An excerpt from Jerzy Grotowski's 'From The Theatre Company To Art As A Vehicle'.
"In a certain sense this totality (the montage) appeared no on the stage, but in the perception of the spectator. The seat of the montage was the perception of the spectator. That which the spectator caught was the intended montage, while that which the actors did - that's another story.
To make the montage in the spectator's perception is not the duty of the actor, but of the director. The actor should rather seek to liberate himself from the dependence on the spectator, if he doesn't want to lose the very see of creativity. To make the montage in the spectator's perception is the task of the director, and it is one of the most important elements of his craft."
When I read this it suddenly dawned on me what I was doing wrong with my directing. I was expecting the actors to be aware of the 'montage' of the work. This is not necessary, and possibly stifles their creativity. What I need to focus on is their understanding of their own journey, and trust me to form the montage. This feels like a huge leap of understanding. It will also help me with my Vorticism research, because I realise I need to release the workshop participants from the burden of understanding, and just let them create within the 'rules' or 'structures' I set out for that particular activity or task. BIG break through!
Saturday 24 May 2014
Thursday 22 May 2014
Why Are You Wasting My Time????
I went and saw a show at Theatreworks today called 'Memorandum'. I got to see it for free because I won a bunch of free tickets last year at the Rabble/Schlusser fund raiser. I actually haven't used any up until now, because most of the programme this year seems to be gaycentric. I don't have any issues with that, it is just not of particular interest to me.
This show does not fall into that category. It is a piece created as an outcome for doctorate research by performance maker Kate Hunter. Her research centred around memory, it's malleability and inaccuracy. I was quite excited about it both conceptually and as a VU student. I was disappointed.
It started out with a forrest sound scape and smoke in the space. Nothing original there, but they did manage to shape the smoke in really fascinating ways. That was about as excited as I got. We first see Kate doing slow ten across the back of the stage. I am sorry, but I do not buy into the idea that watching someone walk across the stage is, by itself, an interesting thing. To me it's like watching grass grow, or paint dry.
Kate then started speaking, but her radio mic was really loud, and the speakers in Theatreworks are really high up in the grid, so the sound was completely dislocated from the performer. This made me unable to connect her to the dialogue the whole way through the show. And that is when I started to not care. Then came the tedium. It turns out, the whole 50 min show is her recounting a memory listing her primary school friends, a memory of a cow being killed on a road, and a 'visitation' by her mother after she is cremated. Written in this form it sounds like it could be interesting. The problem is that each story only has maybe 1 page of dialogue each, and it is just repeated and fragmented in not very interesting ways for the entire time. I guess you could say it is dadaesque, but it really isn't that interesting at all. Whilst she is repeating these lines, she basically just crosses the stage in diagonals the whole time, with a light on a boom pointing into her face. Tedious.
It turned out there was a Q&A afterwards and I stayed for that. It, too, was disappointing. Kate hadn't even considered the effect of the dislocated sound on the audience, and she admitted she is one of those artist who don't ever bother considering the audiences' experience. I truly do not understand that perspective and I get angry every time I hear an actor or performance maker say that. If you don't care about the audience, then just do your work in a private room. Don't waste our time and money, don't waste performance resources, and don't waste funding opportunities for others!
Anyway, that is my rant for today.
This show does not fall into that category. It is a piece created as an outcome for doctorate research by performance maker Kate Hunter. Her research centred around memory, it's malleability and inaccuracy. I was quite excited about it both conceptually and as a VU student. I was disappointed.
It started out with a forrest sound scape and smoke in the space. Nothing original there, but they did manage to shape the smoke in really fascinating ways. That was about as excited as I got. We first see Kate doing slow ten across the back of the stage. I am sorry, but I do not buy into the idea that watching someone walk across the stage is, by itself, an interesting thing. To me it's like watching grass grow, or paint dry.
Kate then started speaking, but her radio mic was really loud, and the speakers in Theatreworks are really high up in the grid, so the sound was completely dislocated from the performer. This made me unable to connect her to the dialogue the whole way through the show. And that is when I started to not care. Then came the tedium. It turns out, the whole 50 min show is her recounting a memory listing her primary school friends, a memory of a cow being killed on a road, and a 'visitation' by her mother after she is cremated. Written in this form it sounds like it could be interesting. The problem is that each story only has maybe 1 page of dialogue each, and it is just repeated and fragmented in not very interesting ways for the entire time. I guess you could say it is dadaesque, but it really isn't that interesting at all. Whilst she is repeating these lines, she basically just crosses the stage in diagonals the whole time, with a light on a boom pointing into her face. Tedious.
It turned out there was a Q&A afterwards and I stayed for that. It, too, was disappointing. Kate hadn't even considered the effect of the dislocated sound on the audience, and she admitted she is one of those artist who don't ever bother considering the audiences' experience. I truly do not understand that perspective and I get angry every time I hear an actor or performance maker say that. If you don't care about the audience, then just do your work in a private room. Don't waste our time and money, don't waste performance resources, and don't waste funding opportunities for others!
Anyway, that is my rant for today.
Wednesday 21 May 2014
Digging the 'DIG'
Tonight I attended a physical theatre workshop with the DIG collective. I have attended one of their workshops before (last year) and they are a lot of fun. When you work with DIG there are a few things you know before you even begin. You know you are going to sweat, you know you are going to contort your body in all sorts of unexpected ways, and you know you are going to have a lot of fun and laughs.
We got all of that stuff tonight. In particular, I enjoyed an excercise that involved being given a sound, and working with that sound physically until you find a word. The second part of the excercise was to start with a word, and then work physically with the sound components of the word to find a completely different journey. Through these exercises I came against my end goal problem. I tended to rush through to the end rather than taking the time to explore the journeys completely.
My absolute favourite activity of the night, though, was the fruit exercise. Three of us were given a piece of fruit - the others got a banana and a tomato. I got an apple. Our job was to make the audience believe our piece of fruit was the tastiest in the world. I kind of really got into it. I fell off my chair, rolled on the floor, had an orgasm, and rubbed the apple all over myself as well as stuffing as much of it into my mouth as possible. The audience was literally rolling around laughing, although I was kind of only peripherally aware of that. After the exercise was completed, I was covered in apple and apple juice (I had managed to smear it over my glasses, and through my hair, as well as all over my clothes). The carpet was a real mess as well. I nearly choked when we finished. I had so much apple in my mouth I had to spit it out. It was a lot of fun though, and it has been a long time since I have been so involved in a moment, or since I have had an audience in the palm of my hands that way. Not since Naomi In The Living Room. I forgot what a nice feeling it was.
Oh, and yes, everyone agreed that they believed my apple was the tastiest piece of fruit;)
We got all of that stuff tonight. In particular, I enjoyed an excercise that involved being given a sound, and working with that sound physically until you find a word. The second part of the excercise was to start with a word, and then work physically with the sound components of the word to find a completely different journey. Through these exercises I came against my end goal problem. I tended to rush through to the end rather than taking the time to explore the journeys completely.
My absolute favourite activity of the night, though, was the fruit exercise. Three of us were given a piece of fruit - the others got a banana and a tomato. I got an apple. Our job was to make the audience believe our piece of fruit was the tastiest in the world. I kind of really got into it. I fell off my chair, rolled on the floor, had an orgasm, and rubbed the apple all over myself as well as stuffing as much of it into my mouth as possible. The audience was literally rolling around laughing, although I was kind of only peripherally aware of that. After the exercise was completed, I was covered in apple and apple juice (I had managed to smear it over my glasses, and through my hair, as well as all over my clothes). The carpet was a real mess as well. I nearly choked when we finished. I had so much apple in my mouth I had to spit it out. It was a lot of fun though, and it has been a long time since I have been so involved in a moment, or since I have had an audience in the palm of my hands that way. Not since Naomi In The Living Room. I forgot what a nice feeling it was.
Oh, and yes, everyone agreed that they believed my apple was the tastiest piece of fruit;)
Tuesday 20 May 2014
Death In A Minute
Tonight I managed to die four times. It is not what you think. I was doing an improvisation workshop. I still think it is impressive that I managed to die so many times. I admit the means of death was not always unpleasant. In one exercise I was a queen and ended up choking on an overwhelming number of jewels and pendants placed around my neck. In another game I had a heart attack from stressing over my son not learning responsibility. I was shot by the queen's body guard at one point too. The only time I had any satisfaction was when I committed regicide by pretending to be a masseuse.
The workshop was a lot of fun and the group, although small, was very open and participative. It also gave me some ideas about how to help my Vorticist free up to participate in the research. My only grumpiness was that I was really sore afterwards, and got very dizzy several times during the exercises. That can't be helped though, and I refuse to let that sort of thing get in the way of experiencing as much of my life as I can. There will be another free workshop next Monday geared more towards actors and scene work and I will be attending that one too.
I also had a meeting with my mentor today. We talked about my progress and my process and he helped me figure out a way forward. He was also rather intrigued by my children's story 'The Little Nymph'. He suggested that I should consider trying to publish it. I guess I could. I don't really know how I would go about that. Maybe I will ask Sarah. She is the great guru of all things publishing - in my world, anyway. Another thing we briefly discussed was my continuing this research as part of a masters or doctoral program. I like the idea of it, but I don't know if my brain can organise the information process. Ben said I would have to go through an ethics panel because I need to use actors for my research process, and I don't know how to formulate the proposal or how it works really. I guess that is was the supervisors are for...? Anyway I shall ponder it, but in the meantime I have an immersion process to undertake, so most of my energies will be focussed on planning that for the next couple of weeks.
The workshop was a lot of fun and the group, although small, was very open and participative. It also gave me some ideas about how to help my Vorticist free up to participate in the research. My only grumpiness was that I was really sore afterwards, and got very dizzy several times during the exercises. That can't be helped though, and I refuse to let that sort of thing get in the way of experiencing as much of my life as I can. There will be another free workshop next Monday geared more towards actors and scene work and I will be attending that one too.
I also had a meeting with my mentor today. We talked about my progress and my process and he helped me figure out a way forward. He was also rather intrigued by my children's story 'The Little Nymph'. He suggested that I should consider trying to publish it. I guess I could. I don't really know how I would go about that. Maybe I will ask Sarah. She is the great guru of all things publishing - in my world, anyway. Another thing we briefly discussed was my continuing this research as part of a masters or doctoral program. I like the idea of it, but I don't know if my brain can organise the information process. Ben said I would have to go through an ethics panel because I need to use actors for my research process, and I don't know how to formulate the proposal or how it works really. I guess that is was the supervisors are for...? Anyway I shall ponder it, but in the meantime I have an immersion process to undertake, so most of my energies will be focussed on planning that for the next couple of weeks.
Saturday 17 May 2014
Vorticism Unleashed
Today we crossed an invisible research barrier. We went from exploring vague concept to actually attempting performance making. I did push the process a bit, but I really needed the group to start getting into the performance making mind set and just be brave and try something and do something. We can talk about this vorticism stuff forever, but in the end I will never find what I am looking for through talk. I need to see it in action and see where the pitfalls are, and what the right questions are.
To break through this barrier I asked the group to pick a nursery rhyme. We ended up agreeing on Humpty Dumpty. We then discussed what the core line in the rhyme was. We decided it was the line 'couldn't put Humpty together again'. We then started asking questions like how did Humpty fall? Was he pushed? Did he slip? Did he grow too big for the wall? Then we asked who the king's horses and men were. This led to us discussing who Humpty was. Is he the king himself, or just someone important in the realm? This led us to looking into the history of the rhyme and discovered it's connection to King Richard III. This led us to the idea that Humpty was the king. Then we started to discuss what would need to be put back together. This got us thinking about public relations and politics, which then led us to the idea that Humpty is Tony Abbott and the fall is the budget, and Australia becomes the thing that can't be put back together.
With those decisions made, we created a playing space trying to keep in mind the vorticist genre. We struggled a bit with avoiding symbolism (i.e a candle to denote kingliness), and we also had to rethink things like how to you have a throne but it not be the dominant thing in the space - especially if you give it height. We had already decided that all the energy had to focus on the attempt to put Humpty back together, so the ground had to be the focal point. We did this by attaching a rope between the king and his men who were on the ground, we also used pebbles and candles to point to the spot he would fall, and we dimmed the lighting near the throne so that the ground was lit.
In performance we wanted to keep the nursery rhyme, but switched in some new words so it became:
Tony Abbott sat on the wall
Tony Abbott had a great fall
All the spin doctors
And all the rich men
Couldn't put Tony together again.
This song was chanted twice in a row with servants bowing in honorific. Then one of them moves away and the rope connecting Humpty pulls him off the throne and he tumbles to the floor. The servants rush in and bandage him and give him CPR all the time shouting 'medicare copayments', 'no youth allowance', and 'petrol taxes'. Eventually they realise he cannot be revived, so they get up, detatch the ropes and walk away.
It was a great start with some important discoveries. The next step I think is to find a way to see the different angles. Next week we will try something different. I want us to come up with a concept first, and then try and find the classic items to fit into it, rather than starting from the classic item (the nursery rhyme).
To break through this barrier I asked the group to pick a nursery rhyme. We ended up agreeing on Humpty Dumpty. We then discussed what the core line in the rhyme was. We decided it was the line 'couldn't put Humpty together again'. We then started asking questions like how did Humpty fall? Was he pushed? Did he slip? Did he grow too big for the wall? Then we asked who the king's horses and men were. This led to us discussing who Humpty was. Is he the king himself, or just someone important in the realm? This led us to looking into the history of the rhyme and discovered it's connection to King Richard III. This led us to the idea that Humpty was the king. Then we started to discuss what would need to be put back together. This got us thinking about public relations and politics, which then led us to the idea that Humpty is Tony Abbott and the fall is the budget, and Australia becomes the thing that can't be put back together.
With those decisions made, we created a playing space trying to keep in mind the vorticist genre. We struggled a bit with avoiding symbolism (i.e a candle to denote kingliness), and we also had to rethink things like how to you have a throne but it not be the dominant thing in the space - especially if you give it height. We had already decided that all the energy had to focus on the attempt to put Humpty back together, so the ground had to be the focal point. We did this by attaching a rope between the king and his men who were on the ground, we also used pebbles and candles to point to the spot he would fall, and we dimmed the lighting near the throne so that the ground was lit.
In performance we wanted to keep the nursery rhyme, but switched in some new words so it became:
Tony Abbott sat on the wall
Tony Abbott had a great fall
All the spin doctors
And all the rich men
Couldn't put Tony together again.
This song was chanted twice in a row with servants bowing in honorific. Then one of them moves away and the rope connecting Humpty pulls him off the throne and he tumbles to the floor. The servants rush in and bandage him and give him CPR all the time shouting 'medicare copayments', 'no youth allowance', and 'petrol taxes'. Eventually they realise he cannot be revived, so they get up, detatch the ropes and walk away.
It was a great start with some important discoveries. The next step I think is to find a way to see the different angles. Next week we will try something different. I want us to come up with a concept first, and then try and find the classic items to fit into it, rather than starting from the classic item (the nursery rhyme).
Friday 16 May 2014
Restraint - It's A Good Thing
Tonight I went to see Plus Sign Attached at the VCA. I managed to get the last ticket for opening night, which was cool because you get champers and nibblies after the show on those nights;) It is really interesting doing the residency, because it seems like everything I do and everything I work on, ends up being filtered by the residency, and every experience I have helps me understand the kind of work I want (or don't want to make). This show taught me that restraint is an excellent quality in a stage show. I know this because restraint is the one quality this show did not have.
Don't get me wrong. I found myself laughing in quite a few spots. You might think that odd, because the show was about AIDS, but it was generally an absurdist piece - although there was interpretive dance, realism, and some physical acrobatics thrown in for good measure - oh and lets not forget the singing and the puppetry. There were moments of genius - the music chosen for the 80s disco, the grim reaper, the mumbled sex scene - but overall it came across as a random collection of theatre styles mashed together, and to be honest I didn't get a lot of the symbolism, and I am not entirely sure what the show was even really saying. The only thing I left knowing for sure was that there is a 72 hour drug similar to the abortion pill, which you can take to reduce you chance of contracting HIV. I guess if that is what I left with, then the show worked...
It was kind of funny to see the nudity. It brought back my VCA days and how there was a joke going around that if the actors could find a reason to be nude in a show, they would. It seems that era is returning pmsl. In fact, the whole show felt very 1970s to me. I actually found myself thinking of Hair. I also found myself thinking of the graduation play directed by Richard Murphett last year. I can't remember what it was called, but it was about a post-modern poetry movement. It was a truly magnificent production, and I think this group of actors were strongly influenced by it. Even down to the staging of certain elements. Unfortunately a lot of the originality in the work was smothered by the copying of unrelated forms and flawed dramaturgy.
One of the things I did like was that the show began by splitting the audience into five groups and giving us all a different entree into the main performance. Part of me is curious what it would have been like to be in one of the other groups - especially the Pacman group - but I didn't enjoy the show enough to even consider coming back for a second round. Also, in my group we began in the stairwell with a hooded actress singing a siren song, beckoning us to follow her to the next experience. It was absolutely beautiful and riveting and just perfection! I actually suspect it was Simone French, but she was hooded, so I don't know for sure.
So back to my original statement about how I see things through the prism of my residency at the moment. I recently finished working on a physical theatre piece, 'La Peste', and in that I realised that I believe that you can hold a moment too long. If it is funny, that does not mean it will continue to be funny if it goes on and on. I also discovered that I don't believe in changing performance once a show is open - unless there is something majorly wrong of course! I think everyone who buys a ticket deserves to get the same show - and I think that is also important to the clarity of the story telling you are undertaking. I also learnt the importance of working transitions well - although, really, I already knew that.
The show I saw tonight showed me that I believe you should pick a style and stick to it. I don't deny the possibility of the existence of geniuses who can somehow meld different approaches and styles, but for the rest of us - we should make sure we clearly understand the style we are working with and why we are choosing to use it. I think this is how I am slowly working my way to understanding Pound's 'primary pigment'. Tonight I learnt that one of the very first decisions to make is decide which modality is the best one to tell your particular story.
Don't get me wrong. I found myself laughing in quite a few spots. You might think that odd, because the show was about AIDS, but it was generally an absurdist piece - although there was interpretive dance, realism, and some physical acrobatics thrown in for good measure - oh and lets not forget the singing and the puppetry. There were moments of genius - the music chosen for the 80s disco, the grim reaper, the mumbled sex scene - but overall it came across as a random collection of theatre styles mashed together, and to be honest I didn't get a lot of the symbolism, and I am not entirely sure what the show was even really saying. The only thing I left knowing for sure was that there is a 72 hour drug similar to the abortion pill, which you can take to reduce you chance of contracting HIV. I guess if that is what I left with, then the show worked...
It was kind of funny to see the nudity. It brought back my VCA days and how there was a joke going around that if the actors could find a reason to be nude in a show, they would. It seems that era is returning pmsl. In fact, the whole show felt very 1970s to me. I actually found myself thinking of Hair. I also found myself thinking of the graduation play directed by Richard Murphett last year. I can't remember what it was called, but it was about a post-modern poetry movement. It was a truly magnificent production, and I think this group of actors were strongly influenced by it. Even down to the staging of certain elements. Unfortunately a lot of the originality in the work was smothered by the copying of unrelated forms and flawed dramaturgy.
One of the things I did like was that the show began by splitting the audience into five groups and giving us all a different entree into the main performance. Part of me is curious what it would have been like to be in one of the other groups - especially the Pacman group - but I didn't enjoy the show enough to even consider coming back for a second round. Also, in my group we began in the stairwell with a hooded actress singing a siren song, beckoning us to follow her to the next experience. It was absolutely beautiful and riveting and just perfection! I actually suspect it was Simone French, but she was hooded, so I don't know for sure.
So back to my original statement about how I see things through the prism of my residency at the moment. I recently finished working on a physical theatre piece, 'La Peste', and in that I realised that I believe that you can hold a moment too long. If it is funny, that does not mean it will continue to be funny if it goes on and on. I also discovered that I don't believe in changing performance once a show is open - unless there is something majorly wrong of course! I think everyone who buys a ticket deserves to get the same show - and I think that is also important to the clarity of the story telling you are undertaking. I also learnt the importance of working transitions well - although, really, I already knew that.
The show I saw tonight showed me that I believe you should pick a style and stick to it. I don't deny the possibility of the existence of geniuses who can somehow meld different approaches and styles, but for the rest of us - we should make sure we clearly understand the style we are working with and why we are choosing to use it. I think this is how I am slowly working my way to understanding Pound's 'primary pigment'. Tonight I learnt that one of the very first decisions to make is decide which modality is the best one to tell your particular story.
Monday 5 May 2014
Restarting The Engine
Today I have a day off after the craziness of last minute rehearsals, bump in and opening. There is still another week of the show to go, but it is just show calls now, so I can get back into my routine. So much more easily said than done.
The hardest thing today was forcing myself to get restarted on my e-soap. It was so hard to settle down and focus, and get back into the story. I kind of knew that all I really had to do was start typing, but settling down to do it was really difficult. I even preferred doing gardening to opening the file!
Luckily for me, I have a weirdly strong understanding that if I put it off past midday, I wouldn't do it at all, and as it has already been about two weeks since I last posted, I will lose whatever audience I have if I put it off any further. So I did it. I opened the file, read the last couple of episodes to remember where the story had gotten up to, looked at my mind map and started typing. It is a short episode, but luckily it was always going to be. Just a little bit of flirtation to kick of the first love triangle. Every soap opera has to have love triangles pmsl.
I also have to get started on my 1800 word essay on Suzuki training. I have a feeling that is due very, very soon. It actually might work out well if I try and make it so that I submit that by closing of 'La Peste'. We shall see...
The hardest thing today was forcing myself to get restarted on my e-soap. It was so hard to settle down and focus, and get back into the story. I kind of knew that all I really had to do was start typing, but settling down to do it was really difficult. I even preferred doing gardening to opening the file!
Luckily for me, I have a weirdly strong understanding that if I put it off past midday, I wouldn't do it at all, and as it has already been about two weeks since I last posted, I will lose whatever audience I have if I put it off any further. So I did it. I opened the file, read the last couple of episodes to remember where the story had gotten up to, looked at my mind map and started typing. It is a short episode, but luckily it was always going to be. Just a little bit of flirtation to kick of the first love triangle. Every soap opera has to have love triangles pmsl.
I also have to get started on my 1800 word essay on Suzuki training. I have a feeling that is due very, very soon. It actually might work out well if I try and make it so that I submit that by closing of 'La Peste'. We shall see...
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