Studios.

I love the Song Exploder podcast, produced and presented by Hrishikesh Hirway.  In every episode, a musical artist tells the story behind one song, and dissect that song layer by layer.  It's a fascinating insight into creative process, from people who don't make a habit of talking about creative process, and makes you a better listener of music, more aware of the layers that go into a single song.

One thing that often strikes me is the relationship between musical process and space.  For example, I listened to an episode about Kimbra this morning.  She says:

“The start of this song happened at Skrillex’s studio.  We met backstage at Coachella and, then, y’know, we talked about hanging out because we both lived in the same part of town in LA.  He invited me over to his studio and we were just like listening to beats together.  I was playing him some of my demos.  He was playing me things we had and he pulls up this beat. ...I’m like ‘yo this is really sick’ and I just start moving along to it and I guess I just started singing along...and he’s like ‘that’s sick, let’s record it’. ”

— KIMBRA http://songexploder.net/kimbra

Skrillex in his home studio

Or, in another episode I listened to walking the dog this morning, with Win Butler of Arcade Fire:

“We built a new studio in New Orleans, which I’ve kind of begun to recognise as part of the process of making a record.  We always end up kind of putting a new studio together and somehow in making the space there’s this period where you’re just kinda just plugging things in and seeing how they work and you accidentally end up writing a bunch of music.”

— Win Butler http://songexploder.net/arcade-fire

In both examples, space and equipment that occupies that space is instrumental to the creation of a new piece.  Neither artist, in these stories, are writing ideas down in their notebook for their working day and waiting for the 3 weeks a year they get in the rehearsal studio to actually make something.  The idea that two artists would just hang out, with the resources that they need to do their art, and something would come out of it is beautiful.

LEt's be clear - we're talking Skrillex, Kimbra and Arcade Fire here - these are very successful and wealthy artists.  There's a massive question of economics and class also - I'll bet Kimbra didn't have to leave at 3pm to go to her bartending job.  

BUT there is an absence of workspace and resources for theatre artists - my experience is in London, but possibly (probably?) in other places as well.  I don't have my own workspace, of a size appropriate to the production of theatre work, where I can just try an idea that I get on a Tuesday afternoon.  Or where I can meet an actor/designer/writer/dramaturg/choreographer/whatever at a theatre and invite them round next week to kick ideas around.  Or invite 8 friends round to see this solo that I've developed this week (now I'm really dreaming).  And I'm relatively privileged in my work situation - in that I only have the one non-theatre part-time job now - so I can't be alone in this.

The freelance nature of our work doesn't help this situation - most theatre artists don't have homes, because the contemporary theatre building isn't a building that keeps artists on contract.  We don't really go in for a company model any more.  Only the biggest theatres have more than one or two artists on full-time staff - where we could have permanent access to space, other artists to collaborate with, produce new ideas etc etc.  

I was backstage at a theatre recently.  There's a door, upon which is printed the name of the rehearsal room - imagine the chaos and the new ideas that could take place there.  But now, attached to the door, a sign "This room is now a meeting room."

The actor is the message.

There's a fantastic interview with German actor Sophie Rois - on the occasion of the announcement that she'll be joining the ensemble at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin.  In amongst her hilariously frank pronouncements (she says she didn't leave the Volksbühne ensemble straightaway because she wanted a bouquet of flowers and a 350 Euro bonus - which, she says, is probably just 116 Euros after taxes), she says some really important things about acting, actors and theatre.  

There's one point where the interviewer suggests that she had indeed put herself at the disposal of different directors and different styles at the Volksbühne.  Rois immediately counters this by saying that 'I'm not sure the other actors would say that I did that', hinting at her stubbornness and single-mindedness.  She says, in a way, that if she had indeed just made herself available to what other people wanted her to do, then the performances would not have been nearly as good.  She is so good, so unique, because she creates in a way that no-one else could create - on stage, she writes her own performance, and the artistic voice is as unique as any playwright, director, designer or any creative role to whom we feel more comfortable ascribing an artistic voice.

This is complete anathema to the standard drama teaching in the UK today, which encourages actors to become blank canvases (there are, possibly, exceptions).  Actually, the truth of the matter is that a character, a speech, a sequence performed by one actor becomes a completely different (performance) text when it is performed by another actor.  Their individualities should be preserved rather than demolished.  If I ran a drama school, we would spend less time listening to directors and more time being ourselves to the point of driving everyone else mad.

Then, later, Rois describes the theatrical approach of the Volksbühne as "materialistic", and saying "the actor isn't the medium for the director's message, the actor is the message."  This is a profound shift of approach for those of us used to talking about fulfilling a playwright's vision or, more recently in the UK, a director's vision.  That never-ending debate between 'director's theatre' and 'playwright's theatre' obscured the truth all along - the director and the playwright aren't on stage, the theatre belongs to, and has always belonged to, actors.  It is their play, in the room, in front of an audience, in that building and at that time, which creates meaning.  If we ask them fulfil someone else's vision, or to represent something else, their play, in that room, in front of that audience, in that building and at that time, is still creating meaning.  It's just creating, in my view, a diminished meaning because everyone's focus is on a written text or a drawn vision that isn't present in the room.

THREE KINGDOMS dir. Tom Hughes, set. Rhyannon Richardson, costume. Amy Watts, light. Phil Hamilton, photo. Gemma Mount

The thing I've found myself telling actors recently is "I dunno what you should do".  It drives some people mad, and they think I'm a shit director.  Truth is, I probably could (and do) give them a suggestion of what to do in a particular scene or at a particular moment.  But I live with my head all the time, and I'm not in love with myself enough to just want to see the inside of my head in front of me. 

I want to see what an actor wants to do - how they would act and react in a strange or extreme situation - I want them to take responsibility for their performance, to take control of their performance.  I don't want them to be a facsimile copy of something else, trying their hardest to fulfil someone else's vision (and, inevitably, feeling bad about themselves for not quite reaching it).  I

I want them to interpret and to go for it in each performance.  Mainly to go for it.  And meaning be damned.  Because it is their theatre, after all.

Just an excuse to post a picture for Die Brüder Karamasow really.  

Still one of my favourite performances ever.  

Dir. Castorf, Des. Neumann, Light. Baumgarte.  

More info: https://www.volksbuehne.adk.de/praxis/en/die_brueder_karamasow/index.html

Grand flexibility.

The good weather really affects a theatre audience.  Last night, I was at work, watching Amadeus from the directors box in the Olivier, and there was such a lovely vibe in the room.  Everyone is wearing comfortable clothes, most people had a beer or two in the sun before the show, looked to me like everyone had had a lovely day.  And they responded like I haven't heard an audience respond to that show before: at points it was playing like a stand-up show, lines and moments bringing the house down and getting rounds of applause.  

And the company responded in turn, listening to and playing with the audience within the show's structure.  They felt very locked in, and they took the audience through every step of the story and, really, gave them a gorgeous night in the theatre.  

The whole experience was capped by an immediate & full standing ovation - more people standing than I've seen before in that theatre.

It's that dynamic between actor and audience that I want to live within in my own work.  That acknowledgement that we've all lived through this beautiful weather together today.  That if it's raining, we'll need some joy quickly and that will affect our play.  That if something awful has happened in the world, we're all depressed about it and that will affect our play.  That if there's not many in tonight, we will acknowledge that and it will affect our play.  

I remember a story about stand-up comedian Ian Cognito, usually very loud and shouty and aggressive, playing to a room of 6 people.  Walking on to stage, grabbing a chair, sitting down and telling stories in a half-whisper for half an hour.  Dropped his whole shouty act and played to the situation and the room.  

I want all my shows to have this sort of flexibility.

Simple premises.

I read this fantastic article by David Bix this morning about the creation, development and promotion of two pro-wrestling shows (one in 2017 and one in 2018) called Joey Janela's Spring Break.  I was especially impressed by the short, promotional videos for the event, they're completely fantastic.  There's one of Janela wandering through the streets trying to raise money to wrestle Marty Jannetty, one of a small indy guy challenging Matt Riddle (one of the most bad-ass dudes in wrestling) with Riddle's response.  They're artful without screaming artful.  They're funny.  They feel really current and up-to-date.  They look like they were made quickly and cheaply, even though the production values are still high.  And they all tell a very simple story which will make an audience want to come see a performance: the video sets up the premise, and the performance will bring it home.

As I write a concept and funding application for a show, it's good to be reminded that simple, imaginative premises are effective premises.

Questions

Last Saturday afternoon, I visited 'Hoochie Koochie' – an exhibition of dance performance choreographed by Trajal Harrell. It was a fascinating way to experience the breadth of work made by an artist who makes live performance – seeing all of these works, from across Harrell's output, performed in the same space (often simultaneously).

Browsing through the catalogue afterwards, I was drawn to how Harrell's practice is guided by questions. As Leilia Hasham says in the catalogue, Harrell's series of performances, Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church, is led by the question, “What would have happened in 1963 if someone from the ball scene in Harlem had gone downtown to perform alongside the early postmoderns at the Judson Church?” In imagining and exploring the potential answers to this question, Harrell created several works over a period of years.

Trajal Harrell

New York theatre company The TEAM also talk about their work in terms of questions. Artistic director Rachel Chavkin wrote that “The creation of Mission Drift began unofficially in May 2008 with the question 'What defines American capitalism specifically, versus capitalism as it took shape anywhere else in the world?” (I had lunch with Rachel 18 months or so ago in which she informally suggested that its her job as director to set a new project's question, and allowing the members of the company to explore this question).

Mission Drift by The TEAM

I have, countless times, heard artists talk about what their work is saying, or have people ask me what I want a piece of work to say – as if the meaning of the work could be reduced to a single statement. I have always felt uncomfortable about this because it feels reductive. It feels like it'll make work that is just illustrating and proving a single statement for the duration. A question, on the other hand, is open and unpredictable; it can allow for many different answers. Those answers might even contradict one another.

The way that Harrell talks about the questions in his work feels liberating. Talking about the Twenty Looks... series, he says “Once I had the question for the series, I had to put myself imaginatively in that possibility, and yet problematize my own position within that procedure.” In asking something as clear as a single question, he sees the ethical limitations of his ability to answer. Engaging with such clarity allows the work to accumulate new and different layers.

The question only needs to be simple. I remember attending a lecture about Andy Warhol's television work by American media academic Lynn Spigel. I remember her introduction clearly; the introducing speaker said that Make Room for TV, Spigel's mega-important study of television, was defined by the simplicity and clarity of its question: how did all families come to keep their TV in the corner of their living room?

Caen Amour by Trajal Harrell

Harrell's work becomes so fascinating and complex because he asks simple, albeit imaginative, questions about history and about society. On his piece Caen Amour, he says “I started researching the hoochie koochie and looking at its potential relationship to butoh in terms of formal practices, both from an imaginary and a realistic point of view”. No-one else is putting hoochie koochie and butoh together; the question itself is simple yet specific and unique, and it offers endless answers.

None of this is especially revolutionary to academics, artists or writers accustomed to devising work from scratch. Yet, as a director, I often work with plays or texts that already exist and, all too often, my question is “How do I stage this play?”* I don't kid myself that I'm so unique and fascinating, in the context of the history of theatre, that my answer to this question (asked hundreds of times before) is going to be significant in and of itself. You're just going to be repeating something that somebody else has done before. Instead, I need to ask questions of these plays or ask questions that encounter plays and texts in their answers.

What question are you asking in your work? And, when you encounter someone else's work, what question do they appear to be asking?

* There's a caveat to be had here about directing plays, especially new plays, in which the writer has already asked important questions.  Too many questions spoil the broth, or something cleverer.