The Many Levels of Grimm

Tonight’s rehearsal took place in the same room as the second night of auditions.  Everything was the same as before -- the blue carpet, the wrinkled throw rug Nicole, Kenny, and I had to battle with so we could roll the piano into position, the random watercolor pictures of fancy French architecture hanging on the otherwise bare, beige walls (Vikki, to me: “Paris?” Me: “I guess?”).  The air-conditioner was also on full-blast -- an instant conversation-starter during the auditions when everyone would walk in, sweating from nerves and extreme heat, while we sat at the other end of the table in literal and metaphorical coolness.  

At times the rehearsal process seems like a series of violent flashbacks.  But this should come as no surprise when art imitates life -- or perhaps, more accurately, vice versa.  “Violent flashback” is the name of the Grimm game, even eponymously lending itself to the name of a song six-minutes into the show (the “violent” is implied, however).  No wonder Olivia continues to say that “making decisions” as a director is a violent act.

In attendance tonight: Abby, Theresa, Sierra, Gina, Clea, Jake, Grant, Cooper, and Taylor.  Fittingly, tonight Kenny taught them “Angelica’s Death Scene” -- something he had written specifically for Grimm 2.0 because we decided to rewrite the original ending of the show, incorporating Angelica and Catherine’s climactic body-switching switch-back. 

Tonight was the first time any of us (including Kenny) had heard the song, which features motifs from the entire show, musically escalating until the evil Angelica, back in her rightful body, is consumed.  Consumed by the very ensemble once consumed by the fires in Flashback.  (Oh God.  I could get into even more poetically perfect, lyrically arousing uses for the word “consume” here, but I’ll restrain myself.  I do declare that sentence was high school English paper-y enough).  

Violent flashbacks of “Flashbacks” within flashbacks, all taking place within the imaginative mind of a little girl who decided one night to open up the trunk.

Which is itself all one dramatic illusion.

Inception?  Grimmception? 

Christopher Nolan will see it.

Although most of the cast members didn’t know where all these musical motifs were coming from (not having learned all the numbers yet), I sat and took it all in, recognizing bits of Flashback, Candy, Things are Looking Awfully Grimm.  Everything full circle, everything a violent flashback.  With variation.  

A perfect ending to a show that is itself an imaginative retelling of the world’s most retold stories.

Does your brain hurt yet?