A day of theatre

Theatre in this context meaning Theatre as opposed to Drama, ie concerned with performance (as well as rehearsal for performance.)  Three separate examples, and all three thoroughly enjoyable.

The day began with the conclusion of the theatre workshop that I have been running at GN2 Cambridge, based on  A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  There was to be a class presentation to parents, who mostly happened to be coming in anyway for a consultation with their children’s teachers.  Not the usual sort of class presentation, however, which tends to be all polish and very little substance.  I intended to demonstrate the process, giving a small taste of everything we have been doing over the past three days – one day lost to rain. 

The presentation was to last from 10.30 to 11, so we did have some time for preparation… though even this was greatly interrupted by students going off with their parents for their meetings, as well as the fact that we were missing quite a few… rain again.  We began with zip zap boing, of course – the intention was to show everything we did, as well as for me to explain its purpose.  The culmination was a performance of Pyramus and Thisbe, split between three groups.  Though with a number of absences, these had to heavily reworked from where they had been the day before.

We started bang on time, with certainly enough parents there to make it worthwhile, as well as the senior teachers and a video team from Head Office. Recording the whole thing for the benefit of Saba and Geeta.  I had invited them largely for form’s sake, as I knew they were most unlikely to be able to spare the time, but the video record would be of interest to them and others, I hoped.

It went well, with laughter in some of the right places, and warm words afterwards, from parents and staff.  The students started with some mild inhibition, but soon enough picked up confidence.  It has been a great week, pressure-free.

An Aesop rehearsal in the afternoon.  Because of rain, and the impending brother/sister festival, I had been warned that attendance might be very low.  It certainly seemed that that might be the case; for quite a while it was just me and Aryavere P, who had begun as Hole and Man and possibly Myna (and proved a remarkably reliable and sensible Hole) but had now been promoted to Bear and Farmer, with another boy withdrawing.  I like him a lot, for he has a brilliant can-do approach, as well as a great sense of humour.

Gradually, others arrived too, and actually, in the end we were only missing one  monkey, a boar and a fox.  All of the recent rehearsals, when I haven’t been doing crowd control, have been hugely productive and enjoyable, and this was  no exception, with each character sharpening their performance, adding the sort of detail one rarely gets the chance to work on.

And in the evening, I had been invited to see a production of Zoo Story by Edward Albee, presented by the city’s Theatre Arts club.  It was very much a studio production, which took place in the basement of a residential house (though a rather grand one – with their own Drama Studio!)  I was one of a very select audience, with some important grandees of Indian theatre, so far as I could understand.  The play itself is an hour long two-hander, and I know it well, as it was a Nick Bayley  (Head of Drama at Stowe) favourite, with extracts at least performed many times.

It was in English, but obviously very much with an Indian flavour, and was well-acted and designed.  And at the end there was the inevitable discussion, which actually was most intelligent, even though I was the one to break the silence  – it was starting to become awkward.  They offered it as a “classroom production”, but I pointed out that that was very much a misnomer; it was most definitely a production, albeit in a studio theatre.  It was a little flawed to my mind, but not in any fundamental way.  Perhaps a preview performance, with some moments to be worked on.

If it had not been for my phone going off (aaghh!) and the fact that I was falling asleep through sheer exhaustion, the former actually mitigating against the latter, I would very much have enjoyed the entire experience.

The entire day.