"Mommie Dearest" & 24 Hour Play

I was involved in a great event last night, "24 Hour Playfun." Groups of director/writer/actors were randomly selected and given 24 hours to write, rehearse and perform a play. It went up last night to benefit DCTV/Pro-TV and Dramatic Adventure's ACTion Ecuador project. The event reminded me of all the great talent that embodies this city. Just breathing, living, creating. AWE-some. A lot of the work and talents were absolutely brilliant. I had an all-female posse. I worked with Brooke Volkert who wrote a horror piece, B-movie, murder/revenge story... of course which was about a lesbian love story so great, that one would kill for the other... oh and it's set on the Jersey shore. Hilarious. I received it at 8am yesterday, like a gift on Christmas morning when I was a kid, not knowing what to expect, and got straight to work. John Waters, "Friday the 13th" series, film noir and pulp fiction genres, David Lynch, Parker Posey in "House of Yes," Joan Crawford in "Mildred Pierce,"and of course, as portrayed in "Mommie Dearest," all swam in my head. How to create the environment of this on an empty stage with no tech? Well, we start and end with Patsy Cline on the speakers of course..."I Love You So Much It Hurts"... then have those insistent film noir ocean waves crashing through the entire play. Shut off all the lights so the play happens in the dark, put flashlights in everyone's hand, make it about the human sound of fear and what you can't see, let the writer's unadulterated language bring the funny, and have the scared/tortured girl scream high shrills... a cheap gimick to scare the audience in the dark. End with the dead girl's animated arm flashing a flashlight to silhoette the final kiss, creating the classic 50's vignette ending, I think my memory refers to "I Love Lucy"? The only thing we could've used was rehearsing with the flashlights as the performance was the first time the actors used them in the dark. They had so much to juggle. And to make sure the flashlights are more directed, the quality of the light source, as well as how it is used for dramatic effect by the actors. Not all of it worked, but overall I was very happy and learned so much from the experience. I love this kind of instinctual improv work. The 24 hours was all about PLAY! What fun. Three rules of the game...1. Play starts with "It was an accident" 2. Has the line "I've always wanted to go to Australia 3. Use 1 of 3 props (mirror, metal box, sheriff badge)
An excerpt from the play...
Tricia: Oh, you want to go to Australia? Maybe I want to go places too.
Sally: What are you talking about?
Tricia: But I can’t, can I? No. I have to stay and take care of my brother.
Sally: Billy…
Tricia: My paralyzed brother.
Regan: And whose fault is that?
Sally: It was an accident.
Tricia: Everything’s an accident with you.
Sally: I didn’t mean to.
Tricia: You should have been paying attention!
Sally: I was only three!
Regan: Some people never change.
Tricia: You must have seen him crawling in the grass in front of your tricycle.
Sally: I didn’t. Not until it was too late. And by then I couldn’t stop. There was this sickening thud.
Tricia: You snapped his spine.
Regan: He never learned how to walk. And it’s your fault.
Sally: No
Regan: Now it’s payback time.