John's (nominally) Connections Blog 2023

This is, nominally, an NT Connections blog, and whilst there is much to say about the experience, it has been a little hard to work out exactly what I personally can write that wouldn’t be better coming from a cast member or Sarah. I was the assistant director; whilst it feels fair to say that I have contributed to the show in some way, I was neither a direct participant nor the orchestrator. I didn’t run the sound, nor the lights, nor did I call the show. I do feel that I left a mark on the show, though, in directing some scenes, and working with the actors. I hope it was better for my involvement - it was, after all, a remarkably good performance - but for the purposes of this blog I think it would be best to restrict the scope to what it has meant to me.

About 18 months ago, I was kicking around a can of early-to-mid twenties malaise. I’m sure it will be familiar to some reading this: the acute sense of “this is it for 40 years, then I retire?” This was the immediate wake of the pandemic and little was certain, for fear of the variants the latter half of the Greek alphabet might hold. Opportunities were not especially forthcoming. In a fit of pique that might otherwise have made me book a holiday or take up a new hobby, I messaged Sarah asking if I could help out at Yew Tree in some way. You may have surmised the answer was yes. I’m grateful for this, not purely for the opportunity itself, but because there was little reason to grant it. I am a YTYT alumnus, but neither an especially distinguished one nor one who had attended for that long. Still, I had some student theatre experience, so I thought that hopefully I could make myself useful. 

Since then, Yew Tree has (again) grown to be quite an important part of my life. I have been lucky enough to help Sapphire company through a few shows, step in for a role in a Shakespeare, to take part in a memorial service for miners, to help devise a show for the council, to take up the part I was born to play in Brexit: the Musical, and to help out with two Connections plays. Being in the room with Sarah, I have learnt a textbook’s worth about dramaturgy sheerly through osmosis. I’ve run countless warmups and devised a few exercises of my own (some of which had the desired outcome; others died catastrophically on their own backsides) and regained a considerable quantity of creative confidence I feared had left me during Covid. It is with these new skills and this regained sense of acuity of creative judgment that I took a more active role AD’ing The Heights.

It was, as it ever is, a pleasure. The rehearsal room is a fantastic space - the free exchange of creative ideas, the iteration upon them, things coming together out of nothing. Directing is still fairly new to me - it is a strange straddling of the needs of the piece and the needs of the actor, and a test of skills which I’m very much still developing - but I certainly hope to do more of it.

To give you a sense of what it’s like to work with Yew Tree actors, I should note: they’re bloody good at it. That shouldn’t be left unsaid. It’s not natural talent alone either.  Talent is, in my opinion, rather overrated, and entirely subsidiary to what actually matters: dedication and curiosity - both of which the cast carry about in droves. They are attentive and disciplined in a manner that’s difficult to appreciate when you’ve come to expect it.  You might not otherwise notice, until you’ve seen the admiring looks such qualities command from professionals in the industry. They are patient and kind to each other. There is a trust among them, which is the bedrock of an unrestrained creativity. There are challenges - namely, convincing adolescent eyes of the talent they can be stubbornly unwilling to see - but the qualities they have cultivated in themselves pay dividends. I hope the cast are aware, whether they should happen to read this or not, of the esteem in which I hold them all.

I’ve been mulling this blog over a little while. Being unashamedly pretentious, I would like there to be a PointTM to this thing I have found myself writing. If I was to force one, it might be along the lines of ‘really good things can be done in very little time if you surround yourself with the right people’ or ‘creativity is its own reward’. Maybe if I was feeling polemical I could make this a screed about adequately funding the arts. All I know for certain is that this piece is very late, so I think I will settle for this: I have thoroughly enjoyed it, theatre is good, and you should participate in it. Thanks for reading.