Clicking Connections into Place
Connections week approaches and I have to
admit I am feeling more than a bit giddy for it. 5 days of rehearsals of Eclipse in store with a cast as good
as any I have had the pleasure to work with…as ever it’s going to be challenging
but creative work and that’s my favourite kind.
Last night’s rehearsal made the
anticipation for Connections week even greater. As a director there is a moment with plays where after weeks
or even months of feeling like I am swimming under water with it suddenly
something clicks and everything starts clicking into place. That is the moment when I start to see
a clear picture of what the production is going to look like…how we are going
to take it from explorations of a text to something that an audience will
understand and engage in.
Something akin to a route map appears in my head and I can see what
needs to be done to achieve the best performance possible. Sometimes this artistic revelation
comes from the emersion of characters and relationships, sometimes from the
rhythm of the writer falling into place in the way actors deliver their lines,
sometimes from the world of a play emerging. Yesterday it came from a transition moment between
scenes.
One of the hard things about staging Eclipse
is it dots about in time. Some of
it is set at the time leading up to the disappearance of a girl and some scenes
are set weeks afterwards as an enquiry is carried out into what has happened to
her. Making sense of this for the
audience is a challenge…last night a scene change that had seemed impossible to
do well and so had remained unfocussed and blurry suddenly clarified for me and
I was able to see what was needed to sharpen it. In doing this, the whole play unlocked and my tension about
whether I could translate it from page to stage evaporated. Its one of the best bits about
directing when that moment hits and I never get tired of it…does that mean I
have a plan for everything? Not at all, there is still so much to be done, so
many discoveries to be made but I am now certain we have everything we need as
a company to succeed.
All we need you to do is get your tickets
to come and see the results of our creative endeavours…you can find out how to
reserve your place here…
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