Nov. 27: Stagecraft
I took a stagecraft course when I was an acting student at Mount
Royal College. I was told that black actors look good when bathed in
purple light. I was also told that they did not require as much stage
makeup as their Caucasian counterparts. This was not racism. This was
science.
Our teacher shared her theory as to why so many teenagers dressed in black. "They are mourning their lost childhood," she said, and I agreed with her then and I agree with her today.
In an introduction to the Gospel according to St. Mark, the rock star Nick Cave said that part of leaving adolesence is that you abandon the faceless rage that seems to live in the soul of so many teenagers. This might be part of "growing up." I think that the teenagers are angry because they know they won't be young forever. They are slowly gravitating to adulthood and they must accept the requisite responsibilities that come with attaining such an age. One can't chase girls and party all night and play video games forever. One must grow up. One must get a job. One must leave home.
A long time ago, I was an acting student at the Rosebud School of the Arts. The opera house, which is where the school's plays took place, was in the process of being painted. The artistic director chose to paint the walls a rich emerald green. I objected to this as I felt that green conveyed emotions like seclusion and envy and that surely would not do if Rosebud was putting on a play where no one was secluded. I think I was told to shut up.
*
I watched a magic lecture by the American magician Max Maven, who is a true genius in the field of prestidigitation (I recommend his work to all students of the craft.) He noted that plenty of magicians aren't very good actors, which is probably true. Robert Houdin once said that a magician is simply an actor playing the role of a magician. Hollywood says that if a movie has a magician character, they would rather hire an actor to play a magician than an actual magician. I, for one, feel that Paul Giamatti and Edward Norton performed quite well in The Illusionist and I doubt the film could be improved with Criss Angel and/or David Copperfield in those roles.
I don't think Mr. Copperfield would fault me for that observation.
*
Noel Coward's play Blithe Spirit is about a widower whose dead wife comes back to haunt him as he tried to enjoy his marriage to his new wife. The play ends with the dead woman wrecking havoc on the man's home. Mirrors shatter, rugs move, pillows fly into the air. I saw the play at Theatre Calgary one year. The pillow flew into the air and one of the stage lights caught a thread that made the pillow fly. The entire audience noticed, several people commented on it and, I think, it detracted from the overall enjoyment of the play.
All they needed was a curtain and nobody would have noticed a thing.
*
In David Mamet's play A Life in the Theatre, an older actor is complaining to his younger colleague about the theatre's trend for experimentalism. "We should do the play in T-shirts and jeans," he says. "Artistic experimentation is shit."
I am fond of minimalism (as all theatre companies on shoestring budgets must be.) It is sad that theatregoers want spectacle over substance. As Mamet once observed, people will forego Streetcar Named Desire in order to watch 50 people tap dancing onstage.
*
I get about a hundred emails a month from various magic producers who want me to buy this trick or that book or this DVD. I am being told that magicians need to have an understanding of stagecraft and that I should invest in this book so I can learn what I'm doing wrong.
Can't fault 'em.
The magician Eric Mead once gave a conference at EG5, where he quoted Max Maven. To wit: "The tragedy of magic in the 20th century is that magicians took a craft that is inherently profound and managed to render it trivial."
I'm not sure what this has to do with stagecraft.
I know lots of people who don't like magicians and maybe that's because there's something inherently suspicious about people who do magic tricks for a living. A magician is asking his audience to accept two presuppositions - one is that he can do the impossible, the other is that he has chosen to use this amazing ability on minutia. He will not turn garbage into gold or water into gasoline. Instead, he will turn the King of Hearts into the Ace of Spades of he will guess what shape you drew on that piece of paper.
I think this needs to be addressed.
And now I need to stop because I made these same points in my Nov. 14 note.
Guess I'm just passionate about some stuff.
Our teacher shared her theory as to why so many teenagers dressed in black. "They are mourning their lost childhood," she said, and I agreed with her then and I agree with her today.
In an introduction to the Gospel according to St. Mark, the rock star Nick Cave said that part of leaving adolesence is that you abandon the faceless rage that seems to live in the soul of so many teenagers. This might be part of "growing up." I think that the teenagers are angry because they know they won't be young forever. They are slowly gravitating to adulthood and they must accept the requisite responsibilities that come with attaining such an age. One can't chase girls and party all night and play video games forever. One must grow up. One must get a job. One must leave home.
A long time ago, I was an acting student at the Rosebud School of the Arts. The opera house, which is where the school's plays took place, was in the process of being painted. The artistic director chose to paint the walls a rich emerald green. I objected to this as I felt that green conveyed emotions like seclusion and envy and that surely would not do if Rosebud was putting on a play where no one was secluded. I think I was told to shut up.
*
I watched a magic lecture by the American magician Max Maven, who is a true genius in the field of prestidigitation (I recommend his work to all students of the craft.) He noted that plenty of magicians aren't very good actors, which is probably true. Robert Houdin once said that a magician is simply an actor playing the role of a magician. Hollywood says that if a movie has a magician character, they would rather hire an actor to play a magician than an actual magician. I, for one, feel that Paul Giamatti and Edward Norton performed quite well in The Illusionist and I doubt the film could be improved with Criss Angel and/or David Copperfield in those roles.
I don't think Mr. Copperfield would fault me for that observation.
*
Noel Coward's play Blithe Spirit is about a widower whose dead wife comes back to haunt him as he tried to enjoy his marriage to his new wife. The play ends with the dead woman wrecking havoc on the man's home. Mirrors shatter, rugs move, pillows fly into the air. I saw the play at Theatre Calgary one year. The pillow flew into the air and one of the stage lights caught a thread that made the pillow fly. The entire audience noticed, several people commented on it and, I think, it detracted from the overall enjoyment of the play.
All they needed was a curtain and nobody would have noticed a thing.
*
In David Mamet's play A Life in the Theatre, an older actor is complaining to his younger colleague about the theatre's trend for experimentalism. "We should do the play in T-shirts and jeans," he says. "Artistic experimentation is shit."
I am fond of minimalism (as all theatre companies on shoestring budgets must be.) It is sad that theatregoers want spectacle over substance. As Mamet once observed, people will forego Streetcar Named Desire in order to watch 50 people tap dancing onstage.
*
I get about a hundred emails a month from various magic producers who want me to buy this trick or that book or this DVD. I am being told that magicians need to have an understanding of stagecraft and that I should invest in this book so I can learn what I'm doing wrong.
Can't fault 'em.
The magician Eric Mead once gave a conference at EG5, where he quoted Max Maven. To wit: "The tragedy of magic in the 20th century is that magicians took a craft that is inherently profound and managed to render it trivial."
I'm not sure what this has to do with stagecraft.
I know lots of people who don't like magicians and maybe that's because there's something inherently suspicious about people who do magic tricks for a living. A magician is asking his audience to accept two presuppositions - one is that he can do the impossible, the other is that he has chosen to use this amazing ability on minutia. He will not turn garbage into gold or water into gasoline. Instead, he will turn the King of Hearts into the Ace of Spades of he will guess what shape you drew on that piece of paper.
I think this needs to be addressed.
And now I need to stop because I made these same points in my Nov. 14 note.
Guess I'm just passionate about some stuff.
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