T(r)oy's Marbles
'night, Mother
Well, the first meeting of the North American Theater Group took place last night in our home. At first I was a bit bummed, because, as the day progressed, some of the interested participants called in to say they couldn't come. The good news is: they all said that they want to come next week but just couldn't make it that night, so we'll see how it goes next week. All told, there were four of us last night.
We had fun getting to know each other a bit and reading a sampling of a play by Marsha Norman called 'night, Mother. We read up to the inciting incident in the play. It was quite interesting to see everyone's expression when we got to that part, since no one was familiar with the piece.
'night, Mother is a play about a mother and daughter. At the beginning, the daughter asks her mother "where Daddy's pistol is". The mother helps her find it by suggesting it's in the attic in a shoe box. The daughter finds the pistol, brings it down to the living room and begins cleaning it, as if she's going to use it. Shortly after that, she announces to her mother that, yes, she is planning to use it--on herself--in just a couple of hours.
The rest of the play the audience, along with Mama, is left wondering: "Is she really going to do it?"
Last night, when we got to the inciting incident, the actors sort of chuckled as if to say, "Um...okay...that's interesting." I suppose no one really expected a pastor to pull out a play to read that had to do with the issue of suicide, but there you have it!
Anyway, through that little bit of dialogue we talked about (among many other things) the status transactions that were taking place between the characters and we tried on a little excercise without the script to get the actors listening to each other. It was quite fun!
Thanks to all you who perhaps prayed for me. I just wanted to give you an update on how it went.
As another little interesting note: one of the participants, upon leaving said, "That was hard work! I never expected it to be so hard!" I'm not sure if that was a good thing in her mind or a bad thing! I guess we'll find out next week, eh? ;-)
Next week, we'll take a look at some other snippet of dialogue from another play I have in mind to test out on the group. Then, later, we'll decide which ones we'd like to work on a bit more after the actors become familiar with the different options regarding themes, plots, characters and such. I'll keep you posted on how it all goes.
journal | Comments (2) | September 11, 2007
Comments
Yeah! I'm thrilled for you, Troy! Wow, 'night Mother...you never were one to ease into things and Hans and Franz can always use a little Meisner, right? = ) Have you connected with Matty about this new endeavor? He might even book a flight to get involved...
Posted by: Rick at September 12, 2007 03:24 PM
Hey Troy, I'm so glad the first get together went well. I wish I could have been there to work through the play with you. Next time you are in Minnesota we'll have to get together for some play readings again.
Posted by: Matto at September 12, 2007 04:41 PM