As Director, my vision for Hand Me Down Theatre’s direction in the future seems that, given our wide scope of contemporary practices and texts that our manifesto allows us to experiment with, our practices have no limit. Following our successful debut performance of ‘Take Me by the Tongue’, my Director’s Note clearly stated how our dynamic contemporary practice is accessible to a wide range of audiences, thus launching our company into the world of theatre.

Promenade staging of ‘Take Me by the Tongue’, 29/5/14, photo by Stephanie Alcock

Maria M. Delgado discusses the Romanian director Silviu Purcarete and his ‘reputation for working in European theatre through theatrically exciting adaptations of classical texts’. (2010, p. 87) Looking to European practices to influence my Directing role in Hand Me Down will extend the themes experimented with as well as make our company develop and entice another range of audiences not only in age, but culture. Delgado writes of Purcarete’s politically driven theatre, stating that

He uses the dramatic text as a starting point for a theatricality that is founded on the combination of expressive acting, visually powerful images, physical movement, strong colours and rhythmical sounds and music to communicate human experiences. (2010, p. 87)

This form of theatre is committed to self-investigation and questioning, which is arguably what theatre encompasses. Yet through incorporating these contemporary elements that add to the theatricality of performance, this would be elaborating more on Hand Me Down’s manifesto. Making this transition towards contemporary European theatre, or rather drawing inspiration from other theatre companies in this field, would require myself questioning Hand Me Down Theatre’s position in the UK as a theatre company and how I see my role as Director and Dramaturg making our mark in British Theatre.

For emerging companies the Arts Council England discuss in their ‘Self-Evaluation Framework: Reasons to Exist’ the fundamental aspects Artistic Directors of companies must question themselves in terms of their manifesto:

Questions you might ask yourself

• Why do we exist and for whom?
• Do all our activities contribute to the achievement of our vision? If not, why are we doing them? (Arts Council England, 2013)

These are questions that, as a Director, are mandatory to focus on and maintain as the development of a theatre company progresses from amateur to professional. In answer to the first question, it is clear to me that we exist to educate and inspire audiences as well as ourselves of texts that may not be credited as well as questioning the meaning of credited texts for that matter, constantly attempting to alter perceptions. The second question however, is slightly trickier to answer in that as a devising company often the activities we experiment with become apparently redundant once our process has progressed. However this is arguably the beauty of theatre as our vision remains the same, yet the contributions towards gettting there are often the absurd, extraordinary and at times ridiculous- but how else would we learn from our mistakes if they were not made? After all, John Ahart wrote that ‘any journey worth taking has its share of surprises.’ (2001, p. 13)

Works Cited:

Ahart, John (2001) The Director’s Eye, Colorado: Meriwether Publishing Ltd.

Arts Council England (2013) Self-Evaluation Framework: Reason to exist [online] Available Online: http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/selfevaluation/framework/vision/reason-to-exist/ [accessed: 15 May 2014]

Delgado, Maria M., and Dan Rebellato (2010) Contemporary European Theatrer Directors, London: Routledge.

Beginning our process as an ensemble of nine members, it was inevitable that devising a production would entail a collaborative process, much like the works of Forced Entertainment and the likes. Yet being the Director of Hand Me Down Theatre, it is my role to co-ordinate our developing productions into the direction we ultimately want it go in, gathering research from ourselves as performers yet ‘taking the reigns’ myself to mould our research and development processes into performance. I feel I can concur with Tim Etchells’ approach to directing when developing a project, as he writes that in the Forced Entertainment process they have

this unspoken agreement that no one would bring anything too completed to the process- a few scraps of fragments of text, an idea or two for action, a costume, an idea about space, a sketched-out piece of music- everything unfinished, distinctly incomplete- so there’d be more spaces for other things to fill in… more dots to join. (Etchells 1999, p. 51)

And so it is the literal bringing of ‘fragments of text’ to rehearsals that is the formation of our initial process as a company. It is starting each performance piece with this approach that I feel results in the most effective and imaginative development. Stephen Unwin states that ‘You shouldn’t try to work as a theatre director if you lack in instinct to entertain others… You’re creating a show, and self-expression lies at its heart.’ (2004, p. 16) This is not me referring to myself as a hilarious individual so to speak, but it is having the confidence to bring out the creative and expressive elements of my performers that enables our projects to come together. One of the elements of expressiveness I recently incorporated into my workshops was getting my performers to experiment with one liners from classic texts in a ‘stand up’ like style to experiment with comic timing and the fine line between satire and comedy. I drew inspiration from the ‘Mock the Week’ programme that deals with various topics and is delivered to the audience, as seen below:

Relating back to our Mission Statement as a company, it is my role to ensure that our development is in sync with our overall aim to ‘create culturally accessible theatre that looks closely at the meaning of text and the spoken word’. (Hand Me Down Theatre 2014) Thus it is using ‘text and the spoken word’ as a catalyst for our projects in our company that is the foundation of how we re-interpret, perceive and therefore perform. Although our process of piecing together selections of texts is arguably not a completely ‘devised’ performance starting from scratch, as we create a kind of ‘cut and paste’ approach to theatre, we are fundamentally devising re-interpretations of performance. In our debut production of ‘Take Me by the Tongue’ this is at the very heart of what we are portraying as we have analysed notorious speeches, monologues, lyrics and literature, and presented them with the underlining theme of feminism. However not every performance created will have the same underscoring message throughout as, relating back to our manifesto of creating ‘theatre that is relatable for a variety of audiences’ (Hand Me Down Theatre 2014), it is essential that our projects remain diverse in political messages conveyed, yet accessible to all.

To narrow down the texts looked at in our company it is dependent upon the theme of the performance we are creating, and therefore incorporating all of the texts together is ultimately my responsibility as I take on the role of Dramaturg. Bert Cardullo writes that the role of the Dramaturg is

(1)  to select and prepare play-texts for performance; (2) to advise directors and actors; and (3) to educate the audience. (Cardullo 1995, pp. 3-4)

Analysing the most notorious of texts entices me most as a Director; the most practiced being the works of William Shakespeare. And so it is re-contextualising Shakespeare’s works and making them adaptable and therefore relatable for a modern day audience that I find most challenging as an artist. This is achievable however, through finding modern issues within his work that may not at first be recognisable at face value, yet once heightened is apparent. For example Lady MacBeth’s monologue of ‘Come, you spirits/ That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here…’ (Shakespeare 1962, pp. 29-30) is referring to her wanting the capability to commit murder, however the overall tone of her speech can be interpreted as addressing feminist issues, apparent still 400 years from its publication. As Dramaturg I have experimented with Shakespeare’s monologues, finding themes relatable between female monologues especially, and then workshopping these scenes during rehearsals.

Sonnet 18 and Phoebe’s monologue from ‘As You Like It’, 3/4/14, photo by Stephanie Alcock

I refer to this work of Shakespeare’s as it is present in our debut performance as a company, yet is an element I look to apply to most of our future productions as his themes are so universally applicable. It is the bricolage of all kinds of texts that is at the heart of my practice as a Dramaturg in this company. Cathy Turner and Synne K. Behrndt wrote that

In devised performances it is not uncommon to see a structure where different episodes or blocks of material have been loosely linked or collaged together. It is the ‘links’ or the ‘bridges’ between events that are, in fact, key to understanding the ‘inner logic’ of the piece. (2008, p. 33)

This description of the complexity of Dramaturgy that Synne and Behrndt refer to sums up our company’s intention as a whole as we hope to reflect within our performances ‘inner logics’ that include social, political or modern issues relatable to all audiences.

Works Cited:

Cardullo, Bert (1995) What is Dramaturgy? New York: American University Studies.

Etchells, Tim (1999) Certain Fragments, New York: Routledge.

Soldier, James (2008) Mock the Week Stand Up, Online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZRKr85kABk&feature=youtu.be (accessed: 20 April 2014)

Shakespeare, William (1951) MacBeth, ed. Kenneth Muir, Surrey: Methuen & Co. Ltd.

Turner, Cathy and Synne K. Behrndt (2008) Dramaturgy and Performance, London: Palgrave MacMillan

Unwin, Stephen (2004) So You Want to be a Theatre Director? London: Nick Hern Books Ltd.

As we began to develop our company and ideas emerged, deciding on the name ‘Hand Me Down Theatre’ was influenced by our decision to adapt and reinterpret texts handed down to us as artistic performers, thus stemming from our intentions derived from our Mission Statement. Although initial connotations of the company name may be linked with the association with ‘hand me down clothes’, evoking a sense of comfort, it is arguably the breaking down of this preconception that ties in with the objective of our manifesto, yet we are arguably using the same principle but with texts as opposed to clothes. My inspiration for the vision of our performances produced at Hand Me Down Theatre has drawn aspects from Filter’s productions and their original adaptations of the classic texts, some consisting of the works of Shakespeare. Their mission statement as a company is that

‘Filter creates new work and interprets classic texts. Formed in 2003, Filter’s Artistic Directors are Oliver Dimsdale, Tim Phillips and Ferdy Roberts.’ (Filter Theatre, 2012)

This manifesto of Filter’s was translated in their production of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night that was performed at the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre 10^th October 2013. This production immediately broke down the barriers often associated with Shakespeare’s work that may at times intimidate an audience not familiar with Jacobean theatre. This was due to the obviously modern interpretation of Shakespeare’s classic play that involved a preset stage incorporating multimedia and broke down any thwarting atmosphere between the audience and the actors, instead inviting the audience into their realm of humour and playfulness.

(Day, 2013, cited in timeout.com)

It is this endearingly inviting environment that Filter adopt when on-stage that I look to produce both in the rehearsal studio as well as in performances, so that our diverse demographic of audiences can relate to our intentions in the no doubt unfamiliar territory they are involved in. The rehearsal schedule I co-ordinate here at Hand Me Down Theatre is a compilation of characterisation rehearsals, one to one sessions, workshops and research & developments for the initial process. Yet as we have began our company solely focusing on various texts, as opposed to a scripted play, the rehearsal process has been very unrestrictive causing the actors’ imagination to never be stifled, rather always flowing with creative and playful energy. This is especially evident in our debut performance of ‘Take Me by the Tongue’, where one scene is created from the book Living Dolls by Natasha Walter. I have edited the writing to produce three separate dialogues, although all written from a feminist author, six characters were produced so that their actions contradicted the feminist words that are being said from one perspective. These three different dialogues consist of three different generations, thus creating The Generation Show Scene.

However as it is the re-interpretation of texts that is the focus for performing, this is arguably more of a challenge for the performer as we often try not to replicate original perceptions of characters created in texts. This seems to be the case when researching the works of Shakespeare when peoples’ original perceptions of extreme characters such as Hamlet and King Lear have been theatrical. Yet I try to hone in on the words themselves during rehearsals and workshop how underlining themes can be found in speeches that are often associated with power.

My method during the rehearsal process is similar to Katie Mitchell’s as she writes that ‘focusing solely on the trigger event can often provide you with lots of material for improvisations’. (2009, p. 72) This ‘trigger event’ that she refers to can simply be what motivates the words spoken, requiring me to think innovatively of the subtext behind the text, although arguably the subtext is altered round the chosen interpretation suiting the theme of the performance. It is using improvisation during my rehearsal schedule that really helps develops scenes and the progression of our devised piece as these ‘trigger events’ lead onto other trigger events that may not at all times be apparent if one does not detach oneself away from the text in hand.

Works Cited:

Day, R. (2013) Untitled. [online] London, UK; Time Out. Available from http://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/twelfth-night-47 [Accessed 28 March 2014].

Filter Theatre (2012) About Us [online]London: Filter Theatre. Available from http://www.filtertheatre.com/page/Company/ [Accessed 20 March 2014].

Mitchel, Katie (2009) The Director’s Craft: A Handbook for the Theatre, Oxon: Routledge.

Walter, Natasha (2010) Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, London: Hachette Digital.