How do you feeeeeeel?
I will freely admit that leading this rehearsal was quite nerve-racking. Firstly, I don’t think I am designed for leading – in the traditional sense, I have no interest in directing, and that’s why I like devising. Our process thus far has been all four of us, in a room, and something melding together. This time we have designated these four rehearsals so that we all get a wide-open opportunity to explore the stuff that we want to out into the pot. Which is great and different and potentially incredibly useful. And also very scary. Secondly, the idea behind this bring-anything-to-the-table style starting point of the process was designed to give the project the best possible start. This project was not being created in answer to a commission; it was coming directly from ‘us’ (the motley quartet; the collective ‘us’; the royal ‘us’). Even if the stimuli or exercises did not come from somewhere personal, they involved the personal investment of ‘I want to make something about this. Basically even in these early stages, I think we knew that this project was going to be ‘our baby’ and as such even the dipping of one’s toe into the shallow water of ‘starting points’ seemed vital and important (I acknowledge this should not forgive the use of the over-sentimental term ‘our baby’, but it’s all I’ve got right now…)
Alright, Daisy, but what did you actually do?
I began by making two of us stand in front of the other two and performing an action repeatedly, or continuously. It began with handshaking (and went on to patting, poking etc [This is a bastardised Alison Oddey exercise – she says, “This exercise if about fostering the objective and subjective at the same time. The aim is to work spontaneously and instinctively, rather than thinking and interpreting the ideas of the image” Devising Theatre, Routledge, page 178]). The pair shook hands continuously and the other two had to shout out whatever associations / words / feelings came into their heads when looking at the action. It was an experiment of sorts, but I also wanted to see to what extent we could attempt to not censor our associations (even if they were poo, or aubergine…). This was inevitably harder than anticipated. But it served as an interesting warm up and introduced ideas of free association that I wanted to carry through the rehearsal.
And then?
I had brought in a huge array of objects to play with (something which had worked well in Laura’s rehearsal and which we had all agreed should be pushed further and in different directions). I lay them out on a table (they included, amongst other things: a glass jar, a compact, a boot, a dress, a teddy bear, a selection of images, cups and saucers, a teapot, books and various other curio). I laid out the chairs in the style of a ‘traditional’ dining room drama (sofa, two chairs straight on to the audience) and asked them each to pick an object and to find a place in the ‘scene’. They were not to pre-determine any factors, but just ‘go’ – which was very unfair of me and they gave it a good go. Accidental Collective improvising (‘faux’) naturalism was never something I thought I would see. When I clapped my hands they had to freeze – in an oppositional, ‘id’ moment where innermost, ambiguous feelings were captured in a moment – and then they had to go back to the improvisation. This carried on and we cut out dialogue from the impro, which seemed difficult, unnecessary and unhelpful. The silent impro interspersed with these dark, funny, surreal freeze-frames was much more interesting. The objects really carried the exercise, as they did not have predetermined characters or personas, rather the object dictated an action or task, which dictated a characteristic and so on. I began to introduce music (I wanted piano music, but in a pre-rehearsal flurry, settled for a Mozart Clarinet Concerto CD…) The exercise/impro became more manic with the music and the freeze came when the music stopped, and then the action continued began again, and we tried it the other way too. It became like some dark, delicious, messed up grown-ups’ game of Musical Statues. In the discussion that followed this, the general consensus was that it was something we had found difficult (I think because of the self-consciousness involved in asking three people who consider themselves ‘non-actors’ to perform a task so associated with ‘acting’), but that was worth revisiting…
And what’s with all these objects?
Finally, we had a little story time. I read this (abridged) extract from Vladimir Nabakov’s Transparent Things, Penguin, pages 12-14. This part of the book involves Hugh Person finding a pencil in a drawer in the Ascot Hotel, in which he is staying. Nabakov then preceeds to tell the elaborate history of this pencil. [This abridged extract does it no justice, go away and read it, it’s dead good. And to The Nabakov Estate - if I’ve made any typos please don’t sue me]…
“It was not a hexagonal beauty of Virginia juniper or African cedar, with the maker’s name imprinted in silver foil, but a very plain, round, technically faceless old pencil of cheap pine, dyed a dingy lilac. It had been mislaid ten years ago by a carpenter who had not finished examining, let alone fixing, the old desk, having gone away for a tool he never found. Now comes the act of attention.
In his shop, and long before that at the village school, the pencil has been worn down to two-thirds of its original length. The bare wood of its tapered end has darkened to plumbeous plum, thus merging in tint with the blunt tip of graphite whose blind gloss alone distinguishes it from the wood. A knife and a brass sharpener have thoroughly worked upon it and if it were necessary we could trace the complicated fate of the shavings, each mauve on one side and tan on the other when fresh, but now reduced to atoms of dust whose wide, wide dispersal is panic catching its breath, but one should be above it, one gets used to it fairly soon (there are worse terrors). On the whole, it whittled sweetly, being of an old-fashioned make. Going back a number of seasons (not as far, though, as Shakespeare’s birth year when pencil lead was discovered) and then picking up the thing’s story in the ‘now’ direction, we see graphite ground very fine, being mixed with moist clay by young girls and old men. This mass, this pressed caviar, is pressed in a metal cylinder which has a blue eye, a sapphire with a hold drilled in it and through this the caviar is forced. It issues in one appetising continuous rodlet (watch for our little friend!), which looks as if it retained the shape of an earthworm’s digestive tract (but watch, watch, do not be deflected). It is now being cut into the length required for these particular pencils (we glimpsed the cutter, old Elias Borrowdale and are about to mouse up his fore arm on a side trip of inspection but we stop, stop and recoil, in our haste to identify the individual segment). See it baked, see it boiled in fat (here a shot of the fleecy-fat-giver being butchered, a shot of the butcher, a shot of the shepherd, a shot of the shepherd’s father, a Mexican) and fitted into the wood.
[…]
Thus the entire little drama, from crystallised carbon and felled pine to this humble implement, to this transparent thing, unfolds in a twinkle. Alas, the solid pencil itself as fingered briefly by Hugh Person still somehow eludes us!”
I will freely admit that leading this rehearsal was quite nerve-racking. Firstly, I don’t think I am designed for leading – in the traditional sense, I have no interest in directing, and that’s why I like devising. Our process thus far has been all four of us, in a room, and something melding together. This time we have designated these four rehearsals so that we all get a wide-open opportunity to explore the stuff that we want to out into the pot. Which is great and different and potentially incredibly useful. And also very scary. Secondly, the idea behind this bring-anything-to-the-table style starting point of the process was designed to give the project the best possible start. This project was not being created in answer to a commission; it was coming directly from ‘us’ (the motley quartet; the collective ‘us’; the royal ‘us’). Even if the stimuli or exercises did not come from somewhere personal, they involved the personal investment of ‘I want to make something about this. Basically even in these early stages, I think we knew that this project was going to be ‘our baby’ and as such even the dipping of one’s toe into the shallow water of ‘starting points’ seemed vital and important (I acknowledge this should not forgive the use of the over-sentimental term ‘our baby’, but it’s all I’ve got right now…)
Alright, Daisy, but what did you actually do?
I began by making two of us stand in front of the other two and performing an action repeatedly, or continuously. It began with handshaking (and went on to patting, poking etc [This is a bastardised Alison Oddey exercise – she says, “This exercise if about fostering the objective and subjective at the same time. The aim is to work spontaneously and instinctively, rather than thinking and interpreting the ideas of the image” Devising Theatre, Routledge, page 178]). The pair shook hands continuously and the other two had to shout out whatever associations / words / feelings came into their heads when looking at the action. It was an experiment of sorts, but I also wanted to see to what extent we could attempt to not censor our associations (even if they were poo, or aubergine…). This was inevitably harder than anticipated. But it served as an interesting warm up and introduced ideas of free association that I wanted to carry through the rehearsal.
And then?
I had brought in a huge array of objects to play with (something which had worked well in Laura’s rehearsal and which we had all agreed should be pushed further and in different directions). I lay them out on a table (they included, amongst other things: a glass jar, a compact, a boot, a dress, a teddy bear, a selection of images, cups and saucers, a teapot, books and various other curio). I laid out the chairs in the style of a ‘traditional’ dining room drama (sofa, two chairs straight on to the audience) and asked them each to pick an object and to find a place in the ‘scene’. They were not to pre-determine any factors, but just ‘go’ – which was very unfair of me and they gave it a good go. Accidental Collective improvising (‘faux’) naturalism was never something I thought I would see. When I clapped my hands they had to freeze – in an oppositional, ‘id’ moment where innermost, ambiguous feelings were captured in a moment – and then they had to go back to the improvisation. This carried on and we cut out dialogue from the impro, which seemed difficult, unnecessary and unhelpful. The silent impro interspersed with these dark, funny, surreal freeze-frames was much more interesting. The objects really carried the exercise, as they did not have predetermined characters or personas, rather the object dictated an action or task, which dictated a characteristic and so on. I began to introduce music (I wanted piano music, but in a pre-rehearsal flurry, settled for a Mozart Clarinet Concerto CD…) The exercise/impro became more manic with the music and the freeze came when the music stopped, and then the action continued began again, and we tried it the other way too. It became like some dark, delicious, messed up grown-ups’ game of Musical Statues. In the discussion that followed this, the general consensus was that it was something we had found difficult (I think because of the self-consciousness involved in asking three people who consider themselves ‘non-actors’ to perform a task so associated with ‘acting’), but that was worth revisiting…
And what’s with all these objects?
Finally, we had a little story time. I read this (abridged) extract from Vladimir Nabakov’s Transparent Things, Penguin, pages 12-14. This part of the book involves Hugh Person finding a pencil in a drawer in the Ascot Hotel, in which he is staying. Nabakov then preceeds to tell the elaborate history of this pencil. [This abridged extract does it no justice, go away and read it, it’s dead good. And to The Nabakov Estate - if I’ve made any typos please don’t sue me]…
“It was not a hexagonal beauty of Virginia juniper or African cedar, with the maker’s name imprinted in silver foil, but a very plain, round, technically faceless old pencil of cheap pine, dyed a dingy lilac. It had been mislaid ten years ago by a carpenter who had not finished examining, let alone fixing, the old desk, having gone away for a tool he never found. Now comes the act of attention.
In his shop, and long before that at the village school, the pencil has been worn down to two-thirds of its original length. The bare wood of its tapered end has darkened to plumbeous plum, thus merging in tint with the blunt tip of graphite whose blind gloss alone distinguishes it from the wood. A knife and a brass sharpener have thoroughly worked upon it and if it were necessary we could trace the complicated fate of the shavings, each mauve on one side and tan on the other when fresh, but now reduced to atoms of dust whose wide, wide dispersal is panic catching its breath, but one should be above it, one gets used to it fairly soon (there are worse terrors). On the whole, it whittled sweetly, being of an old-fashioned make. Going back a number of seasons (not as far, though, as Shakespeare’s birth year when pencil lead was discovered) and then picking up the thing’s story in the ‘now’ direction, we see graphite ground very fine, being mixed with moist clay by young girls and old men. This mass, this pressed caviar, is pressed in a metal cylinder which has a blue eye, a sapphire with a hold drilled in it and through this the caviar is forced. It issues in one appetising continuous rodlet (watch for our little friend!), which looks as if it retained the shape of an earthworm’s digestive tract (but watch, watch, do not be deflected). It is now being cut into the length required for these particular pencils (we glimpsed the cutter, old Elias Borrowdale and are about to mouse up his fore arm on a side trip of inspection but we stop, stop and recoil, in our haste to identify the individual segment). See it baked, see it boiled in fat (here a shot of the fleecy-fat-giver being butchered, a shot of the butcher, a shot of the shepherd, a shot of the shepherd’s father, a Mexican) and fitted into the wood.
[…]
Thus the entire little drama, from crystallised carbon and felled pine to this humble implement, to this transparent thing, unfolds in a twinkle. Alas, the solid pencil itself as fingered briefly by Hugh Person still somehow eludes us!”
So I asked everyone to imagine a history for an object and tell us its story. The stories ranged from fantastical to mundane and I found them fascinating, as did everyone else, and they were essentially monologues. No one was sure if they had the full potential for material. Anyhoo, that was my rehearsal – and I survived.
No comments:
Post a Comment