Eyes to the Wall

Help me. I'm in the corner. Nothing is there. Black, deep caught blankly caught. Ground, filth, others emerge from dark bob along on the surface. We are the surface of the show helping to create the world. Expansion happens I become onto others. Atom in the vacuum nothing becoming something it has to be.

The girl I see I know. She knows but she doesn't see. We are London we expand I am an atom. To the outside I go. We expand to each other I KNOW HER. She doesn't see me but we know each other I've expanded to her if only she knew it would help us both but she doesn't. Help me expand to the outskirts, we have to expand.

My arm is a shadow. Why? Stare at this head of a monster, deep, heavy, dark. Happens, has to. One fuses to the whole and blood rushes to the other. Thankful to have purpose. Lonely expedition has made me fuse.

Laura laughing. No that's me, but I'm Laura. Wait no. Fused, that's my shadow now. Have it back. I begin to laugh, that was brilliant. Heavy, weightless in the sea. Oppressing my lungs. Where's the shadow? It's me and the rest is meat. I knew this would happen so I got in the corner to start. Help me start it. Stop expanding to the end let the air in. I've got purpose now and I have the joke. Help me in the Vacuum. What's a Vacuum? Oh nothing. The Pond is expanding. Ha ha. Shhhhhhh it's seeping out.

Sometimes you just have to go

with the flow, which is something that became increasingly apparent to me as I lay bed stricken and (a little) miserable this week, cast low by a sneaky, vindictive tummy bug/virus/evil that turned my stomach to trouble, my legs to weakened stumps (ok, slightly over-dramatising the situation) and my mind to a snivelling, sun-starved expat, addicted to such views of home as only daytime television can afford (although they do afford them thrice daily, which is convenient, if perhaps a little O.T.T...?)

To make matters worse (and arrive, finally, at the point) I was suffering terrible guilt over my tardy blogging for DDT, an activity that has caused me some anxiety over the past week. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a blogger. Neither am I a tweeter or a facebook-status-updater, so I’m not entirely sure I have the expertise required for such high-falutin’, new-fangled-tech-speak. But anyway-

The week I was supposed to be blogging for (last week) began with a bright and early visit to Homebase and all the bleary-eyed wonders (I work nights) that that entailed. The aim: to find materials for our new, modified, performance-enhanced Duck. The outcome: brilliant really, with added amusement from jovial boiler-suited men (see Saskia’s blog, Par:3, L:8-10) all we need now is to reign in our various schedules and bodily illnesses to arrange a time for building.

And that building process (not restricted solely to dowel and second hand hoover pipes) is what continues to be so wonderful about this project. It has allowed us to play and explore in a way that’s fantastically new to me, but at the same time, feels very right for the child-like nature of Wolf Erlbruch’s work. It has meant that we aren’t hemmed-in by a preordained structure or form, but rather, keeps us constantly discovering more in those supposedly blank spaces on and between the pages.

For me, getting to know Duck, both as a character and as a puppet, is just one part of that process that I’m finding incredibly interesting. Truth be told, I’m biased here, since a decision we made a little while ago has meant that Saskia, Harriet and I will be her puppeteers, myself manipulating her head and neck and providing her voice. Nevertheless (and in a vague attempt to prove this is not all about me me me) being able to learn about a character at the moment when they come to terms with their own mortality, both from the insider-view that Erlbruch and our work continues to provide, as well as the outside-in mechanics of puppetry, feels like a privilege of multiplicity, and one that could only occur in this slow burning stew/tagine/ratatouille of ours (you knew the food metaphors were going to come in at some point…)

And as we do start to narrow, ever so slightly, our process and plot out rather than play, I can’t wait to discover what else Duck, Death and the Tulip has to tell us.

Saskia is late. Shocker

So it was my turn to blog last week. On Monday that is, or Sunday, I forget. And I've finally got round to it. My excuse? It was my damned birthday on Monday - I say fair enough. Plus, if I was actually on time for once in my life I truly believe the world would implode, so really it was a selfless act - safety first people, safety first.

Today I met with Chris and Laura to seek out Victorian toy-based inspiration. We went to Covent Garden to Pollock's Toy Shop and nosed around, picking things up, taking photos and honing straight towards anything that had a 'Please don't touch' sign above them. Toys you can't touch? That's just too English even for me. Lots of food for thought - does Death have a yo-yo, or a cup and ball? Can we make a world out of wind-ups and Spilikins? Anything is possible. Afterwards we went for cake and made paper aeroplanes - sometimes I wonder where the artistic investigation begins and the playtime stops, but maybe thats the point. Perhaps theatre only thrives because we're not allowed to play anymore. Well Pollocks to that.

Last week Syrie, Harriet and I went to Homebase, AKA Land Of Dreams, to look for Duck-building materials. We came back with a length of dowel ('What's dowel?' Ben asked. 'It's like a stick,' Saskia replied. 'Oh.' Said Ben), a plug and a catflap. (It should be noted that the two latter objects were personal purchases for my new flat, although I think it would be an interesting challenge to make a Duck out of the three aforementioned items). We then went to the nearby builders' yard in the search of a hoover pipe and with some amusement from the boiler-suit wearing crew that greeted us, were presented with exactly what we were looking for. 'How much do you want for it?' 'Just a smile.' Bingo. All we have to do now is build the damn thing - I believe that is Wednesday's job.

And so the construction, both literally and conceptually, of DDT continues. It finally feels like there's the hint of flesh on the bones now; if you asked my how we're doing it, I might even be able to give you a vague idea. Which is exciting. I think what people forget about making something, making anything in fact, with more than one other person is that it really takes time; part of our process of working on this project was (and is) finding out what that process is and should be. But I don't see that as a negative thing, we never were a West End, deadline-based, cash cow company and doubt we ever will be. I'd say we're more of a slow-burner - we make our marinade from scratch God damn it (to borrow/steal Ben's analogy for just a moment). He'd say we're making soup - I'd say we're more of a meaty stew, a tagine if you will, or for the vegetarians amongst us, a ratatouille. And as Willy Russell rightly points out in his gambit with Miss Rita, 'You can't burn a ratatouille.'

On the Soup

Though my track record awards me no green to gripe, we and I should blog more often. Yes, we need to nurture this connection to our public, our audience, without whom we could not exist. Yes, we need to document our process and enliven our aesthetic by maintaining an open forum through which a collective artistic vision may flourish. Yes, we need to kick in the high gears of our marketing machine and spread our ever-chiseled message to the world.

That's we.

But I need to blog more often to indulge in my fetish in the creation of new theatre, to chart and grapple with and better understand the genesis and movement of ideas; to ask where they come from, why they were necessary or slicing at that moment, how they become owned by one to owned by all to owned by none, how they evolve to dominate or retreat to die, and where all the various points of departure become so deliciously distinct.

I've had a lot of ideas for this project, yet am trounced by the continual onrush of those of others. An artist and friend once said that making theatre is like cooking: our ideas are the ingredients, and our relationships are the fire. I'm warmed by the well-stoked interconnectedness of Elephant Foot honed over months, even years now; but my senses are overwhelmed by the cavernous selection of must-do ideas, and wonder, if we don't want to spoil the soup with too many flavours, why not make more than one meal? Perhaps that's the solution, and perhaps that's why we've always had more than one - more than a dozen, I'm sure - premises on the chopping table. Yet Duck, Death and the Tulip is a hefty enough task, and I'm impressed and inspired with just how complex the mix is becoming.

I'm working on the 'score' of DDT, which is more structural than musical, and though I'm trying to capture the moods and transitions of the book, and our interpretation, via the atmosphere of sound, I'm more keen to uncover the fundamental: who are they, what happens, why, and what is changed? I want to find this spine so that we can locate and define its many offshoots and reincorporations. I want to get the broth just right, to carry our imagination to its greatest possible reality.

Maybe the best part about food is that it's transitory, that there is a right time to consume, that it gets too cold; it exists in the now, and freeze-packed noodles are frankly shit.

I think we can apply the same to theatre.

The Story of the Play without a Home

Having just joined the many-legged beast that is Elephant Foot (as Producer), I'm still trying to get my bearings. This is complicated by the fact that there's a lot to do. It's kind of like trying to work out where you are in a beseiged city, only not dangerous.......So up until last week, we were merrily gearing up for a Preview performance of 'The Duck, Death and The Tulip' on the 4th of April at the New Red Lion. We were preparing to compile press invites, sponsorship packs, recruit production team members; all for the magic date of the 4th of April. Done, simple.

If only! As is always the way in theatre land, the web proved far more tangled. Having lost our fixed venue (and so grounding all previously mentioned preparatory work) we are now casting the net wide for other options (all suggestions welcome!).

Our rather hysterical production meeting last week involved a lot of a curious dynamic, which I'm finding myself in a lot of the time at the moment. It goes something like this: Creative team member A proposes some amazing, exciting artistic or production choice, Producer raises numerous logistical reasons why said choice cannot be actualised. I kinda feel I'm bursting bubbles all over the place. I'm not looking for sympathy, I'm just voicing the eternal dilemma of the producer. I guess part of this comes from my own past experience, in creative team member A's shoes. Having been in those shoes, now that I have my producer hat on, it feels mean to shoot down someone else's creativity. It's an interesting path to tread, that of a producer, as one has to be part creative, part logistics and detail obsessed.

Moving away from myself and back to the production. I went to a Scratch night last week to check out a prospective venue, very much wearing my producer hat. Instead of seeing the endless artistic possibilities of the space, all I saw was an L-shaped room in which the audience could never see more than half the action at any one time. No go. And so we move on to other spaces...........

We have another production meeting tomorrow so hopefully the next blog, whoever it is by, will provide a happy ending to the story of the play without a home...............

All the Blank Spaces - Exploring Duck, Death and The Tulip

Presentations of workshop tasks are a pretty standard thing. They are by all accounts muted affairs. A 2 minute whirl of what will hopefully be the faintest whiff of an interesting idea. We watch a rough outline of a piece and feedback in a polite and constructive way. Tuesday was different. As all three pairs prepped their ideas we agreed on 25 minutes for each group allowing for a second try and mixing things up. Laura and Harriet went first...

An hour later we stood belittled, giggly and enthusiastically confused. The other two groups would not be showing tonight. The girls transformed a function room above a bar into a totalitarian, unquestioning school house with the only stimulus being one word, 'compartmental". This got me thinking. First of all how certain people do not like being told what to do. Even in a controlled environment amongst friends people still rebel and become to put it coyly, naughty. Exercise caution in control experiments, should you ever decide to mount one. Secondly our experience with Duck, Death and the Tulip really felt that it had stepped up a gear. This sparse, lean and reserved story touches on so much in scope it would be quite easy to fill up all the empty space on the pages with images, questions and our own readings and that's exactly what we're doing. One of the best features of the book when you're coming at it creatively is how it lets you fill in the blanks or, indeed, let you leave bits blank and just accept them as they are. It has a transformative quality and allows us as a Theatre company to go anywhere, anytime, anyhow. That goes for an audience too. Can't wait to see if there is anywhere it can't take us. Gotta do that small presentation first though, politeness and constructiveness and stuff.