 “Are You Ready to be Astonished?”
In Conversation with Shipwrecked! director, John Sipes, with Don Rothman, UCSC Professor and SSC Board member.
Don Rothman: What attracts you to SSC in 2009?
Eric Ting: I have such deep respect for SSC’s audiences and for the Santa Cruz community, because I could sense when I was sitting in the Redwood Glen watching Romeo and Juliet last summer, watching the arms wrapped across shoulders, the children snuggling in their parents’ laps, listening to the laughter, that people here know that theater is the celebration of what it means to be human. And this became abundantly clear last December when the supporters of SSC made their voices heard.
DR: What does directing in Santa Cruz this summer give you the opportunity to do artistically?
ET: Get away from the madness of East Coast and spend a little time amongst the tall trees.
DR: Ah, the green world! How would you describe your planning process as a director?
ET: Lots of research, lots of daydreaming. It’s like putting the pieces of a puzzle together without fully knowing what all the pieces are. I start working with the play about a year in advance. I’ll read it once, just for the pure experience of it; then a second time to identify particular challenges or aspects that I need to learn more about. Then I submerge myself in research and reading, completely separating myself from the play, letting my curiosity wander. Eventually the conversations with designers start up or I have to start thinking about casting, and the play comes back into the picture.
DR: How do you organize all this?
ET: I do this funny thing as part of my prep – which perhaps marks me for my generation – I make a spreadsheet. You know, columns for every aspect of the production, marking events, actions, moments of focus, moments of celebration, moments of anguish, moments of beauty. It’s a sort of flow chart, a “big picture” examination of the play – very colorful. I find it appeals to the obsessive-compulsive part of my personality, and because I’m able to tackle practicalities here, I think it actually frees me up to be a bit of the anarchist – which I think is an essential identity to have starting any rehearsal process.
DR: So that pretty formal structure frees you, opens your imagination. What do you hope to learn (e.g., about the play, about yourself) in the process of directing this work?
ET: Having the opportunity to work on a great play, to really pull it apart and put it together again, is such a gift. And when it’s a play like Shipwrecked! by a playwright with the intelligence, mastery of craft, and heart of Donald Margulies, it becomes something much more valuable. You know those toys, they look like a looking glass, but when you peer into them all you see are small flecks of color reflected against mirrors that create this wonderful pattern? Then when you turn it, the flecks rearrange themselves into a whole new expression? I think one approaches a play like Shipwrecked! in much the same way one holds the looking glass up to the eye -- with reverence for its simplicity, with wonder at its mutability.
DR: What a terrific image! How to give audiences that wonder?
ET: This play is many things to many people -- on the one hand, an epic adventure story in the grand tradition of Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island; on the other hand, a profound examination of our culture's need to believe the unbelievable. Most audiences will fall in love with the play somewhere between the two. My journey, and the journeys of the actors, take us through the many turns and facets of Louis's story and Donald's play. We'll walk the tightrope that spans the two hands, constantly off-balance in order to stay balanced. I've never taken such a journey and not come out the other end a wiser person.
DR: I’m reminded of Yeats’s line: “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” The audience will take its own journey, participate in its own rebalancing, I suspect. Is there one thing in particular that you especially love about Shipwrecked!? Is there one moment or line that especially appeals to you as a jumping off point in your thinking about the work?
ET: Louis de Rougement is a showman, a shaman, a master storyteller, and a con artist. He is the heroic deceiver, wrapping seeds of truth in the succulent fruits of fiction. In many ways, to me, he is an embodiment of this art. Theatre is no less the fiction, aspiring towards truth. Donald's play is the best sort of play – because it demands the sort of imaginative investment that all great theatre demands. And if we're willing (as a collective audience) to go there... well, that's the true magic.
DR: What can our audiences expect?
ET: I love quoting Donald who often says he set out to write "a ripping good yarn."
DR: What is fresh and compelling about the play?
ET: There's a fascinating tension between the story being told and the man telling the story. The story itself is this fantastical tale of travel on the high seas, giant octopi, deserted islands, true love, heroic battles -- all the ingredients of "a ripping good yarn." The man telling the story... well, that's the human tale, of a man reliving past glories, seeking redemption amongst an audience of strangers. What separates theatre from storytelling is that central question of why the story is being told.
DR: To whom is the play addressed?
ET: Donald isn’t so much writing for children in his play, but neither is he writing specifically for adults. If anything, he’s writing for the child in each of us… some of us just happen to be closer to it than others.
DR: Why theatre at a time of economic crisis?
ET: I look around and see a lot of people turning inward, shoring up their personal securities, saving pennies, staying home more often, preparing for hard and harder times. This is a natural human instinct. In a tough economic climate, we can't afford to take too many chances. What theatre does, what it has always done, is to remind us of the others out there. The act of theatre is the act of creating empathy. The world is small and hard and brittle enough, don’t you think? Theatre, at its best, reminds us that we’re not alone, and in so doing, helps us to bend. Santa Cruz recognizes the value of live theatre, of the shared live experience, of an art form that (at its heart), as I said earlier, is a celebration of what it means to be human. And that is something we cannot afford to forget.
DR: Thank you for this eloquent acknowledgement of a special community, which is looking forward to seeing Shipwrecked! on the Mainstage.
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