Recently by Cassie Greer
Can I just take a moment to say that the morale of this cast and crew is amazing? Because it really is, and it's incredibly inspiring to work with people who are so devoted and focused on putting together this show. Over the past week, we have dealt with numerous illnesses and "invisible" actors, a malfunctioning lighting system (and then functioning, and then malfunctioning again, etc.), noisy costumes, new costumes, and costumes at a different stage of completion every night, constantly evolving props, and a learning whole bunch of set changes on top of everything else. And everybody has handled things with so much grace and cheerfulness (and soup!). Thank you cast and crew.
Also, so many extra people have pitched in to help make sure we're all ready for opening night. Thank you everybody else. It's great to feel so supported as an actor, both by the crew and all the extra costume helpers running around, as well as by my fellow cast members, who are always open to discussing and dissecting and refining our scenes together over and over again. It continues to be an honor to work with you all.
And a final P.S. to anyone who knows the end of the show: ask me about the Transfiguration...
Also, so many extra people have pitched in to help make sure we're all ready for opening night. Thank you everybody else. It's great to feel so supported as an actor, both by the crew and all the extra costume helpers running around, as well as by my fellow cast members, who are always open to discussing and dissecting and refining our scenes together over and over again. It continues to be an honor to work with you all.
And a final P.S. to anyone who knows the end of the show: ask me about the Transfiguration...
Regarding the previous two posts: they will make more sense if you know the play. And there's a lot more detail you can go into as far as Biblical parallels/parallels of religious story and mythology that I didn't want to write about for the sake of not giving away the end of the show. So. Come see the show. And then we can talk more about it... :)
Another thing I spent a lot of time thinking about Saturday morning was the structure of the script itself. Jose Rivera uses a lot of repetition in words and images throughout both acts of the play, and I kept trying to figure out how those moments of repetition match up and what they mean. After sitting there deep in thought for a while, I drew myself a little timeline/picture that looked like this:
ACT 1 ACT 2
Golf Club (almost attack) - Furs (almost attack) ...repeated lines and images
Angel visitation - Marisol/Furs discussion of angels* ...image repetition
Ice Cream (set a man on fire) - Scar Tissue (was set on fire)
June as the burner of Lenny's dreams - June as the physical burner of dreams
Lenny/Marisol rape - Lenny/Marisol birth
Marisol's moment of complete un-compassion - June (Compassion) reawakened
*note: this is also the first time that Marisol admits, out loud, to
another human being that the Angel's visitation was not just a dream
Paralleling things between Act 1 and Act 2 like this, or laying Act 2 over the structure of Act 1 and seeing where things line up, we come to the end of Act 1 (with Marisol's un-compassion/moment of violence), but we still have a little bit left in Act 2. For the sake of blog-readers who are coming to see the show and don't want the ending completely spoiled, I won't go into detail about this last part of Act 2, except to say that it is in this final section that Marisol finds "restoration"/the "hope" that she has been searching for amid the decay of the world throughout the rest of the play.
Now get this: I again drew a picture (on the left) of this, trying to explain to Danny what I had been thinking about. Before I finished, Danny (who took a class on Eschatology in college 5-ish years ago, and consequently knows all these interesting and really cool things) got this really intrigued and excited look on his face. He patiently waited for me to explain how interesting it was that Act 2 has this extra section of restoration before throwing in his two cents:
That blows my mind.
ACT 1 ACT 2
Golf Club (almost attack) - Furs (almost attack) ...repeated lines and images
Angel visitation - Marisol/Furs discussion of angels* ...image repetition
Ice Cream (set a man on fire) - Scar Tissue (was set on fire)
June as the burner of Lenny's dreams - June as the physical burner of dreams
Lenny/Marisol rape - Lenny/Marisol birth
Marisol's moment of complete un-compassion - June (Compassion) reawakened
*note: this is also the first time that Marisol admits, out loud, to
another human being that the Angel's visitation was not just a dream
Paralleling things between Act 1 and Act 2 like this, or laying Act 2 over the structure of Act 1 and seeing where things line up, we come to the end of Act 1 (with Marisol's un-compassion/moment of violence), but we still have a little bit left in Act 2. For the sake of blog-readers who are coming to see the show and don't want the ending completely spoiled, I won't go into detail about this last part of Act 2, except to say that it is in this final section that Marisol finds "restoration"/the "hope" that she has been searching for amid the decay of the world throughout the rest of the play.
Now get this: I again drew a picture (on the left) of this, trying to explain to Danny what I had been thinking about. Before I finished, Danny (who took a class on Eschatology in college 5-ish years ago, and consequently knows all these interesting and really cool things) got this really intrigued and excited look on his face. He patiently waited for me to explain how interesting it was that Act 2 has this extra section of restoration before throwing in his two cents:
First, he drew me a picture - that's the lines and dots at the bottom-right of the image above - of the structure of the book of Revelation (which, may I point out, is the Biblical story of the end of the world; Marisol is a non-Biblical story of the end of the world...). Revelation is broken into seven sections, each of which contain a progression of elements that are repeated in each section. As the book progresses, each of the seven sections becomes more compact, but still repeats the pattern. This is interesting in comparison to Marisol, which, in Act 2, repeats the pattern of Act 1, but in a more succinct (i.e. without scene divisions; more free-flowing) way. So this play parallels Revelation. Very cool.
Then he told me that, in the New Testament (and more specifically, in the book of Revelation), the number seven symbolizes God, divinity, perfection, etc. The number six signifies humanity (short of divinity, perfection, etc.). Danny had noticed in my little timeline that Act 1 has six elements; Act 2 has seven. So it makes sense that Act 1 builds upon the imperfection of the world, the depravity, if you will, of humanity, while Act 2, by the end achieves a type of divinity.
That blows my mind.
So last weekend, Derek forgot we had rehearsal - although he did spend the morning intensely practicing his lines, his dialect and trying to get into character - and while this could have been a further drawback to my already sleep-deprived Saturday morning, it actually turned out to be a very good thing, giving me three solid hours to work on lines, discuss some of my questions with Bryan, and reflect on the script.
One of the things Bryan and I talked about was the character structure of Marisol: namely, there are only three characters with actual names in the script (Marisol, Lenny and June, as opposed to Golf Club, Ice Cream, Furs, Scar Tissue and Angel), and those three seem to represent the three most essential elements/capacities of the human spirit - Compassion (June), Faith (Lenny) and Power (Marisol). Each character, throughout the course of the play, explores the extremes of each of these elements (a rather trite example: Lenny's incredible faith in his belief system and personal story; everyone else's complete lack of faith in Lenny; then Lenny's faith completely destroyed).
My underlying question in this conversation had to do with why this play is about Marisol; why not June? Why not the next guy off the street? As we talked about the way playwright Jose Rivera structured these characters, I began to realize that part of the answer to this question has to do with Marisol representing Power: Faith and Compassion are great and essential things, but if there is no Power underlying them, they have no weight - it is not possible to put your Faith in something without using your Power to make a choice, to throw your Faith in one direction or another. Our power, and how we choose to use and direct it, is central to being human; that is why Marisol, representing the human element of Power, is the central character in this play.
Another, perhaps more obvious reason that the play is written about Marisol is the etymology of her name: "Marisol" means "sea and sun" (or "sea and sky"), quite literally encompassing all of creation. "Marisol" is also a form of the name "Mary", referencing Mary as the mother of Jesus, and thereby the mother of a new creation; in this play, Marisol serves the same role of ushering in a new creation. Marisol is also a person that almost all human beings can identify with - she is just another person on the street in some ways, middle class, easily placed in the generic categories of "female" and "minority", no family connections and no friends (besides June) to complicate our picture of her or make her a distinct character that we might have more trouble connecting with, typical in the way she looks to her job, her religion and her environment to identify herself; in some sense, she is a modern "everywoman".
The image above is a picture I drew on a napkin at Hacienda as I tried to explain my recent revelations about Marisol to my husband. Sometimes I think better in pictures than in words, so for those of you who are the same way, try to focus on the napkin drawing and don't try too hard to understand my rambling :)
One of the things Bryan and I talked about was the character structure of Marisol: namely, there are only three characters with actual names in the script (Marisol, Lenny and June, as opposed to Golf Club, Ice Cream, Furs, Scar Tissue and Angel), and those three seem to represent the three most essential elements/capacities of the human spirit - Compassion (June), Faith (Lenny) and Power (Marisol). Each character, throughout the course of the play, explores the extremes of each of these elements (a rather trite example: Lenny's incredible faith in his belief system and personal story; everyone else's complete lack of faith in Lenny; then Lenny's faith completely destroyed).
My underlying question in this conversation had to do with why this play is about Marisol; why not June? Why not the next guy off the street? As we talked about the way playwright Jose Rivera structured these characters, I began to realize that part of the answer to this question has to do with Marisol representing Power: Faith and Compassion are great and essential things, but if there is no Power underlying them, they have no weight - it is not possible to put your Faith in something without using your Power to make a choice, to throw your Faith in one direction or another. Our power, and how we choose to use and direct it, is central to being human; that is why Marisol, representing the human element of Power, is the central character in this play.
Another, perhaps more obvious reason that the play is written about Marisol is the etymology of her name: "Marisol" means "sea and sun" (or "sea and sky"), quite literally encompassing all of creation. "Marisol" is also a form of the name "Mary", referencing Mary as the mother of Jesus, and thereby the mother of a new creation; in this play, Marisol serves the same role of ushering in a new creation. Marisol is also a person that almost all human beings can identify with - she is just another person on the street in some ways, middle class, easily placed in the generic categories of "female" and "minority", no family connections and no friends (besides June) to complicate our picture of her or make her a distinct character that we might have more trouble connecting with, typical in the way she looks to her job, her religion and her environment to identify herself; in some sense, she is a modern "everywoman".
The image above is a picture I drew on a napkin at Hacienda as I tried to explain my recent revelations about Marisol to my husband. Sometimes I think better in pictures than in words, so for those of you who are the same way, try to focus on the napkin drawing and don't try too hard to understand my rambling :)
Every time I start working on a new character, one of the first little "rituals" I go through is the act of standing in front of a mirror, calling myself by my character's name. I feel a little silly admitting this, but it's the truth, so you all might as well know. It's a funny thing, calling yourself by another name over and over again until you find the part of you, somewhere in the tangle of your own humanity, that can embody that name, that character. Sometimes it's really easy, and within three or four repetitions, I feel like I've got it. Sometimes it takes a week. I think Marisol is going to be one of those characters with a longer discovery time...
Which makes sense. This play is so incredibly intricate, beautifully complex, there are so many ways to simply approach the text itself, let alone begin to think about constructing a character. I love it because it echoes so much the complexities of reality. In a surreal world. How's that for an intellectual tangle? I'm eager to have our table talk, dissect this thing into little bits, and then work on bringing the beautiful complexity to life.
Yesterday as Amy and I were working with Bryan to prepare for our little filming session, he asked us to describe our guardian angels. I was caught a little off guard: "Do I believe in guardian angels?" I immediately asked myself, and was promptly embarrassed by my quick jump into cynicism. As I tried to picture what my guardian angel might look, smell, feel, taste like, all I could think of were descriptions from books I've read about other peoples' visions of their angels. So I threw together some response, an amalgamation of those images with a few personal additions (like the smell of clean laundry), just so I could add something to the conversation. I was disappointed with myself. I mean, I believe in God, and I believe that God protects human beings; I think that regardless of one's belief (or not) in angels, this Godly protection can be pictured in the form, the metaphor if you will, of a guardian angel. And I've clearly read books about guardian angels. So why have I never really stopped to think about what my own angel is like?
So now, in addition to working on being able to answer to the name "Marisol" in the mirror, I'm also going to work on that: discovering the essence of my own guardian angel.
Which makes sense. This play is so incredibly intricate, beautifully complex, there are so many ways to simply approach the text itself, let alone begin to think about constructing a character. I love it because it echoes so much the complexities of reality. In a surreal world. How's that for an intellectual tangle? I'm eager to have our table talk, dissect this thing into little bits, and then work on bringing the beautiful complexity to life.
Yesterday as Amy and I were working with Bryan to prepare for our little filming session, he asked us to describe our guardian angels. I was caught a little off guard: "Do I believe in guardian angels?" I immediately asked myself, and was promptly embarrassed by my quick jump into cynicism. As I tried to picture what my guardian angel might look, smell, feel, taste like, all I could think of were descriptions from books I've read about other peoples' visions of their angels. So I threw together some response, an amalgamation of those images with a few personal additions (like the smell of clean laundry), just so I could add something to the conversation. I was disappointed with myself. I mean, I believe in God, and I believe that God protects human beings; I think that regardless of one's belief (or not) in angels, this Godly protection can be pictured in the form, the metaphor if you will, of a guardian angel. And I've clearly read books about guardian angels. So why have I never really stopped to think about what my own angel is like?
So now, in addition to working on being able to answer to the name "Marisol" in the mirror, I'm also going to work on that: discovering the essence of my own guardian angel.
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