A Trial Run

After viewing the opening scenes of Orson Welles's film adaptation of Kafka's The Trial, I wanted to blog a bit about its visual take on claustrophobia. The film opens in K's apartment, the ceiling of which hangs about two feet lower than most other ceilings I've seen in residencies. K is barely able to stand at full height and seems to be pressed down in his house, a notion closely related to the novel's assertion that we are not even safe from the hands of authority in our own dwellings. I'd even go further to say that because Welles shoots his scenes almost entirely from low angles, he's insinuating that even things familiar and homey to us may be turned into oppressors.

The difference lies in how the ceiling and shots become higher once K leaves his room. When he is eating his breakfast in the community dining room, the camera looks down on K and ceilings are nowhere to be found. I for one felt a little easier once he was seated at the table eating food, something familiar and normal. Perhaps this also had to do with the fact that someone friendly was serving him, a situation absent from his own bedroom. The presence of this friendly figure actually made the room bigger for me (or at least distracted me from the feeling isolation that otherwise pervades the building). I'm interested to see how locations other than K's apartment, especially the courtroom, play on these different forms of claustrophobia and safety.

Stage Sets Pt. 2

I wanted to continue a meditation on stage sets, about which I began writing last week. With those previous comments in mind, it's worth noting that I've now performed five shows (as of yesterday) on that set in Willimantic. In that time I've come to know its contours, blind spots, creaks, and warped boards as well as (or better than) any location I've frequented in the past few months. Considering this description of the set I think it would make a good blog post to speak about ephemeral homes.

This concept doesn't apply only to stage sets. In my opinion dorm life may also be considered "ephemeral" living. Because I live on campus and spend my time away from my dorm on a stage, I find myself in a situation I've not often encountered in my life: I have two temporary homes and no permanent home. Looking at this setup from an outsider's perspective, I would imagine that the person in my shoes would feel uprooted, without grounding, and a little lost. However, having lived in this transitory state for the past few years, I can say with certainty that I've grown accustomed to it. Dorm rooms are the same temporal homes as stage sets in their willingness to give you up in order to accommodate the next person. Students move in and out of dorms from year to year while stages see ten or more sets per year, hosting actors for weeks or even days at a time. The meaningful objects and devices of one's life can easily move from dorm to dorm, while stages need only new layers of paint and trimmings to seem fresh again. This comparison leads me to believe that the stage as a home doesn't care much for its inhabitants: it's the meaning with which we imbue these places that makes them so uncannily ours.

The Apartment Pt. 2

Now that we've all but finished viewing The Apartment I realize that seeing the film in halves had its benefits. Around the middle of the movie, when Fran overdoses on sleeping medication in Baxter's apartment, Baxter undergoes a distinct shift in character. In the first half of the story it's Baxter's supervisors who truly own his apartment, but when his boss makes him responsible for Fran's health during the second half Baxter takes the reins.

It's interesting that it takes love for Baxter to claim ownership of his home. By claiming ownership I mean forcing out a supervisor who attempts to "christen" his apartment while he's still there nursing Fran, as well as using the place and its amenities for himself. These actions stand in contrast to occasions earlier in the film when Baxter simply vacates his apartment for his superiors' sexual endeavors at a moment's notice. Because Fran is the one to turn this habitual abandonment around, I believe that all Baxter needed in order to assert himself was someone to care about. Once he is given responsibility for a human Baxter takes responsibility for his apartment and himself. It's almost as if Fran were a key, something that Baxter had sorely missed earlier in his life. Not necessarily her womanliness--after all, Baxter brings a girl back to the apartment before discovering Fran--but that innate sense of affectionate duty that accompanies love. Because Fran's overdose is the catalyst for every outward event that occurs in the second half of the film, it must lead to this inward shift in Baxter.

Stage Sets Pt. 1

I was cast in a play in Willimantic at the beginning of this semester. On my way to rehearsal I often think about how stage sets as "places" might be an interesting idea to explore in my blog. With the production now in the heart of its run, I think it's about time to write a bit about this notion.

I've done theatre since the seventh grade. In all that time I can't think of a single onstage set that I have not gradually come to think of as my home. Whether it's the Forest of Arden from Shakespeare's As You Like It or a mock steam engine from The Wind in the Willows, there's something about inhabiting these spaces over a period of months that makes them something greater than plywood and paint. Each actor with whom I've ever worked has his or her spot onstage that he or she occupies more often than other people. These spots become territory. They are marked by spare costumes, personal water bottles, used sweat rags, difficult lines scrawled on nearby set pieces, broken pens and pencils, and an array of other physical details that bring a sense of "dwelling" to the location. It is not uncommon for actors to spend three, four, or five hours a day occupying these spaces. Yet after a number of months they are torn down, unhinged, folded up, and stored until next year, during which they will host new actors and acquire new meanings. The great number of hours one actor spends in his or her spot is erased from existence.

Despite the ever-changing nature of these spots onstage, I find them to be true places. Non-places are temporary according to many of the theorists we've read in class, but all of those other traits (identity, genuineness) are present. What's more, I feel terrible dismantling my "spot" when a play is over, which goes to show that temporariness can actually create true places, not prevent them.

The "Apart"-ment

Yesterday we began watching Billy Wilder's The Apartment in class and I wanted to record a few observations and reflections from the portion that we've watched so far. The theme of the film appears to be possession and ownership: C. C. Baxter owns his apartment by deed, but doesn't see enough of it to call it his property because he's always letting his supervisors borrow it for their sexual rendezvouses. This causes him distress not only out of sleeplessness, but also (though he doesn't seem to acknowledge it yet) out of a sense of belonging. He spends much of the day in his office complex, certainly a non-place by the look of it. Every desk and row on his floor is the same as the others and every person does the same repetitive tasks. Because no such environment could inspire a sense of belonging in any sane person, Baxter's apartment should be a haven for ownership and personal bearing. This is not the case, however. While his coworkers leave work for their homes, Baxter stays on at the office, sitting alone at his desk in an empty room. His sense of belonging is thrown off by both having to remain in this non-place longer than anyone else and also by often not being able to reenter his apartment when his supervisors are done with it for the night. Afterwards Baxter is left to pick up their garbage in his own place, which only further entrenches the notion that he doesn't belong anywhere. In a world where one's comfort is often determined by material means, not having this sense of ownership must be upsetting for him.

Here There Be Horses

Despite all of the social revelations that come towards its end, I found the most interesting part of Book 4 of Gulliver's Travels to be Gulliver's first encounter with the Houyhnhnms. Two of this breed of intelligent horses appear to Gulliver as he hides from the Yahoos (after making enemies of them with the flat of his sword). One approaches him, examines him, and calls on his partner to decide what to do with him. In the meantime Gulliver reflects on the grace and knowledge of these horses, remarking that breeders of such wise beasts must be very smart. He talks of going to find the dwellings of this breeding race of men, unaware that humans are the true Yahoos in this episode.

What intrigues me most about this encounter is the ease with which Gulliver casts assumptions about the Houyhnhnms. Being a man of science, and having just finished a voyage thematically focused on the pros and cons of scientific inquiry and rational thought, one would think that his character might regard the two horses objectively before considering their human masters. If they exhibit the traits of wisdom, why not go regard them as sentient beings? Why frame one's observations inside conventional laws of nature when one's past three voyages should discredit with this train of thought? I took from this instance that one ought not take for granted what others take or don't take for granted.