Rubber Room 10: Unpredictability

February 13, 2011

Larissa: Kari Swenson Riely
Alan: Jacob Callie Moore
Sinclair: John Brady
Daytona: Elizabeth Bell
Patti: Blair Goldberg

If there's anything that bothers the actors about the experiment it is the unpredictability of working with actors they do not know.  By that, I learn by listening to them, they mean people with whom they have not rehearsed, whose tendencies and signals they do not know.  But that, of course, is the experiment.  I hear them discussing it on the elevator, and in front of the building after the performance.

More about that later, and what I have been calling "the reality dimension," and whether, as one of the actors put it, "reality is overrated." 

Sunday afternoon reality stopped the show.

We were three minutes from the end -- only two sentences remained to be spoken.  The show had had its own dose of unpredictability, as had all of the action in the second round.  They did different things, brought different objects with them into the room, said sentences in different ways, dropped a few lines, anticipated others.

With three minutes to go, someone began to moan.  It was an emotional moment in the play.  We knew there were teachers in the room.  At first, I thought the sound was an expression of solidarity across the profession.  The sound grew.  I turned to see one woman's head on the shoulder of another, but still did not feel there was any danger.

The actors were now aware of the sounds which they had professionally ignored until this moment, when the woman said, "I need to get out.  I need air."

We thought the worst.  We thought she might be having a heart attack.  The actors all stood up.  911 was called. The audience spilled onto the staging area; everyone co-mingled.  Once the situation was in hand, friends of the actors who had been wordlessly watching them perform, offered embraces and shook hands.  It reminded me of the world series game in San Francisco when the game was interrupted by an earthquake and the players could be seen in their uniforms holding their children in their arms.

EMS, to its credit, arrived in about ten minutes, and the theater's on the 12th Floor.  One of the workers said to the woman, "So you had to get into the act."  They had brought a wheel chair and a collapsible stretcher-bed.

The woman was telling the EMS workers that she felt okay now, that she didn't need any help.  Even if she truly felt that way now was the time to act, like when you get wind of a surprise party.  You have to act surprised.

She went off holding the hand of the EMS worker, meeting everyone's expectations.  

The play resumed.  They wound everything back five minutes and the two minutes leading up to the last three minutes were significantly different than they had just been played.  The actors stood in different parts of the room.  Their deliveries were slightly different.  The experiment was made even more experimental.