It’s alive!

With the start of the Pocketfull Project being so rocky, beginning work on an entirely new piece was just as (if not more) daunting than it had been 3 weeks prior. Digital theatre is always a big ol’ challenge for myself in particular (this is Olivia speaking by the way) as it is entirely different to the majority of things I have done in the past. I say majority as I worked on a large online project earlier on in lockdown where, as lucy mentioned, we had to give up our Philip Ridley dreams and work on creating online monologue performances - sounds familiar I know - however despite having all this newfound online theatre-making experience digital theatre still feels like unchartered territory. 

Now don’t get me wrong, this is territory that feels just as exciting as it is scary. Working digitally as a director, for me at least, meant changing my approach to rehearsals entirely. Gone are the days of lovely physical warm-ups. Don’t get me wrong I tried over zoom I really did but it's just not the same when you’re alone in your living room with your cats. But changing my rehearsal plans wasn’t actually as difficult as I thought it might be. I simply put all my focus on the voice and character, which is not to say that they haven't been focused on in the past, but character and voice now seemed more important than space and blocking. 

So how was working on The Answer to Your Question? 

Being one of the first pieces of theatre I had worked on in quite a few months I had to get back into the swing of things with how you head into a rehearsal period. It was a slightly different rehearsal plan than normal as we had a grand total of three rehearsals mapped out to get this text up and running. The way i tend to go about planning multiple rehearsals in one go is to think of the overarching elements i want to cover - character, voice, blocking - and then break these down into smaller sections - playing in different spaces, picking a setting, playing with space in the final setting, working out certain bits of blocking, solidifying the final blocking, refining the blocking - but with digital theatre that kind of changes. Especially with a monologue. All of the elements that normally matter, mainly to do with blocking, just don’t as much, at least not to me. This meant that three rehearsals was actually more than enough time to get through everything I wanted to do. There is part of me that thinks working on a monologue requires less work than a full blown play would, which in a way is true mainly due to the length of the piece, but on the other hand there's a part of me that thinks it requires more work. You’re not only portraying a person (be them real or made up) but most of the time you are speaking their internal thoughts. So diving as deep as you can into the character - doesn’t always take lots of time but it can - becomes the most important thing in a monologue rehearsal. 

While The Answer to Your Question is not the first digital monologue I have directed, it is the first piece of original work I have directed. For me it adds an air of responsibility. Meaning especially when you know the writer, there's a sense wanting to do their vision justice as well as bringing your own vision as a director to life. It's a strange feeling to me, as with any prewritten that you’re paying rights for the chances are you don’t know the writer at all. As the director your vision is the only vision and the biggest concern tends to be ‘how's this been done in the past let's make sure it's different’. However, I do think there is some form of needing to take the writers intentions into account, and they are hard to ignore when you’ve been told them by the writer themselves, but ultimately you just want the premiere of their work to be something they love just as much as you do. Writers in the rehearsal room all the time are a no go for me, right now mainly because I haven’t quite figured out how you manage that situation of who gets to be incharge and when. I think the best time to bring the writer in us during the finalisation process. 

So with TATYQ we held a rehearsal in which Yasmin (the writer) could come to. This was after myself and Lisa (the actor) had reached a point where we could run the monologue pretty much in its final state, we were able to show Yasmin and get her thoughts - we did have time planned to make any changes if necessary but this ended up being our final rehearsal before recording. For me this works better as I think everyone can agree what you have on day one very rarely even resembles the final product and during those early days you spend a lot of time formulating your own ideas about the character and the play as a whole and this gets a bit tricky when you have the person who created them in the room. In spite of all this I do like to run my rehearsals as opening as possible so anyone in the team can be there if they so wish. I always bring Lucy into a rehearsal to get her opinion on things, one because I value it and two because I've found especially with digital rehearsals you can get stuck a lot easier than in ‘normal’ rehearsals and bringing in those fresh pair of eyes is always a big help. I didn’t find it so much with TATYQ as the rehearsal period was so short but working on a digital monologue for a longer rehearsal period, when you’ve reached a bit of a rut, you can’t just play splat bang over zoom (although i’m yet to try) in an attempt to refresh everyone, so getting someone in to almost take over for a session always seems to work well. 

Getting to the final product was a new experience as well, with it being a recorded piece we were able to choose from a selection of takes, all slightly different, so we could make sure we had the perfect one. The final product came out incredibly well in my opinion and I think Lisa executed the character brilliantly. It’s a topic that feels like an important one to highlight, it never seems to be discussed that as a nurse you might need some support yourself, to help you deal with difficult things you might witness. I also think it’s pretty topical at the moment considering how hard all staff in the healthcare industry are working to provide care and support. We once discussed the notion of how Haywire’s theatre would be responding to this moment, and I think this is a good example of that. We’re not making a big political statement or dramatic proclamation, we’re just embracing the reality of right now. TATYQ really brings to light one aspect of the job hospital staff just have to deal with and I feel the final product we came out with, in my opinion, did a great job at bringing one person's story to life. 

Now, I feel like I have definitely rambled long enough so to wrap up my thoughts on directing our first Pocketfull piece, it was a very pleasant experience. Lisa is a wonderful actor to work with and Yasmin, being a director herself, is a wonderful writer to work with and of course Lucy is okay too. But the whole process has made me incredibly excited for what is yet to come and fingers crossed I can continue to live in the world of ‘three rehearsals is all we need’ just a little bit longer. 

Liv x

‘The Answer to Your Question’ is available here, and more information about the Pocketfull Project can be found on it’s very own page on this website!