Reflecting on the Past, Looking to the Future

As we all adjusted to writing the new year on checks and other documents this January, I was reminded of its significance in terms of one of our recent projects. 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the explosion in Halifax harbor, an event that inspired the June 2016 tKAPOW production, Raining Aluminum. As the date of the anniversary approaches, we look forward to new opportunities to share the amazing stories we discovered as part of the devising process.

On January 21st, at a ceremony in Concord, theatre KAPOW was awarded the NH Theatre Award for Best Scenic Design for Raining Aluminum. While the show was up for many awards, we are really proud of being recognized in that category because the scenic elements were such an important part of our storytelling process, and a result of the collaboration of the company or artists. In fact, the early work on the set dates all the way back to our 2015 Artist Retreat when we hung various props from somewhat precariously attached bungee cords in the barn at Chanticleer Gardens. The set and the production evolved considerably from there and really took shape at the Charlestown Working Theatre where the show really felt most at home. It was nice to see that all of the work that went into developing the aesthetic for that show was recognized.

This spring, I have been offered the opportunity to revisit some of the stories of Raining Aluminum when I will lead a class at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Granite State College. I really look forward to sharing what I have learned with people who are so committed to continuing their own education.

The process of creating Raining Aluminum introduced us to some amazing people (past and present) and brought us together as a company. As December 6th gets closer, I look forward to the opportunity to find more ways introduce these people to more audiences.

~ Matt Cahoon

Montage by Wax Idiotical Films

Theatre as a Universal Language

Some of my favorite theatrical experiences as an audience member have been shows performed in languages other than English. As I've discussed in a previous blog, Teatr Zar, a Polish company that performed at Charlestown Working Theater a few years ago, put on one of the best pieces I've ever seen. I've been fortunate enough to see shows in Italian, French, Farsi, and ASL (which I'll grant included lots of English). In all of these cases, the power of the performances have had the ability to transcend the language barrier. It takes a special performer to bridge the gap of understanding, but when they are able to do so the results are profound. I suppose this is a reality with which opera fans are quite familiar.


As I write this, I'm on a plane back from Italy where I have spent the last 9 days in residence at LaMaMa Umbria International. I was last in Italy in 2013 for LaMaMa's Directors' Symposium. This time I was in Italy directing an original, one-woman piece entitled Bea and Me. The piece was written and performed by Marybeth Berry, a friend I met during the 2013 symposium. The show explores Marybeth's personal life story dealing with domestic abuse at the hands of her husband who died of cancer. As a means of unlocking this story, Marybeth wrote the piece as a conversation with Beatrice Herford an early 20th century monologist widely recognized as a pioneer of solo performance. The play deals with complex themes and features an equally complex format. We spent most of our time in Italy refining the script so as to improve flow, timing, and message. The piece was performed twice at Cantiere Oberdan, the host venue for the LaMaMa Spoleto Open.

About mid-week, one of the organizers of the LaMaMa program asked us how we were going to address the language issue for Italian audiences. Honestly we were so heavily involved in script edits and staging rehearsals that we hadn't really considered that at all. I reached out to an Italian friend of mine for help, but with time so short, the decision was made to just present the piece in English. We figured that if nothing else, the playwrights currently working at LaMaMa (a group of about 12) would come to the show and the language would not be a problem for them.

Friday night, the night of the first performance, came and we only had four people in the audiences, all Italians (some with very limited English). I gave my curtain speech and had the first in my lifetime experience of having to pause while it was translated for the audience. Marybeth pressed forward with her piece and the audience was absolutely enthralled. As a side note, I've never seen an actress embrace having an audience to play for as much as Marybeth did that night. Her story burst forth from her as if it just needed to be released. The performance reached its end, the lights dimmed, and our little Italian audience absolutely went nuts. They clapped and clapped and then clapped some more. It was clear that while they may not have understood all of the language (or Marybeth's crazy accent which is two parts South Carolina drawl with one part Rhode Island speed), but they were moved. They were moved because Marybeth was moved. The emotional tension in the room was evident and it needed no translation.

Here I am,somewhere over southern France and I find myself contemplating what lessons from this experience I can take with me to my work at home. tKAPOW has always been committed to producing the very best of dramatic literature and that commitment will not change any time soon. What I believe I will continue to explore as a director, however, is performance that is highly expressive and storytelling propelled by strong imagery. I will challenge my actors to consider those audiences members who may not be able to rely on understanding of the language alone. I hope that this approach will help us create productions capable of transcending language all together.

~ Matt Cahoon

Exquisite Pressure

Pressure is a central ingredient:  pressure of collaboration, of time, of putting all this stuff together...I cannot possibly control it, therefore I start to work on a more intuitive level, rather than on a logical level, which is what you are trying to get to because all creation is intuitive.
-Anne Bogart

tKAPOW spent last week in residence at Charlestown Working Theatre developing our new piece Raining Aluminum.  This process was simultaneously thrilling, terrifying, inspiring and exhausting. While we have been doing pretty heavy research on the piece for about 15 months, we walked into CWT with little more than a collection of stories we’d like to explore and a few movement sequences.

The day before we set out for Charlestown, Carey and I assembled ten brand new 4’ x 4’ platforms to act as the set (with the side benefit of being small enough to fit in the Opera House elevator for future shows) and loaded a truck full of various objects that we thought would help with the storytelling.   With Cynthia MacLeod, our musical collaborator, set to arrive that day, I spent Sunday loading in all of our odds and ends.  Just before I left CWT, I arranged the platforms and objects into what I proposed would be their starting position for the show.

Monday morning, we stopped at Cynthia’s hotel and Carey got to meet her for the first time (they became pretty close by the end of the week).  We drove down to Charlestown and discussed the plan for the day.

While Tayva and I worked on hanging a light plot (difficult to do when you don’t even have a script yet), Peter and Carey worked with Cynthia on learning a seated step dance that we planned to incorporate into the piece (it turns out that it was a remarkably effective way to start the show).  That evening we had our first rehearsal in space.  The daily schedule for the rest of the week was similar with intensive work during the day with our visiting artists on music, puppetry or text and then we’d rehearse in the evenings.  Now you probably understand the use of the word “exhausting” in the first line above.

The week culminated in three work-in-progress showings.  On Thursday, Cynthia and the music was featured; on Friday, Vit Horejs and the object work was the focus; and, on Saturday, we were able to share a full first draft of the piece that included a lot of the text developed by our dramaturg Kelly Smith (including a monologue that was re-written about 10 minutes prior to the start of the showing).  An important part of the process was the audience feedback session that we conducted each night.  It was fascinating (and occasionally surprising) to hear which elements of the piece really resonated with the audience and equally as helpful to hear what wasn’t working.  This is all feedback that we will consider as we continue to develop the piece.

By far the best part of this opportunity was that it gave us a concentrated stretch of time to experiment, work, and play.  What Anne Bogart refers to as “exquisite pressure” was definitely a major contributing factor to our work last week.  Charles Mee describes Bogart’s “exquisite pressure” in the following way:

 “[it’s] one which promotes creativity by overwhelming collaborators with a lot to do in a short amount of time so that they do not have the chance to think too much.”

We often said last week that when creating original work you might work for an hour and only find 30 seconds of useable material.  Last week we certainly did create a bunch of stuff that ended up on the proverbial “cutting room floor,” but I think the pressure of having to have something ready to share with an audience resulted in the discovery of a few pearls.  In the coming weeks, we’ll work on stringing those pearls together to create a complete piece.  The new piece will premiere at the Stockbridge the weekend of July 8-10 and then we hope it will have the opportunity to tour around a bit.  If you are interested in seeing new and non-traditional theatre, I hope that you will come check it out.

~ Matt Cahoon