The Torment

Philippe Gaulier, master teacher of the clowns, has a book out called The Tormentor. It's an apt title. Torment is one of the key agonies of working in this field.

The more you work the further into the void you look. It's a place where everything is ridiculous: our behaviour, our competitiveness, our personalities, our beliefs, our mortality - it's all valid comic territory and nothing is taboo. The trick when sharing the stage is to stay light and not to react defensively and that's very hard as we ridicule the very principles by which we've each forged an existence.

It's a brave and frightened act all at once, and the rules of playing in such a universe seem to be ordained by a randomly provocative and cruel God, who mocks everything - on occasions the teacher performs the part.

The final exercise run by Kasia had Paka standing, red nosed, on stage repeating 'I don't know what I'm doing...' in as many ways as she could. The instruction was that she could add '...but it's ok!' but only when it actually was!

For twenty minutes Paka tried everything shouting, singing, running from up to downstage, in slow motion, one word at a time, apologising, laughing, in Spanish, magic tricks, etc etc etc. but, because we could accept such a performance, she never got to the 'it's ok!' She needed to do something else.

Eventually she gave up and stopped acting. Kasia drove her on and in exhaustion she looked at us and without act or attitude said

'I don't know what I'm doing ... but it's ok!' It was the first time she, the actor, met us, the audience with the simple truth.

Get Off!!!

We're clowning a lot with Kasia now and I'm really enjoying it. My stamina is improving and I'm finding much more pleasure at simply being on stage. Slowly, I'm just doing things for the joy of doing them rather than thinking through survival strategies (or tic tacs as Kasia calls them) in advance.

It's hard to trust that something of interest will develop organically on stage and it's even harder to allow your carefully prepared personality to drop a little - but when it does and a more vulnerable persona emerges its electrifying for the audience. Most of us are finding it shocking to recognise how many physical gestures and speech patterns are habitual and we all make ourselves cringe from time to time when we fall back to the safety of our little tricks. When this happens the struggle is to bounce back and stay open to the real possibilities of the situation.

Occasionally I just withdraw, give up and want to get off. I also sense I'm better in minor, supporting a proposition from another actor, than I am taking the major focus. In reality I'm delighted to be still in the mix and still producing work eight days in.

The group changed for this second week, which has brought a new dynamic. There are slightly more of us on board, but the mood is still light, supportive and occasionally giggly. We're also getting fantastic - if a bit competitive - at volleyball, which we devote at least an hour a day to.

I'll be sad when the week ends.

Whole Lotta Love?

The Olympics have come to an end. I've struggled to watch this week, partly because I'd got used to the twelve hour difference between the States and China which meant a Michael Phelps swim at 10am Beijing time would mean inevitable victory at 10.01pm the previous evening in Indianapolis. Halving this time deficit by crossing the Atlantic meant I wasn't really sure what was going on when so I kind of drifted away.

Today though at the closing ceremony London, as the inheritor of the games for 2012, had eight minutes to make a splash and I watched with interest to see how we would represent ourselves. (I'm still trying to see how the Cultural Olympiad 2012 might be a genuinely inspiring event in its own right.) In the end the show was neat, quirky and tidy. Threads of visual and aural iconography ran through to remind the world that Britannia is still an equal partner with Cool in our cultural make over. Most countries seem to assimilate the new into the old, but we seem fixated in sampling the old in the modern. Strains of Greensleeves and Jerusalem mixed up with punk beefeaters, Leona Lewis dueting with grey haired, but still virile enough to lick a rift, Jimmy Page and David Beckham kicking a ball out of a Double Decker bus that turned ingeniously into a privet hedge.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/london_2012/7577999.stm

So we're funky, energised, ironic, eclectic, slightly eccentric - in a Boris Johnson stylee - proud of our symbols and not lacking a sense of playfulness - albeit on our own terms. (We are after all the world's great rule makers.) Economically the games cost, but it's also an opportunity to cash in, in the short term - which means defining yourself in the most marketable and uncritical way possible. We need to be positive until it hurts.... it can't be great art, but it's where spectacle finds a niche.

Yet through all of today's display is still a very British sense of precision and self containment. You'll be very welcome here, as long as you don't mess...

It's the charming menace of the man in the pub who claps his hand on your shoulder in a display of seeming protection and flashing his teeth with a pearly smile says...

'Welcome to London, my old son! It's your round I think.'

Timon of Athens

I'm just back from the Globe, where I've been to see Timon of Athens. I've only seen the play once before when Michael Pennington took the lead role, at the RSC ten years ago.

It's a tough text, partly because the last two acts take place in a muddy hovel where Timon, a bitter self-exile from Athens, tries to work out the value of riches. I've always thought it a clever morality piece, exploring the selfishness of bargained generosity, a slightly cynical attack on altruism and a fairly dark look at the human condition. A stripped down King Lear. When I last saw it the philosophical dialogue between the extremes of indulgence and frugality, set beyond a definable space or time, reminded me most of Samuel Beckett.

This production, directed by Lucy Bailey, focused more on the greed of Timon's flatterers rather than the lead character's own psychological flaws. We had aerialists playing bungee birds of prey, swooping in from the roof of the Globe as creditors literally scavenging his gold, and finally feeding in a frenzy on his very bones. It was a neat idea - but the costumes felt rather literal and didn't always help support the movement work. In the end the amount of rope, harnesses and visible pulleys allowed us to neither freely enjoy the illusion nor be surprised by the actors dexterity. Michael Boyd has been exploring the vertical as a metaphor for both power and time in his gargantuan histories project at Stratford over the past few years and this work felt clumsy in comparison.

Other images in the production nodded towards the surreal dystopian paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, but the production didn't push through with this idea - a shame as the nightmare vision of a world without compassion or logic seems a viable direction to take the play and may have given more edge to the softy vultures swooping, without danger, above our heads.

Sidelines and Centre Stage.

Acting is a brave thing to do. I've always known this, but Kasia's course is a real reminder of the difficulties involved with staying light and fresh enough to earn your place on stage.

It's so much about trusting your body and I'm finding that my best work comes when I'm slightly detached from my thoughts (being jet lagged, it turns out, was a bonus.) The moment I plan or predict the next action is the moment everything freezes and I become self-consciously hung out to dry. Excruciating for me, boring for the audience. My scoundrel's refuge has always been in ideas and language and even on day two the deficiency of this default defence is beginning to reveal itself (especially as occasionally this leads me to think that ideas without action are enough!)

A lot of our work is based on pre-performance, training us to be in a position to both grasp the major focus of the audience's attention, whilst also finding strategies and conventions through which we can trust and play together. The mat work, focused on realigning our spines, is already giving me a bit of an energy boost.

It feels full on, but the group are kind, and every time somebody falls on their face, there is both support for the risk they took and encouragement for them to try again. The truth is I'm really enjoying myself.

Back to Work.

It's Monday. I'm back in St.Mary's and trying to catch up a bit. Former Simmarian Rebecca Romero won a gold in the cycling in Beijing over the weekend, which prompted smiles all round and with seven other athletes who connect to the University. It's a very happy and expectant campus to return to.

It's also day one of Kasia's Physical Theatre summer school so I'm fighting the jet lag by running around the theatre. I'm really pleased I've signed up though as it gives me a chance to work with Kasia as a student and really understand how much she gives as a lecturer.

From September we start three pathways through the degree programme. Theatre Arts, Applied Theatre and Physical Theatre but all of the staff are very keen that we should find common links between these. One idea, which I've really grown into, is the thought that the three programmes might share a foundation performance course, which would give all our undergraduates a basic vocabulary and approach to rehearsals and performance. It would enable us to genuinely share our work and encourage the students to appreciate good practice on the programme, which ever pathway it was coming from. With that in mind it's great to take part and see where Kasia's own training has led her. It's also just fun and liberating as a lecturer to be taught by a colleague.

We varied the work - some games, some direct performance skills and an hour of Feldenkreiss mat work. By the end I was tired but happy not to be completely out of my depth.

The Art of Seed Spitting.

A final right of passage and the end of Americana was a visit to the Indiana State Fair, with eight assorted members of the Hahn tribe.

The ever effervescent Pop Hahn has only missed one fair in the last 65 years and eagerly took on the role of guide. For me the apparent highlight was a chance to see the two largest pigs in the world - but Pop kept us in suspense for this moment by taking us methodically from exhibition hall to exhibition hall, past tractors, remarkable pumpkins, pampered roosters, home grown tomatoes and rural crafts.

After three hours of rigourous agricultural showcase, we stumbled across a Watermelon Seed Spit Competition. Matt did well - over 25 feet, but my trajectory was all wrong and I barely cleared 12. The Hoosier in the stetson next in line analysed my technique with me.

'You were all up - it went real high, but the seed's so little you need to bust it out yer mouth like a bullet, you were floating it like a paper aeroplane.'

Pop Hahn was on the move again and I had to feign interest in the a talk by the world's fastest Omelette maker to avoid the dog splaying demonstration, which he was keen on attending.

Finally we arrived at the big pigs and had our photos taken with them before refuelling on deep fried gherkins, Pepsi donuts, root beer ice cream sodas and a mountain of thin cut fries... most people leave the fair feeling happy but squiffy and we didn't break with tradition.

...and I'm now the proud owner of an All Indiana Watermelon Seed Spitting Competition participant's pendant!

God Bless America!