Equus – director’s blog 9

As I sit and write the lights are being focused in the main house auditorium as I pensively wait for the call summoning me for the plotting session. Chris, our lighting designer has already created a design, based around conversations we had a few weeks ago but also from our first run-through a week or so ago. Staging wise little has changed from this point so I’m confident he’s covered everything that I’ve directed in. It’s the moment where you just have to pass your faith over to someone else for a few hours, you sit there and suggest small changes and slight refocuses but you just have to hope and trust that their design matches your vision for the piece. So I suppose I’m optimistically apprehensive (if that isn’t a complete paradox!) The set looks great in the space, we have slight sightline issues, where we’ll have to take a few seats off sale but it has the look we were after and serves our purpose perfectly.

We had a very productive day yesterday, we began with a very frank and open discussion about Thursdays run where it was generally agreed that it lacked pace and the focus just wasn’t quite there. I really welcome honest and open responses and believe that its really the only way to work. As a director you need to be open and confident enough to allow this process to happen as I firmly believe in empowering my company and would hate for them to be sat there brooding over something I’ve done or said that they completely disagree with. I think you can tell pretty easily if this is the case though. My main concerns were definitely the pace of the piece, it was far too pedestrian and as Oli, my assistant director very succinctly put it: “it’s essentially a thriller, and thriller’s aren’t slow”. Also as the piece is very episodic we need the transitions to be slick and each one must burst open with energy, to reenergise the narrative as often the scene finishes with a revelation that sends the characters deep into thought and reflection. To come out of this and into the next the pace needs to go up and a renewed energy discovered. We managed to take 7 minutes off the whole piece which is great and I hope there is still another minute or two still to shave off.

The company were very excited about using the stage yesterday as it was almost all complete. I love to see this, as energy and enthusiasm is infectious and throughout, the company have been enthused and its been a really happy process. Process is really important to our work, its certainly not everything and it would be naive to suggest that our product isn’t important but there is a pastoral and nurturing side to our work which is fostered throughout the process, which is crucial to the companies and my own ethos. I’m not sure if this manages to come across when an audience sits down to watch the show or not? My hope is that the piece has integrity and it has a soul, which I think can only come about from a process that has been rigorous…whilst also a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to finding out what you think…

Equus – director’s blog 8

We are performing next week…that has something of an unnerving feel to it but alas it is true and there is no getting away from that fact. There is always a feeling 2 to 3 weeks before a show opens that you are well on track and there will be time to revisit the smaller aspects of production; quirks and mannerisms of the horses, our character timelines, physical character work we have done. But then the ‘its next week’ suddenly arrives and you have done one run-through and those details rather quickly get rubbed off the ‘to do’ list. The plain fact is that is never enough time, especially when you work sporadically as I do with young people – rehearsal times are finite and you must maximise your time to get the production ready. This is not a compromise, just a cold, hard reality of our work…but I think we are getting there…which is just as well really – it’s next week…

We completed our first run-through last Thursday, where we had a number of people watching. Our final performance is being audio-described, which I think is fantastic and a hugely valuable service YTR provides for all of its own productions as well as signed and captioned performances. That our work is as inclusive as possible is extremely important and we are grateful for our audio describer volunteers for providing this service for our blind patrons. The run-through went well, lacked some energy and pace but that’s to be expected and we lost some of our character continuity going into scenes, by this I mean that the characters didn’t come in with the knowledge they received from their previous scenes, which is vital and should inform the subsequent scene. This is where the actors going through their 6 W’s is so important prior to entering a scene. They are still finding their feet with their entrances and exits, the timing of these is very important to the overall form of the piece, to enhance and augment the fluid and lucid nature of the narrative.

We have decided to cut the hooves, which were being made for our actors as they were proving too cumbersome and somewhat dangerous! Unfortunately they couldn’t be made bespoke for our actors earlier enough and there wasn’t sufficient time for us to fix these problems and have enough time to rehearse with them. So we have created a compromise, which actually follows Lydia’s initial design, which I thought would take too long to put on but it serves our purpose now and gives our horses a uniformity, which is an important aspect of their presence as an all-seeing chorus. Creating work can lead you round in circles, constantly finding solutions to problems, all feeling like they need to be answered immediately but the beauty of our work is that its collaborative and an answer can normally be found with a simple conversation and a bit of a play round. Our Equus sounds are coming together and a last tweak on Wednesday should cement the final product for production. The plan is to work on these sound parts of Wednesday and few bit and pieces, run through Thursday, then we have the stage to work Sunday, which is fantastic as it will allow us to settle in the space and use the completed set, which should increase our productivity in the tech. It might be next week but I’m also excited…

Equus – director’s blog 7

Lydia (designer) and I had a morning of knocking our heads together after our rehearsal on Wednesday to solve a problem of how best to support the staging of Alan riding Nugget at the end of act 1. We had been having Alan sitting on Nugget’s hips as he held him in place but that  damn gravity thing we found him constantly slipping and not being raised high enough above the mask. It also significantly restricted the movements of Nugget in a scene where he goes from walking to trotting to cantering. Our solution is a design one where his weight will be completely supported by two flown ropes which he can put his feet into and raise himself up onto. We feel this is the safest option for our Nugget actor and will free him up physically to build the sense of pace and freedom which Alan experiences on him. We are yet to try this option but hope to this week…if it doesn’t work then back to head knocking.

We are getting to the stage of finding the continuity within the play and picking up the journeys of the characters around the space as I want smooth and efficient entrances and exits onto our playing space. Our design sits abstractly in the space and our actors sit around the outside of it, as observers and witnesses, all complicit in some way with the action. We are exposing and admitting this is a piece of theatre to our audience – our processes are exposed, there are no tricks. The feeling should be one of almost voyeurism, we are watching and being spoken to by Dysart who has invited us into this story and into his mind – which he speaks and exposes freely to us. The distance and gap between actors and audience in our main house space doesn’t help facilitate this process and desire for close proximity but the exposure and cathartic process Alan and Dysart go through in front of our eyes closes this gap and will I hope prove to be a visceral experience.

Another layer which we are placing upon our performers is to generate the soundtrack to the piece, which is part live/part recorded, depending on the situation and purpose required for each section. This is the next main element for us to work on. Each person has a specific sound to make which complements or contrasts with others in the space. Each follows a motif which Dean has constructed and we worked yesterday on creating that sound, which will be picked up by radio mics positioned on their person dependent on how the sound is being made. For instance, there are sniffs and breathing, which might require the mic to be positioned on their sleeve and I don’t want any mics around their face as we are not using them for vocal amplification in scenes but purely for production purposes. This will be a bit ‘suck it and see’ until we can play with them in the space as getting levels right I imagine won’t be easy. The sounds work really well and pleasing that they have been completely generated from the company, which fits within the overall form of the piece as evolving from everything you see on stage but with manipulation which will take our sound into the darker world of EQUUS later on. We are continuing to work on the sound elements this week and aiming to do a run of the piece on Thursday…fingers and toes crossed for that one…