'Out There Festival' of Circus and Street art

'Out There festival' of Circus and Street Arts

20/09/15

This isn't so much a review of the entire 'Out There' festival, yet more of a happy comment on how much I enjoyed this annual festival once again. For those who don't know, this is a festival comprised of many international street performers, based in a seaside town in Norfolk, and has grown into a fully fledged weekend of fun. 

The reason I am featuring this on my blog, other than it being a recap of my recent theatrical goings on, is because it reminded me of exactly what can be achieved with very little. That may sound like a rather underwhelming statement, but when you can be completely captivated by the narrative of two very skilled acrobats, with a few simple props and no sound at all but music, you realise the true power of the actor. The whole experience was very grotowskian in the sense that there was no need for fancy lighting and costume; all that mattered was the two actors. Whilst writing this I realise I am referring to one act in-particular, and that was the work of Circus Katoen with their showing of 'Ex Aequo', a silent (but for music) circus act which told the story of a couple in conflict about where to put their furniture in their new house. When I say furniture, I really mean blocks of wood and potted plants, for that's almost all they used to bring this narrative to life. The two acrobats did all sorts of flips and cartwheels here there and everywhere, often balancing on makeshift piles of wood and wooden planks and often on each-other. It just really brought back to me how you honestly need very little to be able to engage an audience in this way (well apart from intense acrobatic skill of course), and provided for me a huge lesson in the art of clowning, and theatre in general. you don't need anything as long as you have a message, and I think that's a hugely important thing to remember in this industry.   

Being an assistant director

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This is my first post under the tab of 'my experiences', and hopefully one of many! This year I aim to do a lot of stuff around theatre, but most importantly, things that are a little different to what I am used to. This is simply a little post introducing the fact that I will be helping to direct a play for the 'New Connections 500' competition this year. A national youth theatre competition which sees over 500 companies compete for a chance to perform at The National. Even though I have worked with the Fisher Youth Theatre Group ALOT throughout my life, this is the first time that I will be taking more of a directorial role, and i'm really excited to do so, and push myself to do things out of my comfort zone. A few months ago I wouldn't have even thought of offering my experiences and knowledge to anyone, because I didnt think I had any to give. Then I put into perspective quite how much I have learned in the last couple of years, working with the National Youth Theatre, Alevel drama, drama school auditions etc, I realised you mustn't underestimate yourself. I cant wait to be involved in this project, who knows where it will take us!    

What happens at auditions? - DRAMA CENTRE

This is a little (actually quite long)
 post for anyone who is going into their first year of auditions and is a little curious about the format of the day. Yes the drama school themselves will tell you about what will happen, but this is more of a detailed breakdown about exactly what I had to do in each section at each drama school, a little bit about how I was feeling at each point, and generally the feel of each school and how friendly everyone was etc.
^Here's a random google image of nervous looking people to give this post some atmosphere.


DRAMA CENTRE: My audition at drama centre was one of my favorites, much to my own surprise. I say that because when I went for the open day, the whole school seemed quite repressive. All of the students were MUCH older than I was, and after watching an extremely impressive show by the third years, there was a Q&A with members of the cast afterwards which, to me, made the actors appear almost untouchable. They all spoke of how you rarely get in on your first time and how many gap years they all had, almost laughingly, and quite honestly making the younger of the attendees feel quite insignificant. When I therefore turned up for my audition in late May, which is getting towards the end of audition season, I honestly felt like I was going to have no chance, and considered not going. It's important to add that this was the last of my five auditions, and spirits, after all the rejections, were pretty low.
When you arrive at the audition you are told to wait in the reception of the building until your allotted time slot. When your time slot approaches, you are taken upstairs to where the auditions take place, and I was so surprised to see probably another 80 people auditioning all waiting and chatting in the huge corridor/waiting area outside of about six rooms where you audition. Basically the auditions on this day were running quite late and people were grouped into half an hour slots. Even though it was very close to the time slot I was given when I was taken upstairs, I had to wait about 1 1/2 hours before I actually had my audition, giving you plenty of time to prepare and get yourself together. I wouldn't count on this always being the case, but I think generally you have a little bit of time to just chill out and relax (if you can) and maybe chat to some other auditionees. When sitting waiting I always tend to analyse other people unintentionally, and I remember looking around and seeing so many bold and interesting characters and again thinking I had no chance.
By the time I got into my audition I think I was quite chilled because I honestly thought I didn't have much chance. I performed my Monologues: Queen Margaret 'Henry VI' and Angela 'Like a virgin' to a good standard, but I really didn't feel like I had truly embodied my characters. I was quite distracted and when I can usually concentrate 100% on my character and their thoughts, I felt myself drift off slightly when performing and think in my own head, which I think is the worst thing you can do. Therefore when I sat down for the question section of the audition, which was just sitting and talking to the two auditioners on the panel, I was quite uneasy because I had felt like I hadn't given a very good performance. The man on the panel made me feel like I was right too, because when I sat down he said 'What sort of accent was that?' in the sort of tone which suggested he didn't think it was right for my character. I just replied 'er Northern?' (which it was). Then he said 'what kind of Northern?' and I said 'just general northern'...and as you can imagine I literally nearly died inside because it sounded so unprofessional. Then the man quizzed me on where the play was set and I said where I thought it was set, and even though I was quite sure, he still said skeptically 'and you're sure about that?' I wasn't sure whether he had quizzed me in this way because he thought my accent was bad, or whether I appeared nervous, or whether that is just the way they interviews everyone to detect any kind of weakness, but all the same I tried to stay strong on my answers, even if I felt unsure. I think that's the way to tackle persistence like that, just stay confident. The lady on the panel made me feel a little more at ease as she nodded when I spoke as if it was in some way right or that she was satisfied. The man continued in his patronizing way. He asked why they should consider me and why I was different to anyone else. I spoke of the way I believed in political theater and that I act for a reason and purpose. He replied with 'Well where are you gonna get a chance to do political theatre? Is there really a market for that?' And I told him that I would make a market for myself which seemed to do the trick, and the lady said that was a good answer. We talked a little about what I was doing at that point in my life, which was alevels, and I talked of the way I enjoyed learning and that the workload was something I could deal with. I did however say that I hated history and the man was very dissatisfied with this as he talked of the way history is key in theatre. I said how I very much agreed, but that the subjects I  studied in history were not very interesting, and once again stuck to my guns.

When I came out of my audition I felt like I might as well go home straight away, because I felt like my monologues weren't 100% AND that the guy hated everything I said. I waited all the same probably for another 40mins before we were told who was through to the next round of the day. There are four rounds to the day, and the way you are told is by them putting up a list of who is through to the next part. Everyone else can go home. I nearly died when I saw that from the 100 people that had auditioned that morning, one of the ten names through to the next round was mine.

The second round (which was the last round for me) was very rewarding. I had to enter the same room after a lunch break, and another hour of preparing, to the same lady who auditioned me in the morning and a different man, as well as a drama centre student. They picked for me the monologue I would work on which was my Queen Margaret speech, and then the round worked on bettering the speech, bringing out more of the feeling and intention. I was glad of this because this speech was a new one for me which I decided to do for my final audition because I was bored of my other classicals. I was in the room for about 20/30 mins and probably did my monologue about five or six times, working on the core intention. I was made to take a chair and believe that it was everything that my character had, and everything that was on the line in the monologue I was performing. I then had to interact with the chair when delivering my monologue, throwing it to the side when at the end of the monologue, she looses all of her dignity and is prepared to fight a war. I then performed it without the chair a few times and a couple of times using the student as the character I was addressing. By then end I felt like my monologue had a lot more body than before, and overall I think that stage of the audition process was seeing how well you would work in the drama centre environment, how you take direction, and how you can adapt your understanding of your character. After I had finished acting there was another brief chat with the panel about what I got from that experience, and how I felt about the monologue after working on it more. I was asked also about the plot of the play because I was surprised to hear that the panel knew very little about the plot of Henry VI, and we just had a general comfortable chat about the fate of my character.
Even though I was sent home after that round, I didn't believe it was because I had done anything wrong. I think they just wanted to see how well I worked in that environment and whether I showed much nervousness. A lot of the time I was told to take my time preparing and to take a couple of breaths before performing. I think they believed I needed another year to become a little more comfortable in an audition, and to not have as many doubts. I think they were probably right to do that.

This post ended out being much longer than expected. I will upload a post on each of my auditions from last year all under the title: What happens at auditions?      

'The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-time'- Marianne Elliott (Adapted by Simon Stephens)

'The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-time'

 

Gielgud theatre

3rd September 2015, 2:30pm

I know I'm a little late to the party to be talking about the incident that is the one of a certain dog in the night time, but unfortunately it wasn't until recently that I got to see this gem that is Simon Stephens' play adaptation of Mark Haddon's classic novel. The play tells the story of 15yr old Christopher Boone, an incredibly intelligent protagonist labelled by the novel's blurb to have Asperger's syndrome, and thus a few social and personal difficulties. Although the central plot revolves around Christopher's decision to snap into detective mode when he finds his neighbour's dog 'Wellington' killed with a garden fork, the narrative develops in a way which allows us to see peppers of Christopher's everyday life, and a chance to see things through his eyes.

Telling you that the play was good would be like telling you that chocolate is delicious: an evidently badly kept secret on the theatre scene, and probably partly due to my delayed watching of the show. Nonetheless I will proceed in telling you just why I loved it.

As a slight beginning disclaimer, as is the case with any novel adaptation, it takes a while for a person (like myself) who's read the book, to adapt to the story as a visual piece. In the case of 'The Curious Incident...', adapter Simon Stephens has an even harder job, as the novel takes the form of almost a stream of consciousness from the perspective of someone who thinks very differently to your average person. In order to keep the element that it was from Christopher's perspective, rather than just a story with him at the centre, there needed to be an element which told us his feelings, and an air of narration. To overcome this, Stephens conveys Christopher's thoughts through his councillor 'Siobhan' reading the book that Christopher writes of his thoughts on the Wellington story. Although a little uncomfortable to hear a woman's voice as Christopher's thoughts, rather than the actor who played him, you soon became attuned to the method, and began to thank Stephens for this, especially during the sensitive parts of the story when we told Christopher's feelings by an external narrator, allowing the endearing element of the story to be kept. 

I think part of the huge success of the show can be put down to the use of aesthetics, as throughout, audiences are bombarded with the beautiful and constant imagery created by not only the ensemble themselves, but the projection, props, lights and sound effects which aided them. Throughout, I felt like the stage was a metaphor for Christopher's very orderly mind, perhaps most significantly achieved through the appearance of the stage which had the projection of a lined graph on the floor, three walls and ceiling of the performance area. Through most of the play none of the ensemble (of 10) left the stage, yet sat quietly at the sides and corners of the space during scenes in which they weren't needed, springing up and moving at the exact same time when scenes changed. It felt to me as though they were all in his head, moving in an orderly mathematical fashion when Christopher wanted them to, yet always in the back of his mind when he didn't. When things became more complicated in his life, the stage became more disrupted, with Christopher dashing about the stage, opening cupboards and cubby holes here, there and everywhere to find pieces of train tracks which he frantically built during scene changes and long bits of distressed dialogue. The stage became more and more messy in the same way that his mind did, and the pinnacle for me was when Christopher found out the ultimate secret that his mother was actually still alive, and all of her hidden letters exploded from the ceiling, Kaffe keating (as Christopher) performing quite the striking fit, along with strobe lighting and the sound effects of muffled numbers and letters. There were many moments like this where we were given quite a display for the senses, and if I had any qualms with the direction it would perhaps be that the (dare I say) overuse of the technical components perhaps played it safe a little when trying to convey Christopher's feelings. In some ways it took a little bit of the naturalism away, and I would have liked to have seen the actors convey things themselves just a touch more than they did. None the less, 'The Curious Incident...' picked a style and stuck to it, and throughout my eyes were always indulged. There were even tiny visual intricacies which didn't go unnoticed, like the fact that 'Mr Shears' wore a yellow tie, an aspect for me which symbolised the fact that Christopher disliked him (yellow being his least favourite colour). 

Indeed, I think intricacy is the only way to describe every aspect of the performance, the choreography of the ensemble by Frantic assembly's Scott Graham, obviously reaching the slick standard which the name suggests it would, with actors sweeping Keating off of his feet at every opportunity, and of course in perfect uniform. There was one especially delicious section where actors performed a 'fast forward' sequence to show time passing, and instead of going crazy with the exaggerated fast movements that you would expect, they each perfected the tiny slight gestures of genuine human quirks: itches, hands in pockets, looking around, flipping pages etc. Possibly one of my favourite parts to watch as an actor, and definitely something that I will be using myself when the time comes. I even find myself noticing as I research into the play further, that it wasn't just on stage that the attention to detail stopped; 'The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-time' also has an Instagram page, twitter account, and even a soundcloud where you can go and listen to all of the original music compositions featured in the show. Even in the auditorium of the Guilgud Theatre, each seat number that was prime had a special 'Prime Number Seat' poster suck to it to further the idea that the whole theatre was indeed part of Christopher's mind.It feels to me that The Curious Incident isn't just a play, but a community which fits nicely in the centre of London's west end, and one which won't be leaving for some time.

As far as acting goes, I felt some of the strongest work came from Nicolas Tennant as 'Ed Boone', who I thought carried the dramatic irony of the piece in a way which was so natural. The truly endearing quality of the novel is that Christopher doesn't realise how his at times his difficult behavior can affect people, and I thought Tennant as Christopher's father conveyed the air of an exasperated but undoubtedly loving father with perfect gruffness. At starts I thought Kaffe Keating was a rather confident Christopher, playing the role as though he perhaps knew he was being difficult. Once again however I had to ween myself off of my interpretation of a more self nervous Christopher from the novel, and relax into Keating's more knowy, outward approach, which he conveyed undoubtedly consistently. I think the most perfect moment from Keating as a protagonist however came at the end, when he tells Siobhan that he thinks he can do anything, asking her if she thinks so too. The silence in retort, and black out seemed almost a perfect direction by Marianne Elliott, finishing an otherwise complex show, with just the simplicity of silence, which I think is sometimes needed. 

http://www.curiousonstage.com/