Seven
Seven is the seventh and final part of City of Wine,
commissioned by Nightswimming in 2006.
Synopsis:
Set around a meagre campfire on the windy plains before Troy, seven soldiers, the very last of the Thebans, receive orders to lead a suicidal attack in the morning. Each struggles to make sense of their situation: Are they heroes, victims, or pawns?
SEVEN
directed by Sarah Stanley
York University, Toronto
www.yorku.ca/finearts/theatre
April 30 – May 2, 2009
Welcome to the area of this site dedicated to SEVEN!
Brian Quirt has asked a student at each school involved with CITY OF WINE to document their production’s process leading up to the festival at Theatre Passe Muraille in May. SEVEN is being done at York University; I am working on the production as a dramaturg and will be documenting the process. I hope to update this blog regularly and will be posting pictures of the workshops and rehearsals on the CITY OF WINE facebook page.
Let me start with an introduction to York University’s production of SEVEN. We are very fortunate to have Sarah Stanley directing as she has been involved in CITY of WINE from the very beginning (she directed the first production of Ned Dickens’ version of Oedipus in 1994!). The production will involve MFA acting and directing students as well as undergraduate production students and assistant directors.
Rehearsals don’t start until the spring however we had the opportunity be introduced to the play during a four day workshop last week. Through readings of the play and dramaturgical discussions with Ned, Brain, and Sarah, we were able gain insight into characters and the world of Thebes. I’ll be posting my notes on the exercises we did and some of the discoveries that were made shortly.
Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts on SEVEN. I hope this blog can be used to promote discussion and keep the CITY OF WINE community up to date with what is going on at York.
More to come soon!
SEVEN Workshop at York U.
After the first table reading of SEVEN, Brian conducted a series of exercises with the group to help us communicate the ways we were connecting, or not connecting, with the text. He first asked us to write down a compliment, image, and question that we got from the reading. Next we were asked to describe how we perceived the world of the play in terms of the five senses. It was fascinating to see the similarities and differences in everyone’s answers. We then did a word association exercise where we responded to various words related to SEVEN and Thebes, this showed how our biases effect our understanding of the play.
Here are some of the answers that the group gave…
Compliments:
- I love how relatable these characters are. (This one came up most often)
- I like the way the play made me ask myself questions I never have before- what stories would I like to pass on?
- I love the way the characters grow throughout the play.
- The play holds on the size of Ancient Greek theatre while still being about human beings.
- I love how these people aren’t perfect.
- I love how sassy these people are.
- This play is so powerful – I had such a visceral reaction to the moment when the characters realize they are going to die.
- I love the idea the idea that Thebes is not dead but is complete.
- How uncomplicated these people really are, how quickly they accept their fates.
- The strength of the relationships between characters.
Strongest Image/Idea:
- Solidarity
- Fire (This one came up most often)
- Family and dysfunction
- Not getting older
- Blood mixing with wine
- Tent sex, wine orgy
- Dawn- the sun rising at the end of the play
- Glass breaking
- The first spilling of wine
Questions:
- What is the function and purpose of the rhyming dialogue?
- Is wine being used to make the characters feel numb or free?
- How familiar do you need to be with Greek mythology to fully appreciate this play?
- How exactly is the task they are given going to be carried out?
- What is the function of the audience in the play?
- Are these characters afraid to die? Have they accepted their “fate”.
- What kind of wine are they drinking?
- What balance between drunkenness and sobriety needs to be maintained?
- What are the social political connections to today’s society?
The Five Senses (In the World of The Play)
Sounds:
Fire. The Ocean. Moans and groans. Dogs. Murmurs of other conversations. Clinking of glasses. Breathing. Laughing. Wood snapping. String quartet. The rise and fall of voices. Bears. Distant metal. Far off shouting/singing/laughing. The pain of soldiers.
Smells:
Red wine. Sweat. Sulfur. Blood. Mud. Nutmeg. Bar floors in the morning. Death. Sea breeze. Burning wood. Sex. Corpses. Sun. Pheromones. Potentate grape. Decadence. Rotting flesh.
Tastes:
Blood. Sour. Wine. Earth. Thick salt. Fear. Cold saliva. Sea air. Grapes. Metal cups. Wooden cups. Wine soaked kisses. Formaldehyde. Sex. Metal and fear.
Touch:
Flesh. Broken glass. Dirt. Tree bark. The moon. Hair. Skin. Sand. Heat. Scraping stubble. Cloth. Drum skin. Cold steel. Rough canvas. Heavy wool. Bowls. Tongue. Genitals. Earth. Fur. Breath.
See:
Darkness. Dawn and Dust. Campfire illuminating the night. A grave yard of a goodnight past. Sun warmed rocks. Tents. Dirty faces. Clouds. Corpses. Smoke rising. People trailing into the distance. Sprites. Violence. Full moon. Naked trees. Flatness. Pulsing/throbbing bodies. Shards of glass that reflect the night sky.
Word Association:
Bacchus:
Black sand. Sex. Wine. Chubby guy. Shells on the beach. Rubbery. Dance. Theatre. Physical love. Hysteria. Hedonism. Archaic. Groupies. Leader. Endless tantric sex. Wilderness. Impulse. Energy. Celebration. Crazed frenzy.
Fire:
Magnet. Rage. Dazzle. Hypnotize. Urine. Madness. Element. Kill. Sizzle. Spontaneous. Unpredictable. Attack. Calming. Dangerous. Glowing embers. Hearth. The Great Unifier. Hot. Bellies. Burning. Sun. Ring of cold air.
Wine:
Lips. Kisses. Fuzzy clarity. Purple. Sweet. Thick. Earth. History. Capsule of time frozen and ages for a moment of pleasure. Blood. Drunk. Pleasure. Tongue. Warmth. Communion. Shared. Release. European. Loss. Social. Grown up. Privileged.
Thebes:
Lost. Legend. Myth. Truth. Raised from the dead. Mystery. Stone. Salad dressing. End. Short. Blip. Misfortune. Death. Ancient. Foreign. Tragedy. Epic. Forgotten. Garden of Eden. Home. Another world. Bone marrow. Eyes. Dead babies. Super natural. Working class.
History:
Lies. Old professors with glasses. Queen Elizabeth. Corsets and pyramids. Unclear. Up for grabs. Roots. Context. His Story. Shared stories. Making up as we go. Fondness. Memory. People. Lineage. Books. Lessons. Important. Standing on shoulders. Mistakes. Anarchy. Jealousy. Winner. Great Men. Repeating. Culture. Survival. African cradle. Destruction. Hope.
Troy:
Horse. Smoke. Fire. 1000 ships. Olive tree. Hector. Brad Pitt. Forced Militant. Old king white hair. Terror. Brick. Hooves. Exposed. Helen. Strength. Warriors. High Hill. Tall Gates. Condoms. Shade. James Joyce. Ireland. Strangers. Beer. Wine. Gift horse.
Fate:
Card games. Written in the stars. Ghost. Unchangeable. One step ahead. Will. Consequence. Clipped by a taxi. Drowning on vacation. Genetic. Outcome. Dog collar. Compass. Down hill. Dice. Pride and resignation. Birth place. Family. Cage. Iron Bars. Death. Temptation. Star crossed lovers.
Prophesy:
Blind person. Hope. Seeing intuition. Suggestion. Advertisement. Itch. Lie. Belief. W hat is told. Tarot. Harry Potter. Old grey hair men. Astrology. Stars. High hopes. The matrix. Gypsy. Reincarnation. Tea Leaves. Coincidence. Smoke and Mirrors.
Gods:
Power. Thunder bolts. Politics. Hindu. Clouds. Fear. Zeus. Vengeance. Symbols. Doubt. Fate. Symbols. Universe. All knowing. Gold. Statues. Incest. Hands and Arms. Flying fighting. Extra ordinary. Punishment. Seeking help. Africa.
Harmonia:
Harmonica. Lost. Flute. Calm. Sunshine. Content. Harmonium. Music. Theatre. Dance. Mother. Lyrical. Getting along. Compassion. Glue. Land of nymphs. Communities. Family. Laughter. Beginnings.
We have now been in rehearsals for SEVEN for three weeks and are counting down the days until the performances at Theatre Passe Muraille! I will be posting a more detailed description of our rehearsal progress, the work we have been doing and the discoveries that have been made shorty.
In the meantime, check out the photos of rehearsals that have just been added to the facebook page!
Congratulations everyone on all of your fantastic performances!
Now that everything has come to an end there is finally time to reflect on all the insanity of the last month or so. It’s hard to believe that it has only been about six weeks since we begun working on SEVEN. Please read on for information about the journey we embarked on while rehearsing this play and preparing for the performance at Theatre Passe Muraille.
First Week of Rehearsals:
Our first rehearsal was six months after our script workshop in October so everyone was excited to get back to work on SEVEN. As it was pointed out on the first day of rehearsals, a lot has happened since October. We talked about various changes that have taken place in the world recently, such as the economic situation and Barack Obama’s inauguration, and how the widespread feelings of both despair relate to what the characters in SEVEN are experiencing.
We used our second rehearsal day to do a table reading of HARMONIA. The characters in SEVEN are all “UnNamed” so each of the actors was able to read the part of their corresponding character in HARMONIA. This really clarified who each of the UnNamed are and it was fascinating to see how the characteristics of these people transcend generations and the plays. I think reading HARMONIA and understanding how Thebes began was important as we are preparing a show about the end of Thebes. We also found it very poignant that HARMONIA ends with Cadmus, Harmonia and the UnNamed leaving Mount Olympus and walking towards their future, just as SEVEN ends with the last Thebans leaving their camp and walking towards their death.
The majority of our first rehearsal week was spent reading through SEVEN and working through the questions that we had about the script. We sat around the table asking each other questions like “Who was Hephaestus?” or “How did Semele die?” It occurred to me that what we were doing, trying to piece together our collective memory of these stories, is exactly what the characters in SEVEN do when they try to tell their history.
Second Week of Rehearsals:
We have a team of four assistant directors and a dramaturg (myself) working on this production. In the second week of rehearsals we began to bring in the various research and information that Sarah Stanly had asked us to find. This included explanations of the mythological characters who are referenced in SEVEN and their role in the City of Wine cycle, information on the Trojan War, research on various meanings of the number seven and as well as the significance of fire in different cultures and rituals. Sarah also asked for images of the seven virtues and the seven deadly sins, and asked that the actors find one of each that they felt represented their character.
One morning Sarah asked the actors to spend 15 minutes improvising and exploring the space. Strewn about the area that had been designated as the war camp were musical instruments, wine bottles, cups, and pieces of clothing. There was a palpable sense of community when the seven sat around the campfire and played their instruments, but the music eventually quieted allowing for privet moments between two or three of the characters. The dynamics of the group really began to emerge through this exercise. After 15 minutes of inhabiting the environment Sarah instructed them to pack up everything in the camp site and prepare to meet their fate at the Trojan wall. The seven picked up everything around them. It was amazing how fast they were able to remove their presence from the space, despite how comfortable and permanent they seemed only moments before. It was if they had never been there at all, which I suppose is what would happen if a small group of people like this were really sent off to die in a war.
Also this week we started adding in sound and movement to the script. One of my favourite scenes in the play is when Blood tells the other six about the orders they have received and the task they are to carry out the next morning. Each of the characters comes to the realization that they are being ordered to die at a different time, and when they do they begin creating a noise, so that as Blood tells the story an orchestra of sound builds around him. The effect is very powerful. The actors also had a session with our movement coach and began working out some of the dance and movement sequences.
Much of the discussion in rehearsals this week involved looking at the that the choices that the seven make in the early moments of the play and how these choices lead them down different paths and effect the direction that the play takes.
Third and Fourth Week of Rehearsals:
In the third week of rehearsals more focus was put on the technical aspects of the play. We don’t have a designated set or costume designer working on the show; however the visual aspects of the play begun to take form in the third week of rehearsals as the world of the play was fleshed out. The actors had been trying different costume pieces over the last couple of weeks but seemed to settle into the right ones for their characters. The makeshift campsite that is our set also began to grow as more props were added, a tent was built, and lights were used to create the fire effect. Lights were also used to set up other campfires around the Thebans, to give the allusion that soldiers were close by watching. By the end of the third week we had blocked most of the first half of the show. We began addressing questions such as; what role does religion and the gods play in the lives of each of these characters? How do the tragedies of Theban history affect their individual identities? And do they believe their death is a duty, an act of fate, or just bad luck?
While working on SEVEN for the first three weeks the cast was also rehearsing The Bewitched, the last fully mounted show of the Theatre@York season. Four weeks into rehearsal for SEVEN, The Bewitched was performed, so our rehearsals were somewhat put on hold. However, we did have two rehearsals in week four where we went over what had been worked on so far, in order keep it fresh in the everyone’s mind.
Fifth Week of Rehearsals:
We returned to rehearing SEVEN full time with only a week to go until the performances began at Theatre Passe Muraille. Midway through the week we moved our rehearsals from York to the downtown rehearsal space Hub14. The excitement of performing at Theatre Passe Muraille, meeting other students and seeing their shows, was building, but there was still a lot of work to do before SEVEN was ready to take the stage.
The actors learned choreography for the kissing and fight scenes as well as how to create the moment where, in the midst of chaos, a bottle is smashed on Cloth’s face. It was fascinating to watch these very intense moments come alive. I think that we were all really starting to understand the brutality that exists in this world. All of the stories that are retold by the characters in SEVEN seemed to become more vivid with each run through of the play. I also felt that each name and story carried more consequence then they had when we began rehearsals. As we approached the end of this process I think the significance of our play, the fact that we are responsible for “bringing Thebes to its end” really began to sink in. A great deal of time was spent working through the last moments of the play. We considered what each character had to do in order to finally come to terms with their fate. Previously Sarah had played with the idea that the seven take all of their belongings with them when they leave for wall of Troy. This was changed so that the campsite that had become a microcosm for all of Thebes was left behind, and each of the seven took only a bottle of wine with them to face their death.