My Harold Diary: Harold Number Eleven
I’m not so sure I’m interested in writing about this Harold in full. It wasn’t terrible – and certainly, it was better than a lot of others, but the lack of real cohesion, chemistry and groupmind in my Sunday group is a bit frustrating. There are some really smart and talented people in the group, but so far, out of four practices, only one was attended by all the members, and all of the practices have been plagued so far by different people tugging in different directions. Considering we want to do organic openings – one of the most difficult ones and an opening that only really works if you’re on the same page – this is disheartening. What is interesting is the complex dynamics of the situation – the competing, contradictory strands – because I know these people better than the ones in my other group and am more personable and creative around them because of that. However, pulling in the opposite direction are problems with cohesion.
Regardless, Harold #11 was performed Sunday November 15th 2009. I don’t know if I even want to categorize the theme. The organic opening seemed slow and meandering, and though our coach said it wasn’t bad, I think he might have said that simply because it wasn’t a total failure. At first I thought the problem might have been because we weren’t really heightening anything, but my teammates pointed out a more fundamental problem: there wasn’t even basic agreement. One person would call out our activity, and another person would automatically try something else – not riffing on the original thing and heightening, but rather just trying out something completely different. No agreement led to very few moves that could become games.
1st beats: I took something from the opening where we were doing yoga and someone said, “This will really fix my life,” and it heightened from there. So I started out playing a basketball game where I believed that physically exerting myself would make me born anew. The game turned out to be though that basketball was a metaphor for my shitty life, so my friend for whom everything was going great was also good at basketball, and I was terrible. The second scene had R and R as sisters at a seafood restaurant and the one hated seafood because it made her sick but went because she wanted her sister to be happy. We kept bringing out more and more disgusting things for her like fresh-ground cod and brine. The scene was ok, but I really wanted to see the sister who hated seafood to be honest about why she was there. The scene really missed that truthful kernel and became too cartoony as a result. The third scene featured A and C as a couple. There was no real game to begin with, but they yes-anded until it emerged that C used grandiose hand gestures to the point where he started to mime everything he did in a condescending manner. Funny stuff.
Group game 1: This was based on something from the opening where we were all running, so someone initiated that we were getting ready for the NYC marathon. C revealed that he didn’t really understand what was involved and that became the game of the scene. We slightly heightened by revealing that a marathon is 26.2 miles, that he’ll probably shit and piss himself, etc. It wasn’t bad.
2nd beats: L, my scene partner, initiated that we were in a bar, and I should hit on a woman to help me get over my shitty life. I try hitting on A and begin crying. L, without trying, ends up picking up A, while I weepily buy her a glass of wine. R and R are now in the hospital where one has donated her liver to the other. It kind of follows the game of the first beat (beat one: Doing things you hate for love, beat two: martyring yourself for love). I got to come in though and give R “painful liver dialysis”. Scene three – C initiated this accepting a proposal from A; they continued the game from the first beat and A had a nice justification for C’s wild hand gestures: his grandfather died from being still (or something like that).
Group game 2: I initiated this one from a half-idea from the opening where we were all carrying a body. So, we were digging a grave and after yes-anding for a bit, we realized it was a cemetery for fat people, and we were callous about what we were doing. Eventually, we went over and started pushing a giant, fat man sans coffin into the hole we dug while we called him names like “fat fuck” and “fat prick”. A comes in as the dead man’s child and we say we’re sorry for her loss. Then I said something like, “I’m sorry your dad was such a fat piece of shit.”
3rd beats: I initiated that L and I were running a marathon, and about a mile in, I start crawling and yelling at him as we discuss how terrible my life is. Then R was a surrogate for other R’s baby. A tug out pregnant R, and something else happened, then we got the blackout.
This was like a 30 minute Harold. More aggressive editing is needed.
Filed by andyb at November 19th, 2009 under Harold