The Fifteenth
Challenge: The Art of Autosuggestion
NOTE: If somehow I
didn’t catch it and you’re taking part in this challenge and one of the actors
who has yet to participate in An Oak Tree- STOP READING.
Just write something
with about a ton of flowers on stage. A metric freaking ton… of flowers.
The rest of you:
Please watch this Tim
Crouch TedTalk
AND if you’re super
into it also here is a link to our dramaturg’s background for audiences.
Tim Crouch is the
playwright of An Oak Tree- the play currently running here at my theater
company in Chicago. https://redtheater.org/anoaktree
The play is teaching
me a lot about the nature of theater, about performed gender roles, about the
dual realities between performer and character.
I’m including a
sample of the text at the bottom so that you get a feel for how Tim sets it up.
The major premise is this.
Two
Actors. One has rehearsed the play. The second has never even read it.
Performed by a different person each night, the second actor will discover the
play and their role at the same time as you do.
Now, you could really
do this wrong.
You could play a
sadistic “get the guest” and take terrible advantage of the power imbalance,
but this play doesn’t. The new actor is the hero- innocent, literally pulled
from the audience, sympathetic.
CHALLENGE: The Art of Autosuggestion
Probably best
accomplished by: Two actors. One has not rehearsed the play.
You suggest something
to a performer or to the audience, and because there is nothing else… the
suggestion becomes true.
Tools: You can hand them parts of the script.
You can tell them what to say. You can speak into their ear via a secret
microphone.
Advantages: It traps
everyone in the moment. They play cannot move forward because it literally
can’t. So we all become extremely aware of the present moment. Trapped,
perhaps, and not in control.
It’s good for
preciousness
It’s good for dealing
with pain, because it sits
Don’t make it a yuck
yuck we don’t know what we’re doing show.
Sample:
prologue
The actor playing the
FATHER is sitting in the audience.
The HYPNOTIST walks
on stage.
HYPNOTIST Ladies and
gentlemen. Good evening/afternoon. My
name is X
Welcome to the (name of the theater)
Would you come up and
stand here, please?
The HYPNOTIST invites
the second actor out of their seat in the
audience and onto the
stage.
Ladies and gentlemen.
This is X ( the name of the second
actor ). X will be
performing in the play this evening. X
has neither seen nor
read it.
X and I met up about
an hour ago. I have given him/her a
number of
suggestions. I’ve suggested that they enjoy
themselves!
But the story is as
new to X as it is to you.
scene 1
The HYPNOTIST hands
the FATHER a page of script. “Could we just read this together you and me?” The
second actor reads the part of the FATHER from the script.
HYPNOTIST Hello!
FATHER Hello!
HYPNOTIST Thanks for
this.
FATHER It’s a
pleasure!
HYPNOTIST You hope!
FATHER Yes!
Pause.
HYPNOTIST How are you
feeling?
FATHER Okay.
HYPNOTIST Nervous?
FATHER A little.
HYPNOTIST It’ll be
fine. You’ll be fine.
FATHER I’m sure.
HYPNOTIST Any
questions before we start?
FATHER Not really.
HYPNOTIST Nothing?
FATHER How long is
the show?
HYPNOTIST It’s just
over an hour.
FATHER Okay.
HYPNOTIST Anything
else?
FATHER How free am I?
HYPNOTIST Every word
we speak is scripted but otherwise –
FATHER Okay.
HYPNOTIST Anything
else?
FATHER Not really.
HYPNOTIST Just say if
you feel awkward or confused and we’ll
stop.
FATHER Okay.
The HYPNOTIST takes
the FATHER’s script from him/her.
HYPNOTIST Good.
Can I ask you just to
look at me.
Ask me what I’m
being. Say, “What are you being?”
FATHER What are you
being?
HYPNOTIST I’m being a
hypnotist.
Look.
I’m twenty-eight
years old. I’ve got brown hair, blue
eyes, and many
freckles.
Look.
I’m wearing these clothes.
Now ask who you are,
say “And me?”
FATHER And me?
HYPNOTIST You’re a
father. Your name’s Andy. You’re 46
years old, you’re six
foot two. Your lips are cracked.
Your fingernails are
dirty. You’re wearing a crumpled North Face jacket. Your pants are muddy, your
shoes are muddy. You have tremors.
You’re unshaven. Your
hair is greying. You have a bloodshot eye.
That’s great! You’re
doing really well!
Also, you’ll
volunteer for my hypnotism act. You’ll volunteer because I accidentally killed
your oldest daughter with my car and you think I may have some answers to some
questions you’ve been asking. I won’t recognize you when you volunteer. I won’t
recognize you because, in the three months since the accident, you’ve changed.
We’ve both changed.
Pause.
There.
That’s about as hard
as it gets, I promise.
********
(still purging)
LAST CHRISTMAS, cont’d
MACKENZIE
So,
are you going out right away?
WADE
I
don’t have to.
MACKENZIE
Do
you want to?
WADE
I
can’t afford to. Literally, cannot
afford to take the time off work. I’m
working doubly hard now to just to get ready for the standard holiday visit a
month from now.
MACKENZIE
But
he’s your father. And he’s dying.
WADE
He’s
been dying.
MACKENZIE
He’s
dying soon. Now.
WADE
The
hospice nurses haven’t pulled the alarm cord with the one to two week final
countdown yet.
MACKENZIE
You
really want to wait that long?
WADE
No. But it’s a month.
MACKENZIE
A
lot can go wrong in a month.
WADE
Yes. But it’s a miracle he’s lasted this long.
It’s
like my Grandma; she held on till her 100th birthday. The milestone really seemed to mean something
to her, even though her brain was basically gone at that point. Didn’t really know who anybody was – how old
she was, that the man she loved had been gone for over thirty years, that
nearly all of her immediate family, parents, her older brother and sister, all
gone. Two younger sisters left, but no
spring chickens there, either. One gone
not long after she did. But she got to 100,
looked around, wondered to herself, I imagine, why am I still here, and in a
month and a day she was gone.
Stopped
eating, stopped waking up every day, would rest for days at a time, finally
breathed her last.
Dad’s
hanging on for Christmas. After that,
all bets are off.
MACKENZIE
But
–
WADE
I’ve
had this conversation with myself and yes, I’m very likely in a little bit of denial
but here’s the thing – I finally – quite accidentally – scared my younger
brother, who lives much closer to where Dad is, to visit; and mom wants to see
him one last time as well, it’s been a while.
It’s good they’ll have each other for the journey up and back. And when it happens. And it’s good they’ve got the dog and the cat
there to provide unconditional love and comfort when the news finally does
come.
MACKENZIE
What
do you have?
WADE
Let’s
not.
MACKENZIE
Do
you have anyone, any living four legged thing?
WADE
You
know the answer to that.
MACKENZIE
It’s
not healthy.
WADE
You’ll
get no argument from me.
MACKENZIE
You
should go to church.
WADE
If
I had a church, you’re right, that would help.
MACKENZIE
Find
one.
WADE
That’s
like a whole other job.
MACKENZIE
No
one else can do it for you.
WADE
Also,
it seems a bit opportunistic. “Quick, I
need comfort, get over here, new church family.”
MACKENZIE
Oh,
and reeling you in when you’re emotionally vulnerable isn’t the church being opportunistic? I think you’d both be using each other, so
you cancel out each other’s worst intentions.
Win-win.
WADE
I
need to work on Sundays.
MACKENZIE
Jesus.
WADE
Yeah,
he’s aware.
MACKENZIE
A
friend of mine sees a grief counselor.
WADE
And
I’m sure they’ve got the money and time for that. Bully for them.
MACKENZIE
You
need to make the time.
WADE
You
know what I need to make the time for?
Sorting through all the stuff my stepmother sent me in the mail six
months ago when she and my dad moved into the new retirement community. There is a trove of stuff from his time in
the Korean War – letters, medals, his duffel bag, his uniform hat, manuals for
his specific duties, meticulously preserved, organized and labeled slides, and
a stack of tiny 45rpm disc records, recorded voice letters sent back home. I got a turntable and a slide viewer that
convert the images and sound into jpegs and mp3s I can transfer to my computer. His old desk is my writing desk. His grandmother’s rocking chair sits in my
living room. His childhood chest of
drawers holds the clothes in my bedroom.
I’ve got a life’s worth of accumulated photos and correspondence of my
own. There’s a record there. A time stamp.
He’s known me all my life and I’ve only known him for less than half of
his. There isn’t enough time to catalog
any of it before he’s gone.
I’ve
visited, religiously, no pun intended, every single Christmas season, stayed
for a full week, for years now. Week
before Christmas with dad, Christmas through New Year’s with mom and my
brother. The annual pilgrimage back
east. We’ve spent time together before
the memory loss set in, and after. We’ve
spent time together the before the stroke, and after. And I just recently got in the habit of
writing a little note to both my goddaughter and to my dad every single
day. Just a little colored slip of paper,
just details of my day to day.
And
now I’ve shifted, to focusing on relaying the message – the subtext of every
day’s check in – that I’m all right, despite everything I’m working through
right now, I’m all right, I’m going to be fine.
He saw me through to now, he doesn’t need to worry. He did good.
He can let go if he needs to. We’ll
miss him. We’ll remember him. But if it’s time for him to go, he should
go. He shouldn’t struggle or be in
distress thinking he’s letting anybody down or abandoning anybody. He’s earned a graceful exit. He’s still got his sight and his hearing and
enough of his memory to know who everyone is, more or less. To know that he’s surrounded by a staff that’s
caring for him, and a family that loves him.
He’ll
hang in there for another month, if he can, because that’s what he does.
And
if he doesn’t, he doesn’t.
I’m
talking to him, through the notes, every day.
Little
newsy tidbits that are just the right length for my stepmother to read to him.
That’s
gonna have to be enough.
And
for some reason, at least for me, I’m feeling like that’s the best I can do and
it’s a help so.
Win-win.
And
yeah, it still sucks.
But
we were always headed here. In a way, it’s
kind of amazing, and a gift, that it took all this time to get us here.
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