from word to action

First Session

Whew. What a lot of students. 24. Some of them still not there and some who are not on the mark sheet. Are we really going to be 30 each time we meet? Only time will tell. Tony comes to say hello and we give out the paperwork and the parish pump notices.
We sit on chairs in a circle and Steve gives a little speech about Clarification. That he is a practitioner and that he will generally be working from the Practical towards the Theoretical to help make sense of the Theoretical, but always with an eye to the fact that the Practical is priceless.

We begin to get the idea that we are going to be working a lot in various groupings: sixes, fours, twos and whole groups. In pairs the students interview each other. In groups of six they have to tell their partner's 'life story' as if it were their life story, boys becoming girls and vice versa, if necessary. No acting. No girliness or boyi-ness. Just tell it.

One 'story' is chosen by each group of six to be told to the whole group. Four stories are told.

We sit crosslegged on the floor with our eyes closed in a circle. We hold hands and send a squeeze round the circle. When we've got the hang of that we send two squeezes round the circle - in opposite directions. It works - and it also occasions some ticklishness and amusement.

Steve points to certain truths. Namely: there is an action. That an action is offered by one and accepted by another. That the other then assumes the mantle of responsibiltiy for the next action. Which is given. And accepted. And so on. Steve points out that if any one of the 24 had refused to accept the action or refused to offer it in turn, 24 players would have been unable to play. ACTION. REACTION. OFFERING. ACCEPTING.

We stand. We send a clap round the circle. We abide by certain truths. You can't send the clap until it reaches you. Follow the clap with all your senses. Be Ready. Anticipate but don't plan.

We introduce the idea that the clap can be sent back the way it came. People have to be on their toes. But this leads to local battles being fought out. In a circle of 24 people it means the players on the other side become mere spectators. Steve points this out. PLAYFULNESS AND RESPONSIBILITY. The students take responsibility for those on the other side. Everybody can have fun.... We also do this in two circles of twelve. Speed.

Split into groups of 4. One 'secretary' whose job it is to write down the ideas. How many different performances, scenarios can you get from one piece of text. And the text is (Drum-roll):

Hello.

The students set to work. Some get 15, some get 18, some get 22. In less than ten minutes.

We share in a whole group. Each group is asked for one of its ideas. One or two issues arise. For example: changing the text. One idea involves the word Hi!. Another may involve saying it in a different language. Bonjour. Or Hallo (in German). Steve gently suggests that if we are working with text that we have to work with the text we have got, not with the text that we'd like it to be. Might be challenging - but also might be more rewarding in the end if we set ourselves these perametres.

Bit by bit we come to some uses of Hello that seem to involve situations. Latch, in particularly, onto some in which you call Hello to see if anyone is there. Someone coming into a building and expecting someone to call back. Or not.

We further divide this into: You come home from work and you call to see if your partner is home already. Or, a thief calling into a house to see if there is anyone at home - before he steals something. Or, someone in a haunted house thinking they've heard a noise and calling out.

We then put this on it's feet. We use the real door and we imagine a situation in which someone comes in to see their Nan. They call out hello. But they get no reply. Nick ? tries it. Does a good job. Steve asks for improvements. The main aim, Steve suggests is to CONCRETISE. To imagine nothing. To plan and locate everything as much as we can. To be rigourous. To let nothing go. To question the logic of everything. Nick has another couple of goes. He does it 'better'. Of course he does it 'better'; he's thought about it more. We've thought about it more. We've all refined our thinking. We don't make him pretend. We give him a corner to look round. Once he's looked round that corner he knows for sure that 'Nan' isn't in the house. Everything else in the 'house' is real. The 25 pairs of shoes on the floor. The whiteboard. The noise of the air conditioning. All except - for the moment - the 24 people sitting at the far end of the room watching.

Another student has a go. He's given a slightly different story. His Nan is NEVER out of her front room. am invalid, maybe. He visits her every day etc. We watch the results. Having 'seen' that Nan isn't there he walks away four or five paces - but then stops, does a double-take and walks back. Looks, then walks away again. Stops. Looks puzzled - then goes quite quickly to the door opens it, stands outside in the 'street' and looks up and down the street - closes the door quite briskly and then goes off. Very interesting. Lots of detail. Lots to talk about.

Tom has a go. He walks in eating a bag of crisps. He takes off his shoes. He walks into the space. He looks at the wall high up on both sides and then at the wall behind the audience and suddenly realises something is amiss. He calls out Hello to someone offstage and runs towards where he's called.

We don't understand the story. We ask him to explain. He says that he's coming into a dance studio (that's why he took off his shoes). That there are pictures on the wall. And that one of them has been stolen. We're still not convinced. We ask whether he's been in this studio before. We ask him how he knew a picture had been stolen. We asked him whether the pictures were valuable. We asked him why there would be valuable pictures hanging in a Dance Studio.

His 'story' didn't add up. We now try to help him with it. We try to get his story right. Like a criminal would. He did it again. With the new 'story'. It was much much better. Not a question of good acting or not. Just truer.

We stop to reflect on what we're doing here. What is apparent is:

A. From one word of text we have huge possibilities.
B. That from that one word of text, stories can arise. Stories that start, continue and end.
C. That as well as the text there can be actions surrounding the text. That the text might, in terms of time and space be a tiny element of that story.

We do the same, in pairs with the dialogue text:

A: Hello
B: Hello

The Students are beginning to get the hang of things really well now and we get some really good results.

After the break, we do the text:

A: Hello
B: Hello
A: What are you doing here?
B: It's none of your business
A: Yes it is.
B: No, it isn't
A: Yes it is.
B: No, it isn't.
A: Oh, that's all right then.

Excellent results. Every single group once made aware of the need for some action to occur between the last two lines find one - and once again the resulting pieces are imaginative but truthful, detailed and watchable.

For Home Work they are each given a copy of the one-page play 'Count'. They are to study it. Make notes on it and then, before the next class compare notes with a fellow student and bring the results to the next class.

# posted by Steve : 9:48 am