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Theatre Delicatessen Blogs
Viewing Tag rehearsals
Photo courtesy of Philip Ridley, taken in final Dress Rehearsal, 09/02/2009
Mercury Fur first night report by Director Frances Loy
It's a terrifying thing, stepping out of your comfort zone. For two and half months our space has been sacred. We played, shared, experimented, failed, picked ourselves back up and started again. We've debated endlessly the merits of choices, discussed and been saddened by research materials, worked our bodies, minds and very souls to breaking point, with a few bruises along the way. And last night, we finally shared it with Outsiders.
Our audience members were still in the bar when the actors and I emerged post-show - always a good sign! And the response has been overwhelming, from those who've seen the show before, those who've only read it and (most importantly) those who have had no previous experience of Mercury Fur. Our story is clear, always my massive priority. The space doesn't just suit the work - it adds to the claustrophobic atmosphere with someone even saying this play isn't meant for a traditional theatre - it needs to be seen, warts and all, in this sort of space. Gasps were heard in the right places, a few titters that we can build on - and tears were flowing before the final blackout.
We still have work to do, but it's exciting work because it involves every member of the audience who walks through the doors. We've left the safety of our enclosed rehearsals but in laying ourselves bare we can now share the story with the people it was created for, and let it grow in their response.
We have stepped outside our comfort zone - we invite you to join us.
Buy tickets here
Read more about Mercury Fur
We await the news that our keys to our new space are awaiting deliverance; after a heart wrenching couple of months in which we turned up to see locks being changed, fought to keep the Christmas Festival going, had an emotional party farewell to 295 Regent Street and carried bar pieces, flats and other huge pieces of wooded contructions up the slippery rickety fire escape stairs in the pouring rain (followed by many beers and heart to hearts), the benevolent Great Portland Estates looked kindly upon us and have offered theatredelicatessen a new home and a new beginning - the DIY/Immersive Experience/Squatter asthetic continues to thrive in London's West End, and we have continued stalwartly with our plans to mount the first major London revival of Philip Ridley's Mercury Fur.
I've spent this evening finally finishing the blurb for the flyers, a process that began when I first read, cover to cover, Plays2 by Phil, and is now, categorically, part of the final touches of our marketing plan about to go into overdrive. It's a task that has been difficult to complete until now simply because the play encapsulates so much inside just your own head that you just don't know where to start as a director let alone markteing PR type....and now of course there is FAR TOO MUCH to consider having had read through and two rehearsals with the cast and Phil himself.
How do you deal with a play that draws directly from Rwandan Genocide Survivors, that makes a simple read through degenerate into discussion of pre-GSCE kids going into the army as squadies to get a house and to learn to kill in an attempt to keep them from shooting random people in Tottenham, or revisiting images from Bazra and Kabul of macheted heads lined up outside the homes of their owners while restaurant patrons go about their daily lives, and yet another kid in South London stands up to bullying and intimidation and gets a bullet through his skull as thanks.
How do you begin to work on a play which forces anecdotes and confessions from a small group of strangers about drugs and sex and less rock more roll and suicide stories and bullying in school and being amazed at an ordinary tube journey turning into an adventure from a Robert Louis Stevenson novel - though clearly riding the Circle Line rather than a boat to a Scottish Island.
The thing is Mercury Fur is more about the 9 of us sharing those ideas and ideals than it is about the inevitable comparisons to modern living...the bond we already share, the fear in reviving such an infamous text, the sheer terror in living up to the expectations of the number of people who claim to adore Phil's work, the instant link that sparked between us all in the auditions. It may be a bit far fetched to say we all commit oursleves completely to doing as much as we can to keep the love between us sacred, but an element of fighting for each other and what we believe in, what and who we love must have already been forged for us to jump into the oblivion which will saturate our lives for the next few months.
What is it about the human condition that puts us in emotional and physical acts of violence to create and preserve peace and love and at least what we perceive to be worthy of our love and reconciliation? How far will we go for the people we love? Is there a finite, inevitablility about destroying the people we love most in order to save and protect them? You'll just have to come and see the show to find out...in the meantime, the Mercury Fur company have American Hot Pizza and Apocalypse Now hired...
Tags: 2010, cast, destruction, DIY Theatre, Inspiration, love, mercury fur, News, rehearsals, season, space Posted in Inspiration | No Comments »
I started rehearsals for The Winter's Tale with a very different kind of read-through and one which I now believe was key to the clarity of the spoken word. I, of course, stole the idea from someone else.
The person who developed it is an Australian director called Lindy Davies, whose website is here: http://www.lindydavies.com/Lindy_Davies/Home_Page.html
Here's she is on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5ToK1hyJVQ. She's really fantastic, and a true believer in the power of the actor.
The process or approach is described by Harriet Walter in her brilliant book, and this is where I first encountered it. I highly recommend it to all directors (and probably actors too): http://www.amazon.co.uk/Other-Peoples-Shoes-Thoughts-Acting/dp/1854597515.
Lindy calls this read-through, or rather process, dropping-in. I only used the very first part of a much longer process that spans the entire rehearsal period, and I hope she doesn't mind that I've printed it here. I highly recommend you get either Walter's book or do more research on Davies approach before doing it.
Basically, instead of each actor having their own script which they read from, the text is projected onto the wall, and no one has their own script at this stage of rehearsals. The actors sit so they can read this, and also make eye contact with every other actor (so in a semi-circle is best). The rest is best explained using the rules I wrote out based on what Walter writes:
RULES FOR DROPPING IN
1) Sit quietly breathing, listen and watch while the other actor is speaking
2) When it comes to your turn to speak, catch the text with the corner of your eye, digest the sentence
3) Think about what it means to you in light of what you have heard and thought so far
4) Remember to breathe deeply
5) Let the thought drop in with the breathe. A memory, vision, impression
6) Wait to the impulse, the reason to speak, then speak
7) Remember to breathe
It takes a loooong time, and all actors have to agree to not get bored, and stay active. But the benefits are huge.
The effects of doing a read-through in this way are extraordinary:
- the actors immediately start to work with what I call 'the space in between' - where life exists. It means they concentrate on the relationship, and themselves as a social creation, on why they are saying those particular words to that particular person. They become incredibly generous without trying.
- As a result of this immediate interaction with others, a character begins to emerge right from the start. Baggage, prejudices, likes, dislikes, loves all begin to appear. Basically subtext is mapped out as the read-through progresses.
- I was concerned this wouldn't work for Shakespeare, but allowing the actors to take all the time they needed meant that difficult parts of the text were quickly understood and immediately related to something tangible whether that was a memory or vision.
- it also meant the actors didn't spend any time enjoying the sound of their own voice speaking Shakespeare (sorry actors but you do do that, and don't try and pretend you don't). Because everything was said to someone specific, sentences were said in the right amount of time and long speeches didn't become vehicles to show off individual skill.
- Each actors really develops and owns what they're feeling. Nothing can be faked.
I really wish I'd done a short extract of this in auditions as it really brings out actors who are more interested in how they say their lines and those who are not only generous, but who really understand where the life of the play is. It's that space in between where everything happens, and where drama really lies.
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