AFL Grand Final Weekend ... I band-wagoned with the wrong team!!

A quote from my last Blog:

"... scripts down next weekend - always an interesting time in the rehearsal process."

Never a truer word has been spoken.

It was scripts down this weekend and to quote a great soccer commentator whose name eludes me for the moment, "it was a game played in two halves." 

Saturday went quite well with everybody stumbling through the first half of the play with the most minimal of script-as-life-preserver behaviour. It was a great testament to the fact that fine tuning is so much easier with scripts out of hands. And, being an actor, I understand the blind fear that can approach in that rehearsal when you finally have to put the script down. I am glad that we've done it this early so we can hold everyone's hands through it.

Sunday, however, was a bit of a contrast to Saturday. Understatement!? Hmmm - no! The lines for the second half were not as well known and we managed to do what should take about an hour in 2 hours and 15 minutes! So ... I don't think I need to draw you a map, there's some work to do. 

I am still concerned that some cast members are being too easily absent ... I may be being unfairly harsh here but when 2 or 3 cast members show up under the weather, it's hard to be magnanimous in the face of the dedication of the majority. It's one of those things of which I must constantly remind myself - that others don't necessarily carry the same passion and commitment for a project that you do. But, I do feel that the majority of the cast and crew are with me ... so cheer up you old bugger!

Also, on the up side, I can see that the play is coming together and my assessment is as follows - Theseus and Hippolyta are coming along but can be amplified even more; Egea fits in here and has stepped up a level with the amplification of her character. Hermia, Helena, Demetrius and Lysander have strong foundations and will benefit from the future rehearsals as they cement their characters and start to get the comic juices flowing. Oberon, Titania and Puck are a strong team who I trust to get the job done and are the least of my worries. The Fairies are coming along but I'm looking for a little something to take them up to the next level ... I haven't found it yet, maybe it's behind the couch! And the Rude Mechanicals ... they are, well, stealing the show at this stage. They are very funny and if I need to reign them in - the big iguana help me!

So I can declare the PIA scale unnecessary this week and hope the momentum continues ... Now, where are the posters, postcards and media releases?

No photo tonight.

Twas a dark and stormy night ... actually no, it was mild and clear ... I was just struggling to come up with sentence one.

The early part of tonight was dedicated to making sure my acting safety net officers knew where the problems they might encounter will arise. Also, to talk through some conceptual problems that had been obvious to me with regard to how people were relating to each other as actors ... Hmmm, I'm being a bit obtuse ... basically I was talking acting stuff with some of the Workshop actors who might have to deal with problems, should they arise (and I'm hoping to Big Iguana they wont), so that we give the Altogether actors a safety net so that their hard work wont unravel in a moment of panic over a forgotten line or two. The conceptual issue surrounded that inevitable divide between actors of differing abilities who have to act love, lust, desire in a circumstance where 'method' has no place. In cases such as these its an act of approximation; I may bore those who have already heard the story but it may be useful to others ...

Augusto Boal, formulator of the theories and skills of Forum Theatre, relates a story of his where he is directing a production of Hamlet and he was trying to get a deep sexual tension between Hamlet and Ophelia. Unfortunately the woman who was acting the role of Ophelia just wasn't getting it. Boal questioned his actress further and discovered that she was a virgin and was having difficulty getting much further with the sexual tension thing. Boal didn't stop there; he accepted the difficulty that she was having and set to work finding an emotion memory that she could use to approximate the feelings that Boal wanted to see acted between Hamlet and Ophelia. The feeling that ended up working best came from her passion for ice-cream! He worked with her to marry those two disparate things together - her sensual joy at anticipating and eating an ice-cream on a hot day and the sexual tension building between Hamlet and Ophelia. And, to his satisfaction, the scene finally came to life.

It's understandable the difficulties that have been encountered with this stuff so far and I hope you will excuse any continuing obtuseness in sensitivity toward the people involved.

The next part of rehearsal was dedicated to building up our list of costumes needed for the production. This also includes figuring out who can supply what, where we can buy stuff, what we can make, borrow or nick - errr, borrow - yes. That sounds better.  There are unfortunately no fishnets for this production and I know there was some disappointment expressed about this but the costumes are going to be great none-the-less. The fairies, in particular, are going to be quite iconically reflective of the Australian bush with flower themes set aside for many of them and the colours!! Fantastic!!

I'm feeling a lot more settled now and although I know there will be some major challenges ahead ... that's okay. It's scripts down this weekend - always an interesting time in the rehearsal process ... stay tuned.

I wasn't ready to stop!

Hello, my name is Lajos (it's Hungarian for Louis). I'm an Aries born in the year of the Horse (I'm a fire horse indeed!) and I'll let you get your abacus out to try and figure out when I was born. I was born in Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory at the Royal Canberra Hospital ... a building that was meant to be imploded but actually ended up killing some poor girl standing on the other side of the lake when it all went boom!

I haven't always done the creative thing. In fact I would describe it more as a slow dawning ... And I thought it might be interesting to give you that potted history.

The main activity of my schooling years, apart from learning, was sport. I played Australian Rules football mostly. I started in the Under 6s and 7s playing for my primary school - Sts Peter & Paul. I didn't play footy for a couple of years after that until I gave Rugby League a go in the under 10s or 11s for a team called the Woden Valley Rams. This would later turn out to be interesting in that the team did a trip down to Wollongong that year (1975?) to play a local team called the Corrimal Cougars which was my first trip to Wollongong - the place I now call home.

I played Soccer for my new school, Marist Primary, and then spent quite a few years dabbling in Hockey, Rugby League and Aussie Rules. I eventually settled into a steady diet of Aussie Rules on Saturdays, Rugby League on Sundays and Cricket over the Summer - with other sports peppered in as time and fitness allowed (mostly Hockey). I played one year of Rugby Union when I didn't want to make the leap from Under 15s to Under 17s in the Aussie Rules and got to try out for the ACT team that year. In fact that year I played Union on Saturdays, League on Sundays and I also worked on a milk run 3 nights a week ... I was a pretty fit dude for a big guy! I ran the 10km Canberra Times fun run in 42 minutes that year. In 1983, as captain of Marist College's 2nd XVIII, I won a scholarship for playing Aussie Rules! In a Rugby school!!

I went on to play senior Australian Rules for 2 more years after school and some Rugby Union along the way before spending my last 3 years of competitive sport playing Field Hockey and Cricket.

The only artistic passion I can own during most of that time was music. There were two sources for that. One was my Mum who loved appreciating music. I remember seeing her singing her heart out along with Donna Summer's I Feel Love. My Mum couldn't sing very well but she didn't leave an ounce of passion in the shed when she did sing and I got that! The second inspiration were my neighbours - Pianist, Flamenco Guitarist, Drummer, Rhythm Guitarist there weren't many days in my childhood when I couldn't here one member of the family practicing or just playing. But I only appreciated for the longest time.

My Mum had suggested that I might like to try some Jazz Ballet when I was younger but I'm sure sport was probably considered the right thing to do and I had been on my school team for the Eisteddfod to do a miming performance piece but I never made it.

I had had some unofficial music (drum & guitar) lessons with my neighbours but we couldn't afford to pay and other things always seemed to get in the way - footy! Rah rah rah! But in 1984 I had my first guitar lessons and learnt how to play Home on the Range. In 1985 I joined my first legit band, Sons of Lovers, I played the Bass guitar and I eventually bought my own Guitars - a Washburn Accoustic and a Yamaha Bass guitar which I still have and love playing.

In 1988/89 I got my first taste of musical theatre when I was in the orchestra, as Bass guitarist, for two locally written rock musicals - Spaceship and Tommy's Angel which I did with friend George Huitker and his group called Ghosts Youth Theatre (google him - he's an interesting guy). And then I became a Busker!! It's an amazing thing with way too many crazy stories but it's raw performance, honest, and the way I chose to do it very solitary.

Before I left Canberra in 1992, I had been playing with my then band In Tibet (after the Tintin comic) for about two years. I was the guitarist and singer; we had a drummer who used to travel with kit in his Mini , but it was our amazingly talented and constantly disappearing Bass player Tim that made things very difficult. And so I left Canberra to chase my creative muse as I planned to get into the Creative Writing and Acting courses at Wollongong Uni.

That didn't eventuate, but whilst doing my Arts degree I managed to work with most of the local community theatre groups - Stanwell Park Arts Theatre, Arcadians, Workshop Theatre, Roo Theatre and even did some stuff at the Uni as I was doing the writing courses as part of my Arts degree. During that time I was also performing with the Folk-Rock group A Far Cry as a guitarist/bassist/drummer/singer.

But, the major turning point for me was when I joined a group of disaffected writers from the University as we pursued our own theatrical outlet in the Blue Cow Children's Theatre. For 2 years we wrote, rehearsed and performed a new piece of children's theatre every 2 - 3 months. We even managed to do an adult night of plays and were in rehearsal for more when the group disbanded. It was not long after this that the driving force behind the Blue Cow Children's Theatre and my acting mentor Les Shaw passed away (a fortnight after my sister).

From the ashes of the Blue Cow came Gobsmacked. Bertie McMahon and I had been in the Blue Cow together and were also members of A Far Cry. We decided to write some songs and see what we could do in the children's theatre vein. Bertie and I have been doing Gobsmacked for just over 10 years now. We've toured from Byron Bay to Geelong and many stops in between. We're regulars at The National Folk Festival in Canberra and the Illawarra Folk Festival in Bulli. And to our credit we were rejected for accreditation by the NSW Education Department for being too entertaining! It's true!!

I have also toured a one man theatre piece, A Stretch of The Imagination, by Australian playwright Jack Hibberd and of recent years have been doing much work in Community Development Theatre with the Illawarra Legal Centre, Illawarra Migrant Services and Wollongong College of TAFE.

Wow ... looking back on this is some list and it's by no means a complete list. I might have to indulge in some life writing to flesh out some of the juicier details. I have directed many shows and acted in many more, I still play music regularly and have branched into filmmaking and podcasting. I have taught film theory at Uni. Each step of the journey seems to open up an opportunity here and there and most importantly allows me to keep learning. I don't believe you can ever perfect creative skills - they must always be in a state of kaizen - constant slow change, step by step, with each performance and life experience adding colour and depth to the canvas of life.

Woah! That was a deep ending ... On that note I'll say goodnight.

The better they go the less there is to say about the actual rehearsal ...

Now here's a photo from a jaunty angle! 

We had rehearsal photos done on Saturday so I should be able to put up one or two of those ...

Eventually.

This blog covers the rehearsals of Saturday and Sunday the 20th and 21st of September. 

Twas a big day on Saturday. We managed to step through the whole play, with only a few people missing, and I felt as though we have some pretty strong foundations to work with. 

Today's rehearsal (Sunday) was another step through of most of the play but stymied by a larger contingent of missing actors. 

The delicate balance now is how much repetition? I suspect more than we're used to in community theatre. To allow for the necessary cementing of lines and action from the Altogether Drama actors we'll need to allow for that repetition that can sometimes make other actors stale and bored. But, I think it's one of the things that the Altogether Drama actors bring to the table that we could plug in to - their enormous energy and lack of boredom with the process. Everyday is new day for them ... they're excited to be at rehearsals and they enjoy the comic asides and social interaction. Sometimes a little too much but that is the gig with these actors. I would love an ounce of that energy whenever I feel like it's all getting on top of me!

I mentioned to our awesome Stage Manager Tessa that things were feeling a lot more positive after the weekend; even though my thighs were screaming in lactic acid and 4 of me little toesies were encumbered by blisters after walking for 2 1/2 hours for the Relay for Life ( a 24 hour walking fundraiser for Cancer research done by families, supporters and survivors) - the things we do!

I think we're getting to the point of the process, he says warily looking over his shoulder for the run-away cart, that the teething problems are starting to fade or are able to be attended to in a timely fashion and we've got the communication processes working well in the organisational arena. Also, the production itself is beginning to have an internal momentum which also means the bohemouth juggernaut is moving along nicely ... touch wood! 

This week Thursday is all about safety nets and fish nets ... will tell you more then.

Phew!

It was some kind of day today! But before I go on just have a look at the set diorama! It's probably a little out of scale, but, it serves its purpose. There'll be a lovely sense of space and with the earthy tones and a spacious sky ... Cooooeeee!!!

Also, before I talk about the rehearsal tonight I want to share a story of blind luck which kind of set the tone for my day/evening.

On Monday evening I went for a walk on my regular beach near the Sandon Point Surf Club. It was around sun down and it was a relaxing time of day to be walking. I had my iPod and some great tunes to set pace to. As I was approaching my car, after dusting the sand from my feet, I noticed that I didn't have my car keys! Having one of those 'clicker' things I knew I didn't lock them in the car and the only possible thing that could have happened was that they had worked their way out of my pocket into the sand - or worse still, into the water! I wandered back to retrace my steps but it was already getting dark and I could see no sign of them anywhere.

What to do? I was half an hour walk away from home - which wouldn't have been a problem but I was bare footed after my beach walk. Fortunately one of the MSND people lives close by the beach where I was walking so I lobbed over to their place and fortunately again they were home! They gave me a lift back home to pick up my wife's car keys and then back to the car to save it from a lonely night by the sea.

The next day I wandered back to the beach to look for the keys, but alas, no keys. I spent over an hour walking slowly along the same path I walked the evening before and then enquired at the take-away just in case some one had handed them in, but alas, no keys. I figured that I probably lost them in the water while I was walking and that they were half way to New Zealand on the tide.

Then came this afternoon's walk and the dumbest piece of luck - even dumber than accidently winning $800 on last year's Melbourne Cup - I found my car keys!!! I was casting a cursory glance around, just  in case; I had walked past the spot where they were lying and then I looked over my shoulder and something caught my eye!!! Un-freakin-believable!

I have to say my soul sang a little this afternoon. It was a lovely piece of luck and isn't an unwelcome karmic nod given the year that's been so far. As a small aside I will say that this has been an incredibly tough year on an extreme personal level: a difficult time in my relationship with my son, some lingering health issues, flow on effects in my ability to keep up with a demanding PhD work schedule - which was also in rough waters anyway and the initial difficulties and teething problems with the production are just a few of the issues I've been juggling this year. In the last few weeks there has been some hard decisions that are leading to a considerable re-arrangement in respect to some of these things and some of the weight has been lifting. Finding my car keys was a small thing it's true but the blind luck of it has made me appreciate that there is a big blue iguana winking in my direction occasionally ;-)

So, onto rehearsal tonight and my good vibes from the lucky afternoon kept flowing tonight. It was fun, it was productive and some ideas that I had to help rehearse some of the scenes we did tonight made a real difference ... Phew!

The first part of rehearsal I had with the Rude Mechanicals as we set most of the choreography for their entrances and exits. It was fantastic stuff with lots of giggling and laughing and the added movement certainly added a whole new level to their scenes. I have to mention Skye here who is one of the production team and who also choreographed the movements for those scenes whilst dealing with a little bit of Tonsillitis! A round of applause please!

The second part of rehearsal was spent with the young lovers choreographing their big scene. I've always seen this scene as being acted in a very tight space which would help to reflect the struggle each of the characters are having with each other - kind of like 3 or 4 people in a phone box all trying to get to the door at once. I sketched out a finite space on the floor with chalk and added some guide marks and then told the actors what I was looking for, and low-and-behold, success! Another amusing scene well choreographed and one that did a lot to establish the characters at that point in the play. 

And that was that, I thanked everyone for their hard work and then we went home.

It was a really satisfying night's work tonight and I have to say, once again, my soul is singing a little ... which is certainly more welcome than the belching flatus that's been there most of the year!

PIA scale for tonight - 0/10!!

P.S. The lady, who was one of the main instigators behind the idea of this production a few years back, Wendy D, her hubby won a Paralympics gold medal as part of Australia's wheelchair basketball team the other night - Yippee! And - Oi! Oi! Oi!  

A little from column a and a little from column b ...

On Thursday evening there was no rehearsal but a production meeting for the costumes and such. And they are looking very fancy indeed ... there's plenty of reference points between the set and the 'Aussie bush' theme that I've tried to set up. It's hard to think of much more to say about the meeting other than it was productive, mirthful and brief. Excellent all round really.

Onto Saturday rehearsal ... 

some angst had been sorted out between rehearsals and I was loving everyone very much again ;-)

The same concerns are there but there is genuine movement towards the end goal and this gladdens my heart. I'm not sure if I that's obvious in the way that I carry myself but, I did feel things moving with, as I said, some of the same concerns about the production & cast as I have mentioned previously.

It's a curious thing in this production how isolated I can feel from time to time ... I desire friendship with people, I suppose most people do; I like talking to people and engage in the same camaraderie that the actors get amongst themselves whilst working on big cast shows like this. I've been in the cast of a couple of productions where I've felt this. Early 90s productions of Barnum and Les Miserables come to mind and had close casts. Recently I was the lead in a production of Allo Allo where it was as much fun backstage as it was onstage. 

However, I think when you direct there's a distance that needs to be kept from that to get things done but with this production, more than any other, there seems to be little time to enjoy peoples company. And I can gets a bit lonely ... sniff sniff ;-)

Another issue that seems to be taking up some brain power is the differing levels of commitment ... It's more an observation than a criticism. In the usual run of a community theatre show there's some accommodation for people missing the odd rehearsal. Many actors are in multiple productions or are juggling work commitments etc ... But this is causing some real issues in this production because, although each rehearsal schedule needs a certain amount of flexibility, the lack of consistent cast attendance is stymying the smooth progress of rehearsals and upsetting the need for clarity that the Altogether Drama (AD) cast need. They can be quite unsettled if things don't go to plan and it takes some time to get back into the swing if they're uptight. I'm not sure that everyone has an awareness of the needs of our AD cast in that regard and consequently I get frustrated.

By and large Workshop puts on quite a high level of production given its limitations, punching above its weight in the sporting parlance, and we do this on shoestring budgets and with limited people hours to make the place run efficiently. That being said, it has been one of the learning curves that we've experienced in seeing, acknowledging and understanding the exact nature of the commitment to be undertaken. I see this as potentially a good thing as future productions of this type will benefit from the experience and knowledge gained here.

So here we are: learning things, working hard, energy, passion, laughter, frustration, a bottle of Chivas for those not so cold nights, questions, answers and a dash of angst. Everything in the theatre seems, well, normal. 

Good Days/Bad Days

It's quite difficult to leave the blogging for more than a day ... it seems to lose it's sting, it's punch, it's verve. Still we'll give it the good old college try.

The first half of Saturday was a good session as we managed to walk through the complete second act and feel pretty good about where that's going. The fairies (those that were at rehearsal - see below) are going to be great. I have been concerned, as they are the least mobile of my groups, that they might be too static and energy sapping from the production. However, I was gladdened to see the biggest smiles and hear some pretty sweet voices coming from their scenes and that assuaged my fears, they will be grand! I have to mention my fairy in the wheelchair (shall we call it her forest chariot?) as having one of the most expressive faces I have seen and her smile could light up the whole theatre! Go fairies go!! Sitting, standing or just swaying from side to side! The lovers (Hermia, Helena, Lysander & Demetirius), Oberon, Puck and Titania also strutted their stuff with great aplomb with some cast members rehearsing their scenes without scripts! How excited does that make a director? Modesty forbids me from commenting ;-)*

P.I.A meter at 3/10 after first part of rehearsal ... this minor elevation was due to the external factor of being up since 4.30am (a infrequent moment of insomnia) and finding that as soon as I stopped my brain was ready to ooze out my ears and roll up in the corner and proceed to snore at an exceedingly loud level.

The second half was not so successful, we had a significant number of cast members missing and it was difficult to get any momentum into our run for that part of rehearsal. It is a frustrating fact that from time to time in a rehearsal process - especially in community theatre (work, family, life, unexplained cast evaporations) and extra especially in a cast as big as ours - that people will go missing and this will usually bring rehearsals to a grinding halt or, prove very difficult to gain any of the aforementioned momentum to plot scenes and for creation & rehearsal of character. That being said we got through what we could and called it a day. Then ... oh dear, I find out that one of the actors who had come in just for the second part of rehearsal had cut short a visit from a family member (who had driven from out of town) for Father's Day to be at rehearsal - now to be fair, I had no idea this had happened, but when rehearsal wrapped up early he ended up being quite annoyed that he'd lost that time. Frustrated and getting a little tired and emotional myself I managed to get away from the theatre and into my recliner to catch up on some zzzzz's.

PIA at this point was somewhere around 7.5/10.

Now all these frustrations will pass and as they often say in the theatre, 'it'll be alright on the night.' Most the time I'm inclined to this position. In this production though, I am concerned that we don't rest on our laurels OR the audience's aw-factor at the disabled actors when I can see the potential for a much more polished celebration and exhibition of ability. *Now to temper this moment of unrestrained idealism for the project, and the good first half of rehearsal, I have realised that we need a strategy to encourage one of the AD actors, who has a main role, as they seem to have been overshadowed by their well performing stable mates. It was of great interest to me when I met these actors some years ago how they had the usual mix of acting types that you'd find in any theatre group: the plodders, the competent, the good, the lazy genius and the diva to name the obvious few. Altogether Drama have these types too and it's our diva who seems to be a little behind the 8 ball. 

So, I have some homework to do over the next week or so.

No body told me there'd be days like this ...

Well, not entirely true ...

I woke up this morning with a migraine huge enough to fell an elephant - and so it did ;-) Nausea, giddyness and my brain/head actually hurt ... so I rested, reclined in a darkened room, medicated and at around 10pm this evening my head stopped throbbing!

So! No rehearsal tonight. Should I also mention, 'twas a dark and stormy night. Well dark and foreboding at the very least and I didn't hear too many complaints as rehearsal was called off. There is also a nasty cold going around at the moment so we may have to adopt masks for a bit ... Hmmm, stylish - just ask Michael Jackson.

So, now we are looking forward to Saturday ... Improvise, adapt and overcome.

Hopefully talking costumes next week and finalising rehearsal schedule leading up to the performance. Things to do in the short term: publicity and posters.

See ya after ...