THE FUN OF THE FAIR - REHEARSAL DIARY

  DAY EIGHTEEN: TUE 28 JAN 03

Lucy Oates, Archbishop Holgate’s School

Firstly we were told about the work that Riding Lights had done on Fun of the Fair since we were last there. As this had been 11 days the play had progressed greatly. Now the scenes were chosen, some scripts were written, costumes were partly decided and the idea of a circling stage had been built upon.  
 
After a couple of warm-up games we split into our working groups and shared the ideas we had for our plays with everyone else. I personally found this very useful as Riding Lights gave us their opinion on our ideas as well as advice to improve it.  
 
Then we were given a story about a boy called Mulageta, and the situation in which he wanted to be a hairdresser. The point of the story was to get across the image that people in poorer countries that England, such as 3rd World countries, also have dreams and ambitions, and with the help of organisations like World Vision they can achieve their goals. We read the story and picked out any scenes we though could be effective to act out. It was decided that the actors, John, Elin, Lucy and Justyn, would improvise the scene where Mulageta tells them he has joined up for a womens’ hairdressing course. We watched as they improvised, and after a few minutes we were able to make adjustments and change the actor’s responses, movements or gestures in any way we found appropriate. This exercise was also useful, as we could see how improvisation could be built upon to create new scene.  
 
The next exercise was similar, but the actors already had a script for the scene. Obviously with them having a script, moving backwards and trying to improvise he scene seemed strange thing to do, however, later it became clear. What we had to do was notice the difference between the improvised scene and the scripted scene. This enabled us to see how scripting a scene can improve it. For example, in the scripted scene:-  
 Fewer subjects were repeated  
 The actions were more varied  
 The sketch progressed further i.e. more happened  
 
Following this exercise, Elin explained the ideas that the company had for the floor and the costumes. The way in which they explained how their costumes had been picked was helpful, as we could pick up ideas for when we finally chose our costumes.  
 
Our final activity before the session ended was to test out the revolving stage with the group. It worked by each member of the ‘audience’ having a country name, and when that name was said, a piece from a long ball of string was passed to us. When we felt a pull on our string we had to follow it and felt ourselves being round in a circle. I feel this idea will work very well with practice.

Posted by rlights on 2003-02-04 00:43:59

  DAY FIFTEEN: FRI 24 JAN 03

John Newton Webb (Actor)

I expect that the question on all your lips is, "Cyborgs - a new beginning, or a new end?" However, I'm not going to answer that question - instead, I'm going to answer the question, "What is the set going to look like?" Well, we all know there are bikes and tenting involved, but what will it look like?  
 
After discussing and rejecting a number of proposals, I joined the design meeting when we decided on… actually, I'm not going to anwer that question either. I'll let it be a surprise. Suffice to say that the set will never look exactly the same twice, and just as we're all involved oin how the world works, the audience can expect to find themselves involved not only in the play, but also in the set.  
 
We had arrived to find Paul "I write plays, me" Birch had transformed some of our improvised snippets into lovely flowing dialogue. The other event of the day was our second workshop with the girls from Burnholme School in which we introduced them to some new storytelling techniques and some thoughts on the many different ways in which we can help others.  
 
With our workshop over, how better to conclude than to plan the next one in which we will give the pupils a real window. And also a real window into some of the processes of improvisation, scripting and directing.

Posted by rlights on 2003-01-27 14:27:03

  DAY FOURTEEN: THU 23 JAN 03

Elin Jeynes (Actor)

DAY 14: THURSDAY 23 JANUARY  
 
 
Today we finished off devising some of the stories that will form the main content of the play, which was really good. There will be quite a few funny moments, I think, especially as I discovered I will be playing a very important and demanding role of 'Guinea-Fowl'. Excellent! I can't wait until my clucking and warbling is world-famous!  
 
We were also given the first draft of some of the scenes we've devised. It was exciting to see our work being translated into a script, and quite reassuring to know that we are making progress.

Posted by rlights on 2003-01-27 13:30:03

  DAY TWELVE: TUE 21 JAN 03

Suzi Fowler (Education Officer)

What would you do if you were thrown out of your home because you couldn’t pay your rent and someone offered you an enormous bunch of bananas? Bombard them with their generous gift? Not so for a Natalia Kanziga who used them as the beginning of a business which became the lifeline for her family. This tiny story from a World Vision magazine formed the basis of our work this morning. Here was a character who obviously had brains, skills and guts but lacked the resources to be able to make anything of them. This seems an important story to include. There are millions of others like them, but this one seems to hold particular power as her success was supported by loan from World Vision of just £5!!!  
 
So how do you turn Natalia’s story into drama? Plotting a path of events, some known, some imagined. Foraging amongst the threads of her story to uncover the moments of conflict and choice she must have faced. Identifying the important moments and chucking away the rest. The actors are daily becoming more skilled at trusting their imagination and instincts to build these stories and although we probably couldn’t pin down what we’re searching for, the path towards it seems to be becoming clearer all the time.  
 
We’re looking at loads of stories. Each of which has some light to shed on the issue and seems to demand a different style of telling. Very early on Bridget quoted Peter Brook in his book There Are No Secrets:  
 
"Whatever the subject matter one must find the best means here and now to bring it to life."  
 
This seems to be a bit of a guiding principle and some ingenious means are emerging. The rehearsal room is filling with scrunched up bits of brown paper…

Posted by rlights on 2003-01-27 00:00:00

  DAY ELEVEN: MON 20 JAN 03

Suzi Fowler (Education Officer)

This morning, pupils from Oaklands School came for their 2nd workshop. The focus for the workshop was on understanding the issue of poverty in order to work out what to say about it through our plays, and beginning to think about structuring ideas in order to be able to say this clearly. We began by showing them a brief moment of performance we had worked on which explores the idea of poverty being a character in a folk tale. This provides a useful opportunity for understanding how poverty behaves and the different effects it might have on people's lives and has been a valuable learning exercise for the company. After watching Roughshod perform, the pupils created their own presentations of poverty visiting characters in a city and a farm. This produced some suprisingly humorous work and striking images.  
 
We then shared some work we had done on the story of the Good Samaritan, which explored a variety of possible responses to poverty. This opened up a useful discussion about what the poor really need and how each of us, whatever we have, might really be able to give and led into discussion about what people wanted to say through their plays, what they had discovered and wanted to share with an audience.This may have been only the beginnings of working this out, but already many challenging questions were raised and I wait with interest to see how they progress.  
 
Below are some comments from Oaklands students:  
 
“The warm ups help us get ready for our workshops, especially on a Monday morning. You don’t feel silly doing them because everyone is involved and it helps you concentrate.”  
 
“I enjoy seeing the actor’s presentations because they use ways of acting that I haven’t seen before. I like it when they use mime because it can reach a wide audience.”  
 
“The actors performed a sketch with poverty personified. I thought the use of a narrator made it easier to understand. They used exaggeration and kept the performance simple. The representation of poverty as a character meant that the victim could react and we could see in her facial expressions what the victim thought of poverty."  
 
“I like being put into different groups each week because it makes me more confident to work with anyone.”  
 
“Thinking about structure at the end of the session made me think about the kind of message we want our play to give the audience."  
 
“Watching back the group work I could see how we as a class are thinking of new ways to present our ideas. I would never have thought of using humour before with such a serious topic but it worked."

Posted by rlights on 2003-01-27 00:00:00

  DAY NINE: THU 16 JAN 03

Bridget Foreman (Director)

A long and hard day! Having spent some time exploring animal stories and folk tales, we leapt this morning into work with some of the real-life stories of people whose lives have been changed through the work of World Vision. This feels like tricky territory: trying to do justice to the experience of someone from the other side of the world and whose personal circumstances are so different from ours. Improvisation is hard at the best of times, but this is particularly difficult. The stories are often harrowing and painful, which makes demands upon the actors as they try to engage with them and find ways of dramatising them. Ultimately, though, the stories speak of hope and a future for people whose lives have been blighted by poverty. The challenge for us is to find an honest and entertaining means of communicating both the hope and the desperation that these stories speak of. One or two little moments of magic emerge – but you have to mine your way through an awful lot of rock for just a few small nuggets of gold.  
 
In the afternoon, we run our third workshop of the week – with students from Burnholme School. They do excellent work – in fact we might just pinch some of their ideas...  
 
Ssshh – don’t tell them.

Posted by rlights on 2003-01-21 09:05:38

  DAY EIGHT: WED 15 JAN 03

Antony Dunn (Marketing Officer)

Sean Cavanagh, Riding Lights' design supremo, is in today - managing a miraculous day off from re-designing the touring set of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He's here to talk to Bridget and Paul about ideas for the set of The Fun of the Fair.  
 
I think it's safe to say that this is going to be one Sean's more unusual creations. Based on conversations that I've been eavesdropping on in the office, it sounds as if the set will be a kind of physical representation of the idea that every individual in the world is responsible for making the world operate properly, and that if groups of us stop contributing fully then everything starts to go awry.  
 
And how's Sean going to do that with little enough stuff to fit into the back of a transit van, I hear you ask?  
 
Well, you'll have to wait and see. But I will say this much - the actors and going to have to get on their bikes to make the world keep turning…

Posted by rlights on 2003-01-16 10:26:19

  DAY SEVEN: TUE 14 JAN 03

Lucy Thampi (Actor)

We did a lot of impro today in the hope of getting more ideas for stories and potential characters. And I have to say, it's a little scary. Numerous times, I think we all suffered from the "can't think of anything to say" syndrome that plagues many an actor.  
 
Bridget and Paul had made more solid decisions on how our play would be structured. We're basing the play around a true story of a fashion buyer who gives up everything to help the poor. (Sounds cheesy, I know, but it's good. Honest!)  
 
It's nice to know that we have something more solid to work around. Apart from that, I'm not really sure what's going on, but no doubt it will all soon become clear. Won't it…?

Posted by rlights on 2003-01-16 10:25:46

  DAY SIX: MON 13 JAN 03

John Newton Webb (Actor)

There won't be many days like this, in which, during improvisation, I am able to play both a female bear and a quarter of a cow. And to think I might have been an accountant.  
 
We were engaged in the morning by 15 GCSE students with whom we explored some pressing issues of poverty, and who came up with some great ideas and sketches which they will be able to develop as part of their own plays.  
 
After we had waved them off, our focus turned to a coffee break.  
 
The Bible is full of interesting and challenging passages about our responsibility to others, and it was interesing and useful to discuss many of them. We followed this by looking at images of poverty, both amusing and shocking. Which brings me back to bovine and ursine considerations…  
 
Our first activity of the day was to look at the idea of poverty as a character - what is he / she / it like? What demands does it make? What would a person representing poverty be like? While the girls looked at a woman who had poverty come to stay, the boys noted the similarity between poverty and, er, Goldilocks (I was Mummy Bear). Both were very striking and gave us useful material and insights. It just goes to show that a simple story can say a lot more than you expect when you look at it through different glasses.

Posted by rlights on 2003-01-15 09:54:06

  DAY FIVE: FRI 10 JAN 03

Elin Jeynes (Actor)

Today began with discussing our research and ideas generally. We have all had the chance to approach the issue from a general perspective in our research, so the feedback was qutie broad, ranging from African folk tales to personal stories of poverty, to other issues such as the status of women in poor countries. In our discussion, we began to put our findings into categories such as 'stories', 'images' and 'interesting facts'. We also discussed our title, The Fun of the Fair and brainstormed ideas relating to this.  
 
We then had a workshops with students from Archbishop Holgate's school, who are also in the process of creating a play about poverty. The main exercises involved creating a small piece of drama from a real-life story of poverty. It really is amazing what you can come up with when you only have ten minutes! There were some great ideas, and hopefully some things which will be developed further in their project.  
 
After the students had left, we decided to have a bit of fun with some of the African folk tales we'd discovered. We divided ourselves into two groups, each took a different story, discussed how we could relate it to the issue of poverty, and then did some improvisation. We discovered that Justyn does an extremely convincing impression of a baboon being stung by bees, and apparently my tortoise isn't too bad, either.  
 
Although we were dramatising animal stories, we experimented with the storytelling by swapping narration with dialogue, and also with personifying the animals rather than acting literally. So, for example, Paul played the part of a lion, but as a cowboy with his gun drawn. This was all lots of fun, and has definitely left us with some food for thought.

Posted by rlights on 2003-01-13 00:00:00

  DAY THREE: WED 8 JAN 03

Justyn Towler (Actor)

My dearest diary  
 
Sorry to hear you're not well……well our third day of rehearsals has been a fun and varied one.  
 
Bridget led us through the last session of her workshop this morning in which I discovered I'd never quite gotton over the disappointment of a certain high street shop not having my size in something when I was younger!  
 
Lunch saw us reclining at the pantry, the local sandwich shop, and then…  
 
We were let loose on York to research anything from world poverty to African stories. I headed straight for the kid's section of York public library! (The kids section being the most informative and always filled with the best pictures). I found a book (surprise) which contained interviews with six young refugees. It was quite moving to read the experiences of people who where sometimes half my age yet had been through so much. But somehow they seemed to be rebuilding their lives. I think this project will challenge me more than I expected, but then we all need a good challenge once in a while. Anyway must dash - got re-rehearsals for our Christmas play this evening! Don't ask.

Posted by rlights on 2003-01-09 00:00:00

  DAY TWO: TUE 7 JAN 03

Suzi Fowler (Riding Lights Education Officer)

Today we put to one side all the ideas and shocking statistics that were buzzing around yesterday and got into some practical work. Although we’re really just beginning our research period Bridget recently went on a workshop with the fantastic theatre company Complicite, and we spent today exploring some of the new techniques she’d picked up.  
 
None of the activities had anything directly to do with poverty but they got us on our feet, thinking creatively and inventing stories. Many of the exercises were to do with working really closely with others, tuning our ability to listen to each other and encouraging us to be brave about throwing in ideas. One of the things I find most exciting about devising is that everyone’s ideas count. If you don’t listen and throw in ideas even when you feel it might be really stupid or obvious then why should you expect anyone else to. Everyone is really in it together, depending on each other, taking risks together, and pooling everything they’ve got. So even though most of today wasn’t about deepening our understanding of our subject it was about getting the right attitude and working relationship and I’m sure we’ll return to many of the exercises later.  
 
At the end of the day we had a brief chat about any key ideas we’d had over night and to feedback interesting bits of reading we’d done. Everyone had something different to contribute whether it was from a book, a newspaper, a collection of African tales or a cheesy video where we felt someone had completely missed the point. It may be slow, but our pool of knowledge is growing and our creative muscles are beginning to warm up.

Posted by rlights on 2003-01-08 00:00:00

  DAY ONE: MON 6 JAN 03

Paul Birch (Script writer)

Today was the first day of rehearsal for the new Roughshod show, The Fun of the Fair. Working in partnership with the international development agency World Vision, we are looking to create a show around the issue of poverty and giving. The phrase "looking to create" is somewhat key, as the show will be devised. In other words, there is no starting script - we will be making a play from scratch. Just us, a pile of research tools and the Holy Spirit.  
 
Bridget (the Director), Suzi (who is heading up the Educational side of things) and I (the hapless writer-to-be of all things devised) spent a morning feeding back to each other on the books and articles we have been reading over the last couple of months. There was a bunch of information, and still more to be gotten through, but amid all the facts and stories we were getting glimpses of what might go from page to stage.  
 
The afternoon saw the arrival of the actors - Elin, Justyn, John and Lucy - and found us together with Paul Burbridge, sharing some of the material and opinions on this massive subject. Everyone is very enthusiastic about the project, which is encouraging. Certainly it's not going to be the easiest of plays to produce, and a good deal of hard work and late nights lie ahead. Yet, at the same time, I can see something being produced which will be challenging, entertaining and thought-provoking. And I mean that just as much for us in the production team as we go through rehearsals as I do for the audience as they see the end result.

Posted by rlights on 2003-01-07 00:00:00