Dreams and Visions of Off-Broadway

Twice a month, I'm going to see an Off-Broadway production (rather than an off-off-...-Off-Broadway), because I want to see myself doing that; I want to have a clear image, dreams and visions of performing at that level. Once I perform at that level, then I can die, or at some point later, but not before . . .

CageLove

        Primal obsession, & terrifying: the deepest of part of you, more real than anything, and it's ugly, weak, destructive: its actions, what it wants, the energy, the experience, all want expression in the universe. The behavior, the choices -- there's nothing else: there's no thought of not acting on what you are really, Really feeling, because nothing exists outside of that, so there's nothing to stop it; there's no where else to go . . .

           - the challenge for the Cagelove actors, in my opinion, to bring to life -- and they did just that: the vertical work

      See myself doing this, Off-Broadway.

      What I saw (the horizontal)

• full breath before speaking, didn't start until they were ready, and then
• no pauses or breaks (except for a breath) until the end of a thought
• pauses: where the character is searching, thinking of what to say, before saying something, the character, not the actor.

       Prayer: let me live another 50 years, 50 years to do this, to grow old and learn to do this, 50 good years more, 50 years in shape, 50 years in heart, in mind, in body, 50 more years, that's all I ask . . .

      Blocking:

• stillness -- then movement with purpose, but almost intuitive . . . a difficult talk, an uncomfortable moment, you go to the window -- why? You're getting ready to hear or to speak; this blocking did not seemed planned, little seemed choreographed.
• deciding to kiss her sister's fiancé . . . her right foot moved, just a couple of inches, stopped, paused, another tiny movement forward, stopped, paused . . . then, decision: up, walking towards him. Deciding, deciding, . . . decision, all was still except for her right down stage foot. It was amazing. Planned or inspiration? Planned, I think.
• Some of the movement, the pauses before movement, seemed well rehearsed, but not so much that the blocking lacked life.
• While there were some exceptions, moments of theatricality, I got the sense that all the blocking supported the action, or reinforced what was going on with the characters: it wasn't just a nice stage picture.

      Goal & Focusing Only On What I Want -- I am what I do

      I've got to find out what it's like to work at this level, at an Off-Broadway level. I resolve to use the off-Off-Broadway circuit to learn, to grow, but my target is Off-Broadway, to work with people who are really doing it, who have given and done what it takes to get there (even though, really, there is no there there, Gertrude Stein (Everybody's Autobiography) -- rather it's the doing it: I am what I do).