Season Eight: Week 10

Tuesday / November 6
Written by Matt

Today was a little lightly attended, and as people came in, they expressed some surprise that we were present. It’s election day, and many MDOC facilities don’t have the staff to run programs at all--and the ones that do run programs often have to cut them back. But were were there!

After we lowered the ring, everyone was looking around for what to do next. As so often happens, a veteran member cut through the noise to save the day. “We’re playing Freeze!” she announced. A number of the usual suspects jumped right into this game, which is a perennial favorite. Two players create a scene (clearly defining the relationship, the setting, and the conflict) and play it out until anyone from the rest of the ensemble shouts “FREEZE!” The players freeze in position, and the person who stopped the action replaces one of them, taking her exact position, and begins another scene. As much fun as it is, Freeze is actually a really challenging exercise; it requires not just bravery and the ability to think quickly, but also the ability to concisely establish a character and situation out of nothing, and, what is hardest, you have no control over how long your scene goes on.

Even though the game mostly stayed among the regulars, almost everyone jumped in at some point, and it definitely raised the energy level in the room. Highlights were: Frannie establishing that she was in the market for bargain prosthetics, and being handed a peg-leg by one of the women. In another scene, at “The Front,” one woman leapt onto her belly on the floor and began “swimming” to escape the danger. And a woman who got roped into a drab Lord of the Rings-style scene I created in a moment of panic, sick of squatting over the “Pit of Doom” (like I said, a moment of panic), decided that she had a magic wand, closed my pit, opened the “Pit of Gloom,” and tried to get me to jump in it, ending the scene.

After the game, we discussed it. We all agreed that the game is good preparation for the inevitable moments when “you’re on stage and you forget a line and you gotta improvise.” For a moment, we talked about how we’ve supported each other in previous years in those times. Last year’s Macbeth and Lady Macbeth remembered a scene that went off the rails during performance, and they had to work together to get through it. “She carried me,” our ex-Lady Macbeth said of Macbeth, who had covered for her. Our former Macbeth allowed that she had done most of the work in that moment, but then added, “I feel like I could only pick it up because, when you were ‘done,’ you gave me a look,” and she knew she needed to cover.

A woman who resisted playing games for a long time added that she would have been better last season (her first) if she had pushed herself to do the games. Another woman, who almost never plays games, said that she enjoys watching the games but doesn’t think she can “do it.” At that, Maria, who is a professional stage manager, shared how hard she finds improv. Even though nobody spoke up directly in response, there are often benefits down the road when facilitators can openly share our own limitations. It demystifies the process, and it validates the difficulty of what we do, whether that struggle is with improv or memorization or reading or speaking in public.

The woman who kicked us off continued to lead us forward, suggesting that we work on the first scene of the play. After a quick discussion of how many people should be on stage, we ended up with a whole entourage--all but a couple of people--lounging all over the stage in Orsino’s pleasure palace. Frannie jumped right in with guidance, giving us prompts based on classic twentieth-century theatre exercises. We tried living in our characters for a moment, almost in tableau, no one speaking, before launching into the scene. Then we tried taking Orsino’s energy/emotions and magnifying them a hundredfold.

Before this round, Orsino took off her shoes in preparation. Another woman asked her why she was doing that. “Because,” the first answered slyly, “I came to slay!”

“If music be the food of love, play on!” she exclaimed. We all swooned and gasped! “Give me excess of it!” We all went wild, and she continued.

“Enough! No more!” she said at last, bringing the ecstasy to a halt as we sobbed into our sleeves around her.

And so on.

Next, we tried it in the opposite way: we expressed the opposite of Orsino’s emotion, magnified a hundredfold. Afterwards, Orsino seemed exhausted and little peeved. “I couldn’t be heard above the laughing,” she said with faux poutiness. A new member seemed a little surprised. “I feel like there were places where that worked!” She explained that maybe the court is sick of Orsino’s antics and may react negatively to the speech. And, on second thought, Orsino said that she hadn’t really paid much attention to what everyone else was doing. Orsino, she said, is oblivious. “I was in my own head.” A few moments later, she added, “He’s just… a ball of confusion.”

Afterwards, we all decided that having a crowd of people onstage was important to telling the story. This play, unlike most of the ones we have done lately, may be one where it makes sense to crowd the stage with bodies. A usually quiet woman had a vision of Orsino pulling petals off a flower. That gave another woman an idea: Curio, the attendant, could be transcribing Orsino’s musings, running after his master with a pad of paper. This led to a whole string of fun ideas, sillier and sillier. People seemed excited just to play around with the text and ideas for staging, which is very encouraging. We’re beginning to find our way forward with this play.

Friday / November 9
Written by Coffey

Tonight we welcomed four new members into the ensemble. As we all brought down the ring together with Frannie explaining the exercise, step by step, a veteran member jumped in, guiding the new members through the ring exercise.

Once the ring was brought down, the new members left with Frannie and a longtime member for their orientation, and one woman shared some Twelfth Night dramaturgy she had discovered over the weekend. She shared first the background of the setting of Twelfth Night, describing the traditional celebration of the twelfth night of Christmas as “a time when you could let off steam within confines, like the purge.” According to her research, the twelfth night of Christmas was traditionally a time of role reversals, pranks, heavy drinking, and nonstop parties, which explained the shenanigans within the play. She also shared background information on the play itself, revealing that the story of Twelfth Night isn’t an original of Shakespeare’s, but a spoof of themes found in other popular stories of the era. “Shakespeare was the original spoofer!” she explained, as she described Of Apollonius and Silla and The Deceived Ones, two stories from which Shakespeare drew most of his material for Twelfth Night. “This is the 1500s version of Scary Movie,” the woman said. “Since it’s already kind of a spoof, maybe we could find ways to incorporate modern TV and movie references.” This began a brainstorming session as the women came up with ways to include our own spoofs of modern TV shows and celebrities in our performances of Twelfth Night (Cheers and a cardboard cutout of Fabio came up as promising spoof sources).

After the brainstorming session we set to work by putting Act, Scene iii, on its feet. It was during this scene that one ensemble member found an opportunity for us to spoof, noting that Sir Andrew’s ridiculous dancing “should be the Hammer dance or a break dance”. One woman noted the recognizable aspects of the scene. “Sometimes fact is funnier than fiction,” she said, pointing out that Sir Toby’s freeloading and Sir Andrew’s obnoxious behavior are comic tropes that can still be found in our own society.

As we moved into Act I, Scene iv, the energy began to dissolve. This was partially due to a lack of clarity regarding Viola’s/Cesario’s motivations and her relationship with Orsino. This led to an interesting discussion, as some women suggested that Orsino could be subconsciously attracted to Cesario, which could add a layer of tension, given that Viola doesn’t want to be found out. Two women got up and re-did the scene with that tension in mind, which gave the scene a bit more texture.

Moving into Act I, scene v, we lost a good portion of our energy, as various distractions took us repeatedly out of the scene. The two women playing Maria and Feste found the top of the scene difficult, as the characters’ convoluted string of jokes proved a bit hard to follow. The woman playing Feste suggested that they sit and perform the first section of the scene face to face rather than on its feet. This helped the scene to have a better pace and drew more attention to the intricacies of the language, but didn’t help to get the energy back up as we continued the long scene. Though the scene is an important one to the rest of the play, we all discovered together that, without enough energy, I.v can easily get jumbled and bland. In reflecting on the scene, however, the women were able to advise each other, reminding each other to slow down, breathe, and pay attention to punctuation. In our post-scene discussion, we also spent some time analyzing Duke Orsino. One woman suggested that we, the audience, should feel sympathy for him: “Everybody understands Orsino. He want what he want, but he can’t have it, which is tragic, and we feel for him.”

As we wrapped up I.v, Frannie brought the new members back from their orientation. A veteran ensemble member led the new members in a round of “three questions” in which the new members introduced themselves by sharing what brought them to SIP, what they hope to gain from SIP, and what gift they bring to the ensemble. The new women shared their hopes for their work, with one woman explaining that she had been inspired to join by the transformation she had seen in an SIP alumna she used to live with.

The new members’ offerings of hope and enthusiasm for the group helped us to end on a positive note. As we raised the ring with the new members, a woman who joined in September and has been very slowly easing her way into active participation said, “Could I do a late check-in?” We called a “blue car” (focus and listen!) and gave her all our attention. “I just wanna say…” she began, clearly nervous but determined to express this, “That I really do wanna do the improv, but I’ve got PTSD and freak out when anyone touches me. So I get scared to get up because I don’t know what anyone’s gonna do. But I think if no one touches me, I might be able to do it. So… I just wanted to tell you guys that.”

Every person in the room nodded and murmured their support. “Thank you so much for sharing that with us,” Frannie said. “We can definitely do the improv without touching you! Feel free to remind us before you go on stage each time, too, to make sure we don’t forget.” Everyone agreed, and the woman thanked us, looking relieved. We raised the ring together, invigorated and hopeful for what the rest of the season might bring.

Season Eight: Week 9

Tuesday / October 30
Written by Frannie

We picked up where we left off on Friday, reminding ourselves that we needed to bump our energy level up several notches and work together to make that happen. “Weak energy rubs off on people,” said one woman. “I get discouraged easily if I’m into something and everyone is low energy.” This same woman had come prepared with an absolutely ridiculous game that forced us all to act very, very silly, and it gave us just the boost we needed.

Opening our books to Act IV, scene ii (Feste pretending to be “Sir Topas” as Malvolio pleads for help from within a dark room), we briefly discussed how we might alter our process in order to keep the energy up. The reading seems to be what bogs us down—this play just desperately wants to be performed. “Well,” I said, “We could take a cue from the men’s ensemble. They put almost every scene on its feet right off the bat, even if we haven’t read it yet. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I used to really fight it, but now I have no preference.”

“Well, I’m not gonna be shown up by a man,” joked one woman. “So… we gonna put it on its feet?” another woman asked.

Without missing a beat, a longtime member rose from her chair, reading Maria’s lines as she walked right over to the woman who’d just spoken. She then jumped to her feet, reading Feste’s lines, and the scene was off and running. Without hesitation or discussion, another woman joined in as Sir Toby, and another sprang into action as Malvolio. The woman reading Feste didn’t hesitate for a moment to sing as noted in the text, which is a rarity in our program! She did a little dance, improvising a melody on the fly. It was absolutely terrible—and hilarious. We loved it.

Some aspects of the scene worked, and others didn’t. Still, we gleaned quite a bit from the attempt. “You know what?” said one woman, “This is an evil scene. I mean… talkin’ about PTSD…” We all agreed, musing on how to balance the cruelty with comedy—and on why the “plot” against Malvolio goes to this length in the first place. “Can I just throw out this—” said that same woman, “—all of this is because he just wanted two drunks to be quiet.”

We talked a bit about the scene’s physical logistics—what is this “dark room?” Is it a literal room in a building? Is it some sort of box? If it’s a box, how can we see Malvolio (which we determined was necessary)? We arranged some chairs to represent a three-sided cage to see how that might work.

We switched up most of the actors, but our Feste stayed in the role, much to our delight. Her singing was even worse this time—also to our delight. The scene ended, but another woman clasped her hands together and said, “[NAME], I’d give anything to have you do that last part again.” And so she did! “You should play Feste!” the woman who’d made the request proclaimed. “You found your part!” This Feste nodded enthusiastically, saying, “Yeah, I like this guy.”

We agreed that we liked Malvolio’s being caged in by chairs, but the woman who’d read the part said she’d had a hard time figuring out what she should be doing in there. We threw out some ideas, but they all seemed to require a light source and/or a window, and we don’t want to fight the text (though the idea of Malvolio waving his yellow stockings out the window like a white flag was so funny that I hope we’ll find a way of incorporating it somehow!). Perhaps Feste could more actively torment Malvolio? The balcony set piece we used in Romeo and Juliet and Othello is still in storage, and one woman suggested that if Malvolio were imprisoned beneath it, Feste could tap dance right over his head.

We ran the scene again, and the woman who played Malvolio this time ran into the same issue. Each of our ideas was met with a reason for why it wouldn’t work, and we started to get frustrated. I asked if I could give the scene a try as Malvolio to see what might occur to me in the moment, and we shuffled actors again.

What I found was that the only activities I could engage in were listening and problem solving. There was no space for anything else when my sole focus was on getting out of there. I became more and more desperate as the scene progressed, slowing down and over-articulating my speech to try to get through to Feste, shifting my physical position while always bearing in mind that I was in a cramped space.

It turned out that this, combined with Feste’s complete disregard, worked just as well from the audience’s perspective as from mine. They said that my desperation and increasing frustration both made the scene funnier and increased their empathy for the character.

As we raised the ring, I thanked the ensemble for really “bringing it.” The energy in the room tonight was completely different from what it was on Friday, and that was a huge, collective effort—as is pretty much everything in our program.

Friday / November 2
Written by Matt

Tonight, a veteran member opened the session by diving right into the ensemble’s current slump. Everyone seemed ready to talk about the problem, and many looked grateful to the woman who brought it up. One woman said that she thought it boiled down to two things: the lack of “substance” in Twelfth Night, compared to the other plays we’ve worked on, and the ensemble’s overall feeling of malaise. “It’s rough in here,” she said, going on to explain that sometimes everyone just seems to get in a funk together for not particular reason. As others started to add their thoughts, we quickly lowered the ring in our seats, which we do sometimes before or during potentially tough discussions to metaphorically bind us together and to remind us of the energetic connection we share as an ensemble.

In general, everyone agreed that we have struggled this year, both new members and old hands. And in general, everyone agreed that the problem was some combination of what the first woman to speak up about it had said: the play and the widespread sense that things are hard right now.

The women had plenty to say about Twelfth Night. “The tragedies connected to us more,” said a veteran of the last three, tragic plays. A new member agreed vigorously: “The comedy is really hard for me. Even the places where I feel like should be more serious, they’re funny!” The veteran member came right back to play devil’s advocate, though: “Maybe it’s a challenge,” she posited. “Maybe we can challenge ourselves to let it go.”

Frannie asked whether anyone was connecting with the play or the characters. A few women raised their hands. One said, “I connect! I feel like it’s super Jerry-Springer-ish!” We all laughed at that and agreed that, yes, whatever else Twelfth Night is, its love triangles that turn into love parallelograms and then into a giant mess of mistaken identity and deceit would be very well suited to Jerry Springer. “I personally like comedy,” said a woman who has been in the ensemble for years and has done both tragedies and comedies with us. “I feel like we stick to the darkness of Shakespeare [too much].” She went on to say that she felt like working on Twelfth Night was like “graduating” to the next step. “Some people always don’t connect to the play,” she recalled.

We had mentioned on Tuesday that the men’s ensemble likes to put scenes on their feet even before they’ve read all the way through, and one woman suggested that we follow suit. “We should take a cue from the guys,” she said. “We just need to come in and just jump in and try to do it.”

Frannie said that we could continue to try to work through Twelfth Night if we wanted, but that it was not yet too late to pivot to another play. We could still do a comedy, she suggested, but perhaps one that has more accessible characters, like As You Like It. What we have discovered is that Twelfth Night is a brilliant piece of theatre, but not an especially profound work of literature (no gasps of horror necessary; even Shakespearean scholars have admitted as much). There are some interesting ideas and themes to talk about, and one or two characters who seem fully human, but mostly it is a masterful piece of comedy--a tour-de-force of wordplay, situation comedy, farce, and old-fashioned slapstick--that relies on the clownishness of its characters to succeed. With As You Like It, Frannie suggested, we could have just as much fun (and cross-dressing!) without giving up the strong, fleshed-out characters that have sparked so many great discussions in our group over the years.

In reaction to Frannie’s suggestion, lots of women raised their hands. The first, though, had a very simple suggestion. “Does this mean we could do Midsummer?” Those of us who have been in the ensemble for a long time laughed--this woman has been pushing for A Midsummer Night’s Dream for years! We have long maintained that Midsummer doesn’t contain enough substance for good discussions, but here we are in that very situation. After a second, Frannie looked at her and said, “You know, that’s… that’s actually not a bad idea.”

A brand-new member suggested that perhaps, as suggested earlier, putting the play on its feet right away might solve some of our problems. Along with her, a number of people began pushing back against the idea of changing. Perhaps, one pondered, we just don’t have the perspective yet to identify with people in silly situations--maybe it would be good to try. A veteran of many seasons spoke up strongly for Twelfth Night, saying that she had been drawn to the play from the beginning, and she was looking forward to incorporating Commedia dell'Arte into her work. “My commitment level is through the roof,” she said. She said that giving up on the play would feel like a failure.

Frannie clarified that changing course wouldn’t be a “failure,” but rather about being honest with ourselves about where we are at as a group, and how to get out of the season what we want out of it. The woman who had started the entire discussion closed the loop by suggesting that we finish reading the play before making any decisions. All agreed, and we moved on.

Another issue that came up before and during the larger discussion of what to do with this season was about the departure of two members. One of them had felt targeted by a joke she heard Frannie make on Tuesday, and she had decided in the intervening days not to return to SIP. A friend, a new member, decided to leave with her, though for different reasons (she decided that Shakespeare wasn’t her thing at the moment). The rest of the ensemble hadn’t heard the joke and questioned whether Frannie had actually said it. Frannie said that she didn’t remember it either, but that she could imagine saying something like it offhandedly and not directed at anybody. “I wish she had come to talk to me,” said Frannie, not to argue over who said what to whom, but to express a desire to hear this member out and have a chance to respond. “I feel like we’ve always been able to work it out when people come talk to me,” she said, mentioning times when ensemble members—including some in the room—had confronted her with complaints or concerns. One longtime member spoke up strongly about her feelings. She was upset that a member of the group would nurse a grievance and quit the group without airing it. This incident, she said, actually betrayed a lack of respect for the group, and she was a little angry that people hadn’t spoken more strongly to the woman who left. “I feel like we’re an ensemble,” she said, “and the job of us in here is to protect this program.”

To complete the trio of tough conversations, we talked for a bit about turnover. Not yet two months into the season, we’ve lost a third of our members. A few of those people were released from prison, and some quit to focus on their schoolwork, but many simply faded away or left without a clear reason. We always have some of that in a season, but never this early. More importantly, we talked about how crucial it is to recruit all sorts of people for the group, not just friends, and not just the sorts of people we think will be “good at Shakespeare.” It is often the least likely people who end up being best for the ensemble--and for whom being in the ensemble is transformational. We made sure that it was clear that no one in the room was at fault for any of our challenges—and we also made sure it was clear that it’s up to the ensemble as a whole to find a way to deal with them.

At last, when we had run through these important but draining topics, a new member had a monologue memorized for us! She recited a speech from Julius Caesar, even giving a full synopsis of the play beforehand! After she was done, she reflected that she loved Caesar’s earnestness, but also saw the seeds of his impending downfall: “I mean, he’s so full of himself!” she exclaimed. “I mean, he compares himself to the north star!”

Even before we turned back to the play, the same veteran member who both started and ended the first discussion took the reins. “Okay!” she shouted, “we’re doing this on its feet!” Through the force of her leadership, everyone in the room leapt up to participate. As luck would have it, the final scene (Act V, scene i) includes nearly every character in the play, and required everyone in the room to participate. We didn’t even think that we would make it all the way through--it’s a long scene!--so members of the “audience” were always needing to jump in to fill roles. One woman who is new and who only just recently started reading aloud, leapt in as the defeated Malvolio, reading his final curse (“I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you!”) with gusto! We built on each others’ energy--Feste singing badly but enthusiastically, Frannie as Orsino dry-heaving at the news of Olivia’s marriage, and a lot of funny twin-shtick with Viola and Sebastian.

At the end, we all had a good laugh. It was the perfect way to end a tumultuous first phase of the season. One of the core membersspoke for everyone when she said, “It was a hot mess, but it was funny!”

Season Eight: Week 8

Tuesday / October 23
Written by Matt

We opened tonight with a surprise! A longtime member who has struggled with crippling stage-fright from the first day recited a monologue--a monologue she had used to audition years ago for Desdemona. She didn’t get the part (“Oh, thank God!” she had exclaimed then), but she got her moment on “stage” tonight in front of a new group of people. “It was nice to finally memorize something and be okay,” she reflected. “We’ve got a really nice ensemble now!”

As she sat down, she did a mock “mic-drop” gesture, then instantly gathered up the pen she had let fall. “I’ve never done that, guys!” she exclaimed.

We moved on to reading Act III, scene iv, which is really an exhausting string of vignettes, involving nearly all of the play’s characters at one time or another. The humor is broad, but getting the most out of it requires a lot of energy and very snappy movement onstage. A couple of veterans and a brand-new member helped us stay on top of the plot and wordplay, and a bunch of new members read aloud enthusiastically. Still, it was a bit of a slog to get through the scene--there’s so much going on, and the humor falls flat when not injected with energy. It felt like an accomplishment when the scene was over.

We tried out a short piece of the scene, notable because it consists entirely of asides, on its feet. Though it consists of fewer than twenty lines, it’s quite a daunting piece of theatre. The asides need to be cleanly delivered, and their recipient (the audience, another character) needs to be perfectly clear for the exchange to make any sense. We tried it a few times, giving each other permission to go further with it (I, as Sir Andrew, wound up hiding underneath a podium), but no one was totally satisfied by the time we were done. The scene wants to work itself out physically, and it was a good reminder that the faster we can get through the play and get familiar with the story and characters, the faster we can find the humor.

A new member who has become an eager participant asked a lot of questions about the process of putting the play up. She asked what we do with people who aren’t actively talking on stage. And she seemed excited by the fact that there were no set staging decisions and few set stage directions. “Wait,” she said, “so do we just make it up?” Frannie replied, “Yeah, basically, as long as it works with the text.” The woman thought for a moment and asked, “Is this the only thing like this?” We responded that all theatre is “like this,” but that Shakespeare is unique in the number of potential options each play provides--and in the quality of the writing. “Now I get why we need so much time with this!” said the woman.

Friday / October 26
Written by Frannie

Today began with one of our new members performing a monologue she’s always loved from Much Ado About Nothing. It was a simple read, serving just to get her on her feet, and, in that, it was successful!

It was tough to get anything going — the energy level was very low, which is something with which we’ve been struggling this whole season. Finally I got everyone to sit in a circle for “the question game”, a perennial favorite in which questions must quickly be asked but not answered, traveling around the circle and allowing no time to think. We had a good time with it, but it didn’t do much for our energy.

We returned to our seats to read. It was a struggle even to get someone to summarize the last scene we read for Lauren, who is only there on Fridays. One woman said she’d been thinking a lot about the plot against Malvolio, and she realized that Maria wants revenge on him for doing exactly what she’s done earlier in the play. “I wonder if she wants to be [Olivia’s] favorite,” she mused. Another woman agreed with the overall idea, saying that Maria likely has some kind of motivation other than the practical joke.

We opened our books to read 4.1, and, again, it was a challenge to get people to read aloud. We stopped periodically to break down the language, and then we decided to get on our feet. Those who did so were mostly people who are always game to perform, and we ran through the scene with gusto, even though it was, of course, messy. Sir Andrew charged headlong into the playing space, and into the fight, with Sir Toby shoving her way through (while holding a “beer”), Sebastian being utterly confused, and me as Fabian revving up the crowd and then sitting to watch and eat popcorn.

When the scene ended, we reflected on what had worked and how we could build on it. We all agreed that Sir Toby’s being “vertically challenged” opposite a taller Sebastian and Sir Andrew was great fodder for comedy. One woman said she saw this scene as continuing the “build of drunkenness,” which led another woman to suggest that Toby take great care not to spill his drink, even while fighting. “She might drop the sword, but not the drink!” laughed one woman, and another said, “I could see him losing an arm and not dropping the drink!”

We went with this idea, plus a few other refinements, for our second attempt at the scene. Sir Toby played the heck out of this deference to her drink (for which she used a travel coffee mug), even stopping the action at a few points to take huge gulps. It was quite funny, and an idea we’ll likely keep. It also gave us a sort of “heads-up” in terms of how we’ll need to cast these roles: they are so physical and prop-heavy that we’ll need to be sure that whoever is cast has the ability and time to get off book well in advance of performances.

Despite the fun of performing this scene, the evening had dragged quite a bit, and I was frustrated. I said to the group, very plainly, that we need to brainstorm some way to bring more energy each evening — to manufacture it if necessary — because, the rest of our work aside, this play simply will not work if we don’t fully commit to its being madcap. We can’t even get past basic staging/concept work if it’s a struggle even to get people to read, let alone to get on their feet. With winter coming, this will only get worse, and we have to stop it in its tracks now before we get so bogged down that the challenge becomes insurmountable.

A few people had deer-in-headlights looks on their faces, while others seemed motivated (and even relieved) by this “ultimatum.” A few people tossed out ideas, but we’ll need to work harder to solve the problem. “If we can’t do this, I don’t know what we do,” I said. “Not Twelfth Night, but I don’t know what. There isn’t really a Plan B.”

“We’ll get it together, Frannie,” said one longtime member. “We’re gonna figure this out.” I hope she’s right. We’ll see how it goes on Tuesday.

Season Eight: Week 7

Tuesday / October 16
Written by Frannie

As we circled up to check in, one woman said she had been reading the play, turning it over in her mind, and had come to the conclusion that “girls should take over this play.” She’s the first to identify “powerful women” as being a major theme in Twelfth Night, and she got no argument from the rest of us. We’re excited to explore it, in addition to everything we’ve already discovered — and everything we haven’t yet!

Check-in was pretty subdued. One of the women, though, shared her excitement about her upcoming GED graduation. She said that she’s been pulled in many directions throughout her life. “This is the first time in my life I’ve actually accomplished something.” The entire ensemble is very proud of her.

I acknowledged the low energy in the room — I was kind of low on energy, myself — and asked if we could stand up for a little bit to play “Impression”, a circle game in which one person says, “I hear [NAME] does a great impression of [FILL IN THE BLANK]”, that person does the impression (whatever that means to them!); the circle claps and cheers, and the request is passed to the next person.

This was low impact, which was needed, and fun, which was also needed! Impressions ranged from Michael Jackson (among other celebrities), to a tennis-ball-being-caught-midair-by-a-dog (“Noooooooo!” screamed the ball), to a cheesecake (who made jazz hands and said, “Cheesecake!”), to “the Shakespeare Holy Ghost” (which was given to the woman who coined the term, though she passed it to another woman, saying “The pressure is real.”). A longtime member, who is well-known for hilarious impressions, arrived just in time for another longtime member to request that she do an impression of our Richard III campaigning for the role. It was, of course, perfect, and, after requesting several more rapid-fire impressions from her, we ended the game with a bit more pep in our step than when we began.

Several people were out of the room for the last few scenes we read, and I asked if someone could sum things up to get them up to speed. No one spoke. I asked again, and everyone just sort of looked around uncomfortably. “I can’t carry this myself, you guys,” I said. (That sounds harsher than it actually was, trust me!) I paused. “Is anybody lost? It’s okay if you are.”

There was another pause as some looked at the floor, and others looked around the circle. Finally, one woman said, “I have no idea what’s going on.”

“Thank you so much for saying that,” I said. After some more conversation, what it came down to was that some ensemble members (particularly those with one or more years of experience) pick up on the language quickly, while others truly need to move more slowly — but haven’t been letting us know. I made sure everyone knew that it’s totally okay to slow down — that, in fact, moving quickly often means we miss things that we wouldn’t at a slower pace — and that, while we can all do a better job of checking in about whether we’re on the same page, it’s impossible to know if no one speaks up.

We decided to take some time to go through the play thus far (up to 3.3), sum up the content of each scene, and break down little bits of text to make sure everyone’s got some clues to help them do it, in the circle and on their own. We still don’t have our No Fear editions, and, though we worked without any published edition for the first five seasons, we are really having a hard time without them. The Ardens are great, but it takes some practice to learn how to use them, and, even then, some learning styles simply don’t allow folks to get what they need — and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m hoping to have come up with a solution by the next time we blog. Stay tuned.

I stepped away for a few minutes with an ensemble member, and when I came back, the circle had arrived at Act I scene iii. “I think this is where Sir Toby comes in,” said Matt. “Sir Toby is, like, a major drunk,” explained one woman. Using the Arden, a scene-by-scene Sparknotes summary that I provided at the beginning of the season, and our memories, we went through the scene’s plot points and characters.

Twelfth Night rests heavy on wordplay, though, and some ensemble members still looked uncomfortable. We needed an “in.” I thumbed through the pages and asked the ensemble what the playwright wants us to take away from the scene (besides Sir Toby being “a major drunk”). “Like, what’s up with Sir Andrew?” I asked. “He’s not very smart,” offered one woman, who, admittedly, is very comfortable with the text. “I see him as kind of a bobblehead,” I mused, “A bobblehead with beautiful hair, of course.” A few people giggled. “Like, right off the bat, what do we get from him?” I asked. When there still wasn’t much of a response, I asked if a few people could read the beat in which Sir Toby introduces Sir Andrew to Maria aloud so we could break it down and get at the humor.

I didn’t take detailed notes because, obviously, I was deeply involved in facilitating all of this. But as we broke down the language and the joke began to take shape, one woman in particular caught my attention. She’s been very quiet, though always attentive, but her whole countenance had changed as soon as we’d begun this part of our work. Leaning forward, book in her hands and eyes making contact with each of us in turn, she launched into a series of detailed contributions to our understanding of the “accost” joke in particular, and she was dead-on. I didn’t call attention to it, but I didn’t need to; I wasn’t the only one who saw what was happening, and the energy began to shift.

After going through the whole beat in detail, we read it aloud again. The moment the reading ended, the woman who’d been first to admit she was lost said, “I get it now!” “AWESOME!” I said. “This is why it’s good to slow down! Always tell us if we need to slow down!”

We moved on to Act I scene iv, again summing up the scene and choosing a short bit to break down. One of our frequent readers volunteered to read Olivia. I took Maria when no one raised a hand — and the woman who’d done the about-face volunteered to read Feste. And she was GREAT. Like, really, really great.

“Was that any different from reading it in your head, or listening to other people read?” I asked her. Beaming, she said, “It’s easier to understand when you put the emotion you want into it.” “Totally,” I said, and then I asked if that was the first time she’d done something like that. It was, and she got major snaps, claps, and encouragement from everyone.

We continued to work through each scene, and, though things dragged here and there, it proved to be a really useful exercise. A couple of fun exchanges:

I.v

Woman A: “I feel like [Olivia’s] playing with [Feste].”
Woman B: “I feel like he’s just running her in circles. My uncle used to do that, and I hated it.”

Regarding Olivia’s sputtering just prior to Viola/Cesario’s exit:

Frannie: “I mean, we’ve all been there, right? You say something dumb, and then when they leave, you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe I said that.’”
Woman C: “Ohhhh, it’s like in Dirty Dancing.” [pause for effect] “I carried a watermelon???”

Moving forward, we decided to review the last couple of scenes on Friday and then structure our reading a little differently. We’ll read the scene (or a large part of a long scene) through, see what we get in general, go back through and break down the language as needed, and then keep going. Everyone agreed that this was a night well-spent, and we’re feeling better about things now.

We lifted the ring back up. As people scattered, putting away chairs and putting on their coats, the woman who’d “sparked” tonight began to walk past me. I caught her eye and said, “That was awesome.” She smiled, said, “Thank you,” and kept going. There are so many “little miracles” (as one longtime member puts it) that happen in SIP, and this is one of my favorite kinds.

Friday / October 19
Written by Frannie

We added new members tonight (probably for the last time this fall) and did some quick intros. As they peeled away to do an orientation with Matt and a returning member, I reminded another member that on Tuesday she’d volunteered to follow up the orientation by summarizing the play for the newbies. “What? No I didn’t!” she said. “You so did,” I said, and others backed me up. “Oh — god, okay. It must have been the meds. But okay,” she joked.

We picked up our review right where we left off, with one of the women reading the Sparknotes summary of 3.2, in which Sir Toby and Fabian convince Sir Andrew to challenge Cesario. “Sir Toby is a pot-stirrer in all aspects,” said a woman who is very comfortable with the text. “Wherever he is, he’s stirring up shenanigans.”

We moved on to 3.3, a scene between Antonio and Sebastian, and got into a bit of a debate. Several women feel that these two are in love, but another woman made a strong case for that love being platonic. As always, I said that there could be more than one “right” interpretation, and I asked her where she found evidence of that in the text. She bristled a bit and said she found it in her own experience. A good friend sitting next to her reiterated the question, saying, “Just ‘cause that’s how you want it to be doesn’t mean that’s how it’s going to be.” They argued back and forth, one drawing from the text and the other refusing to open her book. Another woman remarked quietly to me that she didn’t see much difference between the men’s language and things she and her platonic girlfriends might say to each other, but the rest of the group didn’t hear her. Another woman pointed out some clues in the text that this might be one-sided, and another agreed, saying that Antonio’s language reads a lot like Orsino’s and Olivia’s, while Sebastian’s doesn’t.

In the end, we decided to leave the debate unresolved for the moment. The plan is to read the rest of the play and see if we get a clearer idea of this relationship. We also plan to run all of Antonio’s/Sebastian’s scenes in order to see what that does for us.

We then read the first part of 3.4 (which is very long), in which Malvolio shows up, much to Olivia’s horror, smiling, wearing yellow stockings, cross-gartered, and quoting “her” letter. Once we’d broken it down, there was a lot of laughter — Malvolio is just trying so hard. One woman put her hand down by her knees, saying, “Here’s the level of trying—” She raised that hand above her head, “— here’s Malvolio.”

She then joked that Malvolio should have his own emoji (she also wants one for herself), and I mused that that might be a really funny gag for the show — I wasn’t sure exactly how we’d do it, but what if we incorporated emoji? “Is there a Shakespeare emoji?” one woman asked. “I don’t know, but why can’t we design our own?” I replied. “Gee, I don’t know anyone in this group who has any artistic skill…” I joked; there are a few really talented visual artists in our ensemble.

“I picture an emoji that’s just, like, a giant yellow-stockinged leg,” said one woman, and that sparked an idea in me! “I don’t know how or where we’d use this,” I said, “But I’m envisioning a can-can with Malvolio and some others — like, a line of people in yellow stockings kicking!” Another woman said, “That should be our curtain call!” We all burst out laughing — it’s a brilliant idea! Another woman suggested that there could also be a can-can as part of a fantasy during Malvolio’s letter-reading, and then we started coming up with all sorts of silly ideas — apparently this is going to be a bit of a motif in our performance.

The newbies and Matt returned to the circle, and the woman who’d had the curtain call idea excitedly filled them in. They loved all the ideas, including the ones that continued to pop up right up until we had to leave for the night.

We’ll get back to our reading on Tuesday, armed with these fresh ideas and enthusiasm. I can’t wait for all the great ideas to come.

Season Eight: Week 6

Tuesday / October 9
Written by Frannie

We welcomed two new members to the ensemble tonight. Both of these women signed up for the waiting list after having seen one performance (or more!), so they pretty much knew what they were getting into. [insert smiley face emoji here] Several women made sure they knew they were in a safe space. “I couldn’t ask for a better family,” said one. “What goes on in here stays in here.” Another woman added, “Kinda like Vegas… except it’s Shakespeare.”

We asked the first newbie our traditional three questions, and, though she was clearly nervous to an extent that expressed itself physically, she gave straightforward answers and got a lot of smiles in return. One woman, reacting (I think) to the new member’s anxiety, reassured her loudly and soothingly that her answers were great and we were all glad she was there. The other new member then exuberantly introduced herself, organically covering everything we were going to ask as she did. “Well, you just answered all three questions in one fell swoop!” I joked. Last year’s Macduff gasped, “Oh!” Her whole face lit up. “That’s my line! Remember? All my pretty chickies in one fell swoop!” To say she was tickled is an understatement. I absolutely love when those things happen — it reinforces, for all of us, just how much ownership we have of these plays.

We began our reading with Act II scene v, in which Malvolio finds the letter Maria planted to make him think Olivia is in love with him. There was a little bit of a tussle between two ensemble members who are good friends, and who both, for whatever reason, are very drawn to Malvolio. Eventually one ceded the part to the other, and I made her promise that she’d be on deck to read him next. There was no bad blood here — they “play” bicker all the time — but the former member doesn’t often gravitate to particular characters and did seem a little miffed.

Twelfth Night has turned out to be an interesting play to work on within our usual structure, and without the No Fear editions (which are still en route) — some of the wordplay is complex enough that it can obscure or distract from the larger meaning and/or action of the scene. But there are still plenty of moments that are crystal clear, to varying degrees, for all of us. When we arrived at Malvolio’s reading aloud, “Remember who commended thy yellow stockings and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered…” the longtime ensemble member who was reading the part burst out laughing so hard that she had to pause the reading. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to catch her breath, “I’m just picturing whoever plays Malvolio—” and her own laughter cut her off again.

I’ve been working with this woman for a long time, and she’s always had a gift for getting at least some meaning from any Shakespeare we’ve read, but this is the most effortless text work I’ve seen her do yet. It just clicks for her. The jokes crack her up on first reading, she’s able to sum up scenes in detail without further analysis, and she keeps having all these clear, fully formed staging ideas that are absolutely spot-on. It’s not like she hasn’t been creative in the past — to the contrary, she’s been one of our best problem-solvers — but she’s on another level this year. In fact, I’d been mildly concerned about how few people have been speaking up to summarize and analyze scenes, but as I watched the others react to her obvious delight, I realized that this is (at least partly) because she just gets it, and they’re eager to hear her insight before giving their own. It usually doesn’t work for one person to so “dominate” scene analysis, but in this case I think it’s actually very beneficial to the ensemble. She’s not overpowering the conversation in any way; the rest of us are simply deferring to her position as an elder in the group and, at least for the moment, the person most in tune with the way this play works.

We realized, though, that this scene wasn’t going to make total sense until we put it on its feet, so we expanded our circle and brought over some artificial trees to create the playing space we needed. A few people wanted a particular ensemble member, who has lately come out of her shell, to read Toby. She was hesitant until Kyle volunteered to read Fabian, and they turned out to be a dynamic duo, without question. Another woman, who’s been challenging herself a lot this season, volunteered to read Maria, and I insisted that the woman who’d demurred to read Malvolio earlier do so now.

It took a minute to get going — the woman reading Sir Toby got to the word “niggardly” and burst out laughing. “It doesn’t mean what it sounds like now!” I shouted. Still chuckling, she decided to use the word “mean” in its place. “Take two!” someone shouted, and the scene began again. But our Toby jumped one of Fabian’s lines, everyone got confused, we all cracked up again, and they restarted the scene. “Take three… Action!”

As we made our way through the scene, we had to pause now and then as we found action in the text and looped back to do it. At Toby’s first exclamation during Malvolio’s letter-reading, that ensemble member burst through the artificial trees — with Malvolio directly facing her. It was incredibly funny, but clearly not what the scene called for, so we paused, figured out a solution, and took it back. At one point, when Malvolio had been reading for a while, the three folks hiding behind the trees picked up those trees and slowly moved behind Malvolio to the other side of the playing space. They stayed there for a bit and then started slowly inching toward Malvolio, as if to hear her better. Meanwhile, our Malvolio arrived at the line, “I do not fool myself—” paused, said, “I’m gettin’ tired,” to another huge burst of ensemble laughter, and then kept plugging away.

The scene ended, and we all agreed that, while of course it will need work (and a lot of cutting), the bit with the trees absolutely has to stay. One woman, who was on fire, suggested that those hiding in the trees could throw out lines from Macbeth (in Birnam Wood) and perhaps reprimand each other for getting the plays confused. This led to a brief brainstorm about what else we could throw into the mix in that way; the comedy is so broad and ridiculous in Twelfth Night that it seems like it could stand for us to go a little bonkers with gags like that. The Keeper of the Jokes recorded all of this in our dedicated notebook.

Rather than delve into the next scene, we decided to use the rest of our time for monologues. A longtime ensemble member, who has been frank about identifying with Viola but intrigued by Sir Toby (she is an incredible comedian), said she had chosen one just that day. Or, rather, it had been chosen for her. “I asked the universe to give me the proper character. My girlfriend [who’s been pushing for Viola] was right… I opened the book — I said, ‘I need a good one’ — BOOM. Viola. Then I was like… ‘You bitch.” We all laughed with her. Her reading of the piece was a bit halting because she’d only begun to work with it today, but she clearly understands the piece — and the character — in a way that I’m not sure the rest of us do. I hope she keeps exploring this.

After my glorious fail last week, I promised the ensemble that I’d make it up to them by performing four monologues tonight, and I did. It was a mixed bag for me personally, and reactions were a bit varied as well. I felt best about the first two (Edmund from King Lear; Viola from Twelfth Night), not good about the third (Hermione from The Winter’s Tale), and iffy about the last (Anne from Richard III). My analysis was that I’ve been trying to get a handle on that Hermione monologue for a really long time, and it just never works the way I want it to; I think I’m done with it now, and that’s okay. My being off on that one, though, colored my performance of the last, which was much quieter than I’ve done it before, and even resigned toward the end. It’s something I’d want to explore in a more formal environment; maybe being a bit numb or spent when Richard enters gives the scene an interesting tone. But that’s not what we’re in SIP to do!

My personal thoughts aside, I got some very positive feedback from ensemble members (though I welcomed them to give more pointed critiques in journal entries if they wanted to). I was mostly glad just to have followed through on what I said I would do (and why I said I would do it, I have no idea — I get a little slap-happy sometimes), and equally glad to have had more success than last week. “You are a monologue monster!” said one woman.

Friday / October 12
Written by Matt

Among the several joyous check-ins today was a conversation about Banksy! It came up because of something one of the women had painted on a big plastic mug, but quickly turned to how badass they thought it was that Banksy’s most recent high-profile art piece had sold for $1.4 million and, at the moment of its sale, shredded itself, using a shredder embedded in the frame.

After lowering the ring, we dove into the play. Everyone was pretty tired today, so we focused on reading. We are into Act III now, and we ended up reading the first three scenes. The first went by quickly--everyone seemed to understand, which is huge! Before we started using the No Fear Shakespeare editions, which have contemporary English “translations” on the facing page, we often struggled simply to comprehend the plays even after the first read-through. We now have enough veteran members with deep knowledge of the language that everyone is carried along with them, even though we don’t have No Fear Twelfth Nights yet.

We moved directly on to scene ii. Among the highlights in this ridiculous scene was a returning member giving a perfect rendition of badly mispronounced French. I mentioned that the entire subplot of Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Maria has always struck me as just a bunch of friends sitting in the basement and making up plots. “Sounds like some of my friends at home!” chimed in one of the women, right on cue. Another veteran member has really taken to Maria. She will likely be home before the show, but “if I were here for the play,” she assured us, “I’d be Maria. I’d do it good!” This was a remarkable statement from a woman who could barely be coaxed out on stage as recently as last year--Maria is in at least half a dozen scenes and has dozens of lines.

No one had the energy to walk through this scene on its feet, so we went right into the next one. Scene iii is a dialogue between Sebastian and Antonio--and the second time we have seen them in the play. A number of the women were taken by the intimate language between them. “Wow!” exclaimed one. “Antonio has the hots for Sebastian--clearly!” She imitated Antonio’s imagined low voice: “‘Hey, you go into town. Here’s my purse; buy yourself something nice.’” Everyone laughed.

Another member pushed back gently. “I don’t think it’s nothing funny here… I feel like he landed here and he found this guy, and he has to trust him.” The first woman countered, “But they just met!” The second woman stuck to her understanding. “But if you was on an island,” she said, “and somebody popped up and needed help, and it was just you...how much would it matter to you that you just met?” She went on, talking about how, in Romeo & Juliet (in which she played the nurse five years ago), “people fall in love at first sight. They just see them and decide, that’s what I want.”

Frannie asked about all the love at first sight in Twelfth Night, especially Olivia, who falls in love with Orsino offstage. The same woman came right back with “I thought Olivia was just vulnerable.” Her statement caused a little buzz in the group, as people considered this simple but interesting assessment. “Yeah,” agreed a new member, “she didn’t want to see men for, like, seven years?... After the death of her brother.”

The longtime member who had begun by offering an alternate explanation of Sebastian and Antonio’s intimacy was far from done, though (she warned us that “I feel the [Shakespeare] Holy Ghost coming on!” a reference to an amazing moment last season). “I think sometimes we’re crippled by the No Fear,” she said. She talked about how for years she had felt unable to understand the language of the plays. She even talked about how, when she was in The Tempest, she didn’t fully understand some of the lines until she was saying or hearing them onstage in performance. And she described a moment of laughing aloud at a joke in Twelfth Night while reading it in the original. At that moment, she said, she felt pride in her progress over years of work with Shakespeare in Prison. This moment, familiar to all of us who grow to love Shakespeare, when the words no longer seem like an arcane code that takes tremendous effort to decipher, is a pleasure that we could recognize. But for this woman, it is that and more--her accomplishment is truly staggering, to get to a place where she could laugh aloud to herself while reading a Shakespearean comedy on her bunk. Frannie told her how exciting this was to hear, while at the same time reassuring everyone that there’s nothing wrong with relying on the No Fear—not only does it take time to get as comfortable with the language as she is, there are different learning styles best suited to different versions of the text. It’s been very beneficial to have ensemble members at Parnall reading from two editions, and it will make our work go that much faster at WHV to have someone so fluent in the ensemble. “Congratulations,” said Frannie to her, “you have become a resource!”

At last, a new member who has expressed a lot of anxiety about performing in public read a short monologue from Richard III. Her eyes were glued to the text, but she got through it, and everyone gave her a big round of applause! “That got my heart racing!” she exclaimed. She said that it was the first time she had ever done anything like that. She also shared about wanting to do an angry monologue (which this one certainly was!) because of some anger she feels at her family situation. A monologue felt like a safe place to put that feeling, and she said that she was a little frustrated that she couldn’t channel it more during her performance. “I have the anger,” she said. “But whenever I come into the ensemble, I can’t keep the anger. It all goes away.” Frannie made sure she knew that she’s allowed to express anger in the circle, and the others nodded vigorously, but she said she just didn’t want that. She also described taking steps to ensure that her work at prison would not interfere with this group. “I’m not going to let them take that away from me,” she said emphatically. “This is a space where I feel like myself.”

What was most striking about her words was not the sentiment they expressed--it is always good to hear such positive and affirming things about the program, but many of our members have shared similar feelings--it was how early in her first season she had come to feel this way. Barely six weeks in, she feels like she has found a home. More than anything, this speaks to the open, safe, welcoming culture that is nurtured and sustained by the core members of our ensemble. They have set the tone, and they have made Shakespeare in Prison the sort of ensemble that can enfold and become indispensable in a person’s life in so short a time. This is nothing short of remarkable.