Author: Michael Cahill

Fill in the Blank Theatre have officially premiered their first show, The Man Whose Memories Fell Out. We have all been overwhelmed by such positive responses from our audience members, many shedding a tear or two at the storyline which clearly has effected many people in various ways. The production was met with great responses; we could not have hoped for a better audience and reaction to the piece. Many admired the narrative which followed The Man’s journey of losing his memory but holding on to his ability to play music, showing how ‘music can move us to the heights or depth of emotion’ (Sacks, 2007).

Although nervous, I really enjoyed the whole day from start to finish. We managed to complete two dress runs which really helped us iron out any spatial issues as the play really comes together in the space with all of the multimedia elements. In terms of lighting, there were some small changes that were made on the day of the performance. I felt that the piece did not need the somewhat stirring effect of a blackout. As we made the creative decision to place all of the actors onstage for the entirety of the piece, it would seem redundant to then use lighting to change the set for the next scene or get actors into position. Everything was left exposed: the rig, the boarders, props, costume and set. We did not want the illusion of naturalism. However, the audience were still left moved by the character’s emotional story.

The Man Whose Memories Fell Out was an unforgettable experience. I was proud to share the stage with such talented and enthusiastic individuals and it was great to raise awareness of such a harrowing illness.

Works Cited:

Sacks, O. (2007) Musicophilia. [online] Available from: http://www.oliversacks.com/books-by-oliver-sacks/musicophilia/ [Accessed 21 May 2015].

Today the company met in our venue, Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, to finalise all of our technical requirements for our performance next week. As LD, I set up the lighting rig with the venue staff, inputted the cues into Qlab and the in-house lighting board. Overall, the day was a great success. All lighting cues went as planned and we were able to run the show in rehearsal to see the effect that the lights and sound had on our production. I provided the technicians with detailed focus charts of each lighting state that I wanted for the whole play – making the task of focusing and inputting the lights a smooth process.  A difficult ‘tech-heavy’ scene involved a Time Lapse projection in which we decided to use two projectors, to give a distorted feel to the hectic scene. Here is a sneak peak for what is to come:

It has been great to see how the play has translated from our rehearsals in smaller studio spaces to the wider stage. We are all very excited for the upcoming week and the premiere of our first performance as a company!

The show is really starting to take shape! Each rehearsal I am creating new ideas for the lighting design to reflect each scene and we are now experimenting with projecting onto our bodies in the studios. My job as LD can be somewhat difficult at times as there is often no script to use as a basis for my lighting plans as movement often dominates the play. I did not want the lighting to overshadow the performers’ movement as we produced a highly physical performance. However, certain scenes required more complex lighting states than others. For example, we made a scene with ribbons in which the performers were moving rapidly across the stage to symbolise the fragmented memories that exist in The Man’s brain. As LD, I chose to use strobe lighting to provide both a visually interesting effect and to symbolise the strain that encephalitis has on the brain. However, one thing that I wanted to stray away from as LD was using complex lighting states ‘for the sake of it’ as ‘mood can be subtle or crashingly [sic] obvious’ (Fraser, 2002, 82). Other scenes required more subtle but effective lighting changes. By simply altering the intensity of a single light, the atmosphere is instantly changed. The creation of shadow speaks volumes in itself, particularly during the scene where The Wife is seen to be leaving her husband. I wanted everything to have a meaning behind it; to make sense visually and to the narrative of the piece.

When creating a scene to show the confusion of an encephalitis sufferer, I suggested that we use a Time Lapse projection to create a sense of distortion and confusion. Projecting a fast-moving image of a motorway onto the bodies of the performers created a perfect atmosphere of loss and confusion in the studio – I can’t wait to see what it will look like on the stage! As LD, I am experimenting with the use of colour, using red and blue gels to distinguish the different emotions of scenes. Kirsty and I perform a duet in the piece in which we physicalize the strain that the illness has on the couple’s relationship. I chose to have a blue wash with a 2 minute 13 second fade down to a very dim light on level 10%. Whilst this was technically a fairly simplistic lighting decision, I found it was very effective in delivering the aim of the scene. Coupled with movement, the lighting reflects the dimming of their relationship due to an illness that essentially took over their lives and The Man’s memories.

Ultimately, ‘the soul of lighting design rests not in technical design, rest not in technical considerations but in creating a form in light which is in harmony with the conceptions governing the entire production’ (Palmer, 1967, 142). I therefore ensured that any lighting decisions were reflective of the piece as a whole.

Works Cited:

Fraser, N. (2002) Stage Lighting Explained. Wiltshire: The Crowood Press Limited.

Palmer, R. (1967) Style in Lighting Design. Educational Theatre Journal. 19(2), 142-148.

This week in rehearsals I worked on a scene where I had to physically portray The Man’s love for music through the use of the body alone. Naomi, our sound designer, played the piano as I slowly navigated towards her, with my hands leading the rest of my body away from the doctor’s chair. I researched Grotowski’s techniques and the following video really inspired my movements for this scene which showed how vivid music was in my character’s life, despite his memory loss:

In this video, the highly-trained actor Ryszard Cieslak physicalizes a bird, adopting animalistic traits in his bodily movements. Whilst I was not emulating the same idea as this actor in my own scene, I used this approach to the movement of my whole body to show the effect that music has on The Man’s life. In doing so, my hand led the pathway of my choreography as I wrote music notes with my hands in the air, creating an interesting visual picture. Thomas Richards spoke about Grotowki’s method saying that, ‘we cannot set feeling; we can only set physical action’ (Richards, 67, 1995). By this idea, we aimed to physically portray emotion and feeling through the movement of the body. We became fascinated in rehearsal with finding ways to physically express emotions without the aid of long pieces of dialogue. In many ways, our whole piece now consists of two forms of communication: the dialogue of text and the dialogue of movement. By fusing the two together, we have started to create an interesting piece of theatre which amalgamates different styles to portray a narrative to the audience.

Works Cited:

Contemporary Arts Media artfilms (2009) Training at Grtowski’s “Laboratorium” in Wrozlaw in 1972 Screener. [online video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRyLLTvs00c [Accessed 18 March 2015].

Richards, T. (1995) At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions. London: Routledge.

Physical theatre ‘focuses on the unfolding of a narrative through physicalized events and which relegates verbal narrative – if at all present – to a subordinate position’ (Sánchez-Colberg, 2007, 21). As a company, we wanted to position our work in the realm of physical theatre. Although in recent years the umbrella term ‘physical theatre’ can perhaps be overused, we felt that it best describes the work that we are creating. We do not want to naturalistically portray events. We want to physicalize emotions, narratives and events through stylistic movement. As a company, we chose to devise our own performance, tailoring our specific skillsets to make a performance that is suited to our taste as theatre makers. In our first couple of weeks, we have started investigating different physical theatre companies and how the work they create can inspire us to create our own drama. Frantic Assembly soon became a massive influence in the creation of our play as we searched for ways to express a narrative through highly physical movements, often looking at their company for inspiration.

The aim of our rehearsals this week was to capture the essence and emotion of a couple receiving an in-depth diagnosis of the illness, encephalitis. Naturally, this was a challenge for us as performers as we have never experienced such ordeals. Instead of trying to produce a naturalistic scene in which we would try to re-create a scene of someone being diagnosed, we tried to physicalize the harrowing emotions that arrive when hearing such news. Frantic Assembly’s ‘Chair Duets presents a very physical scene of touches, embraces, flirtations, rejections all played at a quite mesmerising speed’ (Graham and Hoggett, 2009, 139). We experimented with pace, facial expression, body language and sound when creating this scene, influenced by Frantic Assembly’s technique. The overall scene worked really well in rehearsal and it became a poignant moment in the play in which the audience focused on the emotions of a couple hearing life-changing news.

Works Cited:

Graham, S., Hogget, S. (2009) The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre. London and New York: Routledge.

Sánchez-Colberg, A. (2007) Altered States and Subliminal Spaces: Charting the Road Towards a Physical Theatre. In: John Keefe, Simon Murray (eds.) Physical Theatres: A Critical Reader. London: Routledge, 21-25.