Working with Bill and his wife Kira, I have
never in my life experienced such a generosity of spirit, sense of true
compassion, depth of feeling or profound intelligence. I can confidently
say that my experience is not unique, that all of the actors who worked
on "The Passions"(many of whom are friends and fellow colleagues)
felt the same way about Bill. This may not seem like a great or special
quality. But working in the entertainment industry and the art world,
we are accustomed to the self-centered directors who treat actors indifferently.
From the first day I worked with Bill, he made me feel that I was his
equal. Period. I felt as if he opened a door and allowed me to share my
life experience in theater, music and art. He listened to my ideas and
made me feel entirely comfortable. He provided a safe place for deeply
emotional and challenging work.
With all of us, he shared his source materials - paintings, poetry and
historical texts - so that we could understand the forces that motivated
and inspired him. After working with him for year, he told me that he
wanted to do a piece about a nun…about a woman who lives a contemplative
life. It was a solo piece and he asked me to "collaborate" with
him in creating it, which was extremely generous of him. He had a very
clear idea of what he wanted to do. Catherine's Room was based on a 14th
Century predella by Andrea di Bartolo and showed 5 scenes in the life
of St Catherine in which the Saint is seen praying and receiving stigmata.
Bill's idea was to do five video panels that would show the "interior
life" of contemporary woman. My contribution was to share basic stage
craft and tell Bill that this modern Catherine needed activities - simple
tasks that she could perform…….washing her face, doing yoga,
sewing, eating an apple…. through these tasks the viewer would learn
about her character and her world. Bill decided what those activities
were and how they would be staged.
Making Catherine's Room took five days to shoot and was a grueling process.
Bill and I had to create and block a new performance for camera each day.
The shot was a single, continuous take that lasted twenty minutes. If
I made a mistake, we had to begin again. It took enormous patience for
Bill to work with me to choreograph my performance while of crew of twenty
professional camera, set and make up people stood by. He never lost his
temper or said a sharp word to me. On the fourth day of shooting, I left
the set in tears to call my husband. I was distraught because we were
trying to conceive and I had just learned that we had not succeeded, again.
Exhausted by the filming and the emotional roller coaster of hormonal
treatments, I didn't think that I could continue the disciplined work
of filming. Bill asked me what was wrong, I told him, and then he said
to me "Well do you want to do this?" and there was no anger
in his voice, even though hundreds of thousands of dollars were riding
on my decision. He just simply asked me if I wanted to keep working. I
heard the calm in his voice and felt permission to do what I needed to
do.
All during the shooting of Catherine's Room, I had used Bill as my model
for the character. I studied the way he handled objects, the focused way
he went through the most simple task. Now I studied him to see how I would
make this decision. The answer came, but from deep within me. I felt in
that moment that I had learned from Bill about a resource, a place within
oneself that is reached down into when you know that you must continue
and move forward. Call it "will" or "guts" but until
that moment in my life, I had never flexed that muscle. I found it working
with Bill.
Working with Bill has been one of the most profound learning experiences
of my life. He showed me how to access my inner strength, my grace and
so gave me courage. He taught me the value of my own ideas.
Time and again, Bill spoke of the transformative power of art. He was ecstatic after a good take because he knew that the film would ultimately be in a museum where people would benefit from seeing it. This may sound egotistical, but it is selfless. All you have to do is hug Bill after he has finished working on the opening of a major exhibition. When you hold him, you feel that he is spent, completely drained and that is because of the care and focus he gives to every moment and every person. Crew member, curator and collector alike, Bill creates and lives to acknowledge our shared humanity.
Catherine’s
Room, 2001
Color video polyptych on five LCD flat panels mounted on wall (15 X 97
x 21/4”)