Shore of the Wide World – Director’s Notes 3

Just over a week to go until first night, that’s just five rehearsals, and with a long play like this, only three opportunities to run the play – the pressure’s on.  I’m conscious there’s a gradual process now of handing the play over to the cast, that I need to observe more and talk less.  I know that there’s only so much that an actor can take on before each run of the play so I have to be disciplined in my choice of instructions, and the order I select them.  Is it pace and rhythm first, a refocus on character’s intentions in each scene, or should we work at listening/giving/receiving and move as close as possible to being ‘in the moment’?

 

I see now there are real benefits in having a larger cast.  I’m encouraging everyone to observe each other’s work.  Some are stronger vocally, some have natural comic timing, some are listening well, some have a physical tension and rhythm that makes their characterisation completely natural…  It’s exciting to see the fearlessness of the younger cast members in combination with the experienced, stage trickery of their seniors.  I’m working hard to give everyone confidence in themselves and the need to trust the words.  It’s paying off too, I can see hints already of those ‘hairs on the back of your neck’ moments ahead but we will need to work hard to release and sustain them by giving more attention to what goes between.   

 

Anyway enough about the actors, it’s the help you don’t see that I’m really counting on at present.  My Assistant – Ed the Bearded One – is cracking the whip on the accuracy of lines, vital to steering the pace of the action, and is tightening up some of the dodgier scenes; Jorvik (Props) Kalkinski is helping unleash the ‘business’ on stage; Vikki on costume is sourcing as many ‘chavvy’ garments as she can from actors’ own wardrobes (some of it surprisingly suitable!), and Laptop Jon is layering in the ambient sounds which support the action and wacking in (if that’s an appropriate term) some great music for links, endings and openings.  Andy meanwhile is devising an exciting kaleidoscope of light for the rich seam of locations.  That’s the thrill of theatre – different skills coming together, a fixed point in time to aim at and an expectant audience ahead.  I can’t wait. See you there I hope.

Shore of the Wide World – Director’s Notes – Part 2

“What’s Stockport like?  It’s f**kin’ great, there’s no better place.” said the one in the middle.  Thanks lads, you might just be right there!

We met them outside the abandoned Bluebell Hotel – it’s named in the play and we found it!  Then we saw Terry Christian getting into a taxi outside the station before dining out on a hot pork sandwich with the Saturday shoppers in the Merseyway Centre.  Overhead, a jumbo walloped its way down towards the airport.  Two hundred yards from our bench, constant traffic grumbled along the M60 sticking two fingers up at the arches under the West Coast mainline.  Then someone on a BMX nearly ran over my foot.    It was uncanny – we were on the Stockport shoreline looking out at a grey world passing by.  And believe it or not, at that moment, it was just the place to be.

            There’s a lot of transport in this play and now I know why.  There’s also a lot of wishing you were somewhere else.  At rehearsals we’ve knuckled down to discussing each scene, asking what’s gone immediately before, checking who just said what and why, and clarifying the time that’s passed between each of the 40 odd scenes.  We’ve worked hard on finding a character’s walk and gesture – in my mind the key to leaving your own world behind when you start work on a play – and we’ve enacted scenes without words, forcing the cast to find a physical language and explore the importance of silence.  We’ve tried to find the small places on our stage where intimate conversations should happen, and where they shouldn’t, conscious all the time of an audience that will lean into the scene from three sides.  We’ve talked a lot too, which now feels like time well spent.  I had wanted to nail down three ideas around which we should focus each character’s story but so far I’ve only got it down to eight.  Which either means this play is much richer than I thought or that I’m suffering from indecision – I’ll get back to you on that one!

            Right now I feel lucky.  A wonderful play filled with tactile words which keep coming back at you, a talented group of people, an available slot in a busy theatre schedule, all converging with events in my own life and forming – as one of the characters in the play says – an experience ‘latent with potential’.  Of course it’s daunting too… that constant sense of being looked to…  for a decision, praise, a sharp word, a tea break…the lack of time to weigh up the infinite alternatives, and of course coping with everyone’s (quiet) insecurities.

            I’m taking a break for a few days.  Next it will be scripts down – the treacly bit of the process.

Shore of the Wide World – Director’s Notes

As we start rehearsals proper I’m reflecting on the groundwork we’ve done so far… Choosing a cast back in November seems an age ago already – the Sunday afternoon read through in the Black Swan, the acting workshop for some of the young actors I didn’t know, subsequent interviews around the kitchen table, and the carefully worded emails… have all passed.  For several months I have had an Amy McDonald track echoing in my head – a persistent anthem for the play and all it stands for.  I recall my meeting with Simon Stephens in a café in the West End, who despite his ‘man-flu’ and hectic bike journey, seemed genuinely pleased to meet me.  His recollections of the first production in Manchester and rich nuggets of advice are now prominent in the rehearsal file.  There has been the decision too, to focus on sound rather than set to create the many scene changes which are required.  I’ve taken myself on an imaginary journey through the soundscape of the play, guessing what Stockport might have to offer and now have to brief Jon, the Sound Designer, before we take a weekend charabanc across the Pennines.  And the conversations with Sam, bless him, who created the striking poster of the dude on the beach – hell I know it’s not Stockport but surely you can’t quote Keats (the title of the play is taken from his sonnet When I have fears that I may cease to be) across the arches of the town’s famous Victorian railway viaduct.  But then again…

And before all that, there was the decision to choose this play.  Last summer I read Harriet Devine’s absorbing interviews with playwrights from the Royal Court.  The most interesting were those of the new generation of writers, including Simon Stephens.  I didn’t know his work but I liked what he said and I decided to read some of his work.  When I got to On the Shore, I couldn’t put it down.  At the end it was like that moment when you finish the last chapter, in the final book of a series by your favourite author.  You need to know what happens next, but there is no more.  You feel bereft… shaken… but eventually satisfied.  The technical challenges also appealed – a cast spanning three generations, teenage actors working closely with older adults, a play with musicality, northern soul and language which quietly reveals the utter depths and complexities of life.

Hey ho… better get back to planning the road trip.  Maybe we should squeeze in a visit to watch Stockport County?