Day two of performance, and a week since I've last written. As fate would have it - just when things were getting interesting my computer decides to break, hence no entries. Thankfully everything has now been rectified and I will endeavour to document the performance period. The last week of rehearsals was good. It took me a few days to see the play as a whole rather than as the seperate scenes, but after running it a number of times I was able to view the piece as a play, a piece of theatre. The final few days of rehearsal are an interesting period as not only am I concentrating on making sure the actors know what they're doing and are comfortable with their performances, I am also trying to view the play with an outside eye. I ask myself questions such as "Is the story clear?", "Am I bored at any point?", "What is the purpose of the scene?". One often finds, especially in European theatres, that a dramaturg will be bought in to oversee this kind of process. Unfortunately we are neither in mainland Europe, and we don't have a dramaturg. Hence, I have been doing it. This has been a double edged sword - it has been very useful for me, as a theatre practitioner, to undertake such a task: making me critically view and assess my work; however, it has also meant that my eye has had to be away from the actors' performances and with only a few days to go I sometimes feel that I neglected them. We have been in the Alma Tavern since Sunday. The get-in was fairly smooth. I had a couple of issues with the set design. Firstly, the green that Catherine had painted the flats was way to bright and gave the impression that we were watching some twisted children's TV programme; secondly a piece of furniture - which was pretty incidental - was way too big; a shelf has been put up to replace it and it works well. But, as one can hopefully see, these were fairly minor issues and all-in-all things went well. We did the Q-2-Q, tech and dress on Monday. This period is one of my least favourite parts of theatre making, in particular the technical aspects of performance create a huge amount of stress for me. Where does the stress come from? It's quite simple - control, or lack of it (directors are after all, a bunch of control freaks!): whereas in the rehearsal room I can dictate what we do, how things are approached, etc - when I am dealing with lights and sound I have to trust whoever is operating them to do it. And really I want to do it. This is not to say that the lighting/sound operator is doing a bad job - far from it. It's just that I want to be doing everything. As a director, I always think that if something is wrong it is my responsibility to rectify it. Thus if an actor can't find a moment in the script, I do not blame the actor for it - I blame myself: it is my job to rectify it and to explain the scene in such a way that the actor does find their moment. Anyhow - enough meglomania, let talk about the first two performances. Last night went well - we had a good sized audience for the first night and they were pleasantly responsive to the show. It's always suprising what an audience finds humourous or engaging and it was nice to see moments that myself and the actors simply thought were narrative points, etc. For example, in scene three where Tom takes his top off to reveal a bruised body, the whole attitude of the spectators changed. From what they thought was quite a humorous, the scene sudddenly changed into something much more serious, and there was a palpable change in the audience. I look forward to other such moments over the run. Just read the The Stage's review of the show. Not bad at all. The critic wasn't terribly keen on the play, but the actors get some kudos so I'm happy. Anyhow - I'm off to bed. Another long day just gone, and another coming up. I'm tired, but I'm happy. An interesting few days. As always with my final week of rehearsals, the main focus is on running the show as many times as possible to get the actors prepared for performance. However, the rehearsal process for the show has been quite different to how I usually work, and thus so has this week. So what have the differences been? Mainly the structure, and this has been dictated by the play's own construction. Due to the fact that three of the five scenes have completely different actors, I have been working in virtual isolation with each group of performers. Also, due to various other commitments from actors it has been difficult to rehearse scenes for more than one day at a time. I think that if you have, for example, three days to rehearse a scene it could be more constructive to rehearse them over a consecutive period, instead - as I've been working on this project - of three single days over two weeks. The reason for this is obvious - by working on something for three straight days in a row, it means the actors develop a better sense of the emotional and physical continuity of the scene; it is a lot harder to remember the character's thought process, emotional journey and moves if you haven't done the scene for a week. The flip side of this is that one could rehearse a scene during the early stages of the rehearsal, then not see the actors for a week and a half, by which time they may well have forgotten a lot of what went on in the rehearsal room. Thus, perhaps, my rehearsal format has served the play well - by working for only a day at a time on a scene, then coming back to it a little later I have enabled a drip-drip effect to occur. So how has all this impacted on the rehearsals? Not greatly - only Tom and Georgina were a little rusty on what they were doing. There was a two fold reason for this though - firstly they hadn't done the scene for nearly a week whilst other two groups had been rehearsing yesterday, and secondly, Tom and Georgina's scene is by far the most technical scene in regards to action - the scene contains a full-on physical fight that involves precise blocking and timing. It is the type of thing that will take a few more runs to flow totally smoothly - this said, on our last run this evening things were looking good. I am by no means worried. The other two groups of actors also have a couple of points of interest. Scenes 1 (which involves only Charlotte) and 5 (Charlotte and Ashley) are looking good. The actors are consistently producing the rhythmic and emotional flows necessary for the scenes to work. It is because of this that I have asked them to start experimenting next time we run the scenes. This is not to say that I want them to start redoing the scene - it is only that I am aware that there could be a danger that they are so comfortable with what they're doing that units, impulses and though-processes that they have so successfully found could start to be replaced by robotic representation*. By asking them to experiment at this stage in rehearsal, I hope that they can continue to organically create their scenes each night, and it will also hopefully prepare them better for the unknown quantity that is performing in front of a live audience. The final trinity of the 3Ds (David, Dave and Dee) are coming along well too. After a moderate day on Monday where a lot of fumbling and forgotten lines made it hard to work, I am pleased that their two scenes have developed and are nearing performance quality. I think David has probably the most difficult acting job in the whole cast as his character goes through such a dramatic transition between his two scenes. If we had a couple of other scenes where we could see his deteriation I think his job would be a lot easy, but the fact is he has to go from sane and happy to suicidal and lost. We have tried a number of different approaches and continue to do so. A number of times he has hit the nail on the head, and other times does not. Again, I am confident that these last few days will be fruitful and that by next Tuesday we will be in a healthy position. OK - that's rather a lot for one evening! In brief other news, we have a good article on the play in this week's Venue Magazine - a full page spread. Having had a handful of bookings throughout the day it looks like it might be somewhat useful. * There is a quote from the film Full Metal Jacket that I always think is apt in explaining this principle - "The drill instructors are proud to see that we are growing beyond their control. They do not want robots. They want killers." Replace "drill instructors" with "director" and "killers" with "creative actors" and it might make sense, or at least does to me! Things are going positively I feel. Had a good couple of days of rehearsal - yesterday with Charlotte and today with Charlotte and Ashley. What strikes me most is how much clearer it is to direct once I have a scene blocked and down. Rather than worrying about who is where and who does what, one can concentrate on action, thought and each character's objectives in the scene. One's focus is no longer on the construct of the scene, but more importantly the colours, shades and tones. We have one week left of rehearsal and next week each group will present (and integrate) their scene with the others. I look forward to this. It is where I must try to shape the play as a whole rather than concentrate on details in each scene. I have no idea how this will turn out, but I hope there is continuity across the board. If this isn't the case I'll have to work out a strategy to make it so...but with what I've worked on with each group thus far I'm not worried. I must go. Highlights of England beating Australia in the cricket is about to be broadcast...priorties and all that. Haven't written for nearly a week or so - but I think that's because I've been busy, rather than being a lazy sod...that's my excuse anyway! To put you in the picture, as well as directing this play I am also teaching a youth theatre group and working part-time at an architect's practice. Hence I am flat out for many hours per day. That said, I wouldn't swap it for the world - working hard and getting things achieved is what I really enjoy - it beats working nine-to-five, coming home and couch-potatoing until midnight, then bed. Things are going well in rehearsal. As per today, we have rehearsed and blocked the whole play. This is great for me. I can now start tweaking, polishing and making the performances ready for the 20th. This is the part that I really like; I'm looking forward to next week where I, for the first time, see the show as a whole as opposed to isolated scenes. Something struck me today about the actors - and that is I really felt that I was working with an ensemble of actors, a company. This is a doubly odd feeling as I am working with only one group of actors at a time. Perhaps it's that I don't think "oh shit, I've got to work with X today", or "great! I've got Y today" - I really feel there's a consistency throughout the cast, a consistency of high quality acting. Another thing which struck me today (working first with Tom and Georgina, then Dave, David and Dee) was the difference in processes each actor has. I think the reason I noticed this is that, having worked with two groups in the one day, I really became aware of how each actor reacted to my direction, and also the input they gave in the scene. Each one's was different, and spoke volumes about their working practice as actors. Having only really realised this on the way home, I have yet to define how each actor works - however, I think I will try to make an effort to analyze what is said and how it is processed from now on. Watch this space... In other news, we had the company photographer come in yesterday to do various shots for publication - he snapped a rehearsal session with David Angus, Dee Sadler and Dave Rogers. Below I've published the selection that have been sent out. I will post further images if and when they become available. Click a thumbnail to view a specific image or click here to open the gallery.   I'm aware that my last two entries have been somewhat theory based - and this isn't really the purpose of the blog. I want to chart the process, day-by-day. Hence, from hereonin, I'm going to try and to be day specific and write about what I've done in the rehearsal room. Here goes... Today I've been working with Charlotte on the first scene in which Amy discovers a(nother) body in the hotel where she works (I'm not going to do spoilers - you'll just have to come see the show). This has differed from the first two days of proper rehearsal as they have been with two (yesterday - Tom and Georgina) or three (Tuesday - Dave, David and Dee) actors. Working with a single actor is, in many ways, more personal because you have to trust each other that the work you're doing is of an acceptable standard: there isn't another person to say 'this is working', 'that sucks', etc. As with the previous days we started by discussing Amy's character, then moved onto breaking the scene into units. As I thought, there were many of them - I think more so than one might usually find in a monologue. Why? Because Amy is having a conversation with a body and the character has a very definite internal dialogue. This continually fluctuates from a kind of imagined duologue with the corpse and also a fair amount of her talking to herself, assessing the situation. In a more conventional speech, the internal dialogue is almost totally self-centred and thus the changes of thought tend to be further apart as there is more time to assess and comment on each thought and then move on. With Amy, her circumstance creates a continual toing-and-froing. Having broken the scene into units, and then for lunch (for the first time ever I used the self-scan facility at Tesco - very exciting) we worked on the staging of the scene. One thing I am finding particularly difficult is not having the set design confirmed - Catherine is taking a rather long time sorting it out. Once this is done I think things will move a lot smoother. However, we perservered and set up a mock hotel room with a table for the bed and various other furniture doubling as the other pieces of scenery. The afternoon went well and we were able to get through the whole scene. I will be a lot more relaxed once we have done this with the whole play. I find getting just a basic shape of a scene one of the hardest things to do as a director. Once I have something to work with it's much easier to assess, tweak and, if necessary, re-work. The old cliche of the performance being an unknown perhaps extends to the rehearsal process to for the director. Until you have actually got something up on it feet - you have no idea what you've got. That said, perhaps it's just my way of working - I like to be as collaborative as possible with the actors and think coming in with a plan of how everything is going to be is detrimental to the director as a rigid plan is very difficult to move away from and for the actors is something that surely stifles their creativity, impulses and process. Right - I'm going to leave it there. There's a documentary on the bungled ATF Waco raid on Channel 4 now. It's always fascinated me, and apparently the programme is very good. The last couple of days I've been doing 'table work' with two groups of actors, examining three scenes. I find table work essential as part of the rehearsal process - it is during this time that the actors, and myself, start to discover a whole lot more about the play than any of us have reading it in solitude. It is also the time where I ask the actors to create back stories to about the parts they are playing. This is not so that they can 'become the part', but to both give them some context for the scenes that are in, and I believe that creating a back story creates a richer performance; Eugenio Barba often talks about the 'secrets' dilating the performer's presence and in many ways I think this is true. For the actor to know things the audience doesn't (and won't) gives their on-stage presentation an engaging nature that merely working on the script cannot give. This could be as simple as 'the character does not like red' - hence when he enters a set that is almost entirely red, she will play this fear but because it is not made explicit in the script the audience will simply see a person who is of a shaky and uneasy nature. The other main part of table work is breaking the scene down into units. Units are basically points in the script where there is a change of subject, an entry from a new character, a new thought, an action - pretty much anything where there is a noticeable change. And when I say noticeable, I don't mean to an audience, I mean to a group of actors and their director, sitting around a table scrutinizing the script for such changes. What is the point of such a process? There's a few. Firstly, it breaks the script into rehearsable chunks - it gives me a point to go from, to take a scene back to. Secondly, it gives the actors an emotional punctuation - they can determine their character's emotional journey in a scene by referring to the units. This doesn't mean that at each unit-break they change, for instance, from happy to sad, but it means they become aware of a flow, a passage of their character's journey. The third reason is simply that it creates an easy means to learn lines. That by having definite breaks in the script that go beyond 'now I speak, now I don't'; it means that the learning of lines has meaning - that, for instance, unit four embodies this objective, by unit five my focus changes to this action. OK - lots of theory again. I promise to talk about the actors I am working with in my next entry - my initial impressions and their processes. In other news, I finished the design for the postcard advertising the show today. Click here to view it. OK - so the last production that I directed for Theatre West I was supposed to write a director's blog. And I did. Thing was I didn't write very much - perhaps two or three entries - it wasn't very good. Therefore for this production of 'Breathing Corpses', I intend to write more. Hopefully an entry a day...but we'll see. Today was the first day of rehearsal - always a slightly nervy experience as everyone is new, a little unsure of what's going to happen and how they'll fare against their acting colleagues (and what I'll be like - a monster, as always!) We had a few problems with parking and the like (for one horrible moment I thought that one of the actors was going to have his motor clamped - thankfully it appears it hasn't. For the first day of rehearsal I always like to keep things relaxed and short - nothing to strenuous or taxing. Hence, I did a bit of opening spiel (welcome, some thoughts on process, how I'll be working etc.) and then we did the read-through. I try to get the actors to perform as little as possible for this first airing of the play - the last thing I want is to hear how someone has decided they're going to play their part. As I director I like to start with my actors as blank canvases - that isn't to say that it is solely my paint that is going to be added, it is a key element of my process that the actor's input as much of their own thoughts and ideas into their parts as possible. It is my belief that one of the director's main roles is to develop a creative environment where all artists involved (including him/herself) are happy to explore, work and be creative. Hence, for the first day of rehearsal all I really do is the read-through and the spiel. I don't want to push the actors in anyway - and I think this was achieved today. The one slightly unorthodox element of today's read-through was the lack of Catherine to explain the design element of things. However, this will come in time and as we will only be doing table work for the next few days - I am happy to wait for a couple of days. I am meeting with her tomorrow, so I'll try to report how things are on the design front tomorrow.