The scent of a rose
Coming down down down down from Wellman is like cascading water batting the rocks at the bottom of a fall. BAM! says the child.
So. The Humanities Symposium this weekend went well with Wellman's language as my weapon amidst the stunning intellectual discourses ranging from the privatization of God to Modernity in Michalangelo Antonioni's L'aventura. It was an diverse panel that took up my whole Saturday.
On the subject of Wellman, a question was posed. How does an actress work on a piece that has lines like these for a monologue:
"For which was up and done be done did am...
For the wheel turns and turns up a mythic rutabaga."
I warned you on an earlier post about the chaos and absurdity of Wellman's language and in some ways, doubted its viability to communicate what I believe to be the essence of poetry above rational words. How do you engage strangers who watch you utter a string of irrationality, and hold them long enough to begin communication on a different level, in this case, different plane. (Incidentally, it's meet, I think, that the conversation is mapped through the concept of Sierpinski's carpet, where the iterations allude to expansion in various planes. What is it? Infinite space with zero mass? The expansion of universes, thoughts, within the confines a finite language?) The most salient response I could give to that question and to Professor Steier who calls my rendition "Method" and thus suggests a brand of hypocrisy on the part of Wellman who claims an attempt at a re-invention of theater, intending to veer away from one that takes itself too seriously, is this: in 'playing' with the script, I had to use the words as the launching pad, understanding the emotional character ingrained within words, by virtue of its elemental parts, i.e. vowel sounds, etc.. True, that unlike Tenessee Williams' plays or any number of contemporary realistic writers, Wellman defies the logic of a straight, logical narrative and therefore makes it nearly impossible to track psychology via a 'plot' or character development. Nonetheless, the power of the word-play, even at the height of its irrationality, carries within it sounds that have visceral impact upon utterance. This resonance taps into a kind of psychic/emotional response. In a way similar to poetry that aims at the essence of things, as opposed to its detail (was it Dickinson who said, a poem is the essence of a rose,...or am I imagining that she actually said that?) Wellman, in my opinion, is not trashing language, but trying to illustrate the ephemeralness of words, of their distinct power upon utterance, that we don't hold them in a strict meaning, in the permanence of a singular idea based on their sequence; but rather, each phrase alludes to the essence of a moment delivered upon release. These moments are distinct and the shifts, drastic or subtle support the collage-like character of existence where no one idea encapsulates a life or a structure with its complex of contradictions. This, however, does not preclude emotions or logic. On the contrary, savoring the sounds and the unusual sequential ties give way to an alternative avenue in deciphering meaning, much in the same way that poetry communicates the inexplicable.
As for the process of memorization, it came in tandem with the psychological tracking of the words' emotional resonance, so that a logic comes to the fore based on sounding out the phrases. Eventually, through a series of experimentation, a "logical" character emerged. The drive for her speech, the impetus for expression--in short, the "why's"--were chiseled out of this amorphous text and in an unexpected way, a "character's" full emotional, interior life surfaced, one that provokes observations like those of Professor Steier who was surprised to find a kind of "Methody" rendition to a text that may elicit a dry declamation of words. Well, that's one way to do it, I guess. But to dry out the words, in my opinion, is to cheat them of their deeper, fuller character. Each abstraction of sound intimates a soulful meaning. In my mind, there lies the beauty of language that continually attempts to touch on something more than its logical vesture.
So. The Humanities Symposium this weekend went well with Wellman's language as my weapon amidst the stunning intellectual discourses ranging from the privatization of God to Modernity in Michalangelo Antonioni's L'aventura. It was an diverse panel that took up my whole Saturday.
On the subject of Wellman, a question was posed. How does an actress work on a piece that has lines like these for a monologue:
"For which was up and done be done did am...
For the wheel turns and turns up a mythic rutabaga."
I warned you on an earlier post about the chaos and absurdity of Wellman's language and in some ways, doubted its viability to communicate what I believe to be the essence of poetry above rational words. How do you engage strangers who watch you utter a string of irrationality, and hold them long enough to begin communication on a different level, in this case, different plane. (Incidentally, it's meet, I think, that the conversation is mapped through the concept of Sierpinski's carpet, where the iterations allude to expansion in various planes. What is it? Infinite space with zero mass? The expansion of universes, thoughts, within the confines a finite language?) The most salient response I could give to that question and to Professor Steier who calls my rendition "Method" and thus suggests a brand of hypocrisy on the part of Wellman who claims an attempt at a re-invention of theater, intending to veer away from one that takes itself too seriously, is this: in 'playing' with the script, I had to use the words as the launching pad, understanding the emotional character ingrained within words, by virtue of its elemental parts, i.e. vowel sounds, etc.. True, that unlike Tenessee Williams' plays or any number of contemporary realistic writers, Wellman defies the logic of a straight, logical narrative and therefore makes it nearly impossible to track psychology via a 'plot' or character development. Nonetheless, the power of the word-play, even at the height of its irrationality, carries within it sounds that have visceral impact upon utterance. This resonance taps into a kind of psychic/emotional response. In a way similar to poetry that aims at the essence of things, as opposed to its detail (was it Dickinson who said, a poem is the essence of a rose,...or am I imagining that she actually said that?) Wellman, in my opinion, is not trashing language, but trying to illustrate the ephemeralness of words, of their distinct power upon utterance, that we don't hold them in a strict meaning, in the permanence of a singular idea based on their sequence; but rather, each phrase alludes to the essence of a moment delivered upon release. These moments are distinct and the shifts, drastic or subtle support the collage-like character of existence where no one idea encapsulates a life or a structure with its complex of contradictions. This, however, does not preclude emotions or logic. On the contrary, savoring the sounds and the unusual sequential ties give way to an alternative avenue in deciphering meaning, much in the same way that poetry communicates the inexplicable.
As for the process of memorization, it came in tandem with the psychological tracking of the words' emotional resonance, so that a logic comes to the fore based on sounding out the phrases. Eventually, through a series of experimentation, a "logical" character emerged. The drive for her speech, the impetus for expression--in short, the "why's"--were chiseled out of this amorphous text and in an unexpected way, a "character's" full emotional, interior life surfaced, one that provokes observations like those of Professor Steier who was surprised to find a kind of "Methody" rendition to a text that may elicit a dry declamation of words. Well, that's one way to do it, I guess. But to dry out the words, in my opinion, is to cheat them of their deeper, fuller character. Each abstraction of sound intimates a soulful meaning. In my mind, there lies the beauty of language that continually attempts to touch on something more than its logical vesture.
posted by rocelyn at 9:13 AM
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