Process

For Sin, the seven members of Watchface – Chazz Dean, Kurt Fulton (referred to in the
supporting materials by his nicknames, City and Kitty), Kim X Knowlton, Melanie Monios, Iris
Rose, James Siena, and Maggie Siena – united to present a large and ambitious work
assessing the seven deadly sins within the perspective of current American culture. With
each sin presented by a different director, the seven works reflected each one’s unique
vision but within the context of the group’s sensibility. The segments reflected human
weaknesses, eccentricities, and imperfections that taken to the extreme became wicked,
corrupt, and depraved. Not only were the sins and their manifestations explored but also the
human motivation that prompted them to escalate.

The performance was presented in eight sections:

Prologue
Envy
Avarice
Lust
Sloth
Anger
Gluttony
Pride

The Remblem was the building block for the Prologue. These rhythmic units of related
movement and text had become associated with the group and were always well received.
This opening section established the performance’s wry point of view with high energy and
humor. Five Remblems for each sin were constructed to illustrate behavior expressing the sin
from its most repressed to its most extreme. For example, the text for the five Remblems that
represented Gluttony and Pride were:

Gluttony
1 – Dry toast with tea. No, make that water please.
2 – I think it’s my metabolism.
3 – They make size 12 so small these days.
4 – Get off my back, its baby fat!
5 – Weenie! Weenie! Gimme that goddamn weenie!

Pride
1 – Pride is a luxury a woman in love can’t afford.
2 – I am looking foxy.
3 – I don’t want them at my party.
4 – America. Love it or leave it.
5 – Nuke ‘em! Nuke ‘em!

For this initial section, Maggie, as project director, staged and organized the order of the 35
units. The section began with the most benign representations of the sins but gradually built
to each sin’s climatic Remblem, at which point its director exited the stage. After an intense
cacophony of sinning, Kim was first to exit. It ended with Kurt alone in a pool of light with the
balance of the group in the wings chanting “Nuke ‘em! Nuke ‘em!”
Prologue organizational chart

In the first outline for the show, the ensemble was to perform both a starting sequence,
originally called Introduction, and an ending one, called Conclusion. For the proposed
finale, Maggie requested Emblems that would represent emotions experienced before
sinning (1), when crossing the line (2), and in the aftermath of sinning (3). Samples of the
words and phrases that inspired these Emblems were (1) Temptation, Anticipation, Hunger,
and Desire, (2) Loss of Control, (3) Secret, Self-Recrimination, Isolation, Public Shame, and
Relief. Maggie also requested that the Emblems not be matched with a phrase of text, but
with body sounds such as breathing, stamping, slapping, and other non-verbal noises.
Phrases were also created for the instigating words, but were to be independent of the
Emblems made from them. Examples:

Desire – “Arguing with myself, I always lose, one of us always loses.”
Loss of Control – “Never again! The last time! Just one! I promise!”
Self-Recrimination – “She did it! She did it! Mea culpa. Mea culpa.”

At the eleventh hour, the Conclusion was removed from the show, due to concerns about
the show’s total running time. The performance was originally intended to end with the line “I
love this, I’m alive, never again, I promise. Don’t look.”

Even though the seven sins were created by seven different directors, their approaches can
be divided into two general styles. Avarice, Sloth, and Gluttony were staged through more
traditional theatrical devices. Each was a short linear play. Avarice and Gluttony were solo
presentations written and performed by their directors, Melanie and Maggie. Maggie told
her tale of gluttony through the folk tale “Hansel and Gretel.” She portrayed the lonely witch,
literally starved for friendship, preparing to eat the lost siblings, though this fact was revealed
gradually. The concept came from Maggie’s affection for “Fractured Fairy Tales” from the
animated Rocky & Bullwinkle show. She admired the twist the fractured tales put on the
originals that modernized and illuminated the “moral of the story.”

Melanie’s sardonic story of avarice was about a woman addicted to purchasing handbags.
Melanie included occasional abstract movements layered onto her dialogue – Emblems that
symbolized her character’s underlying motivations and fears. Nearly all of the “kitchy, funky,
plastic, hideous, gorgeous, faux-leathery” handbags that were necessary for the piece were
purchased from thrift stores and flea markets both in New York and California. A vintage
clothing hound at the time, Melanie borrowed a few of the bags from her own closet. “What
a great excuse to go thrifting,” she remembers. It is clear to her now that avarice was her sin
of choice because of her insatiable appetite for clothes of all eras and frequent outings in
search of the “ultimate thrift store score.”

To help set the framework of Sloth, a story of a woman isolated by her obsession with
television, Iris interviewed her friend, Dr. Gilbert Alicea, a psychiatrist. They discussed what
clinical conditions would cause a person to confine herself to her apartment in solitude and
watch TV all day and night, and what other symptoms these conditions would manifest.
proposed outline

Despite being a main force in establishing the Watchface method, Iris’ portrayal of Sloth
seemed contrary to its usual process. First, she utilized actors, including herself, who
portrayed set characters that advanced the plot through theatrical scenes as opposed to
performers executing tasks to express content. The dialogue was taken from recorded
improvisation sessions with her fellow actors after they were given the scenarios. Iris then
transcribed the sessions and chose the lines that would become the final script. However,
these brief theatrical scenes were interspersed within a series of many actions, timed to thirty
seconds each, representing activities that Iris’ character engaged in, and emotional states
that she passed through. Sloth transcriptions

In a second departure from past productions, her complex technical requirements of
lighting, sound, and props were in direct contradiction to the low-tech, portable, and
adaptable style of past Watchface productions. Sloth lighting cues

Since Iris’ Sloth was the story of a woman content to watch TV all day and night, the audio
score was essential to setting the scene. She made recordings throughout one complete
broadcast day of television, resulting in many tapes to review. Iris chose brief bits of
programming that best evoked different times of day and different genres of television. For
instance, when her character, Wendy, is supposed to be leaving for work, Sesame Street was
chosen for its morning time slot and for the incongruity of an adult who is unable to tear
herself away from a children’s show. When Wendy returns from a run for late night snacks,
the opening of The Tonight Show was heard, and to show that Wendy slept whenever she
wanted with no regard to normal working hours, she was seen sleeping through The Today
Show. Sloth audio clip organizational chart

In addition to the prop manipulation and stage resetting during the brief blackouts between
scenes, Iris’ costume changes that signified the progression of time were a notable
challenge. One of the most difficult tasks was for her to put her shoes on in the dark. The
simplest slip-on shoes were chosen with glow tape added to the inside. Her coat had Velcro
closures and her first dress had to fit over pajamas, while a second dress was worn
throughout, under her pajamas, until the final scene.

The remaining four sins, James’ Anger, Kim’s Envy, Chazz’s Lust and Kurt’s Pride, were more
illustrative of the Watchface style and used a variety of previously developed Watchface
techniques. James’ interpretation of anger was shown through a married couple managing
a convenience store. The setting provided both the intimate and external circumstances
that potentially initiate annoyances, resentments, and antagonisms that can manifest into
anger. Within five situations, his couple hurled insults and slurs at each other while
performing highly physical and intricate movement sequences. Anger script excerpt In his
review, The Los Angeles Times’ Dan Sullivan described the choreography as “not so much
kabuki as angry tai chi.”

The three remaining directors also sectionalized their presentations. Kim broke her sin into
three parts. The first and the third featured James and Kurt, and were titled “Competition”
and “The Root” respectively. In between, Kim’s monologue had the straightforward title
“Jealous Woman.” Kim used many different methods to arrive at the script and movement,
including Walter Kendall Fives, Frankensteins, Bodies in Space, Emblems and Jams. Some of
the varied concepts that instigated the exercises above for “The Root” were Third Wheel,
Backstabber, Rage, Depression, Wealth, Winner, and Loser. “The Root” script

Lust was presented in five sections. In the first piece, “Dreams,” Chazz compiled the script
from dreams he and his cast recounted, chosen because they felt the dreams had sexual
content, either subliminal or explicit. They executed Emblems in unison for words such as
Sleep, Lost, Blind, Confusion, and Fear. For a section named “Anatomical Flirtation,” Chazz
recited several muscle groups by their Latin names followed by their functions, insinuating
their sexual purposes. In opposition to Chazz’s narration, cast members Kurt and Maggie
fashioned a dance of Emblems and Abstractions for Curiosity, Desire, Youth, and Beautiful
Vision. ”Anatomical Flirtation” script and choreography For the final section, “Repentance,” a
series of Emblems for Defrock, Loathing, Shame, Pain, Self-Hatred, and Mourning were
performed simultaneously by the three but in different orders.

For the costumes, Chazz shopped at the behemoth vintage thrift store, Domsey’s, on the
Williamsburg waterfront, where clothing was sold by the pound. He adapted what he found
to simulate costumes of the Victorian era, infamous for its repressed sexual attitudes. He
scoured through the used bins of independent record stores he frequented along lower
Broadway and East Fourth Street to find the perfect accompaniment. The soundtrack
eventually included Charlton Heston reading from the Bible and The Battle Hymn of the
Republic as interpreted by Jim Nabors’ unlikely rich and overly dramatic baritone.

In assembling Pride, the only sin employing all of the members of Watchface, the seven were
broken into various groupings to show the manifestations of pride from adolescent bullying to
nationalistic fervor. Kurt distributed assignment sheets and utilized questionnaires in
gathering text, movement, and ideas that were used later to develop additional text and
movement. assignment and questionnaire examples As was the intention, the materials
assembled reflected real observations and experiences. Text from the assignments became
dialogue: “We forced him to smell dog shit at the end of a long stick.” Examining topics such
as fanaticism in team sports, Emblems and Abstractions were made from perceptions of
Superiority, Intolerance, and Self-Righteousness. These evolved into a sequence performed
by the trio of men expressing how support for the home team can develop into hate for the
“other.” The four women performed a comical mash up of narcissism, fashion, and religion,
including clichéd beauty queen speeches and snide observations – “I know it is supposed to
be ethnic, but it looks like she’s got a load in her pants.” religion/fashion script

As accompaniment to certain sequences, Kurt used short pieces of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of
Spring to evoke a primal tone. He imposed circular patterns onto the movement already
created to give the impression of a tribal ceremony. circle staging Assisted by their square
dance costuming and patriotic backdrop, the seven represented an exclusive community
where outsiders were not welcome. The final sin ended with a militaristic march that
devolved into solo movements representing excessive personal pride – Arrogance, Vanity,
Snobbery, and Smugness. As Tom Murrin observed regarding this jingoistic exhibition for
Cover magazine, “Everything they do in ensemble seems inevitable and correct, nothing is
forced or pretentious. Timing and coordination is Rockette precise while verbal connections
make you think fast.”