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.