Chuck Wilcox · 1971 · Colorado Caravan First-Year Report, 1971
About this essay
This was Chuck Wilcox’ report at the end of the first year of the Colorado Caravan. It is taken from typed carbon copy which had footnotes indicated but no text of them.
Archival note: The source typescript included footnote markers (1) and (2) at specific points in the body. Their positions are being reconciled with a canonical source copy and will be restored in a future editorial pass; the footnote text itself was never present in the surviving carbon, per Wilcox’ own preface above.
Full text
If I begin by discussing the style of this particular touring theatre, I shall define style, first, to mean simply everything about the work – from the scripts to the properties. The Caravan’s style is, then, ECONOMY. If there has been any development it has been towards even more economy; the guidelines have been “If this is not absolutely necessary – then eliminate it.” The objective of this style is cultivate, in the old sense of hoeing, the imagination of the audience. We want to force them, gently but persuasively, to use their imagination in a poetic way. The lesson of this style of theatre is that instructors, students, and common people need not find DRAMA meaning “elaborate production.” Good theatre, truthful playing, and entertainment need not be tied to elaborate effects.
As an illustration of style of economy I will use, in addition to the Caravan programs, of which there are six, a street theatre event in London, summer, 1969; the National Theatre of the Deaf’s production of Gilgamesh, 1973; and Andre Gregory’s production of Alice in Wonderland, 1970. Gilgamesh was also a touring company work.
Alice illustrates clearly the definition of economy of style which will be used here. Critic John Lahr said of Alice in Wonderland:
By imposing a physical, theatrical style on Carroll’s text, Gregory unlocks Alice’s mystery. The fable becomes a new game, not a set piece. Gregory’s production is the most thorough and intelligent application of performance theory to a classic text yet evolved in America. The power and importance of Gregory’s Alice lies not only in its fresh evocation of the tale, but in its disciplined modification to its own need of the acting techniques of Jerzy Grotowski.
Jerzy Grotowski wrote “The theatre must recognize its own limitations. If it cannot be richer than cinema, then let it be poor. If it cannot be as lavish as television, let it be ascetic. If it cannot be a technical attraction, let it renounce all outward technique.”
Performance theatre breaks down the masks which makeup, elaborate costume and conventional gesture impose on the theatrical event. Alice therefore was performed on a stage swept clean of all but the utilitarian props. The hole down which Alice disappears is conjured by bodies stacked one on top of another. The garden door to which she lacks a key and is too large to enter is created by an actor with his thumb and forefinger. The mushroom of the caterpillar is the backs of actors; the caterpillar’s hookah is an arm of one of them, and the caterpillar puffs at this actor’s thumb.
Gregory’s production took two years to rehearse, and cost $2,000.
The National Theatre of the Deaf is a touring company noted primarily for the deaf sign language that accompanies spoken words; the hand signs are only a visual manifestation of the Deaf Theatre’s search for “new and basic theatre languages.” The NTD represents the best of the kind of experiment that is possible with a group that spends time both experimenting and performing. Their theatrical solutions are vivid, bold, and very much audience-aware, while at the same time they retain the simplicity which brings the language of the play, using the actor’s body, into sharp focus. Gilgamesh lent itself perfectly to these experiments. The play is ideal for its diction (being poetic) is almost haiku like in its simplicity. The play embraces the story-telling form, which is a natural practitioner’s sign-mime communication. This oldest of existing dramas comes to us in fragmentary form, so bold solutions are demanded to fill the gaps. This effort of the NTD is the most exciting and satisfying production this writer has seen in this country.
In another country, England, while on a tour of British theatres and productions, our busload of students from a Canadian University was caught at a traffic signal at Trafalgar Square. We had seen thirty-odd productions at this point in the tour — only two of which excited the same enthusiastic response as the event we were about to witness. Sitting on a bench under Nelson’s statue was one of those old men one finds in parks all over the world, crushed hat, braces, baggy pants, extremely down-at-the-heel shoes, white stubble on a florid face. The man sat staring at a cigarette box some passerby had discarded some twenty feet from him – it was the very intensity of his stare that drew our attention. We watched as he drew his still muscular but now stiff with the humors of old age body up from its resting place. He took several very careful, painful steps down the sidewalk to the cigarette box. Then, even more carefully, and slowly, he crouched just enough to grasp the box with his fingertips. Without shaking the box or looking at it he returned with the same precision to the park bench, straightened his coat, draped over the back of the bench, and resumed his former position looking straight ahead. He opened the box without looking at it, and, still not looking, withdrew the one cigarette left in the box. The busload of people burst into spontaneous applause. We realized in that moment that no one had pointed out our aged performer, but that we had all witnessed one of those ordinary moments in daily life which are so highly theatrical. This wordless act gave us more plot spectacle, illusion, magic, and feeling for the human condition than a month’s work spent in London’s West End Theatres.
The Colorado Caravan, an experimental Title III project touring six dramatic programs with accompanying workshops to the schools of Colorado, was channeled first by necessity and then by design into this same simplicity of style. The elements of the Caravan’s style of economy and simplicity which we will consider are scenic properties (which will include scenery, hand props, costumes), and audience arrangement, Action, Language and Literature.
The practical consideration for scenery for the Caravan was that it should be portable, and containable in as small a space as possible. Because of the many miles to be covered ease of portability was high on the list of priority. No scenery was exactly the right amount. A free-standing set of curtains was built as a neutral background to be used in front of bleachers and other similarly distracting environments. At first the actors tended to use the curtains in a traditional way, retiring behind them when they were “off-stage.” As the tour matured the actors found children’s audiences have no difficulty with contemporary theatre conventions, being for the most part inexperienced and unformed in their habits. They are therefore willing to accept that an actor is “off-stage” although visible, and carry their focus to that place where the action is continuing. Against all but the most disturbing of backgrounds even the curtains are unnecessary. As in the production of Alice, the Caravan relies on the spectator’s imagination to invent an entire physical world.
The success of this approach was demonstrated in the hundreds of pictures drawn by the children who saw the Caravan productions. At one point an actress says: “Look at this lake. How clear the water is. I cannot see across it. I cannot see around it.” Not one picture contained a defined space lake; in every picture the lake ran off the page.
The scenery for Gilgamesh consisted at the most of thirty bamboo rods of varying lengths. These poles provided the ultimate in flexibility as they could be set up, rearranged or struck entirely in a moment. Portability is obvious. Further, their flexibility was exploited by their being used as both scenic and personal props, and in one instance, the framework for a character, i.e., a many-headed monster. The one exception was the use of a bright blue curtain, used Kabuki style, to represent a billowing ocean. In this example, scenery and properties were created from the same pieces. The costumes were rope macramé work, each costume having been knotted by its wearer.
The most successful properties of the Caravan tended to be those which weren’t there at all. In some cases a program which had been designed to rely heavily on personal props to suggest rapid changes in character responded to a sense of heaviness and clutter after a few performances by eliminating all but the most essential. This demanded that the actors find striking contrasts using only themselves as tools. In the Shakespeare program entitled Battle of the Sexes a buckbasket was constructed for John Falstaff in the Merry Wives of Windsor scene. The basket’s enduring usefulness was as a storage bin for curtains and small props, but its elimination from the program would have demanded an imaginative solution on the part of the actors in the scene to convey to the audience, within the context of the scene, exactly what is happening. The experience of a year with the Caravan has convinced the actors that props are just that – a prop to help a weak actor stand.
Costumes for the Caravan had to be easily portable, easily cleaned. It was important from the designer’s point of view that they should be plain, unobtrusive costumes as well, so that one actor could play a soldier one minute and a king the next without a costume change. The children’s play was costumed in heavy, medieval line clothes, made of leather, or weighty wools. They were not cleanable; they were not “suggestive” to the imagination as they did everything for the viewer. Although the play will be continued, the costumes will be completely redesigned. The two Shakespeare bills were costumed in washable, simple line costumes which, in order to aid the concept of unobtrusive, were in neutral colors of tan, white and light brown. These costumes were so unobtrusive that the Caravan tended to fade into the floor they were performing on; it is imperative that neutrality does not mean non-visible.
Over the year the Caravan toured they played in many different physical situations. The audience was receptive to their work in direct proportion to their proximity; the ideal is to be as close to the audience as possible. The history plays were always performed proscenium; this was acceptable because the plays were to be “viewed,” not “experienced.” They were generally played to junior high audiences, and the Caravan felt they were largely unsuccessful. This feeling may well have been due to the fact that it was junior highs viewing the progress – teachers congratulated the Caravan over and over again on being able to hold the attention of the children. The Caravan is convinced there is more potential in the junior highs than merely keeping their attention, and feel that an audience arrangement of junior highs in the round or three-quarters round would go a long way towards audience participation. The Shakespeare bills were both designed for proscenium performance, but were often played in a thrust situation. Several times exits and entrances were made through the audience with rousing success. The Caravan hopes to block all productions for the next year with the maximum amount of audience closeness possible.
It was Magic Lantern that offered the first clues to the discovery of how much audience participation is possible. At one point the Boatman enters the playing area through the children, who are arranged in a three-quarter circle around the playing area. He brings his boat in to the playing area, and then attempts to leave again. The children are called on three times to ask him to bring the boat back to the playing area. Finally the boatman and two actresses pass through the children in their boat, the children forming the waters of the lake. Audience response was always overwhelming, and always controllable.
Magic Lantern also led the way in terms of experiment of action. The entire play was pantomimed; there were no actual props, as actors mimed teacups and loom weaving. The children were never confused or lost, and they never misunderstood what was happening. It became apparent you could ask the audience for all you could dare, and then some more. The only necessity was that each action was precise enough that it was intelligible to a blind person. This was aided by keeping gestures simple and to a minimum. In the workshop the actors gave a demonstration of walking in a heavy medium, such as honey. When the children would try to do this, they would begin to observe themselves and each other. When one moves slowly, one can see more. It seems to also hold true that when one says less, one can hear more. The secret of the success of Magic Lantern was its simplicity – few words, few actions, and absolute clarity. The National Theatre of the Deaf’s production of Gilgamesh was a parallel experiment. Performed proscenium, it nevertheless communicated across that line between the audience and the actors and demanded, from the very bareness of emotions, that the audience respond. With the deaf, every gesture must convey meaning. They have taken that basic knowledge and utilized it for the theatre. The result was exactly the same type of audience response that Magic Lantern elicited: electricity flowing between actor and viewer.
The next point is probably obvious by this time. Language (script) too must be sparse and each word convey meaning. Magic Lantern resembled haiku more than it did playwright’s prose. When there was dialogue, each line was precise and very clear in meaning. “I am going over the mountain.” “This is my son, Mitsu. He winds bobbins for me. His bobbins are wound better than any other bobbins in Japan.” This sparsity of actual words allows a rate or tempo of delivery that suggests “something special” — it is not conversational. Important concepts are often repeated.
Grotowski talks about searching for an underlying racial knowledge or “mythic consciousness” which is shared by all. Gilgamesh, being the first of all drama fables, is at once the most removed and yet the most immediate, because of its distance. In a culture which thrives on science fiction, gothic novels, melodrama this kind of a script advertises itself as a first cause for all such formula writing. Magic Lantern appeals in this same way through its sparsity, precision, and clarity; there is no mistaking the plot, the characters, the action, the language. Even the kindergartners understand what they are experiencing.
With an eye towards the future the Caravan wants to explore the direction it has been going as fully as possible. They want to design scripts that can be presented anywhere – in the school’s gym, playgrounds, hallways, classrooms. They want to explore found space – so that the gym’s rolled mats, balance beams, ropes and rings are used if they are there. They want to explore the special clarity that dance affords, and incorporate dance movements into the “language” of the scripts. They want the scripts to be designed for the workshops that follow; scripts that raise questions and allow practical demonstrations. They want to explore using the audience, not only as “waves” the boats pass through, but as actual participants in the plays, perhaps even soldiers and extra bodies.
In essence, the Caravan views the first year of its existence as an exploration of what will work and what won’t. For a touring theatre with their objectives, what works is a style of economy. There must be economy at all levels, from language to costume to scenery. The emphasis must fall on the communication that is possible between actor and audience, and nothing must interfere, or decorate, or otherwise clutter up that communication. The more economy practiced, the more spare the production, the more clear the communication. The actor in the Caravan has discovered that what he really communicates is himself.