Monday 18th March 2013

Pretty good stuff going over at the rehearsals for Beginning, Muddle, End. Over the last couple of rehearsals, we've been concentrating a lot on 'Yes, And'. Talk to a hundred different improvisers, and you'll get three hundred different opinions on how to improvise. (yeah, I know the maths don't add up, but improvisers are a confusing bunch of people, you're just going to have to deal with it). But Yes And is pretty unarguable - its the idea that you literally accept, and expand on what the other actor is offering you. And it is an offer, a gift. Yes And is a great way to educate yourself into a frame of mind where you're constantly supporting your fellow actors, making them the best - the most brilliant - they could possibly be. The amount of energy and fizzy fun I'm getting from my cast is a joy to see.

What I'm becoming increasingly aware of, both in the rehearsals for BME and in the Sunday night workshops (yes, we have noticed you've not turned up yet. We weren't gonna mention it, but now that you've brought it up, maybe you wanna clear your schedule?) is something that I go on a lot about in my directing, and also in my writing. It's absolutely true of improv, too - essentially, all story telling: if you're hitting a wall, if the story isn't progressing, if you're just spinning your wheels, chucking up mud and progressing NOT AT ALL, then there's actually a damn good chance that you've already put in place the solution you're looking for. I first started being aware of this quite recently - well, about five years ago - and used to voice it to myself like some kind of fortune cookie mantra. It was a helpful crutch to lean on when I couldn't think of a damn thing to write, in any case. But here's the thing. Ever since I have voiced it, ever since I've given it the talismanic quality of a belief system - it's never failed me. Even on Sunday, both at rehearsal and at the short form drop in class (seriously, where have you been? We start, like five minutes late every week because we think that maybe you're gonna come through the door), there were moments where the scene was so close to - well, closure, but the improvisers weren't quite sure how to clamp their jaws on the tail of the story and end it there and then. But there were always certain that they were, like - this close - to that end. And it's because they'd already introduced the vital element earlier in the scene. On occasion, within the opening few lines. And of course, when there's an audience, and you manage to stitch these two apparently disparate plot points together, you will look like improvising AWE INSPIRING GENIUSES.

I had to have a guy drop out this week, because they weren't able to juggle their commitments, which is fair enough. At least, that's the story he's given me: I prefer to think that he had become increasingly uncomfortable with the raw sexual power that spilled over whenever he and I were in the same room at the same time. No, wait. It's probably the juggling commitment thing. Now, that leaves us with eight women, and one man. Also one teenaged boy, but it's the male / female ratio I want to talk about briefly. When I discussed it with a writer friend, she was concerned: wouldn't I have to get a replacement man? If it was just one man in a cast of women, wouldn't that look, well, weird? Well, possibly. Particularly as I'm eschewing one improv trick: I'm intending that each actor plays to their own gender. This will mean, at the very least, there will be eight characters who are women, and just one that is a man. That's not including the possibility that performers will play secondary characters (which is at least likely). But I want to commit to this. And the thing about just one man in the cast looking a bit odd - well, why should it? OK, I accept that it might - that, indeed, it probably will look odd - but a cast of mostly male characters, joined by a single female, wouldn't attract attention in quite the same way, save, possibly, for a side swipe that she was the 'token' female (the inference being that her role in the narrative is pointless, save for the sole purpose of having a woman on board) . For as long as I've been aware of such things, it's been cited that the population is roughly 52% women. And yet, in a narrative arc, they are considered 'other'. I'm not entirely sure why. Well, OK, I could throw a guess, but I'm not nearly intelligent or well versed enough to make the argument. I just think that this is a sweet opportunity to create a play in a field which is very heavily slanted towards male performers, which happens not to play by those rules. And I'm not expecting that the improvised plays will be in any way feminist - indeed, that's not the point. There's absolutely no reason why the stories that eight women (and one man, and one teenage boy) make up need have anything to do with inherently women's issues. I'm not naive enough to think that the gender imbalance will be invisible to the audience. But I do earnestly hope that it will ultimately be one of the least interesting things about the show.