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Vernal & Sere Theatre Part II: Sawyer Estes
88 Plays1 year ago
In Part II of this series Sawyer and Amber talk about Vernal and Sere Theatre’s recent production of LEAR by Young Jean Lee, Sawyer’s continued development of THE GLASS ESSAY by Anne Carson, and his translation of UBU ROI. In an effort to uncover the ways Sawyer approaches theatrical storytelling, Amber investigates his process, his approach to audience and how he creates work. Thank you for joining us for this conversation with Sawyer Estes!
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Transcript
Creating Authentic Art
00:00:08
Speaker
I mean, for me, the best thing I can do for my audience is make the thing that's true to me and then hope beyond hope that I'm not alone. And that's how I do this only thing I can think about. And that's where the audience, that's where when you learn you're not alone, when it does resonate with someone like you or anyone that's like, don't quit.
00:00:35
Speaker
see them multiple times or something, it goes, ah, I'm not alone.
Introducing 'Table Work' with Amber Bradshaw
00:00:44
Speaker
Hey everyone, thank you for tuning in to Table Work, How New Plays Get Made. My name is Amber Bradshaw and I am a new play dramaturg educator and arts administrator. On this podcast, I interview artists about their creative process. This interview is the second half of my conversation with Sawyer Estes, a director, dramaturg, and playwright and co-founder of Vernal and Sears Theater in Atlanta.
00:01:07
Speaker
Please note we will be discussing 448 Psychosis by Sarah Kane. This podcast is brought to you by Working Title Playwrights, a new play incubator and service organization based in Atlanta, Georgia, in which I serve as Managing Artistic Director. For more about WTP and me, check out WorkingTitlePlaywrights.com.
Adapting 'Lear' and the Use of Voicemails
00:01:27
Speaker
And I was just thinking about Lear, your last production. And when I went to see that show, I left thinking, I want to read the script because I wanted to know what decisions y'all had made. And I did have a question for you because I haven't had a chance to read it yet. And that is the voicemails at the end.
00:01:47
Speaker
Were those something that y'all added? Yeah. And they weren't part of the script. There were two new things we added to Young Jean Lee's play.
Approaching Young Jean Lee's Play
00:01:56
Speaker
Part of which the excitement to do the play first off came from seeing the version that Young Jean Lee directed at Soho Rep. Very cool. And it's not a perfect play, it's a messy play.
00:02:08
Speaker
It has jagged edges and nonsensical bits. And yeah, we could refine it, but it's a play that's alive. And I think the play will continue to be alive. And so a couple things we did when we read the plays, we said, well, you know, for me,
00:02:24
Speaker
I didn't direct this play either, so I'll say that. I had a good hand in the shaping of the concept, but Aaron and Aaron directed it. But we looked at it and we said, there's no father. The father's absent. So the play was very, very funny, very post-modern, kind of ridiculous, but it didn't have the weight that the Bernal and Sears show would have. It didn't have that balance. A lot of comedy and a lot of
00:02:49
Speaker
opportunities, but where is the father? Where is the app? And it wasn't good enough for the father to just be absent from the play. We needed to note and put into the space the absence. And so we put- So we're being in the space the whole time? His audition has not been played.
00:03:09
Speaker
Wow, that's huge. I mean, huge. And I felt like then you have something, there's tension. So then if they're dancing or making jokes, but it was like out of the corner of my eye, I wanted to see the father in a kind of like Prometheus bound. I wanted to see him in exile.
00:03:30
Speaker
And I wanted to feel that as a tension to the post-modern, absurd, ridiculous, kind of slapstick, funny bits of the rest of the play. And I thought, like, now we have a bird on the sea of play. Now we have tension.
00:03:43
Speaker
And so that was added.
Nostalgia's Role in Theater Decisions
00:03:45
Speaker
And then the genius of Erin Boswell, that was a genius decision on her end for the, and I wasn't, I don't think I would have come up with it, but it was, uh, it was the voicemails were hers and it had came to her one night. And it honestly, for me being with my wife and this is how we like to make decisions. And I felt like this was a decision on her end that was true the way we like to work. And it just came from something.
00:04:10
Speaker
true in her every night. This woman, she lives in nostalgia and she goes through her phone and she's looking at photos as far back as you can look at her family or pictures of us or animals. And she goes to bed with that every night, like in this kind of like, and it came from that sense of nostalgia and like her parents getting older and like this, that's stored. And she made this decision to end the play on that, like very personal truth.
00:04:38
Speaker
And that's where I'm like that one to comfort me because that's I want to know I don't have that personal truth, but it was so right for it and I got I was probably one of my favorite favorite bits did she feel that the Lear presence and The voicemails were connected at all Yeah, yeah, yeah, they feel connected. Yeah, it was me. They were very connected. Yeah, but like, you know, we were we're looking at our
00:05:08
Speaker
parents in a kind of exile.
Balancing Theater and Family Life
00:05:10
Speaker
And as we've gone to the city and we are so self-interested and we're working our jobs and we're trying to become artists that are respected or build a theater company. And then we took this moment with that play to kind of pause and go.
00:05:26
Speaker
Ah, what are we, like, what's all the stuff that we're negating? What are we sacrificing for all this theater? Yeah, for all this theater that no one cares about. We should always ask those questions, because our families do matter, y'all. Yeah. Yeah, it's such a good question to ask. And they're not around forever. No, I mean, her parents are older than our parents, like, 72.
00:05:46
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And we're looking at this and we're like, God, here we are. We're in rehearsal for this. And we spend six months in rehearsal and we see them once or twice a year. And what are we doing? And, and, and a lot of theater, again, kind of the way we go back is like, we're an audience member. And it's a question that we needed to ask either to move back home or to become more sure of the importance of the work we're doing and to be more
00:06:13
Speaker
true because like more aware of like yeah we are negating our parents or maybe we're not having children or maybe we're because we have to do this thing so we should probably stop complaining that we have to do this thing and just and be joyful because it's important or because it's serving a function and um give it like it's too seriousness. Got it. So that's what we're working through. That was really beautiful and I just want to clarify for listeners that the um
00:06:43
Speaker
So when you walked into the space, there was a really long sheer curtain that was splitting up the space diagonally, which looked really cool. And behind the curtain is clearly Lear.
00:06:58
Speaker
And it's not clear where he is, but it feels like a retirement home. And he's in front of a television that is staticky, right? Or you could go with COVID too, just an isolated person. But all of it, we were thinking about all of that. All of those different things. So he's literally like lit by a television. It's got this sort of creepy vibe and he's there the entire time almost. I think there's one bit he's not in. And it was very powerful to have him on stage the whole time.
00:07:24
Speaker
because the constant reminder of his presence was just incredibly theatrical and really was very powerful. And this idea of Lear and the lost kingdom and the lost everything and the sense of his isolation was really powerful. And then the idea of isolation of aging became very clear
00:07:47
Speaker
which in watching him throughout the piece and then the voicemails at the end were in the darkness and honestly a lot of people left and missed them I couldn't believe I was like stop don't leave this shit ain't over yet there's still stuff happening but people kept leaving because it was unclear as you said if it was over or not which was fine right but there were oh a slew of emails from parents all of our parents all parents just
00:08:16
Speaker
checking in on you, hope you're doing well, love you so much. And I just, oh, I cried.
Presence and Tension in Performances
00:08:23
Speaker
I was deeply touched, just like deeply, deeply touched. And the connection of the aging and the isolation and the potential maybe retirement home or something like that with the voicemails, like, and then there was also something in the program where the note was like, we're all coming into our 30s and like,
00:08:45
Speaker
We're growing up, basically. And we're realizing that we're missing stuff when we're here. And we're trying to come to terms with that. And it was really, really powerful. Kudos to all of y'all on the team and Aaron and the errands for putting that together, because it was really powerful. Congratulations. Young Jean Lee, there's the Pascal speech at the end where he gets wow on and on and on about his father dying. And it's just on and on. One night, I just
00:09:15
Speaker
listen to it and I was just like ah this is young Jean Lee is like confessing to us a queer the priest and young Jean Lee is just confessing and it's not and you know that again the play breaking down to a kind of like just I'm me speaking to you and this is my confession
00:09:38
Speaker
And it's a very vulnerable moment. I mean, beautiful. And that was Pascal who did that. I mean, that was a really powerful monologue, really beautifully done too. Yeah, for him to just sit there and be.
00:09:52
Speaker
Really honest, really real. After seeing some very experimental style movement work, right? Going from like hardcore, like experimental style to like, and now I'm a human sitting in front of you talking about my dad. And like that awareness that like Pascal is the actor, it's God, but I just shared this thing about Hank Carson's work on the glasses. And Hank Carson says, why do we call them actors? It's because they act for us. Oh, God, yes. And it's like,
00:10:21
Speaker
Pascal in that moment, just making all of our confessionals, you know, to our parents, all the things that we are too afraid to say or that we had, we create the space in the theater to say it to them. And, you know, and then we go and then we take that one step further, the current call, and then we, we listened to them as a kind of callback. And did some of your parents hopefully get to see that show? Yeah. And I think the, I know Aaron's parents came. I think a lot of the actors parents came.
00:10:50
Speaker
Did you see any parent response that you would want to mention? Was there anything that... I don't know. I think... I feel like I would be speechless if I was them. Just sort of flattered by the honor and not sure what to say. Yeah, parents were... I know that Aaron's parents were deeply moved. Every time Aaron's parents hurt dad, this incredible anesthesiologist, brilliant, brilliant man.
00:11:19
Speaker
one of the most respected pain doctors in the country. Anytime he comes to the work, he arrives in Atlanta and the demeanor and the disposition of him changes after seeing the show. And his eyes are just like, you know, it's hard to define what you're doing as an artist or your success. You don't get like a
00:11:42
Speaker
You don't get a little plaque that you put on your wall, really, that's like you're a doctor of medicine and now you make a lot of money and you respect like, you know, we make work kind of into a void in a lot of ways. And every, you know, the only way, the only justification of it is the look in someone's eyes at the end or the room in the eye, you know?
00:12:08
Speaker
And that's kind of, that's what we, what I see on him every, every time. Oh, that's awesome. He gave it to Ubu. This is another anecdote, but when he came to Ubu, my father-in-law, he spent, he saw him, I think like a Friday night. And then he, he's a type five Enneagram. I love your Enneagram. He spent the whole next day, he read every translation that I was working from.
00:12:37
Speaker
he read probably a dozen translations, a whole day of written translations, and then he read my translation, and then he saw the play again, and then the next, I swear to God, and then the next morning he just looked at me and he goes, no one will have any idea what you did here. He was like, this is the best translation of Ugua that's in existence, and it was so cool, because I was like, my father-in-law, and he just read it all, and he's just like,
00:13:05
Speaker
That is so fantastic. Oh my god. But, you know, in that kind of way of working, like I'm not out there peddling that translation or I'm not like, it wasn't, I'm not telling people. You created your own translation? Yeah. Yeah. Whoa,
Dual Roles in Theater Production
00:13:21
Speaker
dude. From several sources. But you should. Yeah. You should do something with that. I know people. Yeah, it was good. Yeah. Yeah. But it was like we,
00:13:32
Speaker
But it was like, you know, it's like, because it's a rough read. I mean, it's terrible. It's terrible. It's terrible. It's terrible, y'all. No offense, Jerry. But you know, it's badly written. But I will say, you know, having seen the production, it was an incredibly powerful version of it in every way, every single way. And that's the weird thing that I am as an artist, because you have to define or your writer. It's it's real hard because now I'm
00:14:02
Speaker
They're so, everything's so inextricably woven. Early on, when I graduated, when I was studying under Albie, I thought, I'm going to move to New York and I'm going to be, you know, I'm going to be of this ilk. And I'm going to be, people are going to think I'm incredible. What was the first thing you wanted to do? I wanted to be a playwright, though. I wanted to be a playwright. Okay. I mean, I wanted to be canonical, essentially in the ilk of these products that I admired, you know.
00:14:30
Speaker
20th century modernism, you know, and particularly theater of the absurd and then the thing kind of moved that and figure out my position in it. Who are your absurd playwrights that you like the most? Sano Beckett, Edward Aldi, Harold Tenter, Janae, Ian Esco, you know.
00:14:51
Speaker
really interested in all of them. And then, but I mean, really go through modernism, Buechner, like they just, just Jerry, Sarah Kane, I don't know where she fits and all that. It's a different movement, but it's a different thing. But yeah, I wanted to kind of fall in line with that and be more literary. And I always wanted to write before I was in the theater, I knew I was a writer. And then through working,
00:15:20
Speaker
and through the company and the influence of my creative partners, just kind of realizing that theater isn't just simply text on stage. And then me being so... And this is a problem for the theater world, because theater world thinks that there's writers and there's directors. And the film world has writer-directors. Theater world, it doesn't... Changing a little, but still, I'll tell you this, I applied to this,
00:15:49
Speaker
we're looking at tour space in New York. And I literally had an artistic director tell me for about hurricane season that I know that they want to consider it unless there was a different director because they didn't find any use in a writer. Someone directing their own work, never found any use in that. And that's quite a statement. It was, I mean, I was furious, but then I wasn't in any position to, I just said, I understand or look elsewhere. Um, but,
00:16:17
Speaker
I now, I just can't imagine not directing my work. And it's because, some of it's because I feel like I'm a better director than I am a writer. And then at the same time though, my writing, I'm more free as a writer if I'm going to direct it. Because I don't have to do the Beckett like... Obsessive stage director. Yeah, because I know I'll leave it. Or with Exterminate Angel, I found finally I had freedom. This goes back to the problem of character.
00:16:46
Speaker
I had freedom if I just wrote what I heard more like Sarah Kane and then knew that the director would come back later and give it characters, would give it speakers. Rather than like in the moment when I'm writing, having to think, well, would Amber like say this or that in that way with those words or, you know, and like justifying with the problem of character. Whereas I'm like, I just hear it. And then later through a kind of process of what we did with 448, find speakers.
00:17:16
Speaker
and find justifications, then I would get to a good place and I would have a freedom in my writing. So anyway, that's how I define as a theater artist. And it's like, I'm writer and director. Now I conceive of, I do a lot of scenic design. I work with- You're also a dramaturg. Dramaturg, sure. Mm-hmm.
00:17:42
Speaker
Processes without like I'm like I have so many feet and so many things that like I don't do anything It's like that's what my anxiety doing this because I'm like directors or drama. I feel like they have I took one directing class. Like I'm not I took one to class and so,
The Living Nature of Theater
00:18:00
Speaker
you know, I'll hear people and I know like about a vistable wall or I know like people working with you know Meisner based kind of acting training or all these other kind of more
00:18:13
Speaker
theoretical ways of working and you know people come in like and Bogart's like line of thinking it goes on and on and I'm just like well I don't I just work and I'll kind of I read it and I interpret and I'm and I pull from a lot of things that I you know But I don't actually becomes really hard to me like what's your method or what's your I don't have any like I'm not trained So your method changes based on per show. Oh, yeah per project
00:18:41
Speaker
Yeah. And I'd like spend a lot of time thinking about what that might be and what, you know, in this, in the glasses that we're doing, I know like that there's a lot of kind of reptilian ways going about it because it's an essay. And so I'm like, Oh, okay. Well, I know enough about, no, no, but break to like, you know, like the learning play, you know, certain like distancing effects. Um, so you have a Japanese piece, right?
00:19:11
Speaker
I've just staged it word for word. Stage it word for word. Yeah, word for word. Okay. Um, which for me was the challenge. It was like, how do I stage a poem, a lyric essay word for word, making that, making that theater, making that incredibly compelling without changing it at all. How do you do that? You got to come in September.
00:19:34
Speaker
Oh, I won't be visiting him. He got a pretty, pretty hefty video design, right? Isn't that part of it? Yeah, huge video design. You go, so you have logos, you know, I think about it and think about, um, Nietzsche's, uh, uh, oh God, uh, a birth of tragedy. And you think of like Apollo and Dionysus and it goes back to balance. So it's the same way we were doing here. So I've got a lot of logos. Carson gives us a lot of logos. Mm-hmm.
00:20:02
Speaker
Where's the pantos? Where's the Dionysus? Where's that like driving theatrical energy in the piece? And you look, you start to look between the lines for it. And you look at what the piece, cause you think about a poem and you think like, so you gotta think about, okay, she's writing this for someone to read this as a poem. And so she's, you know, when you're doing that, you're getting an A to Z and a very economical,
00:20:30
Speaker
fashion, especially in Carson, it's very economical. Play to be economical. We're not there for something economical. We're there for like an experience. We're there for life. And so then I go, okay, well then how do I make the gaps in the line breaks? How do I fill those with life? How do I like expand the spaces of it? And in doing that through imagery, through video,
00:20:59
Speaker
And then we do, you know, so I started conceiving of this as a, it's like a 13 part dance piece within like a kind of even hold up like minimalist drama, a kind of naturalism, and then a kind of Brechtian essay logos, actor spectator kind of way of going about to where we step and we talk about it and we work through it. And what's all that for?
00:21:30
Speaker
going back to the spec actor from our last episode. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, but I don't have any sense of like, I don't, I don't, I couldn't, I would never be able to train or teach anyone on the ball or in Brecht really. Cause I'm on, I, I would, I feel a bit of like fraud, but if I get into the space and I, I know enough, I mean, we've seen it all where we see Brecht in cinema. We see, that's where I like how we, we see these tools and we know we're using them, you know?
00:22:00
Speaker
So in a way, and that kind of goes to my sense of like, everything's in me. And I don't have to maybe name it. It becomes a little difficult in these kind of things. I feel like, oh, you got a name, or you got an expert on something. And it's like, no, these mediums, these forms, they live in me, and I'm in this room, and I sense what the piece needs. And then we put it all together, and it kind of balance. And then we have great people that can
00:22:30
Speaker
I go, it's a 13 part dance piece. I'm not a choreographer. I don't know what that means, but I know we need 13 part dances because we got to combat a lot of this text. I want to combat it with like modern dance. So you tell your choreographers, Aaron and Aaron, right? And you say, here's what I want to achieve. And then they come up with something in collaboration with you. Is that kind of how it works? This one too has been more of like, I don't want to, don't look to me for the answers of what this is.
00:22:56
Speaker
I've staged everything else. Like before we got into the space, I spent months and months tirelessly staging the play in my head for a way of going about it. And then we, of course, remained free to change. But I felt like this piece needed a kind of authoritarian type structure to the way it moved, for whatever reason, just sense. And then, but every time I get to these dance pieces, I go skip it. Because I want them, I know that they'll do better than me.
00:23:26
Speaker
And so it's like, don't look to me for these because y'all, I need like y'alls, like genius on these. I mean, the choreographer, I need the movement. I mean, people that have like moved me into a kind of interested movement theater to do their thing. And so, yeah, they're, and then she, you know, they do it in ways that I want to, you know, they do it in the space in real time. It makes me anxious because I'm like losing times, it's taking a long time. We should plan this.
00:23:56
Speaker
But they want it to come through. As it comes through the actors' bodies, so they can't do it ahead of time. They want the spontaneity. They want the spontaneity. And so we do it that way. And then I know that the piece, for me, when you think about the construction, you'll see a rigidity in some ways. You'll see a very clear way of going about it. And then we'll have these just bursts of like movement dance that come forth from a kind of spontaneity. And I think, and then I go,
00:24:26
Speaker
I think that'll give it balance. I think that will inform each other. I think also too, what I'm hearing is if there's a, there are structures and systems around everything you do, every piece you work on that are specific to the piece that provides the driving force and the tension rather than characters providing a driving force and the tension.
00:24:56
Speaker
Makes a lot of sense in having seen several of your pieces because there's something to, if you are letting the actors essentially move where they want to move when they want to move, right?
00:25:10
Speaker
You have to give them a grid. There has to be structure. You can't just be like, do whatever you want. That's not gonna work. It's gonna be a mess, right? So you create a really, and I do this with working title, is my programming has a lot of structures around it. And for me, that's the way the space is held. And that's how people know how to come into the space and be in the space, right? So I think there's something really
00:25:40
Speaker
powerful about that. And I was also thinking, it seems like everything you'll do is a form of adaptation or actually a brand new piece. Is that correct? It's what we, yeah, mostly what we want to do or work that we see is overlooked or to people are afraid or and work which has space for us to fill. And it's a poor 48 under you're like, you know,
00:26:05
Speaker
overlooked, people are too afraid to do it, it's too difficult, and then a ton of space. New play development for me, or if I'm working, like, I don't want, I want space. Like, if I'm going to pick something, it's going to be spacious. Now, like anything in art, that's tough. Like, because you can't have, like you just said, you can't have a room where there's
00:26:27
Speaker
where you're just flailing about, and it's just abstraction. Then it's just gobbledygook for intellectuals that doesn't amount to anything. So that's where the craft comes in, the art comes in, it's like how much abstraction, how much space, and Cain in 448 gives you just enough, because you know at 448, she gives you time. At 448, something happens.
00:26:55
Speaker
And then she gives you a very early on, she said, I'd like to kill myself. And so you say, this plays, she gives you the kind of thesis, this is a exploration or rumination on my struggle to find a reason not to, or my struggle to keep going. And a lot of people look at that piece and,
00:27:20
Speaker
look at it wrong and say it's a suicide letter they look at it as a kind of aftermath based on her biography and I said no we're not looking at it like that we're looking at it as she's someone writing it still living and trying to struggle to survive and that like blew it open this isn't something that is taking place in the aftermath that's a really powerful decision right
00:27:49
Speaker
Glasses, yeah, we kind of try to turn things on their heads. The play, I just, I feel like, you know, the play tells you what it is. If you're writing, the writing, if you're really doing it, like, you are just, and Glasses, they'll talk about this with Emily Bronte, and talk about Bronte being the kind of Charlotte would say she was captive to Wuthering Heights. You know, like Heathcliff didn't come forth from Emily, Heathcliff,
00:28:18
Speaker
controlled Emily Eadcliffe. Emily was under a Heathcliff spell. And I think that writing or directing or anything, when you're really, you don't have control. You're in service to the thing. And that's me as a director too. I'm really sure and careful about what I choose because
00:28:43
Speaker
I know it's like then, like I'm not, it's not me. Yeah, I'm in relation and I'm putting myself into it, I understand this like stuff. But really it's like, I'm in awe of the thing. And that's why I only do work that I, that's like only Sarah Kane or, you know, I do void check, I do people, now I'm doing Anne Carson because I think she should win the Nobel Prize. I mean, it's like, I want to spend a year of my life
00:29:12
Speaker
like learning about Ann Carson and admiring Ann Carson. And I want to impart upon my actors a love for the brilliance that is Ann Carson. I want them to listen to our lectures. I want them to read everything she's done. I want to like, because I want to sit there in a kind of
00:29:31
Speaker
uh, you know, and a kind of spiritual, all of the thing too. And the thing that she's, cause it's also, she's a conduit for this other thing we're trying to do. She's just in service. Some people have a lot of access to it. She's one of them. Yeah. Yeah. We're in, we're just so through the piece or the process of making, we have all these, you know, if I could encourage, we have all these like methods or ways of going, but ultimately it's like the important thing is
00:30:02
Speaker
the humility of self to be in service to something greater than you are, have a few tools to be able to do what it tells you to do. And we have to try to work in that way. That's really cool. I love that. And there's a lot of video design in this piece, right? Oh, yeah.
00:30:24
Speaker
And you did quite a bit in hurricane season as well, which was really well done. I'm curious about your experience with video design and do you have any training in it? Did you take any classes? And how do you approach it? Because I think your integration of video design and theater is some of the best I've seen. So how do you sort of put those two things together?
00:30:52
Speaker
I have no training in video design and I work with some great people, some people in the film industry in Atlanta. Shout out to Matt Shively, Hannah Alene, who I'm currently working the most with.
00:31:08
Speaker
There's a photographer on this one, her name's Haley James, who's doing all, we've done a four-part photographic series from every season over the past year of this relationship. And she's doing all the photography, and she's just brilliant. And then she's giving that to Matt Shigley, and then he's putting it into theatrical space as projection. And I've conceived of it, and then they're making it happen.
00:31:35
Speaker
Um, so you put together like a full schedule of photography and video design. Like how, when you say you conceptualized it, tell me more. Basically it was like, I want to take, I want this piece to be, goes into space. So the glass essay begins at a breakup first line. Um, when, uh, I'm thinking of the man who left in September, his name was law. And so I come in as a director and I say, okay, we get the breakup.
00:32:05
Speaker
And the whole poem is about the breakup. Okay. For me, the exposition is very interesting in this one. Like for Pinter, no use for exposition. For me, exposition is important because I have a piece full of logos so that the pathos is in the exposition actually.
Video Design in Storytelling
00:32:26
Speaker
And the piece doesn't give me that, so I've got to do it. And so then I go, so what are my tools? And so I think,
00:32:33
Speaker
man, it's a lot of life that this couple's had before it ended. And there's a lot of joy. And so I thought about the space. And I said, what if around the space we were just bombarding this character as she's sleeping? And this is a very biographical type of thing. My first love, we had a big breakup. My first true breakup, I couldn't sleep for forever. I mean, not for it,
00:33:04
Speaker
Um, because I'm a dream about her. And I was like, well, if I'm awake, I could, you know, I was in high school, so I was like, I was drinking or like, I could go play basketball or I could be with friends. I could do these other kind of forms. But when I was asleep, I was like under her spell in that way, you know, and I couldn't escape. And it was joyful stuff. And I was like, and so when I read this, I was like, man, it's kind of what happens is we become kind of prisoners to form her joy. Yeah.
00:33:33
Speaker
And so I started thinking of what if we, this kind of is a spoiler, I don't care though, but if the audience is coming in to a space where there's joy all around it and happiness from four seasons of a couple's relationship before it ended.
00:33:52
Speaker
And so I gave them that. I was like, let's start now. Let's get four seasons of, and let's look at, so we kind of did a dramaturgical thing. So I said, let's do it autobiographical. Let's look at former relationships that we've had. Let's restage some of them. Let's look at rom coms that we grew up with. I'm hearing of Sally. You've got mail. Let's stage some of those photos.
00:34:16
Speaker
And let's, you know, a couple like cooking, a couple, someone in the bathtub, a lot of like single perspective type of looking, like someone taking a photo of someone else, unfinished, raw kind of stuff. And then I'm like, what if the piece is haunted by that the whole time? And so then the design is like, and not only that, but like what if the design is
00:34:44
Speaker
material like scrim and then you're actually so on the inside of that material you have trauma and longing and ache and a kind of um reeling a kind of chaos and then you're looking through like when life had place or when life had joy so making the audience look through that um and so that's kind of the video
00:35:12
Speaker
like design on this and it's going to be really complicated and crazy. And so what we do make these decisions though is like, what is, what is theater? What is film and what can theater do that film can't do? What can film do that theater can't do? How can we use them? So what theater can't do is the close-up.
00:35:34
Speaker
So there's huge use and close up. And I think, and particularly for pathos or like psychology or something. So you look at that and then you have, there's, that's a really big use that we'll do. So you have like your fixed perspective as an audience and then you can see the closeup and then the relationship with those images. And then you also now can manipulate.
00:36:00
Speaker
will often manipulate recorded, like pre-recorded video or pre-recorded photos against the space or pre-recorded action. In hurricane season, we did pre-recorded action over a scene that was happening in real time. And there's tension in, we had them basically doing the same, the exact same work in terms of the staging, but then there was tension in the time from the fixed dead video and then the live. And I thought that that's all been interesting.
00:36:31
Speaker
how it is fixed or a kind of trap, entrapment. And so then you can go, you start to play with it on that. Then you can do live video where it's like, okay, well actually this wants to be live, which Matt will run it through a tarot deck, like they'll use on film sets that sends it back to video. So you're gonna do live video too? Doing live video on those too. And so then you have the relationship and like, and so then you have a tropical decision. What is live versus
00:36:59
Speaker
pre-recorded, like what are those things connotating? And how would you use that language in the piece? So, you know, you make, and you make pretty conscious decisions about that. And so yeah, what are you going to do? We're going to do live video on this from the rafters overhead. Um, and then prerecorded on another thing. And yeah, we think so you'll get live with the life inside.
00:37:30
Speaker
then you'll get the kind of history on the outside and then have that tension. So it sounds to me like it's kind of what I thought. It's like there is a very systemized structure to each thing you do and it all kind of connects and you've really thought it through in depth like even before you started working on the piece it sounds like you're
00:37:54
Speaker
you're collecting dramaturgy on the artist primarily, which I think is so smart, right? Because you know, that's, that's what the conversation really is. Right. But then like, you've mentioned a lot of really classic theatrical methods and texts. And these are things that you've learned that you've just brought with you. And you've taken from them and, you know, learning from those. So I think there's a lot to be said for like,
00:38:17
Speaker
We don't need Stanislavski. We don't need method. We don't need any of that stuff. There's a lot of other structures and systems that have been created. Even Greek theater, right? Which is one thing you have been talking about. You lose a lot of time using that shit, honestly. Because if you use Stanislavski, you're just going to lose time talking about psychology. What matters is the actor's body and the tenor of their voice in space. That's what communicates. You talk forever about why they do this or that.
00:38:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, and also I've heard you say theater exists in the body, right? So the idea that what a character is is so much more than what they've said, right? And so how do you live fully in that character? If all you're thinking about are intentions and super objectives, which is all heady, right? And I always say, I think you're getting to something I often say, which is
00:39:09
Speaker
I'm not at all sold on objectives or people knowing what they want because from my experience, people don't really know what they want or they do and then it changes or something like that, right? So it's very, the idea of a super objective is just silly to me. Yeah. Oh man, this could be in hurricane season. Sure. Alex's scar on her belly and like made a very, and this is something that like all we might've disagreed with because I've heard little bits on this,
00:39:39
Speaker
him addressing something like this. But it was, you know, I didn't know that she had that before I sat down. The play didn't come from it. She just, the thing in my head when I was writing it lifted her shirt and had a scar on the belly. And I said, that's interesting. And, and I kept it. And then through that play, though, we never reveal what that is. And people will ask me to really know what the,
00:40:07
Speaker
scar is on her belly and I've had that and they expect me to know like and I'm like I can give you sure I'll pull out of my ass like an answer you want an answer I can give you but like it's not true I just made it up and I'm actually more interested in like not knowing either so like don't force me to know what is on her belly I don't want to know and that kind of you know does the actor need to know or not know it's like what's useful to the actor if they need to know then come up with something if they don't need to know then like
00:40:38
Speaker
Um, but that kind of goes into that kind of like Stanislavski super objective with thinking, you need to know what this thing is. The playwright, you know, most canonical player has to say, you know, the reveal of it, you know, or, or something like you could get a whole play and you're not going to, you're not going to explain a huge trauma of the character or you're not even as a writer, even going to know, or, you know, but like, I'm like, no, I have the mysteries and not know.
00:41:08
Speaker
Well, there's something you said for creating work that creates questions rather than answers questions. And I don't think experimental theater ever intends to tell you what to believe, right? I mean, it's very like choose your own adventure, right? And I think this Anne Carson piece sounds really beautiful and also like
00:41:32
Speaker
really triggering for someone who's going through a breakup. But that to me, seeing something like that as you're going through a breakup could be part of your healing. It could be part of something you learn and then you grow from that and you don't need to know all the answers.
00:41:49
Speaker
We're talking about 448 Sarah Kane trying to explain mental illness, trying to explain humanity. I mean, my God, it's impossible. Why? Why did anyone actually think Stanislavski had even come close? Right? I mean, that's my question. It's like it's far too simplified. And I think that's how art is, you know, like if you wanted to be controlling of the audience experience, I think you would fail. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's like,
00:42:16
Speaker
You know what you can control. It's the structures and systems you create in the show. Things I can eliminate. Right. And the things that you can eliminate, but like the actual experience they have, whether they like your ending or not, right? Like it's not up to you. And I think that's the most courageous part about making work. It's so foolish to think you could, you know, or that you're, you know, let's see.
00:42:41
Speaker
90 people see our shows online or something, it'd be so foolish for me to think that I know how to address a perfect argument to every 90, every one of those 90 people in order to bring them out of a better version of themselves or something, or to give them a, or if you want to look at it just a basic, to give them a pleasurable night out.
Respecting and Understanding Audiences
00:43:01
Speaker
Here's some catharsis for you, now go home and sleep soundly. You will not find that infernal and seer.
00:43:11
Speaker
And this assumption that we make of like, that we think we know audience. It's like, no, there's a 90 individual, but you have no idea about like. Like have respect for those human beings by not labeling them and making them small, right? Like by not deciding they're going to be a certain way. Yeah. I think we talk about the idea of audience on the podcast and like,
00:43:37
Speaker
really shifting that perspective. I feel like this is a very healthy way of looking at it. For me, the best thing I can do for my audience is make the thing that's true to me, and then beyond hope that I'm not alone. And that's how I do it. It's the only thing I can think about. And that's where the audience, that's where when you learn you're not alone, when it does resonate with someone like you, Amber.
00:44:07
Speaker
Anyone that's like, don't quit or, you know, see it multiple times or something, it goes, ah, I'm not alone. So true. That's such a key component. But I think if you think about too much about like what they want or don't want, it's going to get in the way. And you're actually, to me, that you're, and I think just a lot of theaters do this, you are degrading them. Like you are in this position of
00:44:36
Speaker
authority or programming. And then you think like, you're assuming that they're not this or not that, or that they are this or that they are that. And I just, I just think it's a slippery slope. Like it's against, it's dangerous. And I have like an anecdote. This won't make it in, but it's what it is. But it's like one of my favorite stories. And then like, there's a really fundamental, um, Oh God, it's gonna be a camera. It's gonna be like, what? I come from an architect's soil family.
00:45:07
Speaker
And I used to work on, for my dad, I did like, I paid for my school through working on oil. And I would go back every break to like pay for my school by doing that. And one time I'm on this oil lease and I'm sitting out there in the middle of Texas to nowhere. And one of my dad's, my employee that comes in who's like hauling oil off from the well, he goes, what are you reading?
00:45:37
Speaker
And I was like, I was reading Endgame. Oh my God. Hilarious. This is so true. So I'm reading Beckett's Endgame. And he, you know, it takes about 45 minutes to fill up a truck with a load of oil. So we're just kind of kicking it and we just kind of shoot shit. And it's a man that's been living in panhandle of Texas his whole life. Just the only ever finished high school, no education.
00:46:07
Speaker
of beyond that and has lived in Pano, Texas, worked in oil and never read, doesn't know anything about theater, nothing. No, even semblance of understanding. And he's like, well, give me some of that. Let me read it. And he starts reading Endgame. And I'm like, oh, God, this is going to be interesting. And he just starts chuckling to himself. And I end up just laughing and he starts laughing hysterically.
00:46:34
Speaker
And I'm like, he's like, and then he hands it back. He's like, that's funny shit.
00:46:42
Speaker
I was like, you like it? And then we actually kind of would read it back a little to each other and it was like Cloth and Ham like, well, he's like, well, why don't you leave? And he says, well, there's nowhere else. And he goes, well, then like, you know, why don't you find someone else to be with? And he goes, there's no, there's, there aren't really, there's nowhere else. Why don't you find someone else to be with? There's no one else. And the man thought it was hilarious.
00:47:06
Speaker
And so then I'm like, Dick O'Becky, of all these theaters in America that think people don't get endgame, or it's a smart enough friend game, or it's too scary, or too, and then you have this guy who just, in this moment, I was on his level. I was working in oil, he's working in oil, and there was nothing about him that said that saying, O'Becky, it is the premier
00:47:34
Speaker
play right of the 20th century, or that he's this master of modernist theater for this elite population. He just read these lines, why don't you go somewhere else? I can't go anywhere else. I'm trapped. Why don't you find someone else? There's no one else. I'm only with you. And he got that. He's a man who understood what meant to be trapped. And I'm like, and I just think that if we, as audiences, as theaters, if we would stop belittling
00:48:05
Speaker
And we would just go, there are inherent truths here and we're going to do them. And we're not going to think if they're too smart or too dumb or whatever, we would stop alienating those people. And, and I try to approach it that way. And it's like, even this, I'm doing this freaking glass essay play. It's a freaking essay by Brilliant and Carson. It's too smart for me.
00:48:27
Speaker
And I'm not sitting here being like, Oh, this is too smart of a text or people have red weathering hides. You don't know. Because that's, I don't know if they've read, I don't know that they, and for me to act like that is, even if it's true for me to put, to say that is pedantic and is arrogant. And like, I like try to, I want to quash that. Like, if I can do anything, it's like, you don't know. And.
00:48:54
Speaker
I have encouraged, and what we do in our theater is like, don't, you know, hurricane season is too smart to this. No, it's, the audience is as smart as us. The audience knows, and even if they don't know theatrical history like I do, they know what it means to be human. Thank you so much for joining me today. This has been such a fun conversation. Yay. I cannot wait to continue the conversation about Vernal and Cyr with Aaron.
00:49:23
Speaker
Yay. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks you guys. Thanks for tuning in. We'll check with you next time.
00:49:34
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in to part two of this conversation with Sawyer Estes about Vernal and Sear Theatre. Vernal and Sear's upcoming production of The Glass Essay by Anne Carson will open on February 29th and close on March 17th. VNS also offers classes in Suzuki, Laban, and much, much more. Check those out and join their mailing list at vernalandseartheatre.com. And stay tuned for part three of this series on VNS with Erin Boswell.
00:50:05
Speaker
Thank you listeners for tuning in to Table Work, how new plays get made with Amber Bradshaw. This podcast was brought to you by Working Title Playwrights. If you like what you've heard today, support this podcast and all our initiatives by leaving us a review, following us, and or consider making a tax-deductible donation to Working Title Playwrights at www.workingtitelplaywrights.com.