here are my notes from our conversation with sheila yesterday. (hope it makes sense--i was taking notes for myself, at first, so syntax is fragmented)
- he doesn't realize she has power over him until he's face to face with her; we understand that he's in her thrall before she does.
- where it comes from--she used to go searching for really gory pictures--saw guy getting decapitated by a helicopter blade, it was a beautifully composed picture--sky bright blue--with a guy with no head. same period of time googling pictures of dead iraqis & american soldiers. trying to get close to it in a way that we're distanced from it as a culture. not politically motivated--wanted a visceral experience of it.
- steven kurtz in critical ensemble, part of art group called critical ensemble. find ways to critique govt. they accused govt of spending a lot of money on needless experiments. set out to prove he could do the same experiments in his kitchen with no money, calculate how much money was lost. went away. while he was away, his wife had a heart attack and died in their house. when they found her body, the came accross his experiments, he was accused of being a biological terrorist. heightened paranoia about regular citizens
- Noir part--came out of--artists colony at muletta colony in upstate new york. edna st. vincent millay's old property. one of the spaces ppl can write & live in is an old barn. unrenovated. freezing. the dead bugs--she saw that. mounds & mounds of dead & dying bugs. no lights on road to colony--lots of roadkill.
- timelines of relationships:
- when do william & melanie start sleeping together? FBI Man delivering melanie to trevor is a bit of a chivalrous gesture.
- real bond between trevor & william. may have understanding they can have dalliances--they're supposed to have primacy in each other's life. melanie violates that because she's on the home turf, she's not worthy of him.
- William and Trevor have a lot of love, compassion, mutual understanding. They need to have that in order for us to understand why their relationship survives what it survives.
- an artist he admires using his wife's death to create an important piece of art is a way to honor her--religious for her.
- Trevor/William rejection--Harry & the Henderson's moment.
- ellipses--keeps us in a non-naturalist world. text fighting with subtext. comes when people are lacking words. (the opposite of an opera aria)
- a coiled spring in everybody. an awkwardness rather than a pause and shift in a more pinterian vein. people waiting for the other person to communicate, but they don't. everything in this play feels like a bad first date
- trevor doesn't put her work up in a gallery, she makes her studio the gallery
- violations/invasion of personal space throughout play. idea of surveillance & voyeurism.
- her art is about reappropriating images and RE-sensitizing people to the pain of them.
- needs to break through screen. remove distance of the screen. diarama now telling story. screen ceases to become powerful. we've broken through--destroyed the power of the screen.
- RESEARCH ANDY WARHOL'S CAR CRASH PICTURES--after his experiments with pop art.
- new installation makes you contextualize the work yourself rather than having her contextualize it for you. it's more successful in that way.
- "noir-ish"--"ish" comes from flights of fancy. too much absurdity to make it totally noir.
- trevor--she has a lot of compassion. love for randy--is weird, and real.
No comments:
Post a Comment