Wednesday, October 30, 2013

It's Complicated, Part II

Continuing the story of Sir Ulrich and his courtly love:

(The gallant knight has just had cosmetic surgery under conditions that make Soroka look good, all for the sake of "his" lady, who so far has refused to accept his devotion)

"News of this ... softened the lady's heart, and she sent word that he might attend a riding party and enjoy the rare privilege of speaking with her for a moment, if the opportunity should arise.  And it did, once, when he had the chance to help her down from her horse. He could have uttered a sentence of two of devotion, but unfortunately he was tongue-tied by her nearness and could say nothing.  The lovely lady, considerably put out, whispered to him that he was a fraud, and gracefully indicated her displeasure by ripping out a forelock of his hair as she dismounted."




Pictured: probably not his beloved Lady.  Photo courtesy of "PartyCity.com"

Our hero, undaunted, presents himself to her the next day and asks again 

"to permit him to be her secret knight and to allow him to fight for her and love her. She accepted his service but under the very minimum conditions, granting him no 'favor' whatever, neither embrace, kiss, nor word of promise, and not so much as a ribbon to carry in his bosom.  Ulrich, nevertheless, was filled with joy and thankfulness for her kindness, and sallied forth, tilting about the countryside with anyone who would break a lance with him and composing many a song to his ladylove, which his secretary set down for him since writing was not a knightly accomplishment.  The messages that passed between [them] at this time conveyed ... her condescension, coldness, and criticism. But this was exactly what was expected of her ..., and he found each new blow a delicious pain; a large part of his pleasure lay in observing his own noble constancy under duress".

Ulrich is wounded in the finger, and somehow the Lady hears, incorrectly, that he has lost a finger "fighting for love of her".  When she discovers that this is not true, she rebukes him sharply.  When he receives this message from her,

"Ulrich paled for a moment, then resolutely drew out a sharp knife and ordered his friend* to hack off the finger with one blow. This done, the knight had an artisan make a green velvet case in which the finger was held by gold clasps. He sent her the mounted digit as a keepsake, together with a special poem about the matter.... [S]he returned word that she would look at the finger every day from thenceforth, a message which, incidentally, he received as he did all other communiques from her - on his knees, with bowed head and folded hands."

TO BE CONTINUED!

* it is not known if the friend's name happened to be Sancho Panza

Abridged, summarized and copied from:  The Natural History of Love by Morton M. Hunt (New York: Knopf, 1959), pp 133-138, as presented in Sociology: a text with adapted readings by L. Broom & P. Selznick (New York: Harper & Row, 5th ed 1973) pp 331-333.


...

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

It's Complicated

So what, exactly, is - or is not - going on between Don Quixote and his "I'm not your lady" Aldonza (aka Dulcinea)?  

To understand this, we need to go back a bit - to the early 1200s, actually - and consult an autobiographical memoir written by an Austrian knight-errant named Ulrich von Lichtenstein. The original isn't in my local library, so what follows is copied and summarized from a more recent source (1).

"When he was a mere lad of five... he first heard older boys saying that true honor and happiness could come only through serving a noble and lovely woman. He was deeply impressed, and began to shape his childish thoughts in that direction. Even at that tender age, he clearly understood that such service, the keystone of courtly love, could be undertaken only for a woman one could never marry.  True love had to be clandestine, bittersweet, and beset by endless difficulties and frustrations:  by virtue of all this, it was spiritually uplifting and made a knight a better man and a greater warrior."

At the age of 12, Ulrich found a married noblewoman who met his requirements, and became a page in her court. He labored there, admiring her from a distance, for five years. At 17 he left to become a knight in another court, which he accomplished after five more years.  He fought in tournaments until he felt worthy of "his" lady, at which point he sent a messenger to tell her that he desired to be a distant, respectful admirer of hers.  




Pictured above, at lower left:  not Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein

"The heartless lady, unmoved by his ten years of silent devotion and his recent feats of valor, sent back a cruel and pointed reply:  She considered him presumptuous, and ... for good measure took the trouble to let him know that he was too ugly to be considered even in the role of a very distant admirer. For it seems (and the young lady was specific) that the unhappy young knight had a harelip.  Undaunted - perhaps even inspired by this obvious proof that she had actually noticed him - Ulrich promptly undertook a journey to a famous surgeon and had his lip repaired.  Considering the techniques of medieval surgery, this must have been both excruciatingly painful and quite dangerous; indeed, he lay feverish in a sickbed for six weeks."

TO BE CONTINUED

(1) abridged from The Natural History of Love by Morton M. Hunt (New York: Knopf, 1959), pp 133-138, as presented in Sociology: a text with adapted readings by L. Broom & P. Selznick (New York: Harper & Row, 5th ed 1973) pp 331-333.






Wednesday, October 16, 2013

The Music Rehearsal

Now that the roles have been assigned, it's time to get down to the real work.  We have a cast (of about 30, this year), and we have a script.  We do not yet have a show.  In fact, we are a very, very long way from having a show.  Let us now begin to discuss the process by which this will happen.

You will probably not be shocked to learn that musical theater consists of both singing and acting. Then there is dancing, and the real trick is to be able to do all three at once.  Chewing gum at the same time is not recommended.  Trying to learn all three at once is definitely not recommended, and this brings us to our first step -

the music rehearsal.


A typical LOGON chorus rehearsal


OK, so it's not exactly like that.  You will notice, however, that the men and the women are separated (no mechitza required).  This is done in choirs, traditionally, not out of sexism so much as out of a desire to organize the singers in such a way that those singing the same line (parts) of music are standing together.  Our chorus is divided into six main sections: the women with the high voices (sopranos, mezzos), women with lower voices (altos and lazy sopranos), men with higher voices (tenors; we aren't even going to discuss castrati here), medium voices (baritones) and, last but not least, the men with the really deep voices (basses). 

This arrangement has the advantage of making it easier to sing your line, as most of the people sitting around you are singing, or at least attempting to sing, the same as you. My neighbor helps me tremendously - as soon as i hit a wrong note, she covers her ear with her hand and closes her eyes (oh, the pain!), thus giving me instant feedback.

The disadvantage is that while the musical director is working with one group (la la la la la, basses, not la la la la la), the other five groups are bored. And talking. Or knitting, or reading the newspaper, or practicing their dialogue, or texting, or playing games on their smartphones, or catching a late lunch, or - well, you get the idea.  Our long-suffering musical director, David Waldmann, is hard put to keep such a rowdy mob under control.  

Another typical LOGON chorus rehearsal
(that's the musical director, on the ostrich)

David, a British import, is famous for his dry wit in these situations.  We sing a section of music, and we get:

* That was interesting! This time, let's try singing the notes that are actually written on the page. 

* There were some lovely harmonies there.  Too bad we were supposed to be singing in unison.

* Very nice, basses - but what show was that from?

* Well done, ladies. Now let's have all the men - and the tenors.

* OK then!  The diction was quite good.  The notes, not so good.

* Well, not to worry, it's still months\weeks\a few days until the show opens.

* Could we try that again please, with a little less shouting?

And so on and so forth.  

But now here's the really cool part:  we work and we work and we work.  Old mistakes are replaced by new mistakes.  We get it almost right one time, and the next time it's .....basses, basses, basses (sigh) - let's try that again.  And then, it's almost 10:30 pm, let's try one last time, standing up please - and it works! The harmonies come out exactly right!



The soloists come in exactly on time, and in the right key!

You not sing now, this my solo

It's hard to convey how exciting it is.  To be a part of a bigger, better whole.  To have succeeded. To feel the collective energy surge.  To create, just for a moment, something so beautiful and so rich.  

And to know that soon, once we have it down pat (yes, even the basses, sort of), we'll leave the chairs and go down to the floor, mix up the different voices, spread out on the 'stage' and sing our hearts out as we begin to block out the scene.....

and we'll forget almost everything and have to start all over again.  Are those tears i see in David's eyes?

And we haven't even started dancing yet.....

MAN OF LA MANCHA opens in Beer Sheva on February 27, 2014.  That's 19 weeks from today.  But who's counting?

ps  We love you, basses, each and every one of you.  <3 





Monday, October 7, 2013

The Mouse that Roared

So picture this:

A dank, shadowy dungeon of the Spanish Inquisition, circa 1600.  Below are the individual cells. Above is the holding cell, where murderers, rapists, and various other dubious types await their fates.  One prisoner in the holding cell is the informal "boss"; the script describes this prisoner as "a big man with obvious authority".  

So who gets this part?

Me.  A small middle aged woman with grey hair.  

My son suggested changing the description from "a big man with obvious authority" to "A cranky, mean spirited old lady who smacks unruly prisoners with her purse".  

Remember her?

But did they even have purses back then? 

Since i'm not sure, let's try another tack.  Perhaps if the 'boss' had some serious muscle to maintain her authority?


You were saying?

OK, so I just called the director to suggest bodyguards, but he said no way, not enough men in the cast as it is. 

Of course, there have been some vertically challenged characters who could pull it off.


  Frodo Baggins did it



Tyrion Lannister does it

Perhaps i, too, can pull it off with just the sheer force of my personality? 




Maybe not.  Guess I'll just have to practice and practice and practice, until i get it right......



If all else fails, I'll have to depend on the costume department.



(image from www.partycity.com)


Nobody messes with Lady Knights.  That should do the trick........




Friday, October 4, 2013

Now Comes the Hard Part

So this is how it works:

In the spring, the group votes on which show to perform the following year.  We try to choose a show that will sell tickets, that will be a good "fit" for the demographics of the group when it comes to casting, and that fits our abilities and budget.  

Towards the end of the summer, the script is made available to us [by license and on line only! No copyrights have been harmed during the writing of this blog!] and people start deciding if they want to audition, and if so, for what role.  

     Insert Here:  MONTAGE of people working on their auditions. Play the sound track from
     "Rocky".  Include voice coaches, harried spouses, and an occasional bored cat.  Hey,
      someone has to serve as an audience.

A first round of auditions is held, and then (sometimes) a second round, referred to as "callbacks".  After the directorial (dictatorial? nah.....) team has made all of their decisions, phone calls are made to each cast member telling them what part, if any, they have been given.  

At this stage, a few people will be Very Happy; they got the big parts that they had hoped for. 




There are others who will be Content;  they were given good roles, or perhaps the smaller role that they had craved all along.




Some folks will be Apathetic.  Maybe they didn't care that much, or just auditioned for the heck of it without expectations. 




Now, this might be a good time to point out that people want to be in LOGON for lots of different reasons.  It's fun, it's good company, it gets us out of the house and keeps us (mostly) out of trouble..... But we are all willing to perform, all interested in performing, and that's because we all have - are you sitting down? - egos.  And not getting the role you wanted is a big fat ugly blow to said ego. And it hurts.  




You feel humiliated. Rejected. Inadequate. Slighted. Insulted. "Disappointed" is not strong enough; deflated, perhaps?  Discouraged, dejected, despondent, devastated, desolate, depressed, d'fuka. What's with all the D words, anyway?  But it hurts.  Not only for yourself, either; for your friends and colleagues who didn't get what they wanted, too.  

AND THEN COMES THE HARD PART!!!

You have to get over it.  You remind yourself that it's the good of the production that really matters, not your personal gratification; that as long as the best people got the roles, all is right with the world.  No matter how jealous you feel, how wounded, you are going to show up at the read-through and smile until your cheeks hurt, congratulate the people that beat you out, tell everyone how delighted you are with your role [even if you are merely a fork], and get down to the business of doing the best you can with what you've got.  

Because being in LOGON is being part of a team.  Remembering that, right after auditions, can be hard.  Not everyone can hack it, and there are those who take their marbles and go home because they didn't get what they wanted.  Sorry, that's just not part of the LOGON spirit.  

By next week we'll be over it.  In another month we'll be glad we didn't get that role, who needs all that aggravation, and all those extra rehearsals?  And besides, we love the role we got, or the laid-back feeling of being in the chorus, and wouldn't want it any other way. 

On with the show!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Wednesday, October 2, 2013

While We Wait


We had auditions on Sunday and Monday.  Some people have been called back for Thursday. Only the audition panel knows what is going on, the rest of us can only bite our nails and .... wait.  Cast should be announced by Friday, but until then - 

here are some Don Quixote odds and ends for your amusement.

Let's start with one of the most recognized, iconic images of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, the Picasso sketch:



Did that get you into the spirit of the early 1600s, or even better, into DQ's vision of the 1400s? Hope so, because this poem was composed in that spirit [more or less]:

Why so sad, my Lady?

Why so sad, my Lady?
For what these silver tears?
Shall i slay a dragon
And banish, thus, your fears?

Oh no, good Sir, but thank thee
yet i weep not from fear.
I weep for being "chorus"
for this, the 16th year.

Be not so sad, my Lady!
The chorus is thy fate.
You may not get the glory, 
but you may show up late.

I dream of being chosen
to have a leading role.
To even be "supporting"
would soothe my wounded soul.

Thou surely must be dreaming
while still awake, my dear.
From whence these expectations
that rise anew each year?

Ye olde Audition Panel
will never give thee votes.
My Lady is not comely
and cannot sing the notes.

Tis true, good sir, and seemly
that you should chide me thus.
So I shall join the chorus
and make no more a fuss.


And now for something completely different! 

This is approximately what DQ's windwill would have looked like, with a car thrown in to give you an idea of the scale:





You probably won't have to worry about this sign when you take your driver's licence exam:




Getting bored sitting around waiting to hear who gets what role in our production? Perhaps you'd enjoy a nice game of chess, to take your mind off of Don Quixote and all:


Pictured, left to right: Don Quixote, Aldonza/Dulcinea, the Padre, DQ's horse Rocinante, an anonymous windmill, DQ's squire Sancho Panza

Of course, some of us can carry our enthusiasm even further than our chess sets.





No, this is not a photo of my cat last Purim.


And finally, just to remind us that this isn't only a fantastic show, it's a show about something.....


Best of luck to all who auditioned, here's to a phenomenal cast and an incredible show!!!!