Three days away

Mel (MJ Deans) in the foreground, with Jordanna O'Neill and Mark Whitaker and (glimpsed through the doorway) Jonny Quick, backstage during today's rehearsal. 

Today we ran the show for the third time. Loz has tweaked some of the music and sound, and MJ is now doing all of the narration and singing without her prompt sheet. It's working well - in particular the narrative tone is beginning to develop, and as Jordanna begins to familiarise herself with her masked roles, their characters are beginning to feel more three-dimensional.

At this stage many of the problems are simply the logistics of remembering which screen to move at what time and to where, or finding the right places to stop for a split second and make quick eye-contact with the audience. But these things are beginning to come - before long we'll need an audience. My guess is that it will be on Friday; three days away.

A week on

It's just the second day of rehearsal and already the mini-crisis last week has been put well behind us. 

Monday there were the usual introductions and a meeting with Esther to deal with the logistics of the tour, the sorting of contracts, and suchlike. Today we started looking at the show in earnest, with Loz having a one-to-one afternoon singing session with Mel (MJ Deans).

Above there's Mark with Jordanna rehearsing the suitcase puppet story of Angus's childhood, and Mel learning her lines (or more likely the accompanying song). The eagle-eyed among you will spot that Jordanna has two fingers strapped up, following an incident during an Edinburgh Ghost Walk (please don't ask). Despite this progress is good; we've covered the first two scenes (of seven) pretty thoroughly and, yes, the two new performers are doing brilliantly. 

The Narrator

Angus's house in 2012

I spent the afternoon and evening looking at the film of last year's tour of Angus - Weaver of Grass, and reviewing the relatively small number of changes I want to make to the show. Most of these are, in essence, technical and a few more are things I would have altered in 2012 had there been time to re-rehearse. In fact the biggest job in rehearsal later this summer will be introducing the two new members of the cast. 

As part of today's work I rewrote the script to make certain it was as up-to-date as possible for the two new performers - Debbie and Jordanna. I'll be sending a copy out soon to the cast. In the script, which is unlike most theatre scripts in that it describes visual, musical and technical transformations and narratives rather than dialogue, the performers are named by their parts - Angus himself of course, or Peggy his sister for example. But the narrator, who speaks and sings in Gaelic and English, is named as themselves. Last year it was Mairi Morrison, who did such a wonderful job. But in updating the script all reference to Mairi were expunged and replaced by Debbie's name. The 2013 Angus has well and truly started.

Punctuating a show

The end of the third week of rehearsal. Two more to go.....

Yesterday afternoon we ran the whole piece for the first time. With sound; with lights. All very rough of course, but we managed. At the very least it enabled us to see the whole shape of the play more clearly. 

At this stage watching the show is like reading a page of a novel with all the punctuation missing, or in the wrong place. Plus some of the words jumbled up. Which means you get a general sense of what it's all about, but in a breathless, formless way. So now the job will be to put those punctuation marks in place; re-order things when necessary, and breathe sense and purpose into the narrative. 

Of course that's only part of the challenge, as there's also getting the cast used to working the technical side of things - the lights and sound and video controls which have now been moved backstage. As we do this the sound and light also become part of that exercise in punctuating -  part of helping us tell the story effectively.

Above we see Mairi Morrison (back to us) and Frances Merriman on set, and Mark Whitaker in marionette puppeteering position (lower photograph). 

*

Yesterday was also Helen Jackson's last day of working with Horse + Bamboo. Helen has been CEO of 5 years, and was the person who wrote the successful bids for the funding for 'Angus'. So, thank you Helen, and best wishes with the new job...

The first week

The first week of rehearsal is over. Already my dreams and middle-of-the-night worries are dominated by Angus. In fact it was a short 4-day week (courtesy of the Bank Holiday) plus Mairi, as agreed, had to arrive a day after everyone else, and she also needed to be in Glasgow on Friday, to sing for the Olympic torch. So hardly a full week by any count. 

Loz Kaye, our Musical Director, spent his time with Mairi when she arrived, working together sharing material and discussing how the combination of live and recorded music would work. As a result the rest of us spent most of our time looking at puppetry. This of course has its own disciplines and concerns, and we used the time working out stage positions and sequencing. It also, as usual, threw up a lot of new jobs - many of which are tweaks to existing puppets, but some of which require extensive work on making new objects. 

Also to be expected was discovering problems - as well as some quick successes. I looked at part of the scene set in Craig Dunain garden, where the painted stage garden begins to fill with Angus's woven pieces (made by Joanne B Kaar). The formal and flat surface of the staging screens are very different from the organic weavings, and it was always going to be difficult bringing these two worlds together in a satisfactory way.  This we struggled with without any real conclusion, and so it leaves us with at least one scene that needs new ideas bringing to it next week. 

On the plus side, we started working from the top of the show on Friday and got through the first (of seven) scenes and into the opening of the second. This all went very well indeed and we have a strong and very atmospheric opening. So, just the middle and the end to go....

The first day of rehearsal...

....is always a day of mixed emotions. The great thing is when performers who have worked together over many years, but who have perhaps not seen one another for a long time, re-meet and share their stories - telling of adventures and tribulations since the last meeting, and much else. Then there's the opportunity for everyone to discover the new set, the masks, the puppets, the props...all the new stuff of the new show, sitting there, full of potential.

But then things get down to business - starting by trying on costume, rejecting some things and laughingly accepting others. Quickly the stage gets full of discarded clothes, un-padded masks and possible props. In this unfamiliar space no-one knows where anything should go so everything deteriorates quickly into a formless mess. 

Still, yesterday we managed to find time to look at the main 'puppet' scene, which tells the story of Angus's growing up by using Alison's newly carved hand puppets - all as yet un-costumed and unpainted. We also saw a tantalising clip of projected film (wonderful) and heard occasional snatches of Loz's music (also wonderful). 

Today Mairi Morrison joins us and the group is complete. More puppets, more music....