I was hoping by now to have some video up from the 200 Funny Things rehearsal process. That's actually on the way. I should be able to post it by early next week.
As of now, we've had two preview performances in front of audiences which has been very important. How the performers and the audience interact in such an unstructured environment can be very volatile. The actors have to engage viewers instantaneously. If they don't, it's really easy for the audience to get lost.
Remember, the actors have invented these entities which can morph on a moment to moment basis from subhuman to human to superhuman. They can evoke these entities on demand but what happens in the interaction between the entities is up for grabs from there on out. We've been experimenting with ways to bring limited structure into the open improvisation but we still have a ways to go in that regard.
In any case the cast has been getting laughs. In both performances they logged 200 laughs in less than the 45 minute time limit. In the first performance they got there in 30 minutes, second performance 40 minutes. The issue really isn't getting laughs. It's getting the right mix of movement and immobility, silence and sound, words and vocal sound that keep the audience engaged without burning them out. Given the way we're working, it's really easy to overwhelm them. If you overwhelm them, they don't have time to laugh.
Experimenting in front of the audience is the only way to figure out how to proceed. All we can do in rehearsal is work through options but we really don't know how these options will work until we try them on an audience. It's kind of like acting without a net but that doesn't seem to bother the cast. Every performance opens up new possibilities and they keep putting those possibilities to work. So far it's been a great ride.
We've got performances on Friday and Saturday night at 9. If you're in the Chicago area, drop on by. Get all the pertinent information at collaboraction.org.
Later.