How to disappear… Directors Blog 2

Just shy off completing three weeks of our rehearsal process and we have just about hit Act Two. First acts are normally longer so it’s a good feeling to be slightly beyond half way. Work thus far has been getting the blocking in place, which is still at the ‘this chair is actually a table…that table is actually a bar…’ stage. I always knew this would be the case as the design for the show came a little later than it would do normally. I now have a beautifully crafted model behind me to play around with and use as a storyboard. By this I mean that I’ll go through each scene and photograph it with set pieces in place, which I’ll pass onto Liam, our lighting designer, and I’ll also use as a reference to make sure that I’ve been fairly even with my staging decisions. Have I put too much focus on stage left or right, for example. Some staging decisions you don’t know will 100% work until you get into the actual room. My slight concern is around the size and the space we have, as the studio is very tight with sight lines and it’s a constant consideration to make sure its evenly played.

The company have been great to work with, they’ve been very receptive to ideas and there’s a great keenness to progress, learn and get things right. Its nice to work with new people, its always an unknown, choosing people on a couple of hours audition as their attitude is so important to the ethos of the company, but so far so good. We’re progressing well with the text, finding our way through it and finding more and more how the outside influences in Charlie’s life have affected his choices and a sense of inevitability that is building up in the days and hours around his disappearance. His sense of loss is a powerful one, which I think I overlooked when I first read the play, but this is the catalyst for his demise, loss is a powerful emotion and one that doesn’t have any timescale on it. He doesn’t have time to grieve, as it hits him so suddenly and he gets caught in this whirlwind and spiral of chaotic events.

The plan is to get through the whole play by the end of next week – a spine from which to add the flesh. From here we’ll do a stumble through of what we’ve done, for many reasons; for company members to see the complete show, for me to see if the staging works and for our creative team to get a sense of the whole and how they will help layer up from here. The music can only really come once we’ve got this first layer, that we’ve found the language of the piece and to see where we need some support. We’ve left out many of the transitions between scenes, which will need to meld with the music and once we have the set pieces but the shape of the piece is looking good and we have a solid foundation to work from.

Much work still to do but a promising start.

– Julian Ollive