Word: cooperized
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...said that after a particularly bad run-through of the second act--one that was dead, joyless, dull. Cooper then said, as his cast sat on the floor around him, "Now I want you to get up and walk around." They did. A minute or so later, he said, "Now start to make noises at each other. Make a noise and make it at someone." What happened was very eerie to watch; for the actors began to grunt at each other, and then, as though high on the action around them to physically contact each other, bumping, then shoving...
...servant, moved away from the rest of the people toward the corner of the room from which they come on stage to open the second act. As they moved, they talked to each other, half as their characters, half as themselves, improvising their lines. Then, as they stood arguing, Cooper said, "All right, come on. Come on." And, as the rest of the cast was silent, the two girls cut from their improvised dialogue to the lines which open the second act. This time, as they came on stage, there was a tremendous amount of energy flowing back and forth...
...WARM-UPS, exercises, games, and improvisations that Cooper has used are by no means new to the stage. His play, The Bonds of Interest, is an imitation of Comedia dell' Arte--which grew popular in Italy and France in the 16th century, and later saw such variations as Punch and Judy shows. The original comedia were performed by troupes of players --who traveled from town to town with their entertainment. Their plays were never the same, however. What were constant were the roles that each member of the troupe played and a few basic plots and themes: true love thwarted...
Five or six weeks ago, when Cooper began work on The Bonds of Interest, he wanted to try something similar. He took the play, and wrote a synopsis of the action--a plot and character outline, which he then presented the actors: no stage directions, no cues, no lines--just a glimpse of the plot, and the characters who are in it. From these bare guidelines, he hoped the whole production could grow...
NEEDLESS TO SAY, it was an ambitious undertaking; and Cooper soon abandoned it. "It was simply too much to ask of a group of actors, some of them with little experience, working together for the first time." So the cast fell back upon working with scripts. But Cooper left many of the scenes unblocked, trusting the actors' onstage imagination to do the work for them. "Because a lot of the play is unblocked," Cooper says, "and because we've worked a lot with improvisation, the play will be a little different each night. But that...