I'm really interested in how the production end of things will wind up differently, since it's playing to a larger crowd. The actors could have just performed in your laps at the ATA. (Afterwards Damon mentioned that at their first show in L.A. 13 people showed up and there were 21 people in the cast alone!) They seem to have a really vivid vision of what changes they want to incorporate and I'm fascinated to find out what they decided needed more work.
I can see both sides of the spectrum with the click track vs, no click track. The part of me that likes patterns and gets thrown off very easily when the pattern shifts would appreciate having the topography of the music laid out for me so specifically. I also like the explanation that it's like a bed of music they know they can always draw from as actors. Then there's the other part of me, the one who would have been Natalie on stage when the bow on the cello broke and the click track continued who would have been freaking out and needing the music to slow down enough to let the performance catch up. These actors don't have any of those choices.
I was thinking about it on the way home, the notion that having a safe place to grow your performance out of might potentially start to feel robotic after a while because it's not just organically letting the music go where it wants to go. But there are some upsides to it as well, that if you mess up and go off course, if you know 5 beats ahead you're supposed to wind up in X spot, than at least you know have a definite destination until you can get yourself on course.
I suppose it's the same in any theatrical setting, how to keep the performance fresh and new each time you do it, without falling into a trap of doing the same thing over and over (and then also knowing which things you do over and over are actually character choices, like how Ivy stands for instances).
mesmerized, I actually just apologized to her because I've seen her at these things so often and never say hi. I don't even remember what I said specifically other than trying to reassure her that it's not her, I swear it's not, but it did include what may have been the worst backhanded compliment ever about how her voice has really grown tremendously on me, of course implying that I somehow felt it was bad before, which isn't the case at all.
To answer the click track question in a totally non-technical way, but basically a click track seems to set the beat of the music, that the musicians are hearing in their ears and following along to in order to keep time. So Bare is set entirely to click track, it's all timed precisely and that means the actors have to respond accordingly, and can't take free rein with the notes.
"Too young to hold on and too old to just break free and run" - Jeff Buckley
Updated On: 9/13/04 at 01:09 AM
