She stares into the audience blankly as they are seated. There’s no music, no sound, and she doesn’t move. She sits on a chair, but it looks as though she’s dancing. She’s dancing and singing and flying and then
She looks up. Not at the audience.
She looks up as if she saw something there that was not.
Is not. Could not. It makes her want to cry, this nothing.
This something that did not use to be. Eventually it is too much and she looks away. Into herself.
Deep inside.
The sun. The sun. It blinds her, overwhelms her, overtakes her. As though she’s moving too fast. Too slow. The sun is moving, she is moving. She spins so fast all the follicles of hair on her body individually sway and pull away from her skin. All the particles, all the atoms, electrons, positives negatives drawing away from her, tempting her to follow, daring her to try. The moisture leaves the air. It is dry, cool. Hard. She looks up. She looks at the audience. She looks up. Did they see that? Could they prove it? Could you prove it?
I saw it. I saw it. Did you?
Am I alone? You’re here. You’re right here. I see you. I hear you. Sniff. I smell you. May I taste you? Can I climb inside your skin? May I hold you close from within your body?
I want to be a part of you. I want to keep you near me, draw breath as you do, see as you do, live as you do.
I sit facing you. I look at you. She looks at you. If I keep looking, will you mind? Don’t mind her, she’s reading you. She’s trying to see what you see, how you see. If I couldn’t see, I’d still see you. With my body. My heart. My chest can see you. With my soul.
I can’t be you, but I want to be. No, she is you. There’s a theory (impossible to prove) but there’s a theory that says there is only one electron in the universe, bouncing back and forth through space and time. So I am you. You are me. She’s me. We are one electron. Or we could be. Want to make electrons sing? Hum? Can I be inside you? I don’t like to be in here. In here is locking me in, locking me out. You know sometimes I feel like I’m outside my own eyes, my own body, knocking at my eyes, hoping to get inside myself. To hold myself close.
No one holds me like I hold me. No one touches the way I touch.
I want to touch this.
She sits.
But I want to touch this.
She sits.
No! I want to touch this now!
Sit down!
If you do not listen, you will feel.
She sings.
Once in a universe dark and cold
A star was born that felt so old
That children who did not exist
Went to bars and just got pissed
On alcohol that just gave way
To sunshine on a brand new day
Can you be mine? Please?
I mean. I know you belong to someone else, but that’s not what I mean. What I mean is
She has trouble with words
No I don’t.
She doesn’t, but finding them
Is not as hard as she thinks – I think -
Be with me. You don’t have to be mine. Really. I don’t want you to be mine. But if you could just
Hold
My hand? Her hand? Sorry, they’re often cold
It’s not attractive, but it is often the case, can that be ignored?
She hopes so.
She looks up again. Sees the birth of the universe, the birth of life and love and chocolate and guacamole. Raises a hand to the sky. From below it does not look like one hand alone. It looks like two hands. Two hands in a permanent embrace.
At the birth of the universe.
A shiver runs down her back.
The world is so big. And she is so small within it. And yet so large.
So infinitely large.
One electron in a sea of one electron.
Thinking, feeling, breathing
TOO MUCH
She cowers, hides in a corner. TOO MUCH.
No. Yes. Too much for one electron. An electron so lost in a sea of one electron. Forming eyes, face, hands body love, hate, loss, discovery. Tears, saliva, cumming.
Cumming.
Coming to a halt. A stop. Yes? No. Electron running. Running.
To what? From what?
What do you think?
What does she think?
Everything. Sights. Sounds, smells, the question.
The question? Yes. The question. The dreaded question.
The one that always requests the same answer.
Answers that don’t fit. Answers that are pre-determined. Jarring.
Why ASK THE QUESTION?
Waste of breath, time, an electron.
Has to be asked. Has to be answered.
Always.
How are you?
Yeah, I’m fine.
Tag Archives: writing
How to lose sight – November/December – Seeing out of the back of your head
This year, as stated in my previous entry, has been full of business. And busyness. I’ve been rushed off my feet for pretty much the whole thing, which I don’t necessarily find to be a bad thing. Now all my projects have ended and I’ve settled down to finish this last, beautiful piece before Christmas.
Who knows what 2012 has in store for me? I really don’t. Kinda wish I did. But if it has even one rehearsal period like the one I’m experiencing now, I think it’ll be great.
The thing about theatre – the amazing, wonderful thing about theatre, is that when you have time to just experience it, it’s incredible. This year has been a bit frantic, I think, leaping from project to project like the world’s going to end. That has its appeal because I love to be busy. I love to be in it and learning as fast as I possibly can.
This rehearsal period is about putting into practise everything I’ve learned, and just being creative. And that’s amazing.
The piece was created by Michal Imielski and is the second part of a trilogy of works. The piece is devised, which makes me very happy, because the fun involved in just throwing ideas up in the air coupled with the refining of those ideas into a piece that will challenge, excite and entertain an audience is almost a lost medium of theatrical creation. One that is often dismissed because of the time and intensity needed to work on a piece to strengthen it.
The piece is based, as the title suggests, on people that have, through one method or another, lost their sight. Some characters were blind from birth, others were brutalised. What we’re telling in this house (yes, it’s a site specific piece performed in a house) is based on true stories and using actual technologies.
I went to Melbourne over the weekend. My first time on an airplane in four years (far too long for a seasoned traveller). Since I was going on holiday, and my character at the moment seems to have an invested interest in travelling, I put on my sound recorder at times and just sat with my eyes closed, describing what I thought I could hear, touch, smell, taste in the air. Some things frustrated me, like drills blocking the sound of a crossing, or people talking too closely. Personal space, as someone that is visually impaired, works in many ways. You have to accept that people will expect it to be reduced because you “need help”. What if you’re incredibly independent?
My character has been blind from birth. She’s had no other way of living, so of course she knows how to take care of herself. She has to. She doesn’t want to depend on anyone, and she doesn’t need to. So when people want to help her, what does she say, or do? It depends on the circumstance. If she’s with people that she can be honest with, she’ll say she’s fine. If she’s with people that are honestly trying to help, she’ll let them. If someone is forcing her to do something she doesn’t want to, she’ll fight back. It makes sense.
So my character went to Melbourne with me. She heard tram noises, and pressed the button at the stop that would read the timetable and due times to her. She touched beautiful fabrics and heard great street music (better than sydney). She felt the hot, dry sun on her arms during the day, the suddenly chill air on her skin at night while she sat at a bar and had a drink. She saw things she’d never seen before. And yes, she SAW things she’d never seen before. And when she returned to her hotel late at night, she slept like a baby.
The incredible thing about devising is that as a writer, you have to learn to let go of the idea that your text will be perfect, or near perfect, and grasp the idea that whatever you say will be the absolute truth at that point in time. Prior to refining and setting the text, every thought you have, every word you say or sound you make is a part of how the character, or the group, feels, and is precious in its own right.
The three devisors I’m primarily working with are all writers as well. I’m not sure how they’re finding the process of not writing, but I remember in the beginning especially, I found it hard not to try to censor myself, or edit as I spoke. The problem is that if you hesitate and don’t say exactly what you’re thinking, you’re missing an opportunity for someone else to pick up the idea and turn it into something else that could be perfect for the finished product.
And I think this piece will be incredible. Which is quite a wonderful way to finish a year.
Sonnets
Shakespeare and I have a very interesting relationship. I want to speak all his words from memory, and he’s okay with that. The problem is, I don’t want to speak them in order, necessarily.
I didn’t get to spend as much time with Shakespeare as I wanted during high school, or during acting school. There was too much ‘other stuff’ going on for me to get what I really wanted from the words. What did I want?
The sounds.
Look at his verse. Iambic pentameter. They say it flows easily and sounds so right to the ear because it matches the rhythm of our heartbeat. It also, in my mind, flows easily and sounds right because it matches the rhythm of our hearts and minds. I’ve felt the jealousy Hamlet feels because someone’s stealing his mother. I’ve felt the need to test a man’s love the way Cleopatra does out of insecurity. I’ve felt the joy of freedom that Rosalind experiences in Arden, and I’ve felt like mouse to the ‘black lady’s’ cat in the sonnets.
And that’s where my connecting stops, because I’ve reached the subject of my new project. The sonnets. Shakespeare wrote one hundred and fifty four pieces of poetry outside his plays that flowed as a story without necessarily meaning to. I’m not sure, I’d have to ask him. The way I see them, they’re a stream of consciousness. A perfect stream of consciousness.
I would like to state here and now that I’m not an academic. I haven’t done nearly enough research on Shakespeare beyond what I know from school. I’m intrigued NOW, so I’m going to say things that are probably point blank wrong.
Feel free to correct me, if this is the case.
What Shakespeare managed to do, or seems to have managed to do is write the equivalent to haiku about his life. I use haiku, because I believe it’s the purest form of poetry. To write a good haiku, you have to really examine the subject of interest and distill your thoughts into 17 syllables. Shakespeare’s poetry is more expanded, but every single word lives in its own right, and has to be understood in its fullest to even begin to see where his thoughts were when he wrote them.
Having just written that, I’ve just realized how big a project I’ve decided to undertake.
I want to understand the sonnets. I also want to redefine them into another story. The sonnets are a mixture of (almost entirely 14) iambic pentametric lines. If they can make one story, in theory, they should be able to make another.
Imagine, for instance, if rearranged line by line, they could show you the way ‘the young man’ and ‘the dark lady’ thought about Will himself? Or another story entirely?
I don’t know if anyone else has thought to do this. I don’t know if anyone else is crazy enough to consider it. Or is willing to devote the time to something that could yield nothing but an understanding of language.
But. It’s that but. Is it not worth devoting the time to these miniature masterpieces simply for the purpose of exploration? I have three months that I have no projects outside of my own control (i.e. performing in someone else’s media). Why not spend that time playing?
Maybe I’ll find a new Shakespearean work.
The Shakespeare Code.
Or some such.
It’s a chance to marry contemporary thought with elizabethan words that I will have much fun playing with.
Wish me luck.
You may not see or hear from me for three months.
