August 7, 2008
May 21, 2008
Morgan Paton, graphic artist extraordinaire, joined us in the workshops. He painted and sketched the essence of the work we were doing with the story. here are a couple of his sketches from day two and three.
Also, check out his web site at http://morganico.com/
May 21, 2008
I arrived on the third day of the workshop and didn’t really know what to expect. I had a limited knowledge of the story but the idea of being involved in the creative process is always an interesting one.
We started out with a brief discussion of the story, not in full detail, but a few extracts read to the group, which gave rise to the question of the character of the Snow. It is always difficult dealing with a manifestation of an intangible character when it comes to their thoughts, feelings and desires. It was decided that the character was somebody to be considered as real, rather than an aspect of the boy’s own imagination, at least for the course of a few exercises. We also discussed the character of the boy and the character of everyone else in the story, the mother, father and teacher mainly, and distilled them into a single entity. With this in mind we split into two groups of three and each wrote a stream on conscience from the perspective of one of the three characters we discussed based twenty years after the short story had taken place.
Although this was very interesting it meant making a lot of very big decisions about the character quickly. I felt like I was imposing a lot, but there was a great deal of discoveries made.
We sat together and delivered our consciousness streams in directed speak, interspersing them with the other two characters when appropriate. This was then thrown back twenty years to the day of the story to explore the characters thoughts and feelings during known events. We used life stories in conjunction with the life story to explore the ideas further as well as taking suggestion and direction from Rachel when she deemed it appropriate.
I hope that we gained a lot from this. For me, with a very limited knowledge of the original short story, it gave me an interesting look into the characters and the idea that a play could go beyond the ending of the story itself. I have always approached stories from very much a narrative perspective. I don’t think that this way of thinking is always helpful as it can limit you, especially when dealing with the idea of a play where things should explored in so much more detail. As a result I found this workshop very useful for expanding the levels on which we looked at a story. Rachel seemed very interested in exploring the sensory aspects in terms of performance. The sounds and feeling as well as the visuals. If there were someway of getting in smell and taste it would have been fascinating.
The idea then was to get the things we had discovered in to a short piece. There was a brief given as well as a series of cinematic effects that had to be incorporated into the piece. It was through this, as if by accident almost, that our group came across the idea of the mother’s mental health having deteriorated where as the boy is a rounded adult in his later life. The snow became an almost magical creature that haunts the mother after the boy had left. It became an exploration of both mother and son above everything else, something that we had not intended to do when we started to put the piece together.
After lunch we discussed what had been found in the morning session and decided as a larger group to continue with the base that had been explored with a view to expanding it. With more people we got slightly bogged down in the narrative and had to break things down further with direction. This allowed us to explore the sensory aspects again, turning the boy’s day into a machine made up of actors, and a simple walk home filled with sound. We concluded the day with a discussion once more and a brief play outline.
Being apart of the creation of a play from this level has been a very interesting experience. Rachel has been thorough in her exploration of the story looking at so much more than plot and narrative. This project has a great deal of potential, especially when it comes to interpretation and symbolism and will I’m sure be developed to something unique.
May 15, 2008
Silents Workshop
Day 2
It is refreshing to be in a room acting, and also have it be a forum for discussion not only about your work as the actor, but about the techniques and games we are using to facilitate that work – and not only that, but to also be able to comment on others’ work without it being a judgement. Without this complicit freedom in both the work and the forum, I don’t think today (or yesterday) would have been possible.
We begin with writing a stream of conscious, which develops into writing from inside someone else’s head, as inspired by music. Brilliant, love this. Hand cramps. So interesting how everyone’s tone and style differ. Mine is disjointed. As here. We devise rhythmic little dances to describe one and then see what we can do to corrupt what we have made and to develop it. I get a bit confused.
White-water rafting. Johnny tells stories and we try and represent them. Erin appropriates his story and a Keystone Cops madcap adventure ensues. Great fun. It becomes increasingly apparent that each of our personal subjectivity (and by extension our imagination) is not a burden to creativity but part of what we are trying to explore. Erin’s Californian flight of fancy in a dingy not only differs in plot to Johnny’s but has a completely different tone and style, despite the fact that they originate from the same skeleton.
Story time. This is really great material.
Using the boy from our story as a spring-board and the music as inspiration we Blind Draw a character. This is really useful. I just can’t write as fast as I think, and even if I draw slowly, my mind can note things and represent them as they occur to me, it becomes much more detailed. It doesn’t matter if you can’t draw, that’s not the point. How enormously useful – stream of consciousness drawing. We then ask and answer a serious of questions to further develop the new character. We do this twice – 2 tunes, 2 different people. Then they meet. We decide how they know each other, for how long, how they see each other, why, what’s the attraction, what don’t they don’t like about each other etc. Then, given a set of Ingredients (great word for instructions – creates structure, allows you to come up with good ideas) write a short play, 20 lines long. I love this. I don’t come up with anything that will change the world but really enjoy giving a voice to the people I’ve invented, being in control of their destinies’. Actors seldom get to do that. We have to represent, to invest in a character’s life, fill it to the brim, bring detail, integrate the voice of the time (the director, the writer…) and then give it away to an audience – but really seldom get to develop something from scratch and continue to own it’s future. Brilliant.
Lunch.
Pair up and do each other’s plays. The really interesting part begins when we swap partners and parts and try to make the work more specific. This makes a huge difference. And it’s fascinating and freeing being allowed to step into somebody else’s space and bring your own thoughts and (again) subjectivness to the work. Similarly, watching the space you created be filled by another voice and tempo – another idea and energy altogether is very enlightening. I seriously wish people would work like this more. I think there is often a fear of bruising egos of upsetting equilibrium, which is probably valid. But, as mentioned above, this is not an issue in the atmosphere we are working in. There’s no escaping the fact that the most potent thing you bring will always be you – your voice, your body, your history – in this context though it’s not the frustration it can sometimes be when trying to find a character, but more like a free pass into another angle.
We focus in on my Rastafarian and Liz’s little boy. Erin and Liz sub in and out of the little boy character and begin to refine it. In the meantime, I loose the Jamaican (/Russian/German/Peruvian) accent and go with Dublin instead. We develop a scenario wherein the Dub is trying to get some weed off the Isle of Wight and the little boy is trying to escape a holiday with his Mum and hop the boat back to his Dad. Their paths cross as the dodgy Dub stashes his weed in the little boy’s rucksack in return for getting him on the boat home. We arrived at this plot through a number of back roads and cul-de-sacs, but actually I found this process really good. What didn’t work was easily discarded and we discovered the narrative quite (oh no not this word) organically. Once this was established, and using another set of, this time filmic, ingredients we create a scene that integrates a blackout, some split screens and cross-fades, a voiceover, a couple of internal monologs and a few songs to further represent the Dub and the little boy’s journey onto the boat. This was brilliant. The ingredients facilitated a scene that was a lot clearer than any of us thought it would be. Plus I got to use the pear drops again which makes me really happy.
May 15, 2008
14 May 2008 – Workshop day 1
I had no idea what to expect – or actually I had a very firm idea planted in my head which went along the lines of us all sitting around a big table brainstorming. That would have been totally and utterly within my comfort zone… Having had no experience of the theatre from any angle than that of being in the audience, I only had my corporate world to draw from.
I arrived at the Old Vic and nonchalantly (excitedly!) walked around to the stage door. It was then around five flights of stairs right up to the top of the theatre to find the room, which warmed me up nicely for the day ahead.
We were in a room with a big space and tall glass ceiling. No large table to be seen… There were seven of us, and we started off in a circle doing some stretches. Then we started to move about the space, using the five senses as a guide. I was extremely self-conscious, and it was pretty easy to tell which ones of us were actors, and who was doing improvisation for the first time. I did get into it though and it was quite refreshing to (partly) let myself go.
The next activity was much more fun for me – we had to show an object that we had brought in from home and describe the senses that it stimulated. There was a brightly coloured tambourine (sound), tangerine body butter (smell), Pear drops (taste), a gas mask (smell and also a dulling of senses), a light plastic chain, which looked heavy and metallic (touch and sight) and my object. I had brought in a childhood activity book that stimulated my sight and touch.
We then played a game of charades, having to mime a sense adjective to the rest of the group. This started out quite well with words such as “fresh’ and ‘light’. When it got to my turn though, we had mixed up the adjectives and senses and I ended up having to mime a “monochrome smell’. Amazingly someone actually got it – which was more due to their psychic powers than my acting ability!
After a lunch break, we came back to a really interesting exercise – we had to think about our mind as a room and describe it to the rest of the group. I really enjoyed seeing the really varied rooms that we all came up with – from a round glass house with bar, swing and band to a stone vaulted room.
We then had the chance to simply listen to a reading from an extract of ‘Silent Snow, Secret Snow’ – which is the inspiration behind the whole project. It is a beautiful piece of writing and extremely evocative. We then formed groups to create still ‘freeze frame’ scenes of the relationship between the three characters (boy, mother and snow).
We turned these freeze frames into 2 minutes sketches – it was an amazing creative process helped by our ‘shopping list’ of things we had to incorporate, including: A procession, 10 seconds of silence, simultaneous dialogue, 10 seconds of stillness, a part for the audience and a moment of pure theatre magic! It was amazing where these things lead us – between us we created two completely different sketches.
The whole day was so completely different to what I have experienced before and it was really good fun (if a little scary!) I can’t wait to get more involved and really push myself out of comfort zone!
May 14, 2008
Great first day: open, creative, generous people; fun, productive, revealing exercises; interesting, insightful, encouraging discussions – I can’t wait for day two…
What we did today:
Exercise 1: Senses as viewpoints, concentrating on one specific sense at a time and using that sense to guide our movement through the space. It’s a simple and very effective exercise which heightens our awareness of our bodies, our senses and our surroundings. Interesting revelations and observations were thrown up for discussion. This exercise is a really effective way to start investigating our sensory perception.
Exercise 2: Sense-charades – we came up with words related to each sense and then played charades with those words. It was a lot of fun and we started to work towards cross-sensory discoveries. I think the rules of the game need to be clarified but the familiar format would make it a great workshop tool for non-actors.
Exercise 3: Drawing / describing a room in as much detail as possible – we were given the option of drawing / describing (on a sheet of paper) an existing room or “if your mind were a room what would that room be like?” I decided that the mind-room seemed like more of a challenge. So much of a challenge, in fact, that I stared at my blank piece of paper for a considerable length of time before coming up with anything remotely tangible.
Exercise 4: Describing our object, we had a great assortment of things to listen to, smell, taste, look at, try on and touch. Having to describe the object in as much detail as possible was a really useful exercise. It forced us (me at least) to pay real attention to the essence of the object and its effect on our senses in a way in which we very rarely do.
Lunch : Going back into the outside world with a heightened sensory awareness (the trees over the road from the Old Vic smell great!)
Exercise 5 (3 continued): Building our rooms within the space, making our idea tangible for an audience. Alongside some wonderful evocation / storytelling / showmanship from Johnny, it was fascinating to be invited into everyone’s minds. When questioned about the possibility of changing elements of the room / bringing new things in / moving things around, it forced us to use our imaginations instinctively.
Exercise 6: Stills inspired by the story – it was great to hear part of the story which is to be integral to the work we produce. Creating stills representing the POV of each character in the story was an interesting exercise and I think it would be really useful in “public” workshops. It was the first exercise of the day working together and the time limit and simplicity forced instinctive creative responses.
Exercise 7: Composition, creating a piece of theatre with 4 key “movements” and various compulsory elements. I love working in this way – it is instinctive and the rules force you to be creative. The structure and imposed content free you from worrying about performing. We created two really different pieces and it was great to see what we could come up with in 15 minutes.
Exercise 8: Delineating the space, working on the same composition piece but clarifying the location of the piece. This made both mini-plays much clearer and more focussed.
Overall, it was a really enjoyable, really interesting day and I’m really looking forward to more play tomorrow.
May 14, 2008
A couple of participants in the workshop have agreed to write up their experiences of the day’s activities. This may be in lists of activities, or in personal reflections on their experience of the day. Here are also some photos from the workshops themselves. Hope you enjoy!
