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The Rep teams with Conrad Bishop to bring â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Tempestâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; to detailed life By David Templeton
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ccording to director Conrad Bishop, his â&#x20AC;&#x153;professional connectionâ&#x20AC;? to Shakespeareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tempest has become more than just professional. After working for over a year on an innovative puppet-driven interpretation of the fantasyisland favorite, Bishop admits that The Tempest has officially become an obsession. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was never that interested in The Tempest,â&#x20AC;? he explains, taking a short break from rehearsing at his Sebastopol studio. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The only Shakespeare Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve directed up until now is Macbeth, a show we did for many, many years, but when I started thinking about The Tempest, I realized that the challenge would be working out a real and true ending that involves forgiveness, rebirth and resurrection. When the Sonoma County Repertory Theatre suggested co-producing a version of The Tempest well over a year ago, it restarted that whole thought process. In 40 years of theater, this is the most time Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever spent on a project.â&#x20AC;? The Tempest, which opens a five-week run at the Rep starting this weekend, is both typical and atypical for Bishop, whose Independent Eye troupe has built a reputation for innovative and visually stunning
adaptations of classical stories and myths. With this uniquely eye-popping take on Shakespeareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s story, Bishop is collaborating with the Repâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dependable stable of actors, most of whom (Dan Saski, Benjamin Stowe) have never worked with puppets to such an advanced degree. Adding to the challenge, Bishopâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s style of performance requires the actors to be masked, forcing them to express through subtle movements the range of emotions they traditionally convey through facial expression. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The style we use,â&#x20AC;? Bishop explains, â&#x20AC;&#x153;employs characters with heads that are life-size and bodies at three-quarter size. The actorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hand goes into the head, so the actorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wrist becomes the neck. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a very visceral style, in terms of gesture and movement, and it demands that the actors learn a whole new kind of physicality. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Finding that relationship between movement and gesture,â&#x20AC;? he continues, â&#x20AC;&#x153;is a very complicated thing for some actors. The puppet is dead if itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not moving, so for the actor, finding out how much movement is essential is vital.â&#x20AC;? Bishop says that the Rep actors have demonstrated a particularly strong aptitude for this hyperdetailed brand of puppet manipulation. Having worked with first-timers often, Bishop is proud of how far the actors have come in such a relatively short time. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Some actors never find the channel through to the immense power of the puppet,â&#x20AC;? he says, â&#x20AC;&#x153;but everyone seems to be really enjoying it. This kind of advanced, full-body puppetry forces you to embrace an intense simplicity of movement. I believe they will all discover that this process has made them even better actors.â&#x20AC;? In addition to the performances at the Rep, The Tempest will tour several local high schools, an effort made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Another fascinating side project to the development of the show is the online blog (Bishop calls it his â&#x20AC;&#x153;Survival Logâ&#x20AC;?) that chronicles his own thoughts and artistic evolution throughout the process of bringing The Tempest to life. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve thought for years about trying to chronicle my projects in some way,â&#x20AC;? he remarks, â&#x20AC;&#x153;trying to tell with electrons the story of how we make a show. With The Tempest, the blog has been very useful in forcing me to think about whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going through my mind. I often start writing, and I think nothing much has been on my mind, but then I learn, after a few minutes, that I have, in fact, had quite a lot on my mind. Blogging has been very interesting and incredibly valuable. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve discovered that, aside from the self-expression it makes possible, blogging is, at its heart, a process of intense forced objectivity. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a magical thing for an artistâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just because Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m creating a show about magic and wonder.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Tempestâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; runs Thursdayâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sunday, Sept. 18â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Oct. 18 at Sonoma County Repertory Theater, 104 N. Main St., Sebastopol. Thursdayâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Saturday at 8pm; Sunday at 2pm. $18â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$25; Thursday, pay what you can. 707.823.0177. To check out Bishopâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Survival Log blog, visit www.independenteye.org/ news/index.html
event calender for 9/18 - 10/1 movieline: (707) 963-9779 feature ďŹ lms Hurt Locker (9/18 - 9/24) Daily 5:30/8:15pm; 2:30 matinees: 9/19, 9/20, 9/23. No 5:30 & 8:15pm show Wed 9/23. Inglouious Basterds (9/25 - 9/28) Daily 5:30/8:30pm; 2:30 matinees: 9/26, 9/27 My One and Only (9/29 - 10/1) Daily 5:30/8:30pm; 2:30 matinees: 9/26, 9/27 cameo ďŹ ne arts
La Fille du Regiment; Royal Opera House ENCORE - Sunday, Sept. 20 - 11:00am
cameo art ďŹ lm series The Big Lebowski - September 30 - 8:00pm
w w w.cameocinema .com THE BOHEMIAN
09.16.09-09.22.09
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