Читать книгу [boxhead] - Darren O'Donnell - Страница 7

CHARACTERS

Dr. Thoughtless Actions, a young geneticist

Narrator Actions, an incorporeal being

Dr. Wishful Thinking, a young geneticist

Narrator Thinking, an incorporeal being

TIME

The year 8888.

STAGE

The set is pure black box, with curtains on either side, running upstage-downstage. Across the upstage border, curtains are also used to box things in. Behind the curtains on a platform stands the percussionist, whose hands, clad in white gloves and illuminated by black light, can be seen through a window in the otherwise solid black field. A scrim forms the fourth wall between the stage and the audience. A rope hangs on the audience side of the scrim, just to the side of the proscenium. A lit border frames the whole proscenium, mostly serving to mask the actors moving around in the dark, something they frequently do.

LIGHTS

We’ve always used nine top-lit spots, which reference petri dishes, arranged in a tic-tac-toe-like square on the whole stage, with other specials here and there. The lights, for the most part, function to isolate the actors in the space so that, as much as possible, they appear to be floating in darkness.

COSTUMES

Each doctor wears too-short beige polyester pants, a beige short-sleeve shirt, a brown bow-tie, black sneakers and a square brown box on his head. Dr. Thinking wears a purple lab coat and Dr. Actions wears an orange one.

SOUND EFFECTS

Two actors each play two characters. Their heads are in boxes, which also house microphones. The voices are channelled through an effects unit, creating the voices for the four characters. The doctors are pitched very high and the narrators very low. The effects are switched manually by a stage manager or sound operator.

MUSIC

The music is percussive and boxy, with real wooden boxes as instruments. There are also a few etheric sounds for more otherworldly moments.

PERFORMANCE STYLE

There are a lot of dumb jokes in the show and there is a fine line between making the joke and telegraphing that you are making the joke. Like pretty much all comedy, the actors should treat the absurd things that happen as seriously as Stanley howling for Stella. Physically, the challenge is to keep it as ‘real’ as possible, while still recognizing that extraordinary measures need to be taken in order to keep the audience staring at a couple of blank, expressionless beige surfaces.