Revalations...

What WAS that?

I think I was possessed for a bit today. On barely any sleep, and with this feeling of needing to get to the end of this play I forged ahead in the three sessions we had today and by halfway through the third session had reached - yes, you guessed it. The end of the play!

Exhausted, I told my cast (who had to come along for the mad whirlwind ride) that we were done, and could resume tomorrow.

"Lets RUN IT" said they.

Ok! Lets run it, I sat back, promised myself - and good boy that I was kept my promise - not to stop the run for any reason. IF they wanted to, they could, but I would sit back and watch it.

I first of all was entirely and utterly shocked that we managed to get to 'run' the second act today. I did not think it would happen any earlier that tomorrow afternoon.

So first I'm just shocked at me for managing in this fit of delirium, to pull this off.
But then, I sat back and watched.

Here's what struck me. In my effort to get to the end of the play - I feel like the second act seems to be infected with that directorial desire of mine. It runs to the end of the play. Three nice large musical numbers, one introducing the tribes, the second helping Gunadhaya learn their ways and language (which is ultimately what this play is about), and third, the writing of stories, all work. But ... there's no serious respite. I feel like the 7 years that I have just staged, goes by way too fast.

So now I guess I have to figure out where to put the brakes. Give the audience a moment to take it all in. I realise something about the way I direct. I like to give more than one piece of information at the same time, layer a scene so that 10 things are going on, and you have to stay alert to catch them. But If I can't take them all in while watching it as a director... how is my audience going to deal with this? Its like, I'm creating a play that is meant to be watched more than once. So I suppose breaking it up a bit is going to help, highlighting one significant moment to another, and stringing them out consecutively rather than simultaneously presenting them... OH The work!

I also think that given that we have written this as we go from scene to scene, keeping just a root structure in place and then devising accordingly, that there's been little room for character growth in some cases. Everyone of my actors know who thier charachter is, and has managed to create rather full stories for themselves that have helped them figure out thier journies through each scene (and helped me massively to actually write the play as we go along on our feet), but no space for how they react to the idea that the stories will be destroyed.

In part I think its probably that I haven't managed to significantly rationalize Gunadhaya's choice. Yet. Its interesting, the two actors playing Gunadhaya in the first and second act seem to have no agency, things are done to them, or they just respond to that which transpires around them. The actors playing them have been asked - for now - to just keep themselves, neutral, open to the events that happen to them. The character goes through the motions, the actors bear silent witness to see how they end up responding, what thier urges are. Going back to the source text for the adaptation, Tawney's Kathasaritsagar, I still can't find any significant drive in these charachters, which I suppose was the reason I wanted to explore it in the first place. What could posess a man to do what he did.

Partly because I don't know how to deal with this choice? Or could it be that there is nothing I can think of, nothign that strikes me - yet - from all the work we've created that could be the spark for a reason for him to commit what I constantly think of as a MAD MAD act.

Apart from his love for the queen. Which at one level, seems exactly the reason why he would destroy it, it makes sense. But its such an ... easy out from the problem.

I think its time for the final installment of Gunadhaya's story. As confounding as it feels to me right now, I like that suddenly I am wracked - in rehearsal - with the very issue that made me want to explore the play in the first place.

So things for me to think about in this structure.

1) Easing up the pace here and there and letting the play and audience breathe.
2) Working on why Gunadhaya would do what he did in search for further clarity.
3) I think developing the actors playing his charachter into thier full living breathing charachters to see what we discover from them now that we've put the other events in play.

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On another note, had a very intense moment with a young actor who plays a key part in the second half of the play. He's a born performer and entertainer, and uses it all the time to do things. But it gets in the way of his acting. So today starting when he sat down at the same table for breakfast, I introduced him to the notion of dropping his performance mask and seeing what lies beneath it. I joked about it then, we're going to drop the characther that is Rahul (his name, changed) and see if we can find the actor lying beneath.

In my various dealings with the language, and working with circles of concentration, and the idea of existing in a nil/null space. I just said.. we're going to find the shunya actor. the Nil / null / zero actor in you today. I spent the whole day getting him to 'do nothing' just mechanically perform everything. Invest nothing in it, ESPECIALLY not his performer persona. I was pretty hard on forcing him to stay away from that.

after a while of me insisting and stopping rehearsals every few seconds to not let him revert to form.. he started to get it. I kept pushing, insisting. He started to find things, other responses that crept up on him now that he was just doing, and listening, and not investing or premeditating, or reverting back to his safe ground of 'entertaining' us. He got it, it worked, he started to be in the moment, the mechanics kept him on course, and in a place where he could just stay open to what other characthres were saying and doing, and i think that was a whole new sensation for him which he didn't know how to compute. I think it was a bit too much to take in. He kind of lost it on stage, and after some comforting by me, assuring him that a) he was getting it, and b) me asking him to put his performer persona on hold was not me 'not liking or hating him' etc. It was all better. I felt so bad for taking him to that point, but I really think its helped.

Guess I discovered tough love today.

Post the final part of Gunadhaya's story tomorrow.