Sunday 31 May 2015

Tomorrow, I start a new series of acting classes at the New Venture Theatre, for all the Mondays in June. Before, the classes have mainly been centred around improvisation and confidence in performance, but this time around, we're going to have a look at script work. There's a line that I now quote in my classes - and annoyingly, I can't actually remember who I'm stealing it from - that goes something like, the script is just the blueprint, not the final product. This is something I think a lot of us could afford to bear in mind a lot more keenly.

 

Obviously, we should have a lot of respect for the writer's words - hell, I write myself, I know how much time, effort, and low level depression I put into an average script - but I notice that a few actors and directors feel really handcuffed by a script. Sometimes, admittedly, that's the playwrights fault, when the script is too exacting in its directions, saying that an actor should exit stage left when there's no real reason for the actor to leave in that direction. I remember a good chunk of rehearsal time being sunk because two characters were meant to be having a private conversation, but another character was in earshot. That third character had no more lines, no more narrative relevance, and was clearly not meant to be on stage anymore. But the director refused to have him leave the stage, simply because there was no stage direction dictating that. They were allowing the story to get trampled over by a stray LX cue.

 

But I like the idea of a script being your starting point for a production, rather than the end game. For many that's obvious - nobody pays £70 for a West End show simply to pick up a copy of the text and read it in silence - but like many obvious things, simply re-stating it in slightly different language makes us reassess and realise it anew. Plus, if the script is any good, it can certainly put up with a little punishment. Shakespeare is particularly good at this, and it's one of the reasons why his plays still get performed 400 years later. You can rip them apart, dress them in Gulf War fatigues, and make them continually relevant to the audience watching.

 

Obviously, not everyone agrees. I remember talking with a director as they prepared to take on Romeo And Juliet. He was keen to do an entirely original, refreshing production, unlike any that had been done before. I mentioned that I'd enjoyed the 90s film version (the one with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio), at which he sniffed, and muttered: 'That's not Shakespeare.' I knew then that this was a conversation that wasn't going to last much longer, and in any case, I didn't quite understand it, coming from a man who habitually did all his Shakespeare productions in non-Elizabethan dress. If you're going to make such an absolute criticism, at least commit to it absolutely.

 

Anyway. Five acting classes at the NVT in June, all to do with fear of script, and using it as a blueprint. I've got one more Iron Clad Improv class (tonight) at the Cricketers in The Lanes, and then we're back to the DukeBox Theatre from next Sunday.

 

Writing has been going well this week, but I'm mournfully aware that I've just had a week off. Check in this time next week, and you'll see if I've kept up my word count.

 

Acting Class details here and improve drop-in details here.

Thursday 29th May 2014

Have just got back from being a few days writing in a converted barn in the middle of the woods, which is either the most middle-class I'll ever get, or it's the prelude to a particularly nasty movie in which my dismembered remains are discovered nailed to a wall by country folk in a ill-advised attempt to make sure that the crops don't fail again this year. Either way, it's been gorgeous. 

I've spoken before about how tough it can be to get any writing done, how it can be a challenge to get stuff down on the page when you've already done a full day at work, and there's only fifty minutes before you've got to get out for a rehearsal / performance / workshop / whatever, and that's not even taking into any account any time you might want to set aside for eating and basic social interaction. And, yes, you might want to argue that the level of time poverty I put up with is somewhat self-inflicted, and I hear y', but, rest assured - it will be an argument. I mean, I get what you'd be saying - something has to give, right? I can't be rushing from here to there, constantly spinning plates. And, yes, that's true. But I rather suspect that if I put one thing aside - directing that play, or delivering those workshops, for instance - then I would simply be feeling quite twitchy at home, wondering if I wasn't wasting my time just a little. While watching Young Sherlock Holmes for, like, the twentieth time. What? Shut up. Young Sherlock Holmes is Harry Potter for the eighties generation. The arch enemy kid is even a posh boy with blonde hair. 

What I've really enjoyed about these last couple of days is the ability, the elbow room, to be able to spend as much time not writing as actually writing. Being able to circle the story before ripping it up and changing the order of the scenes. Being suddenly inspired by a completely irrelevant idea, that's enabled me to go back and fix a previously abandoned short story still sitting on my USB. At some point, spending slightly too much time on a app that allows me to create funky book covers for the kindle editions of my short stories - short stories that I haven't actually finished yet. Just having the time to stare into space - occasionally literally stare into space (we identified two planets), while thinking of the next plot point. 

And through it all, a minor note of disquiet. The usual minor note that I get, that's always laced in my feeling of yes-I-can-do-this when my writing is going well. That warning note that reminds me that my timetable won't always be like this - from next week, it will be back to normal - an average of - what? twelve hours a day given over to the day job and commuting to and from it. Look, I'm not complaining (note: obviously I'm complaining), but it's occurred to me a couple of times this week that I should definitely ensure that I'm managing a good block of writing EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. No matter what else is going on, no matter how tired / uninspired / comprehensively untalented I feel. But, yes, I already knew that. I've already told myself that. I've probably already told myself that on this blog. 

So, yes, I'm just telling myself that again. And reminding myself that there will still be days when I don't feel like writing, when I just don't want to do it. But it's worth reminding myself that if I only have half a hour to write then - well. Then I can do what the hell I want in that half hour. And that includes not writing, and not having to feel guilty about it. 

But the main thing is: I have an entire play to write this summer. And in the past three days, I managed to hack out a fairly decent first draft. For just this moment in time - I'm feeling pretty hopeful.  

Comfort Zone

Preparing for the first in a new series of Acting Classes that kick off tonight at the NVT (New Venture Theatre), and they're something of a new direction for me. Usually, my emphasis in these classes has been improvisation, partially because that's where I've had a great amount of experience in the past few years, but also because I've discovered that a reasonable amount of people have a fear of what they consider 'proper' acting - all that business with scripts, and learning lines, and suchlike.

Of course, just as many people have a fear of improv - this idea that you could be mad enough to walk onto a space - in front of people who are watching (and, in your mind at least, judging) you with absolutely no idea of what you're going to say next. For some of us, that's very liberating - at at the core of what we consider acting to be,whether there's a learned script involved or not - the simple idea of not going in with too many pre-conceived ideas, and remembering the joy of actually listening to the other people on stage. Done well, it doesn't matter if you have no idea what to do next: if you simply listen, then all you need to do is to react honestly to what the other person or people are doing on stage - it works as a wonderful cheat, since you'll never really have to think too hard about what to do next.

Doing workshops, ironically, is how I first became involved with the NVT. Ironic because I was somewhat scared of joining for a couple of years. Like, I suspect, far too many people, my acting degree resulted in one, single emphatic thing: the fact that I did no form of acting whatsoever for about seven years. I was living in Worthing at the time, and if there was a thriving theatrical scene in that town, I wasn't aware of it. There was in Brighton, though, and I began to take an interest - firstly via the excellent drop-in improv workshops held weekly by the Maydays (that's how that interest started), but then, eventually, a returning hankering to start acting again. I also knew that I wanted to revive a thing that I'd written at college (an early, half-hour version of Four Play), but I also knew that I couldn't simply rock up to a local theatre company and ask to direct my own script.

There were two theatre groups that took my interest - the Brighton Little Theatre, and the NVT. I circled them both, for quite some time - the fact that I hadn't acted for a while had knocked my confidence somewhat. The NVT held its regular Monday night classes as a way of easing in the less confident, but somehow even that felt too scary. It's always different when you're on the outside, looking in. I'd convinced myself that I wasn't good enough (whereas for the past four years, I've been working very hard at convincing everyone else that I'm not good enough).

Around this time, however, I was holding theatre workshops myself, for young actors. It was this that prompted a friend of mine to ask if I'd ever considered holding workshops for adults. I tend to say yes to offers like this when asked (whereas I don't tend to be very good at creating those offers for myself), and that was essentially how, despite the fact that I didn't feel brave enough to attend a theatre workshop at the NVT, I found myself actually running them for a while. Odd how things work out.

And so, that's who tonight's workshop - and the ones that follow over the next five weeks - are for. People like me, who don't feel that confident with their drama skills, who often feel that they've got nothing new to bring to the table. This is a fear that's shared by experienced and obviously talented performers as well as those who've never delivered a line of script in their lives - in fact, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the more you learn about acting - it can appear that you know less and less.

So, that's the aim of these workshops, then: stick with me, and by the end, you won't know a damn thing.

Three Kinds Of Me

So, I have a new upcoming project. This one has a bit of a quick turnaround, as the show goes up in October. That doesn't leave a great deal of rehearsal time. I'm not yet sure if the fact that it's a one woman show will make rehearsal more or less difficult. It's by no means a foregone conclusion.

One conclusion you may have correctly drawn from that first paragraph is that I'm not in it. The one woman in question is a good friend Sarah Charlsey (she's such a good friend that I even manage to spell her surname correctly occasionally), and she's written the piece that she will be acting in. It's not precisely the first time I've directed a friend - it's not even the first time I've directed Sarah - but this time, the dymanics are somewhat different.

First of all, I've been asked to direct someone else's creation (we'll pass over the small detail that I wasn't actually first choice. I'll keep that in reserve if things aren't going my way in the third week of rehearsal). Normally as a director, at least at this level, when it's all local, and a compartively small amount of people are watching, you choose your own project. Therefore, I have in my head (as I imagine a great many directors do) a bubbling pot of various images for possible in-the-future productions that may never happen. I have great opening images for both Three Sisters and Twelfth Night, both of which I imagine are far too expensive for any venue I currently have access to. Likewise, I have a whole series of ideas for a show that I tell anyone that will listen that I definetly will write a script for one of these days (it involves Victorian women using silks and Arial skills. I have yet to convince anyone - including myself - that that little detail isn't just for my benefit).

However, the goal posts change somewhat if you are directing your friend in the script they themselves wrote. I'm not exactly expecting to have any arguments regarding costume ('but they have to be wearing a Thomas The Tank Engine jumper, that's what the real David was wearing!'), but you never know. Quite often as a director (and indeed, as actor, designer, or most anything else) you play around with the expectations of the script: you know that such and such a scene is a moment when everyone's royally annoyed with each other, so you see how it will work if each actor plays it really positive and nice. Usually, the audience will pick up on the tension anyway, in a passive aggressive way. I'll let you know how it all goes; the first rehearsal is this week, after I get back from Edinburgh.