I haven't really said hello to everyone yet. Been too specific in my replies to Phil to click on 'Reply to all' and hope it is not too late to enter a dialogue. I'm not sure how many of you will read this before we meet. Anyway I look forward to working with you all. It does feel a bit like a crack squad of performance-y people brought together by Phil in the manner of a classic heist movie, I think of Michael Caine introducing everyone at the table and saying 'Camp Freddie you all know.' Anyway - I thought I'd comment on the music post as this is the most tangible (audible) to me at the moment. I enjoyed reading the atlas and the encyclopedia and watching the DVDs of Repeat after me etc. but feel that the music speaks most to me about the atmosphere of the triptych-to-be. I am a devout Radiohead fan anyway so recognised those tracks immediately and was pleased to hear the piano intro of Like Spinning Plates - an instrumental connection to Philip Glass but also an exquisite lyric about unspoken pain. 'While you make pretty speeches I'm being cut to shreds' etc. and this is what the piece seems to be saying to me at the moment - unspoken pain and unseen sponsors. I think of Stalin and doctored photographs when I watched the slideshow on the DVD and I think of indoctrinations and 'renditions' a theatrical word that has been hijacked by violence recently and I wonder how we can reclaim / re-re-appropriate it. The Glass tracks summon up powerful images of the Hours and an unvoiced unhappiness - the manic-depressive mother, the Bipolar author and the dying son waiting and wanting to fall. Drowning. The repetition, the ebbs and flows, the ripples, they speak to me in the same way as the questions and answers of Repeat after me and the click clack of the slide projector in the survey of images of the world. I hope we can make something as powerful live as the soundtrack of audio stimuli we already have. Having shared a ten minute silence with Rachel earlier this year I also wonder about the power of silence and how we might use it. Maybe a two minute silence for all the things we’ve never said and wished we had.
I think I will say a few things briefly and then expand later.
1: Casting, yes, you are as far as I'm concerned an assembled team perfect for 'The Job'. I will have to put up a separate post about the actual casting rationale, it goes beyond skills and expertise.
2: There's more music on the way that I'm listening to, the new radiohead album 'In Rainbows', and 'Coins and Crosses' by Ryan Teague. Spinning Plates is one of my favourite songs for that Lyric, and should be connected with The Nominees Are...
3: Stalin's doctored photographs were an early influence on an unmade show preceeding Appreciation, titled Family Portrait. In that show I planned to show the same photo repeatedly each time with minor changes.
4: Indoctrination as a practice is certainly appropriate for Repeat After Me, as is Rendition both in its contemporary and other original definitions. Rendition: to surrender or hand over persons or property. Rendition: The interpretation of a dramatic role. Render: Give in return. Rend: tear or wrench.
5: Unhappiness. Yes sad music, but as it happens, the Gratitude of Monsters is actually a comedy not a tragedy, or rather a satire. I will expand later.
During 'Nominees', various speech makers will need to be drowned out for going on too long. As in the Oscars. For some reason I remember the theme to 'Gone with the Wind' being used for this Job. So we will try this, but are there any other suggestions?
I have purchased the song 'High Hopes' as sung by Frank Sinatra. I find it has an excellent quality, which in ironic terms would be useful to the show's general theme of satirising progress, and might serve the purpose of a song and dance act between segments.
5 comments:
Hello everybody,
I haven't really said hello to everyone yet. Been too specific in my replies to Phil to click on 'Reply to all' and hope it is not too late to enter a dialogue. I'm not sure how many of you will read this before we meet. Anyway I look forward to working with you all. It does feel a bit like a crack squad of performance-y people brought together by Phil in the manner of a classic heist movie, I think of Michael Caine introducing everyone at the table and saying 'Camp Freddie you all know.' Anyway - I thought I'd comment on the music post as this is the most tangible (audible) to me at the moment. I enjoyed reading the atlas and the encyclopedia and watching the DVDs of Repeat after me etc. but feel that the music speaks most to me about the atmosphere of the triptych-to-be. I am a devout Radiohead fan anyway so recognised those tracks immediately and was pleased to hear the piano intro of Like Spinning Plates - an instrumental connection to Philip Glass but also an exquisite lyric about unspoken pain. 'While you make pretty speeches I'm being cut to shreds' etc. and this is what the piece seems to be saying to me at the moment - unspoken pain and unseen sponsors. I think of Stalin and doctored photographs when I watched the slideshow on the DVD and I think of indoctrinations and 'renditions' a theatrical word that has been hijacked by violence recently and I wonder how we can reclaim / re-re-appropriate it. The Glass tracks summon up powerful images of the Hours and an unvoiced unhappiness - the manic-depressive mother, the Bipolar author and the dying son waiting and wanting to fall. Drowning. The repetition, the ebbs and flows, the ripples, they speak to me in the same way as the questions and answers of Repeat after me and the click clack of the slide projector in the survey of images of the world. I hope we can make something as powerful live as the soundtrack of audio stimuli we already have. Having shared a ten minute silence with Rachel earlier this year I also wonder about the power of silence and how we might use it. Maybe a two minute silence for all the things we’ve never said and wished we had.
All best
Michael
Thanks for this Michael,
I think I will say a few things briefly and then expand later.
1: Casting, yes, you are as far as I'm concerned an assembled team perfect for 'The Job'. I will have to put up a separate post about the actual casting rationale, it goes beyond skills and expertise.
2: There's more music on the way that I'm listening to, the new radiohead album 'In Rainbows', and 'Coins and Crosses' by Ryan Teague. Spinning Plates is one of my favourite songs for that Lyric, and should be connected with The Nominees Are...
3: Stalin's doctored photographs were an early influence on an unmade show preceeding Appreciation, titled Family Portrait. In that show I planned to show the same photo repeatedly each time with minor changes.
4: Indoctrination as a practice is certainly appropriate for Repeat After Me, as is Rendition both in its contemporary and other original definitions. Rendition: to surrender or hand over persons or property. Rendition: The interpretation of a dramatic role.
Render: Give in return. Rend: tear or wrench.
5: Unhappiness. Yes sad music, but as it happens, the Gratitude of Monsters is actually a comedy not a tragedy, or rather a satire. I will expand later.
6: Silence, yes.
Phil.
During 'Nominees', various speech makers will need to be drowned out for going on too long. As in the Oscars. For some reason I remember the theme to 'Gone with the Wind' being used for this Job. So we will try this, but are there any other suggestions?
I have purchased the song 'High Hopes' as sung by Frank Sinatra. I find it has an excellent quality, which in ironic terms would be useful to the show's general theme of satirising progress, and might serve the purpose of a song and dance act between segments.
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