Taking it on the Chin

I'm back! Actually I never really went away, but my blog did. It disappeared off into the ether..the blogosphere or the cloud or whatever you want to call it. Basically it dropped off line and I didn't know how to get it back. Thank the lord for techy bro-in-laws.

I'm going to keep this post short 'n' sweet and current. I'm not going to try and write about the last six months, otherwise my head would explode and that would just be messy. I shall keep this to one subject and save other potentials for another occasion. On this post I'd like to talk about my last audition and why whilst it didn't go well and was disappointing, it has provided interesting food for thought.

For quite some time I have been keen - nay gagging - to get my teeth into something. A play that's interesting and a character that's rich and nuanced and challenging. Something that feels like 'proper acting' as opposed to coming on and doing a turn and buggering off again or trying to make something out of a sketchily written character. 

Earlier this year I accepted a part for an updated version of a Jane Austin play with two lesbians as the lead characters. I didn't think the play was all that, but the cast seemed keen and the director as though she knew what she was doing. Unfortunately at the first read-through it became clear, they no longer had a director, but worse they started hassling for each member of the cast to invest £80 each. And I mean hassling! Of course I appreciate that it is expensive to put on shows and I would not have minded had it been broached at the audition, but I quickly became quite annoyed with the pushy and persistent Round-robin emails, particularly as I was struggling to pay my rent. Final straw for me came when I received an abrupt response to my message that I'd found them a make-up artist saying that it was hardly a priority at this time but money was, so I pulled out. This is something I have never done before, but I was just becoming too angry and this was before even the first rehearsal! Besides, it wasn't a great play, and I had wondered how the story-line would be even relevant today had the two leads not been lesbians. In some ways I wish I had been to see it performed, it would have been interesting to see what they did with it. I think I was just too damn tight after them trying to squeeze money out of me I didn't have! 

Talking of seeing shows I auditioned for but didn't end up doing for whatever reason... it would be a useful learning experience to see it performed, be it good or bad. Whilst skintness has sometimes got in the way, I really shouldn't allow pride to get in the way of this, (although I can think of at least one example where I'd rather rip my own eye-lids off than pay to see the outcome, but that would be cutting my nose off to spite my face and there's already too many mixed metaphors!). One play I auditioned for but chose not to continue the process I blogged about here . I didn't end up seeing it performed which is a shame (I think it was during a particularly busy and skint period), but I heard plenty about it from friends who did. As predicted it was fairly shambolic and made them quite angry. It was a play about veganism, and part of my problem with it was I found it too 'soap boxy'. It being a subject that I believe in, practise and care about, it would have to be done well for me to be in it and as stated before I thought the writing was dire. As I recall, I also had a problem with how the writer/director ran the auditions. 

That being said, you might be surprised when I say that last week I auditioned for same person again... This time it was for a one-woman show (the one I'm allegedly writing is going precisely nowhere at the moment) I shall call "Strike a Light" about the tobacco industry. In contrast to the vegan play I thought it was interesting, well written (though badly formatted) and would be a terrific challenge. I was given a section to audition which would really separate the wheat from the chaff; I would have to play two characters shagging, switching between the two, including the narration in between. I thought it was a gift, I practised hard, Skyping myself performing (in the artistic sense of the word) the sex-act to my good friend in order to get it down pat in time for the audition. The writer/director who I shall call Jason Black, collected me from the station and drove me to his ramshackle house and within minutes I was performing the sex-act/audition piece with gusto for him. 

Many notes I've been given recently (for mainly comedy pieces) have been "speed up" or "drill through it", but here I was given the opposite; "slow down and take your time". To be honest, I think I was so pleased to have remembered it all, having had only a day or two to memorise and work with it, I did plough through it at the rate of knots, so I did it again at a more leisurely pace. We looked at accents, I had to be American but more Southern than my adopted New Yoik. Since I didn't know from the piece where precisely she was from (though perhaps the clues where there if I'd looked harder for them) I had to 'make a choice'. I thought I'd done quite well in the character and spacial separation, not perfect, but it was a challenging piece and I'd made some bold choices (e.g. my character should be taken from behind!) I thought... However when Jason Black demonstrated how much more I could have done with it, including rich miming skills I hadn't even thought of including, I could see how much it was lacking. That said, I thought the audition had gone rather well (I think I must be the worst person to judge these things!), yes - there'd be a lot to do, but I was (am) confident I could do it. However, JB made it clear he would not be offering me the part. He would want someone more 'ready' to perform it and have minimal input, although I was welcome to audition again if I worked on it some more. 

The next day I received a rather blunt email informing me he was not going to recall me. The sudden retraction surprised and dismayed me - what had I done to warrant this?! So I asked for feedback. This is what he wrote:

• Accent differentiation
• More precise differentiation between character stances and each characters typical gestures
• Snapping between characters
• Audience connection (listening to the audience and responding to them)
• Voice and timing control
• Accuracy of accents
• "Seeing" your imagined space in more detail
• Finesse of physical and emotional response to that imagined space. (how your body touches, manipulates, and responds to that space, and the items and characters within).

Useful. Thoughtful... (Of course I've thanked him for it). He suggested I do a workshop with Jonathan Kay, who does clowning. I've heard he's very good - and challenging! I would have done one by now but I was irritated by the "suggested donation of £50 per day" or whatever it was and the advice in the blurb that 'the more you put in, [money-wise] the more you'll get from it'. I have no problem paying for a workshop, but if there's a fee - call it a fee for goodness sake! Anyway, JB assures me that it is money well spent and a good investment.

So there we are.... over a year ago I rejected Jason Black's piece and last week I was rejected. But I have some valuable insights to take away from it (and possibly I am a little more humble...possibly...)

Procrastinactor

I am painfully aware that it is now the middle of April and two and a half months have swept by without any presence on this 'ere blog. I've been in the doldrums in terms of my performing and procrastinating magnificently in regards to doing any reading or research for the one-woman show. At the same time, whilst I'm blatantly being a procrastinator, I'm wondering if such self-labelling is useful to me. After all, how can I move successfully out of being a procrastinator if I've committed myself to blogging about it? This and a few things not going my way (and not wanting to mass whinge) set up a hiatus in terms of me resisting posting, and as the gap of time widened, it becoming harder. So...

I shall not use this particular post to whinge on or try and catch up about what's been going on (I shall utilise the next one - ha!).  I want to write about a workshop I did, and the subsequent performance, for which I drew on material regarding my procrastination which was really well received - an unexpected bonus..

In one of those serendipitous moments I was in the library and picked up a brochure for The Basement Theatre in Brighton and the first page I turned to saw they were running  a Quickfire Workshop led by the fabulous Stacy Makishi where each participant would be required to produce a brand new piece to be performed at the Supper Club there the following day. I knew immediately that this was something I wanted to do and would provide a great kick up the bum out of my comfort zone and do something different, so I applied and was delighted to get a place. 

The workshop itself was pleasantly cosy and small (good, because I think a few of us felt daunted enough!) with perhaps seven or eight of us, mostly girls. It also included Andy from my Acting Diploma, who brought with him a gimp mask for old times sake (more on that later!). Stacy Makishi was tiny tornado of energy, incredibly telling us she'd just turned 50 but looking more like 25. I confess I was not familiar with her work before the workshop, but I loved her off-kilter approach to things and her fluid and organic way of working through ideas which a less courageous person (i.e. most of us) would reject as ludicrous (they are; they're also brilliant! That's an important lesson right there). 

We did a lot of movement type exercises exploring sounds and gestures representing us at our worst, most lethargic, stuck, paranoid etc and communicating that to another and then them adopting the same and turning it into a positive counterpart sound/gesture. Although I am aware that to the theatrically uninitiated this might sound somewhat bizarre but it is an excellent way of giving a voice to feelings which are often stored in the body and can stagnate, unnamed and keep us stuck. Then came the first of several zero-preparation performances we had to do to the rest of the group based on our worst performing fears and anxieties about what others think of our theatrical offerings. The subject for discussion just prior to this was "what is the utterly worst thing you could overhear about yourself, post performance if you were at the bar?". It ranged from 'pretentious' or 'pointless' to 'pathetic'. Mine was 'painful' (I wonder if it's significant they all begin with 'P'?!) I've casually commented to another whilst watching a particularly tedious production that "I had to gnaw my own hand off in order to remain sane", and since that is the worst thing I can think about anyone's offerings, I would find it devastating to hear said about me. 

We were then instructed to perform 'pointless', 'pathetic', 'pretentious' and 'painful' with absolutely no preparation time which was marvelously freeing and of course utterly terrifying! Everybody's offering was hilarious with ludicrous actorly posturings or pompous singing and so on. I had no idea what my 'painful' performance was going to be but when it was my turn, I looked down and saw I was holding my page-a-day diary. Now once upon a time (not so long ago) I never used a diary at all and could never see the point in them (and then wondered why I kept missing appointments etc), but now my relationship to my TWO diaries is rich and complex as has been discussed in depth in earlier posts. Clutching said diary in my hand I urged my 'audience' to gather around the stage as this was to be a 'proper painful performance' and reminded them to switch off their phones. Waiting until I had their full attention, I opened a page at random (February 12th as it happens) and read from my diary:

Up 8:30: 5 points
Breakfast - well I was going to have that anyway - 1 point
Email medical peeps: 2 points
Read through job application: 5 points
FROG: read chapter of Charlotte Charke plus notes: 10 + 5 points
TASK: clear shelf - not done
Pancakes!: 2 points
etc..etc

As you can see, it made little sense and felt bloody painful to me reading it out, and where as most people's 'dreadful performances' lasted about 30 seconds, I really stretched this out for what seemed like five painful minutes, but probably wasn't. Eventually I said "is this painful enough for you?" "No!" came the response - everybody was eagerly watching and seemed to be wanting more! Later some suggested I take it further...

So very organically we worked through what performances we would do for the Supper Club and indeed how they would flow from one to another, all under Stacy's intuitive directive eye. One of the participants Liz, did not know what she would do until the day of the performance and during her panic, realised she was avoiding her 'frog' and as soon as she took care of that, the better she felt and also realised that her piece should be as a response to mine and was a very visual piece of her attempting to find and put on her shoes from the inside of a sleeping bag whilst talking about 'the Frog'!. My piece had evolved to me sitting on a chair and telling the audience about my 'Fool Proof Twelve Step Procrastination Busting Programme' going through each step from admitting you have a problem to describing the concept of 'the Frog' (and the importance of eating it!) and the points system. At this stage I take out a gimp mask and feed myself marzipan (in the form of Battenberg cake)  through it! It went down rather well and I had some great comments from people who came up to me afterwards who came up and said how much they'd enjoyed it and that they found it very "random" and funny. It was a great evening, I loved the Supper Club with its weird and eclectic bunch of performers and performance installations held in separate rooms, compared by Stacy who also made love to a cabbage on stage and gave birth to a sprout. 

So in conclusion, if nothing else - my complicated and bizarre relationship with my diary and my procrastination, including my personal take on the system originally 'imposed' by Johan has produced MATERIAL which has the potential to be developed into an entertaining show! 

Footnote: Irritatingly, I continue to procrastinate; the workshop was held on the 5th April, the Supper Club the evening after. I wrote half on this last week and it's now the 26th and for some reason I can't publish it. My blog is off-line and I don't know why..... Grrr

Sneaking In The Back Door

I really wanted to nip in here while it is still (just) January to make myself feel better about things. I feel I've rather gone off course again for a while, which has been exacerbated by Christmas and new year, a birthday and a 'boomerang cold' that has refused to go and stay gone. Energy levels have been low, sleep patterns have gone off kilter and inevitably I've slunk back into bad habits. Winter blues and 'man flu' basically (yes women get it too!).

It is weird how I got to this ripe old age without ever really understanding or seeing the point of a diary, which equates to my instinctual distrust of maps and my dislike of rules. Rejecting maps, I used to attempt to follow my nose, which since my sense of direction is utterly appalling, was worse than useless, unless I was trying to find a particularly stinky toilet. Rules or instructions (particularly written ones) would give me the heebie-jeebies or make me want to do the opposite and diaries were just...well, boring. If a friend said "let me check my diary and see if I'm free" I'd actually feel offended!

It took me a solo-trip to Mexico in 1999 to discover that maps actually work and more recently to realise that actually I quite like rules after all. Why? Because it gives me something to work with - and just as importantly - something to work against, particularly in a creative context. When I used to teach photography, some students used to say "why do we have to follow this brief? Why can't I do whatever I want to do?" I do empathise with this viewpoint, but as I explained to them at the time, there's nothing like the 'tyranny of the blank page'. Having a brief or some guidelines to fulfill gets you started and means you also have something to react against. Nothing comes out of nothing. I remember myself as young photography student complaining that I shouldn't have to research other artists, I wanted to be 'original' and I didn't want to be 'tainted' by looking at another's work. Such naive arrogance! Actually, I only half believed this, because even then, I was well aware that it was really an excuse for laziness. Now I realise that none of us produce work in a bubble and we are all influenced - indeed inspired - by other peoples' creative outputs. What was once considered avant-garde before long becomes the 'establishment' and then in turn is 'torn down' by the next cohort of artists of every creed. I bet many watching the likes of Monty Python for the first time turn yawning with derision to their friends and say "God this is so tired, how many times have we seen this?" not realising how new and ground-breaking it was at the time. Impressionist painters such as Claude Monet revolutionised painting and now it's all chocolate boxes and tea-towels. 

On the subject of my 'boring' diary, I now appreciate that like a map, or a set of rules, I need it to navigate my day, or I am lost. It was with some shock at the end of last year, that I realised that I am rather in love with my diary! In fact I have two: a big page-a-day diary to structure my day and the next few weeks ahead and a smaller one to carry around for appointments. How did I exist without them?! Since I am not in regular employment right now, they are even more essential for keeping me on-track and 'task orientated' (what a horrid unsexy phrase!) than ever before! Yes, I may go off-course, get demotivated and slack for a bit, but I find I quickly go back to 'my system' (and yes, it has become mine - it may have been something initially 'imposed' by the lovely Johan, but I've changed it and made it relevant and meaningful to me. In fact I should patent it!) because it works, at least most of the time. 

I've also discovered a surprising fondness for drunken late-night washing-up, but that's another entry, which I (probably) won't bother to write up.

On that bombshell... I shall say goodnight, and goodbye January....it's been fun. Sort of...