Chorus Director
Euripides' Electra: a black comedy (Dir. Verity Horne; Co: Leeds University Classics Society; Lecture Room 121, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds) - chorus of four female Argos supporters.
Initially, I was the Academic Consultant Director for this production, but difficulties in casting a Chorus and finding rehearsal times they could all make meant that with less than three weeks to go, it was all hands on deck. I joined the Chorus, divided the lines into phrases for single voices (sometimes in unison) and rehearsed it when possible till it flowed. Football-supporter home and away team strips enabled a two/two split to free up the acting area and the use of simple movements taken from cheerleading and football itself made our lives a lot easier while meeting audience expectations. We used copies of 'HERO' magazine to explain our detailed knowledge of Greek mythology, gesticulate appropriately and stay on script. We even managed not to laugh at the action - including Orestes and Pylades in Matrix-inspired leather coats and shades displaying a full-head mask as Aegisthus' severed head, grinning demon face to the audience rather than upstage!
Consultant Director
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Dir. Steph Hogger; Co.: Dalton Theatre Company; Dalton-Ellis Hall, Manchester) - the play-within-a-play.
Terry Pratchet's Wyrd Sisters the stage adaptation by Simon Briggs (Dir. Alistair McKenzie; Co: Dalton Theatre Company; Dalton-Ellis Hall, Manchester) - blocking, especially for scenes with pyrotechnic or other effects, and individual scenes/characters (e.g. the summoning/Demon).
Noel Coward's Private Lives - choreography of the dancing for an Exeter University Student Drama Society production.
Assistant Director
The Changeling by Thomas Middleton (Dir. Sarah Davies, Assistant Dir. Eleanor OKell) - the rape scene (see fighting) and scenes in the asylum for Cornerstone Theatre (Burlington Rooms, Manchester).
'The best student production I've seen.' according to a former member of the repertory company of the New Victoria Theatre (Stoke-on-Trent), whom I'd seen as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet and who happened to be in Manchester in rehearsal for a production at the Contact Theatre at the time. The box-like set and tightly bracketed lighting meant the audience were really quiet - which gave us quite a panic on the first night - until several audience-members explained that they hadn't liked to laugh because they felt they were looking in through a window and if we noticed they were there we'd stop. A triumph in suspending disbelief!
Co-Director
Euripides' Alcestis (Dir. Arlene Allen and Eleanor OKell) - a joint vision, down to the character work, for the Classics Students Drama Group (Lecture Theatre 1, Queen's Building, University of Exeter).
'[A]n intellectually ambitious production from two Greek drama specialists with real vision' (Matthew Wright)
This was an experimental piece of theatre archaeology - could Euripides' Alcestis work as a satyr play? - and a serious academic project. At the moment when we found we had a surplus of actresses and no actors at all but needed a 'male' chorus we decided we'd have to cross-cast. Whereupon I had a brainwave involving Aubrey Beardsley's breasted satyrs, Arlene agreed, and we found an aesthetic version that permeated the whole production. Despite its success, I never want to do a production on a budget of under a hundred pounds again! (At least we recouped it from the ticket sales and were able to make a substantial contribution to Classics Society funds to support a future production.)
Director
Macbeth - post-apolcalyptic, post-industrial, cross-cast production for Dalton Theatre Company.
I really enjoyed this first experience of being totally in charge but had sometimes found it challenging because actors needed the text translating into English, or had very definite views about it (especially as many of them had studied it for GCSE English at school) and the crew were very keen to edcate me on the difference between Palace and Congo Blue in relation to effect vs. budget, as well as tell me my emergency flashing yellow lights couldn't be powered - they were right on the first and wrong on the second count! My best moments were when Malcolm told me she'd really relished being able to be sexy on stage in a serious role and Macbeth that I'd really made the play live for her in a way it never had before, even though she'd liked it enogh to audition in the first place. I lost count of the number of audience members who rejoiced over the play having been rescued from GCSE English and loving:
a) the complete lack of a whited up Banquo's ghost,
b) MacDuff as American action hero
c) Lady Macbeth - the six-foot, rugby-playing Hall Bar Manager!
The cast were overwhelmed and I spent the aftershow party being feted in the Rampant Lion. My cast later invited me and the crew out for a separate dinner as a thank you.
Thanks to all of them - cast, crew, audience and Dr. Timothy Stibbs, Warden of Dalton Ellis Hall, for letting us put it on. This production really gave me the confidence to keep directing and to bring my skills in realising scripts to my study of ancient drama.
Shakers by John Godber - a taste of the cocktail culture. I staged this in Dalton-Ellis Hall and the rampant Lion's function room because it was going to be the last chance to work with a trusted crew and a small group of actresses I had had become friends with during other productions while at Manchester University. Sarah and Steph knew several 'up-and-coming' comedians, so we cut it down and teamed it with a comedy slot to attract a wider audience. Ticket sales enabled a donation to Cornerstone, St. Anne's Hospice and the University Settlement Fund - all charities we had supported before.
Underworlds Live in Leeds - masked, ancient-text-based blend of scripted set-pieces and interactive improvisation, supported by a photographic supplement to an existing display in Leeds City Museum and an exhibition on 'Greek and Roman life, death and afterlife' in the Classics Department, University of Leeds.
This was an excellent opportunity to get back to what I love best after teaching - directing actors and bringing scripts alive. Key moments were:
a) providing an academic who teaches Homer with a script for Circe that was composed of part lines from Homer melded together and it meeting with her complete approval,
b) working with a student from Performance and Visual Culture who auditioned in a bid to add some Greek theatre to her CV and was amenable not only to me adapting sections of The Homeric Hymn to Demeter and Claudian's The Rape of Proserpina for her to delivery as monologues but micro-directing them too,
c) being told - after Charon had to drop out due to a family crisis and I had to 'leap into the breach' - by a theatre school graduate that I should have taken up acting professionally and that improvisation was obviously something I was really good at,
d) having a professional actor who does mask work complement me on the masks I had made and ask to try on Horus!
In the Footsteps of Hercules - factasy walk encountering masked, authentically costumed, characters who improvised story-telling interactions based on material from ancient authors.
A View on Directing
I don't know who wrote this, but I found it towards the end of directing Macbeth. Worse, or should that be better?, I'd done it all - except (I hasten to add) scream at people!
The most disliked person in the production of a play is the director.
The director requires people to do things they consider unnecessary/ridiculous/wrong. Directors a) demand too much from actors and b) ignore their well-thought-out interpretations. Directors are never satisified, waste time on detail, work everyone to death, ignore injured feelings, make no allowance for technical difficulties, expect the impossible and scream at people.
On the other hand, a director needs an overall vision of the work in progress, even if details get changed en route. A director has to fight to bring that vision to revelatory life. Excessive sympathy and tolerance in rehearsal are unproductive, vacillating decisions waste time and inconsistency leaves the enterprise rudderless. A successful play is a tight ship.
