on sources for new work
hey! so i've been thinking about our plan to create new work, using an existing source/sources as a base for narrative or imagery, and i've had a few (read: several indulgent) thoughts that may or may not be useful.
firstoff, using an existing story is potentially a really strong starting point, but as we've discussed, i think it's important that we don't choose something that "we'd love to put on stage." i mean, we don't want to do a stage adaptation of a book. i think we're beyond that, as tempting as it may be... that said, i think that an existing story is a really cool starting point for inspiring something completely new. taking elements and using them in our compositions... and what anne bogart says about distortion, etc.
so, sources i'm looking at:
fairy tales are cool, because they are simple and won't tempt us to get locked in. however, an actual novel that immediately came to my mind was paulo coelho's the alchemist (el alquimista). originally written in portugese, it's actually become pretty popular around the world. it's fairly short and straightfoward; it's a story of an andalusian shepherd who has a dream about finding treasure, and goes on a sort of allegorical spiritual/physical journey across a desert. there are a bunch of really interesting characters that sort of echo each other and it just seems like fertile ground for exploration and extrapolation. it's a really quick read, so if anyone wants to check it out and back me up or totally refute me that would be cool. it seems just compelling enough to look further into. very mysterious.
music is also something that struck me as incredibly useful. we could easily make a full piece of theatre based on one song; i mean i think we are totally good for that. perhaps a song with a story in it that we could draw from (joanna newsom's "monkey & bear," a song that i am perhaps already too attached to) or something instrumental that contributes a feel and certain structures (anything by tin hat trio is ripe for theatrical application), and that we could actually include in the piece, maybe even working with dedicated musicians (something i am personally fascinated by, even live musicians interacting viewpoints-style perhaps...) music is also good, i think, because it doesn't trap us as easily, but is perhaps more work.
so, in summation, check out: the alchemist, "monkey & bear," or the music of tin hat trio if you have a couple of minutes. see if it speaks to you. as far as a source goes, i am more concerned with the imagery that something creates for me than the actual content, and personally with these it's just like IMAGERY POW, so hopefully you might have a similar reaction. please respond with feedback, and other sources!
posted by cooper @ 2:57 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
i'm a big fan of both tin hat trio and monkey and bear -- that would be awesome. i'll check out the alchemist...
i like the idea of interacting with musicians, too. i mean, we've always done that to an extent, but there's the black rider model, etc, which seems to push it even further. i remember some production in boston a few years back that was apparently a collaboration between a director and the dresden dolls...
cooper, you're the resident musical genius, it seems; is this the kind of thing a handful of musician colleagues of yours might be into? is this the kind of thing we might be into?
one of my favorite pieces of theater ever was a quasi-one man show about a fellow writing an opera about moby dick who's also losing his memory and so sort of becomes a part of the story &c &c. making our relationship to a source text explicit like that might be a way of avoiding just "putting a book on stage", since we'd be nodding at the source and also riffing on/away from it.
i don't have any brilliant thoughts about actual sources yet... started looking at the dream songs again yesterday, and still love them. they've got clear characters, and a few clear narrative moments, but mostly describe states of mind, and do a lot of linguistic play, which would give us a good deal of shoulder room. if we could pair them with just the right music, that might give us enough to work with, and suggest a strong feel and visual vocab. i'm by no means wedded, though.
anyhow. more soon.
i do like that idea of creating an explicit relationship with a text like moby dick; there would be a kind of crazy dual process thing going on.
while i wouldn't call myself a musical genius, i might be able to interest a select group of musicians in that kind of collaboration, but the problem is that they are usually scattered and busy. perhaps we could find new people... i think it would be a spectacular experiment for us. i don't know if that's really what we're looking for at the moment, but wow.
and yeah, if you get further into the dream songs, let us know how we can get a hold of them.
alex, i know this already came up in Control Group, but i feel like we "riffed away" from it: what about Red Owen Hanrahan?! i'm still totally intrigued and in love with that world and that character.
for those who are not alex (nyar nyar): the tales of Red Owen Hanrahan are a series of crazyamazing stories by Yeats -- they're fairy-tale-like, but still under the radar (ie, there aren't five million versions of them, like there are with a lot of fairy tales). they're online somewhere, but i forget where -- google them! they rock.
i'm not sure what else. more soon.
so, ROH is really cool stuff. it's something that i'm a little more culturally removed from, but that doesn't really matter for our purposes. in many ways, i am drawn to it for the same reasons as the alchemist... it has fascinating images, and powerful allegorical elements that we can create from. as far as using these as pure sources vs. creating a relationship with a text, if we do the latter i think it should be something, like moby dick, that is more universal. do we have anything like that? i really do like either of the aforementioned choices to create a story from scratch with, but either idea is intriguing.
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