The Imago Blog

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.

As I work on the play “Vladimir Vladimir” (opening Oct 2) with Pat Patton as Co-Director I am examining my background with Jacques Lecoq and how that differs with Pat’s background in regional theatre. What rises to the top is the difference in how we approach character development, or in the Lecoq world it would be called character “state.” This is becoming very apparent in how I am directing actors and how Pat is directing actors. Both are important and valid.

What are these things on the stage we consider characters? They are not real human beings. If so, it would not be theatre. If they were real, it would be boring. Time is capsulized on the stage. We see not a character in real time, but a capsulized “slice of life.” For example, if we were representing a play of the man called Einstein, We would not play it out in “real” time. If we did we would see long uninterrupted mundane episodes of Einstein, where nothing really happens - like Einstein waiting at the bus stop, Einstein in the bathtub, Einstein at the dentist. (I would venture to say here that many experimental theaters venture into this realm, but let’s avoid that area for the time being.) My point is that theatre is not “real” Which leads to the question - So what then is character in a fictious arena?

I don’t know. However, I do know a few things that contrast Stanislavisky “method” based characters and Lecoq “state” based characters.This is by no means a scholarly analysis, but purely my own feeble observations. Quotes indicate what the actor might be thinking as he or she is applying either technique.

Method - Psychological

State - Non-psychological

Method - character has a past, present and future.

State - state has only has a present.

Method - a psychological person (”what’s my motivation?”)

State - a being (”I am this, this is what I am.”)

Method - “This is what I think of myself, so this is how I walk.”

State - “I walk this way, this walk defines who I am.” (actually, the state would not think this, but walk it, since the state is in the moment, then there is no “self talk”, that voice in your head. That voice in your head is what Lecoq would consider psychology.)

Method - “Another character is speaking, I am listening but only through the perspective lense of my character”

State - ” I listen, move, and exist within my state. Listen! I hear someone speaking.”

All I have written so far seems, well… difficult. Difficult to imagine from a non-actors stand point. So let me try to make it clear. Imagine… (now here in this description you might understand why Imago shines with animal or inanimate states). Imagine… a method actor as human, and a state actor as animal.

All of a sudden… we can see the difference. The human has a past, with problems, hopes and dreams. Regretting the past and dreaming of the future. The human dilemma.

The animal state exists, well because, it must. It’s alive in the space of the theatre. If another being enters the space of the stage, the animal states reacts with its senses. If left alone on the stage, the animal, like a dog is left alone, …and would be itself. With a dog’s rhythms; a dog’s moves and a dog’s sense. But a dog on the stage is not acting, I speaking about theatre. Thus, this is an actor as a dog. (Now I lost you.)

If the lights of the theater grow in intesity, the animal state experiences the lights and reacts and squints. The human actor, in contrast, ignores the light and remains in the fiction of the moment. “I am Hamlet in turmoil over my father’s death, the light from the stage is shining into my eyes, but I will notsquint, well… because I am Hamlet, I must stay in the moment of the play and not in the moment of this space.”

So back to “real” and “fiction” - seems like I’m saying that method actors are in sort of a fiction, but state actors are reacting to real moments and thus are real. Well no, they are not, it is acting. It is theatre. When I am in a state, I am not Jerry. I am Jerry in a state, and that is not real.

I’m sure I have confused you. But before you go, think about this: In “Vladimir Vladimir” Carol and I are working in both “method” technique and in “state” technique. Fail or succeed, that is what we are doing. (Now I’m sure I have you confused.)

More later.

“Vladimir Vladimir” opens Oct 2.

In some ways “Vladimir Vladimir” is the most realistic piece Imago has produced. By inviting Pat Patton to direct, Imago has opened
itself up to realism. Funny how realism to me is alien. Isn’t that strange? Carol and I live in what we call a realistic world, but we seldom venture close to realism in our stage work.

Mr. Patton’s vast experience on the traditional boards of Ashland, Portland and throughout the country is a pleasure
to have at Imago. He is a wonderful director. We are privileged. The work is strenuous. Detail after detail of little moments of motivations, nuance, action, relationships. It’s work. And lots of it.

Watching Mr. Patton direct you can see that he uses his aural skills well. He listens and reads. He mines the play for language. He listens to every actor’s syllable and breath. Its all about language. Someone said, I forgot who, that theatre is to be listened to, and film is to be watched (I don’t fully agree.)

Mr.Patton has a keen sense of action and the physical space. He is a vaudevillian. He understands the physical world of theatre. However if I were forced to describe a variation in our approaches it would be that Mr. Patton listens, then watches. Imago watches, then listens.

Mr. Patton’s collaboration with Imago will be both seen and watched. Mr. Patton has provided great ears. Imago has
provided wonderful eyes.

“Vladimir Vladimir” opens Oct 2nd. Co-directed by Pat Patton and Jerry Mouawad. Written by Jerry Mouawad.

I was looking into the mirror in our living room. I saw something quite unusual. Our living room. For years, I had seen the bookshelf,
the couch, the window, the drapes but still something strange happened. I saw it for the first time. It was a new place. I had not seen this place. Through the mirror it was not the same room.

It brought back a dream I had 20 years ago. All vague in my memory but this memory stuck with me, nagging to be a play.

I began to write.

My previous writings had been plot driven and lacked character. I was determined to make this both plot and character driven. I drew on
characters from my Lebanese family and from stage characters in another one of my plays (characters in “Serial Killer Parents”)

I can’t remember much of the writing process. Odd since it was only a few weeks ago that I wrote the play. Perhaps because when
the show went into production - casting , set design, hiring creative staff, - everything escalated. The writing got swallowed up by the
making of a play.

I remember enjoying the writing, and finding ways to make a puzzle fit. I remember discovering as I was writing a reason for it all.
How it ended up in Yugoslavia - I don’t know.

“Vladimir Vladimir” opens in two weeks (Oct 2nd). I don’t know if there a mathmatical relationship to art. But I do know that within the last
last week of play’s development an explosion takes place. Good, bad or ugly, what happens in those last 7 to 10 days is the
equivalent of what takes place in the previous 8 months of a plays life.

Plays are organic. Unlike film, or any recorded medium, they are alive, like plants. They come to reach a peak. When the timing is
right, the peak is when the audience is invited. Unfortanately in the United States…(oh no, Jerry is going to go off on the
horrible funding for the arts in our country) …as I was saying before I almost interupted myself, in America, we don’t put plays in
front of audience when they’re ready, we put plays in front of audiences because we have no choice, when the money runs out.
Ready or not. Is that why my play is longing to be in a non-existant Yugoslavia?

More later.