The Imago Blog

In The Cuban Missile Tango, I am looking for a collision of two worlds.  Currently I am writing outlines. I begin rehearsal in a month.  The outline is only one or two pages but it provides a very important framework from which to build the play.

The Cuban Missile Crisis took the world dangerously close to World War III.  Kennedy and Krushchev, with a little help from Castro, played a game of chicken with the lives of all on the planet. This crisis took place in 13 days in October of 1962.  On Halloween day during the crisis a Soviet submarine came very close to launching a nuclear war head attacking US forces in the waters off  Cuba.  Three years earlier, on New Years’ day, 1959, a revolution led by Castro overthrew a dictatorship in Cuba, beginning a shift in the political climate in our hemisphere, and in some minds shifting the balance of communism on the globe, which ultimately led to the Cuban Missile Crises.

So there’s my collision – two holiday events, a New Year’s Eve party and a Halloween party colliding with a political military chess game.  I have two social classes at the party, those having a luxurious meal and a kitchen staff.  Two classes of people.  

The tricky part is not to make it too obvious, too complex or too easy.  I am not interested in creating a social political piece but would accept social political situations that may arise.  I will begin as I did with my last movement work APIS, with exploring movement, dance and vaudeville.  I have an idea of a noisy swinging kitchen door inspired by Jacques Tati’s Monsieur Hulot’s Holdiay.   So with a big idea, the danger of World War III, I start with a couple of waiters and a swinging door.

I don’t want to tackle the entire crisis. That’s why I will begin with two waiters and a door. This is not the Cuban Missile Crisis, this is The Cuban Missile Tango – an entirely different event. 

The Cuban Missile Tango opens Aug 21.

My staging comes from discovering the space.  The actors first move in the set and then I rediscover the space as they feel  freed or trapped by it.  It is always unique and heartfelt and then I impose my own movement style and choices on top of that. I like song and dance. . All people can dance and sing, just maybe not in the Broadway musical sense. The voice and body are your own and I try to bring out what each actor can bring to the stage in voice and movement. If they actors say they can’t  sing or dance, the will in my work. I sprinkle in realistic staging, otherwise there is no reason for the environment. If I were to completely ignore the set and do funny business with songs and dance the audience wouldn’t take the content of the story seriously.  Homeless executives is both humorous and tragic.

I intentionally keep actors in the dark as to why am I directing  in certain ways.  I want to watch their discoveries. Actors and directors can’t exist without each other’s input. We are like food to one another. As the rehearsal process deepens I become more specific in directing the actors.  Then we reach a phase where both freedom and frustration sets in.  Eventually the actors reveal  a character state.  Once in the state is inhabited then  we can then travel anywhere.

I make changes in the script late in the process because writing words and hearing them are different.  What has made sense on paper doesn’t always translate to the stage. Or I see that one character may not be able to say the thing I wrote, and then realize it was meant for the other character. And frankly, there is the simple fact that sometimes I just don’t know what I am doing. I have to wait for it to become apparent to me.

My story is simple. Everyone knows what has happened with the economic crisis. Sometimes an object or a pet was left behind because they were forced out of their home.  This detail has great significance. Sometimes I leave in the cliche and sometimes I take out the obvious. Sometimes by overstating certain content the story becomes absurd and perhaps meaningful or humorous.  By not giving all the information to a piece, the work is then open to interpretation.  I want the audience to feel more than the information of a story without too much emotional manipulation.  I want the characters to reveal inner feelings and passions. Being homeless is being faceless.

I always start writing from simple moments in my life.  Usually something simple happens and I over react and write a play.  But in this case it was not that simple.  Many people’s lives were changed by the world economic disaster.  Lives were changed and my perspective on life changed with it. Our shabby existence is now truly happening. Everyday I hear new sad stories of ordinary people, helpless due to the world economic crisis.

Even in crisis we  fall in love and the events of the crisis impact on the path we take. I am trying to show the pathos in someone in high places and what they feel when they fall.  This fall though is within a comedic music-theatre genre.

All the actors are non-realists but with a harsh real quality. I cast for the individual qualities of an actor.  How they feel, how the look, how they respond to my language, how they themselves position themselves in the world is part of my casting process. The actors cannot be replaced because they are real.  All the characters are waiting for something to happen in the real world but on my set they react in an unreal way.

I think the play is linear, sometimes there are abrupt changes in topic.  That is perhaps why it gives the sense of a non-linear work.  Maybe its better to call it crooked. And the music makes shifts happen as well.  Songs can take you places words alone cannot. Ultimately that is one of my goals, going places.

Simple People opens May 28

What makes FROGZ and Biglittlethings so popular?  Sure the images are great. The masks are intriguing.  The lighting and music are wonderful.  Yet what really grabs the audience?  I think if we had a snap answer to that question we could be rich (and we’re not.)  If we had a snap answer to that question, we could be the new Disney (and we’re not.)

All I know is that for each piece, we searched for a human condition phenomena or “bit of business” or situation that resonated with most of the planet.  Yes, that’s right, with most of the planet. Perhaps that is why so much of what we created  landed on the of the cutting room floor. Pieces, which qualify this standard, exhibit at the center something about the human experience.

Here’s a quick stab at what I believe is at the center of each piece in ZooZoo (opens April 10th.)

Polar Bears  Breaking the barrier between the real world and the fantastic is a great mischief. The stage is a  sacred place, but the bears destroy it. 

Bug Eyes  Childhood memories of bugs and snakes and the magic of a summer night. The mystical time when the sun sets just right before you have to go inside.

Anteaters Hunger manifested by very long tongues.

Frogs  All of us have trouble keeping up with peers who seem to always jump higher, no matter how hard we try.

Rabbits  First you’re an animal, then you’re the one watching the animal, then, you’re the animal again. Rabbit Zen.

Paper Bag The phenomena of knowing inanimate objects are not real, yet seeing that the inanimate is more real than reality itself.

Hippos  Marriage, insomnia and domesticity relived through the body of some very heavy hippos.

Dress Caper  The abstract clown world. Don’t know why we like it, but things that are funny and transformational and absurd – we long for.

Penguins  Sure it’s musical chairs, but when played by penguins, it’s a battle for who can win in the ongoing struggle to be best.  The human condition on ice.

Paper  Flair, imagery, choreography and finally the unmasking. Who are the people behind those masks? The magic revealed and yet maintained.

The Casting of FROGZ and Biglittlethings

We hold auditions for FROGZ and Biglittlethings both in New York and in Portland.  Who we cast is always a combination of an interesting array of skills.  In a few instances, I have watched some people who were working at Imago in administrative roles and asked them to audition.  By watching them move I could tell they had that something special.  They might not have had any theater or performance background what so ever. In one case the person was very reluctant to consider.  I asked her repeatedly to come to workshops.  She finally put some of her inhibitions aside and took the plunge.  She hugged the walls, she never volunteered to step out and perform. I pushed her. When she did perform her inhibitions were so strong that she flipped to the opposite and her will to perform overtook her fears. To make a long story short within seven years she became our lead performer and her talents excelled in mask theater.  Her debut on Broadway with FROGZ was highly acclaimed by the press.

That old saying you can’t teach talent is true.  You can’t.  In these shows were looking for, as we use to write in the auditions notices,  the depth of an actor, the timing of a comedian, and the grace of a dancer. All those attributes are very true.  Funny thing is you could have taken 6 years of drama classes, 5 years of comedy classes and 12 year of dance and not have “it.”  Experience doesn’t give you those talents, but it will do one of two things – either give you bad habits and techniques if you have the wrong exposure and teachers, or with the right exposure and teachers, study can make you better.

So next time, you see an Imago audition and think to yourself, I’ve never done anything like that – remember that’s who we might be looking for.

ZooZoo, the best of FROGZ and Biglittlethings, opens April 10th.

Since 1979, Jerry and I have been exploring masks. Almost 30 years of experience has reinforced one important realization – the mystery of the mask is evasive.  How does a mask come to life? When I attended the Lecoq school in the eighties and nineties, students were asked to watch  when the actor falls away and all that is left is the mask persona.  We would watch  intensely as a single actor performed on a bare stage.  We leaned forward as instructed by M. Lecoq and opened our eyes looking for a single moment when the mask came to life.  We were watching like theatre archeologists for a moment that is not so easily defined by inexperienced eyes.  The moment when the actor’s cleverness, inventiveness, and talents fall away and what remains is the mask.  That moment is rare.  I only saw that moment a few times. 

In our works ZooZoo, FROGZ, and Biglittlethings we work with actors to find the truth of the mask.   As choreography, timing, special effects and the entire event of theatre takes place, it is difficult for the actor to stay focused on mask theatre – the very thing the actor is there to do. Many times we give actors notes reminding them that they are not performing alone, but rather they are in partnership with the mask, that in order for the mask to come alive they need to let the mask share the stage. Lecoq used the phrase to carry a mask.  I think this phrase to carry signifies that an actor must support the mask; much the same way a supporting actor supports the lead.  The actor cannot take the lead or the mask will have no life.

ZooZoo, Imago’s best of FROGZ and Biglittlethings, opens April 10th.

In “APIS, or The Taste of Honey”, a production I am about to open in ten days, I have given this directorial notes to actors only using their bodies and not their voice - “stop talking.”

Influenced by the great Jacques Lecoq,  I am fortunate to recognize physical gesture that is speaking as opposed to physical action that is not speaking.

Here’s a simple example.  A character waves his hand goodbye.  That is talking without speaking. He is saying “goodbye.”  Now lets alter the event.  The character looks into the eyes of the one departing.   The character has difficulty keeping eye contact because he can not bear to see his friend leave. The actor does not gesture, there is no physical talking. His body resigns to the departure. The event becomes deeper than words.

By removing language from  non-verbal gesture,  we travel elsewhere. Beyond the world of language there is subterranean feelings, emotions, and actions.   Perhaps it is the reason we want to watch movement theatre or dance.  Scripts, movies, plays that are language driven are only part of the drama of life.  The human condition began thousands of years before language.  Perhaps that’s why we strive for that level beyond words. A place that can’t be reduced by language.

“APIS, or The Taste of Honey” opens March 13.

I’m opening APIS, or The Taste to Honey, on March 13.  I have taken the world of the honeybee and fused it with that of a military prison. APIS is a movement piece - dare I say “mime?”

I have returned to my roots - movement theatre.  For many years, I worked only in mask theatre - silent work with no facial expression.  After I stepped out from behind the mask, I was starved for words.  I talked incessantly on the stage. I wrote plays with words, words, and words. I directed plays with words, words, and words.  

A few months ago an old hunger returned - I was starved for silence again. At least silence from words.

In the seventies and eighties, there was an onslaught of mime theatre in the United States.  Many artists and groups became clones of Marcel Marceau.  However, there were many others that offered a wide variety of visions.  Some favorites of mine included Mime Omnibus and Theatre Beyond Words - both Canadian.  

Imago was born within but not from that onslaught.  Like most of the other mime companies, the company transformed. Imago migrated away from mime.  Movement became a driving force for all aspects of theatre.

Mime still leaves a bad taste in most people’s minds.  An image of Dustin Hoffman (I think that’s who it was) pushing a white face mime off an imaginary wall in some movie.  Yes we all came to hate mimes. Who wouldn’t? It was a bad plague. 

It may be time to leave the bad taste behind.  Mime is a wonderful and vast realm of theatre.  Perhaps it will return in a new state. One that is not pushed off an imaginary wall.

I have been a director/designer my entire adult life. A director/designer? Please explain. It is one who incorporates design
into direction, and direction into design. On the conventional stage, there is a director and a designer in collaboration with one another.
it is common for the director to impact his influence on the designer with his vision. Not too often does the designer impact his influence on the director. Impacting in your head becomes a fusion.

My most well known fusion was my production of “No Exit” I hate that show, because it is literally “hell” to direct. Anyway, back to bragging, My “No Exit” design was a platform that balanced on a center point. A 17′ square that floated in space. When one actor stepped off center the entire stage floor tipped. The entire world tipped. A plane adrift in a black void. It was a beautiful metaphor for the play. The set and the play were one. My director-self and my designer-self were in partnership with the existentialism of Sartre’s text. I don’t think
I could have achieved that by working with a designer outside my head (unless they were my twin.) I have never accomplished that kind of fusion since.

In “Vladimir Vladimir” there are two worlds. In this case I collaborated with the writer within me. In “Vladimir Vladimir” the scenic design has an ego and and also an alter ego (like the play.) Thus it has a two personalities. Like the title, it has two faces - “Vladimir Vladimir”

The show opens Oct 2nd.

More Later.