---

My final Directing challenge lies below, it's from Quake, by Melanie Marnich. Fantastic little scene.

Some thoughts...

 

Girl gets with guy. So un-hollywood. Why geology? The unchanging. Lucy seeks a man that is solid.  Who doesn't seek the solid? All we want in life are some unchanging things. A home to return to. A never-aging puppy. Peter Pan. Want ourselves stay solid. We want to keep satisfied with the people and things we love. We want to keep alive our shared, old memories with friends.

At least for me, the things I seek in love are the qualities I do not posses, and would like to. Brian is a steady, geology student in this scene. Lucy wants that.

The genre would be romantic comedy, I suppose. The play explores the idea of modern romance, and has many funny little moments of life. I'd like to play it dramatic, and if people laugh at the last monologue, then it happens.

The last monologue is Lucy narrating the first sex that Brian and Lucy share. In this regard, it is free of self-consciousness. Lucy just shouts at the top of her lungs how great it was, and the audience has to disappear to her. Brian has to disappear as well. And I think I will achieve a funny little moment of Brian, still in the present, and Lucy, talking from the future. The moments when they interact in the monologue will be the funniest, and the most dramatic.

The plot is a race through.  I want 30 seconds of silent exposition in the beginning. There will be some period before the talk begins that the audience can size up these two.

The script completely summarizes the awkwardness and challenge of a first date. Her winning over Brian turns the script into a fantasy, and ramps up the subjective time. I see the middle portion of this script taking place over the first three dates. Lucy's poem at the end represents the culmination of two souls connecting to make love.

Lucy represents a question. Curiousity. How to love in the 21st century. Brian is a do-what-makes-sense kind of man. The quiet kind.

The set is the corner of a coffee shop. The quiet corner where Brian can get work done. There are two tables, and three chairs. Lucy's side is mid-SL, and that's where she lingers until she can cross into Brian's domain. Brian sits mid-SR.

 

Costume ideas are modern college costumes. Lucy wears flowy clothes, a skirt or loose pants. Bright colors. Brian wears earthy tones, pants, shirt, the usual.

Props are two tea cups, a pot of hot water. The sharing of tea is the acceptance of love.

 

 

---

    (LUCY walks into a coffee shop, looking for love. She sits down at an empty table. LUCY notices BRIAN at another table, reading a book. He’s cute. She’s interested. She decides to start something.) 

LUCY. Hi

BRIAN . Hi.

    (Silence.)

LUCY. So... Hebe uber alles.

BRIAN . What?

LUCY. Oh, nothing, Just a little spontaneous... Latin.

    (BRIAN quickly returns to his book.)

LUCY. Would you...like to... dance?

BRIAN . Excuse me?

LUCY. Dance with me?

BRIAN . There’s no music.

LUCY. Somewhere there is.

    (He goes back to his book. She stares. Silence.)

 

LUCY. Fast or slow?

BRIAN . Excuse me?

LUCY. You prefer to dance fast or slow?

BRIAN . I prefer not to dance.

LUCY. I bet you wish I left you alone.

BRIAN . Well...

LUCY. And stopped trying to flirt with you.

BRIAN . Yes.

LUCY. I’m not very good at this, am I?

BRIAN . No.

LUCY. I’m just learning. So bear with me.

BRIAN . I need to read this before class--

LUCY. And you seemed like you would be patient and kind and good to practice on and I’m harmless.

BRIAN . There’s gonna be a test...

LUCY. What’s it about?

BRIAN . Well. Pleistocene rock formations.

LUCY. That’s my favorite epoch of the Quaternary Period!

BRIAN . Mine too.

    (He smiles, goes back to his book. Silence.)

LUCY. I made you smile.

BRIAN . A little.

LUCY. Can I tell you that I love your name?

BRIAN . You don’t know my name.

LUCY. Can I tell you a secret?

BRIAN . Think I should buy you a cup of coffee first?

LUCY. Cream. No sugar.

BRIAN . That’s how you like your coffee?

LUCY. No. That’s my secret. Can I come to your table?

    (He smiles. She joins him.)

LUCY. Lucy. (She extends her hand.)

BRIAN . Brian.

    (They shake.)

LUCY. You know I---

BRIAN. You love my name?

LUCY. No. I was just going to say it’s cold outside.

BRIAN . Yes. It is.

LUCY. Sometimes I get this chill, you know? This deep, deep chill.

BRIAN . So do I, Lucy.

LUCY. Do you think it would be okay if-- Can I--?

    (He nods. She kisses him.)

BRIAN . Can I?

     (She nods. He kisses her. BRIAN pours LUCY a cup of tea. BRIAN resumes his        homework.)

LUCY. Then I loved a man who knew the
difference between gravity and stone.

 

      (LUCY looks into tea cup.)

He taught me to see that the lake bed was only aftermath.

 

     (LUCY gets up and sits on front of table.)
 

He put his hand up my shirt and said
You know the glacier made the valley. And I said yeah.

 

     (LUCY sits up, puts down cup and places a hand on each thigh.)

He slid his hand down my pants and said
The continental divide goes both ways.
And I said ooh.

 

      (LUCY stands up in front of the table.)

I’ll show you the watershed, he said.

 

      (LUCY takes three steps toward the audience, ending roughly DS-middle)

What’s hard can become molten.
What’s molten can become bedrock.

 

      (LUCY turns, walks to table, leans back on it toward BRIAN.)

I leaned my head back and opened my throat.

 

     (LUCY turns, puts knees and table and looks at BRIAN.)

Granite holds the heat, he said.

 

     (LUCY sits, arms down, chest out, and turns head to see BRIAN.)

I leaned my head back and looked this way.

---

 

My midterm project this semester is Hamlet Act 2 Scene II, where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern try to figure out ol' goofy Hamlet.

 

Here’s the blocking in a 70 second animation (click below)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our directing text mentioned choosing universal dramatic actions to carry a scene, and I think the one best suited for this bit is the idea of Concealment and Confession. Both R+G and Hamlet enter the situation with thoughts they dare not utter. For R+G, the confession of their purpose will spoil any chance at gaining Hamlet's confidence. For Hamlet, discussing his often-thought of plan of murdering his uncle to these untrustworthy types would probably get him thrown in a cell.

 

The scene begins with the audience knowing both R+G and Hamlets situation, and the fun of it is to see both parties dance around their objectives. R+G want to find out Hamlets affliction. Hamlet wants to know what threats his uncle is sending against him. Hamlet discovers the truth of R+Gs visit half way through the scene, and in my showing, Id like to see Hamlet transform within the scene, as he does throughout the play, from an interrogative friend into a dangerous enemy. I want R+G to be shamed, and to think thats the worst of it. I want Hamlet to discover he has no friends left in this world but the ghost of his father.

 

Another word on R+G. They are following orders, and operating on auto-pilot through the whole play. This idea is explored in depth in Stoppards Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. I want to bring up the academic college-men side of R+G for this scene. Here are two test-takers attempting a test. Like math, they follow the formula for successful court talk, using all the innuendo and diversions they can to discover the hidden variable. Problem is, Hamlet has thrown the formula of programmed call+response out the window. He answers from the top or bottom of his mind, and this method unsettles R+G. They fail the test and suppose, as they must, that they'll get a bad grade and move on. Lowers the GPA a bit, but nothing fatal. Little do they know... (they die!)

To facilitate this concept, I will stage the scene in three parts. The set up, the reveal, and the recovery.

 

Setup is all the lines leading up to "were you sent for, or no?". I'd like both sets of actors to circle each other, Hamlet leading the movement erratically, to throw off these two would-be spies.

 

The Reveal is all about the long awkward silence, and shame of R+G. I want the audience to feel the piercing gaze of Hamlet as he bores into these two men's souls, demanding truth from their squirming forms.

 

The Recovery is all lines after. "Recovery" describes R+G's attempt to repair their friendship to the state it held in childhood. Talking of the London players, for example, is a diversionary tactic used by R+G. I doubt it works on Hamlet, and I want all his lines to R+G in this section tinged with sadness, and for Hamlet to acknowledge his friend's weakness. 

 

He should know toward the end that they are expendable friends. That all his friends may become expendable. He will sink into a depression, and rise to passion at the brewing thoughts concerning the players. Every line about players will raise his energy, and at the end, "mad north north-west" will send him off again in a killing mood.

---

GUILDENSTERN
My honoured lord!

ROSENCRANTZ
My most dear lord! 

HAMLET

My excellent good friends! How dost thou,
Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

ROSENCRANTZ
As the indifferent children of the earth.

GUILDENSTERN
Happy, in that we are not over-happy;
On fortune's cap we are not the very button.

HAMLET
Nor the soles of her shoe?

ROSENCRANTZ
Neither, my lord.

HAMLET
Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of
her favours?

GUILDENSTERN
'Faith, her privates we.

HAMLET
In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she
is a strumpet. What's the news?

ROSENCRANTZ
None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.

HAMLET
Then is doomsday near: but your news is not true.
Let me question more in particular: what have you,
my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune,
that she sends you to prison hither?

GUILDENSTERN
Prison, my lord!

HAMLET
Denmark's a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ
Then is the world one.

HAMLET
A goodly one; in which there are many confines,
wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.

ROSENCRANTZ
We think not so, my lord.

HAMLET
Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me
it is a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ
Why then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too
narrow for your mind.

HAMLET
O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I
have bad dreams.

GUILDENSTERN
Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very
substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

HAMLET
A dream itself is but a shadow.

ROSENCRANTZ
Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a
quality that it is but a shadow's shadow.

HAMLET
Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and
outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows.  

Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.

ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN
We'll wait upon you.

HAMLET
No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest
of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest
man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the
beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

ROSENCRANTZ
To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.

HAMLET
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I
thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are
too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it
your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come,
deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.

GUILDENSTERN
What should we say, my lord?

HAMLET
Why, any thing, but to the purpose. You were sent
for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks
which your modesties have not craft enough to colour:
I know the good king and queen have sent for you.

ROSENCRANTZ
To what end, my lord?

HAMLET
That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by
the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of
our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved
love, and by what more dear a better proposer could
charge you withal, be even and direct with me,
whether you were sent for, or no?

ROSENCRANTZ
[Aside to GUILDENSTERN] What say you?

HAMLET
[Aside] Nay, then, I have an eye of you.--If you
love me, hold not off.

GUILDENSTERN
My lord, we were sent for.

HAMLET
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king
and queen moult no feather. I have of late--but
wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
you seem to say so.

ROSENCRANTZ
My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

HAMLET
Why did you laugh then, when I said 'man delights not me'?

ROSENCRANTZ
To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what
lenten entertainment the players shall receive from
you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they
coming, to offer you service.

HAMLET
He that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty
shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight
shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not
sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part
in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose
lungs are tickled o' the sere; and the lady shall
say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt
for't. What players are they?

ROSENCRANTZ
Even those you were wont to take delight in, the
tragedians of the city.

HAMLET
How chances it they travel? their residence, both
in reputation and profit, was better both ways.

ROSENCRANTZ
I think their inhibition comes by the means of the
late innovation.

HAMLET
Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was
in the city? are they so followed?

ROSENCRANTZ
No, indeed, are they not.

HAMLET
How comes it? do they grow rusty?

ROSENCRANTZ
Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but
there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases,
that cry out on the top of question, and are most
tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the
fashion, and so berattle the common stages--so they
call them--that many wearing rapiers are afraid of
goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.

HAMLET
What, are they children? who maintains 'em? how are
they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no
longer than they can sing? will they not say
afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common
players--as it is most like, if their means are no
better--their writers do them wrong, to make them
exclaim against their own succession?

ROSENCRANTZ
'Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and
the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to
controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid
for argument, unless the poet and the player went to
cuffs in the question.

HAMLET
Is't possible?

GUILDENSTERN
O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

HAMLET
Do the boys carry it away?

ROSENCRANTZ
Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too.

HAMLET
It is not very strange; for mine uncle is king of
Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while
my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an
hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little.
'Sblood, there is something in this more than
natural, if philosophy could find it out.

Flourish of trumpets within

GUILDENSTERN
There are the players.

HAMLET
Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands,
come then: the appurtenance of welcome is fashion
and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb,
lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you,
must show fairly outward, should more appear like
entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my
uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

GUILDENSTERN
In what, my dear lord?

HAMLET
I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is
southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.