My first assignment for the day was the final session with the Year 7 (13 year old) students. They have made remarkable progress over the past five days, from mice to lions (to use an Aesop reference.) I have enjoyed it immensely, watching them blossom in confidence, even, or even especially, the two people who have struggled, both of them lacking focus. The girl seemed at first to be full of ideas, but had no focus, no self control, could scarcely look at me… while the boy is probably ADHD, very bright, has so many ideas that he cannot get them out of his head fast enough, is always the first with his hand up, dominates my time.
He was in tears today. They were working in groups of seven, to create a car using two chairs and their bodies, and he could not listen to anyone, tried to tell them all what to do, would not listen. There was, eventually, some negotiation, but by then there was very little time… Their version (one of four), was quite clearly the worst… and he was in floods.
Fortunately, there was still time, and we played my favourite improv exercise (the one which, as I told them, was the very first one I ever saw/participated in, and which, almost instantly, turned me from an English to a Drama teacher.) It is called Crossing the Circle, and it is spontaneous – a performance with no planning at all. It is a mark of his resilience that he was keen to participate (it is two people at a time), but I asked him to be patient, and for the final demonstration I performed with him. It has a game format, in that there is “sort of” a winner… and I told everyone I had never lost.
And I didn’t this time either. But he was great, quick and imaginative, and the rest of the class argued with me afterwards that he was the real winner, and that I had lost. His smile at the end of the class could not have been wider.
After the obligatory class photos, on to rehearsals. I have always found these a trial, but at the moment I am keen to be there. Despite repeated requests and warnings, their attendance is sporadic at best, but that is not unusual, and does have the silver lining of meaning I have the time to work in more detail on those scenes where the actors are all there. And that attention to detail is most rewarding. Each time that opportunity arises, those scenes improve massively. But the big group scenes?
Next a production meeting with Saba (next in line to Geeta, and my line manager), Mohit (my lighting designer), and the works team at GN1 – the stage manager, the auditorium manager, the site manager, an engineer of some kind. And Fehmi, Saba’s husband, turned up. As well as Akshat, a student, who is apparently going to design the poster. It was quite a hectic meeting, one way and another, very nearly entirely conducted in Hindi, but with me as the awkward-shaped rock around which it all twirled, with my unreasonable and extremely difficult demands. Including a vast semi-circular curtain (or cyclorama, to use a technical term.) It was fortunate that I had Mohit on my side, to convey my demands (and to act as fifth columnist interpreter – at one pojnt, they had apparently asked why the curtain could not form a triangle – much simpler.)
It did not help when I told them, quite vociferously, that there was already an ancient circle painted on the stage, which described the curve of the circle exactly, and then Mohit pointed out to me that that circle had a different focal point (my bad.) But eventually there was some sort of grudging agreement: of this was what Geeta ma’am wanted (via me), this was what Geeta ma’am would get. I’ve never had that sort of vicarious power before.
And Akshat lit up when he realised what it was I wanted. “Like a movie poster?” he said.
By the time I reached home, showered, then staggered out to the Saraca Hotel next door for a margarita and a meal (ain’t life a bitch?) I was shattered. Tried to write this, but the letters swirled, and I collapsed into bed.
