It's six weeks till opening of THE MONK—the most ambitious,
passionate, and intelligent small theatre event of the upcoming season—and
it's about time this production took off into the blogosphere.

As the assistant director/dramaturg—the guy with the notepad, the
prompt book, and the kindly, admiring, good-humored visage hanging
around our spacious, well lit (if occasionally slightly stuffy)
rehearsal hall at Shotwell Studios, in San Francisco's gritty-fab
Mission District—I feel obliged and emboldened to share some of our
evolving experiences with you, our well-wishers of today and repeat
audience-members of tomorrow.

Rehearsals for THE MONK are well into their second week, and our
dedicated castmembers are steadily propelled ever more deeply into
their roles, and into the roiling, turbid, stylish, and deeply naughty
world of the play—all under the gently watchful, artfully literate,
and impeccably focused direction of Maestro Stuart. At our first,
(nearly-) full cast rehearsal, two Sundays ago, Stuart gave us a
clear, nuanced overview of the territory into which we are
parachuting, from the historical background of the Gothic revival in
England to the general aesthetic the play will embody (with, it is
hoped, some small assistance rendered by the dramaturgy lovingly
composed by the undersigned). Since then, we've had an opportunity to
have text and character sessions for almost all of the main roles, and
begun that mystical process known as blocking.

Last Sunday, when we first started to stage scenes, was electrifying
at times. With a look that evinced supreme focus, Stuart stood in the
studio equivalent of down center, read Ambrosio's role, and simply let
the blocking flow from him. The actors moved around, took notes, made
suggestions, and, most importantly, got it. One of the scenes we
blocked, in which the chorus of Gypsy women read the fortunes of the
innocent Antonia and her tactless aunt, was particularly invigorating:
we divvied up the Gypsy's lines among the three lovely ladies of that
chorus, some lines read in unison, and then got them on their feet. In
a flash, as Meghan, head Gypsy, coiled one leg around the other,
flanked meaningfully by her mysterious compatriots, and stretched out
her arms in a manner somewhere between that of a flamenco danseuse and
a Hindu goddess, the fateful, musical, occult character of the scene
suffused the room.

As we immerse ourselves more and more fully in the process, a funny
feeling steals over me. Although the amount of work that remains to be
done (and it is significant) becomes more evident with every
productive rehearsal, there's also a palpable sense of relief. It
seems to me, at any rate, that as we get the production on its feet
and the characters into our souls, the barriers among Nirmala's rich
text, Stuart's directorial vision, Cody's graphic constellation, and
Matthew Lewis's twisted, fantastical world are increasingly only
practical, only physical: ideas are steadily becoming flesh, becoming
action, becoming character. This, for me, is the crucial process, the
transubstantiation of our art.