Tokyo Day Two

Good solid day again, with the group really beginning to gel together. The writer's meeting in the morning reflected on the first day in Tokyo and narrowed down on some areas to explore, also discussing how we would divide up activities, and run sessions. We also had to discuss the two workshops with children, which needed a different approach again from the ones in Seoul. We are going to have one each tomorrow and on Thursday which will leave us a solid devising day on Friday, before the producers meetings then, and our big writers meeting on Saturday morning.



In the practical session in the afternoon, we set up two big group improvisations, building on the 'construction site' improvisation which had worked so well in Seoul. They did a big improvisation on a building site again,and then another about children sneaking onto a wrecked ship, which then gets washed out to sea again. Both of these long sessions were very strong, with the japanese actors opening up visibly, perhaps drawn out by the energy of the group who have come from Seoul.

Toyoko was concerned about the office underneath the rehearsal room, which is in an old converted elementary school, with the stampede of all the actors playing as kids on the shipwreck, but we seemed to get away with it.

Mijeong improvised a story of what had been on the building site before, in role as a grandmother, and this was the most electric session of the workshop so far. They followed it up with a long passage, digging for the secret that would save them...

We had to finish exactly on time - to be clear by 5.30 - a clear little cultural difference here. 5.30 meant 5.30 exactly.