Interview in City Pages April 2007 - Approaching the opening of 'Or The White Whale' at the Southern Theater
Gone Fishing
Jon Ferguson squares off against America's #1 sea monster
By Caroline Palmer
As countless high school students will testify, it's a daunting task to finish Moby Dick, Herman Melville's 1851 novel about a bad-ass cetacean and an unsuccessful fishing trip. The book is massive; the text is dense. And the story—which at first seems to be a simple enough battle between man and nature—is actually a complex meditation on the motivations that lie beneath individual and collective madness. It helps to have an interest in whaling.
All of these factors would make a pretty convincing argument against adapting the book to the stage. But director Jon Ferguson, perhaps having been touched by a little madness himself, will premiere Or the White Whale at the Southern Theater this weekend with his new ensemble, Civic Stage. In a recent telephone interview, Ferguson says he relishes the challenge, even if it could "beat" him—or swallow him whole.
This isn't the first time Ferguson has tackled Moby Dick. In 1997 he produced, co-directed, and acted in a production that was awarded a Sunday Times Ensemble Award in Great Britain. He started thinking about taking another crack at it after the success of Please Don't Blow Up Mr. Boban, his 2005 Fringe Festival hit created in collaboration with Live Action Set. He soon found a kindred spirit in writer John Heimbuch, who adapted Melville's almost "Shakespearean" text for the new production.
Next, Ferguson pulled together a cast of 10 male performers, including Matt Sciple in the role of Captain Ahab. And with the help of ropes, pulleys, planks, barrels, poles, and their bodies, this crew has set about cleverly recreating a life at sea within the confines of a theater space.
Or the White Whale isn't all existential doom and gloom. Ferguson is adamant that his cast find the humor in Melville's lofty language and the imagined seagoing scenarios. "The piece is really lively," he says. "It's even cartoony at times. These are great character actors and I want people to laugh." It is, after all, he adds, "a big yarn, a big, old ridiculous story."
But for Ferguson, what is most interesting "is how one man can convince others to go along with this. Ahab is a great speaker and leader, and at one time a great captain. He dies going after the whale and everyone follows him. There's a mob mentality, or perhaps they think they're all fated to end up the same way."
Perhaps, he continues, it's because they all want to feel alive, no matter how dangerous the mission. Why else would they set off to sea for years at a time, he wonders? He continues, "It was brutal, dark, and there wasn't much money." Sounds a little like working in theater.
Thoughts approaching the creation of Or The White Whale
Or The White Whale
an adaptation of Moby Dick for the stage
Moby Dick is without a doubt one of the greatest stories in the English Language. Ever since my first encounter with the novel almost ten years ago, I have been drawn back to it again and again. In 1997, while still a student in London, I produced, co-directed, and acted in a new ensemble adaptation of Moby Dick. This production was invited to play at the prestigious National Student Drama Festival in Scarborough, England. It was one of fifteen productions selected from over one hundred productions in the UK. It was very well received and was awarded the Sunday Times Ensemble award. Now, almost ten years later, I have a great desire to explore it again, in order to further understand the story itself, it’s themes and it’s universal power. At times I am overwhelmingly inspired by this great work and at other times I am beaten by it. But this is precisely why I am drawn to it… it constantly challenges me. Fundamentally, for me, it is a life-affirming story, and it is a constant reminder of the power and potential darkness of nature and the human spirit. It is a great tragedy.
As I approach the exciting and arduous task of staging this piece of epic fiction, I am fully aware of the all-enveloping nature of such a venture. But in actual fact, I want to be swallowed up. Swallowed up, heart and soul, like Captain Ahab himself. I want the ensemble and the entire audience to be swallowed up together. I want us all to be sucked into the great and unavoidable vortex. How do we stage a story of such epic proportions? How do we go to sea? How do we battle the giant whale? How do we cling to our lives? How do we encompass the entire globe? How do we finally get sucked into the vortex that is the great ocean and Ahab’s soul at once?
For me creating this piece of gigantic fiction in the theater is not a limitation. Because, in the theater we have the ability to go anywhere and create anything we can imagine, by suggestion and illusion. This adaptation of Moby Dick will embrace all that is magical, fantastic, epic and intimate about the theater. The piece will be created collaboratively as an ensemble; the actors, musicians, costume and set designers, writers and director. The set and props will be minimal and very functional; ropes, pulleys, canvas, planks, trunks, poles, barrels and buckets. In an instant the actors will build a ship in front of you, they will hunt the whales and skin them until they pour out blood, they will create the sea, the sky, all the elements. It is an enormous, raw, brutal and poetic world that we will create. This production will be hugely physical, visually dynamic and rich in language.
When I share my desire to explore the great story with others, more often than not, I find kindred spirits, those that are at the same time intrigued by, and challenged by the story… those that wish to better understand the novel, themselves, and their own nature. Those that are drawn to it. Many of these people are theater artists; actors, writers, dancers, musicians, designers, some are not. But all of them are more than willing to rise to the challenge of staging this great story.
In order to fully embrace the power of this story a company of performers of extraordinary ability is needed. On the one hand, the piece requires a company of highly skilled physical based performers; physically strong, precise and playful. On the other hand the piece requires a cast of highly skilled and powerful traditionally trained actors… actors that have a strong background and training in text-based theater, actors that have the ability to embrace the epic nature of the piece in terms of the textual poetry and language, those that are able to embrace the text and put their deepest power behind it. Over all it requires performers that are able to imagine fully and invent without hesitation and that are willing to explore the darker sides of themselves.
It is my intention to set up an ensemble of performers that can act as mentors to each other. The physical based performers can encourage and coach the more classically trained, text-based actors. And the traditionally trained, text-based actors can guide and coach the physical based performers, enabling them to embrace the text fully. It is my hope that this will foster an environment of support within the ensemble, an environment of exploration and artist development.
It will be a journey and an exploration. It is my hope that the story takes hold of us and leads us to the outcome. That it changes us, that it changes the audience, swallows us whole and all together. And we will approach with open minds. We will go there with all of our being, and with fire in our hearts.
- Jon Ferguson
“God hunt us all if we do not hunt Moby Dick!”
Thoughts on the creation process of 'Ligustrum Vulgare'
by Tim Cameron
I met Jon Ferguson during clowning workshops he led in the spring of 2006. It was immediately apparent that he knew how to help people play. It was also plain that he was comfortable being a leader. In any kind of theatre, the director must have a quality that lets people know something is underway, that within the ephemera of performance the group will build something coherent and worthwhile. Jon has that gift. From the first rehearsal of Ligustrum Vulgare, there was a sense of stepping onto a ship bound for an exciting port even though we began without a script.
During the creation of Ligustrum Vulgare, we all added to the text, day by day. Whether or not one was coming up with fantastic ideas, Jon was there saying yes to our strivings, if not to particular ideas, then prodding us on to try again, trusting that we could create something special. As the director, he undoubtedly held the pen as we created the script. Sometimes he offered finished scene fragments, but more often he simply suggested a line or two of text to spark exploration. He’s full of good ideas, but that doesn’t prejudice him against the ideas that others bring.
Our sessions of collaborative creation consisted of improvisations. Understanding vaguely the situation in which our characters were to find themselves, we embarked. Knowing, for instance, that my character had divorced with one daughter, Jon suggested that the daughter start a scene saying, “Mom still loves you.” We were trusted to explore through improvisation where this conversation could lead. Jon might intervene if we lost the thread of the interaction, or stop us if we made our way through a rich passage that he absolutely needed to get typed into his laptop. Typically, it was a bit like making our way through a dense forest. We would make some progress and then make sure we knew how we got there, retracing steps and then moving further ahead. Jon found a balance between leading the process and letting us explore and create. I must give him credit for his clear headedness during the writing process. He managed to stay focused and not get too swept-up into the moment, missing the moment to write as we explored. At the end of each rehearsal we would emerge with two or three new fragments about which we were truly excited. It was a fantastic feeling.
In addition to the initial creation of text fragments rehearsal consisted of working with our existing fragments, to develop them further or deepen our work within them. We might add to them or link fragments. Often times Jon’s feedback came in the form of praise for certain moments, whether in the moment or at a break. Jon sometimes asked for our opinion before offering his own. He seemed interested to know what “stuck out” for us and for the cast to engage with this information. In a few sessions we simply sat to write and edit in a group, doing fine-tuning and looking at arcs within the script. We continued to hone the script until opening night, although by that time the changes were minor. This process was challenging for me as an actor, in that I had to simultaneously discover my character as a writer and an actor, as we developed the piece for performance in less than a month. It was an invigorating whirlwind. I immensely enjoyed it.
It’s apparent that Jon deeply loves making theater. It’s almost inconceivable that one could miss signs of this in his enthusiasm or the giddiness he experiences over play and good ideas, but if one did they would find the evidence in his own words. Consistently, he says things like, “I want to do this all the time!”
Thoughts on the creation process of 'We Are Ugly But We Have The Music'
A Happy Mistake: Tracing the Path of Theatrical Imagination
Author: Laura Purcell-Gates - PHD student at the University of Minnesota
ANTH8002: Ethnography
Professor Stuart McLean
March 8, 2006
Tonight is our second performance, and Tyson – the actor playing Garbo – is onstage making his introductory speech for the Family Zanzinger vaudeville troupe. His line, spoken in a thick Eastern European accent, is “We are not biological family; we are serendipitous – a happy accident.” But the show has no script, and the lines are thus in a continual state of flux; tonight I hear Garbo say “We are serendipitous – a happy mistake.” Jon Ferguson, the director, and I, assistant director, love the unintended phrase change; Tyson will keep it. His mistake creates the Family Zanzinger, tonight and in future performances, as a happy mistake.
It occurs to me as I approach this interrogation of the creative dynamics that went into the creation of the show – an interrogation that I term an “ethnography of the imagination” – that the happy mistake has been the central process involved in the creation of this theatre piece. “We Are Ugly” is a European clown-style, physical theatre piece created by both the cast and the directors during a four-week rehearsal process termed creative collaboration. During four weeks of rehearsal, Jon, the cast of eight and I created space for play, allowing fragments of a narrative and characters to emerge out of improvisation motivated more by instinct than by intentionality. A plethora of material was generated within rehearsals through clown improvisations of open possibility. We occasionally had to step back and attempt to shape the story that was emerging, but even when a decision was made it was a flexible, fluid one, open to the “happy mistakes” of discovery during rehearsal, or even – as in the case of Garbo’s redefinition of serendipity – in performance.
My interest in ethnographies of the imagination – focusing on the rehearsal process – stems from my observations over years of being a theatre practitioner of the deep embeddedness of theatre in the particularities of person, time, space and circumstance. Even within highly traditional rehearsal processing – rehearsing “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”in the months preceeding “We Are Ugly,”for example – the theatrical piece that was performed each night was not a fully pre-planned, mechanistic production. Nor was the rehearsal process in any way linear. An actor’s headache on a given day of rehearsal might produce a nuance of gesture that would be incorporated into the production. A light joke tossed out during a break could lead to an entirely new direction for a scene.
My goal for this brief paper is to map out the broader ethnography that I wish to undertake of this creative collaboration. My attempt to situate the rehearsal process within a theoretical structure is particularly prone to the dangers of oversimplification: the creative collaboration that produced “We Are Ugly” resists traditional structures of linear analysis. Perhaps the most useful structure within which to examine this creative process, then, is Deleuze’s concept of the spiral, in which “things repeat but with a twist” (Bennett 39).
Repetition – the structure of theatrical rehearsals – was one of the chief tactics used intentionally in our rehearsal process. Clowns in this method repeat anything that seems to be working; the most obvious example is a gesture that makes the audience laugh – the clown, who wants more than anything to please, will repeat that gesture (accidentally discovered) for as long as the audience continues to laugh. The tactic is applied theatrically beyond comic effect: a shout, a “No!”, a silent movement would be repeated over and over under Jon’s encouragement, pushing the moment through its initial discovery past an imaginative threshold, to allow us to see what would emerge. The process of continual repetition allowed a space to open in the narrative in which a different process operated than the process of intellectually forming words and actions within a comprehensible framework. This new space could be termed the liminal in Crapanzano’s use of the term, in which “the liminal offers us a view of the world to which we are normally blinded by the usual structures of social and cultural life” (64). The process that operated within this liminal space can be termed, again following Crapanzano, imagination. What imagination is and how it worked in this creative collaboration is the task of my ethnography.
It would be useful at this point to provide a synopsis of “We Are Ugly But We Have the Music” – specifically, a synopsis of the show that was performed on opening night. The Family Zanzinger is a ragtag group of nine performers, each from an unspecified location in Eastern Europe, who have come together serendipitously (“a happy mistake” as of the second performance) and created a vaudeville show that tours the world. The troupe’s founders are Ofal – the troupe’s leader – and his lover Nastia, who describes herself in the opening anthem as the one who “started this whole Zinger-thinger.” When the curtains pull back this night, however, only eight performers appear on the stage: Ofal has gone missing. Five of the remaining troupe are jittery and explosive about his absence; only Nastia and 10-year-old Pepe are in normal spirits, merely mildly confused about the missing Ofal.
As the show progresses – propelled by the hulking, violent Garbo who has forcefully taken over in Ofal’s absence – it becomes increasingly clear that the bulk of the troupe is hiding something about the whereabouts of their missing leader. As one act pushes into another – affected both by the missing member and the high-strung nerves of the performers – the show begins to unravel, and Nastia becomes increasingly insistent that someone tell her the whereabouts of her lover. Following the disastrous final attempt at keeping the show going – in which Lugi throws juggling pins to a missing Ofal – the group finally confesses to Nastia and to the audience: Ofal had told them, just before tonight’s show, that this would be the last show; in a fit of panic over their respective futures, they lured him into the troupe’s camper van, held him against a wall, and shot him in the head. The tragedy is compounded when Nastia, in a fit of grief, explains to them that Ofal meant to teach them a new show – his news of this being “the last show” only meant the last of this particular show. One by one, the troupe leaves through the door at the back of the stage, walking out into the street, disbanding the company.
This was the show as of opening night. Four weeks earlier, this was the show: Jon Ferguson cast eight performers to play members of a vaudeville troupe whose leader died in a fire that broke out during their last performance; his idea was to create a story around the disintegration of the current performance in the absence of their leader. Everything else – the murder, the characters’ nationalities, even the characters themselves – was created by the company during the rehearsal process.
In my pursuit of imagination’s workings, I wish to examine three strands of creative process that led to the play called “We Are Ugly But We Have the Music.” The first strand is that of group brainstorming, which was sometimes structured – as when Jon would begin a rehearsal with the company sitting in a circle, throwing out ideas – and was sometimes haphazard, as when Pablo, the musician who played Piano Guy, the troupe’s accompanist (who played guitar), casually remarked during an early rehearsal that it would be interesting if the troupe had killed their leader, perhaps because he wanted to leave the show. The latter type of suggestion was to be found throughout the four-week process; sometimes the idea stuck, sometimes it didn’t. In the case of Pablo’s idea the idea was run with, and within a few rehearsals the plot that began to emerge was that of a murder being covered up.
The second strand is improvisation. Most of the performers were trained in European clowning techniques and physical theatre, and thus shared a vocabulary for this sort of creative collaboration. If an actor tried something new on stage, therefore, her partners would expand on the suggestion, playing through a moment that tended to be both disjointed – as the actors negotiated the difficult realm of the imaginary – and productive. When Viktor declared his love for fellow troupe member Ishka (one of the few plot elements that was crafted outside of the rehearsal space by Jon), then denied having said anything when she asked him to repeat it, the scene initially played as tragic, as Viktor responded to Ishka’s “Did you say something?” with “No,” and sat back down, defeated, in his chair. When Jon asked Noah, the actor playing Viktor, to show me the sequence during a break, however, Sara, who played Ishka, followed his “No” with an additional question: “Viktor, if we were little and walking home from school, would you carry my books for me?” The scene transformed in that moment into one of elation for Viktor, as he realizes that the romantic feelings may be mutual. This component of the characters’ relationship stuck, and was used as a tragic lever at the end of the show when Viktor lacks the courage to ask Ishka to leave with him, and instead walks out the back door of the theater alone.
The third strand is what I term “call and response,” in which the actors would stand on stage and respond to suggestions tossed at them from Jon. It is within this strand that the technique of repetition discussed above was most often found. A sequence that resonated powerfully with all of us occurred via this technique during one of the first rehearsals, when Noah – who was genuinely exhausted from overlapping rehearsal and performance schedules – yawned on stage, and was jokingly chastised by several of the other characters. Jon suggested that he yawn again – this time as Viktor – and that the troupe chastise him again, only take it further. Now it was Viktor under fire for yawning during a performance; Jon suggested that he redeem himself by telling a joke. Then a second joke. During the third joke, Jon walked onstage and stage punched him; Viktor hit the back wall and slid down as Jon walked back out into the audience and commanded him to keep telling his jokes. Then Garbo was told to punch Viktor repeatedly; Viktor was to continue attempting to tell his jokes after each hit. The result was a highly affecting scene of the clown desperately trying to please, even as he is violently punched down again and again.
This scene did not make it into the actual play, but during the final week of rehearsal as I began to see a coherent story emerging I realized that the play itself was a working out of that image. The Family Zanzinger fought desperately to keep their show alive, to sing and dance and please the audience, even as they were continually tripped up, forced down by Garbo’s violent outbursts that themselves had been provoked by the recent act of violence with which they were all complicit.
This example contains a key point in my analysis of this creative process: there was no conscious intentionality behind the show’s story mirroring that image that had been created in rehearsal. No one suggested that we develop a story based on the Viktor joke/punch bit; that this is what happened came as a surprise to us all. The additional patterns, parallels and resonances that emerged as the story emerged – and there were many of them – each came as a surprise to us. While we did make efforts to “work out” what this story would be, to make sense of it in time for opening night, the structure of the rehearsal process in which play was open and possibilities never shut down meant that chaos produced order, nonsense produced sense. This required a huge degree of trust, for we had to continually let go of the need to figure out the play – the play was figuring itself out.
I intend, in my next phase of this ethnography, to flesh out these three creative strands by sampling them within the various theoretical structures we have encountered thus far in the term, structures which are all related to the space of the “in-between,” the liminal. My goal is not to arrive at a universal definition of imagination, but to describe what happened in this particular rehearsal process, loosely defined as an imaginative process. Central to this goal is my commitment to allowing what “actually” happened – as accessed via notes, interviews and memories – to always exceed whatever structure I am able to analyse it within. I wish to open up a language that can deepen discussion about this process, rather than close off discussion by encasing the process within a convenient structure. The structure of this ethnography, then, is as important to me as the structure of the creative collaboration. It will, I am sure, be influenced by our readings and discussions in the second half of the term – “Beyond Method” particularly leaps to mind. In lieu of a conclusion to this paper, therefore, I’ll simply frame this as a serial: To be continued…
Who’s Writing This Anyway?
An article on devising theater
By John Wright: international physical theater practitioner and master teacher
For Total Theater Magazine
Author of Why Is That So Funny? A Practical Exploration Of Physical Comedy
'There is an old story of how the Cathedral of Chartres was struck by lightning and burnt to the ground. Thousands of people came from all points of the compass like a giant procession of ants and together they rebuilt the cathedral on its old site. All sorts of people apparently: master builders, artists, labourers, clowns, noblemen, priests and burgers. But they all remained anonymous and to this day no one knows who built the cathedral of Chartres.'
- Ingmar Bergman.
Suckers! How many of you were bribed and coerced into humping those stones about with promises of good fortune and a happy afterlife? But for all the unsavouriness of medieval Christianity, art lost a vital creative drive when it was separated from worship. Its umbilical cord was cut, giving art its independence and leaving it free to generate and re-invent itself as well as to disappear up its own arse.
The Cathedral of Chartres is as much amonument to communal enterprise as it is to spiritual servitude and there's much to admire here. Today we can call anything art and none of us knows what's beautiful any more but whatever we do in the name of art we all want our name on it. Fame and recognition have become more important than art itself. I can'timagine anyone tolerating anonymity on the scale of the Cathedral of Chartres today, but on a far smaller scale and in an entirely secular context, all the profound moments of theatre making that I’ve been involved with have been anonymous or at least embedded in the collaborative efforts of the group. In other words it’s been very difficult to remember precisely who inspired what. Invariably it turnout to be some irrelevant, off –the- cuff remark that sparked another idea for somebody else and yet another from somebody else; and by the time we have put something on the floor everybody in the room seems to own it.
I'm addicted to this feeling. Time and again it's brought me back to some sweaty rehearsal room trying to make something from next to nothing. It's the accruative imagination of a group who knows how to work together that I find so compelling. It might not be the rebuilding of the Cathedral of Chartres but it’s the same spirit, only without the promise of eternal life.
Devising is so difficult because it’s something you that can’t do on your own. It requires collaborative authorship, and to do it effectively makes you feel as if you have to fight against everything you’ve ever been taught.
Most of the work in our drama schools is dedicated to skills of interpretation. It’s primarily concerned with language and literary concepts like ‘character’ and ‘genre’. Oh the word 'performance' is used quite a lot but that's singing and dancing and making people laugh. Where’s the content in that? And the notion of play? Well that's just pretentious isn't it?
We can deconstruct ourselves till the cows come home but the received wisdom makes no distinction between theatre and literature. The writer is the controlling intellect and the controlling imagination. Remove a keystone like that and the whole structure’s going to come tumbling down. Well perhaps it will, but we can always build it up again and what do we mean by writing in the first place? Collaborative writing demands skills of creation rather than interpretation. The problem in devising is not that you don’t have a writer but that everyone involved is multitasking. In fact you might have too many writers. There could be three or four of them. Their proper jobs might be actors, musicians, directors, designers or dancers so their different contributions will have a particular spin. But they'll all be preoccupied with dramatic structure, content, imagery and language. You can't get away from language whether it be visual, musical or spoken and you can't escape dealing with a text. As soon as you try to repeat something you’re trying to remember a text, whether it was written down or not. Describe John Cage’s maddest Happening and you’re speaking a text. Dig deep into any impro and you’ll find some game, some little impulse that sets the ball rolling; and that’s also a sort of text.
The real debate in theatre making is not whether you have a writer or not or whether you start from a script or not but where you put meaning. Our innate preoccupation with language and meaning leads us to invest far more in what we say than in what we do or what we look like while we're doing it.
The more we invest in the controlling creative intelligence of the writer, the more we put meaningat the beginning of the creative process rather than at the end. With meaning at the beginning we all know what we're doing right from the start and we can all progress rationally towards the final interpretation of the original idea.
Of course this is a simplification but it’s not a facetious simplification and it’s infinitely preferable to being vague, lost and confused but if you put meaning at the end of the process then you’ve got everything to find.
I'd far rather discover that the play I'm making is a comedy or tragedy for myself rather than be told from the very beginning what sort of play it is, what it’s really about and how everybody should feel at the end. Predetermined readings of any text are a trap. Of course it’s comforting to have a controlling rationale and it’s much easier to manage a rehearsal but the most exciting explorers are those who work from maps that are incomplete or even wrong.
'The work of rehearsal,’ says Peter Brook, 'is to find meaning and make it meaningful.' In other words to do something first and find the reason why you've done it later.
Having a text at the beginning of rehearsal is a terrific luxury – let’s be clear about this. It’s easier at every level to start with a text than without one. With a text you always have another imagination and another authority in the room to defer to. You have a readymade structure and a whole raft of decisions already set out for you.
When you devise, you have none of these things. You have to find everything for yourself. You have to find a text first, then find out what it means much later. The only tangible reality is the collective personality of the group you’re working with; and that group will make or break the entire enterprise.
To anyone who has spent most of their time making theatre from scratch, 'finding meaning' is second nature. A text might have the potential to give you everything you need to start with but in the adrenaline-soaked world of starting from nothing you learn very quickly that meaning can come from anywhere; so you train yourself to look everywhere to find it. You know that any text only appears to give you everything. No matter how rounded the story, how eloquent the dialogue, how impressive the musical score or how plangent the melody – the text is never the whole story.
In making theatre we’re always dealing with two texts: the written text and the performance text.
The written text contains eveything that's transferable - in other words, everything that can be written down to enable you to follow the author’s ideas and intentions. This generally means the structure of events and the language to be spoken and some indication of how the material is to be staged. The performance text is eveything that is unique to the people involved in the playing of that text, their physique, their personalities, their skills and their imaginations.
The performance text is eveything we can see, and the written text is every thing we can read. The raw materials of the performance text are space, movement and the objects and materials we have around us. The raw materials of the written text are: language, structure and ideas. Seeing is believing with the performance text, and in the theatre we see everything. The more we concentrate on the performance text the closer we get to making theatre rather than illustrating literature. Theatrical meaning as opposed to literary meaning is found when the written text impacts with the performance text.
They start off as two separate entities and in rehearsal they clash and collude together with the continuing potential of making something unique and fresh. Meaning clings to language like salt to chips, and like salt it gets everywhere. Written language is our most respected form of communication and we tend to think that meaning expressed in this form is something finite, concrete and unassailable, but it’s not. In the non-literary world of live theatre language becomes as malleable as Plasticene; and in the mad anarchic world of a playful group of actors, meanings are as ephemeral as ripples on a pond. An actor can say the same line in a myriad of different ways and is capable of doing whatever action he or she wants to do. Here Shakespeare is a God one minute and a tedious old fart the next. The sacred and the profane, the stupid and the profound sit side by side in the clear understanding that the one will always inform the other when the time is right.
This is a shifting and mercurial world where anything is possible and everything has yet to be found .This means that as a director or facilitator you've got to find strategies that are likely to make something happen rather than strategies for getting people to analyse what they think they might do. We need all sorts of people to make theatre, 'master builders, artists (and) clowns' but they all need to cultivate a taste for anonimity in order to share a collective vision.
Interview in Metro Magazine November 2006 - Approaching the creation of Ligustrum Vulgare
'Ligustrum Vulgare' It’s Latin for privet hedge, and an argument over one inspired director Jon Ferguson’s much-anticipated new play.
By Camille LeFevre
It was a garden-variety argument that turned as deadly as hemlock. Somewhere in England, several years ago, two gentlemen began arguing about the height and placement of the privet hedge separating their gardens. Over time, tensions ran so high that one of the gardeners snapped and shot the other—dead.
“When I read about this incident in the newspaper, I wondered how one goes from tending beautiful flowers to killing somebody,” says Minneapolis theater director Jon Ferguson, who was born and raised in England. “That really is a fascinating journey.”
So fascinating, in fact, that Ferguson’s musings on that tragic trajectory inspired his new play, “Ligustrum Vulgare” (or for the botanically un-inclined, “Privet Hedge”). “I also just bought a house in Northeast Minneapolis, which is probably why I’m thinking about gardening and yard work and people trying control nature,” he admits with a chuckle. “I’m sure you get a lot of peace from gardening, too.”
But as he explains the inspiration for “Ligustrum Vulgare,” which he calls “a dark tale of suburban brutality,” he quickly gets serious again. “Your neighbors could be normal people, and you could get on well with them. But when normal people are pushed too far by something so seemingly insignificant as a hedge, you find out it’s really not about the hedge.”
“Instead, it’s about their sudden lack of control over their surroundings in a world that’s essentially unpredictable,” he continues. “What I’m exploring in the play is the increasing lack of communication and understanding that leads to tragedy.”
“Ligustrum Vulgare” isn’t Ferguson’s first play based on an article mixing horror and a twisted sense of humor. In 2005, his sweet, soul-shattering play, “Please Don’t Blow Up Mr. Boban,” was based on a satirical article in a British publication about where to eat in war-torn Baghdad.
Created with performed by members of the Minneapolis physical-theater troupe Live Action Set, “Boban” rocked the Fringe Festival while moving audiences to laughter and tears. The tender, humanistic quality that permeated “Boban” came from Ferguson’s approach to clown training, he says.
Huh? No, no! Not the horrifying, red-nosed, Bozo-type clowns we associate with the circus. Ferguson’s training, which he teaches to his actors, began with Italian comedia, moved through classic mime and pantomime, and evolved into a “style of clown,” he explains, “That began when the mime started to speak.” Translation: a powerful, understated performance style based on the actor inhabiting a childlike openness.
In “Boban,” this meant Noah Bremer, as the title character, played a tragic figure with tremendous innocence, optimism and grace. “He lived in the moment,” Ferguson says. “In the play, people came to him from the community to be uplifted and the audience witnessed that happening. We all saw a bit of ourselves in Boban and cared for him, which is why I think audiences were so moved.”
So don’t expect any histrionics from the trio of 20-something actors performing “Ligustrum Vulgare.” Think Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin instead—with dialogue. “Chaplin was the master,” Ferguson says. “He was so incredibly precise physically, but could be romantic and sad. All three actors in ‘Ligustrum Vulgare’ have that quality.”
Tim Cameron and Adam Hegg play the mad gardeners, while Katie Kaufman plays their fractured love interest and other characters. They all have the ability to stand there, do nothing, and look suicidal but also hilarious at the same time,” Ferguson says. “You can see right into their soul.”
About his new play, which he describes as “part Becket, part Pinter, and part Coen Brothers,” Ferguson says, “I want people to laugh a lot, to be slightly disturbed, and to think about the conflict and nastiness in the world, and to consider that they may be responsible for some of it too. I want them to become aware of the person next to them, and of how important the small stuff is.”
“I believe we’re all clowns, we’re all idiots, but we cover it up with various layers of crap,” he continues. “There will be a lot of layers on the people in this play, but when they are truly broken, that’s when the clown comes out.
Interview for Minnesota Fringe, Fall 2005 - Post Fringe run of Please Don't Blow Up Mr. Boban
Congratulations on having the top-attended Fringe show this year.
Thank you very much.
Were you surprised at the response for Mr. Boban?
We were surprised. Of course we hoped it would do really well and we really wanted people to see it. Just before we opened the show, at our tech, we were saying to each other, “is this thing going to work?” Then it opened and we had a good opening night and we had good feedback. It was only then that we knew the piece was a success in so much as it came across as intended.
Actually, one day, halfway through the rehearsal process, I suddenly felt that it was arrogant us to assume that we have any idea what it’s like to live in a war zone. I have never experienced that, the cast have never experienced that. At that point, our major questions were: “How can we understand? How can we do this, how can we tell this story?” But we had to strive to understand what that way of life might be like, because that is what we chose to do… and it’s important to try. We used clowning as a jumping-off point, to spark action. And tried to see that world through the eyes of a clown. The clown is a universal character, and in every one of us. We put that innocent and optimistic character in the middle of a horrendous situation… what came out in the end, is what our play is now.
Any behind-the-scenes stories you can share?
We made it at The Soap Factory, (rehearsed) it on the top floor. An amazing, amazing space. So atmospheric… surrounded by rough brick walls and broken windows. There were times when we were improvising where birds would fly through the space. One day there was a hawk stuck in the space and we helped it get out. The space was really integral to what that piece turned out to be – the space being very rough. And the atmosphere in the space would change as the natural light changed, It got really dark in there and we only had bare light bulbs and crappy track lighting nailed to the beams. Across the Mississippi, we could see the huge new Guthrie being built, it was interesting to be making a play in a broken down space with homemade equipment and not much budget and see this multi-million dollar building being built across the river.
Was playing in-the-round the original plan?
Originally I thought the show was going to be presented end-on. I wanted to back the play up against the huge brick walls and old windows of the Soap Factory and utilize the size of the Soap Factory. From the beginning it was arranged that we would share the space with The Art Shanty exhibition and about half way through the rehearsal process we discovered that we didn’t have as much space as we thought, so we had to change our ideas very quickly. It was quite frustrating to have to change our plans… but I think solving that space problem, created a better way of presenting the show. We were able to secure the central space in the Soap Factory, so we decided to do it in the round. In rehearsals I started to watch from all sides and encouraged everyone to do the same. Playing in the round makes actors 100% engaged and adds an element of voyeurism; audience watching the actors, and audience watching other audience watching the actors. Also, having the audience on all sides kind of makes them witnesses to the action… I want us all to witness what happens to Mr. Boban. And there is a very folk and traditional feel about playing in the round; theater has happened this way for hundreds and hundreds of years. At one point we considered having the audience stand for the entire show, but that was partly because we didn’t have a lot of chairs. We justified it, by saying, “in a war zone… you stand up, there are no chairs.”
At what point did you start looking at doing a remount?
As soon as the fringe ended, we wanted to do the show again. We wanted more people to see the show and make it better. Pretty soon afterwards we were thinking about touring, and how to go about doing that… we decided that the most sensible thing to do was to do a another run here. We looked at another warehouse space near the Soap Factory, but that didn’t work out. Noah and I got an email from Theater Latte Da (as did many other people)… they were looking for shows and companies to play in their space during their dark times. So we made made an offer.
What are the major factors you had to consider in remounting a Fringe show?
Financial. It’s important to us that we pay everyone involved. Paying everyone somehow makes it real, very real – and that’s a big financial step for us. Also there’s the rental of the space and new and bigger marketing. It’s just a bigger financial commitment… I don’t think there’s any way around that. If we don’t make money that’s fine as long as we can cover the costs…
How are the risks different?
It’s always a risk. I don’t know if doing a remount is more of a risk or not. Artistically, people expect to see more experimental work during the Fringe. I want to continue that kind of work beyond the fringe… I think ‘Boban’ does that. We really want to reach out and bring audiences in that have never been to a fringe festival. We’re excited to do the show again and for people to see it again. I’m looking forward to seeing Boban’s world again. I recently edited the film (a performance of ‘Boban’)… I’ve seen the show including rehearsals maybe 15 times, I was editing and watching back the footage and there were moments that really got me and moved me, even on a tiny computer screen… that’s gotta be a good thing.
How will this performance differ at Loring Playhouse vs. The Soap Factory?
It will differ a little bit as it is a different space and we’ll have to adapt. It’ll be essentially be the same story but tweaked around the edges and tightened up. It will still be performed in the round. And there will be different and new moments to find at the Loring. I’m going to make some changes, but only slight. It’ll feel different in that new space but it’s essentially the same show… same, same but different - you know?
What advice do you have for first-time performers applying to the Fringe next year?
My advice would be, first of all, if you’re thinking about doing it – do it. Find out what really matters to you, what you really care about and what stories you really want to tell… and try to figure out the best way for you to tell your story… how you can tell your story in a way that works the best for you. And realize that the Fringe is great support and a great place to experiment and feel free to totally go for it. Don’t censor yourself and don’t worry too much about getting it right or getting it wrong, just get it out there. Go see lots of theater and see lots of (other) Fringe shows. And ask for help if you need help. There are so many people in Minneapolis that make great theater. Have an open mind, and try collaborating with other artists. Live Action Set is Noah Bremer, Megan Odell, Galen Treuer and Vanessa Voskuil and we cast three more people for the Boban show; Robert Haarman, Kari Kelly, and Kimberly Richardson… I was blessed with this cast and am very grateful to all of them. They all come from different places in terms of training and approach and all have wonderful ideas to offer. In a collaboration like this, the play creation process can take longer, but it is a very exciting and vibrant way of creating theatre and the results can be very rich.
What other projects are you working on right now?
I’m directing Miss Nelson is Missing: The Musical at Stages Theatre Company, that opens in January 2006 and I have a great desire to make a couple shows that are big and quite epic in terms of cast size and space. I’ve met so many amazing people in Minneapolis, wherever I go, I’m casting people in future shows. I’m always thinking, “I want to work with that person or collaborate with that person.” In my head, I’m working with casts of 8 to 18 people and figuring out how I’m going to do that. I’m also considering a couple smaller, three person shows and a one person show. These will all be physical and very visual. Also, I recently played Michael J, the class president in Awesome 80s Prom. That was wild and a lot of fun. Go and see it… it’ll make you giggle… and you must dress for the occasion!
How’s the new bicycle helmet working out?
I haven’t crashed yet, so I don’t really know. I’ll let you know after my first crash.
Any close calls?
I almost got hit yesterday. I haven’t owned a bike since I lived in London and I used to borrow a bike in Bath, so I’m kind of finding my bicycle feet again. I’m very excited… I feel liberated. The frame is English, and it’s got yellow tires, and it’s fast… It feels like I’m flying. The frame is a 1970’s Raleigh frame. (Laughs) It’s English with lots of bits and pieces stuck onto it… kind of like me.
Interview in The Onion, July 2005 - During the creation of Please Don't Blow Up Mr. Boban
by Adri Mehra
1) What is Live Action Set?
Live Action Set is a Minneapolis based performance group, it’s members are Noah Bremer, Megan Odell, Galen Treuer and Vanessa Voskuil. They have backgrounds in physical theater, clowning, dance and everything else they’ve picked up along the way. ‘Please Don’t Blow Up Mr. Boban’ is a collaboration between Live Action Set and myself. For this show, we have cast three additional performers: Robert Haarman, Kari Kelly & Kimberly Richardson.
2) Tell about "clowning" as a form or philosophy.
Clowning as a theatrical form, is a way of being and performing on stage. It is sometimes ridiculous, sometimes tender. The clown is open and playful, innocent and optimistic, hopeful. The clown sees the world as a more simple place. The clown is universally recognized, because it is inside every one of us. Some of us reveal more of the clown than others. Part of the beauty of the clown is his/her ability and desire to play: create and pretend… for a performer that can be very liberating. Clowning allows the actor to connect directly with the audience, endlessly invent and play. The clown wants to please. The clown doesn’t just think ‘outside the box’… the clown doesn’t know what the box is. It’s hard to call clowning a philosophy… although, if more people followed ‘The Way of the Clown’ as a philosophy, the world would be a brighter place to be. We’d be more honest and definitely laugh a little more.
3) Is there a difference between clowning and physical theater?
(Especially something tangible to the "uninitiated" theatergoer's eye?)
In a training situation, clowning is an element of physical theater. If you train at a physical theatre school, you will most likely encounter clowning… because clowning requires the performer to be physically supple and open. Talking tradition: forms of clowning existed in Greek theater, there are clowns in Shakespeare, there are clowns in Restoration comedies. And talking physical traditions: clowning evolved through Commedia Del Arte (a classic form of Italian comic theatre), Pantomime, and Mime… these forms demand great physical skill… and are referred to as physical styles of performance. So, in that respect, I think clowning is physical theater. Although, the clown is not normally a good dancer, mime or juggler… but the clown will try all of the above, for the fun of it… and to please the audience.
4) What do you look for when you audition newcomers to your troupe?
I think I look for people that are open and playful and in some ways have the ability to be children… the ability to endlessly invent. I look for people that say yes and are not afraid to look foolish. I look for people that would rather play a silly game than study. I look for people that spent a lot of time in detention.
5) How much risk is there in the work you do? Have you ever encountered resistance, in the form of a staid, uncooperative audience, or downright offended spectators? How do you cope with this risk?
For a performer, clowning can be risky at times… I encourage performers to be themselves on stage, in the moment (and not psychological) and I encourage them to be on stage unplanned… so there is an element of improvisation, but without the suggestions from the audience or the rules of the game.
Of course I’ve encountered spectators that have been offended or confused. The clown is little like a child… sometimes the clown gets carried away and takes things a bit to far. Often the clown talks directly to the audience and sometimes people aren’t used to that. The clown also has the ability to debunk everything and turn everything upside down, including traditional theatrical conventions. In terms of coping with the risk, I guess I, or performers I’m directing just cope. If there’s no risk involved, things are too safe. If you know what the outcome will be, or have it all planned out, you should re-approach and move the goal posts… surprise yourself.
6) You used the theatrical concept of Bouffon in your Bastille Day
re-enactment of the storming of the Bastille. What is Bouffon, and how
did you use it?
Bouffon is a grotesque form of clowning. The bouffons are clowns from a darker place. They are deformed and twisted. Again, these clowns are within all of us, some people show more of their bouffon than others. They are obsessed with all things base and crass. They love blood and guts and poo and piss and farts. They love to play the game of war and the game of killing just for the fun of it. They love to re-enact battles for the pure joy of dieing and killing and ripping their guts out. Bouffons live in gangs, and normally their leader is the biggest fool of all. When a performer plays bouffon, their whole body becomes a mask, thus allowing them to do things they wouldn’t normally do. Approaching the Barbette Bastille Day street party, I thought it would be fun to re-enact the Storming of the Bastille… and then suggested to Live Action Set that they play as bouffon clowns, because I thought the bouffons would really get of on it. The performers created their bouffons, and the switch was flicked… the bouffons came out to play and they loved it.
7) Where does the line exist between comedy and tragedy? Does it exist?
In the world of clowning, the line between comedy and tragedy can be very thin (of course, that is a choice one makes when creating a piece of theater). And this ‘fine line’ takes you into the area of Tragic Clown. I think in life comedy and tragedy sometimes sit side by side and moment to moment. And the questions are: How do we deal with the tragedies in our lives and our world? How do we find hope? How do we joke again and smile again? The clown has the ability to continue. The clown is optimistic. ‘Please Don’t Blow Up Mr. Boban’ is a tragic clown show… in it we have a central clown figure, Mr. Boban… all around him is war and devastation. But he continues and has hope and wants to go over to the other side of the mountain to see what it’s like there.
8) How important is it for the theatre you do to be site-specific? How is that different from more conventional performative forms in the theatre?
Whoa, this is a thick question. I’m gonna skip this one if that’s okay.
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