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Paradise, it appears, comes in the shape of a Salmon called Colin...

On arriving in Scarborough at 8.47pm on Sunday 28th feb, I was informed by my taxi driver that he was planning to take me to paradise before dropping me off. I must admit I was a little disappointed.... I didn't feel a thing. Paradise, It transpired was a narrow street situated in Scarborough's old town. Proturbed by my lack of response the first time, he pointed it out as we reached it, by which point I couldn't muster up a giggle without faking, so I left him hanging. Attempt number three followed a very uncomfortable silence consisting of my guilt at not engaging with this legendary funny man and his determination to make my sides split. He informed me I could now tell my mother that I'd been to paradise. With a taxi driver. Whom I'd never met....(you can insert your own version of 'ba doom doom, ching' in here) I felt the rare sensation of fight or flight at being pinned into the back seat of a car with this stick of comedy dynamite, but decided that neither were suitable. I thought I'd try out some 'acting' instead. Bear in mind that this is not something I take lightly. I conjured up the most convincing belly laugh I may have ever produced. The man was placated and I was overwhelmed (by my talent, his bloodymindedness and the scent of car freshner) and exhausted. However, This humbling experience posed great concern for me on the eve of day one of the two week SANM Artworks! Residency. Do they teach this strange comedic performance style here? And exactly how much acting would I be required to do?

Admittedly, Over the course of the first couple of days there appeared to be a few potential scholars from the taxi cab comedy club but by day 4, and following a particularly gruelling 3 hour performance task, the notion that merely being watched by someone constitutes a performance, started to sink in. It was a seminal process and the turning point for our ensemble. We were developing a shared sensibility. An understanding that performing isn't necessarily about being in the spotlight or in the centre of the space. That the smallest, seemingly unnoticeable moments can pull focus in a fruitful way and that the integrity of the work is more important than it's individual components parts.

Back to the Bob hope of Scarbs. Now it strikes me that his act lacked a little je ne sais quoi. Yes he was wearing a particularly bright bow tie and yes he made a fine attempt at comic timing (even if it was by default in leaving space for me to laugh) What he lacked however, was theatricality. There was no structure, no atmosphere. There was no build up. And despite having promised to take me to paradise, no intimacy. How disappointed I was that the nearest I got was a close up of his fake gnashers gleaming at me through the rear view mirror. Thankfully the same could not be said of our performers. Moments of lingering eye contact, of purposefully uncomfortable awkwardness, of patience and stillness and a two line pay-off to a solo performance of complete silence and isolation. Determination was distilled and supped appreciatively (without 3 attempts, bloody mindedness and a fake belly laugh). Our performers were disciplined and reserved and didn't chase the laugh. They subtly comanded it... a bit like the Lynx effect: one skoosh and the scent slowly but surely fills the nostrils of those within a thousand mile radius, like it or not.

Paradise, it appears, comes in the shape of a salmon called Colin, who entered our space in a freezer bag and exited in 3 tins but did, however, touch the hearts of many.

To the Sea!

Today, the Proto-type caravan makes its away across Yorkshire to the seaside of Scarborough. We will be in residence at the School of Art and New Media at the University of Hull, Scarborough for two weeks. During that time, we'll be working with 30 students exploring what it means to be lost, especially in a place that seems to be at the end of the earth. Using some of the structures from our summer school, but in a very different way, we'll provoke the students to think about making work in relation to site and then translate that work into a theatre. Looking forward to meeting the students and seeing what we can make together. But first I need to pack!

Besides preparing for Scarborough, we've had a busy year so far. We premiered Third Person (redux) to overwhelmingly positive response (phew) a week and a half ago at the Nuffield Theatre. Check out the pics below.




The premiere of Third Person (redux) has meant that our lovely intern Jenny is now finished with her internship. We'll miss her but are hoping to find ways of helping her build on what she's learned with us. I just went to Nexus Art Cafe in Manchester's Northern Quarter yesterday to listen to an audio piece that her company have made. The piece is called Chatter (great name) - check it out and you'll leave wanting a cuddle and a Sunday Roast!

We have also just returned from Bristol where we performed Virtuoso (working title) at the Wickham Theatre on the Bristol University campus. Always nice visiting Bristol and the Wickham. Such a nice team of people. Had a relatively full house and a good post-show chat. We have also been busy this year with a lot of behind-the-scenes activity... soon we'll have fancy DVDs of Whisper and Virtuoso (working title) for sale and we are also working on a book in conjunction with the Nuffield Theatre Lancaster about our Sunday Lunch Club programme. Add to that a fancy new administrator (Lisa, who will blog here soon) and a new room in which to store our equipment at the Storey Creative Industries Centre (thus returning our office to an office...not a storeroom). I've also been busy working on booking the autumn tour of Third Person (redux), so hopefully in the next few months we'll be able to announce some of the confirmed dates. In the meantime, you can catch it at the Greenroom in Manchester on 19 March. I'll head to the NRLA on the 20th and 21st March with Gillian - look for us if you are going to be there. Perhaps most exciting of all, we are now members of IETM which means I'll be heading to the plenary session in Berlin this April to do some mega networking. I'll also get a chance to see work by Gob Squad, Sasha Waltz, Rimini Protokol and Rene Pollesch. Looking forward to that.

After our residency in Scarborough, we'll start work on a new piece called cityEscape. It takes the city as its canvas and is a two-week long performance intervention. We're excited to leave behind the theatre for a while and spend some time developing locative / distributed performance. In early summer we'll do a test of it on the campus at Lancaster University. We'll post more about it as it develops.

Rumblings and nerves

No matter how many shows I make (over 20 so far not including education-related), I still get the pre-show nerves. I get them on the day of a show as the audience filters in, and in the weeks leading up to a premiere. I'd like to be one of those cool, collected people who don't worry about what others think, but the truth is I'm a big ball of nerves. I do care. I can't help but care what people think. Thats part of why I do what I do. I want people to be moved in some way by what we make as a company.

In a little over a week Third Person (redux) opens and its nerve-wracking as always. We have, oddly, had a few weeks off from rehearsals and are set to start up again this week to polish the beast. Its unusual for us to give ourselves time off this close to a premiere, but I think it has served us very well. From the moment we started making this show its been a different animal. Just looking back at some of our lovely intern Jenny's blog posts proves that point. We are normally very clear on our starting points and, although things change, we usually stick to our plans. This time, the show has stretched and pulled and morphed in a million different directions until finally returning to something oddly close to our starting point. Just a month or two ago it looked like we were going somewhere else, but here we are again. And that journey is exciting, but also highly unsettling.

Third Person - the original NY version - was created in 2005 (i think) as a response to a call our friends at the Brick Theatre in NY put out for the Moral Values Festival. The Brick is a small but perfectly formed space in Williamsburg Brooklyn that has the energy of a much larger space. Every summer, they organise a ridiculous festival that gives smaller companies a chance to make a new show that might otherwise not be feasible. We made Third Person in just under five weeks. It was me, Tigger, Carlton and an intern/stage manager named Abby in a hot studio in Gowanus Brooklyn slugging it out. The process involved something like a porn shoot (at my house! for the video and photos of the two performers getting very close to doing it), a lot of lugging around of equipment and some hilarious drawings from J. Morrison. In the end, the original Third Person was extremely well-received and very personal. It followed the dissolution of a relationship between two jaded New Yorkers, fueled by drugs, sex and an unhealthy relationship to money. Suffice to say, the piece was highly autobiographical...

Now, five+ years later, the landscape of the world is somewhat different and the new Third Person (redux) reflects that. Still concerned with love and death but now focused on the story of Bonnie and Clyde, the lecture-demonstration format of the original Third Person has stretched to fit new content. Its been a remarkable process and I'm constantly amazed by the energy, effort and brilliance of the Proto-type collaborators. From my perspective watching my words come to life, there is no such thing as failure - the opening will inevitably be filled with people who don't like what we've made and people who do. What is important, I suppose, is that we like what we've made. Watching Gillian and Wes do their delicate dance of edging close to becoming Bonnie and Clyde and then pulling back to reflect on the nature of love, death and of storytelling is heartbreaking. I fall in love every time I see Gillian making lemonade while imagining Bonnie's dreams of old age and I am in awe as Wes explodes with energy and passion as he describes the turning point in their story. Duncan's music came late in the process but somehow seems inseparable from the show; it's like a glove tailor made for our particular madness. And David's lighting is helping the show to emerge from the scruffy rehearsal mode into something sparkly and sculpted.

Making a new show is a lot like raising a child on intensely strong speed. You see it come out of you, grow and leave in a matter of a year or less. It is natural that I'd be emotional to see the show start to take its first steps without me. I cannot help but be nervous, excited, worried, insecure, proud of the lovely mess we've made together. I hope you all feel something when you watch it too - whether you hate it or love it, I hope it isn't a bland response.

Third Person (redux) is coming soon

Third Person (redux) is coming to Lancaster in less than a fortnight & we’ve finished the final run of rehearsals before the opening show get-in. The entire piece has been devised & massaged (Peter’s rather gorgeous word for tweaking material, now I think about it 'tweaking' does sound unnecessarily painful).

Dave McBride has been very kindly talking me through some of the basics of lighting rigging - this is yet again one of the skills I didn’t realise was so important until I left university. I would encourage all current students to pester their theatre technician’s for every bit of knowledge available before they leave.

As a postponed Christmas holiday (the festive season was a busy time in retail) I’ve just returned from a mini break in Paris. I can’t promise that it was as artistically enlightening as Peter’s trip last year but I did enjoy myself. Already I’m craving my budget diet of breads and cheeses, two meals a day… mmm mmh

It was Peter’s birthday on the 22nd.
Happy Birthday Peter.

Jenny x

Hello and Happy New Year

So it’s 2010 and we’re back, feeling rested which is just as well because there’s a lot happening in the New Year.

Third Person (redux) premiers at Lancaster’s Nuffield Theatre on the 16th Feb and the final stage of rehearsals are running from this week. As I was putting dates into my new diary I got a real flush of pride to be associated with the work. I’ve been really tight lipped about the piece with everyone outside of Proto-type so I can’t wait for people to come and see it.

Lisa and I have just been having a business woman meeting about educational packages and company administration. Everything is pretty busy on that front so she has been talking me through the plan of action for the next few months.

Plus Proto-type are already talking about their next piece of work… watch this space.

It’s been a really great few weeks of Christmas. It might just have been New Year magic but I’m feeling that everything is coming together. I finally have a permanent day job which I enjoy so paying my rent feels less daunting. Positive things are happening for my company Fivethreefive Project and I have a rather magical Parisian holiday to look forward to. In general I feel a lot happier, more confident and settled living in the big city.

So welcome back, big loves & hope to see you in February.

Jenny

Crikey, it's winter

One of the most heavily discussed issues this week has been ‘how did it get so cold all of a sudden?’

We’ve all been feeling the cold this last week. Preparing to leave the house for a rehearsal has turned into a right old military operation: cardigan, jumper, coat, scarf, hat, gloves, boots, brolly – GO. You can actually trace the rehearsal photos back based on how many clothes Gill and Wes are wearing.

I don’t understand how these crazy youngsters can go round town in the evening wearing nothing but their tiny dress and heals. Haven’t they heard that all the cool kids are wearing snoods?

Jen

Learning Things

I’m currently involved in a huge learning curve. I consider my internship with Proto-type to be a fantastic source of artistic education; through Proto-type I’m learning a lot about how to run and manage a theatre company, how to organise rehearsal time effectively and how to promote work. The guys have been a great support to me and have really helped making the daunting step beyond university a lot easier to handle. Also I would like to sing the praises of new admin lady Lisa for offering lots of advice about working as an emerging theatre maker – she has been really great.


I recently took part in a free learning course designed for self employed artists/ art workers. It was a bit of an eye opener in some respects; I think I’ve been so busy thinking about how to go about working in theatre that I hadn’t even considered wider issues of work i.e. health insurance, pension schemes, Inland Revenue (as soon as I start getting paid to make work). Some of the advice I am willing to ignore. The course leader suggested that I should only check my emails twice a day but I mean come on, what if something important happens and I can only deal with it with a prompt email response? It caused absolute outrage when I casually said that I don’t expect to receive any money for the work I create in the next year, despite strongly believing in my company and my ideas. Maybe it’s true that if I undervalue myself then I will be undervalued by other people; maybe I should demand a fee from any emerging art events I get involved in; maybe fear does stand for False Evidence Appears Real; OR perhaps I’m more aware of what is entailed in the contemporary theatre industry than I sometimes give myself credit for.


Back in Proto-type Headquarters, the Third Person (redux) rehearsals has just taken on a whole new level of exciting. The guys performed their first work-in-progress showing of this at the most recent Sunday Lunch Club, this time hosted at Manchester’s Greenroom, and received lots of useful and positive feedback. Working with Lisa in the office has been super, apparently she finds me ‘entertaining’ to work with (sometimes I even like to think she’s laughing ‘with me’). We found that sweeping the office is a lot more amusing whilst listening to ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’, yes I do have this on my iTunes and no you should not judge me.


Is it too early to wish everybody a merry Christmas? I thoroughly recommend visiting the German Christmas Market in the centre of Manchester . If you’re lucky you might even see me on one of the chocolate stalls wearing a Santa hat and a festive smile.


Ho, ho,


Jenny G

Gay Paree

This weekend, I took a short trip to Paris to see some work in the Festival d'Automne and to try and conquer Paris for Proto-type. Although I can report that Paris is still French and not flying the flag of Proto yet, it was a fantastic trip filled with croissants, cafe creme and just a little bit of brouilly / cote du rhone...

One of the main purposes of the trip was to see Young Jean Lee's The Shipment which was playing in a Paris suburb at a theatre called the Theatre Genneviellers. My good friend Mikeah (and frequent Proto-type collaborator) is in the show, and he kindly arranged a ticket for me. It was good to see the piece as there has been a lot of hype about it and I know its touring everywhere. Interesting to see the kind of work that makes an impact internationally. The Shipment is structured in three parts (with no intermission): the first is basically a minstrel show updated to the current context of the performance space, the second is a sort of 'after school special' kind of parable performed in an obviously over-the-top robotic fashion, and the third is a domestic drama set in an upper-middle class apartment (presumably in New York). The performers were fantastic -some really detailed and energising performances from all of them in different ways. There were also a few stand out moments, like one section which included a beautiful song in three-part harmony. I left feeling somewhat puzzled though by some of the writing and the direction in general. I was really not sure how to respond to the material - was it meant to be lampooning something in the first half or just doing a stand-up comedy/minstrel performance? Was the third part meant to be a kitchen sink drama? It felt like it was veering into the realm of soap opera but I couldn't see any commentary on the form. The first half was meant to offend, I think, but I couldn't tell where the commentary was there either. The middle part seemed an attempt to inject a bit of playfulness / stylisation into the piece but, again, wasn't sure if I was meant to care about these people or what they were saying really... And the link between the parts didn't exist in any strong way for me. Its puzzling because Young Jean is probably my favourite contemporary writer - she has written work that has absolutely blown me away in the past. Not sure why I was left so puzzled this time. I'm sure I just need to digest it a bit more because most of the people whose opinion I trust have said such good things about the piece. Need to see it again I think.

A lot of my experience of Paris this time around was centred on some of the street culture of the city. I filmed these high-school age boys doing a dance called Tecktonic while having a meeting at the Palais de Tokyo. It is a crazy, jerky, arm based dance that is a derivative of vogueing but as if you are on speed or are a robot. I found it mesmerising and could have spent all day watching them go at it. Some real attitude in the form. I love, as my friend Ben said, that on the streets of Paris the big craze is dancing (not gun fighting, stabbing or spitting as in other cities I've lived in/live in).

I also kept seeing some lovely street art in the Marais where I was staying. Here are a few snaps from my phone:






I particularly like that last one. Something very endearing about seeing an 'olde worlde' man in black and white on the side of a building. Its like he is peaking through time to visit us. These bits of art served as my markers in my walks around the city; navigation points that helped me find my way home each night.

I left Paris wondering about what Europe means.... England and France could not be more different, although something about the cultures of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands feel very related. I wonder if England is really in europe at all culturally. I think the English could learn a lot from the European approach to cafe culture and food, and certainly to the arts in general. I was literally bombarded by high quality art work everywhere I went in Paris that seemed to be well-supported and well-attended. What is England doing wrong that the arts are so poorly attended and valued? Maybe we all need to eat more croissants?

Bright and Sparkly

It’s a funny thing but as I left university I was told on numerous occasions that I was about to discover that my degree doesn’t count for all that much. At the time I nodded along earnestly, but honestly I was too excited about leaving to pay much attention. It is only after moving to Manchester and taking up such temping jobs as catering for the Nolans on Tour and fuelling overexcited football supporters with pie and lager, that I now understand what they meant. Through all this I’ve been lucky to have Proto-type here to keep me on the contemporary theatre straight and narrow. Tar guys. I’m pleased to say that things are beginning to come together now; I’m even beginning to have fun.

Proto-type Theater have a fabulous new member of the team in the form of admin whiz kid Lisa Mattocks. Already she’s brought a great vibe to the office; despite a busy few weeks (and Peter suffering from what seems like The Plague), spirits are up and everyone’s excited about having her around. It seems that everything is a bit bright and sparkly at the moment. Recent Proto project Through The Wall went down really well in Chester last week and the focus is now back onto new project Third Person (redux) and their first ever Winter School in January. Get excited.

Also, aren’t the dark winter evenings beautiful? As I write this I’m listening to an album called Love songs of Yesteryear, I recommend it.

Have a good evening.

You’re the cream in my coffee,

Jenny