Wellman's universe: infinitely sparse, infinitely many

And so it begins. About a year now since yours truly has worked on something of substance, theatrically speaking. I must confess that I have been out of the loop, disinterested, pulled away by other life concerns that artistic endeavors have taken the back seat. Now my poison of choice comes in the poetic, chaotic absurdity of Mac Wellman's Three Americanisms. For those unfamiliar with his work, (as am I-- really-- for how could you truly familiarize or "understand" the scope of a script that teeters on gibberish while recognizing, in bits and pieces, the poetic resonance of his language in spite, --or rather because--of it's irrationality?) he attempts to map concepts of Sierpinski's carpet as he formulates his text. The notion of infinity in space and time, the text mirrors in its repetition and play with homonyms that iterates sounds to allude to a multiplicity in meaning, thus jettisoning "logical" expression, one that demands a kind of textual linearity in thought. Therefore, working on his text preliminarily, one must play with sounds as they impel one to react, feel, think, based on the rhythm of the language. Tracking the impetus to speak, having to find the urgency to express the character's thoughts, as one who must deliver herself through a monologue came through several points in the experimentation. In short, I am surprised to find myself truly 'lost' and must savor the state of the unknown. It's been so long since I've encountered a text that demands enormous trust and genuine daring from a performer. Since there are no 'right' or traditional renderings of this piece it requires full investment from the performer to make sense of the material, using one's power to invent a reality that one can grasp and believe, in order to plunge into Wellman's world, as is written.

This is a humble endeavor for now, as I baby-step my way back into acting. As is always the case, I find myself cautious as far as what projects with which I wish to be involved. It's been a pleasure thus far and I am glad that Kevin (Humbert) has asked that I accompany his paper with a rendition of Wellman's piece for a symposium next weekend. (For those interested, some of Kevin's academic work is linked to this site. It's an interesting read on Hungarian art as it relates to modernism and notions of nostalgia and memory.)

So. We'll just have to see...