The Text
Fragmented, paradoxical,
non-linear and told by a revolving cast of narrators, Dark Ride is a quintessentially post-modern text. Dr. Paul Castagno
includes Len Jenkin in a group of writers he refers to as “language
playwrights.” Including Constance Congdon, Suzan-Lori Parks, Eric Overmeyer and
Paula Vogel, the language playwrights came into their own during the 1980s
crafting plays that favor rhythm over linearity.[1]
Dark Ride, like Parks’ The America Play and Congdon’s Tales of the Lost Formicans, reads a bit
more like a piece of jazz music than a dramatic text. Rather than one point of
view, multiple narrators vie with each other to tell a multi-faceted story that
unfolds like one of M.C. Escher’s famous prints that visually depict paradoxes
of infinity and self-reflexivity.
As the software portion
of the media delivery system and media style were to be two of the final
elements introduced into the mix, it was important to have a text that would
sustain the starts, stops and the speed of the integrated media. For me this
meant the play would have to be imbued with great dialogic energy.
According to Staub “the
initiation or cessation of motion, the maintenance or change of direction, and
the increase or decrease of rate, all require energy” and “since the human body
is the basic moving unit of kinetic theatre, theatrical energy is measured in
terms of that body.”[2] Just
as each part of the text reacts with or against other parts to create a dynamic
sense of meaning, bodies in motion must do the same as they interact with media
and other kinetic elements in the playing space. It was important that the
direction of the actors be flexible enough that a congruent and flexible style
could be gleaned from the mixture of actor movement and media delivery.[3]
[1]
Paul
C. Castagno. New Playwriting
Strategies: A Language Based Approach to Playwriting. New York: Routledge,
2001. 3.
[2]
Staub.
173.
[3]
I
include here the author’s notes on directing from the original text, as they
were extremely helpful in guiding my personal process of metaphor creation:
The text of Dark
Ride includes a minimum of stage direction, and a minimum of description as
to set, costuming, and design. This is for two reasons. All the necessary
information as to place and the movement of actors can he easily inferred from
the character's dialogue and the stage directions given and because of the
author's wish that the play be adaptable and responsive to particular actors,
directors, and playing spaces. The text should be thought of as a basic ground,
out of which the staging should grow. There is no "right' way to stage Dark Ride. I would like, despite my
desire for anyone working on a production of Dark Ride to allow their visual and theatrical imaginations full
rein, to make some thematic and practical suggestions. The idea of a "dark
ride," or carnival spook or ghost ride through a funhouse, where images
and scenes appear suddenly of darkness and just as suddenly disappear, is
helpful to keep in mind: lights in the dark. A cinematic approach, where scenes
fade into one another, or are cut to rapidly, would also be helpful to think
about-the blunter style of B movies rather than art films. . . . Settings can be simple. Rather than
using large set pieces, place can be indicated by props that can easily be
moved on and offstage. The use of slides, film, and sound to establish place
and mood is also possible. The text also offers within itself many visual
suggestions. Often, all that is necessary to establish place is the language
alone. If the director thinks more of the techniques drawn upon to stage a
Shakespeare play, soliloquies to the audience and all-rather than a nineteenth
or twentieth century drama, he or she will be closer to the mark. It is also of
interest, in a piece like Dark Ride, to stage, in the straightforward way
suggested, certain moments of thought or memory as well as, or as an overlay
to, the present time-place of the action. Also, the director and performers
should be aware that Dark Ride is a weave of tales, of scenes within scenes,
like the facets of the diamond. That a scene is within a book, or a picture, or
in someone's mind makes it no less "real" in terms of staging. The
'real' point of view is a shifting one.
