All the world's a stage...

I am passionate about many things in my life. Among these include playwriting, singing, and acting, three disciplines that fall under the broader category of theatre in the most general sense. Beyond that, these passions can be disparate; music has its place in the realms of both theatre and video games, yet these potentially very musical worlds are two that rarely collide. Which made for a rather interesting five minutes of theatre I unconsciously conceived.

A short bit of backstory. I'm now a senior at Princeton University pursuing an English major and certificates in theatre and vocal performance. I've taken my fair share of theatre courses in my time here, written plays, and performed just as much. But for whatever reason, whether I was intimidated and too nervous to give it a first try, or dissuaded by the time commitments, or even felt unqualified to be in total artistic control of a theatrical piece, I've never had a go at directing. So I enrolled in the theatre department's directing workshop and just had my first presentation tonight. I've learned enough to know that no first draft in theatre is wildly successful, but considering this was my first crack at directing, what I created was incredibly well received and the reactions from my fellow course mates flattered and surprised me.

We meet twice a week in a rehearsal room filled with typical rehearsal elements - chairs, acting blocks, tables; a rolling upright piano and portable door frame complicate the surroundings. The assignment: we had to pair off - each side of a couple had to direct a scene for the other to perform in silence within the confines of the room and using only what was to be found in the room. The final piece of the puzzle was that the same scene was to be performed twice accompanied by two contrasting musical selections. So really, two iterations of the scene were created, the only difference being the music. When all was said and done, a single scene was typically between two to three minutes long, performed twice over to different musical selections, from each member of the course. After the two versions of the scene were presented in succession, the rest of the class engaged in conversation about the piece, both critique and general discussion, as a normal audience might talk about a performance at intermission or on a car ride home. And as directors, though we had the privilege to listen, we did not have permission to respond or defend anything the audience discussed based on what they had just witnessed (after all, you wouldn't have the chance to ask every audience member in a theatre exactly what they thought, not to mention, an audience's reaction can never technically be "wrong").

I paired up with one of my good friends Andrea. We met in the rehearsal room later in the week and set to work. Honestly, having no idea where to start, we both looked at each other quizzically, shrugged and proceeded to move some furniture around without much thought. For a few minutes we didn't really know who was "going first." Then I noticed the plastic chairs in the room came in a few different color varieties and started to arrange them in a pattern (I swear they are some of the ugliest chairs on campus). So from that point on, it was clear I was the first to go. And suddenly, everything began to fall into place. Just 45 minutes later, I had defined a set and conducted Andrea in a dreamy little sequence. To add aesthetically to the scene, I had Andrea wear a flowing blue sundress and go barefoot so as to best see every inch of her body put to the test on her journey.



Andrea begins asleep on the table. Not long after, she stirs and stands. She moves to the edge of the table, staring curiously at the aligned chairs. She points her foot out, as if testing the waters, and carefully steps onto the first chair.



She walks a few steps, crossing a few chairs, and realizes they support her weight. She continues forward, chair after chair, getting faster and faster until there are no chairs left.



There's a door ahead - there is a clear destination. She reaches out to the door, trying to reach it, touch it, but her reach is not enough. A great distance stands between her and the door (or gateway, portal, whatever it may be).



There isn't much to this world. There's the goal ahead of her, the bridge of chairs, and the table where she began asleep. She turns her head, and what's next to her...



...an acting block! That's if you want to look at it literally. But whatever the black acting block may be (stepping stone, wooden plank, any means to an end), Andrea knows it can help her get that much closer to the gate. She moves the two blocks ahead of her to the end of the bridge. But those two blocks aren't enough to reach the end just yet. She runs back to find a third one close-by the starting point and brings it to the other side. But the door is still just out of reach. Still, one last block remains...



...yet it's too far. She reaches out to it, trying with her hands, even her legs and her feet, all while careful not to touch the ground or fall off the "bridge." She sits defeated, until a final idea strikes her. She runs towards the gate and takes back one of the previous blocks, using that block to reach the final, furthest block. The solution, though simple as it turns out, is also rather strenuous. The blocks are by no means easy to move and she must make many trips back and forth.

Finally, her bridge is completed and she runs to the gate, touching the frame. She admires it, exploring it with her eyes and hands. She reaches her hand through the gate and stares through it some more. But instead of going through it, she sits down on the blocks. She reaches her hand through the gate one last time, staring wistfully at whatever lies beyond. Soon after, she lies down on the blocks and returns to sleep. The scene ends.

Admittedly, I was thrilled with what I was able to come up with so spontaneously and having never directed anything before in my life! But until now, it had been rehearsed in silence. After experimenting and rehearsing for another twenty minutes, I finally decided on two musical selections.

In directing the scene, I knew I wanted to create a journey. A journey with a supernatural, mystical touch, despite its composition of dry rehearsal elements like tables and chairs. There was a clear goal and a means to get there. I acknowledged what I was watching was a puzzle playing out before me - a puzzle in the sense that Alice drinking growth and shrinking viles by trial and error are necessary obstacles she must encounter on her adventure through wonderland.

Come presentation time, just this past night. Andrea and I are the second pair to present, and we begin with the piece I directed. I had my course mates and the professor sit on the ground, rather close to the action and with their backs facing the mirror. All the blinds were closed on the windows: I wanted there to be very little distracting from the central hub, that is, the world of the chairs, door, table, and blocks Andrea inhabited. I'll apologize now for spending so much time recreating the scene on paper and elevating my work as if its been entitled by some unfathomable deacon of artistry. I'm not going to pretend my scene is something immaculate. But I can't help but be proud given the time constraints and my minimal experience, especially after the largely positive discussion that ensued. Speaking of...

The discussion. I was elated and intrigued by the first comment. "First off, I liked it a lot. And it reminded me of a video game." There was almost universal agreement. Perhaps this shouldn't have surprised me given my music selections, which I've neglected to mention up until now. The first version of the scene I set to "Downstream" by Shira Kammen (from the album "Music of Waters") which was borrowed and used in the video game Braid. The second version was timed more precisely to the entirety of the prologue from Shadow of the Colossus (entitled "Prologue - to the Ancient Land" by Ko Otani). By no means did I choose these pieces because they were from video games; I considered some twenty or thirty different choices after all, from movies, from opera, from musicals, from anime, yes, from video games, Cirque du Soleil, and even Madonna. It was just that in creating something ethereal, at once mystical in contrasting light-hearted and, forgive my use of the term, "epic" ways, these selections stood out and were the most effective.





The comments focused on the video game topic for a while and bounced off each other organically. The audience even brought up Mario and Donkey Kong, which may seem trivial in comparison to Shadow of the Colossus. But in terms of the simple - a puzzle was to be solved. There was an adventure or quest (interestingly, one ascribed "adventure" to the version set to "Downstream" but thought "quest" was a more appropriate word to describe the, again for lack of a better word, "epic" version set to "Prologue - to the Ancient Land"). The goal was to get from point A from point B. In fact when I reflect on it, from the audience's perspective seated parallel to the row of chairs (the "bridge"), the scene did play out like a side-scrolling level.

The entirety of the discussion was not all on the video game topic of course - much was discussed, including the good and the bad, what was confusing, what could be improved, the question of why the floor was untouchable, why (though dramatically pleasing and interesting) it was Andrea actually chose not to go through the door. The class went on, genuinely satisfied and impressed with the first draft of this scene, and still full of questions agreeing on some points and disagreeing on others. But the association to video games proved infallible. My guess is the fact that "it reminded me of a video game" were the words to introduce the class' round of feedback informed the rest of their opinions. Nevertheless, no one attempted to disprove this point.

Since I couldn't say anything, I mused on this for a while. I was practically flabbergasted that the idea of "video game" was being tossed around at all, especially when the musical choices I made, unbeknownst to the rest of the class, had their place in video games. I expected that knowledge to be only information I was privy to. What cued them in then? Was it the scene or the music that led the class to such a deduction? Or was it the combination of the two?

Though I have a great love and appreciation for video game music that goes years back, I made a discovery today I never once considered. I began to wonder if there was something deeper in the Shadow of the Colossus prologue that automatically can set off a trigger in the minds of our video game generation. And when you think about it, video game music is a new, but subtle pop cultural phenomenon. Our knowledge of music is often built around anthems (like the themes from Star Wars or Indiana Jones). We associate images with sound, and one can recall the other. As more and more people spend equally more and more time playing video games, they are exposed to an equal amount of music. Children that grow up nowadays may indeed find their knowledge of music typically rooted in video games (and video game music has long evolved since the 8 bit version of the Super Mario Bros. theme). So I find it absolutely magical that here, the addition of video game music to a mime can help video games themselves transcend the console and assist in conceiving a world that, as it turns out, is theatrical gaming. For the audience, Andrea became a living video game character on a theatrical platform. And you know what, Andrea was indeed a bit like Yorda from Ico, if she had been more proactive and could pick up heavy blocks herself.


Yorda

But the point that I found most resonant was made by our professor (Prof. Timothy Vasen). He expressed that there was something very satisfying about just watching Andrea go about her business. Once it was clear that there was a goal and a puzzle to be solved, Andrea was able to shine as an actress. Her goal was well established and he was happy to simply watch her "do" even though the trajectory of the puzzle was very clear to the audience once Andrea began to engage in it. He wasn't bored in knowing what had to be done and knowing that it would take some time to carry out. Rather, there was something delightful and gratifying in watching Andrea carry out her task, whether the task be mundane or extraordinary to the tune of music either soothing and playful or escalating and swelling as she approached closer to her goal.

But when she could not reach the final block, he wondered why she bothered to attempt reaching it with her feet. To put it bluntly, he called her character dumb (even asking, what, does she have magnets on her toes?). And since that dumb attempt fails, she has cause to pout and "make a face." For him, and others in the audience, it became very clear in that small moment that she was an actress, and not a character in another world. But it was not the addition of the pouting so much as the somewhat comical attempt to reach the final block with her feet that preceded it. He was taken out of the scene. This is a point that can be echoed in video games as well. Just as direction can reveal unintended moments that seem like bad acting and remind us even for the briefest of seconds that we are in a theatre, a directional lapse in a video game can just as easily remind us we hold controllers in our hands.

That being said, there was unanimous appreciation for the moment immediately after, when Andrea understood the final piece of the puzzle - to go back and use a previous block to reach the last and furthest one. In that moment, the solution to the puzzle becomes incredibly clear to both Andrea and the audience at exactly the same time. And in video games, these are some of the moments we remember best (sometimes we find ourselves slapping our heads at the best of them). Her confusion abated, we can sit back and enjoy Andrea complete her task.

As Prof. Vasen put it, there is a "beauty in doing." In theatre, we can appreciate this simplicity, this beauty, this art of doing. Andrea moving blocks shares a beauty in common with the pantomime in Our Town or Laura playing with her glass menagerie. Music itself does its own sort of work simply by being heard, and that can be alone or in tandem with other forms of art. Art imitates life and life can be staged. And theatrically, part of our being inhabits the avatars and characters we control when we play. If video games can also be successfully and delicately staged, perhaps video games are art indeed. For in video games, it is an active "art of doing" at the core that works in tandem with sight and sound in an attempt to create another world to delight and stimulate the senses.

So thanks to Andrea and my directing course for throwing me for a loop and helping me to understand the art of theatre, music, and video games at its simplest and when I least expected it. And to think this at once mind boggling interpretation of my directing project all coincided with my first attempt at it. Was about time too. I needed to get up, finally sit in the director's chair, and give it a shot - to just "do."