 |
| Andrea Murillo, from the Official SNM website |
In my first experience with the show, I mostly tried to follow the MACBETH story lines and see live the amazing things I’d see on the PBS documentary SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED. Myriad other things were occurring, and I’d catch a glimpse as I ran by following M or the Lady. On my 2nd viewing, I decided to explore some of the ‘ancillary’ characters. I was fortunate in that I was the only one in my group to be let off the elevator on a particular floor, where I came upon the character of Nurse Shaw (played by Andrea Murillo, the same girl I’d seen play ‘Sexy Witch’ the night before – I hadn’t known they did multiple roles until then) in the room with many bathtubs. No one else was there, so I decided to be her audience. I followed her for about 30 -40 minutes.
An aside – since I’ve been back from NY, people have asked for “details” about SLEEP NO MORE, particularly about the 1:1s, and I sort of smile and sigh. I’ve tried in some cases to do just that, but I’ve realized that it doesn’t help them fully appreciate the show. The true experience is in the totality of your brush with the show, not in specific details from it. SNM is meant to be a deeply personal, unique occurrence for each spectator. You note “details” according to your own history, understanding and predilections. Ten of us could have seen the same thing, and we’d come away having observed details the others did not, and with different interpretations of the things we all agree on having seen. It is like being an ‘eye-witness to a crime,’ in that though you were there and saw it, you were also disoriented, in shock, and awash with emotions related to what you were seeing, which can dramatically impact the reliability of your re-accounting of the event later. So, I could tell you what I saw, mostly, or partly, or perhaps even wrongly – none of which would do much good. The “details” are the skeleton of the piece – essential, well-conceived/formed/executed, and beautiful on their own, granted – but the soul of the experience is in the psyche, the heart, the loins, and the guts of the viewer as they observe, interact, and process what they’re going through. Purposefully, I will avoid “details” in my musings that aren’t directly related to my feelings and thoughts about my experience.
Anyway, back to the nurse in the room of many bathtubs. Basically, in a kind of hypnotic trance, she was washing? men’s pajamas, one piece at a time, in a bathtub 1/3 filled with water. Actually, she was taking 1 dry pajama top or pant, dipping it into the water to wet the bottom, then laying it atop the water, and watching blankly as the water soaked through completely and the garment sank. Then she would take the item out, wring it, and place it gently, methodically, and deliberately on the side of one of the other tubs in the room. Then she’d get another top or bottom and repeat the process for an entire stack of pajamas – I don’t remember how many exactly, but a lot. Repetitive, but fascinating nonetheless.
Why fascinating? Her level of concentration and focus, for one. She was obviously not ‘phoning in’ her performance, even though it was a Tuesday night, and she only had one follower. I respect that in an actor! She was rapt in the detail of her task, she was stoic and unwavering – like a British Palace guard, like someone performing a sacred rite. The actor in me also noted that it was like a Meisner repetition exercise. Her action seemed the same each time, BUT if that’s what you’re getting, then you’re not paying close enough attention, because it was NOT the same each time. Once it was dramatically different -- the garment floated instead of becoming saturated and sinking. She watched and watched and watched. I wasn’t sure if it would help or hinder if I submerged it for her, so I watched, fascinated by how she was going to solve the problem. So, her repetitive acts – riveting to me!
And my reaction to my continuing to be voyeur, rather than participating in some way, was interesting to me as well. Was it me being overly tied to the traditional separation of performer and spectator paradigm? Would I have gone over some ‘line’ of how much the spectator is allowed to engage in the action? You are never quite sure where that line is with this experience. Would it have been perceived as me trying to cause the actor to break character, which was not my intention? Would it be a kind of sacrilege to interrupt a ritual that was simultaneously numbing and enthralling the character? I still don’t know for sure. I wondered what previous audiences had done, if this actress was ready for someone to ‘dig in,’ if she had contingency plans for these and other possibilities I couldn’t even imagine.
Another aside: Understand too that this will not necessarily be a chronological order of what she did. They’re just my non-linear, jostling memories.
At some point, Lady Macbeth came into the room. The nurse led her to the bathtub with water, undressed her completely, and helped her into the tub. She laid out a kind of robe for the Lady on the side of the dry neighboring tub, and she left the room. I had seen the fantastic Lady M bathtub sequence the night before, so I followed the nurse – the only one in the room to do so.
At one point, while going through her pajama ceremony, she turned and vaulted gracefully through a ‘window’ in the cinderblock wall behind her. I wondered for half a second if I could follow, or if it would be me going where spectators were not allowed, or taking paths only to be traveled by actors. (The opening was high, narrow, and potentially dangerous for a clumsy person to try to negotiate in the near dark.) I was also reminded of the BLAZING SADDLES scene where “Lily” (Madeline Kahn) addressed a drunk cowboy with his feet propped up on the stage apron: “Are you in show business?” she asks, slyly. “No, ma’am,” the cowboy responds, and she blasts him with, “Then get your frigging feet off the stage!” and she sweeps his feet off with a swift kick. Well, I certainly didn’t want to put my ‘frigging feet’ on their stage, but remembering what elevator guy said—Fortune Favors the Bold--I took a chance and somehow managed to get my substantial and non-limber carcass up and through the window, which lead to the maze of branches. No one stopped me. And I was now regretting not pushing the floating pajama pants into the water.
In the maze, she interacted with another character in an exercise of mirroring, reaching, longing. They embraced, comforted one another. And then the nurse was on her way again, and I followed – again, the only one who did. Over the course of the next many minutes, we went to get her nurse jacket, dropped off her nurse jacket, picked up her nurse bag, went into an office where she did cruel things to a book with a scalpel, watched as she did a primal dance atop what looked like an autopsy table, watched with her from the balcony the entirety of a scene in the banquet hall…
As I followed I found myself feeling both the excitement the paparazzi must feel and a hair put out with her – it was a LOT of stairs we did together! I cursed under my breath each time she headed to the stairwell, and I hoped we’d be going down or only up one flight. Sometimes it was one flight, oftentimes not. Sometimes it was a slow climb, and sometimes fast and frantic, but I followed regardless. I found myself feeling strangely estrogen-y and competitive: “Window? Heck yeah, I’ll do a window. Is that all you got, baby? Bring it on! ” And as though she’d heard my silent challenge, she’d head toward a stairwell. And then she bounded out the frigging cinder-block window AGAIN!
I mumbled a curse word, but didn’t hesitate to follow this time. After all the running and stair climbing, though, I was a little more fumble-y than the first time, and my landing was a bit shaky. I REALLY hoped she wouldn’t go out the window a third time. Still, I stayed with her. (“Ha-HA! You’re not shaking me, sister!”) In the branch maze, she interacted with the woman there again, kind of tenderly this time, as a child needing comfort. She was rocked, her hair was brushed. She brought the character there the paper trinket she’d made with the scalpel and book earlier. Then she headed back into the branch maze, with me and only me in tow. She came to a locked wrought-iron gate, and I thought she could go no further, but she quickly slipped through the bars and disappeared out a door.
Damn. She won.
Her lithe, lean dancer body could do it easily, but my girth and boob protrusion weren’t making it through those skinny bars. Fortunately, I negotiated the maze another way and found her in the hallway soon after. I was more humble now about our little ‘competition,’ but also totally committed, and I followed her at a jog. Then she stopped suddenly, and I almost crashed into her back. She turned and looked me in the eye, shocking the hell out of me. I didn’t think they were supposed to do that! She grabbed my forearm, and took me into a small, isolated space for my first ever 1:1 encounter.
I will not go into details about what exactly happened in the 1:1 – it’s one of those things where you really had to be there, and to describe it kind of cheapens something that was magical in the moment. I will say it was INTENSE!
One of the things that made it intense is, after surprising me with eye contact and once inside the room alone with her, she stripped me of my mask. In case I hadn’t mentioned before, all spectators are required to don identical white masks. You are told never to take your mask off while in the performance space. It helps spectators identify who is part of the play and who is just another audience member. It provides a sort of homogenizing and ‘relegating’ of the audience, plus the anonymity can make you less self-conscious, even bold, about being voyeuristic. No one can see your face and know that it’s you looking, watching. There’s more comfort in the fact that actors go about their routines not acknowledging and seemingly being utterly unaware of your presence. They make deep eye-contact with one another, but never with you.
Well, in this 1:1, the character removes your mask, looks you directly in the eyes. After feeling so untouchable the whole night, I got touched (sometimes tenderly, sometimes forcefully, and sometimes downright roughly), looked at, scrutinized, and I felt totally naked and vulnerable. You’ve gotten used to the feeling of power, without even realizing it, because you can gaze and they can’t, and suddenly the tables are turned! They are the ones looking, penetrating, discerning, guessing your secrets, and holding all the power. And there’s the added discomfort that you know THEY know you’ve been watching them, and you feel embarrassed for your former boldness and violation of their personal space! And you’re disoriented, never quite knowing from breath to breath (if you remember to breathe!) if it is the character or the actor you’re dancing with. It’s tremendously disconcerting and terrifying, but a MASSIVE psychological and emotional turn-on as well. You become part of the play – separate from them, yet momentarily one of them. You go from strangers, to intimates, back to being strangers, all in a matter of minutes. I am still processing, nearly a week later!
After my 1:1, she pushed me out the door of our ‘alone room,’ and before she shut it, I instinctively extended my hand, I suppose to thank her, actor to actor and person to person, for such a wonderful adventure. She looked at my hand and then at me uncomprehendingly, and I realized she was still in character, and perhaps there are rules about touching the actor doesn’t initiate. Not wanting to cross the line, I put my hand to my heart instead and bowed slightly to her. I think I saw a twinkle of appreciation in her eye, though she stayed in character, and then she disappeared behind the door, shutting it firmly behind her.
I did not follow her anymore after that, though I think her cycle of activity had another 10-20 minutes to go. I didn’t want her thinking I was stalking her. Then I thought about how this whole adventure was meant to be a kind of exercise in ‘stalking.’ I guess the actors get used to it, even grow to like it, but you still don’t want to give anyone cause for the hairs on the back of their neck to stand up because you’re overly creepy or scary.
It made me wonder if they have a ‘panic button’ or something similar if a 1:1 starts to go badly, and I wonder if any actor has had to press it. I noted that there is a ‘black mask’ (sort of ushers, bouncers, docents who stop unacceptable behavior and can tell you where the bathroom is) very near to any major action, including just outside the door of 1:1s. It made me actually feel better for the actors, knowing that there was some safety built in for them. Being an actor and a professor to kids about the age of the cast in this show, I couldn’t help thinking of those kinds of things too…. Anyway, following Andrea Murillo’s “Nurse Shaw” was a riveting, unforgettable way to spend the first cycle of my SLEEP NO MORE experience the night of Tuesday, July 23, 2013.
No comments:
Post a Comment