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danieldwilliam) wrote2012-04-17 12:56 pm
On Taking Part in an Open Stages Residency
I have been taking part in the Open Stages workshops. Open Stages is a Royal Shakespeare Company initiative to connect professional theatre to amateur theatre.
Last weekend I took part in a weekend Residency with the National Theatre of Scotland. The programme started at 5pm on Friday evening and ran until 5 pm on Sunday afternoon. I was on the Technical and Design programme. Others from the Grads were on the Directing and the Performing Workstreams. There were puppets but I never got anywhere near them.
There were about a dozen people on my technical course. We were a mix of novice and experienced hand, of performers and directors wanting to know more about the technical side and technical people. There were folk from theatre groups all over Scotland.
I travelled over with a couple of folk from theatre group, the Grads, including C who I really want to do some more work with. I hope we get to produce a show together next year.
Friday evening
On Friday afternoon we had a welcome from various folk at the National Theatre of Scotland and then I went off to my first work shop – lighting and sound.
The first session was a bit disappointing. Colin and Tony were going to show us sound and light but technical problems meant they were improvising.
We started with a discussion of health and safety and how it informs, or ought to inform, everything that goes on in a theatre. I like this. I’m a big fan of health and safety. Theatres can be dangerous places. As a case study we talked about a staged hanging. It involved multiple effects to replicate the look of a hanging and each effect required multiple checks and failsafes to make the it safe to operate. Colin, who was leading the workshop seemed genuinely really keen on a health and safety ethos. That’s good to know.
After that we were meant to have a session on sound. Tony, the theatre tech who was working with Colin had set up a simple sound system; two speakers, an input and an amp. Technical problems meant it didn’t work so we moved on to a ex tempore demonstration of the lighting rig.
First stop the control booths and a bit of chat about sound and lighting control boards. It was interesting but not particularly useful for me. I don’t have enough of a grounding in the basics to get much from a couple of veterans talking about the merits of different lighting boards or how lighting control has changed over the years. We didn’t get to touch the boards and we didn’t get any instruction on how to plan and deliver the setup of the light and sound elements of a show. That’s what I was hoping to learn.
After that we went up into the lighting rig. In most theatres I’ve worked in the lights sit on bars which are on wires and can be raised and lowered. So you work on the lights on the ground and then hoick them up into the air. This is time consuming and requires a couple of people to help with the raising and lowering.
The rig in the Gilmerton theatre has a tension wire trampoline. This is a horizontal grid of 5mm steel wires running across the whole of the roof space. The grid is about 5 cm by 5cm. The grid is connected to steel joists, as are the lights. The lights are above the grid. The floor is below the grid. Quite a long way below the grid. You stand on the grid. It feels like standing on a mattress. If you look down you can see the floor.
What this means is that you can stand next to the lights and do the bulk work as if you were standing on the ground and then give them the fine adjustment with them in situ – but as if you were standing on the ground. Safer and quicker.
Standing in the lighting rig was very cool but a bit unstructured and that doesn’t suit me as a learning style. Tony’s real enthusiasm for his work shone through.
We finished at about half nine. I took the train home to Edinburgh and showed My Lovely Wife pictures of the tension trampoline I’d been standing on.
Saturday Morning
Back on Saturday morning by train from Edinburgh. This time on my own. The lovely, early spring, early morning sunshine put me in a great mood for a day of learning.
The Saturday morning session was a two parter. The first session was back up in the lighting rig. Some lights had been rigged up and we got a practical demonstration of how the various lights worked, what you can do with them and how lighting effects can be used.
Tony started with a single chair on the floor and showed us what it would like light by a profile or a Fresnel. Then in sharp focus or soft focus. Then sharp focus with a frost (tidier than soft focus, not as stark as sharp focus). Then we tried different colours. Then different combinations of colours. Then various special effects and then some gobos (sheets of metal with shapes cut out of them). This was superbly useful.
The second session was with Colin who showed us the two Deputy Stage Manager books. Job title aside the DSM is not the gofer for the Stage Manager. The DSM is the programme manager for the production and the operations manager for the performance. Firstly, they record in their show book all the decisions made by the production team and make sure the right people are told. Secondly, the create, hold and run the prompt book for the show.
If you have the script, the show book and the prompt book you should be able to recreate the show.
It’s a very useful role and one I think many amateur companies are missing.
Saturday Afternoon
The Saturday afternoon session was my favourite session. We were working with Fiona Watt on production design. I’ll write more about this workshop in detail. Here follows a summary.
The first thing we did was to talk about the role of the production designer. The role is broadly to create the environment in which the cast perform the play.
Is the actor a king? Dress them as a king would dress. Provide a golden crown. Give them some set to stand on so they are above the rest of characters. Then light them so their robes seem to glow and their face looks handsome and wise and the sun seem to shine from their crown.
Are the characters talking about the rain? Then provide the sound of rain. Change the light so it looks like rain then rain ending? Can you create the smell of rain or the feeling of damp in the theatre? Can you make the audience believe they can smell the rain?
That’s the job.
It’s also a project – so we talked about the main elements in the process.
Then we did some stuff. We took two scenes from Macbeth Act 5 Scenes 4 and 5 – pertaining to Birnam Wood.
Fiona Watt starts her design process with the text and three questions. What do we know? What do we wish we knew? What can we guess?
All of us wrote answers to this for Macbeth as whole on post it notes and then stuck them on flip charts.
We worked in smaller groups for the next part. Taking the two scenes, three pages of text, we broke them into beats. For me a beat ends when there is a significant change of; personnel on stage, mood, status of a character, the end of one bit of action – something has happened, something has changed. Working from the text we first work out who and what is on stage (what is known), how they might be feeling or experiencing the situation (what we would like to know) and what things might be around them (what we can guess). For example, Malcolm uses Birnam Wood to cover his numbers – we know there is a wood and a disguise and an army. We’d like to know why they are disguising their numbers – is it to fool Macbeth or his army? Are they trying to look greater or fewer in number? Is Malcolm in the wood or leading it? We can guess at the psychological effects on Malcolm and Macbeth of seeing the wood and what it means to them and to their kingship.
Then, once the beats are known, we discuss the component parts of them. What props, actors, lighting, sound, set is there. What do we want to emphasise? What mood do we want to create or change?
This goes into a story board and the story board become the tool for understanding what we have created (a design vision for the production) and explaining it before we get into the detail.
Which we did, taking turns to explain our concept to the rest of the group.
Our key elements. Birnam Wood was a weapon and its creation was an exploration of the legitimacy and illegitimacy of kings and the thing we wanted to see was the effect on Macbeth of seeing Birnam Wood arrive. The reality and the unreality of the wood as experienced by the characters was the big thing.
Fiona then gave us some rolls of brown paper, some masking tape, scissors and string and told us to do it. Do our story board. We had 45 minutes to build Birnam wood and then 45 minutes to stage the production.
My group of five created some physical theatre which used the shape of the theatre to create the landscape our army was negotiating and Birnam Wood. We used physical theatre to create Birnam Wood and to show it enveloping and protecting Malcolm and how it terrified Macbeth as the souls of his murdered victims came to claim him and showed that the wood, and the people carrying it were the arbiters of legitimate government. We improvised the cutting down of Birnam Wood and its use as a physical and psychological weapon. It’s one of the best things I’ve done.
All through this process she keep pushing us. “What next? What does the mean? Why is that important?”
Between the production design method and improv I can see a way I can create or direct my own productions and I didn't have that before I went.
Saturday Night
On Saturday Night we had a ceilidh at the Glasgow Arts Club. I went for dinner with one of the people from my group. She was fab. Superbly energetic and creative. Then for drinks and dancing until it was time to go home to Edinburgh.
Sunday Morning
On Sunday morning all 150-odd participants took part in a workshop based around the prologue of Romeo and Juliet. Also based around play. The Playfulness is the thing.
We started with a warm up. A good warm up. Then we created a sound bath. Everyone over 50 stood in the middle of the room with their eyes closed. The rest of us started making a vowel sounds of any pitch. We varied the sound, pitch and volume and then started circling the group in the middle.
Next was a game of Grandmother’s footsteps. First with shoes on. Then with only one shoe on. Then with no grandmother. 150 people playing Grandmother’s Footsteps with the same imaginary grandmother.
After that some movement. First, alone, we moved around the spaces created by 149 other people. Then in pairs, maintaining eye contact, we moved. We saw how a protagonist and an antagonist would emerge from the group.
Then in more rigid vics of threes (at this point I had an insight into Hannibal Barca and Classical tactics). The sixes.
Then in dozens we worked on a few lines of the prologue.
Then we put it all together and you can see the result here.
Sunday Lunch
We had lunch in Oran Mor and I got to sit next to Fiona Watt and also with C from the Grads and talk production design with her over lunch. This was so good I nearly missed lunch.
Sunday Afternoon
In the afternoon we had an Open Space event lead by one of the team from the National Theatre of Scotland. The topic was what is important in amateur theatre in Scotland?
We sat in a circle and, if we felt moved, took a sheet of paper and wrote a question we would like to answer about the topic. I added MLW’s favourite “What are we already doing really well?” Once we had about twenty or thirty questions we grouped them into two dozen themed categories and then voted on which were most important. (More on the Open Space event to come)
Groups formed around the dozen most important themes, discussed them, came up with practical suggestions and feed back to the group (and the NTS and the RSC) at the end.
Then it was time to go home to Edinburgh, to MLW and the Captain who kindly allowed me to play with him until bath time.
All through the weekend the folk leading the workshops and the folk running the structure were superbly generous of their time.
This weekend has been a fabulous opportunity to learn more about theatre, about making theatre and about my experience of theatre.
It’s also been a great opportunity to be part of the National Theatre of Scotland. I feel proud and joyous about my participation.
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The group and the process felt enterprising. It also felt caring for amatuer theatre in Scotland and it also felt Scottish. Theatre for Scots made with a Scottish ethic.
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