“Who are you, what do you want, how are you going to get it?”
That’s what theater teacher Annie Averre asked as she paused the action last week during rehearsal of a show called “En Route.”
It was an important question for the masked characters stalking around the theater at Vancouver School of Arts and Academics. Those characters do lots of physical storytelling — dancing, chasing, climbing over seats, rolling each other around in barrels, solving puzzles and playing games — but nobody ever says a word.
Therefore, Averre reminded the members of an extracurricular troupe based at VSAA, called Vital Forces, that their bodies must clearly communicate their special personalities. “You’ve got to throw your whole self into it,” she said.
Troupe member Hayden Orr, signing through his friend Ryan DeSemple, added: “You can’t walk like a normal person. Go more onto the balls of your feet. Put more expression into your legs.”
Orr, who is deaf, would have been in this show, except that he’s moved up in the world. He recently acted and danced in an equally unconventional mashup of pantomime and poetry called “Savage/Love,” staged by Imago Theater in Portland, so he wasn’t able to rehearse with Vital Forces for its upcoming performances of “En Route.”
But Orr, a graduate of VSAA, is an important consultant, Averre said. “En Route” was conceived as a gift for the Washington School for the Deaf after a previous VSAA performance there, she said.
Shows specifically designed for a deaf audience are such a rarity, “It was practically holy for those kids,” recalled troupe member Marley Fouts-Carrico, who said she’d never seen anyone laugh like that.
Performing for a deaf audience “was one of the most profound moments of my acting career,” added Eliana Stemm.
Vital Forces will perform “En Route” twice at the Washington School for the Deaf: once for a private audience today, and again at 7 p.m. Friday for the public, as a benefit for WSD. Tickets are $7. Catch some excerpts of the show in a Columbian video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUNeczoJb2g
Jazzy
A few years ago, Averre and Portland actor-director Arturo Mantinini collaborated on an original VSAA show called “The Inevitable Consequence of Gravity, or, There Once Was a Fish.”
As the title suggests, it was theater of a different sort: sprawling and circuslike, an exercise in controlled chaos. That’s a format called “commedia dell’arte,” which originated in Italy during the Renaissance. Averre, Mantinini and their VSAA students became so enamored of the style, they launched the Vital Forces troupe to keep studying and performing it as a districtwide, after-school activity.
Commedia dell’arte features masked “types” who pantomime their way through a rough storyline that leaves plenty of room for improvisation and spontaneity. During last week’s rehearsal, a rubber ball the characters were playing with went bouncing off the stage and into the seats. DeSemple jumped down, tossed it back onstage — and then went into an elaborate routine of desperately hanging on and struggling back up like he was clinging to the edge of a deadly cliff.
It was completely amusing and just a little dangerous. With 14 masked characters busy exploring their individuality all over the place — what does each one want and how do they get it? — staying energetic but never upstaging the central action can be challenging.
“You don’t have to be in constant motion,” Averre coached the crowd. But, she added, you can’t take breaks onstage either. “You are such a malicious little tease,” she encouraged one mischievous character. “Don’t lose that energy!”
“We’ve learned how to give the stage over to each other so you’re still in the show but you’re not the focus,” said Savanna Falkner.
“Improvisation in a large group is one of the most difficult things,” said Stemm. But, she added, improvisation is also how the best stuff emerges. Doing the same thing in the same way more than three times means it’s getting stale, she said.
If You Go
What: “En Route,” by Vital Forces.
When: 7 p.m. Friday.
Where: Washington School for the Deaf, George B. Lloyd Auditorium, 611 Grand Blvd., Vancouver.
Tickets: $7; $5 for seniors and children under 12.
On the web: http://www.vitalforcestheatre.com
Because there are general guidelines but no script, Averre said, the show is a little like jazz. Averre thinks of herself as a trainer and “orchestrator,” but not the director. “I help them know what’s working. I help them craft it into something the audience can grab ahold of,” she said.
Template
The device that gets things rolling in this show is the same as it was for “The Inevitable Consequence of Gravity.” A company of theatrical misfits stumbles onto a dark stage and realizes an audience is watching. They leap into frenzied action in an attempt to entertain them. A puppetry contest, a wedding, a funeral, a surreal dream and lots more clowning ensue.
That truly ancient template — “Hey, let’s put on a play!” — is always going to be the introduction to Vital Forces performances, Averre said, because it’s appropriate for theater that’s driven by improvisation.
“Being in Vital Forces really lets you get comfortable being completely absurd and ridiculous,” said Stemm. “It’s best when you’re being ridiculous.”
“It takes a lot of courage, when you’re a teen, to let yourself be that vulnerable,” Averre said. “These students have given each other a lot.”
