"Putting the Pieces Back Together: A brief history of how we were first Torn"

The closest analogue to the process is professional wrestling, where the individual moves, the characterizations, and the kinds of dialogue and situations necessary to the performance are rigorously practiced, but the structure to the performance is open, with the wrestlers (actors and actresses) communicating new developments to each other sub-rosa. Our innovation was to take that technique, and replace the hyperbolic, one-dimensional material of wrestling with a modern piece of drama.

In the film medium this type of work is not new (for example: the work of directors like Mike Leigh, Wong-Kar Wai, and John Cassavetes). On stage, however, work like this is unprecedented. To be sure, long form improvisation on stage exists but what we are doing is quite different. For instance, Bay Area TheatreSports, created in 1986, has been pushing the envelope in what improvisational theatre could offer. With no restrictions or constraints, the performers create all new material from the usual methods (audience suggestions, slips of paper drawn out of a hat, etc.) each night. Since the circumstances, stories, and characters change nightly, such work, however brilliant, can never become an iconic piece of drama.

Torn, is an attempt to find a middle ground between the "usualness" of traditional theatre and the utter unpredictability of traditional improvisation. Experimental? Maybe, though I shudder at the thought that Torn might be viewed as "experimental theatre". Rather, I would say Torn is an entirely new form of theatre.

That having been said, I'll let you in on a little secret: The original intent of Torn (the Vassar College production) was to present a "traditional" play. I had just finished Sam Shepard's Suicide in B Flat and I was eager to line up my next project. The story of seven college friends reuniting at their best friend's wake had been bubbling in my mind and I hired Blake Goddard and Ramen Cromwell, two of my writer friends, to hammer out a script.

While they worked on the finer points of the story, I started rehearsing my company of actors. The idea was this: since the play was based on the relationships that had developed through college and the years since, we would rehearse those relationships and events that had bearing on the play through improvisation. Goddard and Cromwell had already delivered a set of characters and a broad outline for the play on which we would base these history rehearsals. From the first rehearsal (which represented the first day of college), we began improvising, building a common bank of experiences; a shared history between these characters.

Halfway through the rehearsal process, but before the play was finished, it occurred to me that the actors were actually "living" the history - a history that Goddard and Cromwell were trying to write. The tangential developments that often sprang from the improvisations proved to be as interesting, if not more interesting than what we had intended. It became painfully clear to me that the relationships had developed so deeply and the characters had become so full and rounded that memorizing the lines to Torn, as written, would ultimately be limiting. The scripted lines became expendable. The story, however, was not.

I called Blake and Ramen with the news and they were not happy. They had already scripted sixty pages - Ramen wrote the first act (which included a series of flashbacks) and Blake had written two-thirds of the second act - and they, like any writers, wanted to see their work performed. I couldn't go forward without their approval so we negotiated. In the end, it took several assurances (about crediting and the like) and two bottles of small batch bourbon and the deal was sealed (I think the fact that we were friends helped immensely).

Now, since the actors were the ones who actually had to put themselves on the line and perform the play with no script (i.e., no safety net), breaking the news to them was an even trickier proposition. They had been led to believe that a script would be delivered two weeks before opening so that they could analyze the script, memorize the lines, learn the blocking, and the other business of preparing a play. As you might expect, anxiety rose as opening night drew nearer with no script to be found.

About a week before we opened, I sprang the news that we were going to improvise the show based on an incomplete script. To say that the ensemble did not take to it very well is an understatement. It was all just fun and games while they improvised the rehearsals but now the prospect of carrying over what they had done into performance was terrifying.

Over the next few days, we worked the play tirelessly but the results were disappointing. The ensemble was demoralized. Since the usual scapegoats for bad dress rehearsals (dropped lines, missed entrances, jumped cues) were eerily absent, the cast could not foresee how they would get better. In their minds, this was impossible. How could they tell a coherent story without benefit of a script?

It was a mess. In sharp contrast to the rehearsals, my actors couldn't meet each other in the moment. Even though they had "lived" as these characters, fear of failure barred them from responding honestly in the situation. Actors are trained to depend on the script. They've been taught that everything they need to know is in the script, with the director providing explication. What happens when you take the script away? Little did I know that by removing the constraints of the text, the actors would be imprisoned by their own perceived limitations.

The rehearsals leading up to opening night lacked the focus of traditional theatre and the crackling spontaneity of improvisation. Considering what we hoped to accomplish, this was a disastrous combination. There were missed beats, deadening droughts of action, and meandering malaise. Morale had fallen into crush depth. Everything pointed to disaster. We were going to bomb.

Then, just two days before we opened, at our 4 AM rehearsal, something magical happened. The company was dead tired and, as usual, unhappy to be rehearsing at that ungodly hour. It would have been better if the play was going to be successful, but no one saw the point in going through that sort of hell if the play was going to be a failure.

When we got started, expectations were low. But somewhere, somehow, something happened and the play clicked. Everything we had done in rehearsal finally came into fruition. Tried as all hell and not willing to take it anymore, the ensemble broke out. They were electric. The sour taste left on our palette from the past week's rehearsals immediately transformed into something resembling sweet victory. We went from enervated to energetic as the play literally came to life in front of our eyes. It was then that we knew we had something very, very special.

In the end, we didn't bomb. We actually had to add seats because people kept coming back to see how the play changed and evolved from performance to performance.

There was one near heart attack: on our closing night, during the first act, there was a knock on our stage door (a small parlor that we converted into a makeshift theatre with 35 seats). I was sitting in the audience and my heart dropped. We were performing in a small space and the knock was clearly audible. This wasn't part of the play!

Another knock - this time louder. Though the actors on stage tried to ignore the first one, they couldn't ignore the second one. D.W. Sweet, the actor playing Scott Blume, turned to Flynt (Edwin Maldonado) and Sarah (Caroline Gordon-Elliott) and said, "Excuse me." He walked to the door and swung it open to reveal a man in clown make-up.

"Is this the birthday party?" the clown asked.

"No, it's down the hall," D.W. said.

The clown did a little circus flourish, smiled, and went on his way. D.W. closed the door and the scene continued with a brief tangent about birthdays.

I was too busy chewing my shirt and gasping for air (wondering all the while if there was a mix up in scheduling space? What would we do if there were an army of clowns and a gaggle of kids outside waiting to celebrate a birthday in our space?) to understand the beauty of what had happened. I was later told that the actors engineered the stunt to give me a taste of my own medicine. They succeeded - in more ways than one.

This is the third time around. I'm a bit older and a bit wiser. The actors know from the beginning what's in store and the process has been further developed and refined. The establishment of a new direction in American theatre has long been overdue. While our little play might not be it, in my mind, Torn crystallizes the potential that new plays can still offer.

DL
Theatre/Theater
Los Angeles, CA 2002