Can you see the cloud in the table?

Perhaps this question requires a bit of explanation…

The concept of “the cloud in the table” is a challenge to look deeper into creations in the world around you. Since you’re reading this on a computer, odds are there is a table or desk directly in front of you (unless you’re a theater intern like myself, in which case you and your laptop are seated on the floor of an empty bedroom). Consider the table: its angles, textures, colors. What is before you is a finished product. Now imagine the journey the table took to come before you.

A cloud creates rain. The rain creates a sapling. The sapling grows into a tree, which becomes lumber. The lumber becomes the raw materials of a carpenter (or IKEA factory), and from this a table is crafted. Now consider the table before you, and picture the path it has taken.

I find that looking for the cloud in the table helps me look deeper into most any form of art.

As a director, my favorite part of any production process is the journey from script, to first read-through, to finished performance. In the case of Othello, our “cloud” is the mind of an Elizabethan actor, poet, and playwright. Sometime around 1603, this cloud and its rain gave birth to a tree: a tragedy about love, devotion, jealously, and revenge. From those words come our lumber, and over the past seven weeks we have crafted a polished theatrical event.

But the our table isn’t quite finished.

Many years ago, a director told me the following bit of wisdom, “Playwrights don’t make plays, playwrights make scripts. Actors don’t make plays, actors make performances. An audience makes a play.”

As you experience Othello, or any of the other theatrical events this season, consider the role you play in the journey of this creation. A script is created by a 400-year-old playwright. From the script, actors make choices, explore characters, and turn intention into action. From the same script, a production concept is created, sets are built, lights are focused, and costumes are constructed. Begining with tonight’s first preview performance, all of this will be presented to an audience, and from the experience of this audience, a play will emerge. As you watch Othello (or any of the other theatrical events this season), try to look a little deeper. Look for the journey this play has taken, and look for the touch of all the stellar artists that have crafted it along the way… and your role as an audience member in creating the final event.

That is how you see the cloud in the table.