Fascinating Progress

I will confess to having been a tad disillusioned after Friday's final text analysis rehearsal. We only had just over an hour to work and, despite succeeding in getting the lines divided up, I wasn't adequately prepared for how this would work out with a group of people who were still working from a 'blank' script. Consequently it felt messy and rushed to me, even though a hasty staging of Scene 11 produced some very encouraging and entertaining results. I'm sure I'm being over-sensitive - as we are having to approach a text in an unfamiliar way and I can't provide the cast yet with such crucial things as lines and roles, I am feeling very conscious of whether people feel adequate progress is being made. I worry that if there is a sense that things aren't moving swiftly enough, the ensemble will grow restless and concerned that maybe I don't have a strong enough handle on things. Already, the implications of what I have taken on are striking me.

However, I feel totally different after today's rehearsal. The focus was on identifying and creating characters that might find their way into the performance, and I was astounded and delighted by the directions the work took us, particularly as my plan was not derived from any tried and tested method but rather from a couple of exercises that I hoped might be a bit useful.

I had decided to give the rehearsal a specific context, that of an investigation into the disappearance of Anne (I wanted to treat her as a single, real entity for the purposes of today's work). I had identified that there were ten distinct voices that leave messages for Anne in Scene 1, and so decided to give each actor one of these messages. Having been told that they were the person who left the message, each actor then had to enact a police interview in which more details would be established. I took notes on key points that were mentioned, and some really interesting ideas emerged very swiftly. Suddenly Anne had associates, enemies, friends, lovers, she had agendas, past experiences, snippets of a life story. Intriguingly, a picture started to emerge of a woman who had stumbled into a dangerous world of undefined criminality for which she seemed to be paying a price. She was, variously, an exploited lover, a criminal fence with violent tendencies, a member of a religious cult.

This exercise seemed to reveal more about Anne than it did about the characters we encountered, which I had vaguely anticipated. So the next stage was to employ the objects that I had asked each actor to bring in, objects which they felt defined them. The objects offered up were:

• An original Gameboy
• MP3 player
• a blank audio cassette
• a purse,
• a cuddly Care Bear
• a green scarf
• a dog
• a hair clip
• a small sculpture of a woman protecting a child.

I wasn't interested in how these objects reflected the people who brought them in, I was more keen to see how they might be given significance to the characters in the play. So the actors were given the following instructions:

Each person is to select an object that is someone else's. During the police investigation, Anne's address book was discovered by the police, who raided the homes of each of you, identified these objects as previously being in Anne's possession, and brought you in for questioning.

You will need to decide whether you are now playing the same character who was interviewed or if this is a new person

Guidance:

• How long have you had the object? Did you acquire it recently or have you had it for some time? Did you acquire it after Anne disappeared?

• Think about whether Anne knows you have it. Did you take it, borrow it, steal it or did Anne give it to you.

• Don't assume that the object is actually Anne's.

• How does your possession of the object define your relationship with Anne?

• Does the object trigger a shared memory between you and Anne?

We started this off in a brief, talking-heads way, each actor recounting how they came to be in possession of the object and what it means. Some fantastic ideas started to emerge: Sarah's character was given to her by Anne with the instruction that she give it to Anne's parents at Christmas; The Care Bear was part of a terrifying story of Anne and her mother being hunted down by the police and their dogs, the dog became a substitute for Anne's child that had been "taken away" after birth; the sculpture was a small memento from one of Anne's earlier art exhibitions on Hadrian's wall; the purse was hastily given to a random stranger in the street by Anne. These are just some of the outcomes, and as we pursued the ideas further through questioning the individuals, some compelling links and patterns began to emerge. Anne was apparently raped, gave birth to a child that she 'lost' and created an art piece on the theme Mother & Child. She had a relationship with a man who turned out to be gay, but he remained friends with her, but at the same time was not aware that she had attempted suicide five times. She studied Law at University but dropped out mysteriously and was never seen by her room-mate again.

It would simply take too long here to give a detailed account of all the nuances, characters and situations that grew out of today's work. Suffice to say that I found it very exciting that so much could be developed from so little, and I have a feeling that we have found a number of characters that we will see in the play itself. The cast have been charged now with writing a brief biography of their character, and considering which scenes in the play their character might be in.

I'm delighted with the openness and creativity that the ensemble demonstrated today. Everyone has made a significant contribution to the shape of this production, and I look forward to tomorrow's rehearsal, the final one of the year, to see how we can take this work further.

Finding the shape

The first two textual analysis rehearsals threw up some interesting ideas and observations. The final one is this evening, before we start looking in more detail at characters and context. So, ahead of tonight's somewhat condensed 90 minute rehearsal, I thought it expedient to have a go at dividing up the dialogue in the seventeen scenes into individual voices and speakers. I'm not thinking much about who the speakers are at this stage, I simply want to look for patterns in the arguments, referring to the notes taken at the read-throughs as a guide. We established that some scenes are obviously monologues, whereas some are suited to larger numbers (whole ensemble in some cases) and some voices work better with specific genders.
Variation in the numbers is important to an extent, but I'm trying to avoid variation for the sake of it. It has been a fairly mechanical exercise, but it has been interesting thinking in a little more detail about when an existing voice carries on a particular thought or line of argument, and when it seems that a new speaker has stepped in. In some cases I think I have been fairly accurate and deliberate, in others freer and more arbitrary.
So the plan for tonight is to test out these first attempts (pun not intended) with the various voices at the rehearsal, and make any changes that the cast feel are required. Hopefully three additional actors are joining us for the first time tonight, bringing the total up to 10, although Sarah can't make tonight but 9 will allow for a pretty strong consensus. So tonight's work will be useful for bringing the new actors up to speed with the play, having not read it before, and I hope their slightly fresher eyes and ears will be able to inject some new energy and ideas into what we have already brought together.
Meanwhile, a clear contextual concept or holding form is beginning to take shape in my mind. Blogging about it will help bring the ideas together, but I think it's a subject for a new post over the weekend, once tonight's work has been completed.

First Rehearsal

We assembled for the first time on a wet and blowy Sunday afternoon and huddled around some tables to trawl through the script looking for clues. Having warned the cast that my most common answer to any questions was likely to be "I don't know," I was encouraged by the collective feeling of cooperation that seemed to already run through the group, with many people chipping in with their responses to the scenes we looked at, leading to some interesting ideas. With the designers and producer also present and contributing to the discussions, I think we started to decipher some of the enigma. This is exactly what I hoped would happen, with all parties working together to find the answers.

We read through the first nine scenes, playing around with the number of speakers, taking each scene on its own merits and trying to identify characters and context. One of the most exciting things I noticed is the sheer variety of vocal textures this cast offers, with lots of different sounds. Our Swedish cast member, Emelie, really helped us to appreciate what the various languages in the play will bring to the production, and people were getting to grips with the overlapping dialogue written into the script, and when it worked this sounded absolutely compelling.

In terms of themes, there are still some points for debate. Jacquie is convinced that the play is political, which is pretty obvious as every play is political, but her point was that it is making some quite specific political points. My concern with this is that to focus only on the politics will reduce the play to a polemic, and also it deals with so many different issues that this doesn't really help achieve the coherence that I think is essential. I think we have settled on a key decision, that of Anne's identity, and this seems to be pushing me towards a useful holding form for the production. We are agreed that Anne exists, or at least did exist. But we also concluded that Anne isn't in fact a single person, rather she is the Everywoman, the archetype that crosses cultural and geographical boundaries. There is an Anne everywhere and anywhere in the world. She isn't the same person, but she is recognisable to everyone and anyone. We resolved that it wasn't necessary to find a catch-all identity for the whole play, but it is crucial that for the characters (and therefore the actors) that describe and know her, she is real and specific. I feel strongly that the performances and emotions in the performance must be rooted in truth, and this will mean making to specific and concrete decisions about who she each for each person in the play. I am keen to avoid placing any one identity on her, and this means that Anne will never been "seen" in her entirety in the play, something which echoes the poster design.

I think what we are leaning towards in terms of a cohesive concept is a situation in which Anne is a notable yet disappeared figure, and there are two key people who are trying to piece together her identity from the evidence she leaves behind. The second scene sounds like a couple of film execs pitching a film about Anne, and as we read through the scenes we noticed that these characters possibly pop up in later scenes, and so the context of a film about her is emerging. This brings in many of the ideas that were covered over the afternoon, that of an identity being imposed on an individual by others, of a person being packaged up and commoditised for general public consumption, which flies in the face of the contradictions inherent in all of us. It also lends itself to the multimedia style of presentation we are aiming for.

We will finish our initial exploration of the play tomorrow, when hopefully we will find our ideas becoming crystallised rather than contradicted. All in all, exciting stuff.

Meeting of Minds

The remnants of the aftershow party for the Wild Duck had barely been cleared away when the production team for Attempts on Her Life gathered together for the first time. I was joined today by Jacquie Penrose and Frankie Huin-Wah (who will be working together as production designers, Jacquie for lighting and Frankie for set), my Producer Robin Hall and the newly recruited Stage Manager Peter Corrigan. Just the fact of having these people in the same room was enough to get me excited, and our first production meeting was extremely positive. I felt somewhat guilty that my answer to most questions was "I don't know" but that phrase is basically the motto for this show and everyone will just have to get used to it.
Jacquie had arrived with some fairly clear ideas and Frankie with a blank canvas - it will be interesting to observe how that particular dynamic will emerge, but already it is looking promising. One definite outcome is that film is going to play a major part in the show, with Jacquie expressing a desire to use live camera feeds in the space. Similar ideas had already crossed my mind so it was reassuring to see that we are already on the same wavelength.
We have resolved that the designers will be present at as many of the early exploratory rehearsals as possible to get some idea of where the cast are taking the show, before thrashing out there ideas between each other and then coming back to the production team with a more concrete concept, which can then be fed back to the cast when we reconvene for rehearsals proper in the new year.
I always said I wanted this to be as collaborative as possible and it certainly seems to be heading that way, with even the Stage Manager - so often a role that occupies the fringes and records rather than shapes - putting forward ideas that might ultimately inform the performance itself. Peter had been toying with the idea of keeping a "video prompt book" rather than the traditional paper version. When this was revealed, I could immediately see the possibility that what we film in rehearsal might actually be used in performance in some way.
It's all very exciting.

Another show, another poster

The cast is assembled, and now the poster has been designed. I tend to like designing my own posters, it's something of a labour of love. Unfortunately I don't often have the time to spend on them that I'd like. But there's nothing like a deadline, and I had to get it sorted pretty quick so it could go to the printers so that the flyers were ready in time for Wild Duck, which opens three weeks today.

Anywho, drum roll please for the unveiling of the Attempts on Her Life poster:

What do you think? I had trouble finding an image that identified what is unidentifiable, so I decided to go for something that is sort of messy; remnants of a life that could tell various stories. I think I've encapsulated a fair amount of what I think the play is about, and I hope the bitsy nature of the image reflects the fragmented structure of the play.

Of course I'd have liked a couple more weeks maybe to refine it or improve the quality, but I have to leave it at that now and hope it does the trick.

Looks like we better do this, then.

Well, people came, and people auditioned. I'm very pleased to say that enough people showed an interest for me to be able to cast the play. I'll be honest and say I was a little disappointed with the number of people that attended, but not at all disappointed with the group of people that I have to work with. Given the apparent interest in the production beforehand, I had planned for a few more than the seven that turned up, but even so we managed to work for a good three hours and produced some interesting ideas.

The dynamic of the group is interesting: two men, five women, with a broad age range. This is a real positive, as I feel the more diverse the group, the more interesting the piece will be and the more flexibility we have. I think the cast assembled will bring a range of different experiences and ideas to the play, and hopefully we will end up with an intriguing piece of theatre. Onwards and upwards.

Pre-audition nerves.

This Sunday sees the audition workshop for the production. As an actor I no longer get nervous at auditions, but I certainly do as a director, largely due to the perpetual fear that no-one is going to turn up. Many people have mentioned to me that they are interested in the show, but until I see a group of people in the same room working together I will always be paranoid that the audition will be a wash out.

I have a free day today so I'm using it do put my plan for Sunday together. This is calming me somewhat. I am setting out my experimental stall right from day one, and this audition is, I hope, going to be very different to what people are used to. For a start, it is a single session, and I have booked a space for 5 hours. I worry that this long period will put people off, but I have stressed that people can stay for as long as they are able, and if there is a good crowd necessitating the full 5 hours, we will break for lunch. If this happens, I hope that we will all take lunch together. A huge part of the audition is designed to engender the sense of ensemble that is essential for this work.

Bench auditions usually have a similar format, in which people are invited to either read for parts in various actor combinations, using play extracts, or they go away in pairs or small groups to prepare an extract which is then shown back to the director and assembled company. I feel these are not always the most suitable methods, least of all the reading. That is not assessing an actor, it's testing their sight-reading ability. Happily, there have been signs that people are moving away from this idea. His Dark Materials auditions were heavily workshop and skills based, and even Play It Again Sam kicked off with some theatre games.

Naturally, then, Sunday will be quite different for a few people. It may disorientate them, make them feel uncomfortable, even put them off. But I actually think it will be enlightening, open, and importantly fun. It is more an audition in which the actors can decide whether they want to engage in a particular working process. I hope it will allow people to unlock new abilities and become for confident at thinking on their feet, acting spontaneously and developing characters.

The plan, currently, is to kick off with a warm up that will loosen people up physically, and then loosen their brains, building trust, cooperation, support and energy. It is important that people are made to feel comfortable about just going into the space and throwing something out there, and the warm-up is intended to help with this.

We will then move on to a combination of text work and impro, in which individuals will respond to a piece of text and then improvise a character and scenario using the text as a stimulus. This could generate some characters that we could use later in the day.

There will be some time to allow the company to respond to the text in more detail, working in groups to solve the problems in the play, staging the solutions, finding interpretations. This is meant to remind people that the production is co-directed by myself and the ensemble. I want people to be able to make their own suggestions.

I think the final element is going to explore people's capacity to inhabit a variety of characters. It's likely that people will multi-role in the show, so it is important that they can create clearly distinct characters.

The audition will finish off with a wind-down and sharing of thoughts and ideas, giving everyone the chance to express their views on the day and comment on any outcomes that might be useful.

Wow, I'm getting excited, now! Wish me luck.

Musical stimuli

While listening to some music this evening, a track came on that offered up some more potential for how to unlock ideas for interpreting the play. Too Tough to Die by Martina Topley-Bird made me stop and listen. The feel of the song, and elements of the sentiment, seemed related to Attempts, if only in a tenuous way. Nonetheless, it got me thinking about how music could be used not only in the show, but also in rehearsal. Music works on an emotional, irrational level and can be instrumental in freeing up ideas and inspiration, so I'm hatching a half-plan to incorporate music into the exploration process, at a fairly early stage. Who knows, Too Tough to Die might end up featuring in the production itself.

Initial Thoughts

In in idle moment, I started to put down some ideas about how the production will start, and some thoughts on the overall look of the show. I'm very keen on the idea of using tube lighting, I like their juddery quality when they first switch on, but all ideas are open to negotiation and I don't want to be too prescriptive in case that tramples on what the design team will bring to the project.

General

The production will not employ flats. The space will be cluttered with the minutiae of a modern life.

Opening Sequence

• House music will not be music. Instead it will be a loop of snatches of phrases spoken by a female voice. They should be distorted and the actual words spoken should be difficult to hear.

• Stage is black. A telephone is on a small table centre. It will start ringing. After a few rings, a tight spot will snap on lighting just the table and phone. The light will be accompanied by a metallic, percussive sound that seems to give the light substance. The voices will end, the phone stop ringing, the answerphone messages will begin.

• At the end of the final message, the light will snap off with the same sound effect. Once in darkness, a series of fluorescent lights attached to the back wall will begin to flicker randomly. They will be in a configuration which subtly spells out the name ANNE, but the whole name must never be lit at once.

• While the lights are flickering, some industrial-type music will play loud and the actors for Scene 2 will take their positions

Hey! Wanna be in a play?

Below is my article for BenchPress, the company newsletter, which outlined the plan for the auditions.

The Bench will continue to "push the envelope" in February with our production of Martin Crimp's avant-garde masterpiece Attempts on Her Life, which I am very excited about bringing to the stage. Those who heard my director's pitch for play selection in the summer will have a sense of what this production is about, but for the uninitiated...

Attempts on Her Life is seventeen separate vignettes linked by a common intent - to explore and define the identity of Anne, a mysterious woman who seems to be all things to all people, a daughter, a lover, an artist, a terrorist, a car, a model, a particle physicist, an alien abductee and the girl next door. Through a series of surreal and bizarre snapshots, we start to piece together the notion of an everywoman, exploring perceptions of femininity, the modern world, personal identity.

Crimp has done away with most of the conventions of theatre, notably character and plot. There are no pre-defined roles, merely indications when a new character is talking, and the end results is an hilarious, shocking and poignant post-modern piece of theatre.

Intrigued? Well, good! Because now I need to assemble the creative team that will bring this piece to life. A play of this nature will require a very different way of working to what we are familiar with. Performers, designers and director will work in close collaboration, exploring the text through discussions, workshops and more conventional rehearsal methods to end up with a performance that we have all contributed to. And I would like YOU to be a part of that team!

As you can probably imagine, with such an unusual play, the auditions will be a little different as well. If you would like to be one of the performers in the show (I am ideally looking for between 10 and 20 actors, of any age, gender, sensibility), I would be very pleased if you could take part in a workshop audition on Sunday October 21st at Havant Arts Centre, from 11am. It will be different, but it won't be scary! There won't be any of the usual read-throughs of extracts to fit actors to parts. What I'm much more interested in is how a group of people responds to the play and is able to explore any ideas that people bring to the text. So there will be a mixture of text work, improvisation, discussion, hopefully a lot of laughs and some interesting results.

I have booked the space until 4pm, but the day won't necessarily last that long, it will depend on how many people come along (we will stop for lunch!). If you don't feel you can commit to the whole day, but could manage a couple of hours or so, that would be great. Please let me know if you are hoping to come along, so that I get an idea of numbers. I hope there will be something for everyone at the audition, and also in the production itself, so come along and see if this is the sort of thing you want to get stuck into!

The beginning

With the Bench, in order to direct a play you have to make a pitch to the membership, who then take a vote. I went through this process in June of this year, a little hastily as, bizarrely, I had only read the play for the first time the day before I was due to make my pitch. Even so, I managed to find some time to get my initial ideas down on paper, so I thought it would be useful to start this blog by posting those initial thoughts. So here they are:

Attempts on Her Life Pitch

What is it?

• Billed as 17 scenarios for the theatre, it is a text which dispenses with plot and character, leaving only passages of dialogue which are precise yet fragmented. They explain nothing but refer to so many possibilities. Lines are not assigned to given speakers. Some are monologue, some duologue, some are poetic, some run together and others read more like voiceovers.
• It is an event, an experience, an exploration, rather than a conventional piece of theatre.

What is it about?

• Nothing specific, but you detect recurring themes which are very relevant to today. Violence, terrorism, identity, commoditization, the media, and overall a kaleidoscopic view of the end of the 20th Century.
• The title doesn't seem to refer to assassination attempts, but rather to attempts to define a life. Specifically Anne, who is the subject of each piece but is impossible to pin down. This is a theme I would be keen to bring out.

My response to it.

• It baffled me, it infuriated me, it made me laugh, it fascinated me, it offended me, it excited me. It gave me sleepless nights. I'm not actually sure if I like it, but I feel compelled to do it.
• The prospect of doing it terrifies me, and that is precisely what attracts me to it.
• I imagine audiences will respond in exactly the same way.

The Challenges

• A big part of me expects this pitch to be unsuccessful because I imagine people will identify the scale of the challenges as pretty insurmountable. I imagine people thinking “how can I vote for something when I don't have a clear sense of what it can be?” “How can we sell this to an audience?” “How can we be sure that an audience will like it?” Even, “how the hell to we begin to stage it?”
• My response to all of these questions will be the same: I don't know. But to me that is no reason not to do it. Recently the Bench has begun to reevaluate what is possible, and what we do. HDM showed us that scale is not necessarily an issue. Grimm Tales demonstrated that we can be comfortable working in different forms. Frozen reminded us that we don't shy away from controversial subject matter. We currently have a large membership with lots of young talent. Pitching this play in itself could be seen as a challenge to test the courage of the company.

The way of working

• One of the most exciting prospects of this play is that we won't truly know how it will turn out until we enter rehearsal.
• Katie Mitchell has just directed a successful revival at the National. I’m a big admirer of her work having seen her Dream Play a couple of years ago. What struck me about this is that the director credit lists “Katie Mitchell and the Company.” This is absolutely how I want to work. It needs an ensemble approach where a number of people collectively make the interpretative decisions. It will need a single person to make the overall decisions and focus the work, making sure the piece is a coherent whole, but beyond that there is a real opportunity to explore a different way of working with text.
• We need to identify a holding form that provides a shape to the shapeless, characters will need to be found and developed, lines will need to be assigned.
• What is great is that the final piece will be defined absolutely by the people that end up working on it. I think we could work with a cast of around 16 – 20, perhaps providing opportunities for members of the ensemble to direct individual scenes. But equally the piece could be cast with as few as three or four. Above twenty and it might be cumbersome, but I wouldn’t even be averse to the idea of having 5 different casts, making it a unique performance every evening!
• The process would involve a combination of text analysis, character development, improvisation and all forms of exploration.
• Decisions about the final piece would likely be made very late in the day, which means a dedicated technical crew would need to be an integral part of the ensemble, responding to and even contributing to the evolution of the performance.
• I would like to utilize modern technology (sound, film, live camera work, digital imagery). This would mean finding people with the necessary skills and equipment, ideally within the company, but possibly from outside.

A concept as such

• I do have some ideas of what we might be saying here. I would like to explore the idea that the play is an examination of a human being as a work of art. For all of its dispassionate tones, self-conscious cleverness and cynicism, at its core the play seems to have a very human intention. A struggle to define what it is to be human – a commentary on how one woman can be all things to all people, and how one definition, one label can never fully encapsulate a life. A person is a web of contradictions, desires, needs, drives, delusions. Attempts on Her Life tries to provide a comprehensive picture of a woman who is familiar yet at the same time totally mysterious.

Who is Anne?

She is a lover, a daughter, an activist, a terrorist, a whore, an artist, an invention, a symbol, and object (of desire, or ridicule). She is a car, an idea, a suicide case, a mental patient, a mother, a consumer, the consumed, a conduit for alien domination, a pioneering scientist, a saviour, a brand, a woman, everywoman, the girl next door.

As you can see, this is quite rambling and, like the play, formless. I felt very unprepared and, as I mentioned in the pitch, very unsure as to whether the company would go for such an avant-garde piece of work. Imagine my surprise then when, a fortnight later, the membership gave its approval for the project with what I have been told was a very healthy majority.

Here we go...

So, you've stumbled upon my rehearsal blog. Thank you for taking the time to read it. What's it all about? In a nutshell I will be taking the helm of a production of Martin Crimp's play Attempts on Her Life, which will hit the stage in February 2008. The production is with Bench Theatre, an amateur company based in the south of England, established nearly forty years ago.

Although the show's programme will credit me as director, my wish is for this production to be a truly collaborative effort, integrating the contributions of actors, designers and myself.

It is very early days, yet. The auditions haven't even been held, but a fair bit of preparation work (I believe they call it "pre-production" in Hollywood) is already being done. I will try to post as often as I can, although I suspect the general busy-ness of directing a show may occasionally prevent me from blogging as much as I'd like. But if this interests you, please be patient. I will put as much material here as I can.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions about what we are doing, and it would be great to share experiences with anyone who might have staged this play in the past, so feel free to post your own comments on this blog. And if you're in Havant at the end of February 2008, come and see the finished product!

Nathan