‘Bump in’

Regina Crowley and Jeungsook Yoo in the tech

An early start for the ‘bump in’ to The Granary Theatre with Playing the Maids. The morning starts with checking the copious amounts of flowers used in the design are fireproofed, then Éadaoin Looney, Aoife Bradley and Katrina Foley help me create bunches of blooms to be suspended from the rig to delineate the playing space.

Flower girls Aoife Bradley, Katrina Foley and Éadaoin Looney

We’re assisted in the get-in by fantastic technical interns, who hang the lanterns, string flowers onto fishing lines, suspend them from the gantry and deal with whatever other odd request we make without batting an eyelid.

Sinead Devoy, Jack Holland, Aoife Bradley, Jospehine Dennehy and Alan Mooney

We are in the midst of focusing and preparing for the tech dress at 6pm this evening as I write at 5.15pm…. but it’s looking good under the initial lighting states…..

‘The Maids’

Playing the maids…painted flowers and the dramaturgy of a skirt

A day of details, props, painting flowers and the dramaturgy of the skirt…

‘Playing the Maids’ takes as a starting point Jean Genet’s modernist drama ‘The Maids’. We are not doing a production of Genet’s text – it was the source material when starting the collaboration last September.

First edition with Mick O’Shea’s sound desk puppet

Given our interest in the politics of power and intimacy, sibling rivalry, and the European austerity times and the boom in China and South East Asia, ‘The Maids’ was a fascinating source from which to begin exploring relationships and dynamics. As director Phillip Zarrilli put it – ‘who is it that’s smiling now?’

We have two sets of sister maids – Irish and South Korean – and one Chinese-Singaporean Madam, Jing Hong Okorn-Kuo. Jing explores notions of privilege and beauty through a morphing figure of the powerful and desirable ‘Madam.’ Her choreographic work is influenced by the representation of the female from sources as broad as favourite courtesan in Beijing opera to the tragic Western ballet ‘Swan Lake.’ This is where what Phillip coined ‘the dramaturgy of the skirt’ arose from – the progression of the changing costume of Madam, especially in the form of a long sarong Jing pleats and folds to create different effects.

We have incorporated new text and found ways of further including cellist Adrian Curin and sound artist Mick O’Shea. They are on stage throughout, creating the soundscape of this world, responding to the action. I find myself watching Adrian and Mick watching our Solanges, Claires and Madam, adjusting the musical score, breathing with the performers.

Aoife Bradley, Katrina Foley, Josephine Dennehy and Alan Dalton

Supporting our intense rehearsal period is an efficient and enthusiastic small army of interns – Aoife Bradley, Katrina Foley, Josephine Dennehy and Alan Dalton – who I found merrily spray-painting silk flowers red, black, and white outside in this unexpected heatwave. We’re delighted to have them in the rehearsal room, observing part of a process usually taking place behind closed doors. It is a privilege to have the next generation of theatre makers and professionals with us on this journey.

 

 

The dramaturg’s progress

‘Playing the Maids’ rehearsal from Adrian Cirtain’s point of view

I am in Cork, working with The Llanarth Group, Irish company Gaitkrash and Theatre P’Yut from South Korea on Playing the Maids for the Midsummer Festival at the Granary Theatre this Friday 19th and Saturday 20^th June.

We started work over the weekend, revisiting the seventy minute performance initially developed over a week in September last year. A mixture of text, choreography, dialogue, and physical scores, we have five female performers – Bernadette Cronin, Jing Hong Okorn Kuo, Sunhee Kim, Regina Crowley, Jeungsook Yoo – an on-stage cellist, Adrian Cirtan, and sound artist Mick O’Shea. As always I’m astonished at the company’s body and sonic memory as they remember a structured improvisation from nine months ago.

Although we might anticipate there being difficulties working with such an international group as ours – Irish, Welsh, American, Korean, and Chinese-Singaporean – scheduling when we are all available for work has been the biggest challenge, especially when we don’t have the luxury of time. We have just three weeks spread over an eighteen month period to make the project, initiating in September 2013, previewing work-in-progress this week in Cork, and premiering in Cardiff in February 2015. Many might see this as a recipe for disaster, questioning how the work, focus, and material could be sustained over such a long gap, but we haven’t found this to be a problem. Apart from the good fortune of having such generous and committed practitioners to work with, good documentation has been key – the sharings last September in Llanarth and Cardiff were professionally filmed, and with two cameras – long shot and close-up. Watching the different dvds and comparing and analysing the different structures have been essential for my work as a dramaturg and director Phillip Zarrilli.

Rehearsals ‘Playing the Maids’. Photo: Adrian Cirtain

Working intermittently over an extended period also brings the advantage of the maturation of our ideas. Although we haven’t been consistently returning to the emerging script over the past nine months, the work hasn’t stopped- even if it has been largely unconscious.

As a dramaturg, I’ve learnt a lot on this project, especially the necessity of documenting improvisations fully – and not just on camera. Throughout the process I have been notating the actions of improvs, making little diagrams of blocking and use of space, outlining the shape of a structure, its length and tone, plus whatever other notes I need to capture the moment for future analysis or discussion.

Already this week when revising scenes/structures, we’ve questioned what the initial stimulus was nine months ago, and what the instruction and intention had been. My notes combined with the performers’ have enabled us not to try and recreate the initial improvisation (which would be impossible even if we wanted to do such a strange thing), but allows us to reconsider the purpose and dynamic – and inevitably to find something that helps the actors’ inner work.

I am constantly questioning what the work of the scene is as we revise. We are asking ‘is that what we mean? Is this what we want to say?’ The audience is always with me, and the relationship between spectacle and spectator paramount.

I see it as a dramaturg’s job to question everything, so material isn’t included just because it was part of the original work. Everything must serve a purpose, and earn its right to be included, by contributing to the whole.

The warm-up is drawing to a close as I write this. It’s time to stop blogging and begin with the day’s rehearsals.

More tomorrow.

ps. We are delighted to see ‘Playing the Maids’ is Pick of the Week for Cork in the Irish Sunday Times.

20-21 June
playing the maids
http://www.corkmidsummer.com/programme/event/playing-the-maids