It was a violent day in Monkey-ville on Sunday. I learned lots of new swear words; my own attempt at an insult (fuc*ing poo-face) paling in comparison to plentiful, unprintable examples from the rest of the company; Lamb (the name rather ironic now) warned us in no uncertain terms that if we ever upstaged her she would punch us in the back of the head, and reliable sources (Google) insist that Steven Green is a murderer. A fairly sizeable bomb for Steve to drop in the middle of Charlene's concentration game. It must be noted that he did not deny the accusation, but left the room to get "Tea". A likely story. Highly suspicious behaviour is what I was thinking. After much careful consideration however... I have come to the tentative conclusion... that our Steven Green may not be the same Steven Green that committed that foul murder. My reasoning for this is four-fold:
1) He probably wouldn't be so forthcoming with this information were he the villain.
2) Nor would he have kept the same name.
3) Nor would he be running a theatre company under that name.
4) Last, but by no means least; surely he would not wear such baggy trousers were he the murderer -- they would be a foolish fashion choice in a get-away situation.
So I think we are safe. Even so... I am going to be extra vigilant from now on. First sign of a meat cleaver and I am out of there!
Sunday was COLD! The session began with the rather exciting news that we were going to be allowed to keep our shoes on!!??! Wow! I was excited! It's the small things in life.
Anyway (after being accused of wearing a pvc skirt-- UNTRUE) we began to walk around the space familiarising ourselves with the archetypes again. We were working up to putting all of the work so far into a piece of text. So after going through all of our friendly archetypes we had a little gander at the piece we were to be working on. And it was brilliant. "Elling". I am determined to read the rest of it at some point this week. Going through all the archetypes and taking sneaky 'foolish glances' or 'devilish stares' at people, everyone is just brilliant, and completely transformed and very different from one another. It is really quite astonishing.
We paired off. Lovely, lovely Georgia (the most wonderful person in the world who also happens to make the BEST cup of tea) was Kjell Bjarne to my Elling. For a while I couldn't stop laughing at the names but eventually I grew up. We sat (next to our new best friend, the heater) and read it through several times. We had to decide on two combined archetypes and a tension state to play. Here is where your brain begins to melt. My brain has turned to absolute mulch recently. (I am currently trying to rectify this by watching a programme on da Vinci at 2.30am) Anyway, speaking of brain issues, the scene is set in a mental home with Elling stepping out of a wardrobe. A classic opening if ever there was one. It took us all the way up to lunch time to even decide on which archetypes we wanted to play. Nothing seemed to feel right, perhaps because we were trying to play both archetypes equally. Steve reminded us that this was unlikely to be the case, which actually made things settle down a little. I opted for 'trixter mother' for Elling but I'm quite sure that didn't sit too well.
The text was fantastic and it was very very interesting approaching it in this way and something (I think) that was new to all of us. It's a great new tool to be learning. So whilst your brain feels like it's doing it's own rendition of rigamortis looking at the text in this way is very liberating once you hit the mark.... It's just hitting it that's the issue. I missed certainly more than I hit; it just makes you wish you had more time to play about with it.
Ah, that word, "play". (Stop laughing Max) With so much to think about I certainly forgot that that was the object of the exercise. And probably where I went so wrong. The majority of us got up to show what we had come up with and some people are simply out of this world. Sam, Emma and Rosa (to name a few) seem to have this stuff down. They make such interesting choices and are so precise. I got completely lost when George (who is excellent at this stuff) and I leapt up. I should have stayed with the coat over my head I think. We started off okay but then everything got a bit frantic. When I get a bit lost I just shove my head down and charge (how I incur so many injuries in 'movement') I was definitely trying to do too many things at once. The inevitable consequence of trying to hard perhaps. Or just being incapable. One of the two. Oh dear, perhaps I am Prufrock. Anywho, I'll figure it out, hopefully. I'd like to learn the text and then have another go. I think this is so exciting and I'd love to be able to get it right and use it. Steve often cites the actor Jonjo O'Neill as an example of an unpredictable, playful performer. I am very fortunate to have seen a lot of his work at the RSC as I fled Birmingham for Stratford for a few weeks to write my dissertation, so I hopped across to the courtyard most nights. Because I'm cool. He IS incredible, and probably one of the reasons why I could sit in that auditorium night after night watch the same three productions. You would think there were only a few ways to enter the space with a bike. Wrong. Apparently in 'Jerusalem' no one ever appears from where their supposed to anymore, and equally, last Friday I was happily sat in the Young Vic for the 5th time thinking I'd got it sussed. Nope. Michael Sheen went mental, chucked his book at someone on the front row and kicked a chair to death. All coming from a very real place, and completely true to his Hamlet; but it was a definite shift and so exciting. The company's energy bounced off the stage after that, everyone was on blinding form, and everything felt very dangerous; as it should in Elsinore. So, digression over, point is, I would like to figure this stuff out because surely that type of feeling you're after.
Quick break, which basically meant sitting by the heater, and then onto movement with Charlene :) After an unsuccessful bout of the concentration game we got down to business. We paired off and had to guide our blind partners around the room making them feel all of the different objects and surfaces in the room. It was a trust exercise as much as anything. I had a lovely old time with Em-J leading me about, hovering my hand above the heaters and making the lawn mower into a bongo. The blind Em-J drank a cold cup of coffee (I should of perhaps put a stop to this but she seemed keen) and returned to the group with a lot of coat-hangers. Standard. The rest of the session was spent on group work, collectively coming together, whilst being unable to leave the wall in a massive clump on the sofa. Creating the word 'Earth' with our bodies and then having to make the 3D version; tough being the arm of the E. My stomach feels a lot firmer after the 70 jillion year long plank that was necessary. Layering ourselves like a lasagne, making it across the room with only 11 pairs of feet on the floor, being as tall as we could be, and finally making a bridge all the way across the room that took 5 people to the other side. All great, great fun and further cementing the earthly bond that we've got going on.
We all then bid a sad, but very very happy and excited farewell to Charlene who is off on tour for a bit, and while we'll all miss her very muchly we are all so very pleased for her.
This week us Bacchae chaps are starting rehearsals with Natalie. Exciting stuff. And we've got the first half of our NEW translation from Ranjit Bold; which might have actually made my year!! We are a merry band and I think The Bacchae could be very special. The merry band do like to have a little grumble about Debden however. Charlotte is the Debden hate specialist. Today East 15 was renamed by our fearless leader as 'Chalet-ville' and so it shall remain for good I fear. (I hasten to add this is all in good jest -- we are very, very happy to have been given rehearsal space and time this week!)
We're also all going slightly mental, we've put this down to -- wait for it... Debden. I've certainly had my fair share of funny-farm moments on the everlasting tube journey home-- I think I scared poor Sam with my eulogy to the dead leaf that blew onto the train at Loughton and lasted until Liverpool Street. Tonight we all had a bit of an argument about a tree. I was having a highly intellectual conversation about Butlins when I heard Nat exclaim, "That tree looks positively sexual!" We all looked eagerly... and we all disagreed. There followed a heated debate where female anatomy was discussed in detail, as were monster claws, other (odd) suggestions were put forward before Rowan saved us all by deciding it looked like a toilet seat. How right she was. What a relief to get that cleared up. Genuinely.
This is what Debden does to you.
Also the advice in Debden if you are being followed by a car that flashes its lights at you is, and I quote, "Run like crazy." I think that's quite sound advice. The others are not so convinced.
The ACTUAL rehearsals are great fun also :) we were prancing about as animals today in usual eyes closed style. Max was highly alarmed when Natalie asked us all to look for a mate. Stuart and I had a lovely cat-date in the forest, whilst Vicky, who was being an elephant, told us she was very pleased she didn't encounter any other animals on her travels; as was Michaela who was very worried as she didn't know how penguins mated...... Research projects have been allocated also and we are all sharing our findings. Special commendation must go to Rowan who drew us all a lovely Satyr, and who knew that when Dionysus "came down" he in fact "came down from Bristol?"
Da Vinci programme over. He was a great bloke wasn't he? Bed-ward-bound. Night. x
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