Day One

08-10-09

Day 1.

Here it is! The first installment of my director’s blog. Blog. What a weird word. This is a blog.
Anyway.
The show: The Turn of the Screw
The players: Jeremy W. Chase - actor
Cassandra Stokes-Wylie - actor
Rebecca Johnson – executive producer
J. J. Pearson – stage manager
Yours Truly
This is an experiment in style. Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation, based on the novella by Henry James, is spare. No set. No costumes. No props. No sound effects! Spare. And here’s the kicker. Two characters. Gone is the superfluousness of James’ flowery prose. This is a bare, stripped-down, gritty script. There’s not much to it in length, it should be a brisk 75 minutes or so. But it’s deep. There’s a lot to this thing.

Cassie plays the governess and Jeremy plays everyone else.
This includes: Man
Uncle
Mrs. Grose
Miles
And various sound effects
Lots of inherent challenges here. The set really does consist of 1 block and 2 rails. The actors are in blacks. That’s it. Blacks and blocks. How do we create sense of space? How do we keep character shifts clear? How do we keep the tension high? Lots of How Do’s. These are some of the easier questions we’re out to answer.
Short and sweet about tonight: We blocked the first third of the show and talked a lot. Blocking and talking. Answering questions already…

Until tomorrow,
Thanks for reading my blog. Ha! Blog.