Another meeting, this time with playwright Bryony Lavery, who is starting work on a dramatisation of The Wicked Lady for us. When I first read this novel about a highwaywoman I felt it would be right up Bryony’s street, so it’s good to set the ball rolling with a get-together today.
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A meeting with aerialist Vicki Amedume. I saw her company, Upswing, performing at the Decibel showcase in Birmingham last year. Only a short excerpt of their piece, Loved Up, was staged, but it was enough for me to see what an exhilarating medium she’s working in. Talking about the piece Vicki said she was keen to perform in the round and, having explored the dance aspect of the piece with Jonzi D, now wished to push the narrative aspect further. So I was keen to meet up with her and talk about how we might collaborate as a company, and for her to see our wonderful performance space.
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The New Vic is a limited company and our stakeholders include three local authorities and the Arts Council, so once every two months or so we meet with the Trustees to report on what we’ve been doing and what we’re going to be doing.
I report on the artistic product – what plays we’ve done, and what the upcoming seasons are going to be, plus a briefing on what Borderlines and Educational work we’re doing.
The Managing Director reports on a wealth of other information – last night, it included progress on fundraising for the new building and the year’s finances.
The Head of Marketing reports on audiences, including box office figures and the various ways we keep in touch with audience members. The Board members, who have a wide range of experience between them (business, the law, the education sector, theatre) use the advantage of being able to see the wood for the trees to suggest other paths we might follow. It’s always a useful meeting, and the only forum in which the Managing Director and I might receive a pat on the back. But the meeting always happens at the end of a long day after a skipped supper, so I’m never at my best for them. I’m a morning person – which, in an industry populated by night owls, is rare but not always useful.
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The Education Department works with learners of all ages. One of the groups we run, Revolve, is for adults who want to glimpse behind the scenes at the New Vic.
The group, which comprises people who are passionate about theatre, often avid audience members or people who make theatre themselves in their spare time, meets three times during the course of a production. For Great Expectations, the first session was spent watching a rehearsal. I found it useful to look at some of the chorus scenes, where it would be important for the actors to establish a good rapport with the audience and speak directly to them.
For the second session, which took place today, the set and costume designers took along the model box and costume designs, and we talked about the process of moving from a script on the page to a fully staged production. As usual we were quizzed intensely, being asked pertinent, insightful questions. The third session, taking place later in the run, will be a Q&A with the actors.
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This morning the fight director came in to work on Great Expectations. The style of the piece relies on lots of imagination being brought to a very simple kit of props and costumes. Not just the acting company’s imagination, but also that of the audience. An empty bridle becomes a horse; a tablecloth becomes a table; bits of paper apparently fly through the air, thanks to the dexterity of the actors; a whip and a chair become a gig and a stagecoach; a pair of oars become a rowing boat. It’s tremendous fun to put something like this together, experimenting all the time – what’s the least we need to do to create a London street scene? What’s the least we need to make a country cottage? If an actor puts two hands up in the air can they become a hatstand? A table? A gatepost?
The fights are similarly stripped down. Usually we’d be looking at close combat, which a fight director choreographs extremely carefully so that the fight looks brutal and real but is also very safe for the actors to perform. But in Great Expectations, as in last year’s Jamaica Inn and in Precious Bane, which I directed in my previous post at Pentabus, the fights all happen from a distance. A blow comes from eight metres away and it’s up to the actor receiving it to make it look like it’s hit the mark and done some damage – which, after all, is what stage fighting is all about anyway, though we usually try to conceal that from the audience. My policy is one of honesty, of openness – I want the audience to see the costume changes, the movement of props and set around the stage, the instantaneous transformation an actor undergoes as he moves from one character to another with nothing more than his own skill at his disposal. That’s what excites me about being in the rehearsal room, and that’s the theatrical magic I want the audience to see. I’m fortunate that the New Vic’s in-the-round stage, which does not easily accommodate extravagant scenic effects, loves the performer to be its focal point.
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