Joans feedback on proposal

From: Joan Schirle <jschirle@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 1:15 PM
Subject: Re: [FWD: feedback?]
To: Walken Schweigert <walken.schweigert@gmail.com>


Sorry it took so long to get back to you--you're probably on draft 5
of this by now--have been traveling.........See my comments by each
thing.....

Working Title
Renegade Phantasms or The Shadow Cast Along the Banks of the Mississippi
I like your title.
Themes
Your themes don't seem to tie in with your project purpose outlined
below. anAre these dual things meant to be taken as 'vs.', or +, or
what? Your 'themes' also in most cases seem to be images rather than
themes, which is fine to list images. For them to be themes, I need to
know your pov on the image--see my comments


ghosts/transients DO YOU MEAN THE GHOSTS OF TRANSIENTS, or ghost AND
transients? or transient images?
nature/natural forces Nature in relation to what? the river? people?
danger/change/unknown vs. stability/permanence/stasis--got it! This is
actually a theme.
death/dreams Again--death AND dreams? death IN dreams? what's the
connection beyond images?
industry/social injustice -- how are these related? Do you mean the
effect of industry on social justice? or are these really separate
themes? your purpose outlined below seems to imply that this should be
first or have more importance



Premise

Trying to stabilize a force that has an intrinsic current leads to suffering.
Is this a metaphor for the river and something else? I'd like more
specificity : suffering of what/whom? I think you could say this
simpler, more poeticially:
" A force that possesses an intrinsic current, like the Mississippi
itself, resists mightily all attempts to stabilize it. Great suffering
has come from many such attempts."

Synopsis

This show is comprised of a band of ghosts who all died in some way on
or in the Mississippi River. Relegated to the lower dregs of society
because they gave outlets to forces that civilized society tends to
control, they represent a threat to ideals manifested inside a
controlling society. Each ghost is driven by an powerful internal
current, which society tried to block or channel to its own uses.
Some characters that we have discussed include two lovers--one who is
trying to say goodbye, and one who is trying to bring them both back
to life by building a strange machine. Other characters we’ve
discussed are gamblers, river rats, prostitutes, businessmen who tried
to control the river and died in the process, shanty boat caravans,
etc. The audience is also on a journey, experiencing the ghosts as
they experience the river; the audience is traveling down the river
whose banks are littered with ghosts. The ghosts tell their stories,
have conflict with each other, and comment on the present as well as
reveal the past.


Stylistic Influences

surrealist clown, (movement through the world is the driving force
that tells the story)
absurdism
circus arts (stilts, acrobatics, juggling, etc.)
images from Robert Parke Harrison (The Architecht’s Brother)
Faulkner Rock
old time social music

Purpose for Telling These Stories I rewrote this

We wish to make connections unbiasedly from the performers to the
audience, and within the audience as well, in contrast to the
controlling effects of a society that maintains us in stasis and
static hierarchies. We seek to connect people through a dialogue that
will open a way to find a commonness within them. We aim to do this
without being didactic, only to propose that we have more choices than
are often presented to us and therefore we each need to decide for
ourselves (collectively and individually) what is important. We will
propose this by asking questions, not in an attempt to find any one
answer, but to encourage the act of questioning. We are creating this
theatre as a way of seeking a kind of justice for the injustices that
have been done and are continuing to be done; however, we choose the
way of theatre because it can affect not only the mind, but the
emotions and the soul through music, humor, movement, and play.



I took this out because it sounded very nihilistic and postmodern:
but by acknowledging that nothing is more important that anything
else. And you can't 'crush' a current--that's a mixed metaphor; you
can only block it, damn it, or channel it.



hope that helps---good luck! sounds very very interesting! will you do
it on a raft????

xxxx

joan