This “Carry The Tiger To The Mountain” was a remounting that was going to be a staged reading that turned into an entirely new production. Here’s what happened.
The casting was largely the same, with Wai Ching Ho reprising her lead role as Vincent Chin’s mother, and we had a week or so to put it together. So, as with most readings, staged or otherwise, we started with chairs, in a row upstage with space between them, and the actors seated, with scripts in hand.
I had had a week to put on a staged reading once before, my first one with Pan Asian years ago, and with all that time, I had wound up actually staging and blocking a lot of the play. The actors kept their scripts but moved about the space and acted scenes on their feet. With that in mind, we started rehearsing “Carry The Tiger.” For each scene, the actors involved would get off their chairs and I would stage the scene. We went through the entire play pretty quickly that way and then began to work through the scenes. As we did this, Wai Ching Ho began to work without her script as the lines came back to her from the time we had done the show several years before. Then, some of the other actors from that production began to do the same, and so did the new actors.
It was surprising, so early in the rehearsal, just a couple of days, to have that happen, but once it did the decision to do it without scripts was easy for me. But it still came as a shock to the cast. I just said OK, we’ll do this without scripts, fully staged, even the fights, but we’ll still use the chairs.
The shock lasted for just a short time, and then we proceeded to tweak what had already been done. Well, I re-staged the entire show, in three or four days. Couldn’t have done it without the actors, they were so game and so terrific.
What we wound up with was this: At the top of the show, lights up on the row of chairs upstage, with a script on each. The actors enter to their chairs and pick up their scripts and sit. First scene, the actors involved get up and begin the scene, leaving their scripts behind. When they finish they go back to their chair. The scripts are there for them to use to follow the play if they need them, the rehearsal being so quick and short the order of the scenes might have been a bit blurred. And so the play proceeded. If furniture was needed, a place to sit, the actor would bring his chair on with him and take it off after the scene. But most of the play was on their feet. There wasn’t much tech, if any, there had been no time, and no real need. It was amazing, really, how our show played to the audience. No sets, minimal tech, just the actors and the play, and the impact was even stronger, in a way, than it had been with the first production. This current production really showcased the play and the acting. No distractions like lights and light cues, sounds and music, just the actors, and the play.
Years later, I would do something similar, but more deliberately and completely, with the play “No No Boy.” You can read about it in “NoNo Boy” in my grid ahead.
