No Sexit
(Mad Science Series Scrapbook)
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No Sexit
(Mad Science Series Scrapbook)
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7/?/2002 I have always been
fascinated/horrified by death. My greatest fear isn't so much nothingness
(which I increasing find harder to visualize, so much so that it seems
an impossibility like the square root of a negative number). My greatest
fear is isolation. Perhaps that is why the notion that "Hell is other
people" interests me. The other inescapable thing that due me to the play
was the sex. This is a very sexy play. Who is going to get to sleep with
who while the the third one watches. Both the women are obsessed with
possesssing the sexual attention of their prey. The man could be read
as simply being interested in his honor, but I think it makes for a more
involving read if masculine nobility were a metaphor for virility. |
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10/14/2002
Why No Exit? Why an adaptation rather than the text as written? What are the lessons (egad!) to be learned from No Exit? Personally, I'm not one for preaching lessons in the theatre, but I hope these questions will help me to come to grips with my personal fascination with this adaptation the Mammals are embarking upon. No Exit - Only a Stalemate. No Exit - Only Allegory Global Perspective (again egad) no exit/no sexit can teach us that by letting go of adefinative version of ourselves we can begin to see others as something beyond extensions of our on entity. Co Existence requires more than mere politeness |
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One's
self perception is based upon their judgements of others. When these judgements
re called into question or put into chaotic imbalance with others' judgements
then the entity (identity) suffers a crisis. How do we (or least most men
my age) judge complete strangers? How are we taught today to judge ourselves
ad others? Even at a very young age issues of sexuality and virility are
primary factors in our conditioning. I put to you that in almost all situations
we are conditioned to emulate ideals which we are made to believe will attract
mates. Self Worth=sexuality self worth=sexual currency OK, but why are you doing this adapatation...No Sexit? Seeing that the Mammals are interested in horror/phantasmagoria, I decided to read this play which has its location as hell. Becuase it's circumstance and situations were so...i don't know...natural, bland, subtle...my tendency was not to read this play in the allegorical approach that I believe Sartre intended. Sartre is focused on the ends (or maybe the ends that never come)...not the means of the torture...that stalemate torture in hell. I became obsessed with the means of the torture. It's means are sexual. Sexuality as a device of torture |
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I'm
debating about the conventional value that some might see or not see in
this exercise. Since, Sartre did not believe in an afterlife any sexual
politics apparent within his allegorical play should simply be considered
as they would if the circumstance where prior to death. For the conveinence
of allowing Sartre to make his point about how one should live one's life,
we the spectators/readers overlook any peculiarities in what he would deem
to be a constructed fairy tale the same way we blindly accept the mythical
environment and implications of sysphus or promethus or christ. |
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But,
the sex in no exit plagues me with questions and convictions. However we
conceive of existence after the point of death, whether we think the afterlife
to be fairy tale, a myth, an inevitable actuality, we place ourselves within
a narrative structure that starts before the individuals conception and
continues beyond his/her death. How we perceive our place within that narrative,
our position dictates the way in which we behave when alive. So, I would
argue taht how we conveice of Hell even if we don't believe in it, is relevant.
The Map is not the Territory but we still need an absolute conception of
that which is at the heirarchal apogee of abject state of being. We need a metaphor by which to govern our behavior, a metaphor by which to condition the behavior of our children. The metaphor as presented by Sartre is one governed by sex. |
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A
little bit about the approach. Similar to the script generation techniques
once employed by Richard Foreman. Some basic skeletal scenes have to be
fixed so that we give the audience a foundation from which to move through
the piece, then other scenes could be placed in a number of potential different
arrangements within the frame. So these other scenes will be read and then
it will be decide upon later whether they will fit in and where they will
fit into the script. Out of these fragmentary responses to No Exit a script,
a story, a narrative will rise. What does a Foreman production have that you would hope this productionof No Sexit emulates? A reexamination of reality/linearity...but where Foreman goes, te degree to which he erases theatrical convention...I want us to keep one foot in a familiar world so that when the audience dives underneath the surface trying to discern the ocean floor they can still occasionally come up for air. Their attention can die a death of drowning especially if they have not been conditioned to receive certain storytelling techniques. Something of a razor's edge we will try to walk. |
 Possible Set Design |
11/6/2002 Reflections on yesterday's reading Definately this is the last day that we wont be on our feet regarding Nosexit. The script is shaping up. i think we've moved far enough away from Sartre's original that we can return back to it as a floor plan to help bring all the various elements of our evolving script into something more cohesive. The characters are more solid (or at least seem so to us) Their interactions more direct and compelling possibly more alluring. But, we still need to flesh out there back stories and motivations much more for the audience. Small ideas from last night both big and small...Making estelle a smoker, using the old fashioned glamour of cigarette smoke. Estelle cant light it joseph cant light it. Only Inez can. |
 Sartre |
Chris made mention
that the script is mostly staccato short quick exchanges between characters.
He liked the contrast of the longer monologues to those quick exchanges 11/11/2002 |
 Foreman |
Sartre's No Exit in 17 movement 1. Joseph discovers he is in hell |
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So if Sartre puts you in the mood to make theatre why did you initially move away from/deconstruct the text of No Exit? Well, there are a few reasons. One, although intrigued by the the situations in No Exit, I was exhausted by what i would call it's excessive parlour room verbosity. I didn't find the banter between the characters as stimulating as I wanted it to be. There were these three bodies (dead or alive) who were spending a major of the play talking/avoiding/dodging. I wanted the same story but told more viscerally more immediately perhaps more american. But, I also wanted to highlight the fact that these three have bodies in this situation. I think that so many people forget that and focus on "the arguement' of the piece. But if you look at it as a taubleax rathar than as a debate, it is an eroticized story. The Lesbian wants the Society type who wants the failed writer/revolutionary who wants the lesbian. |
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11/12/2002 Meet with Chris Preissing yesterday regarding music. He is totally on the right track. He has taken samples of the actors laughing and created some erotic and haunting sound environments. He will also be providing a number of loops that we can experiment with during te rehearsal process. We also played around with some effects equipment and will probably use that live during perfromance to effet actors voices. Very exciting stuff that can take the entire Mammal sound design to a whole new level. |
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(On
a side note, no one conceives of nothingness. For once nothingness is conceived,
abstracted, perceived or comprehended in any way, it actually is not nothingness
anymore, if it ever was...the paradox, the veil that will never be lifted...this
notion of nothingness is just as inconceivable, just as impossible scienctifically
as the notions of heaven, hell, afterlife, etc.) So what if sex is still used as a weapon in the afterlfe? If sex is a weapon (the primary weapon in No Exit) Then Sex is a spiritual weapon. Perhaps the most spiritual of weapons. Is sexuality simply a matter of biology. or is it also a matter of psychology, environment. Is sexuality more than simply the item you are attracted to...but more about how you act and react on that attraction. How relevant is sexual orientation after death? If we are the sum total of our experience than I can not see how it becomes irrelevant. |
 Possible Costume Sketches |
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