How Would You Do Scenes?
How Would You Do Scenes?
Emcee4ever
Leading Actor Joined: 7/27/05
#0How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/4/06 at 3:24pm
How would you do certain scenes from a musical or play?
For Cabaret, the scene I'd do is I Don't Care Much.
After Sally and Cliff have their argument and the music starts up, the Emcee would come in. He/she would be dressed exactly like Sally. As the Master of Ceremonies sang, s/he'd take Sally by the hand and waltz with her, sometimes coming up behind her and singing the lines so it seemed like she sang them.
At the end, as Sally started to walk to the door, the MC would stop her for just a second and pantomime slitting her throat.
Emcee4ever
Leading Actor Joined: 7/27/05
#1re: How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/4/06 at 5:39pmIt doesn't have to be Cabaret. That's just the one I picked :)
vmlinnie
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/19/06
#2re: How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/4/06 at 5:40pmDo you mean to take a well known scene and set it as you would if you were the director, or what?
deep-delving, dark, deliberate you would say
browsing on spire and bogland; but today
our sky-blue slates are steaming in the sun,
our yachts tinkling and dancing in the bay
like racehorses. We contemplate at last
shining windows, a future forbidden to no one.
Derek Mahon
"Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets."
Arthur Miller
Mattbrain
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/23/05
#3re: How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/4/06 at 5:51pm
Well, if I was directing a production of, say, Bright Lights, Big City, I would start it off as follows:
Jaimie is seen in silhouette at first. Then we see him in full light. Then we see the silhouettes of the main characters in the background lined up side by side. They move downstage. When they reach Jaimie, they are hit with spotlights that bathe them in silhouette. Tad sings, "Are we ready to roll?" The cast and the offstage ensemble responds, "Where are we rolling?" Tad sings, "Into the heart of the night!" The line breaks and everyone starts dancing. The ensemble enters. The rest of the nightclub appears around them.
#4re: How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/4/06 at 5:54pm
Why would you have the Emcee pantomime slitting her throat? What does that signify? Would it be clear to the audience?
In my director's head, "I Don't Care Much" comments on the relationship of Sally and Cliff, but also is relevent for the Emcee himself. At this point in the play, the world in which the characters live is falling rapidly apart... Definitely a situation that can be relevent to the song. But that's just me.
Emcee4ever
Leading Actor Joined: 7/27/05
#5re: How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/4/06 at 5:57pm
I'd have him/her slitting her throat because at this point Sally has made up her mind to kill the baby.
If she aborts the child, she'll kill her relationship with Cliff and ultimately her last chance of survival. And the Emcee knows this.
blaxx
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/05
#6re: How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/4/06 at 6:04pm
I'd have him/her slitting her throat because at this point Sally has made up her mind to kill the baby.
If she aborts the child, she'll kill her relationship with Cliff and ultimately her last chance of survival. And the Emcee knows this.
Slitting her throat is still unclear....saw Sweeney much?
Emcee4ever
Leading Actor Joined: 7/27/05
#7re: How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/4/06 at 6:08pm
No. Never saw Sweeney. I've heard of it though.
Pantomiming slitting your throat is sort of a universal code for 'I'm dead'.
In the original play the Emcee did that when he introduced Sally. 'There's only one thing in the way of her and me... My wife!'
As he said 'my wife' he mimed it. It was funny.
timote316
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/20/04
#8re: How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/4/06 at 7:15pm
I'd take that as Sally killing herself, not the baby. Altho, I guess that works in the same fashion.
I have some ideas for staging different numbers in different shows.... but I'm not sharing 
#9re: How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/5/06 at 1:29am
After the line, "...my wife!" Did the Emcee gesture to slit Sally's throat or his own?
Either way, perhaps it was meant as an aside to the audience at the Kit Kat Klub that his wife would kill him (or Sally) if they were to sleep together. Whether or not the Emcee has a wife is never known, but irrelevent. It's the sort of slapstick, goofy humor that Joel Grey brought to the role of the Emcee that has been missing from recent productions of the show. I'm not commenting on whether that is good or bad. I'm just saying that to me, it seems a little early on in the show (after introducing Sally for the first time) to start alluding to or foreshadowing her abortion.
I say go for it, timote. It's not the way I would direct it, but theatre is open for interpretation by the masses.
Emcee4ever
Leading Actor Joined: 7/27/05
#10re: How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/5/06 at 8:14am
His own. And it wasn't meant to allude to the abortion.
#11re: How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/5/06 at 12:05pm
"I'd have him/her slitting her throat because at this point Sally has made up her mind to kill the baby. If she aborts the child, she'll kill her relationship with Cliff and ultimately her last chance of survival. And the Emcee knows this."
"His own. And it wasn't meant to allude to the abortion."
So what are you saying?
I remember days
Or at least I try
But as years go by
They're sort of haze
And the bluest ink
Isn't really sky
And at times I think
I would gladly die
For a day of sky
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
And Starbucks will use the words 'large' and 'small', not pretentious crap like grande and tall.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"You could get away with anything if you call it art and tell people who don't like it that it's cutting edge culture." --vmlinnie
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Emcee4ever
Leading Actor Joined: 7/27/05
#12re: How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/5/06 at 1:26pm
No, I mean in the 1966 Broadway play he pantomimed slitting his throat. If I directed the I Don't Care Much scene I'd have him pantomiming slitting Sally's throat.
In the '66 play he did it while introducing Sally before Don't Tell Mama, and it wasn't meant to allude to an abortion.
Kringas
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/27/05
#13re: How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/5/06 at 1:37pmSo in that scene the Emcee would be a figment of Sally's imagination?
Emcee4ever
Leading Actor Joined: 7/27/05
Emcee4ever
Leading Actor Joined: 7/27/05
#15re: How Would You Do Scenes?
Posted: 9/9/06 at 8:47amBut enough about me. What about you? How would you do scenes? :)
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