The Echo Chamber – responses.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Phillip Zarrilli and Ian Morgan in The Echo Chamber. All photos by Ace McCarron.

We asked the audience for responses to The Echo Chamber – from the bare boned run-through in The Llanarth Group’s Studio without light or sound, to the fully realised production at Chapter Arts Centre. This invitation to engage and reflect was prompted partly by a desire to document the entire project, but also to satisfy the curiosity of those following this blog outside the UK who wanted more. Thank you for those emails.  Predominantly, however, we asked for reactions in response to the unfortunate lack of critical and cultural commentary, which is a very real issue, particularly when making work in Wales. 

What follows are excerpts from academics, theatre and dance practitioners, actor-trainers, a poet, and a young performer in his mid teens..

I thought that the Echo Chamber was a beautifully atmospheric and subtle piece of work about man’s search for meaning. I enjoyed its bleak, cold and minimal atmosphere and the way it layered sound, text and movement seamlessly as well as its weighty performances by two accomplished performers who worked off each other beautifully.

I really enjoyed the many layers within the text – from philosophical thought, to poetical inner dialogue, to much more mundane thoughts about breakfast and buying the newspaper…

The piece engaged me most from the middle onwards, when the fragments of the work started to melt into each other, with no clear transitions or black outs from one ‘scene’ to the next. When all the aspects of the work began to intertwine with each other, I felt like i could intertwine with the work too.

I also particularly enjoyed the way that you layered sound into the work, the incredibly rich and delicate soundscape managed to convey the themes of the work in very subtle manner…..

I enjoyed the precision of the lightning work too,  small squares of lights lightning up fragments of bodies and creating landscapes out of hands and fingers, or emphasizing the iciness of the general atmosphere, or providing a more homely and mundane touch (the lights on stage).

Laura Dannequin.  Dance artist.

 Fascinating. Enthralling. Spare, honed and gently reverberating like the struck tuning fork sound… Loved the text!

Chris Kinsey.  Poet.

..

.

.

.

.

.

..

How to enter?

There are shows that when you enter in the theatre should put your shoes off and just sit in silence, watching the stage and waiting for the entrance of the actors (when they are not already on stage). This is because it is immediately clear that more than attend a show we feel we are entering a dimension different from the ordinary. This is the feeling I had every time I attended a performance of The Llanarth Group. On entering the theatre, the placement of objects on the stage and a few lights already suggest the size of a premonition. That’s why I think The Echo Chamber deserves, and can at the same time demand, this kind of attitude on the part of the viewer.

… I saw the show 3 times, twice in a row and the third time a week later. The third time I have noticed a greater fluidity between the actors on this level of feeling. Then I consider this as a sign of a clear process of adjustments and refinements of the performers. When the actors were finally so well attuned, their hearing/feeling resulted in the plot of the characters. Therefore the two dimensions (if indeed there were two) appeared as one; split. This slight but important difference in terms of feeling of the actors has resulted in a clear difference in my perception as a spectator, as it allowed me to change my point of view: not to look at the more remote two dimensions, but to feel as participant in one.

Text and Content

The text is an editing of fragments put together according to an intuitive logic. The approach is clearly poetical. This style also determines the editing of scenes and the rhythm of the show, which is organized by jumps. The jumps sometimes seem coherent, sometimes not. Looking with rational eyes only, this style can disorient the spectator. For this reason I find The Echo Chamber to be a courageous work since it is a work that takes some risks. Anyway, looking intuitively and giving confidence to this style, what can’t be caught by rationality becomes immediately accessible via the intuitive. And it is here that the show must be perceived (I think it is here that the show is conceived and staged). This requires an extra effort from the viewer. That means the show asks to take some risk even from the viewer.  Indeed, in this sense, it seems to me the spectator has the task of reconstructing the story according to his/her own logic, according to his/her own feelings. Then as spectator I must do my part. In this sense I find that the show is also generous since it “forced” me to be active.

Marco Adda.  Director. Performer. Trainer. (Italy)

.

In the Q & A….I was struck by the mix responses in the room and the limited scope of the way in which people spoke about the work immediately after… Later, I found I could appreciate more fully my personal response and enjoy the unfolding of these as the days past.

…Personally I liked the work a lot. That said, when considering it for an audience I have a different kind of response; I think I have used the words “a philosophical essay, a performed philosophical essay” and even found myself thinking aloud… about what kinds of audiences might ‘enjoy’ it’ or ‘like it’ and thought of German and French audiences, academic audiences; people keen to engage in philosophy. That said, I feel that this kind of statement minimizes the ludic dimension of the piece that remained, very resonantly with me as the days passed.

Rea Dennis.  Artistic Director, Lembrança

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

..

.I saw early days – the day of the first complete run through.

 It was clear even at this young stage how powerful and poetic this work would be. Already, the work felt stark, pared back and very moving.  Two exceptionally accomplished physical performers contemplating universal themes. How do humans strive to makes sense of their being in a sometimes mundane world? What does their existence mean, what relevance might it have in relation to the space surrounding them? The work seemed to me to provoke many questions.

At this stage, the relationship between the two performers seemed as yet unformed if indeed there was one, perhaps they only exist in parallel times? This relationship if any would no doubt be resolved in the days to come.

 I really enjoyed seeing the work your stone barn, to me it lent the possibility of being a space anywhere in Europe in almost any period which lent to the idea that  this human vulnerability is ever present. Its hard for me to imagine  the work in the sophistication of a black theatre space but then again I am very at home with the texture and absorbed history contained within stone walls!

 Jane Lloyd Francis

.

I’d best describe “The Echo Chamber” as a brooding, fragmented meditation around a restless search for meaning, the fallibility of memory, dealing with trauma and quantum physics among other things.  

The work was very accomplished with very strong performances from two powerful performers. Particular moments that stand out include the sophisticated use of sound on the small table as Ian played with the coin, Phillip’s “wrecking ball” speech DSL, the overlapping and palindromic speeches from both performers towards the end and in general, I found the more overtly physical work particularly strong. 

Dan Canham.

.

When The Echo Chamber finished I remember the feeling of being rooted to my seat. The audience were quiet and reluctant to leave the theatre. Outside my group of friends and I took a while to shake away that mood and discuss what we had seen.

I think this effect the piece had on us was down to the quality of performance of the two actors. They were able to communicate with the audience through both movement and voice on very direct terms. At times I felt they addressed me quite specifically and this drew me into the work at a level of unusual depth.

This space for communication was greatly assisted by the music score. The soundtrack was highly evocative and moved in and out of the playing space unnoticed. Towards the end of the piece the lighting design had similar effect, as the light nimbly laced the work of the two actors together…

Will Dickie.   Performer/Actor.

.

.

.

.

.

.

The Echo Chamber was like a puzzle: a collection of beautiful fragments that you pieced together as you were watching.

I felt that the most remarkable element of the production was the acting. The performances were extremely absorbing and incredibly detailed both internally and externally. Each performer had a very distinct style but at the same time there was a very powerful feeling of unity; and so although they never overtly engaged with each other through conversation or physical contact, each performance felt inextricably attached to – and dependent on – the other. This lent the relationship a powerful but slightly intangible quality…..

So a poetic puzzle. Like poetry it gave you a form that was a platform to consider the intangible. And like a puzzle it took some putting together. From a very personal perspective I did find that although I was absorbed by the puzzle I was also at times frustrated when I could not put the pieces together. At times I really wanted to ‘know something’… The performance hinted at a really profound relationship or idea but I couldn’t quite grasp what it was. Perhaps there was nothing to ‘know’ that could have clarified it, maybe it something beyond ‘knowing’ in a literal or logical manner (thus demanding meditation!). But as someone who is much more used to being told a story I sometimes found myself frustrated to feel on the cusp of knowing something but not getting the payoff! …

However, – I loved it. It was a very detailed, intelligent, and profound performance executed with exquisite performance skills!

Claire Lindsay.

A fantastic production that teases the mind and makes you think about one of the most asked questions in recent years, ‘what is the meaning of life?’. The drama is very well performed and staged, brilliant work.

Macsen McKay.    Young performer.

LeanerFasterStronger: reflections on writing the rehearsal draft (1)

One of the frustrating aspects of revising a script is not knowing whether the changes will work until you’ve completed the whole draft and can see it in its entirety. You may have a fantastic first third, a taut middle, or a thundering ending, but I’ve found strengthening one part of the script can paradoxically weaken a section which was previously deemed ‘fine’ – or at least didn’t draw attention to itself.

The fact of the matter is, you can’t change one part of the draft without this having repercussions and reverberations across the rest, rather like the ripples from the apocryphal pebble thrown into the still pond. Although it may have many scenes, or structures, or sequences, or sections, a script is still one entity and so all parts combine to make that whole, and each is reliant on the other.

(A shorter blog than usual, but deadlines beckon. If I make further discoveries as I work towards ‘D’ day – delivery day – they will follow…)

(c) Kaite O’Reilly 24th February 2012.

One hundred ‘rules’ for writing fiction: 27-31

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

More thoughts, instructions and reflections on writing fiction which I’ve collated over the years from interviews, articles, and festival appearances:

27. Be truthful to yourself, the content of your mind and imagination, your thought processes,  and your ‘voice’. Write what you’d love to read, what intrigues and engages you, not what you think you should be writing. (KOR).

28.  The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator. (Jonathan Franzen).

29.  Have more humility. Remember you don’t know the limits of your own abilities. Successful or not, if you keep pushing beyond yourself, you will enrich your own life – and maybe even please a few strangers. (AL Kennedy).

30. If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to ­music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don’t just stick there scowling at the problem. But don’t make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people’s words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient. (Hilary Mantel).

31. The only end to writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it. (Samuel Johnson. A Free Enquiry, 1757).

LeanerFasterStronger: towards the rehearsal draft OR how to revise a script

.

.

.

.

.

Andrew’s rough sketch of the proposed design for LeanerFasterStronger at Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, May 2012.

It is nine weeks before rehearsals begin for LeanerFasterStronger, my commission from Chol Theatre to be produced in Sheffield in the Spring. The feedback document I had squirrelled away until The Echo Chamber opened has now been scrutinised, digested, and discussed at length with Susan Burns of Chol and Andrew Loretto of Sheffield Theatres. Deadline firmly in mind, I’m now setting off to redraft the script.

I’m often asked how I rewrite a script. Strangely, this is something I have never come across in the public domain, nor heard discussed in detail at literary festivals and similar events. What follows is my own personal process. It may be useful for others to know, but it certainly isn’t prescriptive, nor can I assume something I have developed over the years might work for other writers. I think the trick is in finding what works for you. What follows is what works for me.

Few, I think, would believe my apparent aimless meandering and vacant staring into space in the days following feedback could be classified as work. But it isn’t all fun. I feel immensely fortunate to write full time, and this, combined with my hardcore work ethic (thank you, immigrant parents), makes the more reflective, apparently passive part of the process pretty challenging.

What I have learned over the years (but I keep forgetting, so have to keep reminding myself) is: it is important to give time to dream, to absorb, to be apparently passive and let the script and related ideas float comfortably somewhere in my un/subconscious. I find if I’m relaxed enough, I start dreaming the script, especially in that liminal place, when not fully asleep, but not yet awake. This dream state allows me to run the scenes on the movie screen of my mind, and I often wake and go straight to my desk without washing or dressing, knowing immediately what needs to be addressed.

Thinking about this, I assume it’s a form of lucid dreaming I have taught myself over the years. I find it works with short stories and plays, as I can hold these in their entirety in my mind and run through from beginning to end, moment by moment. Anything longer, like a novel, is too big to hold in my mind’s eye.

Before I start re-writing and whilst I’m in that mulling everything over phase, I read extensively. Once I’m actually writing, I read non-fiction or journals so that there isn’t an unintentional influence, but before I begin work I like to immerse myself in the medium and remind myself of the the possibilities of the form. This is also important as I work across several forms. Reading as much as I can for several days firmly roots me in the necessary medium and style, be that radio drama, fiction, academic writing, or live performance.

To that end, I have recently acquired a stable of plays, which I will devour over the weekend. The breadth is broad. The intention is not to read work close to my own subject matter and aesthetic, but to remind myself of a wide range of dramaturgies and theatre styles. Here is my weekend reading:

A Map of the World.          David Hare.

The Water Station.            Ota Shogo.

Butterfly Kiss.                      Phyllis Nagy.

13.                                              Mike Bartlett.

Far Away.                            Caryl Churchill.

Red Sky.                                  Bryony Lavery.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma.  David Edgar.

A Year and a Day.             Christina Reid.

Disco Pigs.                           Enda Walsh.

Burn and Rosalind.           Deborah Gearing.

Realism.                               Anthony Neilson.

More on this process follows after the weekend, when I will start identifying sections of the play requiring modification and strengthening – and deciding what actions will best get the required results.

(c) Kaite O’Reilly 17/2/12

The myth of overnight success: Things I wish I’d known when starting out (5)

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

We’ve probably all seen the success stories in the media: the new writer who sent one email out into the world and got an agent, secured a seven figure advance for a two book deal, won the lottery, prompted a bidding war for the film options between Madonna and Spielberg, and still found time to dazzle the cosmologists by identifying a parallel universe, all at once and from that one tiny electronic missive.

Such stories are fantastic, because they are. Having been marketed as a discovered ‘debut’ writer more times than I care to count, and after seeing my apprenticeship and many proud years struggling to learn my trade obliterated by an ‘interview’ more fictional than my writing, I now take all overnight success stories with a massive pinch of salt.

In a news story, a polished ‘debut’ writer springing fully-formed from their minimalist garret is far more exciting than the actuality of the training, graft, and years of rejection and experimentation that went into buffing that admired writing to such a high gleam. It’s usually in interviews years down the line that we hear of the unfinished, rejected manuscripts under the bed, or the disastrous Edinburgh Fringe show which almost brought bankruptcy, alcohol-dependency, and general ruin. For it seems that the cultural pages (in the UK, at least) like their previously ‘undiscovered’ talent newly minted, blinking furiously like recently hatched chicks in their stiff, self-conscious portraits, or lounging with terminal insouciance, a pen, laptop, or tablet strewn carelessly across their loins.

What these fables of the fortunate do is create pen envy. They inspire seething hatred for the (inevitably) beautiful, young and gifted that grace the arts pages – or despondency. I remember the impact that a freshly haloed saint of literature (now sunk without trace, third book failing to find a publisher or market) had on a friend who had been battling away with words for many years: he gave up. He took a job in PR, threw away his proposals, manuscripts, and treatments, and now leads a very happy, successful life – apart from the occasional ‘what if…’ foray into moroseness which late nights and alcohol induce.

I always remind him he can go back to it; there may come a time in his life when he can slip back into his screenplay like a foot into a well-worn shoe – but the time is not now. He said he felt tired of feeling a failure in the light of high profile articles about writers who were always younger, more fashionable, and better connected than he was. He began to think the industry would over-look those, like him, who had been banging away for years and an ‘almost…’ on more than one occasion. He felt if it hadn’t happened for him now, it never would, so it was best to cut his losses and try and make his mark elsewhere.

I think such feelings are understandable, especially with a knowledge of the difficulties of carving out time, focus, and optimism for the unacknowledged writer in a fast, demanding world. Comparisons with success stories are more likely to leave us lacking and feeling dejected, than inspired to prevail. This is why it’s important to remember the mythical aspect of so-called overnight success.

Of course there will be the occasional wunderkind, the prodigy who does indeed deliver, the talented first-timer for whom all the numbers come up. I wish these individuals luck, with all the fullness of my heart. The stress and strain to deliver and exceed the much-vaunted expectation is something I wouldn’t want to wish on an enemy.

Better , I think, to see our careers as a long lasting serial, built on solid foundations, pragmatism, and experience, than an overly-hyped prologue, which may well be hard to live up to.

I like to take Mary Wesley as a role model: a woman who, after a long, challenging, but fascinating life became a multiple best-selling novelist in her seventies. I remember hearing a radio programme where she was hailed as an unlikely overnight success. This was a ridiculous statement, she countered, for hadn’t everything that came before,  led up to this?

An over-life success. That’s the kind of writer I want to be.

(c) Kaite O’Reilly 14/2/12.

One hundred ‘rules’ for writing fiction: 22-26

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Further quotations I have gathered over the years from books or interviews with writers in newspapers and festivals…. 

22. Listen to what you have written. A dud rhythm in a passage of dialogue may show that you don’t yet understand the characters well enough to write in their voices.  (Helen Dunmore) 

23.  Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer’s a good idea. (Richard Ford)

24, I always start with a title…and then work round different meanings. A novel, for me, is always an elaboration of the title. (Muriel Spark in The Scotsman)

25. To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man. (Aristotle)

26.  The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter. (Neil Gaiman)

Women playwrights and theatre: some facts

As Sphinx Theatre company revealed at their Vamps, Vixens and Feminists conference in 2009, 17% of the plays professionally produced in the UK are by women playwrights.

Let’s look at that again.

83% of all plays professionally produced in the UK are by male playwrights, although women constitute 52% of the population and 65% of the theatre-going audience.  http://17percent.co.uk

Such disparities in statistics have always bothered me, ever since I was a student and first became aware of inequality in access and opportunity across gender. There have been various surveys and studies into why this is the case and it emphatically does not come down to male playwrights being ‘better’ than female dramatists. There are a range of reasons why women playwrights are less produced than our male counterparts – from selection process to theatre structures and hierarchies, to predilections and (incorrect) presumptions by producers and directors – to attitudes and approaches by the playwrights themselves.

I recently came across playwright Marsha Norman’s essay, ‘What will it take to achieve equality for women in the theatre?’ which is well worth a read.  http://www.tcg.org/publications/at/nov09/women.cfm

She quotes New York State’s Council on the Arts three-year study of the status of women in the theatre, which concluded “Women are welcome at the front door of the theatre but not at the stage door. This goes for actresses, costume and lighting designers and directors as well as writers.” You can access the report at this link: www.womenarts.org/advocacy/WomenCountNYSCAReport.htm.

Some further statistics:

In the US in the last decade 11% of plays produced on Broadway were by women. (But these plays did 18% better at the box office – the reason being perhaps that 60% of the ticket buyers for Broadway shows are women.)

http://womenandhollywood.com/2009/06/30/gender-bias-in-theatre-digging-a-little-deeper/

In Australia 7-ON surveyed the percentage of women writers in the seasons of four major companies in Sydney and discovered 5 of the 41 plays were by women – 12%.      http://sevenon.blogspot.com/

In recent years in Germany, major theatre company the Schaubühne had a stable of 32 playwrights, living and dead. Of these 3 (Helene Cixioux, Sarah Kane, Yael Ronan) were women.  http://www.schaubuehne.de/en_EN/ensemble/authors

These facts can be disheartening and it is clear this subject needs to be addressed.   Further research and campaigning is necessary to counter this bias in theatre and whilst this is happening, I’m also encouraged by women practitioners becoming proactive and challenging this trend directly.

Owing to this, I’m delighted to take my place alongside Timberlake Wertenbaker and Sharon Morgan as one of the patrons of Agent 160 Theatre Company.

.

.

.

Agent 160 is a new female writer-led theatre company that will launch in February, 2012.

We put on work in venues across the UK. We add to the amount of produced work written by women. We don’t campaign: we just write about what we want to write about, refusing to be pigeonholed by our gender, age, class, sexuality or location.

 We are fluid – reflecting the structure of our lives. We have a rolling directorship, with individual members able to steer the company for a period of time that suits them. We build help with childcare and maternity leave into our commissions, and help our writers opt in and out of projects as a part of our ethos, not as our duty.

 Agent 160 is committed to supporting its writers in developing and advancing their careers. We produce full-length and short plays. We pay our writers.

The company take their name from Aphra Behn (1640-1698), the first woman in the UK to earn her living as a playwright. She was also recruited as a political spy in Antwerp by Charles II – code name Agent 160.

Agent 160 Theatre Company will officially launch in the UK in February 2012 with a show part-funded by Creative Scotland, Arts Council England and Arts Council Wales. Agent 160 presents Agent 160 will be two nights of different short plays at the following venues:

CARDIFF: Chapter Arts Centre, February 17 and 18 at 7.30pm.

LONDON: Theatre503, February 19 and 20 at 7.45pm.

GLASGOW: The Arches, February 22 and 23 at 7.30pm.

Following the second show at each venue, there will be a question and answer session about the work and the current landscape of British theatre with regards to female writers.

Please support this initiative if you can, and for further information go to:

http://www.agent160theatre.co.uk/Welcome.html

http://agent160theatre.blogspot.com/2012/01/all-i-ask-is-priviledge-for-my.html

The Echo Chamber: responses and an ending

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Stage entrance, Chapter arts centre

And then it’s all over.

After working against the clock, striving to be ‘ready’, it’s all done and dusted, struck and got-out. The set is dismantled and packed away, set ungraciously at the back door of the theatre like so much tat heading for the jumble.

.

The Echo Chamber set

.

.

.

.

.

It’s always unsettling to see in the unforgiving light of day (as opposed to Ace McCarron’s painterly theatrical light) how little it takes to create an illusion.  The Welsh slate, old Singer sewing machine table, the supermarket bags for life crammed with bits of broken twig… Part of the design was informed by the Japanese aesthetic principle of Wabi-sabi, and these remnants do have a kind of desolate beauty:

“Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is beauty of things modest and humble. It is the beauty of things unconventional.”   Leonard Koren. Wabi-Sabit for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers.

So the set is dismantled, carted down the icy steps of Chapter, and packed away into cars. We all stand in the loading dock at the back of the arts centre, slightly startled at finding ourselves the other side of the project, and so soon. We hug, kiss, get into our separate cars with different destinations, and head off into the Sunday morning.

..

.

.

.

.

.W

What has been most fascinating about the project is the response to the work. The performance was challenging and non-linear, with content encompassing recent thinking in cosmology, notions of the infinite and ephemeral, and our place in a possible multiverse.

We have had groups of postgraduate and undergraduate students from South West England and throughout Wales; a charabanc of arts council officers; family members and curious strangers; academics and practitioners who have flown in from Italy and Japan; directors and producers of international arts festivals. It has been an extraordinary privilege to sit amongst this diverse audience night after night, experiencing the different reactions and energies.

On the penultimate night, I found myself sitting in the auditorium after the audience had departed, holding the hand of a quietly weeping stranger, who said the work had touched her ‘in the place beyond words’. When she had recovered enough to leave the theatre with me, I was met by a bemused friend who made a flying ‘over my head’ gesture and shrugged. ‘I have no idea what I just saw’ he said, with a strange mix of apology and frustration. Such polarised and strong responses to the same performance is fascinating…. It makes me wonder about this extraordinary and peculiar thing which we do….

.

.

.

Inhabiting Space, Defying Expectations: the work of Kaite O’Reilly

I was delighted to receive this link today, to an essay by Sarah Pickthall on ‘The Creative Case for Diversity’.

A handful of disabled theatre practitioners today are filling the empty space with powerful impressions and insights beyond the stereotypical idea of what having a sensory impairment implies, creating new theatre happenings and environments for us all to explore and wonder at. Sarah Pickthall explores:

http://disabilityarts.creativecase.org.uk/Inhabiting-Space-Defying-Expectations