Shakespeare's Sonnets

Dir. Robert Wilson

Great! So here we are, back in New Zealand Wellington Newtown. The piece Ich Warte has been put to rest. But we saw so many shows that I still need to tell you about!

The one I'm itching to scribble down is this one!

Shakespeare's Sonnets directed by Robert Wilson, music by Rufus Wainwright, performed by and at The Berliner Ensemble.

The way the funding system works in Berlin, we bought ten euro (fifteen nzd) student tickets for incredible seats at the most prestigious theatre in the whole of Germany. We've been told that the big 5 theatres in Berlin get first off a flat sum of funding. THEN one hundred to one hundred and fifty euros per seat they fill. Therefore, we paid squat for our centre circle tickets.

So. On to the show.

The basic summary of the show:

- Twenty four sonnets.
- Various archetype characters (cupid, jester. boy, girl, Queen Elizabeth I and II, Shakespeare)
- Wicked and incredible music
- Clowning
- All roles were gender-swapped

This is an actor called Jurgen Holtz playing Elizabeth the First.

This is Jurgen again with another lead, Inge Keller, who played Shakespeare. She was EIGHTY NINE!

Anyway, enough of the overview.

An effective element of this show was also a quality we became accustomed to in German Theatre. Things don't have to make sense. At one point three characters are revealed next to three enormous, cartoon-style petrol pumps. As each character joins in on the song the numbers on the pump begin to turn. Then at the height of the song a bowler hat that has been on stage the whole time begins to rotate and float up into the air. This kind of 'absurdity' is empowering to watch. As a maker I watch this work and I realise, 'it's ok if the audience don't entirely get what I'm doing all the time'. In fact it's better in my taste. Robert Wilson is the polar opposite of spelling things out for the audience. Sure, sometimes he's all 'cupid with a bow and arrow' and 'snakes and apples', but for the most part he is brave in the way he slaps images on top of text.

There was also a highly crafted, stylistic movement and vocal choreography. Every action from every actor was tested, decided upon and performed with precision. The fact that there was a large cast with an intricate set and the performance style was very extreme made the consciousness of the construction. But I reckon it's still valid to work with this decisive but extreme style in a smaller form. For example, my solo.

Love you still, Tom.

The Return

I've made it back to you, Newtown, but I keep having these dreams of Berlin. I love you. But I just need to talk it out. You understand if I review some shows even though I've come back...

Don't you?

A Few Practicalities

Hey Newtown,

If you are interested in reading the script of the show we did at Ernst Busch you can email me on:

tom.c.eason@gmail.com

and I'll check with the company if I can squeeze it to you.


Also I saw a lot of theatre in Germany. I've let you know about a couple of Ernst Busch shows I saw but there's heaps more. So, I will chuck you reviews periodically of them. Here's a list of what's to come:


Nachtasyl (The Night Asylum): By Ernst Busch students at Schaubuhne C Theatre

Eugine Onegin: At Schaubuhne B Theatre

The Return of Ulysses: At Schaubuhne A Theatre

The Power of Darknes: At Schaubuhne B Theatre

Hell on Earth: By Dorky Park and youth at Hau 2 Theatre

Shakespeare's Sonnets: By Robert Wilson at Berliner Ensemble

Das Ding: By Ersnt Busch students at Deutches Theatre


So yes, wow, lots to tell you my friend!

Tom.

Toi Whakaari Vs. Ernst Busch: Super Showing Showdown

Hey Newtown, my one and only,

No one knows me like you do. I miss you heaps of heaps. We are coming home! I'm in San Fransisco. But here's a blog about the last thing we did in Berlin.

So we arrive at Ersnt Busch at around 11.30am and set up for our showing. We'd been given the Heinz Theatre, their largest, on site theatre. So we stripped all the seats and put them on stage in a messy circle, then closed the front curtain to bring it all a bit closer.

After a voice warm up with Runa's personal voice tutor we readied ourselves to show the piece we had explored for a whole month and built in two days.

The doors were closed right up to the time, then we let in around fifty Ernst Busch students and tutors to take a seat on the stage. It was difficult doing it this way. We couldn't make individual connections as strong as we had at the Brotfabrik because the audience was in a kind of stampede formation. The quality of an audience and company working together is much more suited to opening the doors much earlier than people will show up, then the people trickle in and individual or small group conversations can be had.

Anyways! They came in and sat down. The formation of chairs was set up so that we were all in a massive circle.

Harry Fuhrman gives us a fantastic introduction and we go for it! The stakes as actors were higher in this place, being watched by acting and directing students, and acting tutors. I am extremely stoked that we didn't feel the need to push for these stakes though. They helped us get a bit more sharp in places, but on the whole I think the opening we have been crafting, where we ask the audience questions like, "Stand up if you speak english" and "Has anyone been to New Zealand?", helped to change the quality of the relationship to 'co-creators' rather than 'presenter - receptacle'.

The piece itself went well.

Tai in the Medallion Scene with an found Trigorin (as I give whisper prompts).

Two acting students in the Backstage Scene as Konstantin and Nina.

The Success Scene with me as Nina on mic and the company as Trigorin.

Afterwards there was a very rich discussion. It started as a casual talk from mostly our end about how we made the different elements of the show which was ok. But as soon as Jaci asked how they felt about the opening the discussion kicked off! It very quickly became the students arguing with each other about what worked and what didn't. Probably the most effective audience feedback session I have been a part of. The areas covered were:

Audience incorporation

'Live' performance, what is required for this?

Stage-fright

What is the role of community in performance?

...massive. All in all, closing the work with a bang. The reflection the next day showed that, although this company is rounding off, the work is shooting out into many different directions as Holly, Tai, Jaci, Andrew and myself carry the experience back to New Zealand, Ben goes to Australia, Runa, Willem and Thomas remain in Germany. We all have taken different threads, successes and lessons and will be slamming them into our work for years to come.

Thanks for listening, as always, Newtown

Love from Tom.

Ps. four more sleeps.

The Third Type of Ich Warte

So, Newtown!

We showed at Brotfabrik twice. The third re-incarnation of the project Ich Warte. After two days (off) learning lines and two days making we performed our version of The Seagull. We made a fifty-five minute show in around fourteen hours.

This is the Brotfabrik!

It looks big but that's because there is a cinema in there too. Our space looked like this:

We were pretty chuffed to have a space like this after Spandau... Where we could do a decent physical warm-up and felt pro-active rather then lethargic. Plus they have an incredible volunteer staff network who rigged all our lights and mopped the floors before we even got in on our opening night! Mad props.

Our set, with scripts. Continuing the transparency in the work: 

So after the scramble of getting the structure into place we opened our show on the 10th to a really warm bunch of Berliners. Sebastian Sommer came which was awesome, as well as a few people from the New Zealand Embassy in Berlin. It was a full house and we were allowed to find our feet in the work. 

Both nights went amazingly well. Here are some things we were working on:

How can we make found performers look as good as possible in their roles?

How can the storyteller always be present, especially in a dramatic situation?

How can much of a community can we make with of a group of strangers? 

What rhythmic variation is possible within the set text?

Here we are having our first real Berlin curtain call. These can go for ten minutes, depending on the performance and the calibre of the ensemble. Ours was around two minutes long, which is still unexpected, cause, you know, Newtown, you get two bows max in Wellington. You can see our found performers with us. They played Nina, Konstatin and Trigorin at different points in the show:

Love Tom.

Making in a bread factory (Bakery would be so jealous)

Hey Newtown,


Here again. Ok!


So Brotfabrik is the German word for 'bread factory', and also the name of the cinema and theatre space we are making a show that we perform tomorrow. I haven't been messaging as often because this show is such a brave and massive undertaking! We each have a few scenes of The Seagull to learn PLUS I have been given the opportunity to keep working the storytelling techniques I was trying in the first showing to write the connecting pieces that will join our performed scenes together! Awesome excitement all the time! Yes... so I've been writing that. It is all done! Here is a little example, this is what we will open the show with:

Tai:               The Park on an estate

Ben:              A lake, a seagull

Tom:             A wide avenue

Runa:            A rough stage

Andr:            Prepared for an amateur theatrical performance

Jaci:              A single work of art

Tai:               Rough amateur

Ben:             Work of art

Andr:            Theatrical performance rough stages just the curtain open space no scenery

Tom:            Konstantin is a playwright

Ben:             Nina is an actress they are in love

Runa:           Arkadina is Konstantin’s mother an old actress

Jaci:             Trigorin is her lover a novel writer

Andr:           And I am Konstantin

Jaci:             And I am Nina

Runa:           And I am Arkadina

Ben:             And I am Trigorin

Tom:            And I am Konstantin

Tai:              And I am Nina and I am the seagull

Andr:           And an actress

Ben:             And I am Arkadina

Runa:           And I am Trigorin and this floor is Trigorin 


And so on.


So that's been the bulk of my life lately. I am very excited to be writing and I feel really supported by the collective in finding my voice in the work. 


Today was a case of running the storytelling rhythms and testing the actions of the performed scenes. In the performed scenes it's important to note we haven't got set casting, so in the first scene the actors will be audience members. In one scene later on Andrew, Ben and I play Arkadina while Jaci plays Trigorin. We are having fun with the quality of combination of casting. I will play Nina in the fifth scene which I am excited and terrified about. We are testing it tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes. I feel an enormous amount of potential in the form of work we are making. We show tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.


Tom. 

Mighty Mighty Spandau

Dear Newtown,

I haven't heard from you in so long. I miss you so so much. The past few days have been massive! We did another showing! This one was entirely different to the one at the castle studio.

In every way.

The space looked like this:

It was so full-on. Colours everywhere, a massive banner, mismatched everything. But very cosy. Just completely different atmosphere to the clean, crisp Mime Centrum.

In three days we reflected on the Mime Centrum showing, projected to the show we wish to make for the Brotfabrik sessions and devised a site specific work.

We decided to settle on the story of The Seagull, focussing specifically on the four lovers: Konstantin, Nina, Arkadina and Trigorin. We also committed to exploring further the qualities of performance we found at the castle.

What are the qualities of a storytelling?

How can we free the audience and actors' imagination in the way we cast the play?

How can we fill the gaps of the story we aren't performing?

How can storytelling and performance be paralleled, staggered and mashed together?

The show at Spandau was an exploration of the first act, without restricting ourselves to the forms we will be using in the Brotfabrik showings. It reminded me of the work my group did in TakuRua at school. Very naturalistic and cinematic with surrealist layering. We turned the space into a green room for the play-within-the-play in Act One of The Seagull. 


I'm going to leave you for five minutes so I can write another blog about what we're doing at Brotfabrik. Stay strong, Newtown, I love you.

Tom.

Closing 2011 with a Showing!

Hello again, Newtown!

So after our five days off over Christmas our young theatre company set ourselves back on the task of developing the material we had constructed. In the past three days we have distilled our research and exploration and presented it in a showing. In the first two days we discuss and experiment how we wish to present.

What is the quality that will invite the audience to observe, interact, participate as a collaborating stranger?

What does this look like in the body and breath of a performer?

What is the border between relaxed and arrogant?

How do you know when you cross it?

How precise can we be about the qualities we wish to craft into our pieces?

Willem worked with us on the seven (I think) energy states from the book Improvisation in Rehearsal by John Abbott. It basically separates the physical commitment to the target of an actor or storyteller into quantitive sections. From catatonic to hysterical. We figured out what we reckon was the best for each section of our work. Relaxed is quite attractive to play, it helps of I'm a bit nervous about a piece or need the audience to buy in quickly. However, it is a bit too seductive and I can get stuck in it if I don't stay conscious to what the story needs. I also find it tricky to switch into 'character' from a relaxed storyteller quality. So with these kinds of questions, as well as base purpose questions we approached our scenes.

What am I trying to show about the character / story?

Does my treatment of the text aid this?

Am I just being zany?

What is the tactic I am playing on the audience with this treatment of the text?

In two and a half days we crafted a showing. Our character scenes interspersed with youtube, verbatim mash-ups and sound-scapes from Thomas solid-as-a-rock Press.

The showing itself was last night and was a super fun time.

We greeted the audience at the door with cushions and invited them to sit in the middle of the room. Willem gave a quick welcome and we set off. The audience was much larger than we thought it would be, but we had made the decision that the working could be as transparent as we needed it to be, so we could openly ask them to move, or let them know a better view was somewhere else. This quality extended into the scenes as well. With Andrew and Jaci admitting at the open of their piece that they were having trouble presenting the story of Nina and Konstantin in The Seagull. They showed a few failed attempts as well as when they thought they were closer to the treatment. This honesty, I think, led to a easy transition into a three scenes performed by two audience members with headphones, repeating lines from Andrew and Jaci.

Successes include:

The welcome. In true Toi styles, we surely can bring an audience into a space and get them ready to view a piece in a particular way.

Nina and Konstantin. Completely selfless sharing of character between Andrew, Jaci and two audience members.

Ben seamlessly folding verbatim interview material he had harvested at the beginning of his chapter into his monologue as Astrov.

The later two became the focus of our project from here on, and I am psyked. These both capitilise on our strength as leaders in a room and community builders as well as challenging us to work harder in the moment of performance.

This post has fermented a little. Hope it makes it to you fresh enough.

Love you Newtown, I can't picture your face anymore, that's a bit weird don't you think?

Tom.

I leave you with a happy new years present of photo essay of the performances not mentioned.

Hey Newtown! Merry Christmas I love you!

So you'll be waking up soon and opening your presents. Mine won't get there in time, soz about it! I thought I give you a double blog as a present!

A couple of things I meant to give you earlier. Here's us walking to the Mime Centrum, the castle is called Bethanien:

Looking at photos like this make me very, very content with my decision to travel to Berlin for secondment. It is an amazing place to be making work.

We rehearse looking out the windows just under the bell tower. Wowzers.

Another thing I wanted to tell you... we went to an Ernst Busch show! It was around one third of the fourth year class and holy mother... they had massive chops.

First some facts about Ernst Busch we have learnt:

Over 2,000 people apply
Each class has 20 people
It is a 4 year course
It costs around 1,000 New Zealand dollars a year
Travel to and from the school is paid for by the government
Each student gets 1.5 hours of one on one voice coaching per week
Every student will graduate with a job
A job for them means a 2 year contract with an ensemble
Ensembles cast these students in 10 to 12 shows per year

So that's that.

The show we watched was called Leonce and Lena and Runa was playing the lead lady, Lena.

Man, Newtown, I talked about wanting to be precise in my work. These guys destroyed me.

The dude in white plays Leonce. He has a monologue to start the piece, it is around ten minutes long. At about half way through he took a single step forward, and I realised to myself... He has had me on the edge of my seat, laughing with my eyes wide open like an exited little kid, with a language I don't understand, in a story I don't know, for around five minutes.

And he didn't even move from the spot.

But he was working so hard! The extremity he was finding was jaw-dropping. The entire company were on peak form. The guy in yellow above jumped like that approximately twenty times while speaking a lengthy text, and we heard every syllable. Just the stamina. It was a bizarre show. I loved every second. A company launching into a piece.

Merry Christmas, Tom.

Christmas Eve

I miss you Newtown,

I haven't spoken to you for ages. I've been so so so busy. So now the cool thing is I can send you a really long blog about what I've been doing. Hey Newtown, how come you don't write back?

Anyways, we have been slamming it as a company. For three mornings this week we've been in on the Mime Centrum classes. Day one, 'Suzuki Method, Yoga and Viewpoints' with Aleksandar Acev. We were collectively stoked and simultaneously sore and happy. Day two, 'Corporeal Mime' with a classic dude, Oliver Pollak invoking similar powers to our own Tom McCrory;

"accidents happen, bad things can happen, so we smile and we wait for the accidents"

Day three, 'Voice in the Body' with Fredericke Schroeder. These classes kicked us into a massive work ethic for our making in the afternoons...

which went like this.

On the Monday we grouped at Willem's house. We had each downloaded a soundscape track Thomas Press had sent us the night before and put it on our ipods. The task this afternoon was to travel on the U7 train from Sudstern towards Rathaus Spandau listening to the track and recording any moments that we noticed. We then got back to Willem's house and recreated moments from this journey. We were interested in how the mundane is transformed into the surreal.

"For it to be mundane, nothing can be mimed" says Holly.

Tuesday after a massive movement session we really took the piece into Berlin. Whereas the day before we had been unseen observers of Berlin life, we now set out with dictaphones and ipods to harvest the voice of Berlin's biggest Weinachsmakt (Christmas Market). One team was to record Berliners listening to our monologues and re-voicing them. The other was a more simple interview exercise, to interview people about the themes of Chekhov and record their thoughts. Sometimes its really hard to just walk up and talk to strangers. This quote from Gob Squad helps:

"We are interested in you, and we will try to get something out of you. Sometimes it can be a little embarrassing, but we are embarrassing."

From this I get the vibe that they are all entrenched in the necessity of their pieces. They are embarrassed, the audience are embarrassed, but that is not the point. The point is the material, what comes from the interaction. We found an amazing lady. Her name was Heidi. We didn't track her down through the crowds and pursue the interview, we just rocked up to a table with our Gluhwein and fell into a conversation. She would flow from giving incredibly intimate stories from her life into musical numbers.

Later that day we tripped to a station called Rathaus Schoneburg. The idea was to bring the characters we had been working on together with our observation and experience in the space and make a short scene individually. It felt stale. I don't know why, Newtown, maybe the cold, maybe we were restricted by the mundane we had been researching. Jaci's was the only work to break the rhythm of the space and bring the surreal to the mundane.

For the next two days we developed from the task of telling the story of our character. Experimenting with the role and quality of a storyteller and the contrast between telling the story and performing a scene. Mines going well. I am being pushed by Holly and Willem to find other notes other than where I am comfortable and be precise and conscious about what I am doing with my body and voice. These are two points I was hoping to work on during secondment so I'm stoked.

Now its Christmas Eve and the fridge is full of food and a little christmas tree is on the table.

Miss you Newtown, Tom.

Jamming it out, Kreuzberg style

Sup Newtown,

We have settled in to our studio home away from Toi. It is the Mime Centrum within the massive castle in Kreuzberg, southwest Berlin. One tram, two U-Bahn stops and a little walk from our warm as apartment in Prenzlauer Berg. I'll show you a photo of the outside tomorrow. As well as, hopefully, some squatter camps we walk past on the way there! But for now, here is the awesome foyer:

And Transistor Collective walking up the stairwell to our Studio space, squatters occupied this castle for years until The Man threatened to knock the building down. Hence, the graffiti:

Here is us in a discussion circle:

And the view from our Studio, thats a skateboard ramp constructed in the courtyard of the castle, juxtapositions like this are what make Berlin kick-ass:

The past two days have been really energising. We are working as a company of seven actors (Ben, who joins us after a year traveling after being in Long Cloud Youth Theatre with Willem, us four Toi students as well as Florian and Runa from Ernst Busch), Thomas Press our sound designer and the directing team of Willem and Holly. 

Yesterday we worked with game and improv in the morning. Mr. Hit, epic length Space Jump and Maui Matau. In the afternoon we shared images and short scenes from our research. It was interesting to see that there was a strong flavour to the Toi Whakaari offers: distinctly physical and abstracted.

In the afternoon a Laboratory Playground was constructed for us by Thomas, Holly and Willem. It looked like this:

This playground seeded our company with postdramatic thoughts that began to feed into today.

Todays session was full of Laban and Brecht. We are exploring the Chekhovian worlds through many methodologies leading up until Christmas. After the marathon of exploring each effort with simultaneous care and extremity, for Willem is making sure we don't lock down an effort as an emotion, we explored our characters' monologues from each state. After this we had ten minutes to make a scene in our play group, mine being Three Sisters, with Florian and Runa. We were to explore the following things: the distance between the actor and the character, the role of the storyteller in relation to the audience, a moment or idea from our play and the discoveries we had made from today's Laban work. Actually, at the time, Newtown, it didn't seem so daunting, but looking back the results were very fruitful considering the dramaturgical juggling act posed to us. We are getting closer to the treatment, or at least approach to the work we want to employ.

Here are some pics from the day: 

I'm going to sleep. But your probably just waking up, Newtown. Crazy. I'll skype you soon.

Love, Tom.

3 Days Down

Wowzers Newtown,

Lovely to talk again! So after two and a half full days of non-stop travel we've been living it up, shopping, theatre-going and drinking in Berlin!

Last night we saw a soon-to-be member of our Transistor Collective theatre company, Florian, performing in his show, Die unheimliche Wiederkehr des Arthur Craven. (The Uncanny Return of Arthur Craven)

The show was almost entirely in German and was performed in an old cabaret hall with the audience space was encircled by market style stalls and a bar. Willem and I were talking after the show, he has also seen Florian in his Ernst Busch production of Troilus and Cressida, and something that stuck him is the precision Florian has been trained to have. The character was quite anarchic and shocking but the "sloppiness" was calculated and heavily crafted. We also talked to Florian, who had just finished the sixth season of this piece. He mentioned how the show was originally crafted for a smaller space. You know the townhall, Newtown? It was about that size, and I think the first few seasons were in spaces more like BATS or a Toi Whakaari studio. It felt like he was busting up against the distance created by the elevated stage. Arthur Craven would pound down the stairs to enter the audience space but it would feel contrived and unnatural, and it remained two separate spaces. There were great moments. The band members doubling as extras offered loads of chemistry. At one point they refused to play as Arthur Craven enters Barcelona. "Wo ist mein MARIACHI MUSIK?". This leads to discussions about the band not being paid and a discussion on what theatre is. 

All in all a solid first Berlin theatre experience. Plus it was followed by a hip-hop / mask performance:

... one song was called, "Stop the music, and shit on the dance floor" and thats all I have to say about that.

Love you, Newtown.

Tom.

Got to go.

This is it, Newtown. Here comes the train. Its time to go. Are you ok? You look all sad and rainy. I don't mean to leave you like this, but Berlin is waiting... Don't be like that, Newtown. Give us a hug.

I've packed all my warmest clothes, ready to devise theatre in minus twenty degrees.  I'll send you blogs all the time while I'm away.

Plans have sky-rocketed since we last spoke. Willem has been epic with preparation. He has discovered a training institution inside a castle called Mime Centrum where we can train in for two hours every morning, ranging from viewpoints and biomechanics to LeCocq styles. We will be constructing our exploration of 'waiting' across five settings: a studio in the Mime Centrum, a low-tech studio in suburban Spandau, the public trains of Berlin, a black box called Brotfabrik and the Ernst Busch Dramatic Academy.

Epic.

Have a nice summer, Newtown. All good if we crash on your couch when we get back?


Much Love, Tom.



ps. here are the things I was talking about.

Training centre in a castle:
http://www.mimecentrum.de/index_en.htm

Suburban, brutalist Spandau:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandau_(locality)

Underground trains in Berlin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_U-Bahn

Black box theatre:
http://www.brotfabrikberlin.de/

Ernst Busch:
http://www.hfs-berlin.de/

Ernst Busch

Dear Newtown,

This is something about you I will miss. Today was spring. But I can't stop thinking about Berlin! It will be much colder than Wellington, but we have just heard news that we may be working with Ersnt Busch School of Dramatic Art! Willem is in the process of hooking it up. We will more than likely rehearse in their spaces, work closely with their final year students and perform for the school at the end of our time there!

 There are massive differences in our methodologies between schools, so this blog will hopefully hold an analysis of that difference and our learning while working inside that difference. Try not to be jealous, Newtown. But I'm meeting new people...

Tom.

Berlin Baby!

Dear Newtown,

We're still hanging out for now, but when we all go to Berlin to work with Willem Wassenaar on his show, Ich Warte / I Wait, we still want to talk to you about all the interesting moments of our process and performance art that we see. So then there is this blog! Tell your friends, Newtown, because Holly, Andrew, Tai, Jaci and me will be blogging practically non-stop with awesome schtuff.

Thank you for listening, Newtown,

Tom.