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The Method Gun, courtesy of Rude Mechs. L-R, Hannah Kenna, Lana Lesley, Jason Liebrecht, Shawn
Sides, Thomas Graves.
Acting teacher Stella Burden influenced a great many thespians before she vanished mysteriously in the middle of rehearsals for a production of
A Streetcar Named Desire. The creator of “The Technique,” a conflation of traditional acting techniques and the dangerous tribal rituals Burden witnessed in her extensive world travels, she was known for her psychologically demanding training methods which encouraged extreme risk taking and often pushed actors to the brink.
Or, Burden never existed at all, and is actually a fictional combination of Stella Adler, guru to Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro, and Chris Burden, the controversial performance artist famous for having a friend shoot him as part of a conceptual art piece. The cast and director of
The Method Gun, on stage Nov.11-14 at Z Space, enjoy maintaining an air of mystery around Burden. When talking with director Shawn Sides and cast member Lana Lesley, it’s hard to tell when they’ve shifted from the reality of the play to flesh-and-blood historical reality.
“She’s a stand in for everybody’s personal guru,” said Sides. “It’s kind of about that troubled relationship between an enigmatic teacher and a student. We all have that person in our lives.”
The Method Gun, created and performed by the Austin, Texas theater company
Rude Mechs, began with an idea from writer and company member Kirk Lynn about whether there could exist an acting exercise powerful enough to kill. The play takes place over a number of years, but focuses on the last few months of a grueling, 9-year pre-production process of Streetcar, after Burden, the cast’s guiding force, has abandoned them.
The company first performed
The Method Gun in 2007, and honed the script to its current form around 2010. When asked to describe the development of their characters, both cast members explained that this isn’t really a play that works like that.
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The Method Gun, courtesy of Rude Mechs. L-R, Hannah Kenna, Shawn Sides, Lana Lesley.
“It’s really an ensemble piece,” said Lesley. “Each of the people has specific things that they want, but it’s so much more about the group than about the individual dynamics within the group.”
The company's official description of the play states that they based the story on “found text from the journals and performance reports of the company” as the company figured out how to move on without Burden.
“They have to learn how to move forward, like any group does that lost its leader,” Lesley said. “They have to make huge decisions about how they are to each other and what they’re doing.”
While
The Method Gun may seem like a play by actors about acting, Lesley explained that it’s really about any group caught in the grips of a challenging leader. Rude Mechs once performed the piece for an audience that included a group of evolutionary biologists, who approached the cast afterward to tell them how much the play reflected their group dynamic in the lab with their biology guru.
“These people are a metaphor for this thing we go through in life were we get thrown together,” said Lesley. “We all have leaders we love and leaders we hate.”
The Method Gun, Wednesday, Nov. 11 - Thursday, Nov. 12, 7 p.m.; and Friday, Nov.13 - Sat. Nov. 14, 8 p.m., at Z Space, 450 Florida., $20-$100. 415-626-0453.
