7DD board game inspiration
Original Cat’s Cradle Monologue- Woman in her 30s
30s
Attempting to play Cat’s Cradle by herself
Did you ever play this game? I used to play it all the time…played it with my little cousins, so…
But it’s harder to play by yourself.
I’m not planning on having children. Never was. The things I want to do, have done…not possible. And that’s okay. It’s great. Besides, the responsibility? Having a little human following in my footsteps? And then they grow up and what happens if they’re little shits? If they’re rude or racist or…who knows what else. I don’t want that responsibility. And besides, I’ve got things to do…
My friend from high school, Caddie, she’s got three kids. Started having them as soon as graduated. She was just…so ready to be a mother. And now she has three little terrors, running around, complicating things…her house is littered with board games. And I’ve never seen a kid play one. They’re always playing games like this. Gestures to Cat’s Cradle. Plays silently for a few moments.
No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat’s cradle is nothing but a bunch of X’s between somebody’s hands and little kids look and look and look at all those X’s…and…..no damn cat, and no damn cradle.
Link to scenes: https://drive.google.com/a/williams.edu/folderview?id=0B4_bx6AvnsJqSWwzVDhSSEpqSkE&usp=sharing
Jimmy & the Caldwells Documentation
Materials from “I Dream of Caddie”
Compsons Scene: letters between Caddie and Margaret
At a tree in the woods, Margaret is alone and narrates two letters she finds.
Finding a letter Caddie has left for me.
M:
I’m sorry that I didn’t come today to meet you. I feel like such a coward, but I couldn’t face saying the words to you in person. This spot in the woods was our place. It was safe and happy, but it wasn’t real. It’s not a part of the real world we live in. I’m afraid of what will happen if we are ever found out. What happened between us was sinful. We both have to move on.
Please let’s not talk after this. It will be easier that way.
-C
. . .
Delivering a letter to the tree, which now has many letters left unread.
C:
This will be the last I write to you. I know you won’t bother coming out to find it.
I saw you in town today with that new man from out of state. You were laughing and flirting with him.
I know you C. You were forcing those smiles. What are you doing? Where did you go?
I found out that there’s something wrong inside me. Something wrong besides the obvious, I mean. I can’t have children. I can’t be with the person I love and I can’t have children. C, I don’t know what’s left for me.
Please come back.
Love Always, M
She burns all the letters and leaves.
Linear Park – Scene/Character Breakdown
Scene 1: Mrs. Compson (Maddie), Caddie’s mother, and Caddie (Gabrielle) as a child
Scene 2: A stranger, Daniel (David), meets Caddie (Maddie) in the park
Scene 3: Margaret (Molly), Caddie’s childhood friend, and Caddie (David) discuss Margaret getting her period. Some romantic feelings and hinting that Caddie may be in an abusive relationship.
Scene 4: Quentin (Bailey), Caddie’s brother, berates Caddie (Molly) for having sex. Quentin has romantic feelings for Caddie.
Scene 5: Mara (Sophia) deduces that Caddie (Bailey) is pregnant
Scene 6: Caddie (Sophia) plans to run away with her lover (Carina) but her lover abandons her
Scene 7: Caddie (Carina) abandons her daughter Q (Gabrielle) on the playground
Linear Park – Scene 3
(CADDIE, 14, sitting in a field. A strawberry field. The stage is covered in strawberries and dirt. CADDIE is humming. She is tearing the stems off the strawberries and not wearing shoes. Her feet are dirty. She has a bruise on her arm. She hears something in the distance. MARGARET is running toward her, wearing a white dress.)
MARGARET: I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT
CADDIE: You got it?!?!
MARGARET (sliding down next to CADDIE, out of breath): I got it.
CADDIE: Finally.
MARGARET: Geez.
CADDIE: I’m just saying.
(MARAGARET takes a wig out of her bag. It is a pageboy haircut)
CADDIE: What are you doing?
MARGARET: My mom said that when I got it I could cut my hair.
(She puts her hair in a ponytail and puts on the wig.)
MARGARET: Ahhhhhh. Way better. I’m free.
CADDIE: It looks good.
(They smile at each other.)
CADDIE: Does it hurt?
MARGARET: Not too bad.
CADDIE: Mine hurts. Mine hurts so bad I have to stay in bed.
(MARGARET touches CADDIE’s arm. She accidentally touches the bruise and notices. But CADDIE doesn’t.)
MARGARET (softly): I’ll bring you strawberries.
CADDIE: Yes let’s! Let’s eat strawberries!
(They stand up and begin to gather the strawberries, using the fronts of their dresses as baskets. They hum while they do this. They sit back down with the strawberries in their laps, look at each other, silently count to three, and spit on the strawberries. Then they each pick one up and rub it on their mouths, like lipstick.)
CADDIE: Oh, Mar-guar-ette!
MARGARET: Oh, Candace!
CADDIE: Yes! Well, yes I can! I can-dance! I Candace!
(They get up quickly, letting all the strawberries fall to the ground, and giggle as they do-si-do.)
CADDIE AND MARGARET: CANDACE CAN DANCE. CANDACE CAN DANCE. WEEEEEEEEEE!
(They twirl until they are hugging and tripping over each other. They fall to the ground. Whose body is whose? They slow down, laying next to each other. MARGARET touches CADDIE’s bruise.)
MARGARET: Men are bad.
(CADDIE recoils.)
CADDIE: Shut up.
MARGARET: I won’t be bad to you.
CADDIE: Shut up!
MARGARET: Caddie! I—
CADDIE (pulling on a cardigan): You don’t know anything. You just got it. You don’t know anything.
(MARGARET is silent.)
CADDIE: You shouldn’t wear white, you know. Not anymore.
(MARGARET is hurt. CADDIE’s anger begins to melt. She picks up a strawberry. She feeds it to MARGARET.)
CADDIE: I’m sorry.
(CADDIE begins to walk away. MARGARET sits in silence, chewing the strawberry. Then she grimaces in pain.)
MARGARET: It’s starting to hurt now…Caddie? CADDIE!
(But CADDIE is gone.)
END SCENE
Bop It, Twist It, Flick It
Keep It:
I’ve been interested in the pieces we’ve made where the main part of the experience for the audience is their interaction with a character, like gabrielle’s albinism or bailey’s box (the ones where WE are the art). I wanna see how far we can take that, in terms of the extent of audience participation and specificity of character. David’s recollection about the folks who would come out and chat with the audience before the start of the show struck me as well- those of us who weren’t in a piece during the museum portion of the showing seemed to fall into a version of that, and I think it’d be interesting to do it intentionally, maybe with a group character or twist.
Leave It:
I’d like to leave behind the use of technology like iPads and whatnot as a means of presenting our work to people, unless that tech is a part of the work itself. Most of the art/media our audience consumes comes to them in that form, and I think there’s a sort of oversaturation or level of comfort that develops that makes it hard for something viewed on a digital device completely on one’s own terms to have the same impact as a live performance (or a piece of digital work presented in a lively way), especially when the two are right next to each other. It seemed like a solid half of the work we showed last week was just sitting around the room on iPads or computers waiting for people to interact with it, and that prevented it from really reaching them. This isn’t to say I think we shouldn’t make/show videos or audio work, just that we need to find an effective way to present it. The way the Remember Me video and Paige’s genesis piece were presented seemed to allow them to land properly.
Want It:
This might be obvious, but it’d be cool to collaborate on stuff. I have this possibly silly/unfeasible dream that by the end of the class we will show some piece, big or small, that’s the product of a collaboration between all fifteen of us.
Keep it leave it want it
Keep it:
I want to keep the idea of mediation between performers and audience (excluding the commonplace mediation of the proscenium). For example: the Sryia piece, the false memory piece, the coca flower piece, Bailey’s box, Kimmy’s silhouette.
Leave it:
I want to leave the inconsistency, both of having our individual artworks combined in one room, and of not having unified them into a theme or narrative, or any kind of comprehensible linear(ish) experience. I think that we should narrow down our interests to 2-4 central themes (or coherent groupings of themes) and temporarily split into groups to create more focused material. We spent the first third of the class generating a lot of material in an arbitrary way, and I think that what we have so far is not in any way “the show” because there is no real intention behind it yet. While many of the performances have promise to be expanded, revised, and connected to each other, the other objects are more like tools that don’t stand on their own in a performance context.
Want it: Track-Based Immersive Theater
I want us to consider creating a unified audience experience. Even if each individual spectator has a totally unique experience in the sense of seeing separate performances in different orders, every single one would fit into the same “world”. As I mentioned on the first day I’m interested in immersive theater, but I can’t really add this in this section because we’ve already been creating immersive theater! But to be more specific, I would like us to consider creating a piece in which the audience is split up and has unique experiences–we could picture these as puzzle pieces that they can cognitively build into the world of the performance, even if they don’t finish the whole puzzle! Those of you who were in or saw Fefu has some idea what I’m talking about with regard to separating the audience, but that was a VERY tame example. I’m thinking more of an immersive performance called Then She Fell, in which each audience member takes a different pre-defined track and spends a lot of time 1-on-1 with the performers. To give some examples, I brushed someone’s hair, I had to put together pieces of a letter, I had to take dictation, and there were small amounts of food and drink offered.
This kind of diversity and separation would give each person a lot of autonomy in crafting their character/portion of the world/interaction with the audience. Anything we do with the audience, with that much attention devoted to them, would turn out to be really interesting. I think that a formal challenge in this vein would go very well with the work we have already created. Please take this suggestion in the broadest way possible, I think the underlying idea is for us to center the spectator (individual and/or intimate groups) in the entire performance. We (or likely DGM) can make a more specific challenge if we want.