6/27/2007 11:53:00 AM One play: thousands of decisions
Although Brad Mace (above) conceived the set design, its actual creation required dozens of helpers who scavenged necessary items. The construction crew consisted of Kevin Coker, Len Enders, John Liczwinko and Kurt Steinbach. – Photo by Kathie Meyer
Consider the set for Key City Players' latest production, "SO FAR: Children of the Elvi," and realize that each piece of this post-apocolyptic junk pile represents only an approximate one-third of the thousands of decisions that go into any play before an audience ever sees it.
Even after the set was built for "Elvi," the playwriting continued. One night, late in the rehearsal process, director Denise Winter and playwright Constance Congdon sat onstage, looked off into the distance, saw what their characters would see, and finalized the play's last two lines. It was also the end of a long collaboration between Winter and Congdon that began nearly a year ago over the telephone.
Because "Elvi" was essentially a brand new play when Congdon presented it to her, Winter looked at the script for dramatic action and a "how to stage it" point of view. Identifying the challenges - what got in the way of the story and what was secondary to momentum - Winter would ask Congdon, "What do you mean by this?"
Congdon already had an idea of what wasn't working for "Elvi," because the play had been "workshopped" at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she is playwright in residence. But rather than the usual workshop setting, this play was given full production values, since two graduate students were using it as their design project for their MFA degrees.
At the workshop, the play dragged on for three and one-half hours. The large university stage created an uncomfortable distance from the audience. "I wasn't a happy audience member, so I knew there were others that weren't too," said Congdon. "I didn't really have time to shape it, so that's what I wanted to do when Denise called me."
As the two of them went through the script, Congdon told Winter which parts she hated. On most points, Winter agreed. "One day I was reading over what we'd done and I cut two and a half pages off of the beginning - and it lightened everything up," said Congdon. Other parts that ended up slashed and burned were those in which the play's characters ventured out from the confines of their compound.
"Writing a play is like sculpting. You write it and then you chip away, and a form starts to appear," said Congdon.
Congdon and Winter also took suggestions from the actors. "It's not that anything in there is precious," said Congdon. "In playwriting, you're writing more than the words; you're writing the world. The eerie thing about it is that it doesn't get to be a world until it's populated with other people - the director, the designers, actors and the audience. All plays, to become themselves, have to be produced."
"It's a willingness of every participant to share in the responsibility of making this play," agreed Winter.
Set building
Many others besides the actors were happy to share that responsibility. In addition to the director and playwright, a play depends mightily on those never seen - the producer as well as the set, light, costume and makeup designers and their army of helpers.
Although Brad Mace, a professional set designer who has worked for PBS, Pearl Jam and Dave Matthews, designed the set's concept, it was a troop of volunteers that tracked down the endless supply of little things needed.
One day Deb Hammond, the show's producer, ended up at Jefferson County Recycling Center, where she hoped to find rusty tin cans. She asked the staff person sweeping up if he could help her. He wasn't sure he had what she needed, he said, directing her to just look around for herself.
So Hammond began to approach others, including a woman unloading her van. Did she happen to have a wrecked plastic laundry basket? No, the woman replied, offering Hammond "the nastiest set of jumper cables I ever saw." Hammond could not believe her good fortune. "I was looking at them like they were fine jewelry."
As she was leaving the landfill, the staff guy she'd spoken with earlier came up to Hammond and told her he thought he had something she could use after all. Inside his boss's office was a tin man made from rusty cans that the employee had found and saved. Offering it to Hammond, he told her she could just have it, but when other crewmembers objected, Hammond agreed to accept it as a loan.
Onstage, the tin man was such a hit that the cast members began to use him as part of the show. Did Congdon mind? Not at all.
"Connie thinks we should keep the tin man and display him at the entrance of the new theater," said Hammond.
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