Day Five - Friday 30th May Final Workshop in Tokyo

It seems to have come very fast, but today was the final day of the workshop, although we still have time tomorrow, Saturday, for a crucial meeting of the writers, before the long flight back.



We have narrowed in still further on the story and characters of the play, and more and more each day has come into focus. The day was designed to fill in gaps, and go a little deeper with some of the aspects less explored. Aspects of the setting, the characters, and way the three of them relate...



We started with a monster exercise, creating different creatures with different numbers of ators, culminating in a terrifying fourteen person monster. Then we made a big map of the construction site, and used that map to transform the room. Then the second of two mapping exercises - a map of another world that is reached if you dig deep enough in the ground. An underground sea, a squidgy land, fish darkness, people with an overdeveloped sense of smell, pyramids, ancient places, snakes in mountains, a helicopter-toilet.....



The next part of the day we addressed another issue which has exercised the creative team..the symmetry of the characters, the three nations. We have explored the possibility of characters that in some way stood for our three nations, but this seems not to be the way to go. Then we thought about other groups of three, which in some way may have a symbolic aspect that helps us, the example being stone, paper, scissors, a game shared by all of us. So, in search of symbols which will help our story, now we did a brainstorm of 'magic threes' - red-amber-green, morning-noon-night, red-yellow-blue, etc... Then we took this into a charcater exercise.

Take a threesome, and create a short scene, once again children in a construction site, but now, three characters in some way suggested by the chosen trinity. The resulting scenes drew out some very clear things. The furniture laid out as the site was irresistable for every group, and each improvisation included elements of climbing, digging and jumping in holes, whether as a game or for other purposes.



After lunch we did a group exercise called the laughing snake, where you form a human chain, with heads on tummies, and inevitably this leads to everybody collapsing in a heap of giggles... Then the final session, starting with individual character exercises designed to explore the reasons children may have for being on the site... each actor creating their own character and reason, before getting into groups of three and seeing what happened. Another very fruitful session, with a slightly more serious tone to it - with some thoughts about the mixture of characters and motives for being on the building site, from escaping from abuse, to looking for a pet rabbit.



At the end the producers were all in the room watching, and we set up a run-through of the sort of content around which we had been working. Young Ju, Ian and Yudai, with Tatsuo as the drunken security guard... taken through a kind of version of some of the action we have been discussing. the actors really gave a sense of how much we had achieved.



After we finished, a final exchange of games, and an attempt at another complex Korean dance, and we were all saying goodbye. Or at least beginning to say goodbye, because it was a process that went long into the night, with another wonderful meal and a fair amount of drinking.



In the meantime there was a meeting of the creative team with the producers, at which we were joined by Minato-san the composer, and a long producer's meeting which was both productive and positive. Timetables and ways of working were agreed, and everyone expressed their satisfaction at the start the project has made, and the wonderful reception we have had in these two amazing cities.