Week 3: Rehearsal Blogs

From Nick Richardson (Bob the Pizza Boy):

Playing Bob the Pizza Boy has been an incredible experience. While providing me with a rewarding new endeavor, the character has constantly challenged me. Playing such a dark role has made me view myself differently and even warily. While I do not claim to have much in common with the disturbed character, I have found small connections with him. Insecurity, thoughtfulness and carefulness to name a few. Even though I do not share the warped mind of the Bob the Pizza Boy, in a way, I truly am him. In a way, everyone has a little Bob in them. It’s a sobering fact but it is also liberating in that we know that we cannot be perfect. We all make mistakes. This role has a lot to teach everyone.

- Nick

From Theodora Zucker (Bob's Mom):

This last week, I have felt the show really taking shape. Beginning the week with our first “stumble through” was both exciting and daunting. While it was a great accomplishment to make it through the show, it proved that we still have quite a bit of work to do. Still, I find it amazing to watch a “transition-less” show become one fluid piece of theatre. 

As we have worked through the show moment-by-moment recently, it has become clear how important the first week of rehearsals was. Though we worked very little with the script, our presentations of past experiences and the introduction viewpoints training clearly laid a sound foundation for our acting. Now, as we take direction, we understand the memories and culture we are building upon and drawing from. Our bodies and minds know the world of the play, which makes it much easier to jump in and peel back the layers of Mee’s work the minute we step into the theatre.

I am constantly astounded by the depth of emotion found in Charles Mee’s work, and the ability of my cast members to detect it. What seems like a casual exchange of dialogue on the page becomes a heated tussle onstage. Particular words jump out to me as I perform monologues. Moments of pure emotion are born as the cast dances with abandon. I feel that the deceptive simplicity of the script reflects Bob Rauschenberg’s work. What at first seems like a muddled mess of cultural references and random conversations transforms onstage into a rich stew of American heritage, romance, and secrets shamelessly divulged to the audience.

Since this show began, I have been continually amazed by both the talent of my peers and the power of theatre, movement, and emotion. From the first week of viewpoints training all the way to running the show in its entirety, I have grown as an actor and learned to appreciate live theatre more deeply than ever before. I am humbled and ecstatic to be a part of this enthusiastic journey through the mind of a great American artist.
- Theo

From Mollie Murk (Phil's Girl):

Well, after a week of training and two weeks of rehearsal, we finally finished blocking the entire show. I use the word "finished" loosely, very loosely. We may have completed transferring the script to the stage, but as I have learned this week, our work is nowhere near done. I don't think we ever will be done creating new moments and bringing new ideas to life in this play.

Nonetheless, this week we reached the end of the script for the first time onstage. In other plays I have been in, this is the part of the rehearsal process where we run the entire show over and over. While I'm sure that tactic would help us reach our goal of purely seamless transitions, our rehearsals this week have been invaluable. I am so grateful for the growth that has happened in the past few days as a result of reconstructing previously blocked scenes. When we blocked the last scene of the play, a melancholy feeling sunk in as I let go of Phil's Girl and became Mollie Murk for my final moments onstage. It made me realize just how attached I have become to my character and our bobrauschenbergamerica world. At that point, I had no idea how much more we would discover as we continue in rehearsals. This week, I have realized that our learning will not stop, but become even more in-depth. The past couple of days, we have been working through the script moment by moment, solidifying old blocking and making new discoveries about each nano-second of the play. It is truly amazing to see what a difference even the most miniscule adjustments make. Entire scenes have been transformed just by changing the volume of one word, or adding one slight head movement.

As we approach the insanity that tech week will inevitably bring, this time to dive deeper into the script than what was seemingly possible has been beyond helpful. I hope that this detail-work will bring steady footing (both literally and figuatively) to our cast for the remainder of the production. It is unfathomable to me that at this time next week, we will be only a day away from having an audience. My eagerness for further discoveries as a cast and my curiosity about the audience members' possible reactions to our work both continue to grow day by day.

- Mollie

From Dylan Connor (Carl):

We're in a phase of rehearsal that's simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. Our opening is looming and time is of the essence, but it's been so wonderful to revisit each nuanced moment of the show and do very specific work on it. One of the most interesting things that's cropped up this week is the idea of blurring the lines between our characters and ourselves. When we first enter the stage, are we ourselves? Do we leave the stage as our characters? What other moments in the show do we allow ourselves to come through more than one normally would? I've loved playing with this concept, and it's made me, if possible, even more emotionally attached to every wonderfully outlandish aspect of the play. As the details are coming gradually together, one element is clearly missing: an audience. They (you!) will play such an integral role, and it's impossible to know exactly what that means until it happens. I'm so pleased we have a few more days of re-working and fine-tuning, but I eagerly anticipate completing the jigsaw puzzle with the final piece, audience interaction. At this point, I honestly have no clue how audiences will even react, but if they connect with this piece in just a fraction of the way our ensemble has... Well, as my dear friend Carl says, "Art lets us practice freedom and helps us know what it is to be free, and so what it is to be human."

- Dylan

From Jesse Swatling-Holcomb (Wilson): It has been said that to sculpt a horse out of marble, you start with a big block of marble and carve away everything that doesn’t look like a horse. When I first sat down to write tonight, I thought that was a good way to look at week three of “bob” rehearsals. We finished blocking the show. We had a stumble through. In many ways we have seen the first glimpses of our end product and now we simply need to refine, hone, and carve until we find out how to get there.

The living collage that is “bobrauschenbergamerica” cannot be summed up in something as simple as a horse, and certainly cannot be thought of as a carving in marble. Our good friend “bob” is more like a shape that vaguely resembles, maybe for an instant, a horse created in swirling light and shadows and reflected to an audience with funhouse mirrors.

I think it is interesting how much we discuss time in this play. “All any human being can ever observe is the past,” states Allen, as the contents of the universe, the world of our play, swirl around him. It is a very interesting thought in the context of creation, isn’t it? Isn’t our piece “new”?  Isn’t our piece “present”?  Our cast is creating a new piece, and yet, “bobrauschenbergamerica” has already been presented by other companies on other stages and is a part of the past; and our production itself will be new each night, but only after the action has settled will the living, breathing instants of the play become something with a purpose.

“Bob” is quite a bit like life on stage. As an audience member, you see your life, as well as the bits of overflow from other lives you may or may not understand. Or that you may think you understand. So, our end result, as well as being the story we tell, will also be the story each audience member perceives. In that way, “bob” is like a beautiful Rorschach test of represented moments, and we the actors are no longer sculptors, we are the marble to be shaped to the audience’s idea of a horse.

As Carl says, “We don’t often get to do a show like this.”

- Jesse