Pericles – Director’s blog 11

 

It was tempting to do an April fool’s this morning and reveal that I was packing it all in and flouncing off in a theatrical strop but I’m feeling in a positive frame of mind today. After a disappointingly unfocused session on Monday yesterday’s rehearsal brought greater productivity and a first glance into the beauty of some of the more intimate moments in the play. It is said that Shakespeare only wrote the final three acts and there is some truly beautiful writing particularly when Pericles is reunited with Marina then Thaisa. I felt a glimmer of pride and emotion watching these sections last night as the distance and progress they have made is huge and is something which I hope they can feel. You can feel the journeys of the characters and the weight of the story in their playing and we are beginning to hit the emotive highs of the reunions built up from loss and tragedy of previous circumstances. This is where you realise plays are really meant to be seen and not read and how it is sacrilege for plays not to be explored practically in schools. Not until you see the actors connecting empathetically with the characters do you as an audience begin to understand their story connecting you with it and taking you on their journey.

 

So we have reached a milestone in our process having now completed all our evening twice a week sessions, which I feel has come just at the right time as the energy has just started to ebb a little from the company. Next week we are working Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday full days which will allow us to start some run throughs of the play and to understand the piece as a whole. My intention is to do a run through on the first morning, well when I say run through it will be more of an injured stagger I’d suggest but important nevertheless for us all to see the amount of work we need to do over the next couple of days. I envisage a few gulps after this and a few large intakes of breath…

 

A production of this scale has innumerable elements of which innumerable people are working on but I take a keen interest in all aspects surrounding the production as it feels to me like ‘my baby’. Perhaps this is part megalomaniacal but I prefer to think of it as a whole hearted immersion and connection with what I am doing. We are very fortunate here at the Theatre Royal to be working with an incredible team of very dedicated people who view our work as equal to that of the professional companies and we are afforded the same time and commitment as they get. With this comes big responsibilities for us and I want the company to realise this and to take responsibility for making a piece of theatre which is worthy of the professionalism put into it. Getting this across without sounding too teachery or preachy is a difficult one – but ultimately I hope they realise that by creating an excellent end product will serve not just the theatre but also themselves as people and performers.

Pericles – Director’s blog 10

 

There was much laughter and teenage awkwardness when the lovely Jean Harvey came in to work on the post-banquet dance with our Pentapolian Knights and Lady Dancers. After the usual cacophony of “I can’t dance”, Jean got down to getting them swaying their hips, shaking their shoulders and cha-cha-cha-ing. A cha-cha-cha in a Shakespearian piece I hear you cry? The piece is a montage of styles, forms and representations as I didn’t want it to sit in a particular period and who’s to say this dance form hasn’t been around for millennia? There may prove to be a congruity perhaps with the different elements I’ve chosen but I hope it all sits together appropriately, which I believe it will as nothing is done for the sake of it and will help the play to be read as in an indistinct period and of a universal nature. But they all bravely pushed through and they won’t admit it but they enjoyed it and look out for the comedy moment in this scene…

 

We are at a hazy point currently where 90% of the cast are off book but maybe 50% of those are still searching for their lines within that. Meaning that they aren’t committed to memory and therefore their characterisation has dropped. This is a difficult point for a director as part of you thinks have they remembered nothing you’ve been through in regards to building and developing character detail. But then you have to remember that they are still searching and those details will return once they’ve found their voice with the words. The whole process is about layering bit by bit, knowing when you need to stop and pull out the details and when to let things go to allow for continuity. You can’t achieve everything at once and it’s a fine balance to be reached, as part of you wants to get every detail right straightaway but until all the production elements are in place, the material’s, sound, lighting…its difficult for the company to completely engage in the world we are trying to create.

 

It’s a frustrating time as well as the production is so close but now we have to wait another 6 days to continue on the play, with only being 3 weeks away it feels we should be meeting regularly to really push on. Switching my brain to other things is proving difficult as the production has become all-consuming for me. Those three intensive days we have in pre-production week can’t come soon enough for me when we can really get our hands dirty and progress with the play as a whole rather than tiny segments. I want to see how the play works in its entirety, not just act to act, to feel the energy that transports us from place to place and make sure above all that we are communicating this brilliant story – as in the end this is the most important thing. It’s easy to forget this, again something that seems such a given but you get caught up in pictures and moments but unless the audience understands what we are trying to communicate we will have failed and that’s not something we want to contemplate doing.

 

Costume fittings went well last week and we finish the others off tonight, they look really good and no grumblings at all, which is a feat in itself and testament to the fine job done by Lydia. It’s all coming together…

Pericles – Director’s blog 9

 

In thought...

We completed our third journey through the play on Monday and another key section of my call sheet reached. The crossed-out lines are starting to out weigh the one’s that aren’t…It seemed an apt time to reflect with the company where we’ve got up to and to allow them express any thoughts or concerns they had. After having said the floor was open to them then continuing to talk myself for five minutes there was either a worrying or affirming silence. Heads were nodded when I asked that they were secure in understanding the story – I told them to tell the story to people as I believe in the Augusto Boal quote “the best way to learn is to teach”. I think much of the time when young people work on plays they don’t really understand the story and this seems such a base requirement for working on any text. I have really pushed the company to understand the narrative and before every rehearsal we have ‘Julian’s story quiz’, where the cast labours to tell me what has happened previously in the story up to this point. So I have decided to take their silence as a positive and am part comforted by this with four weeks to go as I feel we’re relatively secure and I hope to be able to get my theatrical spanners out to do lots of fine tuning.

 

 Our cast hoodies arrived yesterday which I hope will be out around York proudly worn by our company in a shameless marketing exercise. Everybody seems really pleased with them and helps to bond the group together and feel as though they are part of something special. Which they are. Our new print looks great and reflects the nature of the piece being performed by young people and adds a fair degree of intrigue and tongue in cheek-ness. Next week this print I hope will be coming to a wall near you or will be handed to you in a neat business card format. There are a series of three, the prostitute, the fisherman and the pirate – it’s like the old sticker collections at school you’ll want to get them all!

I met up with a friend who I haven’t see for nearly a year recently and we had a good catch-up about what we were doing. I naturally talked about the production and she said to me it was nice to hear someone being so passionate about something. This made me think for a moment as passion in work seems such a distant thing for so many people but for me I definitely feel a great passion for what I’m doing at the moment. It excites me working with the company on this text, helping to realise the potential in them and the story. I love seeing the pictures being created in front of me and the company starting to truly ‘inhabit’ their characters and the mind ticking behind the eyes. It’s definitely only in the eyes can you truly see an actor inhabiting their character. Passion for something means committing to it whole heartedly and I’m glad someone has recognised that in me and I hope that I’m managing to communicate this to other people. Passion and drive is infectious and I hope our story will do the same for our audience in four weeks time.