The Diver, Iph. ., Alcmaeon and various Monkeys!
Monday, May 19th, 2008It’s Monday, it must be Japan. Japan that is by way of Old Street. Like 38 buses when I lived in Islington, productions only seem to come along in fours theses days. In the last few weeks I have been in theatrical worlds of Greece, China, Japan and Macedonia as productions of Iph. . (a translation/adaptation of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis) started rehearsals at Colchester Mercury; Monkey! (based on the ancient Chinese stries of Su Wu’kung, the magic monkey king) started rehearsals at West Yorkshire Playhouse and in a separate production at Polka Theatre, London; and a new piece, The Diver, (based on a varity of Japanese Noh plays and a modern murder story) which I am wrting with Japanese writer/director Hideki Noda at The Soho Theatre, London all begin rehearsals. At present it is The Diver which I am having to concentrate on. Workin with Hideki Noda and Kathryn Hunter - the lead actress - is a truly organic process. Over the past year we have been workshopping ideas in London and Tokyo (during the Japanese and English productions of The Bee, our first collaboration). Starting with Japanese Noh plays, and returning to their source, the eleventh century Tales of Genji, we have built a narrative based on a contemproary story of the O-L murderer (The Office Lady murderer) who murdered her lovers children in revenge for his deceptions. The key insight into the connection of these disparate stories has been that Noh plays concern the reconciling of unreconciled spirits and that our modern Western way of interpreting this is through psychology. I won’t say anymore about the narrative but this fusion has led to a complex and multi-layed journey into Japanese classical theatre and modern psychiatric theory. In Tokyo we were lucky enough to do workshops with Noh masters and musicians - Hideki is a theatrical superstar over there and everyone is so willing to work with us on his theatrical journeys - and in London we are working with forensic psychologists. However the organic nature of the script development mean that we are continually modifying and developing the script I wrote for the rehearsals, on the floor. Today we are getting to the core of the piece; the possession of the protagonist. How does contemporary forensic psycholgy interpret the idea of possession. How d we realise that in a way that is clear on both the theatrical level and in terms of psychological truth.
Last Monday I was in Leeds for the first day of Monkey! rehearsals at West Yorkshire. Dominic LeClerc, the director, whose background is in dance and aerial movement has assembled a cracking cast. The full assembled company of actors and background team were hooting with laughter at the readthrough. It was a real joy to hear the text again - the last production I saw was by Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre in 2006. the script still sounds so fresh which is gratifying and a relief. But so much of Dominic’s production shall be about the movement. On Friday I am sent a clip from rehearsals which the technicla magician Mic Pool at West Yorkshire has made into a trailer on youtube - it looks remarkarkable. You can have a sneak preview of this if you log on to >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OKAa318JEM . I’m really excited by the possibilities of this production.
I am also in touch with Sue Lefton, the director of Iph. . at Colchester. I was down with her company three weeks ago. This is the first full production of this piece in England. (It was premeiered at the Lyric Theatre, Belast in 1999 and I directed a mise en espace at the National Theatre in 2002) Like all Greek drama, this piece re-interprets the context in which it is produced. In Belfast it was very much about the Northern Irish conflict. In the garrison town of Colchester its dialectic about the concflict of the domestic versus the national/military is telling in very different way. I have had to alter this text slightly. Several of the Irishisms and the slang don’t work int he changed context - for example the Irish use of ‘deadly’ meaning ‘cool’ does not work. We have changed that to ’sick’ which has the same negatice/positive connotations. I am hoping to get down to a run of this on Wednesday or Friday, Japan permitting. So more on that then.
Early mornings have also been taken up with design meetings for my own production Alcmaeon in Corinth fo rthe National Theatre in Macedonia in August. This is the missing play from Euripides final trilogy which began with Iphigenia in Aulis and concluded with the Bacchai. In 2004 from the twenty or so lines that survive I wrote a re-construction. Euripides was in exile in Macedonia when he wrote these so it is a really exciting prospect to be asked to produce this play in the ancient Greek amphitheatres in Bitola and Ohrid. these ancient theatres do challenge the designer, however, since everything is revealed. Gideon Davey, however, is a bit of a magician when it comes to making things apear from seemingly nowhere. We are playing with the idea of artefacts and packing cases. More to follow.
Finally, a word about Polka’s Monkey! I believe Jonathan Man’s production starts rehearsal today. He has edited my text so that two actors can play all the parts - there are around sixty! I think he has done a brilliant job though I am still intrigued as to how Moneky and Tripitaka will not only play their companions Pigsy and Sandy, but also all the demons that the meet upon the way. He is also presenting this production promenade!
Must go. The Kamo Festival is starting.
CT
