As part of the ACT FIRST installment of our STEIN LAB, we interviewed Jesse Freedman, an NYC-based multi-disciplinary theater artist and co-founder of Meta-Phys Ed. Jesse is the Lead Artist of Paisieu: A Play: A Work of Pure Imagination into Which No Reminiscences Intrude. playing at The Connelly Theater (with Rose Love Pepe) beginning Wednesday June 3rd. Tickets are only $15 and available HERE.
TMT: Do you remember your first Stein encounter? How have your feelings / perceptions evolved to today, as you get ready to present Paisieu…?
JF: I think my first encounter with Stein was listening to an interview with Robert Wilson. He described how he was influenced by Gertrude Stein and Balanchine. He recited a few lines of Stein’s writings. She remains mysterious. I saw a Balanchine ballet the other night and I can see the similarities.
TMT: How did you approach your particular Stein source material? How has that approach metamorphosed during the show’s development?
JF: My approaches researching text is a combination of dramaturgical rigor and half-baked associative. I read other Stein texts. I learned about her life and her philosophical influences and pastoral literature. I read the play, got distracted googling things and learning about them and trust they had something to do with the play. I went into a paranoid conspiratorial rabbit hole of associates where I started a research chain that led me from the word “Geronimo” to the 1904 World’s Fair. I know Gertrude Stein wasn’t at the 1904 World’s Fair and the play doesn’t take place at the 1904 World’s Fair but I indulged it because I needed a vehicle for us to talk about Stein’s modernity and her dubious politics that wasn’t the play. Because if you try to understand the play, you will madden yourself and miss the point. We also got a few scenes about a guy buying cotton candy which was cool. As the process evolved I focused more on understanding the text as a pastoral, and what our relationship to the pastoral is.
TMT: You are incorporating some non-Stein texts into the creation of your show. How did you get from Stein to Seuss, and how do they interact?
JF: I’m using Dr. Seuss books as a source for images only, not written text. It’s really about movement. I got there purely through association. Picture me picking my nose and thinking, “Gee, she sounds sorta like Dr. Seuss don’t she?”. Rehearsal for me needs to be stupid fun, and this seemed like stupid fun. This was actually pretty key, because the text is so maddening, so that part had to be fun and effortless. The first day of rehearsal we staged Green Eggs and Ham, as it was on the page and performed it as a dance. The books told us what the staging was and who the characters where. Stein wrote three Act 1’s and three Act 3’s, which I decided to perform at the same time, so we could do the play in 40 minutes. I choose which Act 1 would be Hop on Pop, which Act 1 would be The Cat in the Hat and which would be Green Eggs and Ham and arranged them in space. Hop on Pop has 25 pages so it was obviously the Act that had 25 scenes. Then we layered the text on top of the movement. The text does not indicate characters or line divisions so we let the movement tell us how to divide up the text.
TMT: If you were to take Gertrude Stein to attend one of your favorite contemporary theater pieces, how might she interpret it?
JF: Target Margin duhhh. Or Big Dance Theater. I’m not sure how she would interpret it. I think she would comment on the things she saw.
TMT: Do you have a favorite line from Stein at the moment?
JF: Effect of Poplar saving set settle.
Chadbourne and relight.
How are you?
Relegate.
After Attic.
Not to be influenced.
Weight Whatever.
Geronimo is rejoinder.
Jesse Freedman’s Paisieu: A Play: A Work of Pure Imagination into Which No Reminiscences Intrude. runs June 3rd – 11th (with Rose Love Pepe) at The Connelly Theater. Tickets are only $15 and available HERE.