making 'traditional' theatre using OST

Tue Sep 28 01:42:43 PDT 2010

Stella Lovely,

Re: using OST to work on something scripted...

I love that you¹re doing that, and reporting back about it! The thing that
is most interesting to me is that you say in your blog:

³I still feel like I¹m Œdirecting¹  ie, encouraging, helping, supporting,
aiding, challenging, loving; the actors still feel like they¹re doing their
job, but we¹re doing it together, in all of our own time, with all of us
taking responsibility.²

I realise more and more that I want to work in a process where everyone can
perform, and appreciate, and acknowledge the different kind of roles people
play in a collaborative process, without blocking the collective creative
flow with issues of power and status in the room.

For a very long time I had big issues with the role of Œdirector¹, precisely
because Directing felt like it might be made of Control. I started directing
things in order to find out what it¹s made of, I think. Or maybe I started
directing because I felt that, as a writer, I could certainly guide the
development of material, and all I had to add to that was how to interact
with actors. At first, this seemed to be about being able to let go of my
writing so they could have it to play with.

Seeing your choice of words to describe the job is a brilliant affirmation
that being able to truly hand the work over is all about empowerment,
encouragement, support, challengeŠ all those incredible things. Facilitating
that creativity. Opening up and letting it flow. Just like writing: opening
up to the story and letting it flow through me onto the page. (Is that also
true of acting? In my head, that is also about opening up.)

It¹s a subtle difference, but it makes me look at writing as a more active
thing, where I thought I just had to vanish as a writer in order to avoid
blocking the development process. As it turns out, I¹ve come through the
other side, and actively being a writer in the room is the thing I¹m now
working on: serving the material, serving the process.

I saw Directing as Control, which is a very linear process, and I didn¹t
want linear, but I didn¹t want to see mud either. It¹s important to me to
value the individual skills that are the unique ingredients of every
creative person in the room, and that includes MY skills, as writer, as
director. The wonderful thing about OST is that it allows the freedom for
everyone to be precisely who they are, and do precisely what they desire.
That makes it the perfect framework within which individuality can
collectively flourish.

I¹ll be really interested to see if and how the process changes for you the
closer you get to production, and how repetition starts to play a part. I
resent repetition more and more, I think. A little bit of me (or a little
bit of the show) quietly dies when we get to a point in the rehearsal
process where we just keep repeating things over and overŠ to make sure we
have the lines exact, the moves precise. Suddenly, we have something much
more rigid. It feels like it takes some of the Œlive¹ out of live theatre.

(And most of the point out of brilliant actors. Is it fair to say that? I¹m
not an actor, so maybe that¹s really unfair. I have no idea how much skill
and work goes into reproducing a show night after night, and I¹m not saying
there isn¹t skill and work in that. Not at all. I just prefer it if I feel
they have continuous room to play. Space to breathe. To be.)

I want to try taking it all the way down the line and doing a show that uses
OST live in some way: bringing the story into the space, and the actors, AND
the audience, making it be promenade, site-specific, having all the
ingredients there but then letting the audience be collectively,
communicatively active where they are normally individually, internally
active.

So instead of sitting there in the darkness, watching a scene and
experiencing some cathartic emotion in their individual interaction with the
story, I want the audience to be able to express, to interactŠ to place
themselves in the process, to direct, to perform, to choose which character
they follow, which part of the story they engage with, and encourage, and
explore.

I once saw a promenade production of Romeo and Juliet. At one point, a
character walked out of a scene and stood on a bridge as we, the audience,
were guided past him and on to the next location. I wanted to stop and talk
to him. I wanted to stop and talk to him!!

OMG, what if I¹d been able to have some influence on the story? What if the
actors all know where they have to end up  with Romeo and Juliet dead  but
the audience can influence how they get there? How exciting for me in the
audience! What if I try to change something, and get into a discussion about
that with other people in the audience who don¹t want that change? Suddenly,
we are interacting with one another. Acting with one another.

I might be doing a site-specific piece soon, with a whole town to play in: a
promenade event about the town itself, involving the community and also
professional actors. And music. And dance. The producer would like to be
able to involve different professional directors and other practitioners in
this event every year, but still give it a recognisable structure that
people can grow to know and love.

A structure like OST, that not only allows but encourages creative freedom,
and acknowledges creative individuality. Audience directing, directors
writing, actors engaging, writers actingŠ nothing linear, and nothing muddy.

Argh! Scary! I don¹t know what I¹m doing! But then I look around the room in
OST and think, well, none of us do.

Woohoo!

Jen x

Jenifer Toksvig
never at acompletelossforwords.com

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