Day 7 on the New Writing Course

As someone from a completely different trade, and with no experience of working in the theatre, I have been continually amazed by the self-effacing, inspirational and warm people that I have met over the past 7 days on this course. Simon Stephens who came to “Q and A” us today, was no exception. Although he shared a number of practical writing exercises with us, I actually found myself not wanting to take notes. There was something about the way that he spoke about his work, and the way that he saw the world, that was so different and so fresh-that I just wanted to listen. His use of language, to describe things that I did not think I would be interested in, like viaducts or milestones or 1980s TV, held my attention. 

Day 6 on the New Writing Course

Benazir Bhutto, her personal shopper, beautician, the cook’s mother and many other dodgy characters including a closet anorexic filled Graeae’s sun-filled studio today at Tamasha on day six.

After brief discussion about plays that subvert the three-act play structure we got into reading our new scenes and monologues and I felt well rested enough and confident that I could face the rest of the day without sustaining too much brain frazzling. I should know better but never seem to learn not to pre-empt anything because after the hour-long lunch break I spent soaking up vitamin D in the museum grounds and worming my way into the brains of an anorexic we all returned and Philip exposed his onion.  Don’t even!

Day 5 on the Design Direct Course

Friday 23rd March. The day that I found both space and light.

The last few days have been an intensive experience and my mind has felt overcrowded since day one, incorporating a mass of new information, developing an idea of the text and trying to explore the Venn diagram intersection necessary for a successful collaboration with someone I have only just met. Although Renu and I quite quickly established a shared view of the world of the play, feeling the salon as a fragile, protected space set against a circling, exterior threat, and had agreed on the use of rangoli pattern as an expression of this and the basis of our set, each day bought new considerations to be incorporated into the design. As a result, I could not hold it as a distinct structure in my imagination. The rangoli was encircling me and I could not lift my mind from an endless preoccupation with the ground.

Day 4 on the Design Direct Course

I keep finding myself all day writing, in my notebook, notes like:

THERE IS NO RIGHT WAY
There is no one answer!
“there are NO RULES”

Whilst at the same time madly looking for the right way to approach this design, the one answer, the internal rules to govern this production.

At the end of yesterday’s session, I felt like we’d solved it; I’d had some great poetic conversations with Anna [the director I'm working with], and we’d made a fascinating breakdown of the layers of the world of the play. I’d sketched and imagined how all these ingredients would be set neatly against each other, and in my mind I was ready to build the set. But after our tutorial this morning, everything dissolved again. I love that moment, when I’ve built a whole world in sketches and notes, almost solidified it, when an alternative approach is suggested which releases everything I thought I’d fixed from their positions, and everything goes fluid.

Day 4 on the New Writing Course

I came in today really excited and full of steam. Not only was I going to be spending the day learning more about the craft of writing but also, I had actually written something! Armed with my pages and a nice feeling of having make something happen I really wanted to hear the material out loud. The scenes written had stemmed from a stimulus earlier in the week, a remembered conversation we had had. Earlier in the week i had gotten down to remembering a breakup and had written down a conversation as verbatim as I could recall. This seemed to receive positive feedback from the group and indeed, I felt much more confident in putting it forwards as a piece because I knew it was TRUE. So this new creation of mine was going to be a response to the reality of the first piece.

Day 3 on the New Writing Course

Knowing that I didn’t have a hope in hell in of writing the sort of comprehensive yet entertaining blog that Nurinder wrote yesterday I have decided to make this account a sort of confessional instead. So please bear with my self indulgence.