Yesterday I was sent a great article – interview with Teodor Dore, the composer of Rachmaninov Variations album on which I read a letter from an Ukrainian refugee.
I am so grateful for the mention and for Teodore’s kind words, this project is very special and close to my heart because of the w*r and the obvious social and political consequences of it all.
Please listen to the whole album if you get a chance:
The article came just before the World Theatre Day which is also a very special day for me as it took me a long time to call myself an actress and see myself as part of the performance industry. So it’s a good reminder where I got in my journey.
Sending you all warm wishes with a bit of a holiday vibe going on 💚
If that’s not going to bring you to our show then I don’t know what will! The Assassin is waiting for you along the rest of the characters of Naked Truth play on the 4th of May in Welwyn Civic Centre, we are opening at 7pm and there are still some tickets left.
It’s only 30min by train from Kings Cross so come along to the beautiful countryside to watch our dark comedy about a modern celebrity culture before we go to Edinburgh Fringe.
I am making some new work… theatre, dance, music, art so everything mixed together. Right now it’s a chaotic blob , I don’t understand it so I sit down and think, or I dance – improvise with different music, textures, emotions. And I write. Then make a sound to it. Lots of ideas, it’s a specific way if working, well my way, but now I am bit more used to it to keep calm and carry on…
What I know is that it’s important, that I wanna say something heavy, meaningful and deep, and I wanna say it loud so everyone can hear. It will not be nice, pretty, pleasing and fun. It will be wild, deep, maybe difficult, maybe ugly, maybe beautiful. I don’t know.
So the show journey began. I had the idea for two shows in my head for over 8 years but after the last show EX UTERO that could have been successful but was interrupted by pandemic, I just gave up a bit. It was so much work, so many rehearsals without any compensation (which means scheduling between everyone’s jobs was a nightmare), then all of us got really ill at some point (obviously, it was 2020) but not at the same time. So the show was as an effect underrehearsed, although still had a potential. On the final performance, the one to which everyone was supposed to come including reviewers, one of the actors got really sick, decided not to come and we had to cancel the showing. Heartbreaking to be honest. But at that point I was so exhausted by producing and rehearsing two shows, performing and dealing with my physical not-so wellbeing that I just let it go. I was actually grateful for the lockdowns so I could rest from it all.
Reflection came later along with some kind of refusal to enter this process again, in the same way. I was just asking myself then why am I doing it to myself because it was an enormous amount of work and almost no gain. So we are back in 2023 and the ideas for the show are even more pressing now. They want to get out. So I found this beautiful rehearsing space in Shoreditch Town Hall and entered it without any expectations.
You see my creation process is very different from most of the theatre makers. I don’t start with writing. I do a lot of research, not on Google but within myself and within my body. I let my mind float free and generate ideas that might not be connected at the surface level. Then I work on them separately, developing them to a smaller or bigger scenes, I improvise around it, I move, I use words, I listen to music. Usually the things that come are the things I really want to say, that I wanted to express for years, things that want to get out to the world and stir the taboos and appearances. But I feel I have to transform them somehow, let them through my body, relive them so they become authentic experiences so I can express their essence in my unique way. Only then the words for dialogues come along and I write them down. I don’t like to write long speeches or some unnecessary conversations, the essence is the key and the rest is in behaviour and in silence between words. The words are the keys that are to open the minds, not to overstimulate them.
I also like to devise the dialogues and behaviours in collaboration but it’s essential that the person I am working with understands the process well. You see when improvising, is it in Meisner style or in Grotowski’s physical / dance theatre way, you don’t search for the words or gestures in your mind. You don’t search for them at all. They are supposed to come out of you with an impulse, like a cough or a burp. You don’t think about it and you don’t act ideas. And you never ever bring stuff to the improv that you think is supposed to be there. That’s what I was surprised people din’t understand – trying to be logical makes you totally unbelievable and predictable. It also makes you create things that are not authentic, because they are not yours. Because you are using ideas someone has already planted in your head some time ago – that B comes after A and 2 comes after 1. It’s a killer of creativity.
My mind never worked this way, for me the numbers can be in any order, the same as words and there is no right or wrong there are just old things and new. But try explaining that to people 🙂
So this is my initial process, that’s what I usually start with. The chaotic mixture that somehow finds its order at the end. I create separate pieces of the puzzle and combining them together is only the final act of creation. I told you it’s weird 🙂 But I know I am not the only one working this way. If you are – please let me know, I would love to chat.
This is Episode 1 of I am making a new show. Episode 2 is coming next week and it will be all about ideas for the show so basically what I am on about. It will be available only on my Patreon.
Zuza Tehanu 