this is that the delivery of the lines themselves can't be fast. The speed of the talking has to be normal, so that the audience can catch everything, but all pauses have to be cut out, in addition to other vocal fillers, like uh and um, and my own personal pet peeve, the "quick sigh," which a lot of actors use unconsciously to start or finish lines. This isn't farce, where everything moves fast; it's just a comedy with really intense perpetual motion. The result for the audience is the feeling of speed onstage, but they never get left behind. And on those rare occasions when we do use a pause, it will have a huge impact.

So during blocking rehearsals, as our actors run scenes, I find myself continually saying "Slow down!" and at the same time, "No pausing!" It's an unnatural style, so it's hard for them at first. And particularly this early in the process, it doesn't give them time to think about what's next, which can be disconcerting and sometimes frustrating. But I also know that if I let them play it more leisurely, they'll get into that habit and it'll be even harder later on to get the pacing the story requires. There are few things harder for an actor than breaking a habit, so I have to be careful to keep everybody on the right road.

The other challenge in this case will be holding for laughs when we finally get an audience. The actors are going to have to be tuned into our audience more than with any other show, to know when to pause that forward motion, to let the audience have the laugh and not to go on without them -- and without disrupting the flow of the show...

I don't intentionally try to choose difficult shows to produce, but I usually end up choosing them anyway, maybe just because the darker, meatier shows that appeal to my tastes are almost always the more complex, more artful shows. As I always tell the actors, if it were easy, where would the fun be?

The adventure continues...

Long Live the Musical!
Scott