R ii

We will be filming the the piece without an audience.
But these are a few excerpts from the performance w/ and audience.
I would suggest viewing this in full screen mode.
Or going to my vimeo page and viewing in a larger format.

Performers: Jeremy Beck, Peter Blomquist & Scott Sowers.
With music by Missy Mazzoli & Victoire

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R ii

text by William Shakespeare
as performed by The Groom, The King & The Jailer

Conceived and Directed by Mallory Catlett
In collaboration with: Actors – Jeremy Beck (The Groom), Peter Blomquist (The King) & Scott Sowers (The Jailer) & Designer Peter Ksander

Music by Missy Mazzoli & Victoire

In 2004 Restless Productions NYC created a site-specific production of As You Like: restless in arden. R ii is the companion piece to that production. It has been developed on-site with an LMCC Swing Space residency, on the 31st Floor Penthouse of 14 Wall St.

Work-Progress Showings – June 29, 30 & July 1, 2010 @ 9pm.

Thanks to Missy Mazzoli, Jonathan Cottle, Eddie Prunoske, Hunter Canning, Josh Higgason, Nate Lemoine, Aaron Landsman, HERE Arts Center and Ben and Sean at LMCC.

R ii is made possible by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space program, with space at 14 Wall Street donated by Capstone Equities.

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Patient Boy

a new theater piece by Aaron Landsman
directed by Mallory Catlett

featuring David Brooks, Chris Devlin, Jim Findlay, Sarah Lord and Pete Simpson

Monday June 14, 2010 7PM

PATIENT BOY is made possible by Swing Space, a program of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, with space at 14 Wall Street donated by Capstone Equities.

Thanks to HERE Arts Center, Ben & Sean @ LMCC, G. Lucas Crane & Brent Green

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Patient Boy

Cast for June 14 showing: David Brooks, Chris Devlin, Jim Findlay, Sarah Lord and Pete Simpson

Rehearsal with Chris Devlin & Sarah Lord

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R ii

From STARGAZER by Stephen Koch:
His innovation has been to surrender to that withdrawal rather than struggle against it. Whether out of weakness or strength, surrender or mastery he is the exemplar of a certain modern condition, one in which the presence of the self, for itself and for others, is forever in question, in danger. . . He has invented a spectacle of acceptance-not fighting against it, accept perhaps in his most pallid and hidden recesses, afraid of the dark–and in doing so embraced a startling decadence.

Presence is threatening to him: Distance is essential, itself a source of gratification. Distance gratifies because it resolves . . . However ambivalently, he wants and needs it, and will defend it. What is his problem? He can find no wedge of entry into the primal scene: He cannot present himself where love is. But he clings to his exclusion and protects it; unlike most people suffering from the sting of exclusion, he has no interest in breaking in. For the menace of some terrible threat hangs over the impulse to present himself. One cannot speak generally about what this menace might be, except to say that it is very dire. Never underestimate its power; an entire personality and its most profound energies have been reconstructed, redefined to avoid what most people call gratification, to create what most call frustration. Somewhere in this is what the unconscious mistakenly understands to be the threat of death. Like all compulsives, he is trying to save his own life by refusing to live.

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R ii

R ii is the companion piece to Restless NYC’s 2004 production As You Like: restless in arden. Shakespeare’s Richard II is staged for 3 male actors – the groom, the king and the jailer. The piece opens with Act 5, Scene 4 to find Richard “studying how to compare this prison” where he lives unto the world and his story unfolds retrospectively – like a prison confession – as he “hammer’s it out”.

I’m interested in the narcissistic confrontation between appearance and being – between anointed King and Prisoner. I’m interested in narcissism not as myth or philosophy, but as a mode of relating to others, as the structure of an experience that bends toward self-destruction.

Secondary Source: Stephen Koch’s STARGAZER – about the life and films of Andy Warhol.

There is a connection for me between how Power and the Gaze function for both Warhol and the Elizabethan Monarch.

Vanya

Just a few observations to close.

Ideas worth pursuing:
Projecting the room onto the room – the most successful application of the Shattuck research and binocular vision – the ability to blur then bring into focus. It should expand across the whole back of the set. Image content should expand beyond the hallucination of the Professor to include images of younger versions of the characters. Fascinated by the idea of a person sharing the space with another version of themselves – in this case a younger version of themselves.

These Proustian ideas need to find concrete visual illusions or modalities that are established at the start with the Proust text but continue as the piece leaves that writing behind.

On the music: Grew to like the more abstract samples pulled from the White Album. The very literal tracks should be fewer. Still convinced of the idea. Lucas’ eventual position on the stage? I have always thought of him as the son of the neighbor Waffles. Making this idea clear scenically from the start – important.

Will leave this for other projects. Will pick up with this at the end of July.
When future planning is to recommence.

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Vanya

Conceived, Adapted and Directed by Mallory Catlett

Text from Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (translations by Paul Schmidt & Constance Garnett) & Proust’s Swann’s Way (translation by C. K. Scott Montcrieff).

Cast:
Vanya – Arthur French
Sonya – Black-Eyed Susan
Astrov – Paul Zimet
Yelena – Lizan Mitchell

Video by Mirit Tal
Noise by G. Lucas Crane mixing the White Album

Work-in-Progress Showings March 10 & 11, 2010.

Special Thanks to: Renèe Williams (AD), Scott Sowers (Professor on Video), Cat Coffey (SM), Eileen Goddard (Lights), Karl Allen (TD), and Josh Higgason; and to the Mabou Mines Residency Program – to Joe, Julie, Terry, Ruth, my mentor Sharon and to all my fellow resident artists for their generosity and support.

Mabou Mines/SUITE is supported with funds generously provided by the Jerome Foundation and the Foundation for Contemporary Art and with Public support from the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs.

Mabou Mines/SUITE is an annual laboratory for artists to experiment with performance ideas. Resident Artists are appointed to the Suite by the Co-Artistic Directors of Mabou Mines to work on particular ideas. Work is shown at whatever level the artist feels will be most beneficial to its development. Audiences are invited, at no charge, to readings, works-in-progress or small-scale productions. All works shown have been developed in part during the Residency at Mabou Mines studio (ToRoNaDa). During the Residency, artists meet regularly with the Co-Artistic Directors of Mabou Mines to discuss, develop and show ideas. The Residency provides artists with mentoring, rehearsal space, administrative assistance, use of equipment and advice.

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Patient Boy

Been doing some visual/musical research.

This one stood out. He seems like he might do something bad.

Also:


Lyrics:
I am a patient boy
I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait
My time is water down a drain

Everybody’s moving
Everybody’s moving
Everything is moving,
Moving, moving, moving

Please don’t leave me to remain
In the waiting room

I don’t want the news (I cannot use it)
I don’t want the news (I won’t live by it)

Sitting outside of town
Everybody’s always down (Tell me why)

Because they can’t get up
(Ahhh… Come on and get up)
(Come on and get up)

But I won’t sit idly by (Ahhh…)
I’m planning a big surprise
I’m gonna fight
For what I want to be

And I won’t make the same mistakes (Because I know)
Because I know how much time that wastes (And function)
Function is the key
Inside the waiting room

I don’t want the news (I cannot use it)
I don’t want the news (I won’t live by it)

Sitting outside of town
Everybody’s always down (Tell me why)

Because they can’t get up (Ahhh… Come on and get up)
Up from the waiting room

Sitting in the waiting room (Ahhh…)
Sitting in the waiting room (Ahhh…)
Sitting in the waiting room (Ahhh…)
Sitting in the waiting room (Ahhh…)

(Tell me why)
Because they can’t get up

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