The Working Director | Jen Bloom

Ideally, I post these profiles before a show opens. Because of Jen being extremely immersed in

this process, then my schedule, it’s a little late. However, I’m glad of the timing because I had the privilege to see this production yesterday. I can’t even get into the inventive, playful nature of this Tempest adaptation; it’s hard to describe. I can tell you that Santa Monica Rep accomplished exactly what I rave on and on about: making theatre vital to people’s everyday lives again. As we sat in a lovely area watching this Tempest staged at the Annenberg Beach House, crowds of children dragged their parents and watched from above. Surely the fanciful music and vivid imagination performed in front of our eyes had something to do with that. -CMJ

 

Jen Bloom on The Tempest

CMJ: Please give a short description of The Tempest from a Director’s Perspective. What were the images or themes that drove your process?

JB: A deeply emotionally wounded magician, Prospero, lives alone on an enchanted island with his teenage daughter, banished and betrayed by his political colleagues and usurping brother. He has used his time in exile to learn magic, and has two servants- the fiery fairy Ariel, happy to please and accomplish every difficult task presented, and the disgruntled half-man, half-fish Caliban complaining to bring in the wood or wash dishes. Prospero uses

his powers to shipwreck his enemies on the island and seek revenge by driving them mad. He conspires to find a royal husband for his daughter, and guarantee his safe passage back home to Milan with his dukedom restored and his divine family line guaranteed. Although Prospero knows he will have to renounce his magic in order to return to civilization, he finds he has difficulty doing so, and keeps requiring just one more thing of his Ariel to complete his plans. The play is a visceral meditation on betrayal, validation and how we use power.

The Tempest is a maelstrom of images, scenes, and emotional pingpong. Shakespeare wrote it at the end of an extremely prolific and full theatrical life, surrounded by adoring actors, colleagues, patrons and audience members. As he lived a life in the theatre, we can assume he was also surrounded by back-stabbing members of the same groups, too. There are scenes of great rage, followed by an almost saccharine sweetness; aching betrayal followed by ridiculous idolatry. It feels to be the variety show version of his entire body of work. The hour and twenty minutes this production runs takes an audience through a dense and vibrant imagination containing scenes of spectacle, political

intrigue, romance, clowning, magic, family drama and power plays.

In one the most famous series of speeches in all of dramatic Western literature, Shakespeare seems to reveal his conclusions after a long, full, delirious life of making plays and attempting to please a mixed audience of groundlings, artists and royalty. It’s nearly impossible at times; you can’t please everyone; they will always want you to do “one more thing” in order to aid them in finding a kernel of truth or clarity in your art. Not only is it nearly impossible, it is also inconsequential in the grander scheme. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on”. The desires of humanity to have more- more material wealth, more power, more shiny things- will always overshadow the simpler, and therefore more difficult to appreciate joys of nature’s beauty, family, and forgiveness. Storytellers can have their actor and designer elves tell every story in the world, but it will all fade into a sea of other stories, or be disregarded, and “our little life is rounded with a sleep” anyway, so why worry about it?

CMJ: How did you prepare for a classical piece versus other pieces? Why are you working with puppets and masks?

This is my third time directing my adaptation of the play; I first did it ten years ago in studio as my thesis in grad school at Trinity Rep, and then I was asked to direct it again outdoors for the roving Trinity Rep Summer Shakespeare Project, where it traveled to a dozen parks in Rhode Island. I LOVE Shakespeare’s mind; I love how he pushes a storytelling team to work at the top of their game, even from the grave. While I enjoy teaching and coaching new actors, on this particular production I only cast actors that had a ton of professional experience with Shakespeare to help accomplish as much clarity as possible with the poetry. We did three weeks of workshops before the residency rehearsal period to come up with a physical ensemble vocabulary, and arrive at a style of storytelling broad, yet specific enough to accommodate the challenges of the play.

Over the last couple of years, I have been working with puppets in my job at the LA Natural History Museum, where I direct the Museum’s Performing Arts program. My job is to help scientists and educators tell the planet’s stories about evolution, biological processes, predator/prey relationships and how the scientists know what we now think we know about what Mama Nature has been up to all this time. At the Museum, we use puppets of all kinds to help audiences of all ages connect to extremely dense content, and I was curious to see if the same techniques would help a Shakespeare audience connect to the equally dense material of Shakespeare’s imagination.

There is also the pleasurable fact, from the director’s point of view, that puppets can do what actors cannot- puppets can fly, change in size over the course of a second, perform tirelessly, bring the dead to life, time-travel, and be endlessly manipulated without complaint. The headpieces, which we ended up choosing over masks, help create the larger than life characters and animal-fairies that populate the island.

The production will be taking place at the Annenberg Beach House, for a mixed-age audience of theatre enthusiasts and curious tourists and beach-goers. Santa Monica draws people from all around the world. Some people will follow the language, and some will not. For those who won’t follow it, I wanted a compelling visual vocabulary that resonated on an emotional level. I also wanted people passing by to be able to watch for five minutes at a distance and know something cool was happening, that something was theater, and it was big, for everybody, and out from behind closed doors. We are working with an amazing design team- John Burton, Leslie Gray and Maddie Keller- who have come up with three story scenic elements and vibrant character headpieces and clothes that draw people in from the volleyball courts and the boardwalk. Even if not everyone in the crowd understands or watches the whole story, they will hopefully get the gist of what Shakespeare was trying to share. Making theater is making magic, and it requires humans to cooperate, put down their differences, share their hearts, even if for a moment.

CMJ: What was the biggest challenge in directing this piece and how will you overcome it (if you think you will)?

My biggest challenge on the piece has been keeping a handle on the size and scope of the project. We have been rehearsing outside, with the public constantly present. The team, supporting an ensemble of 7 actors and 2 puppeteers, has grown to about 30 with dreams and imaginations as big as mine, and almost as big as the playwright’s. And, as usual, monetary resources are limited, so the support staff is young, learning, and experimenting with logistical strategies themselves to handle the size of the venue, the sounds of the beach, the PCH and the noise of helicopters, the questions of the public on top of the demands of the play, and my own demands from its helm. We are working in and around a historical structure- the Marion Davies Guest House- populated with docents and tourists working on their own agenda- to share the story of the Golden Age of Hollywood- what are all these theater people doing here? Why are they speaking funny, loud, and wearing strange clothes with strange objects on their head? Tech this past weekend was INSANE, but also insanely fun.

I’ve had to learn, and re-learn, that telling a focused story in a crazy, unpredictable environment is just one way of looking at it. While I think we’ll succeed- this coming week will tell- that is not the only goal. About a thousand people will watch the play from beginning to end over the course of its one week run, but another thousand will walk by and catch five minutes, and another thousand have caught moments in passing as we’ve rehearsed. This process has been an expression of an art form very much ALIVE, tempestuous, yes, but inspiring and hopeful. Every child watching from the sand, and every tourist with their phone out to take a picture has affirmed my personal life’s quest to re-awaken people’s imaginations.

CMJ: What is the biggest challenge to directors in Los Angeles? How have you found your way here and where do you hope to go?

I made theater in New York City for five years, then Providence for eight. It’s much more fun here- the scene is more manageable, and supportive. People that make theatre do it because they love it, right in the face of the prevailing forms of storytelling here. The need for theatrical magic seems more clear; artists come in to rehearsal to feed their souls when the “industry” has drained them. Maybe I’m naive…it still feels like a City of Angels to me. Thankfully, I’ve grown accustomed to fighting for my needs and often losing; while I feel the occasional sting from lack of resources or an actor having to bail on rehearsal to run to an audition that could potentially pay their rent for a month, I love my time in the theater. The days and nights fly, and I still feel more alive wrestling with the questions of humanity presented by my team and playwright in my “pretend world” than I do in the “real world”.

Our fairly new company Santa Monica Rep, founded by me, my husband, Eric, and a third partner, Sarah Gurfield, aims to be a year-round professional company serving the beach part of the sprawl that is Los Angeles. I am done constantly driving to rehearsal in Hollywood, Silverlake, etc. There is an audience here; I believe it! We will find a building, a Board, and build an arts community. Hopefully, we will find an angel donor and move the production. There are some great small companies already here- just as the LA theater scene found its center over that past couple of years; we want to help mobilize the West Side. At the end of my days on the planet, I want to be as satisfied as Shakespeare, and leave behind a community of artists and audience that I served proudly, with a full heart and active mind.

Jen Bloom
jenbloom8@me.com
jen@santamonicarep.org
www.SantaMonicaRep.org
FB Santa Monica Rep
TW SantaMonicaRep

PHOTOS:

1. Gugun Deep Singh, as Prospero, from backstage, presiding over the beach and the Marion Davies Guest House courtyard at the Annenberg Beach House

2. Director Jen Bloom working through yet another famous speech with Gugun Deep Singh as Prospero