First Rehearsal

March 1

Today was our first generative rehearsal for what we are currently calling the untitled Nevada project. This piece is a unique experience for me because it is the first of the company’s projects that has not had its genesis in my own mind. In the past, I’ve been inspired by or become preoccupied with an event, an image, or a person and have allowed myself time to distill the root of my obsession into a question before bringing it into a rehearsal room.

This project was initiated by my good friend and a very intelligent playwright, Drew Larimore, who I invited to develop an idea under the auspices of the company. The idea for the Nevada project came from a photograph of Nevada residents in the desert in the 1940s and ‘50s watching nuclear tests. The explosions become unique forms of popular entertainment, reminding Drew of public hangings in Kentucky, his home state. Drew became interested in charting the deterioration of a relationship in this context.

For me, this idea was immediately engaging because of its place in a grand historical narrative. How did this moment in time – the creation of nuclear weapons – begin to change humankind’s relationship to itself? In hindsight, knowing our history with the use of atomic warfare, have we come any closer to understanding if we made the “right” choice? Is there a right choice in this particular arena? Is there a moment when scientific advancement begins to transform into humanist degeneration?

We started today by discussing our search for the one collective question that would fuel our generative activity. Because the impetus of this project is not of my own discovery, I am in the new position of not having that distilled question prepared in the earliest stages. I broke this search down into two components: structure and content, in anticipation that they will fuel one another as we construct material and, eventually, context.

Our first exercises focused on exploring content. The next time we meet, we will look at structure.

As the afternoon came to a close, I began thinking of the piece more as the atom project, as I discover within myself a growing interest in the notion of fracture. Jenn Dees, a member of our ensemble, shared with the group that the etymological origin of the word “atom” is Greek, and translates into “uncuttable”. I’ve begun asking myself the following questions:

What happens when the “uncuttable” is actually fractured?

Is there somehow a truly “uncuttable” or “unsplitable” being, element, or relationship?

How far down can anything ever be broken?

Where do the particles lost in the fracture go?

Can we create a metaphor for the splitting of a relationship thought “uncuttable” and the splitting of the atom, also thought “uncuttable”? Will the two resulting forms of violence mirror one another?

More to come.

ADAM