in previous productions of Aesop, the sections involving the Birds have always been seen, even by me, as the weakest element of the play; they were dropped altogether for the musical version, and for the restricted cast version that was its most recent incarnation until now. And even now, nobody wanted to be cast as a bird, even thogh many of them would necessarily end up as such.
Originally, the costumes did not help either. Sophie, who designed them, rather ran out of imagination when it came to the birds. (To be fair, I had originally told her there would be about twelve characters to design for, and there turned out to be getting on for forty.) They also were based on English birds – brown, grey, black – and their costume was based on a sort of modified men’s suit. As a result, they were frankly a bit dull (in more ways than one.)
But this time, things are going to be different. For a start, these are Indian birds, with far more colour and variety. Then there are more of them, which helps. And I am definitely going to give them masses more energy. Which is what today was all about.
Rehearsals this week, apart from the chaotic first one, have followed a pattern. A warm-up; a game (a week of zip zap boing) in order to invoke some energy and have some fun; some character work, moving their character on from creature to human; reading the scene; blocking and rehearsing it. And there was masses of energy – a screeching, flapping, squawking, crowing mass of movement and life. And Jackdaw, perhaps the leading bird, was tremendous; she got the character straight away. What was more, she came up with two or three really clever directorial ideas, which we adopted. (When you listen more than you talk…)
The other characters in the scene are Zeus and Diomedes. The previous evening, AV, who was playing Zeus, sent me a long and detailed message, withdrawing from the play, somewhat reluctantly bowing to pressure from his parents and some of his teachers. Which was a shame, of course; he had been very good. But no-one is irreplaceable, and this gave an opportunity to someone else, so I offered it to any boy who wanted to apply, to turn up today. As it happened, only one boy did… so Aryaveer is now Zeus. Perhaps not quite the natural actor that AV was, but actually, with a bit of work…
But sometimes, there can be downsides to a decision. Aryaveer is clearly extremely excited about getting the role, and was up late sending me pictures of first Zeus and then, when I explained we were making him a Hindu god, various versions of same. Eventually, I told him to go to bed.
