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Crave, proposed by Cari Cymanski, '03

Introduction to Crave

Sarah Kane, the author of Crave, had a firestorm of a career: bright, fierce, and short. Now, I have been sitting here, trying to decide whether to fill you in on the details of her life and career, wondering if that will give you answers, prompt even more questions, or if it would even be appropriate at all. However, I've found myself coming back to that first sentence, realizing that all the answers we need for this proposal are there. Crave itself is a firestorm; fierce, bright and short. I hope that the following pages reveal to you a proposal for a production of Crave that will, for everyone involved, make real the intensity, passion, heat, ferocity and brilliance of Crave itself and of Sarah Kane.

Crave can be very confusing to read. I would recommend reading it aloud with other people; it's a lot easier to understand that way. But, if you end up reading it silently by yourself, and you're feeling frustrated, just read it as a long poem, and enjoy the language. It really should be performed, not read.

However, as a text, Crave is totally fascinating. Thematically, it is heavily based on The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot. Furthermore, Kane gives a somewhat clever nod to Eliot stylistically through her heavy use of allusion. In fact, Crave quotes works from Prozac Nation to the Bible , Bjork and Camus. Crave is also fascinating structurally, employing a structure that is unfamiliar, complicated, and extremely innovative. In short, Crave is a rich and complex work that would take 30 pages of single spaced tiny font text to explain fully. So instead of thinking of this proposal as a definitive exegesis of Crave, I'd rather just illuminate the most basic elements of structure and character, which will allow you to better understand how my concept for this production works.

Structure

Kane finds linear narrative to be an inadequate way to explain and explore the lives of characters and real people. Instead of showing us a straight line, Kane gives us a panoramic view of her characters at a particular moment in their lives: the moment of breakdown. This play asserts that its movement of spirit cannot -- and should not-- be explained through the traditional linear notion that thing 1 caused thing 2 caused thing 3 which led to breakdown. Alternatively, the space-time of Crave is a dreamscape, where we find tangential rather than causal relationships between events. In other words, Kane dismisses the notion of linear temporality, so interactions between characters do not flow causally from one to the next; rather they flow tangentially like the events of a dream, ultimately culminating in breakdown. I would compare the structure of Crave to a piece of jazz music. Now Adam, you're going to have to forgive me here, because my understanding of formal music structure is woefully elementary. But here I go: I'll start by explaining how jazz music is structured, generally. I've included an MP3 of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker's "Shaw 'nuff" to give you a visceral example of what I'm talking about.

I. Short melodic introduction.

II. Initial Chorus - clearly establishes chord structure and melody.

III. Repeated Choruses - improvisation; always rooted in the initial chord structure, often based on the melody; makes up the bulk of the song.

IV. Repeat of the initial chorus - melody re-played clearly, with some flourishes often gained from improv section.

Similarly, Crave begins with a short introduction of the four characters, who through their dialogue give us a brief glimpse of their problems and attitudes. (pp 155 - 156). Next, the opening interactions between B/M and C/A are like initial chorus, clearly laying out the issues and power structures at play in each relationship; the melody and chord structure. B and M struggle with fertility, parenthood, wanderlust, commitment, addiction and emotional investment. C and A struggle with abuse - psychological, domestic, and sexual - as well as with memory, dominance and victimization. All of these issues are explicitly brought up in pp. 156 - 159.

From the bottom of page 159 ("STAY") until page 196 ("End"), the 'repeated choruses' occur. What I mean to say is that the middle of the play is a series of confrontations/intimate scenes that that break down over and over again. I compare these interactions to improvised choruses because each is a specific manifestation of, and a new way of getting at the original issues. For example, pages 169 - 171 -- which includes A's long speech -- is one interaction; in this beat A reveals to C the power she has over him by telling her how much in love with her he is, but C feels trapped and made powerless by A's declaration - "this has got to stopÖ" - and the interaction breaks down. At this point C turns to M, and they begin a new interaction, which is layered over and underscored by soliloquies by B and A. And so on.

Now here's where the jazz song metaphor breaks down a bit. Ordinarily there would be a repeat of the initial chorus, but Crave has built such a dissonant rhythmic frenzy that the 'song' can no longer sustain itself. (I will elaborate on the rhythmic complexities in a minute.) So finally, on page 196, the characters find that they are too broken and tired to get back up again. Therefore, the final segment of the play is a long exploration of a moment of calm, contrasting with the repeated, and increasingly frenzied interactions and breakdowns. Now I am going to throw a little curveball at you, and undermine the musical metaphor a bit. The driving force behind the progression of scenes is the rhythmic progression of the dialogue and motion on stage. Essentially Crave is a rhythm piece. It has been called "a chamber quartet for voices," but I'd call it a spoken word poem for four voices. Rather than rhythms working together, as in a song, these rhythms are in actuality much more closely comparable to spoken word rhythms- exploring pauses, silences, cacophony, competing rhythms, syncopation, etc. The play is literally driven forward by the search for the synchronization of the rhythms of the characters. In other words, the characters are simultaneously a) searching for steady dependable internal rhythms within themselves and b) are trying to synchronize their rhythms in harmony with the other characters by attempting to function in relationships with each other. But their attempts at synchronicity fail, because with each successive attempt the rhythms become more and more discordant. The discordance is caused because each character is so out of control of their own rhythm that they can't possibly synch up with themselves let alone another equally unreliable rhythmic entity. Following a Turner-esque model of dramatic action, each successive interaction functions regressively to try to heal the underlying dissonance of the personal and inter-personal rhythms, but the characters pre-existing circumstances prohibit sufficient rhythmic modulation so that, in the end, the resulting cacophony becomes too unbearable, and must stop. The characters must quit. Total silence. Therefore it would be too simple to think of each interaction as an isolated 'improvisation,' as suggested by the jazz song model. Rather, while the interactions are tangentially related in terms of thematic content, they are directly progressive in terms of rhythmic exploration.

C Is this what it is? Is this it?
M How much longer
B How many more times
A How much more

-The characters tire of the repeating discord and lack of resolution, Page 164.

As I said in the introduction, this is an incredibly complicated play. There exist even further complications to the structure I have laid out, but I'm not going into detail about them here. I hope that this discussion has provided an intelligible way to grasp the highly intricate structure of Crave, and to help you understand what is happening and why, structurally.

Characters, Themes

Crave is an empathetic exploration of despair. The movement of spirit in Crave is that the characters give up - "Only love can save me and love has destroyed me" (A, 174) - over the course of the play they lose faith in love as a saving grace, they lose hope in the future, and cease to find anything but despondency and defeat in the present moment.

One of the primary reasons for this despair is the fragmentation of self that each character experiences. "Okay, I was, okay, I was, okay, okay. I was, okay, two people, right?" (B, 163). What two people is B? On the one side, B really really loves M, while on the other side B cannot be her lover, cannot bring himself to provide the kind of commitment and emotional investment she needs. It's an impossible situation - he cannot leave and cannot stay. So he just smokes and drinks and hopes that one or the other will kill him soon. Crave depicts four people whose anxieties and inner conflicts are causing them to self-destruct. Each lives in paralyzing pain, trapped by love, which both sustains them and causes them even more anxiety, leading to further self-destruction.

But for me, the most compelling aspect of Crave is the way in which it uncovers the roots of fragmentation. Crave openly talks about our secret selves - the parts of ourselves we keep in the closet in order to function on a day-to-day basis - the eating disorder, the obsession with a lover, the raped parts, the ways we abuse and use those who are close to us, our desire to be abused or used.

In his essay, "The Timeless World of a Play," Tennessee Williams writes about how the theater offers us an opportunity to really see people. He writes that if Willy Loman, for example, were to walk into our office, we would probably chat with him for five minutes, all the while plotting a way to get him out of the office so we can get on with the things we really need to get done. But in the theater, Williams posits, when the pressures of time and productivity are lifted for a while, we are able to really look at Willy Loman, or any character, and see them for more than just the ways in which they affect our personal needs. Kane has taken this idea to a new level. She disposes with showing us 'what happened' or an event, and instead spends the whole time showing us people: a complete, panoramic view of her characters. Crave is a bold and courageous work, talking loudly about those subjects that we have been asked to keep our voices down about: suicide, despair, depression, abuse, hopelessness, confusion. This play offers us an opportunity to empathetically look hard where we would normally avert our eyes - those caverns of abuse, self-hatred, and despair. For many audience members, this play will offer an opportunity to look at, identify with, and understand people and problems that they might be more comfortable ignoring. For others, Crave might offer the comforting knowledge that they are not alone.

Concept

For this production, the central metaphor of Crave is dissonance. The physical dissonance of the piece. The dissonance in the rhythms of the words, the time structures, and the space itself (see set design). All of this works to literalize the dissonance with which the characters are struggling - trying to reconcile past and present, their relationships and themselves, their own needs and the desire to be needed - dissonance as the fragmentation, frustration, lack, and loss of control in the lives of each character. Kane has gracefully created a way to, as C says, make the audience "feel physically like (it) feels emotionally" (179): viscerally and emotionally off balance, jarred, searching for resolution.

First of all, the principle of dissonance will be literalized in the performance. To some degree, we will approach this piece as though it were a dance piece. Each line and movement will have a specific rhythm, and will be set against the rhythms of all the other lines and movements, creating and underscore of dissonance. If you have ever seen spoken word performed, you will understand what the overall effect of this is. It doesn't mean that the actors are robots. The words seem just as spontaneous as lines in a normal play. However, there is attention paid in composition and performance so that certain rhythms and effects seem to just emerge, naturally. We are going to pay that attention, to draw out the juxtapositions, echoes, underscoring and clashes in language that Kane has written. I hope that we can create a rhythm such that the piece seems to naturally propel itself forward, always an unfinished rhythm searching for completion and synchronicity. Of course, the piece achieves a steady common rhythm only when the characters decide to be utterly alone, left with only the constant silent pulse of their heartbeats. This calm is echoed in the calm, stable rhythm of the closing 5 pages.

It is important to reiterate that the dissonance we will create involves both sound and motion. This means that the motions of the actors will be an essential rhythmic element.

Finally, I want to again state that the actors won't just be automatons executing a rhythm. Just as in a jazz piece, there is room for improvisation on the part of the performers within the established structure.

Next, I want to state that the design of this piece is a crucial element in establishing an atmosphere of dissonance, and also is essential in introducing other thematic concepts that I have not yet introduced. Instead of having Mac insert a paragraph here, but not wanting to leave him out of a discussion about the aesthetic of this show, I'd like to have a really thorough discussion of the design concept at my interview on Saturday.

Why Brown, Why Now?

I passionately believe that this is the right project for PW and Brown, right now.

Schaffer, Chekhov, Myers, Beckett, Beckett, Gozzi, Bernstein and Sondheim, Tolstoy, Delillo, Pirandello, Lorca. Now, I believe that these are all truly great playwrights. Well, maybe not Tolstoy. Now, what these guys all have in common is not just that they're guys. And it's not just that they're "canonical." It's that they all write pretty squarely in the same theatrical tradition of linear-based narratives. This season of theater at Brown, as it stands, naturalizes the hegemony of traditional styles of theatrical representation.

Schaffer, Chekhov, Myers, Beckett, Beckett, Gozzi, Bernstein and Sondheim, Tolstoy, Delillo, Pirandello, Lorca. Yes, I think it would be good to have a girl's name in there. Yes, I think it would be good to have a queer girl's name in there. But to me, that really misses the point. I wouldn't care if a transsexual three-legged elephant wrote Hamlet. It would still be Hamlet.

What's exciting and imperative about Crave is that it gives artists and audience alike a new and innovative way to think about theatrical representation. And it will be the only major production to radically do so so far this year. As a student theater workshop, not only do we have a responsibility to put new work out there, but I believe we should be giving to our community new ways to imagine the art of theater.

And I honestly think that there is an enormous difference between first doing canonical work and later doing non-traditional text, and doing a non-canonical work first, in a new space, proudly saying that PW is the place where . . .. frankly . . . . you can come try your weird shit. First impressions mean something.

Rehearsal Process

Actors will come back to school with all their lines memorized. Usually, I find this to be a draconian and unhelpful requirement. However, in this piece the words are the instruments with which rhythm, flow and relationship will be created, and the process will be greatly helped by actors walking in with the words already at hand, ready to experiment. Because this piece is not so conventional, a conventional rehearsal process would probably do little to illuminate it. Just as the play comes at a particular moment sideways, backwards, forwards and such, we will use a process that pokes, prods and peers from as many different perspectives as possible.

Sample 1st two days
Monday - to accomplish
initial read/talk through
basic/beginning table work
introductions of cast/getting to know each other
sound symphony/stomp narrative exercises

Tuesday - to accomplish
2nd read/talk through
table work again
communication exercises
work through 1st 4 pages
more table work
work through 2nd 4 pages
run first 8 pages
talk

After this, the rehearsal process will become more and more focused on working on our feet, working through larger sections of text each day. The whole play should be blocked by the middle of the second week, at which point the process will alternate with runs and working on specific sections.

However, working on specific sections will not be approached in a traditional manner. For example, we might have wordless run-throughs, using and focusing on the movements we've created. Similarly, we may have word-only run-throughs, focusing in on the sounds we're making. Also, I intend to use rehearsal time to explore the text in a few different ways - for starters, doing all of each character's dialogue as a monologue. Also, I intend to isolate different combinations of dialogue, such as B/M or A/C and see what we get from those when separated from the rest of the text.

So the schedule might run:

Week 1
13 Monday
14 Tuesday
15 Wednesday
16 Thursday
17 Friday
19 Sunday

Week 2
20 Monday
21 Tuedsay: cast request day
22 Wednesday: 1st full run through
23 Thursday: designated cast request day
24 Friday
26 Sunday 2nd full run through

week 3
27 Monday designated cast request day
28 Tuesday
29 Wednesday 3rd run through
30 Thursday
31 Friday 4th run through (I assume with 24 dimmers, we can work out having a split dark day)
1 Saturday
2 Sunday

Tech Week

I have developed a trajectory for the rehearsal process that I feel will allow us to most fully both explore and execute the play, but at the same time, (after the first day), there will be a considerable amount of feedback and actor contribution to the process. Firstly, there will be a talk before each rehearsal where each actor and I all say briefly a new good thing that we learned about the play in the last day or so, a problem we're still working on, and what we hope to accomplish in rehearsal that day. Some days, that talk will be fairly brief, but at least twice a week, that talk will be longer, and will focus more about what seems to be emerging from the text, what new meanings, relationships and ideas we have discovered. (I honestly believe that this text is so complicated that we could talk for four weeks straight and not come up with "the answer". Its so wonderfully complicated . . . . I am going to make sure this is a group exploration of a text). After each rehearsal, there will be a nice cool-down talk where we each say one thing we could do inside or out of rehearsal that would help us in the coming days. I plan to leave around 10 free hours of rehearsal specifically for cast requests (can we work on such and such, can we do this exercise). Some other things:

I'd like to use the 'character box' for this show. The play offers little exposition about character, and yet requires from (actors) characters a strong specific sense of self in order to communicate strongly the specific timbre and shade of each emotional state. I think that these boxes could not only force actors to "do their homework," but stimulate some really interesting discussion. Secondly, each rehearsal will begin not just with general warm-ups, but also with a specific exercise targeting a specific goal that day. Ask me for some examples in my interview.

How I will work with Designers and technicians:

Well, the technicians part is easy. I go in there and build, hang and sew, no matter what. This is not to say that I am a big hero or that I necessarily accomplish anything helpful. The point is more to know what is going on, so that the staff isn't this terribly disjointed entity that a PM has to work like crazy to keep in communication.

The way I work with designers is mostly through equitable and long conversation. I learned a lot about design process last semester, and the biggest thing I learned was that the conversations must have focus. That is, if I clearly communicate a specific, unitary concept/vision for the play, then lots of very productive conversation can happen, when it is all focused on a back-and forth about the best way to bring to life, visualize, physicalize and communicate a specific concept. Last year, my design process was very exciting, in that a lot of ideas were generated, but it had not focus, no goal. One thing that I would not change from last semester is the way in which those conversations happened first one-on-one, then in groups, in a comfortable setting where we all springboard off, interrelate and help refine each other's ideas. I am especially excited about the presence of apprentices on this project, and they are welcome to be as much a part of the conversation as anyone else.

Moment From the Show

I intentionally left this out because it would be too complicated to write. I'll bring a diagram, and we can discuss it on Saturday.

Concerns

I know there are a lot of concerns, so I'm going to try to address them as politely as possible. Let's start with Oklahoma! It seems to me that there are two major issues here. Firstly, I've directed in PW before, but never for PW, I think that's an important distinction. Secondly, most people would say, including myself, that Oklahoma! was not as successful as it could have been. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I know that I made mistakes, major and minor, and I learned how to correct them. I don't want to write another eight pages about all the things I learned, but I did want to mention it. Feel free to ask about any specific concerns.

I know I'm a board member, and the past two shows we've done have been directed by board members, and I wrestled with the decision to propose for a long time. I decided to propose, not out of any self-gloryifing notions, but because I honestly believe that this project is the absolute right project for PW right now. Finally, there's the fact that Mac is designing both set and lights. Here is my rationale behind this decision. Mac is a talented designer, and also a highly competent technician. Firstly, I think that the first design in PW should kick ass, and having the same person do set and lights will help create a really cohesive aesthetic. Also, I think it is a great asset to the first production in a new space to have someone who will be able to experiment with the "limitations" of the space, and turn them into assets.

I want to end by saying this. I think the major concerns are focused on me as director, for various reasons. As a board member, here's my honest perspective. Producers in the professional world invest in a play, and want a return on their financial investment. Here at PW, I believe we make cultural investments on behalf of undergraduates at Brown, and the return I look for is the richest possible experience for as many people as possible. I haven't read the other proposals, so I can't say that this is the best possible investment. What I can say is that I believe Crave to be a major cultural investment for Brown, and the fact that I am directing shouldn't be a reason not to make that investment. You have a director who has learned a few lessons and is ready to go.

STAFF:

Maya Bruhns & Dov L-N:  Tech Directors
Cari Cymanski:  Director
Ellen Darling:  ATD
James Egelhofer: Stage Manager
Adam Immerwahr: Production Manager Mentor
Lisa Jacobson:  ATD
Dana Kroplick:  ME, Light/Set Apprentice
Blair Nelsen:  Stage Management Apprentice
Still TBA:  Costume Design
Briel Steinberg:  Production Manager
Mac Vaughey:  Set and Light Design	  

BUDGET: $425 + Rights
SET:  $300
CLOTHES: $75
PAPER: $50

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