Rehearsal Diary - Moby Dick

I’m late with my blog.  I know.  I am sorry.

That’s sort of the way of things the week before opening night.  Suddenly the best laid plans seem to be moving too slowly or some evil creature from another universe (maybe even an alien mythical great white whale…) seems to be eating up huge chunks of time, but so quietly you’d never know it.  Sneaky.

In the illustrious words of Douglas Adams though DON’T PANIC!  Really.  Things are actually under control and the levels of stress are just indicative of the sort of furious drive to perfection that fuels the best theatre making.  But let me take two minutes over a steaming mug of coffee to bring you up to date.

Last week we were hurtling though the script and figuring out how to make best use of the phenomenal space at the Bierkeller.  The alchemy that is the mix of venue, actors, direction and script began to weave its dark magic and the patchwork of scenes started to develop an intensity and integrity that made them at once exciting and compelling:  In one dream sequence we experience being alone with Captain Ahab, living with the heart and heat of his obsession, feeling the way around its rough, compulsive edges with him; in another we are chortling along with Stubb and Ishmael and the crew, developing in our familiarity with them as they do with one another on this voyage; in a third we chase whales across the ocean and follow the lances, eager for them to hit their mark…

The Bierkeller is a fabulous venue for all the reasons you’ll see next week and beyond (if you aren’t already familiar with it that is) but it is dark and in comparison to the Mediterranean temperatures we are experiencing outside at the moment, it’s a tiny bit chilly.  One of the highlights therefore, of last week was taking the team out on the river to rehearse on one of the Bristol Ferry boats.  The actors had the chance (in addition to receiving their weekly quota of fresh air and light) to practice their sea shanties, rehearse key scenes from the play aboard ship, ask questions of the ferrymen pertaining to knots and nautical navigation and to spend some quiet, reflective time in character contemplating their relationship with the water and with a life aboard ship.  I won’t lie.  It was useful, productive, even.  It was however also damn good fun too.

Which is something nice to reflect on as this week we fret about soundboards and laptops and projectors; when we wonder if it is possible to ever have enough rope and whether we’ll reach the end of the stagger thru before the weekend descends upon us and we hit the tidal surge of tech and dress that awaits us, almost as though it were our destiny…

http://blog.darkstuffproductions.com/

Baggy Economics 101

Part of being baggy is being broke.

I am broke this month.  Totally.  This isn’t a plea for donations though.  I’m doing all the things I most want to be doing and in doing them am developing a confidence around my abilities and the rightness of those things.  Sounds kinda smug doesn’t it?  But before you get to feeling all hateful towards me about it, remember, I am still broke.

Economics has interested me for a long time and in the same way some girls have hang ups about the amount of food they eat and what that does to their inner authentic core, how it sullies and damages them, I’ve had a strong belief that the more money you earn the more of your rights to be as and who you are are given up, sacrificed to the great god mammon.

I write this today because I am broke.  Because I am continuing to do the things I believe in despite being broke.  Because in doing those things a tiny shift in my perspective is prickling at the edges of my consciousness, the beginnings possibly of a belief that actually what I do has a value and for that value to be paid out in the pieces of paper that I can then exchange for cake and tea, and train tickets and vodka, and time spent engaging in and with the world might not actually be the equivalent of selling out to the devil. 

But then.  Part of being baggy is being broke.

DarkStuff - Rehearsal Diary Monday 19th March

It’s hard to believe that it’s really only two weeks ago today that we met, united around the body of that epic beast, the great white whale of Moby Dick….and I have to stop writing for a moment to confess that as I write this I’m having an internal battle about avoiding or using hackney’d seafaring expressions….damnit all.  I’ll use them now and get it over with.

The crewmates all aboard (baring one lost soul who we managed to scoop up out of the brine the next day), we examined our craft the Pequod (aka Bierkeller Theatre) before proceeding in a seamanlike manner on foot to the Grain Barge for the first read through of the script.

With the wind in our sails, the past two weeks voyage have taken us from the shared maps of our lives, through balls of pain, into shapes of ships, discovering the whale in the sound of a saw, via indepth character work, building backgrounds and relationship that give a tacit wholeness to the present moment we find ourselves on the hunt for Moby Dick.  Last week the actors got down to the dirty business of line learning and, freed from the script on key scenes, began to build the bones of their storytelling performance.  The speed at which the piece is forming and unfolding before us is breath-taking and speaks not only to the quality of the script, the direction & the excellent casting but also to the verve and dedicated spirit of all those involved.  Exciting times indeed.

Made moreso by today.  Today is the day we move our rehearsals into the Bierkeller so we really get to play with the story in the place that we’ll be living it and sharing it with you all in a couple of weeks.  This week in general looks set to be another busy one in which we nail down props (not literally obviously, that would be cumbersome and I suspect Bierkeller Alex wouldn’t be too pleased with us), sound & music and costume.  Phew.  Lots to do.  Right m’hearties, I’d better get back to it.

http://blog.darkstuffproductions.com/

(just for my records really...)

http://www.exeterphoenix.org.uk/news/hilarious-british-film.html

IC Music

Cerys Matthews and the band

If I’m being perfectly honest I didn’t rightly know what to expect but I trust my mate Lou when it comes to marvellous music recommendations, so when she said Cerys Matthews was playing at the newly refurbished Sherman Theatre in Cardiff and why didn’t the two of us make a trip there and stay with her ma, I enthusiastically agreed without question to the suggestion.

That was months ago.  I did a teeny bit of research as to the Matthews sound post Catatonia.  I contemplated downloading an album but never quite got round to it. The few tracks I listened to online were pretty; inoffensive.  There was some country music and some songs in Welsh.  It was all, nice, like biscuits. 

Between university and present day, for reasons of the heart, I have had a ten-year drought musically. In the intervening years the world has changed – and potentially the gigs I now go to and the peeps that I go with have too.  It’s a lot less smoky.  It’s a lot more seated.  Seeing anyone ‘well known’ is structured more like a theatrical event.  There are intervals.  My brain defaults though to the beforetime, to the darkness of random venues, of sticky floors, of people projectile vomiting on the way to the loos, of scary looking but ultimately kindly punks and tiny girls in vest tops with sharp, vaguely malicious elbows, determined to get to the front.  My muscle memory experiences the thought of going to a gig in terms of mosh pits and crowd surfing.

I knew a 2012 Cerys Matthews gig wouldn’t be quite that (though it was only the day before that I realised we would probably be seated).  In fact, if I thought anything at all, it was that it might be a tiny bit bland at the edges. 

In the auditorium the scene set was opulent and cosy, a shabby chic sitting room with triolets of candles glinting in red glass holders on upturned crates and boxes; an old suitcase was scattered with books of poetry; two large red Persian rugs diagonalled up stage right; a standard lamp snuggled centrally just behind Cerys’ chair.  The lighting design was warm, washes of red and honeyed creams.  Into this space entered the band – monochrome - Cerys in black leather trousers, a baggy white shirt and a black bowler hat, looking effortlessly rock. The packed auditorium reacted with gusto.

The show itself was awesome.  I say that with absolute subjectivity and abandon all care for any sense of being objective and balanced in my assessment. They played a range of music, combining folk, blues, hymnody and pop, interwoven with informal conversation and poetry; threading the instruments, the pieces of music, the times and places in Matthews life with lazily shared but deeply felt personal philosophy about the riches to be found in words and sounds and though not directly verbalised there was a deep sense of the importance of detail, accuracy.  Matthews travelled to Spain at 18 to learn classical guitar in the country where the nylon string is god; she returned to university to learn the Spanish language formally; she sang the poetry of Lorca in its original voice to an audience in a city where she lived till she was 7 before launching lovingly into the poetry of Dylan Thomas, who was born in the (rival) city of Swansea where she lived thereafter, before travelling musically to Nashville and the blue mountains and returning home lyrically & linguistically to sing from the depths of the valleys in her alternate-native tongue.  We journeyed with her, joyfully.  We stood and clapped our appreciation at the end.  We left satiated and hungering for more.

I’d say ‘Go.  See.’  But it was a one-night stand.  You missed it.

Ellen and the Escapades

http://www.exeterphoenix.org.uk/news/ellen-and-the-escapades.html

My first, slightly accidental, foray into the world of music journalism!

Extreminism I

My mother was an extreminist.  I loved her with a passion and a faithfulness that continues to characterise my kindred friendships.

She was awe-inspiring, in both the 'breathless wonderment of coming across a sudden stunning vista' meaning of the term and in the 'fear god' version.  Her acts were undertaken with childlike simplicity and a godly force - this is how it is, it can be no other way.  All consuming, she bundled the world up in an enthusiastic burst of direction and joie de vie or engaged them in deep, darkly political banter; she laughed long and loud, drank and danced as though this night, this party were the forever of the universe.  She had as many ideas as the tribes of Abraham, counted in stars, and would talk to the finest spun detail of each new notion so as a child I would surf the waves of every possibility only to come crashing on the unsuspected rocks of realisation that her words were not stone, and paved no concrete path to anywhere.  Castles in the sky, fairy tales and a wonderland of words were enough for her.  Mostly.  She never bemoaned the lack of materialisation of her dreams, well trained in her own youth I suspect to enjoy the fantasy for its own worth.

Which is not to say she was unhappy.  Far from it.  She had all the things she wanted in her life which amounted to my dad and 'the girls' and enough credit (mostly) to indulge (at appropriate intervals) in good food, wine, cigarettes, clothes, dogs, day trips out and sometimes even sunshiny holidays.  She loved to travel and she loved to move and make home.

Which is not to say she was never unhappy.  Passion cuts both ways and extreminism is terrifying.  When my parents argued all her quick-witted wordy cleverness came to the cutting fore.  Doors slammed.  Threats were issued and at times acted upon, my mother dramatically announcing her departure by the front door, pausing Pinter-esque, for my father to come down from his tower of anger and sweep her up into his arms like some romantic hero warrior, declaring her his most wonderful and wanted princess, and, when he did no such thing, slamming out of the house, her rage shaking our foundations.

I have stood in front of my father begging him to go after her.  I have stood in front of my mother begging her to take me with her.  Neither monolith moved, my pebble words barely scratching the glass of their flaming eyes.

Later, she would return, having walked until she was too tired to walk anymore and my dad, secretly relieved I think, would let the argument go.  They would touch, hug, kiss - gently, tentatively - have a cup of coffee and a cigarette and talk quietly about small nothingnesses until it became night.

We don't want to become our parents.  We are always the next generation and seek unconsciously to evolve, to grow from.  Though I loved her, I also hated her and feared being tainted by her psychosis, her volatility.  I sought always to analyse, to reflect, to consider the world from every angle before committing myself to an opinion.  I looked to create calm and stability, to soothe and to make dreams come true for the dreamers in my life, that they may never know the disappointment of waking without fairy-dust having worked its magic.