Here is Mijeong's version of the script, translated back from Korean by Yeon. On Saturday the writers will be discussing these two drafts. I am struck by the similarity, and how interesting the little differences are... anyone with any thoughts, do feed them in to us, please...
Looking for Yoghurt
CAST
Norang
Blue
Aka
This play takes place in near future, modern city, in building site with fences.
Time of the play is from late afternoon when the sun begins to fall to dawn next day.
Scene 1. Outside of building site
Norang is looking for something between the audiences. She’s calling some signal, looking everywhere. She comes up on the stage, still looking. She finds a footmark on the floor.
Norang: Yoghurt…
Norang crouches herself and does a cat posture and follows the footmark. The footmark is also on the wall. She raises her head, following the trail, and is surprised with the view of enormous building site. There’s a sign written ‘Danger, No entry!’. Norang stands there, can’t make her mind whether to go in or not. She finally gathers herself and breaks in the site.
Aka jumps in. He’s posturing as if he’s a glorious hero who’s about to attack the enemy. He rolls, jumps, and kicks just like he’s fighting with the enemy. He comes to near the gate of the building site. He touches a rope and pretends some electric shock as if it was an electrified wire he touched. He rolls over and now he’s inside the building site.
Scene 2: Inside the building site
Norang appears behind stuff. From now Norang and Aka repeat showing and hiding themselves like a hide and seek.
Norang: Yoghurt.
Aka is shocked. He hides himself, sticks his head out.
Aka: Banana.
Norang is also shocked, looks around her surrounding.
Norang: Yoghurt…
Aka: Hamburger.
Norang searches for the sound. Aka also comes out and looks for the origin of the sound when he hears nothing. They both step backward cautiously and bump against each other. They both shout with surprise. Aka covers his mouth and waves his hand. Norang catches it’s meaning and covers her mouth too. Aka approaches her, Norang runs away. Aka chases her, pointing his sword as if he’s in a war game. They chase around and round holding both ends of a rolling screen. Aka changes his direction and gets near to Norang. Norang sits, covering her ears, frightened. Aka backs off realizing his intension was misunderstood. He goes back to the screen and does hand game. It relieves Norang a little. She watches it. The hand game is stopped suddenly. She doesn’t see it anymore. She wonders, goes behind a screen softly. Aka sneaks himself when Noranag comes to the back of the screen and now they are in opposite side. This time it’s Norang who does hand game. Aka holds his hand out through the screen. Norang hesitates a little and holds the hand. Aka pulls her.
Aka: Aka!
Norang: Huh?
Aka: Aka!
Norang: A…ka?
Aka: Aka.
Norang: I’m Norang.
Aka: Norang?
Aka: Aka, Norang, Norang, Aka, Aka, Yoghurt?
The word Yoghurt triggers Norang. She resumes her search.
Scene 3: Finding Blue
Aka continues his war game. Sometimes he mimics Norang.
Nornag: Yoghurt…
Aka: Monster…
Aka finds some light. He calls Norang.
Aka: Yoghurt?
Norang looks where the lights come from delightfully hoping she could find Yoghurt. But she is surprised.
Norang: (shakes her head) No, it’s not Yoghurt.
Aka: (shakes his head too) No? Yoghurt No? Monster?
Aka slowly approaches with sword where the lights come from. It eats Aka’s sword. Aka is frightened. Now he’s really convinced it’s a monster. He calls out every hero’s name, posturing hero’s action, then rush to the light. He takes off its cover. It becomes quite, no reaction. He looks into it and finds Blue hiding.
Blue: How come you are here? Get out! This is an off-limits place. It’s dangerous for children.
Aka shouts ‘Monster’, rushes to him again and takes Blue out from his hideout. Blue struggles and covers his face with a newspaper. Aka tears up the newspaper. Blue covers his eyes with what it’s left then returns to his hideout.
Aka: (rush to him again) Monster!
Norang: (stops Aka) Wait! Don’t.
Norang finds another newspaper around her and hands it to Blue. Blue snatches it quickly and covers his face again. Norang knocks to Blue’s hideout. Knock, knock. No response. Norang knocks again rhythmically. Aka reacts to it but Blue still doesn’t respond. Norang hushes to Aka. Blue throws Aka’s sword through the boxes of his hideout. Aka grabs it quickly.
Norang: You live here? What are you doing here? Do you know this place well? I’m looking for Yoghurt.
(she imitates searching motion.)
Blue throws a folded paper. Norang and Aka unfold it together.
Norang: It’s a map!
Aka: Map! (in Japanese)
They say ‘map’ in each other’s language and understand the word ‘map’.
Scene 4: Exploring the building site
Aka seems to get some ideas from the map. He nods. He starts to move, mumbling himself and pointing somewhere with his finger as if he’s trying to find a way. He points somewhere and tells Norang to follow him. Aka goes cross an obstacle narrowly like an adventure. Norang embraces his imagination, follows him mimicking but she’s not as good as him. They are stuck in a net, can’t move. Blue comes in and saves them.
Norang: I’m Norang. Norang!
Aka: Aka.
Norang: How about you? (pointing herself and Aka) Norang! Aka! You?
Blue: Blue.
Norang offers her hand to Blue but he doesn’t respond. Norang asks Blue to join. Aka’s on the lead, restarts his expedition. He jumps across a stone bridge with big steps. Norang follows, just like him. Blue just walks with small steps. Aka, jumps into the sea and swim with Norang. Blue pulls up his trousers then walks on tiptoe cautiously across a pool of water. Aka and Norang grasp a rope and go across a cliff. Blue lets go a rope that Aka sends from the other side of the cliff. He grasps it again when it comes back. Aka and Norang catch Blue with their whole body. They continue their exploration until Aka finds the place where his tree was.
Scene 5: Tree and grandmother’s story
Aka looks for his tree. He can’t find it. He gets upset. Then he finds a stump of a tree. He’s bewildered. Blue explains him that the tree has been cut down by machines. Aka stops Blue’s explanation and expresses his anger very strongly to him. Blue defends himself aggressively when Aka pushes him.
Blue: I didn’t do it. That’s just what I saw. Why are you angry at me?
Aka: The tree was my tree. It was my tree that I always climbed up and played with!
Aka, hugs hard the stump of the tree. Blue can’t understand Aka’s action. Blue just looks away. Norang looks at both Aka and the place where the tree used to be, then starts her grandmother’s story.
Norang: (sings) Once upon a time, there was a funny story.
Aka and Blue listen closely her singing.
Norang: (to Aka and Blue) This is a story from my grandmother, my mother’s mother! My grandmother.
Once upon a time, way back in the past, there was a village. There were little houses and a big
tree in the middle of the village. A really big tree!
Aka: A tree?
Blue: Tree?
Norang: Yes, a tree. And there was a blind old man in that village.
Aka and Blue follow actions of Norang and say ‘old man’ in their each language.
Norang: Then one day, the old man said,
‘Surisuri Masuri, I can see, I can see, I can hear, I can hear! The day when the sky opens up in
the middle of pitch black night, there will be a baby! Our Baby!’
Blue: A baby?
Aka: Baby!
Norang: Yes, Our Baby.
Aka: Our Baby.
Blue: Our Baby.
Norang: Then one night, (makes sounds of bird singing at night) in a dark night, when everybody is still in
a sleep…
Norang, Blue, Aka lie down and close their eyes.
Norang: All of a sudden it became really bright in the middle of the night. The sun was rising. Everyone in
the village woke up and looked up the sky.
Norang makes Aka and Blue stand up.
Norang: In that moment!
Norang hides and starts to make a sound of baby crying. Norang stands up and says ‘Our Baby’, holding a baby in her arms. Blue and Aka repeat the word. Three of them nod to each other then say it in one voice.
Three: Our Baby!
Norang describes ‘Our Baby’ that the baby walked by the age of 2, rode a horse by the age of 5, caught a flying bird with arrow by the age of 7. Aka and Blue show it with mime.
Norang: The words flew everywhere.
They whisper each other, spreading the rumor. Norang and Aka make Blue a king.
Norang: King!
Aka: King!
Blue: King!
Norang: Words finally reached to the king.
Blue: (as a king) No! Just like there’s only one sun, only one king in this world, which is me! Just me!
Get him right now!
Norang and Aka, ride horses.
Norang: (as a old man) I can hear, they are coming, we should hide Our Baby!
Norang hides Aka. King (Blue) threatens people of village (Norang) to bring ‘Our Baby’. King finally pulls out a sword when he hears nothing. Just at the moment when the king was about to cut someone’s head, ‘Our Baby’ appears. King carries off ‘Our Baby’. ‘Our Baby’ stops and tells something to people of village, that he hid something under the big tree. What he hid is for people and it will save the world. He explains it with mime. He asks people to keep a secret. King takes him away.
Norang: That’s how ‘Our Baby’ went to heaven.
Aka and Blue run to Norang
Aka: Then?
Blue: And?
Norang: What I mean is that this is where that big tree was!
All three of them gaze at the tree, slowly drawing the tree with their eyes.
Then suddenly pointing the stump and start to dig the ground.
Scene 6: First digging – looking for a secret
They dig the ground with their hands but it’s hard. It only makes their hands hurt. Blue takes his scissors out of his special case and cuts the stump. They pull up the stump together and dig again. They dig hard but only find some miscellaneous junks. Their digging starts to slow down and finally ends. Disappointed. They go back to their own things. Aka does sword fight, Blue reads a peace of paper, Norang collects something (seeds) and put them in her pocket.
아까: 누가 보물을 가져갔지? 누구야? 누가 나무를 잘라냈지? 누구야?
그래, 역시 이곳에 괴물이 있는 거야.
괴물이 나무도 베어 버리고 보물도 먹어버렸어! 괴물을 무찌르자!
노랑: 괴물? monster?
블루: 여기에 몬스터 없어.
아까: 몬스터, 있어. (시끄러운 소리, 천장과 벽에 어른거리는 그림자!)
블루: 없어!
아까: 있어!,..
Aka: Who took the secret? Who is it? Who cut off the tree? Who is it? Yeah, it is certain that the
monster lives here. The monster cut off the tree and ate the secret too! Let’s beat the monster!
Norang: Monster (in Korean)? Monster?
Blue: There’s no monster.
Aka: There is! (loud noises. Some big shadow over the fence!)
Blue: There’s no monster!
Aka: There is!
Blue and Aka persist.
Scene 7: Machine monster
Blue runs through the fence (screen). Aka stops him saying there’s a monster but Blue runs anyway. Norang and Aka hug Blue’s special case and shout out Blue. Some pause. A machine monster starts to move with big noises. Norang shouts ‘No, Blue!’, Aka plucks up his courage and goes into the screen. Then Blue comes out conducting the machine. Blue controls the machine quite skillfully. Aka shows his interest to the machine. Blue lets him to control it. Aka is excited controlling the machine.
Aka: Right! We can dig the ground with it. Let’s dig again!
Norang: Dig?
Blue: Dig again? But there’s nothing there. No secret.
Aka: No, Brazil!
Norang: Brazil?
Blue: Brazil?
Aka makes a globe with Blue’s arms. He explains when you keep digging the ground, you can reach the other side of the globe and meet Brazil.
Norang: Brazil, why?
Aka explains his Brazil. Where there’s a big comfy bed, where he can climb up the tree whenever he wants, where he can pick fruits, rub them on his cloth and eat, where he can just rattle around. Norang understands what he meant. She explains her Brazil. Where it’s full of flowers, full of it’s scent, a little stream, singing bird, no trash, pure air, no contamination. Blue also explains his Brazil. Where it’s very quite, undisturbed, controllable, where he can make a spaceship and do a space trip.
Scene 8: Second digging – to Brazil
Three of them decide to go to Brazil, they starts to dig again. They look down the hole, make some noises. The howl is loud. Aka goes into the hole, then Norang, finally Blue.
Scene 9: Brazil
- needs more time to think….
Scene 10: Back to reality
They realize they are actually hungry. They say things they want to eat. Bread, sandwich, sweet potato pie, kimchi, chocolate, yoghurt… Norang resumes her search for Yoghurt, but stops soon. Blue and Aka make a trap and show it to Norang in order to console her. Norang is delighted. They place themselves a bit far from the trap and wait together. Norang starts to sing. Blue and Aka join in and hum it together. They fall a sleep soon.
Clock ticking.
Scene 11: Up to the crane
Aka pulls a string that is attached to the trap by accident while he rolls over in his sleep. Norang wakes up with that sound. She shelters Blue and Aka with things she finds around her. Then she hears sound of cat up on the crane. Norang is afraid but gathers herself and starts to climb up the crane. She misses her step, things fall down. Blue and Aka wake up. They try to save Norang. In the end they both climb up the crane. They are afraid as much as Norang. They close their eyes, holding each other tight. Norang starts to sing again in order to beat her fear. Blue and Aka sing too. They open their eyes with count of three. They look down the city. It’s their first time and it’s beautiful. They point their own houses.
They hear workers’ step coming to the building site.
Blue: Let’s go down.
Aka: Yup. (starts to move)
Norang: Wait!
Norang takes out seeds she finds when they dug the ground. She gives them to Blue and Aka.
Blue: Seed.
Norang: (imitate Blue’s English) Seed.
Aka: (imitate as well) Seed. Seed (in Japanese)
Norang: (imitate Aka’s Japanese) Seed
Blue: (imitate Aka’s Japanese) Seed
Norang: Seed (in Korean)
Aka: Seed (in Korean)
Blue: Seed (in Korean)
Norang throws it lightly. Blue put it on his palm and blows it. Aka eats it. Norang and Aka are surprised. Aka spits it. They all watch seeds falling, describing a big parabola. They laugh, slowly come down from the crane.
End.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
First Draft in english
Looking for Yoghurt
by
Kim Mijeong
Toyoko Nishida
and
Peter Wynne-Willson
First Draft October 2008
PWW English version
Cast of Characters
Norang – a Korean girl, recently moved from the countryside to the city
Aka – a Japanese boy, in search of monsters.
Blue – an English boy who has his own hiding-place within the site.
The action of the play takes place inside, and just outside, a large building site in a modern city in the present day. There is a musician beside the stage.
[Before the performance, a young Korean girl, Norang, looks for her little stray cat, Yoghurt, in the foyer and auditorium.]
Scene 1 Outside the Building Site
[It is autumn, in a big city. A vast building site looms on the stage. Norang is in the auditorium, looking for her best friend, a stray cat called Yoghurt. She is repeating her special signal. She comes onto the stage, still searching.]
[Throughout the play, the characters speak in their own language – Norang in Korean, Aka in Japanese, and Blue in English]
Norang: Yoghurt!
[ She is close to tears. The search is important for her. Yoghurt is her best friend. She sees a rough trail of pawmarks. Excitedly she places her curled hands in the paw-prints and follows the trail. It leads to the outside of a building site. She looks up.]
[Inside the site there is a movement in the shadows, and a sound. The site is huge. The prints lead straight up and over the fence. She wonders whether to go into this place of obvious danger, or to give up on her search. She squeezes under the fence, and disappears into the shadows]
[Time passes]
[Aka, a Japanese boy, leaps onto the stage. He is on a mission, humming his own theme tune as he goes. Although his approach is a full-scale fantasy with himself as hero, the cause he is undertaking is a real one. The ‘monsters’ within this site have destroyed his favourite area for playing. He does a commando roll. He views the building site, checking it out, lining up the monsters in his sights.]
Aka: Monsters.
[He moves back, to warm up for his ‘assault’. He fights the air. He makes sure he is really an action hero. He comes slowly forward, but ‘steps’ on a secret switch, and the ceiling starts to close in on him. He fights the weight off, and rolls clear. He views the site again. Checking the wire perimeter, he imagines that it is electrified, and writhes on the floor. There is movement in the shadows of the site once again. He might be seen, so he backs off. He prepares for his final approach, and leaps dramatically over the fence, disappearing into the shadows]
[Lights go down]
Scene 2 Inside the Building Site
[Lights come up on another part of the site]
[Norang arrives, frightened in the shadows of the site, but continuing to look for Yoghurt. Aka arrives fractionally later, and flings himself on the floor, in a surveillance position. Norang goes out of sight. Aka becomes aware of her and hides so as to stalk her. Norang is unaware of him. ]
[Norang looks for Yoghurt, softly softly. Aka starts to copy her actions without sound. When Norang turns, he backs off and hides himself, frightened. Then they exchange sounds, from a distance. Call and response.]
[Silence]
Norang: Yoghurt.
Aka: Banana. Hamburger.
[Norang is a little less frightened. She is curious. She explores behind a screen. They play a kind of hide and seek. Norang surprises Aka from behind. He screams, and threatens her with a ‘weapon’. She screams more.]
Aka: Shh!
[Norang screams again. She sits, frightened. Aka backs off, then approaches from behind the screen. He puts his hands over and does a little hand play. A dog eats a cat. Norang smiles. She makes a bird with her hands. Aka makes a bow and arrow, and shoots the bird. The bird dies]
[They have made some contact. He pushes his hand through the screen. Slowly she touches it. He pulls her through. They look at each other.]
Norang: Norang.
Aka: Norang. Aka.
Norang: Aka.
[She moves away from him]
[Lights down]
Scene 3 Finding Blue
[Lights up]
[There is pile of crates centre stage, covered in plastic. It is Blue’s ‘Command Centre’]
[Aka follows Norang again]
Aka: No-rang?
Norang: [nods] Norang.
Aka: I am here to fight the monsters. You will be OK.
Norang: I don’t understand.
Aka: Yoghurt?
Norang: Yoghurt?
Aka: Aka.
[Norang gives up trying to understand, and starts looking for Yoghurt again. Aka follows and joins in, without understanding. He gets distracted, and begins fencing with a makeshift sword]
[A light comes on in Blue’s hiding place. They notice. Aka investigates. He believes he has found Yoghurt.]
Norang: Yoghurt?
[Aka nods. Norang is excited, and looks, but the ‘jaws’ of Blue’s pile of crates open, and she jumps back in fear.]
Aka: Not Yoghurt?
Norang: No.
Aka: Monster.
Norang: Monster.
[Aka seems a little afraid, but he summons up enough courage, and attacks the crates. His word gets ‘eaten’ by them. He attacks again, pulling off the plastic covering, wrestling with it on the floor. A young English boy, Blue, is revealed, hiding. He has two lights on his forehead. He desperately tries to rebuild his place. Aka has jumped back, frightened again. Blue is talking to himself.]
[Aka signals Norang to help catch the monster. They take the plastic sheet, and try to catch him. There is a struggle. Blue protects his shelter, and covers himself with a newspaper. Aka pulls it away, and Blue covers just his eyes with what is left. Aka signals Norang to ‘cover’ him. He pokes Blue with a weapon.]
Aka: Who are you? Do you live here? What are you doing here? Norang!
[Aka signals Norang to hold Blue, so that he can attack him. Norang initially gets ready to do this, but backs off. She recognises her own experience in the eyes of Blue. She passes him a new sheet of newspaper, he covers himself again.]
What are you doing here? This is the place where monsters live. They destroyed my playground. Are you a monster?
Blue: You aren’t supposed to be here. It isn’t allowed. No children are allowed.
Aka: You don’t look like a monster.
Blue: There’s a sign, outside. Danger. Didn’t you see the sign? You aren’t supposed to be here.
Aka: You are a monster in disguise. But you have met your match.
Blue: There is a sign. I always see the sign. Why didn’t you see the sign?
Norang: No.
[Aka shouts out. Blue is frightened. He puts the paper back on his eyes and curls up. Norang pulls Aka out of the way. She stays at a distance, but sings to Blue tenderly. After a while, Aka joins in the singing loudly and disrupts the moment. Then he backs off, sulkily]
[Norang moves a little closer. Blue switches on his headlight. Then off again. She peers through at him.]
Norang: Do you live here? Your house? [She mimes]
Blue: I don’t live here. I come here when I want. This is my command centre. I can control everything from here.
Norang: Norang. Aka.
Blue: I know. Norang, Aka. I wrote them down.
[He gets post-it notes with their names on from inside his shelter. Norang does not understand the writing. Aka joins them. He tries to see into Blue’s hiding place. Blue is upset again. He closes up his shelter again.]
Norang: Aka is a monster-hunter [Blue makes no response from inside his shelter]
Aka: Monsters. They are in here. They have destroyed everything.
Norang: I am looking for Yoghurt. [Still nothing] Have you seen Yoghurt?
Aka: Leave him. It will be dark soon. [He moves away]
Norang: I think maybe Yoghurt is dead. Maybe the monsters ate her.
[Blue flashes his light at Norang. She looks back at him, and moves over to his shelter. He pushes a roll of paper through to her. She opens it. It is a plan of the site.]
[Norang takes the plan over to Aka]
Norang: Map.
Aka: Map. [He takes control of it.]
This way. [They go off]
[Lights down]
4 Exploring the site
[Aka leads an exploration of the site, led by the plan. They go through a set of obstacles. Blue comes out after a while, and watches from a distance. He follows some way behind. Aka and Norang swim through an ocean. They walk across the side of a cliff. They get stuck, and signal to Blue, who is watching them from his place. He comes out, but stays his distance, throwing them something to help them. They continue across imaginary stepping-stones. Blue follows, walking through the water. They cross an imaginary river, on a rope. Blue follows, but again does not manage to summon the whole picture into his imagination. They examine the plan again. Aka has it upside down. Blue comes close enough to see. Turns it round. They follow a path to find Aka’s tree.]
5 The remains of the tree. The grandmother’s story.
[Aka runs to find where the tree that he once played on is, but it is not there.]
Aka: The tree. It was here. I climbed on it. It must be here.
[He is puzzled, and upset. Blue realises what he means and shows him what happened.]
Blue: The tree. It was here. Big tall deciduous tree, I think …a Zelkova Tree. I saw what happened. [They do not understand him. He demonstrates as he explains] They drove a digger at it first, but that didn’t work. It was strong. So they got chainsaws. They cut off the branches first..
[Aka attacks Blue]
Blue: I didn’t do it. That’s just what I saw. Why are you angry at me?
Aka: The tree was my tree. It was my tree that I always climbed up and played with!
[Aka, hugs the stump of the tree, upset. Blue can’t understand Aka’s action. Blue just looks away. Norang looks at both Aka and the place where the tree used to be, then starts her grandmother’s story. ]
Norang: (sings) Once upon a time, there was a funny story.
[Aka and Blue listen closely to her singing, although Blue still keeps his distance.]
Once upon a time, way back in the past, there was a village.
[They don’t understand, so she makes them act out being houses. Aka joins at once, Blue resists being touched, but forms a little house]
There were little houses. And a big tree in the middle of the village. A really big tree!
Aka: A tree?
Blue: Tree? Maybe Zelkova. [At this stage he is responding to the puzzle, rather than enjoying the story]
Norang: Yes, a tree. And there was a blind old woman in the village.
Aka: Old woman
Blue: Old woman.
Norang: Then one day, the old woman said,
‘Surisuri Masuri, I can see, I can see, I can hear, I can hear,
The day when the sky opens up in the middle of pitch black night,
There will be a baby!
Our Baby!’
Blue: A baby?
Aka: Baby!
Norang: Yes, Oori ai.
Aka: Oori ai.
Blue: Oori ai.
Norang: Then one night, (makes sounds of bird singing at night) in a dark night, when
everybody is still asleep,
[Norang, Blue, Aka lie down and close their eyes.]
It became really bright all of a sudden in the middle of the night.
[She moves Blue over, and makes him switch on his headlight]
The sun was rising.
Everyone in the village woke up and looked up the sky.
[Norang makes Aka stand up.]
In that moment!
[Norang hides and starts to make a sound of baby crying. Norang stands up and says ‘Our Baby’, (‘Oori ai’) holding a baby in her arms. Blue and Aka repeat the word. Three of them nod to each other then say it in one voice. ]
All: Oori ai!
Norang: The baby grew very fast. He walked by the age of 2. Two years old.
[Aka walks, Norang applauds]
Five years old. He rode a horse.
[Norang gives Blue a crate, which he rides as a horse, with some help]
At seven years. He hit a flying bird with an arrow.
[Aka and Blue show it with movements.]
Norang: The word flew everywhere.
[They whisper to each other, spreading the rumour.]
Amazing boy. He can do anything etc etc….
[Norang and Aka make Blue a king.]
Norang: King!
Aka: Your majesty!
Blue: King!
Norang: Word finally reached the king.
King (Blue): [Suddenly leaping rather scarily into role] No! Just like there’s only one sun, there is only one king in this world. Me! Just me! Bring me this Oori Ai. Get the child right now!
[Norang and Aka ride horses.]
Old Man (Norang): I can hear, they are coming, we should hide Our Baby!
[Norang hides Aka. King (Blue) threatens people of village (Norang) to bring ‘Our Baby’. King finally pulls out a sword when he hears nothing. Just at the moment when the king was about to cut off someone’s head, Aka appears as ‘oori Ai’ and starts to fight him. Norang stops him, because he has got the story wrong. He is supposed to say, ‘take me instead’. He goes back and they replay the scene properly. ]
[Our Baby’ appears. King carries him off. ‘Our Baby’ stops and tells the people of village, that he hid something under the big tree. What he hid is for the people and it will save the world. He explains it with mime. He asks people to keep the secret and then the king drags him away]
[Aka and Blue run to Norang]
Aka: Then?
Blue: And?
Norang: So this is where that big tree was!
[All three of them gaze at where the tree was, slowly drawing the tree with their eyes. Then they realise together the implication of the story, suddenly pointing at the tree stump and starting to dig the ground.]
6 Digging 1 [looking for the secret]
[They dig all together under the tree, to find what the child has left them. But the ground is hard and they do not make very much progress. Blue opens his little case, and finds a pair of scissors. He carefully cuts around the stump, and they lever it up. They dig again, but still do not find any secret or treasure. They are disappointed.]
7 The machine-monster
Norang: Nothing.
Blue: No secret. No treasure.
Aka: [acting out as he speaks] The secret was here, but then the monster came here, and ate it. Monster.
Norang: Monster?
Blue: There are no monsters here.
Aka: Monster, yes.
Blue: No. No monsters. I have seen everything.
Aka: Monsters. I heard them. They killed my tree. I will kill them.
[Blue runs through the screen. Aka and Norang try to stop him. Too late. They wonder about following, but do not dare.]
[There is a loud machine noise, and movement behind the screen, visible only as shapes, lights and shadows.]
Norang: Blue!
[Neither Norang or Aka dares go to save him. The ‘monster’ begins to come through the screen. Aka tries to summon the courage to fight it, but they hide. The ‘monster’ emerges, and it is a digging machine, being controlled by Blue.]
[Nervously, the other two children approach and observe]
8 Digging 2 [Going to Brazil]
Blue: There are no monsters here. Look.
Aka: No monster.
Blue: The monsters are out there. Out there. In here, we are safe.
[Blue demonstrates the way that the machine will work to dig. Aka encourages him to continue where they were digging. They operate the machine together, and dig deeper. Soon they have created a big hole. They look down the hole and call out to listen for an echo.]
Norang: Ooo hoo.
Aka: Brazil.
Norang: Brazil?
Blue: Brazil?
Aka: Brazil. If you dig. Down.. It is where you come out.
Norang: What?
Blue: He is right. We dug from the top of the world. We must have gone through the crust of the earth, and the earth’s core.
[Blue demonstrates]
Aka: Brazil.
Norang: Brazil? What is Brazil?
Aka: Brazil is a perfect place. Much better than this world. In Brazil, I am the king, and you and you. Noone stops us from exploring. We will have as many trees as we want, and we will be free to go everywhere, and climb.
Blue: A perfect place. Brazil? If Brazil is a perfect place it will be quiet. Nobody to disturb everything. Peace.
Norang: In Brazil, the city is like the countryside. You can hear the birds and smell the flowers. People do not shout. They sing. Everybody sings.
Aka: Come on.
[They go back to the hole. They look down. Aka summons up courage to jump in.]
Three, two, one.
[He jumps. They look down, he looks up.]
Norang: [calling] Brazil?
Aka: Brazil. Come on.
[Norang follows him]
Norang Three, two, one.
[She jumps. Aka greets her in ‘Brazil’. Blue waits at the top.]
Blue: Coming. Three, two, one…. Two, three, two, one..
[He jumps, and lands with the others in ‘Brazil’]
9 In Brazil
[There is a change of lighting and atmosphere. They are in ‘Brazil’ – where there are none of the problems that face them up on the land. They play this new world, where they are all of the people. Aka’s world is physical, Norangs world poetic and musical, Blues world is quiet and controlled]
10 Disappointment, back to reality
[The lights and atmosphere change back, and they return to the reality of the situation.]
[Norang remembers that she still has not found Yoghurt.]
Norang: Yoghurt.
[ Blue gets a piece of paper and starts designing something. Aka observes. It is a Yoghurt trap. They build it, with a crate. Aka tries it, but they need bait]
Blue: Bait.
[Norang finds a scrap of food in her pocket. They try out the trap, and catch Aka. They reset the trap and hide and wait. Norang sings. They sleep.]
[Time passes.]
11 Up the Crane
[The dawn is arriving. Aka rolls over in his sleep, and springs the trap. Norang wakes, and checks the trap. Yoghurt is not there. She resumes her search, while the others sleep. There is a noise, and she thinks she hears Yoghurt up the high crane. She builds some way of climbing up, and tries to get there, but she gets into danger and freezes. She calls out]
[The others wake and see Norang. They suggest ways of rescuing her. They offer the map for her to jump. Blue suggests a parachute. They try to climb up. Blue gets up to her, but then he is scared and stuck too. Aka follows and they are all on top.]
[There are sounds below. They realise they are all in danger. From the top, they can see the city. They look at the dangers that are out there, and at each other]
[Aka produces three seeds from his pocket]
Blue: Seeds
Norang: Seeds
Aka: From Brazil. To grow another tree.
[Norang holds her seed, counts to three and releases it. Blue does the same.]
[Aka counts to three and puts the seed in his mouth. Norang is angry with him. He spits it out, grins, and they watch it fall.]
by
Kim Mijeong
Toyoko Nishida
and
Peter Wynne-Willson
First Draft October 2008
PWW English version
Cast of Characters
Norang – a Korean girl, recently moved from the countryside to the city
Aka – a Japanese boy, in search of monsters.
Blue – an English boy who has his own hiding-place within the site.
The action of the play takes place inside, and just outside, a large building site in a modern city in the present day. There is a musician beside the stage.
[Before the performance, a young Korean girl, Norang, looks for her little stray cat, Yoghurt, in the foyer and auditorium.]
Scene 1 Outside the Building Site
[It is autumn, in a big city. A vast building site looms on the stage. Norang is in the auditorium, looking for her best friend, a stray cat called Yoghurt. She is repeating her special signal. She comes onto the stage, still searching.]
[Throughout the play, the characters speak in their own language – Norang in Korean, Aka in Japanese, and Blue in English]
Norang: Yoghurt!
[ She is close to tears. The search is important for her. Yoghurt is her best friend. She sees a rough trail of pawmarks. Excitedly she places her curled hands in the paw-prints and follows the trail. It leads to the outside of a building site. She looks up.]
[Inside the site there is a movement in the shadows, and a sound. The site is huge. The prints lead straight up and over the fence. She wonders whether to go into this place of obvious danger, or to give up on her search. She squeezes under the fence, and disappears into the shadows]
[Time passes]
[Aka, a Japanese boy, leaps onto the stage. He is on a mission, humming his own theme tune as he goes. Although his approach is a full-scale fantasy with himself as hero, the cause he is undertaking is a real one. The ‘monsters’ within this site have destroyed his favourite area for playing. He does a commando roll. He views the building site, checking it out, lining up the monsters in his sights.]
Aka: Monsters.
[He moves back, to warm up for his ‘assault’. He fights the air. He makes sure he is really an action hero. He comes slowly forward, but ‘steps’ on a secret switch, and the ceiling starts to close in on him. He fights the weight off, and rolls clear. He views the site again. Checking the wire perimeter, he imagines that it is electrified, and writhes on the floor. There is movement in the shadows of the site once again. He might be seen, so he backs off. He prepares for his final approach, and leaps dramatically over the fence, disappearing into the shadows]
[Lights go down]
Scene 2 Inside the Building Site
[Lights come up on another part of the site]
[Norang arrives, frightened in the shadows of the site, but continuing to look for Yoghurt. Aka arrives fractionally later, and flings himself on the floor, in a surveillance position. Norang goes out of sight. Aka becomes aware of her and hides so as to stalk her. Norang is unaware of him. ]
[Norang looks for Yoghurt, softly softly. Aka starts to copy her actions without sound. When Norang turns, he backs off and hides himself, frightened. Then they exchange sounds, from a distance. Call and response.]
[Silence]
Norang: Yoghurt.
Aka: Banana. Hamburger.
[Norang is a little less frightened. She is curious. She explores behind a screen. They play a kind of hide and seek. Norang surprises Aka from behind. He screams, and threatens her with a ‘weapon’. She screams more.]
Aka: Shh!
[Norang screams again. She sits, frightened. Aka backs off, then approaches from behind the screen. He puts his hands over and does a little hand play. A dog eats a cat. Norang smiles. She makes a bird with her hands. Aka makes a bow and arrow, and shoots the bird. The bird dies]
[They have made some contact. He pushes his hand through the screen. Slowly she touches it. He pulls her through. They look at each other.]
Norang: Norang.
Aka: Norang. Aka.
Norang: Aka.
[She moves away from him]
[Lights down]
Scene 3 Finding Blue
[Lights up]
[There is pile of crates centre stage, covered in plastic. It is Blue’s ‘Command Centre’]
[Aka follows Norang again]
Aka: No-rang?
Norang: [nods] Norang.
Aka: I am here to fight the monsters. You will be OK.
Norang: I don’t understand.
Aka: Yoghurt?
Norang: Yoghurt?
Aka: Aka.
[Norang gives up trying to understand, and starts looking for Yoghurt again. Aka follows and joins in, without understanding. He gets distracted, and begins fencing with a makeshift sword]
[A light comes on in Blue’s hiding place. They notice. Aka investigates. He believes he has found Yoghurt.]
Norang: Yoghurt?
[Aka nods. Norang is excited, and looks, but the ‘jaws’ of Blue’s pile of crates open, and she jumps back in fear.]
Aka: Not Yoghurt?
Norang: No.
Aka: Monster.
Norang: Monster.
[Aka seems a little afraid, but he summons up enough courage, and attacks the crates. His word gets ‘eaten’ by them. He attacks again, pulling off the plastic covering, wrestling with it on the floor. A young English boy, Blue, is revealed, hiding. He has two lights on his forehead. He desperately tries to rebuild his place. Aka has jumped back, frightened again. Blue is talking to himself.]
[Aka signals Norang to help catch the monster. They take the plastic sheet, and try to catch him. There is a struggle. Blue protects his shelter, and covers himself with a newspaper. Aka pulls it away, and Blue covers just his eyes with what is left. Aka signals Norang to ‘cover’ him. He pokes Blue with a weapon.]
Aka: Who are you? Do you live here? What are you doing here? Norang!
[Aka signals Norang to hold Blue, so that he can attack him. Norang initially gets ready to do this, but backs off. She recognises her own experience in the eyes of Blue. She passes him a new sheet of newspaper, he covers himself again.]
What are you doing here? This is the place where monsters live. They destroyed my playground. Are you a monster?
Blue: You aren’t supposed to be here. It isn’t allowed. No children are allowed.
Aka: You don’t look like a monster.
Blue: There’s a sign, outside. Danger. Didn’t you see the sign? You aren’t supposed to be here.
Aka: You are a monster in disguise. But you have met your match.
Blue: There is a sign. I always see the sign. Why didn’t you see the sign?
Norang: No.
[Aka shouts out. Blue is frightened. He puts the paper back on his eyes and curls up. Norang pulls Aka out of the way. She stays at a distance, but sings to Blue tenderly. After a while, Aka joins in the singing loudly and disrupts the moment. Then he backs off, sulkily]
[Norang moves a little closer. Blue switches on his headlight. Then off again. She peers through at him.]
Norang: Do you live here? Your house? [She mimes]
Blue: I don’t live here. I come here when I want. This is my command centre. I can control everything from here.
Norang: Norang. Aka.
Blue: I know. Norang, Aka. I wrote them down.
[He gets post-it notes with their names on from inside his shelter. Norang does not understand the writing. Aka joins them. He tries to see into Blue’s hiding place. Blue is upset again. He closes up his shelter again.]
Norang: Aka is a monster-hunter [Blue makes no response from inside his shelter]
Aka: Monsters. They are in here. They have destroyed everything.
Norang: I am looking for Yoghurt. [Still nothing] Have you seen Yoghurt?
Aka: Leave him. It will be dark soon. [He moves away]
Norang: I think maybe Yoghurt is dead. Maybe the monsters ate her.
[Blue flashes his light at Norang. She looks back at him, and moves over to his shelter. He pushes a roll of paper through to her. She opens it. It is a plan of the site.]
[Norang takes the plan over to Aka]
Norang: Map.
Aka: Map. [He takes control of it.]
This way. [They go off]
[Lights down]
4 Exploring the site
[Aka leads an exploration of the site, led by the plan. They go through a set of obstacles. Blue comes out after a while, and watches from a distance. He follows some way behind. Aka and Norang swim through an ocean. They walk across the side of a cliff. They get stuck, and signal to Blue, who is watching them from his place. He comes out, but stays his distance, throwing them something to help them. They continue across imaginary stepping-stones. Blue follows, walking through the water. They cross an imaginary river, on a rope. Blue follows, but again does not manage to summon the whole picture into his imagination. They examine the plan again. Aka has it upside down. Blue comes close enough to see. Turns it round. They follow a path to find Aka’s tree.]
5 The remains of the tree. The grandmother’s story.
[Aka runs to find where the tree that he once played on is, but it is not there.]
Aka: The tree. It was here. I climbed on it. It must be here.
[He is puzzled, and upset. Blue realises what he means and shows him what happened.]
Blue: The tree. It was here. Big tall deciduous tree, I think …a Zelkova Tree. I saw what happened. [They do not understand him. He demonstrates as he explains] They drove a digger at it first, but that didn’t work. It was strong. So they got chainsaws. They cut off the branches first..
[Aka attacks Blue]
Blue: I didn’t do it. That’s just what I saw. Why are you angry at me?
Aka: The tree was my tree. It was my tree that I always climbed up and played with!
[Aka, hugs the stump of the tree, upset. Blue can’t understand Aka’s action. Blue just looks away. Norang looks at both Aka and the place where the tree used to be, then starts her grandmother’s story. ]
Norang: (sings) Once upon a time, there was a funny story.
[Aka and Blue listen closely to her singing, although Blue still keeps his distance.]
Once upon a time, way back in the past, there was a village.
[They don’t understand, so she makes them act out being houses. Aka joins at once, Blue resists being touched, but forms a little house]
There were little houses. And a big tree in the middle of the village. A really big tree!
Aka: A tree?
Blue: Tree? Maybe Zelkova. [At this stage he is responding to the puzzle, rather than enjoying the story]
Norang: Yes, a tree. And there was a blind old woman in the village.
Aka: Old woman
Blue: Old woman.
Norang: Then one day, the old woman said,
‘Surisuri Masuri, I can see, I can see, I can hear, I can hear,
The day when the sky opens up in the middle of pitch black night,
There will be a baby!
Our Baby!’
Blue: A baby?
Aka: Baby!
Norang: Yes, Oori ai.
Aka: Oori ai.
Blue: Oori ai.
Norang: Then one night, (makes sounds of bird singing at night) in a dark night, when
everybody is still asleep,
[Norang, Blue, Aka lie down and close their eyes.]
It became really bright all of a sudden in the middle of the night.
[She moves Blue over, and makes him switch on his headlight]
The sun was rising.
Everyone in the village woke up and looked up the sky.
[Norang makes Aka stand up.]
In that moment!
[Norang hides and starts to make a sound of baby crying. Norang stands up and says ‘Our Baby’, (‘Oori ai’) holding a baby in her arms. Blue and Aka repeat the word. Three of them nod to each other then say it in one voice. ]
All: Oori ai!
Norang: The baby grew very fast. He walked by the age of 2. Two years old.
[Aka walks, Norang applauds]
Five years old. He rode a horse.
[Norang gives Blue a crate, which he rides as a horse, with some help]
At seven years. He hit a flying bird with an arrow.
[Aka and Blue show it with movements.]
Norang: The word flew everywhere.
[They whisper to each other, spreading the rumour.]
Amazing boy. He can do anything etc etc….
[Norang and Aka make Blue a king.]
Norang: King!
Aka: Your majesty!
Blue: King!
Norang: Word finally reached the king.
King (Blue): [Suddenly leaping rather scarily into role] No! Just like there’s only one sun, there is only one king in this world. Me! Just me! Bring me this Oori Ai. Get the child right now!
[Norang and Aka ride horses.]
Old Man (Norang): I can hear, they are coming, we should hide Our Baby!
[Norang hides Aka. King (Blue) threatens people of village (Norang) to bring ‘Our Baby’. King finally pulls out a sword when he hears nothing. Just at the moment when the king was about to cut off someone’s head, Aka appears as ‘oori Ai’ and starts to fight him. Norang stops him, because he has got the story wrong. He is supposed to say, ‘take me instead’. He goes back and they replay the scene properly. ]
[Our Baby’ appears. King carries him off. ‘Our Baby’ stops and tells the people of village, that he hid something under the big tree. What he hid is for the people and it will save the world. He explains it with mime. He asks people to keep the secret and then the king drags him away]
[Aka and Blue run to Norang]
Aka: Then?
Blue: And?
Norang: So this is where that big tree was!
[All three of them gaze at where the tree was, slowly drawing the tree with their eyes. Then they realise together the implication of the story, suddenly pointing at the tree stump and starting to dig the ground.]
6 Digging 1 [looking for the secret]
[They dig all together under the tree, to find what the child has left them. But the ground is hard and they do not make very much progress. Blue opens his little case, and finds a pair of scissors. He carefully cuts around the stump, and they lever it up. They dig again, but still do not find any secret or treasure. They are disappointed.]
7 The machine-monster
Norang: Nothing.
Blue: No secret. No treasure.
Aka: [acting out as he speaks] The secret was here, but then the monster came here, and ate it. Monster.
Norang: Monster?
Blue: There are no monsters here.
Aka: Monster, yes.
Blue: No. No monsters. I have seen everything.
Aka: Monsters. I heard them. They killed my tree. I will kill them.
[Blue runs through the screen. Aka and Norang try to stop him. Too late. They wonder about following, but do not dare.]
[There is a loud machine noise, and movement behind the screen, visible only as shapes, lights and shadows.]
Norang: Blue!
[Neither Norang or Aka dares go to save him. The ‘monster’ begins to come through the screen. Aka tries to summon the courage to fight it, but they hide. The ‘monster’ emerges, and it is a digging machine, being controlled by Blue.]
[Nervously, the other two children approach and observe]
8 Digging 2 [Going to Brazil]
Blue: There are no monsters here. Look.
Aka: No monster.
Blue: The monsters are out there. Out there. In here, we are safe.
[Blue demonstrates the way that the machine will work to dig. Aka encourages him to continue where they were digging. They operate the machine together, and dig deeper. Soon they have created a big hole. They look down the hole and call out to listen for an echo.]
Norang: Ooo hoo.
Aka: Brazil.
Norang: Brazil?
Blue: Brazil?
Aka: Brazil. If you dig. Down.. It is where you come out.
Norang: What?
Blue: He is right. We dug from the top of the world. We must have gone through the crust of the earth, and the earth’s core.
[Blue demonstrates]
Aka: Brazil.
Norang: Brazil? What is Brazil?
Aka: Brazil is a perfect place. Much better than this world. In Brazil, I am the king, and you and you. Noone stops us from exploring. We will have as many trees as we want, and we will be free to go everywhere, and climb.
Blue: A perfect place. Brazil? If Brazil is a perfect place it will be quiet. Nobody to disturb everything. Peace.
Norang: In Brazil, the city is like the countryside. You can hear the birds and smell the flowers. People do not shout. They sing. Everybody sings.
Aka: Come on.
[They go back to the hole. They look down. Aka summons up courage to jump in.]
Three, two, one.
[He jumps. They look down, he looks up.]
Norang: [calling] Brazil?
Aka: Brazil. Come on.
[Norang follows him]
Norang Three, two, one.
[She jumps. Aka greets her in ‘Brazil’. Blue waits at the top.]
Blue: Coming. Three, two, one…. Two, three, two, one..
[He jumps, and lands with the others in ‘Brazil’]
9 In Brazil
[There is a change of lighting and atmosphere. They are in ‘Brazil’ – where there are none of the problems that face them up on the land. They play this new world, where they are all of the people. Aka’s world is physical, Norangs world poetic and musical, Blues world is quiet and controlled]
10 Disappointment, back to reality
[The lights and atmosphere change back, and they return to the reality of the situation.]
[Norang remembers that she still has not found Yoghurt.]
Norang: Yoghurt.
[ Blue gets a piece of paper and starts designing something. Aka observes. It is a Yoghurt trap. They build it, with a crate. Aka tries it, but they need bait]
Blue: Bait.
[Norang finds a scrap of food in her pocket. They try out the trap, and catch Aka. They reset the trap and hide and wait. Norang sings. They sleep.]
[Time passes.]
11 Up the Crane
[The dawn is arriving. Aka rolls over in his sleep, and springs the trap. Norang wakes, and checks the trap. Yoghurt is not there. She resumes her search, while the others sleep. There is a noise, and she thinks she hears Yoghurt up the high crane. She builds some way of climbing up, and tries to get there, but she gets into danger and freezes. She calls out]
[The others wake and see Norang. They suggest ways of rescuing her. They offer the map for her to jump. Blue suggests a parachute. They try to climb up. Blue gets up to her, but then he is scared and stuck too. Aka follows and they are all on top.]
[There are sounds below. They realise they are all in danger. From the top, they can see the city. They look at the dangers that are out there, and at each other]
[Aka produces three seeds from his pocket]
Blue: Seeds
Norang: Seeds
Aka: From Brazil. To grow another tree.
[Norang holds her seed, counts to three and releases it. Blue does the same.]
[Aka counts to three and puts the seed in his mouth. Norang is angry with him. He spits it out, grins, and they watch it fall.]
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Checklist for first draft
This is the checklist the writers compiled on saturday, to bear in mind as we write our first draft script:
· What the seed means for each charcter at the end.
· Slow down and mark the stages of understanding, language [moments where they understand]
· And the stages of trust.
· Add back in the level of fear of the building site.
· Chart the progress of Blue’s trust, and Blue’s imagination
· Make Blue’s fear of people and touch and sound clear
· Mark the links between sections and make them clear
· Strengthen Aka’s ‘political’ motivation. – ie what the ‘monster’ is.
· Make clear Blue’s assertion that there are no monsters in the site, but they are outside.
· Change the atmosphere, music and style for the grandmothers story
· In Brazil:
· Have a different atmosphere style and music
· Have a different rule of understanding?
· Make the fantasies global, structural, not merely reflection of children’s ‘desires, but an actually better world
· Show the origin of the seeds.
· What the seed means for each charcter at the end.
· Slow down and mark the stages of understanding, language [moments where they understand]
· And the stages of trust.
· Add back in the level of fear of the building site.
· Chart the progress of Blue’s trust, and Blue’s imagination
· Make Blue’s fear of people and touch and sound clear
· Mark the links between sections and make them clear
· Strengthen Aka’s ‘political’ motivation. – ie what the ‘monster’ is.
· Make clear Blue’s assertion that there are no monsters in the site, but they are outside.
· Change the atmosphere, music and style for the grandmothers story
· In Brazil:
· Have a different atmosphere style and music
· Have a different rule of understanding?
· Make the fantasies global, structural, not merely reflection of children’s ‘desires, but an actually better world
· Show the origin of the seeds.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Anyong and Sayonara..for now
The Korean and Japanese members of the company have disappeared into the sky above Birmingham, and the latest leg of our journey together is over. We will be having a writer's meeting in Seoul on the first of November, and then it is e-mail and skype all the way to April, when rehearsals will begin in Seoul.
So it is great to be able to report that we are well ahead of our self-set schedule, and that after the meeting in November we will have a first draft. It seems likely that this will be a firmer draft than might have been envisaged, and that is testament to the way the fortnight in Birmingham has gone. The characters and rough structure squeezed together at the end of our time in Tokyo stood up well. The actors grabbed the characters and made them very firmly their own, and responded with such a quantity and quality of invention that the writers have had material for a whole canon of plays.
The final chapetr was another of those saturday mornings... perhaps a slightly more tired one, after the very full schedule of the stay in England, but nevertheless a very useful one. A wide-ranging discussion, joined by Caroline, Rachel and Simon from the REP, and by Yeon, and Judy, Byung Ho, Ayako and Minato, took us to the very end of our list of needed decisions, and a summary of those does bear witness to a successful time.
The characters are solid, and work vey well together. We have changed Norang's focus slightly in that her background in the country is stronger, and the idea of her being a victim of bullying has lost significance. We feel a need to make a little clearer that Aka has a strong motive for his arrival at the site - a need to prevent, or at least protest the damage that 'monsters' are doing to his favourite place of play.
The structure, breakdown of scenes and main action is in place, and we are happy with it.
We are happy with the time scheme of the play, and with the conventions for language, and with the design ideas, the rules for fantasy and reality, and much of the specific action and even lines.
We are really happy with the actors, and the way they and the creative team have worked togther.
With all these positives already in mind, we addressed the key issues that we have to bear in mind, and decided approaches to them. The check list for the script itself will be written up and attached to this blog in due course.
The musician will be decided by the end of November. It will not be Minato himself, but his presence during the workshop has given him a strong sense of the kind of skills the musician chosen will need to have. There will be a meeting about design in Seoul on 1st November, by which time Yeon is intending to have a storyboard. There will also be a first meeting about costume at that time.
Photos and video of the workshop will be collated and copies shared in Seoul. [All these meetings etc, are happening during a visit I am making to take part in an international symposium at the Korean National University of the Arts] Decsions have also been made about timings and parcticalities in relation to the rehearsal and performance stages of the play. If you are a casual passing reader, keen to see the play that emerges from all of this, please watch this space.... at some time it will be coming to a theatre near you.
So it is great to be able to report that we are well ahead of our self-set schedule, and that after the meeting in November we will have a first draft. It seems likely that this will be a firmer draft than might have been envisaged, and that is testament to the way the fortnight in Birmingham has gone. The characters and rough structure squeezed together at the end of our time in Tokyo stood up well. The actors grabbed the characters and made them very firmly their own, and responded with such a quantity and quality of invention that the writers have had material for a whole canon of plays.
The final chapetr was another of those saturday mornings... perhaps a slightly more tired one, after the very full schedule of the stay in England, but nevertheless a very useful one. A wide-ranging discussion, joined by Caroline, Rachel and Simon from the REP, and by Yeon, and Judy, Byung Ho, Ayako and Minato, took us to the very end of our list of needed decisions, and a summary of those does bear witness to a successful time.
The characters are solid, and work vey well together. We have changed Norang's focus slightly in that her background in the country is stronger, and the idea of her being a victim of bullying has lost significance. We feel a need to make a little clearer that Aka has a strong motive for his arrival at the site - a need to prevent, or at least protest the damage that 'monsters' are doing to his favourite place of play.
The structure, breakdown of scenes and main action is in place, and we are happy with it.
We are happy with the time scheme of the play, and with the conventions for language, and with the design ideas, the rules for fantasy and reality, and much of the specific action and even lines.
We are really happy with the actors, and the way they and the creative team have worked togther.
With all these positives already in mind, we addressed the key issues that we have to bear in mind, and decided approaches to them. The check list for the script itself will be written up and attached to this blog in due course.
The musician will be decided by the end of November. It will not be Minato himself, but his presence during the workshop has given him a strong sense of the kind of skills the musician chosen will need to have. There will be a meeting about design in Seoul on 1st November, by which time Yeon is intending to have a storyboard. There will also be a first meeting about costume at that time.
Photos and video of the workshop will be collated and copies shared in Seoul. [All these meetings etc, are happening during a visit I am making to take part in an international symposium at the Korean National University of the Arts] Decsions have also been made about timings and parcticalities in relation to the rehearsal and performance stages of the play. If you are a casual passing reader, keen to see the play that emerges from all of this, please watch this space.... at some time it will be coming to a theatre near you.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Sharing the Yoghurt
The final day of workshops seems to have arrived extremely fast. The actors arrived fresher than yesterday, and had an hour or so to get ready, while we made final preparations for people to come and watch. In the end there were 30 kids from the two schools sitting at the front and about fifty adults, plus all of the company, so the room was full, but fortunately a crisp day of autumn sun had taken over from the stifling heat of earlier in the week.
The presentation went really well, with the actors impressing everyone, and the children really deeply involved. The response was overwhelmingly positive - with some people extremely impressed and no really major criticisms at all. Plenty of suggestions and minor queries and criticisms, but the company was overall delighted, relieved and pretty proud. After the presentation, there was a lavish lunch of sushi, and then the actors went out into the square for their 'impromptu' musical performance, which was great - with Young Ju predictably stealing the show by involving half of Birmingham in an elaborate korean Hokey-Cokey. The children and staff from Chandos and Reaside joined in, before taking a long backstage tour. After that there was only time for a brief Q and A before they had to go home. Chandos had prepared some beautiful question sunflowers, for the Japanese and Korean parties to take with them, and they had obviously enjoyed their day, with great support from Rachel from Brightspace.
The afternoon was taken up with a meeting about music, where we worked out our overall approach with Minatosan. Mijeong has finished korean lyrics for the theme song, and he has ideas for music through the piece, which he will finish when we have finished the first draft of the play. He then led a workshop, showing how the mixture of percussion and melody may work. It all ended in a song.
Meanwhile, the producers had a meeting, thrashing out the terms of our process of longer-term touring, very amicably, and then even more amicably, we all gathered at the Kababish in Moseley for a well-earned curry, hosted by the Rep. Not for the first time I was struck through the day by how uniformly nice a group this is in which to work. Nice, and talented too.
The presentation went really well, with the actors impressing everyone, and the children really deeply involved. The response was overwhelmingly positive - with some people extremely impressed and no really major criticisms at all. Plenty of suggestions and minor queries and criticisms, but the company was overall delighted, relieved and pretty proud. After the presentation, there was a lavish lunch of sushi, and then the actors went out into the square for their 'impromptu' musical performance, which was great - with Young Ju predictably stealing the show by involving half of Birmingham in an elaborate korean Hokey-Cokey. The children and staff from Chandos and Reaside joined in, before taking a long backstage tour. After that there was only time for a brief Q and A before they had to go home. Chandos had prepared some beautiful question sunflowers, for the Japanese and Korean parties to take with them, and they had obviously enjoyed their day, with great support from Rachel from Brightspace.
The afternoon was taken up with a meeting about music, where we worked out our overall approach with Minatosan. Mijeong has finished korean lyrics for the theme song, and he has ideas for music through the piece, which he will finish when we have finished the first draft of the play. He then led a workshop, showing how the mixture of percussion and melody may work. It all ended in a song.
Meanwhile, the producers had a meeting, thrashing out the terms of our process of longer-term touring, very amicably, and then even more amicably, we all gathered at the Kababish in Moseley for a well-earned curry, hosted by the Rep. Not for the first time I was struck through the day by how uniformly nice a group this is in which to work. Nice, and talented too.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Today is Toby Day
At the beginning of the day, I said that we had earned a bonus day for good behaviour, and for being ahead of our schedule. The fact is that the day had been planned all along, but it seemed to fit, because we had managed to get to the end of our process of working through the play in time to leave it behind for a day, and work exclusively on physical aspects of the play, with a visit from hugely experienced physical theatre guru Toby Sedgewick.
We had talked about presenting him with specific sections of the play only, but in the end having started at the beginning, we worked all through the parts we had mapped out, presenting them to Toby, discussing and then working through possibilities. It was a fun, and extremely useful day, with some great new ideas, and it was a good moment at which to get an outside eye on things, from such a positive and inventive person. There were some great routines emerging, around diving down to Brazil, and the machine monster, and some of the principles of how we are presenting reality and fantasy were much clearer too. The whole day also reinforced the value of the way the set is evolving into lower-tech and simpler approaches.
In the evening we discussed our approach to Friday's sharing, coming to the conclusion that we should present the majority of scenes that we have prectised. We decided to leave out the 'Brazil' section, since it would give us a useful opening to discussing ideas for inclusion there, withg the children from the two project schools, who will be there for the sharing.
After running through the prolonged extract we will show, there was another long conversation with Minato, this time centred around whether the play contained too many key words and themes. His philosophical and abstract approach is proving quite a challenge at times, but there is a lot to be said for these kind of challenges. If we all worked in the same ways, would there be such richness in our international collaboration?
We had talked about presenting him with specific sections of the play only, but in the end having started at the beginning, we worked all through the parts we had mapped out, presenting them to Toby, discussing and then working through possibilities. It was a fun, and extremely useful day, with some great new ideas, and it was a good moment at which to get an outside eye on things, from such a positive and inventive person. There were some great routines emerging, around diving down to Brazil, and the machine monster, and some of the principles of how we are presenting reality and fantasy were much clearer too. The whole day also reinforced the value of the way the set is evolving into lower-tech and simpler approaches.
In the evening we discussed our approach to Friday's sharing, coming to the conclusion that we should present the majority of scenes that we have prectised. We decided to leave out the 'Brazil' section, since it would give us a useful opening to discussing ideas for inclusion there, withg the children from the two project schools, who will be there for the sharing.
After running through the prolonged extract we will show, there was another long conversation with Minato, this time centred around whether the play contained too many key words and themes. His philosophical and abstract approach is proving quite a challenge at times, but there is a lot to be said for these kind of challenges. If we all worked in the same ways, would there be such richness in our international collaboration?
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The Meaning of Brazil
This morning was set aside for 'Brazil', and we started with each actor writing an account of their dream destination, then inhabiting it, and explaining it to each other. The long improvisations were wild exhibitions of how deeply their understanding of the charcaters is developed, and our first attempt at the scene which may appear within the play was both very accurate in its expression of their desires, and also very funny. Yudai taking the role of Blue's robot, increasingly out of control had everyone in pieces.
The planned drumming session outside on the terrace at lunchtime was cancelled, because for once the weather had let us down, but we decided it would be better anyway to do it after the sharing on Friday, as a celebratroy bonus for the children coming, and any of the rest of the audience that wants to stay.
In the afternoon, we ran on to the end of the play, adding in the idea of the children sleeping while guarding the yoghurt-trap, and the whole section of climbing the crane. It seemed another productive day.
The writer's meeting was filled with another long discussion raised by Minatosan questionning the meaning of 'Brazil'. He felt that it was confusing to mix real ideas of a real country, with the ignorant fantasy of the children. We talked about the mixture of fantasy, dream and political ambition that the section might contain, and we remembered our desire for the play to explore children's wisdom in relation to world issues. Perhaps the depictions of brazil were too limited to the immediate desires of these childen, rather than the wisdom they would express if given the chance to rule a new world. But there was not enough time and energy left to discuss this through to a conclusion, and we left a little weary.
The planned drumming session outside on the terrace at lunchtime was cancelled, because for once the weather had let us down, but we decided it would be better anyway to do it after the sharing on Friday, as a celebratroy bonus for the children coming, and any of the rest of the audience that wants to stay.
In the afternoon, we ran on to the end of the play, adding in the idea of the children sleeping while guarding the yoghurt-trap, and the whole section of climbing the crane. It seemed another productive day.
The writer's meeting was filled with another long discussion raised by Minatosan questionning the meaning of 'Brazil'. He felt that it was confusing to mix real ideas of a real country, with the ignorant fantasy of the children. We talked about the mixture of fantasy, dream and political ambition that the section might contain, and we remembered our desire for the play to explore children's wisdom in relation to world issues. Perhaps the depictions of brazil were too limited to the immediate desires of these childen, rather than the wisdom they would express if given the chance to rule a new world. But there was not enough time and energy left to discuss this through to a conclusion, and we left a little weary.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Hotting up
The temperature in the Rehearsal Room at the REP is high, as autumn has forgotten to bite, and the open windows cannot fully clear the air. There is a tiredness in evidence which is hardly surprising - the visiting team here came to work pretty much straight off their long flights, and the schedule has been intense. We have got a long way, and there will be some gritting of teeth in making the final push.
This morning we started with the scene in which Aka finds the place where his favourite tree once stood, and then Norang tells her grandmother's story. The actors first attempt at it is strong, and there are few big issues to debate. As we go further into the story it becomes clear that we are at a point where we need to make some more specific decisions about the design - they are improvising activities like digging, when we are not yet decided how we may really be representing them as yet. But Yeon reminds me that in a normal process the designer would not be expecting to be involved until there is a draft script at least, and her involvement to date will in the long run prove a real bonus.
At lunch time today there is a production meeting, and in some ways this emphasises how much is still to be decided. But the pace we have been working has felt high, and the amount of time wasted in fruitless exploration has been impressively small. Considering how complicated it would be to deal with conflict on any scale, across the three countries and languages, I think we have been really lucky in the degree of like-mindedness at the heart of the project, and the way our differences have felt like complementary forces.
In the afternoon we went back to the beginning, and readdressed some of the areas discussed yesterday. The actors ran through the first three scenes impressively, and again the day ended positively....
Ali, who was with us in Seoul and Tokyo, came and visited at the end of the day, and we went for a drink together. Tomorrow, the midday 'concert', and an afternoon of being visited by students on a careers day....
This morning we started with the scene in which Aka finds the place where his favourite tree once stood, and then Norang tells her grandmother's story. The actors first attempt at it is strong, and there are few big issues to debate. As we go further into the story it becomes clear that we are at a point where we need to make some more specific decisions about the design - they are improvising activities like digging, when we are not yet decided how we may really be representing them as yet. But Yeon reminds me that in a normal process the designer would not be expecting to be involved until there is a draft script at least, and her involvement to date will in the long run prove a real bonus.
At lunch time today there is a production meeting, and in some ways this emphasises how much is still to be decided. But the pace we have been working has felt high, and the amount of time wasted in fruitless exploration has been impressively small. Considering how complicated it would be to deal with conflict on any scale, across the three countries and languages, I think we have been really lucky in the degree of like-mindedness at the heart of the project, and the way our differences have felt like complementary forces.
In the afternoon we went back to the beginning, and readdressed some of the areas discussed yesterday. The actors ran through the first three scenes impressively, and again the day ended positively....
Ali, who was with us in Seoul and Tokyo, came and visited at the end of the day, and we went for a drink together. Tomorrow, the midday 'concert', and an afternoon of being visited by students on a careers day....
Monday, October 13, 2008
The Meaning of Yoghurt
We started the new week with a new synopsis, and a new plan - to work through the play scene by scene, deciding content, staging and music.
Yeon and Judy and Simon, the lighting designer, went to Leicester to visit the Peepul Centre, which will be the project's second venue in May 2009. In the meantime the actors began their improvisation at the beginning. The very first scene, where Norang and then Aka arrive at the building site, seems fairly fixed already, and when we tried it with the lights off it gave a hint of the atmosphere which the start of the play may have. The next two scenes are altogether more fluid, and the actors have by now developed such a habit of inventiveness, it seems churlish to be asking them to narrow down. But over the course of the week, that is what we will need to do.
Our problem this week may be staying focused on the current purpose, which is limited to exploring the story so that we can create the script. Once everything is stood up, it is hard not to work on scenes to the point where they 'work'. The fact is we do not need to go this far, and cannot really afford the time to, either. When we have enough evidence to enable us to 'write', then we can move on.
It is a harder process than last week's, and takes some adjusting. In the afternoon, we stop to discuss things, and get involved in a long discussion started by Minato, raising the question of the meaning of Yoghurt. His approach to the music is very different - with a strong emphasis on symbolism, and he was finding the meaningless of the name Yoghurt a real block to his creative approach. Norang is repeating a word again and again in searching for the cat, which is an unmusical word, and which has no positive meaning. Mijeong in turn felt that it was important that the name was 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'. It was an unexpected conversation at this stage, and a challenging one.
The actors are drumming with Minato every day, and he has decided that they should do a little performance on Wednesday lunch time, to focus their minds, and so they will play outside the theatre. It is going to be a fascinating aspect of the project, to see how the music evolves.
In the sfternoon session we stopped for a while to welcome 40 teachers who were participating in a careers day at the REP. They watched a little of the improvising, and we introduced them to the project. Their response, to a random section of the process was encouraging. On Friday morning we have quite a sizable audience joining us for our work in progress, apparently, so this was a good dry run.
In the evening, the writers meeting was more complex than previous ones, as the issues we are wrestling with get more complex, but it was fruitful too, and aftre we finished I wrote up the first three scenes in a form which begins to resemble script...
Yeon and Judy and Simon, the lighting designer, went to Leicester to visit the Peepul Centre, which will be the project's second venue in May 2009. In the meantime the actors began their improvisation at the beginning. The very first scene, where Norang and then Aka arrive at the building site, seems fairly fixed already, and when we tried it with the lights off it gave a hint of the atmosphere which the start of the play may have. The next two scenes are altogether more fluid, and the actors have by now developed such a habit of inventiveness, it seems churlish to be asking them to narrow down. But over the course of the week, that is what we will need to do.
Our problem this week may be staying focused on the current purpose, which is limited to exploring the story so that we can create the script. Once everything is stood up, it is hard not to work on scenes to the point where they 'work'. The fact is we do not need to go this far, and cannot really afford the time to, either. When we have enough evidence to enable us to 'write', then we can move on.
It is a harder process than last week's, and takes some adjusting. In the afternoon, we stop to discuss things, and get involved in a long discussion started by Minato, raising the question of the meaning of Yoghurt. His approach to the music is very different - with a strong emphasis on symbolism, and he was finding the meaningless of the name Yoghurt a real block to his creative approach. Norang is repeating a word again and again in searching for the cat, which is an unmusical word, and which has no positive meaning. Mijeong in turn felt that it was important that the name was 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'. It was an unexpected conversation at this stage, and a challenging one.
The actors are drumming with Minato every day, and he has decided that they should do a little performance on Wednesday lunch time, to focus their minds, and so they will play outside the theatre. It is going to be a fascinating aspect of the project, to see how the music evolves.
In the sfternoon session we stopped for a while to welcome 40 teachers who were participating in a careers day at the REP. They watched a little of the improvising, and we introduced them to the project. Their response, to a random section of the process was encouraging. On Friday morning we have quite a sizable audience joining us for our work in progress, apparently, so this was a good dry run.
In the evening, the writers meeting was more complex than previous ones, as the issues we are wrestling with get more complex, but it was fruitful too, and aftre we finished I wrote up the first three scenes in a form which begins to resemble script...
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Breakdown of Scenes
Looking for Yoghurt – Breakdown of Scenes - this is the new outline that came from Saturday's meeting
1 Outside the Building Site
Blue is a movement in the shadows. Norang arrives, looking for Yoghurt. She follows a rough cat trail. Decision – go inside into danger or give up on Yoghurt? She goes in.
Aka arrives. He is on a mission, to destroy the monsters that have taken over his ‘playground’. The cranes. The machines. He is 007, Spiderman, etc…. He avoids the ‘electrified’ fence. He goes in.
2 Inside the Building Site
Norang continues to look for Yoghurt. Aka becomes aware of her. He ‘stalks’ her. Norang is unaware of him. Hide and seek. Then they exchange sounds. Call and response. Then they are face to face. They are frightened, then communicate a little.
3 Finding Blue
Norang goes back to looking for Yoghurt. Aka joins in, without understanding. He finds Blue, hidden. Norang finds Blue, too. Blue has a place which he has made his own. His little world. They try to find out who he is, and why he is there.
4 Establishing contact
They make some hesitant links. Slowly they begin to play together. This builds into a clapping game. We find out a little of their reasons for being there. Monsters, missions and Yoghurt.
5 The remains of the tree. The grandmother’s story.
Aka finds the remains of a tree where he played, before the building site was here. He is upset. Norang tells him her grandmother’s story, about the special child. They enact this together.
6 Digging 1 [looking for the secret]
They dig together under the tree, to find what the child has left them. Blue hangs back, but goes to his world, and finds them something to help digging. They do not find any secret or treasure. They are disappointed.
7 The machine-monster
They start to look for Yoghurt again, and Norang touches something which starts a machine. Aka and Norang think it is a monster. Aka makes a show of killing the monster, but he is afraid. In the end, Blue joins, without fear, and rides the machine-monster.
8 Digging 2 [Going to Brazil]
The reality of their situation comes back to them. If they carry on digging, maybe they will get to a better place. Brazil. The machine, now that they can work it, may help them dig deeper. The three together now, dig to get to Brazil. They are playing together well now.
9 In Brazil
They arrive in ‘Brazil’ – where there are none of the problems that face them up on the land. They play this new world, where they are all of the people.
10 Disappointment, back to reality
They come back again to the reality of the situation. Norang still has not found Yoghurt. The clapping game does not cheer her up. The boys set up a Yoghurt trap. They hide and wait. Norang sings. They sleep. Time passes.
11 Up the Crane
Norang wakes, and resumes her search. She hears Yoghurt up the crane. She gets into danger. The others wake and rescue her, then they realise they are all in danger. They use whatever they need to climb the crane. From the top, they can see the city.
1 Outside the Building Site
Blue is a movement in the shadows. Norang arrives, looking for Yoghurt. She follows a rough cat trail. Decision – go inside into danger or give up on Yoghurt? She goes in.
Aka arrives. He is on a mission, to destroy the monsters that have taken over his ‘playground’. The cranes. The machines. He is 007, Spiderman, etc…. He avoids the ‘electrified’ fence. He goes in.
2 Inside the Building Site
Norang continues to look for Yoghurt. Aka becomes aware of her. He ‘stalks’ her. Norang is unaware of him. Hide and seek. Then they exchange sounds. Call and response. Then they are face to face. They are frightened, then communicate a little.
3 Finding Blue
Norang goes back to looking for Yoghurt. Aka joins in, without understanding. He finds Blue, hidden. Norang finds Blue, too. Blue has a place which he has made his own. His little world. They try to find out who he is, and why he is there.
4 Establishing contact
They make some hesitant links. Slowly they begin to play together. This builds into a clapping game. We find out a little of their reasons for being there. Monsters, missions and Yoghurt.
5 The remains of the tree. The grandmother’s story.
Aka finds the remains of a tree where he played, before the building site was here. He is upset. Norang tells him her grandmother’s story, about the special child. They enact this together.
6 Digging 1 [looking for the secret]
They dig together under the tree, to find what the child has left them. Blue hangs back, but goes to his world, and finds them something to help digging. They do not find any secret or treasure. They are disappointed.
7 The machine-monster
They start to look for Yoghurt again, and Norang touches something which starts a machine. Aka and Norang think it is a monster. Aka makes a show of killing the monster, but he is afraid. In the end, Blue joins, without fear, and rides the machine-monster.
8 Digging 2 [Going to Brazil]
The reality of their situation comes back to them. If they carry on digging, maybe they will get to a better place. Brazil. The machine, now that they can work it, may help them dig deeper. The three together now, dig to get to Brazil. They are playing together well now.
9 In Brazil
They arrive in ‘Brazil’ – where there are none of the problems that face them up on the land. They play this new world, where they are all of the people.
10 Disappointment, back to reality
They come back again to the reality of the situation. Norang still has not found Yoghurt. The clapping game does not cheer her up. The boys set up a Yoghurt trap. They hide and wait. Norang sings. They sleep. Time passes.
11 Up the Crane
Norang wakes, and resumes her search. She hears Yoghurt up the crane. She gets into danger. The others wake and rescue her, then they realise they are all in danger. They use whatever they need to climb the crane. From the top, they can see the city.
We Like Saturday Mornings...
One conclusion from our first week is that the decisions we made on the saturday morning at the end of the Tokyo workshop week have stood up very well. On that morning, we mapped out the charcter sketches and synopsis, and nothing that has happened this week has made us chnage our minds about any big aspects of this. The shape and focus of the stroy feels about right, and most of the work has been consolidating and fleshing out.
So we decided at the beginning of today's big creative team meeting that we like Saturday mornings.
In rehearsal room two, there are two radiators which we have not been able to switch off, so we have to switch on an air conditioning unit to counteract them. But everything else is remarkably efficient. OK so we do allow ourselves the odd tangent, but generally, with Ayako acting as chief translation referee, and giving the yellow card to anyone who speaks for too long, we keep to the task that we have set.
That task for this saturday morning , is to re-do the synopsis, identifying the individual scenes in the play, and to cut a three-hour story short, we achieve it pretty well. Much of the debate is about the beginning, and the idea that has now emerged of Blue being present from the beginning, as an Ariel-like spirit in the building site, visible as a shadowy presence only. There are also break-thorugh decisions around the order of events later in the play, with the sequence in which they find a machine-monster now inserted between the digging sections. The new synopsis will be drafted over the weekend and should appear here shortly afterwards.
The writers had lunch together at Woktastic on Saturday, and then went our ways...with everyone who is staying in Birmingham going to watch Birmingham Royal Ballet later....
So we decided at the beginning of today's big creative team meeting that we like Saturday mornings.
In rehearsal room two, there are two radiators which we have not been able to switch off, so we have to switch on an air conditioning unit to counteract them. But everything else is remarkably efficient. OK so we do allow ourselves the odd tangent, but generally, with Ayako acting as chief translation referee, and giving the yellow card to anyone who speaks for too long, we keep to the task that we have set.
That task for this saturday morning , is to re-do the synopsis, identifying the individual scenes in the play, and to cut a three-hour story short, we achieve it pretty well. Much of the debate is about the beginning, and the idea that has now emerged of Blue being present from the beginning, as an Ariel-like spirit in the building site, visible as a shadowy presence only. There are also break-thorugh decisions around the order of events later in the play, with the sequence in which they find a machine-monster now inserted between the digging sections. The new synopsis will be drafted over the weekend and should appear here shortly afterwards.
The writers had lunch together at Woktastic on Saturday, and then went our ways...with everyone who is staying in Birmingham going to watch Birmingham Royal Ballet later....
Friday, October 10, 2008
Waiting for Taxis...or How Theatre Can Change the World
It is hard to believe we are already coming to the end of week one. Yerang arrived today, to take over the Korean translation, having just finished her doctorate thesis in time. She has lived in Birmingham for many years, and she leaps into the process, giving some extra momentum to this crucial role....
Today was pencilled in as 'monsters' day, and also contains the second school visit, to Reaside in Frankley - the other group who will be shadowing the project throughout.
Before setting off there is time for another quick creative team meeting, at which the design idea is fleshed out further. On Saturday we will break our synopsis into sections, and then Yeon will propose a stage picture for each of these separate sections. The objects needed for each will be chosen, with different combinations used for each section, and they will all be needed together for the final climb up the crane.
Yeon has once again been in and changed what is in the space, removing much of the stuff, and leaving three areas, also covering them with clear plastic sheeting. The actors improvise in this new space, looking a little as if they are now beginning to feel the effects of a very full-on week, and energy is low... But once they are up and running, their exploration of their character's personal 'monsters' is strong - particularly when the plastic sheeting becomes some kind of snake of creeping smoke, whcih threatens to envelope them. The three of them are working together extremely well, and the level of inventiveness is constantly impressive.
For the workshop in Reaside, we prepare a rough plan, which involves improvising the beginnings of the play to elicit responses, and then raising a question of 'monsters' without using that word. What are the characters afraid of?
The group at Reaside consists of a dozen Year Six pupils, who have been chosen to take part. Once again the welcome at the school is impressive, and today, by arrangement, we are all there in time for school dinners - another part of the cultural experience for the Japanese and Korean members of the company.
The introduction to the children is encouraging. They are older than the Chandos group, and have already had some contact with the Rep. 'We did a project on how theatre can change the world,' says one girl. 'That's great...that is what we are doing with Looking for Yoghurt'. It seems an appropriate beginning - let us set our sights high together.
Perhaps because of their age, the children are more practical and realistic than the younger group, less imaginative, but there is once again a great width to their responses, and the session is short but valuable. We collect some more clapping games ['my boyfriend gave me an apple...'] and some good ideas for 'monsters', as well as a strong sense from the way the improvisation is watched that even in this early form, our story and characters are of real interest to our intended audience.
Outside the school, it is sunny but cool, with the first leaves of the year beginning to change colour. Sending enough taxis to retrieve our big party from Frankley proves a challenge for the taxi firm, but the spirit in the camp is buoyant.
Back in the rehearsal room we have a wonderful session looking at the character scrapbooks that the actors have been compiling - which reinforces how clear and well-defined they are, and also how likeable. There is a real sense that everyone knows them already, and we all care about them too, across their manifest differences. The books are a testiment to the way the week has gone. The final acts of that rehearsal room week are a first run at the final sequences of the play, with the children climbing the crane.
Yudai's total lack of fear makes this a difficult exercise to watch, as he drags a less keen Young Ju up towards the ceiling on a wobbly ladder - but the impact of the sight of the three children together so high, looking out across the city, is very striking. It is a strong finish.
In the evening the company is invited over to Judy's house for a meal and a party. Rachel has arrived back in Birmingham and will join us in the morning for our big writers meeting. The exzchange of games spills from the rehearsal room into the party, with some very impressive clappy games demonstrated by Young Ju and Mijeong. On our way back from the party, my son Jim says, 'I think I know why you like hanging out with Koreans so much...they are all big children like you are'........
Today was pencilled in as 'monsters' day, and also contains the second school visit, to Reaside in Frankley - the other group who will be shadowing the project throughout.
Before setting off there is time for another quick creative team meeting, at which the design idea is fleshed out further. On Saturday we will break our synopsis into sections, and then Yeon will propose a stage picture for each of these separate sections. The objects needed for each will be chosen, with different combinations used for each section, and they will all be needed together for the final climb up the crane.
Yeon has once again been in and changed what is in the space, removing much of the stuff, and leaving three areas, also covering them with clear plastic sheeting. The actors improvise in this new space, looking a little as if they are now beginning to feel the effects of a very full-on week, and energy is low... But once they are up and running, their exploration of their character's personal 'monsters' is strong - particularly when the plastic sheeting becomes some kind of snake of creeping smoke, whcih threatens to envelope them. The three of them are working together extremely well, and the level of inventiveness is constantly impressive.
For the workshop in Reaside, we prepare a rough plan, which involves improvising the beginnings of the play to elicit responses, and then raising a question of 'monsters' without using that word. What are the characters afraid of?
The group at Reaside consists of a dozen Year Six pupils, who have been chosen to take part. Once again the welcome at the school is impressive, and today, by arrangement, we are all there in time for school dinners - another part of the cultural experience for the Japanese and Korean members of the company.
The introduction to the children is encouraging. They are older than the Chandos group, and have already had some contact with the Rep. 'We did a project on how theatre can change the world,' says one girl. 'That's great...that is what we are doing with Looking for Yoghurt'. It seems an appropriate beginning - let us set our sights high together.
Perhaps because of their age, the children are more practical and realistic than the younger group, less imaginative, but there is once again a great width to their responses, and the session is short but valuable. We collect some more clapping games ['my boyfriend gave me an apple...'] and some good ideas for 'monsters', as well as a strong sense from the way the improvisation is watched that even in this early form, our story and characters are of real interest to our intended audience.
Outside the school, it is sunny but cool, with the first leaves of the year beginning to change colour. Sending enough taxis to retrieve our big party from Frankley proves a challenge for the taxi firm, but the spirit in the camp is buoyant.
Back in the rehearsal room we have a wonderful session looking at the character scrapbooks that the actors have been compiling - which reinforces how clear and well-defined they are, and also how likeable. There is a real sense that everyone knows them already, and we all care about them too, across their manifest differences. The books are a testiment to the way the week has gone. The final acts of that rehearsal room week are a first run at the final sequences of the play, with the children climbing the crane.
Yudai's total lack of fear makes this a difficult exercise to watch, as he drags a less keen Young Ju up towards the ceiling on a wobbly ladder - but the impact of the sight of the three children together so high, looking out across the city, is very striking. It is a strong finish.
In the evening the company is invited over to Judy's house for a meal and a party. Rachel has arrived back in Birmingham and will join us in the morning for our big writers meeting. The exzchange of games spills from the rehearsal room into the party, with some very impressive clappy games demonstrated by Young Ju and Mijeong. On our way back from the party, my son Jim says, 'I think I know why you like hanging out with Koreans so much...they are all big children like you are'........
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Under the Zelkova Tree
We started the day with a writer's meeting, for a change today, and Caroline Jester, the REP's Dramaturg, sat in on the session to get a sense of the project and the process. These meetings have a rythmn and atmosphere all of their own, with the three languages making everything slow, of course, but the effect of that is positive as well as negative. There is a shared knowledge that we cannot afford to waste words or time, and the group has picked up a very healthy tendency of cutting pretty quickly 'to the chase'.
The first section of the discussion this morning reflected on the day of music, and we put some decisions in place about the way of approaching the music in the rest of the fortnight. The idea of the shape of the music echoing the shape of the relationships within the play seems strong, and there will be a progression in the way the music comes together along these lines. Although the actors will generate some percussion themselves, there is already a commitment to having a musician, set apart from the action, and he or she will be picking up the lead from the action, and supporting it. There seems no way to be able to incorporate Young Ju playing the gayagum, which is a shame, since it is such a potentially beautiful thing to include. But there is a place for singing, particularly by her, as she has been showing in improvisations. There is also now a clear task of creating a new clapping game of our own.
The rest of our discussion was around the introduction of the grandmother's story. Mijeong has drafted a version. It is about a special child, 'All Our Child' who is born in an ancient community. His talents are great, and when knowledge of him comes to the ears of the king, he feels threatened and vows to have him killed. The boy is protected by his family, but he reveals himself. Before he is killed he manages to pass a message that he has hidden the secret to everything underneath the zelkova tree.
Nishida likes the way that this is a story of hope. He is not a hero, he achieves nothing, but he leaves hope. We are now suggesting a link to this story, involving a tree within the building site, where Aka used to play. When the children find the remains of this tree, Norang cheers Aka up by telling the story, and they conceive the idea that the secret from the story may be buried under where this tree once was.
Before lunch, Mijeong tells Young Ju the story quietly, in Korean, and the actors then hear it for the first time, within an improvisation. It is a little clumsy - trying to relate the story through the language barriers, but once again it is an improvisation which points the way for the decisions about how we deal with it in our actual play. A second run at this part of the play also leads us towards some ways of achieving the digging, using milk crates.
Towards the end of the day, there is an opportunity to divide again, and while the actors work with Minato on the clapping games, there is a spontaneous meeting about design. Yeon has some images of korean textiles which she wants to share, and the creative team debates the way forward on design. Everyone responds well to the feel of the images - monochrome and geometric, on translucent cloth - a possible backcloth, and a template for the feel of the whole set. Up to now, she had placed a wide variety of abjects within the performance space, for the actors to experiment, and we had taken the whole space as representing the whole site. The decision is now made that the action will take us to different corners of the site, transformed with as few objects as feasible, supported by lighting, with only the actors involved in these transformations. Objects will be symbolic, maybe at times adapted versions of real objects, given the feel that fits with the overall pictures we want.
At the end of the day we have to say goodbye to Mera, who has been translating throughout, but who leaves tomorrrow for a month in India. Yerang who will replace her, visits to meet with Mera and pick up the baton.
In the evening most of the company watched Jasmin Vordiman's company in an impressively brutal piece called, Yesterday, and on the way back to their lodgings everyone was wondering if we could get more bare bottoms and physical violence into our show....
The first section of the discussion this morning reflected on the day of music, and we put some decisions in place about the way of approaching the music in the rest of the fortnight. The idea of the shape of the music echoing the shape of the relationships within the play seems strong, and there will be a progression in the way the music comes together along these lines. Although the actors will generate some percussion themselves, there is already a commitment to having a musician, set apart from the action, and he or she will be picking up the lead from the action, and supporting it. There seems no way to be able to incorporate Young Ju playing the gayagum, which is a shame, since it is such a potentially beautiful thing to include. But there is a place for singing, particularly by her, as she has been showing in improvisations. There is also now a clear task of creating a new clapping game of our own.
The rest of our discussion was around the introduction of the grandmother's story. Mijeong has drafted a version. It is about a special child, 'All Our Child' who is born in an ancient community. His talents are great, and when knowledge of him comes to the ears of the king, he feels threatened and vows to have him killed. The boy is protected by his family, but he reveals himself. Before he is killed he manages to pass a message that he has hidden the secret to everything underneath the zelkova tree.
Nishida likes the way that this is a story of hope. He is not a hero, he achieves nothing, but he leaves hope. We are now suggesting a link to this story, involving a tree within the building site, where Aka used to play. When the children find the remains of this tree, Norang cheers Aka up by telling the story, and they conceive the idea that the secret from the story may be buried under where this tree once was.
Before lunch, Mijeong tells Young Ju the story quietly, in Korean, and the actors then hear it for the first time, within an improvisation. It is a little clumsy - trying to relate the story through the language barriers, but once again it is an improvisation which points the way for the decisions about how we deal with it in our actual play. A second run at this part of the play also leads us towards some ways of achieving the digging, using milk crates.
Towards the end of the day, there is an opportunity to divide again, and while the actors work with Minato on the clapping games, there is a spontaneous meeting about design. Yeon has some images of korean textiles which she wants to share, and the creative team debates the way forward on design. Everyone responds well to the feel of the images - monochrome and geometric, on translucent cloth - a possible backcloth, and a template for the feel of the whole set. Up to now, she had placed a wide variety of abjects within the performance space, for the actors to experiment, and we had taken the whole space as representing the whole site. The decision is now made that the action will take us to different corners of the site, transformed with as few objects as feasible, supported by lighting, with only the actors involved in these transformations. Objects will be symbolic, maybe at times adapted versions of real objects, given the feel that fits with the overall pictures we want.
At the end of the day we have to say goodbye to Mera, who has been translating throughout, but who leaves tomorrrow for a month in India. Yerang who will replace her, visits to meet with Mera and pick up the baton.
In the evening most of the company watched Jasmin Vordiman's company in an impressively brutal piece called, Yesterday, and on the way back to their lodgings everyone was wondering if we could get more bare bottoms and physical violence into our show....
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Polyrythmns
Music day today, starting early with the gang making its way to Grove School in Handsworth.
Minato had asked for a chance to spend time with a group of young children, to collect their childhood songs, and we worked with a Year Two class [7 years old] for the morning. Drumming, clapping, dancing and singing their way through Japan, Korea and the UK, via Africa, America, India and Australia. It was another lively session, and Minato particlularly enjoyed the clapping games ['A sailor went to sea sea sea..']
Back in the rehearsal room we did a session filling in some of Blue's back story. Toyoko went into role as his mother, and we heard her anxieties for her son, with his special talents which are so aften misunderstood. The actors also improvised some name-calling and other episodes from his childhood, before we re-approached the moment where he is found, hidden in the building site. There was more poignancy, and tension around.
At lunchtime we went en masse to see CTC'c lovely production, Five, which is on in the Door, which will also be our venue for our world premier in May 2009. It was a timely visit - a play which is simple yet beautiful, with no language.
After lunch we talked a little about the morning workshop, and the roles of music within the play. Minato spoke about two musical elements which had symbolic power. One for him was the simple call and response, which the actors had done with children in the morning. This for Minato represents the communication between parent and child, missing in the case of Blue. It is an element which our play needs to contain, to represent the communication that is developed without language but across barriers.
The other symbolic concept we are now exploring is polyrythmn. African musicians had worked with him, presenting complex ways of putting together seemingly incompatible beats. Where this combination works, the different rythmns combine, while the individual is still in evidence. This echoes the symbolism central to the play - difference is at one time both surmountable and in itself to be celebrated. Whether this is the difference between the complementary primary colours of red blue and yellow, between Blue and the child seen as normal, between cultures and languages, or between the different rythmns of africa...all have this twin potential.
The music will provide a soundtrack, and yet be also an integral part of the storytelling. The production of Five had that element to it, although the musician was more of a character than ours is likely to be... Dance too, may be an element... in the world under the ground perhaps, and there will be many times when we are close to dance - digging, climbing etc. Or maybe the children themselves will sing and dance.
We also decided to explore at some time the inventing of a new tri-lingual clapping game of our own. Maybe three elemenst which complement each other...back to those polyrythmns again....
In the evening, the company watched the REP's own production of Wuthering Heights, and liked the set...we wondered how Byung Ho would feel if we came up with a set design like that, given that he wants ours to fit in as hand luggage.......
Minato had asked for a chance to spend time with a group of young children, to collect their childhood songs, and we worked with a Year Two class [7 years old] for the morning. Drumming, clapping, dancing and singing their way through Japan, Korea and the UK, via Africa, America, India and Australia. It was another lively session, and Minato particlularly enjoyed the clapping games ['A sailor went to sea sea sea..']
Back in the rehearsal room we did a session filling in some of Blue's back story. Toyoko went into role as his mother, and we heard her anxieties for her son, with his special talents which are so aften misunderstood. The actors also improvised some name-calling and other episodes from his childhood, before we re-approached the moment where he is found, hidden in the building site. There was more poignancy, and tension around.
At lunchtime we went en masse to see CTC'c lovely production, Five, which is on in the Door, which will also be our venue for our world premier in May 2009. It was a timely visit - a play which is simple yet beautiful, with no language.
After lunch we talked a little about the morning workshop, and the roles of music within the play. Minato spoke about two musical elements which had symbolic power. One for him was the simple call and response, which the actors had done with children in the morning. This for Minato represents the communication between parent and child, missing in the case of Blue. It is an element which our play needs to contain, to represent the communication that is developed without language but across barriers.
The other symbolic concept we are now exploring is polyrythmn. African musicians had worked with him, presenting complex ways of putting together seemingly incompatible beats. Where this combination works, the different rythmns combine, while the individual is still in evidence. This echoes the symbolism central to the play - difference is at one time both surmountable and in itself to be celebrated. Whether this is the difference between the complementary primary colours of red blue and yellow, between Blue and the child seen as normal, between cultures and languages, or between the different rythmns of africa...all have this twin potential.
The music will provide a soundtrack, and yet be also an integral part of the storytelling. The production of Five had that element to it, although the musician was more of a character than ours is likely to be... Dance too, may be an element... in the world under the ground perhaps, and there will be many times when we are close to dance - digging, climbing etc. Or maybe the children themselves will sing and dance.
We also decided to explore at some time the inventing of a new tri-lingual clapping game of our own. Maybe three elemenst which complement each other...back to those polyrythmns again....
In the evening, the company watched the REP's own production of Wuthering Heights, and liked the set...we wondered how Byung Ho would feel if we came up with a set design like that, given that he wants ours to fit in as hand luggage.......
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Into the building site...
As the excitement of the first day makes way, Yeon is in the rehearsal room early, to build an obstacle course of material, and create our first version of the building site. Ladders, hoola hoops, rubber bands and plastic sheeting fill the room. Milk crates, are in a stack in the corner - smelling a little.
The first improvisation of the day sees the three children coming into the site and meeting. At first it is a little too simple, but at only the second attempt, the scene seems to fly...Yudai as Aka, is a fantasist - imagining himself as 007, overcoming his own litany of imagined dangers, in addition to the real ones. Young Ju is an appealing figure as Norang, following a little cat paw trail, wondering if she dares enter through this barrier, and crying out for Yoghurt. Daniel is hidden away, peeering meaningfully from though a crate. The impro is long and full of suggestion and invention.
The room is pretty full, with sometimes three translators, in addition to the thtee writers, Stage Manager and designer. Simon, our lighting designer, who will come with us to Korea in April, also drops in, as does Ohiro the composer, who came last night.
After letting the improvisation run on for a long time, there is applause as it finishes. So many notes already written. We have time only for a quick rehearsal of the outline of our school workshop, before it is time for a quick lunch, and then a little convoy.
Chandos School is close to the centre of Birmingham in one of the most diversely populated areas of the city. It is an impressively creative and approachable school, and the children gather round the team as we arrive into the playground...'who are you?'...'what do you do?'. There is a great atmosphere about the place.
For those of us from the UK the visits to schools in Korea and Japan were the highlights of the work there, and we hope of course that the same will be true in reverse. Certainly the welcome at Chandos is impressive, especially considering they were not really expecting an invasion of 14 people into their staffroom. There is such an air of friendliness about the place. It is an important session, because the class of Yaer Five children we are working with will be attached to the production from today right through until May, working with me towards their own performance drawn from the same themes. Their ideas and level of engagement with the afternoon workshop is great - meeting the company, and then the actors in role as the characters, watching a short scene and then creating their own suggestions through drama. We asked them about the scnee where the children dig down to 'Brazil', the perfect world down on the other side of the planet. What would their perfect world be like?
Their tableaux reflect worlds with sport and shopping, rest and freedom. they show travel through space, and wishes being granted. One thing is clear from the session - children love digging, and their visions for a utopia are rich with possibilities. It is an energising and stimulating session, and the company comes away buzzing.
Back at the theatre there is time for two hours of drumming, while the writers dissect the outcomes from another dense and exciting day. We are already feeling time ticking, but the atmosphere of discussion is serious and clear. These are writers with strong instincts, and clear sight - qualities that will be crucial if we are to get the practical tasks of the fortnight achieved, despite the slowness of rythmn which is the inevitable effect of translation. Ayako has devised a system of yellow and red cards which she waves if someone speaks for too long, or before translation is done - something which still happens all the time.
Tomorrow is a music day, and we have decided too that it is Blue day - a long discussion about Aspergers has helped us flesh out a little more of what the character background should be. Thursday is pencilled in for 'Grandmothers story', and 'digging', and then friday is 'monsters' day, and the next school visit. It all promises much......and I am tired already. Tired but happy.
The first improvisation of the day sees the three children coming into the site and meeting. At first it is a little too simple, but at only the second attempt, the scene seems to fly...Yudai as Aka, is a fantasist - imagining himself as 007, overcoming his own litany of imagined dangers, in addition to the real ones. Young Ju is an appealing figure as Norang, following a little cat paw trail, wondering if she dares enter through this barrier, and crying out for Yoghurt. Daniel is hidden away, peeering meaningfully from though a crate. The impro is long and full of suggestion and invention.
The room is pretty full, with sometimes three translators, in addition to the thtee writers, Stage Manager and designer. Simon, our lighting designer, who will come with us to Korea in April, also drops in, as does Ohiro the composer, who came last night.
After letting the improvisation run on for a long time, there is applause as it finishes. So many notes already written. We have time only for a quick rehearsal of the outline of our school workshop, before it is time for a quick lunch, and then a little convoy.
Chandos School is close to the centre of Birmingham in one of the most diversely populated areas of the city. It is an impressively creative and approachable school, and the children gather round the team as we arrive into the playground...'who are you?'...'what do you do?'. There is a great atmosphere about the place.
For those of us from the UK the visits to schools in Korea and Japan were the highlights of the work there, and we hope of course that the same will be true in reverse. Certainly the welcome at Chandos is impressive, especially considering they were not really expecting an invasion of 14 people into their staffroom. There is such an air of friendliness about the place. It is an important session, because the class of Yaer Five children we are working with will be attached to the production from today right through until May, working with me towards their own performance drawn from the same themes. Their ideas and level of engagement with the afternoon workshop is great - meeting the company, and then the actors in role as the characters, watching a short scene and then creating their own suggestions through drama. We asked them about the scnee where the children dig down to 'Brazil', the perfect world down on the other side of the planet. What would their perfect world be like?
Their tableaux reflect worlds with sport and shopping, rest and freedom. they show travel through space, and wishes being granted. One thing is clear from the session - children love digging, and their visions for a utopia are rich with possibilities. It is an energising and stimulating session, and the company comes away buzzing.
Back at the theatre there is time for two hours of drumming, while the writers dissect the outcomes from another dense and exciting day. We are already feeling time ticking, but the atmosphere of discussion is serious and clear. These are writers with strong instincts, and clear sight - qualities that will be crucial if we are to get the practical tasks of the fortnight achieved, despite the slowness of rythmn which is the inevitable effect of translation. Ayako has devised a system of yellow and red cards which she waves if someone speaks for too long, or before translation is done - something which still happens all the time.
Tomorrow is a music day, and we have decided too that it is Blue day - a long discussion about Aspergers has helped us flesh out a little more of what the character background should be. Thursday is pencilled in for 'Grandmothers story', and 'digging', and then friday is 'monsters' day, and the next school visit. It all promises much......and I am tired already. Tired but happy.
Monday, October 6, 2008
The next chapter - sunny Birmingham
The next frenetic period in the roller-coaster that is the 'Looking for Yoghurt' devising process is underway. Over the weekend, the members of the team flew in from various places, and on Monday we started work in the big rehearsal room at Birmingham REP.
We now have a cast in place, with a Birmingham trained actor, Danile Naddafy joining the team, and two of the actors from the workshops, Yudai and Young Ju playing the other two parts. Also involved practically for the first time is composer Ohiro Minato, and two locally based interpreters, Mera Seo and Yerang Seong. In addition we have the support now of the resources of the REP, which seem very lavish.
On Sunday, with total diregard for jetlag, we had a seven hour writer's meeting, to plan the two weeks ahead. It was a good feeling to be back together, and after the frustration of so limited a time in Okinawa, we have a schedule which should give us plenty of time for talking between the practical sessions. Our aim is simple - by the end of the two weeks we want to have our play, ready to take into rehearsals. There may well be a period of writing up, before this translates to being an actual first draft on paper - but we now know from experience that all the key decisions are best made when we are all in the same room.
On Monday all the work was around the three characters. The decisions on the synopsis were made right at the end of our workshops in Tokyo, and now that the play is cast we need to work with the actors to flesh out the three children. Certainly the first day of working on this was encouraging. daniel has leapt into the process well, and seems appropriate casting for the withdrawn Blue, while the energy of Young Ju [irrepressible and alwys so positive] and the physical fearlessness of Yudai contrast well. The actors were set the task of creating scrapbooks for their characters, and set off into Birmingham to find the perfect book. In the meantime, the writers planned the next stage.
We are working long full days, packing in the range of activities needed, and the REP has housed the company in flats in or around the theatre, which makes it all practically very easy. An invitation is being sent out to a range of people to see the work-in-progress at the end of the second week and so we will have to maintain that focus and work-rate right the way through. But as we begin, there is no sign that anyone will mind that.....
We now have a cast in place, with a Birmingham trained actor, Danile Naddafy joining the team, and two of the actors from the workshops, Yudai and Young Ju playing the other two parts. Also involved practically for the first time is composer Ohiro Minato, and two locally based interpreters, Mera Seo and Yerang Seong. In addition we have the support now of the resources of the REP, which seem very lavish.
On Sunday, with total diregard for jetlag, we had a seven hour writer's meeting, to plan the two weeks ahead. It was a good feeling to be back together, and after the frustration of so limited a time in Okinawa, we have a schedule which should give us plenty of time for talking between the practical sessions. Our aim is simple - by the end of the two weeks we want to have our play, ready to take into rehearsals. There may well be a period of writing up, before this translates to being an actual first draft on paper - but we now know from experience that all the key decisions are best made when we are all in the same room.
On Monday all the work was around the three characters. The decisions on the synopsis were made right at the end of our workshops in Tokyo, and now that the play is cast we need to work with the actors to flesh out the three children. Certainly the first day of working on this was encouraging. daniel has leapt into the process well, and seems appropriate casting for the withdrawn Blue, while the energy of Young Ju [irrepressible and alwys so positive] and the physical fearlessness of Yudai contrast well. The actors were set the task of creating scrapbooks for their characters, and set off into Birmingham to find the perfect book. In the meantime, the writers planned the next stage.
We are working long full days, packing in the range of activities needed, and the REP has housed the company in flats in or around the theatre, which makes it all practically very easy. An invitation is being sent out to a range of people to see the work-in-progress at the end of the second week and so we will have to maintain that focus and work-rate right the way through. But as we begin, there is no sign that anyone will mind that.....
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