Re-Direction

So how do you take a piece of mad-cap street theatre and re-stage it for a large, formal, indoor thrust stage?

I don’t know. Honestly, I have never done anything like this before. I have directed a fair few shows before, I have directed for a thrust stage before (a tiny fringe venue with only 80 seats), and I took the lead directorial role for ‘Lovers and Madmen’ last summer, but this is the RSC’s Courtyard Theatre we’re talking about! That stage has played host to Tim Minchin's Matilda, David Tennant's Hamlet and Michael Boyd's Histories. This is huge. Huge and utterly terrifying.

But if we’re going to create 10 minutes of dazzling stage action, which will leave Michael Boyd crying into his beer at our sheer brilliance, then I need to conquer my fears and tackle the challenge head on. So first I summon up everything I’ve ever been taught about staging techniques, everything I’ve observed working front of house and add in my own take on the space. For me that’s the crucial element: Do not copy. As a director the work you produced should be suffused with your personality and style, it should be utterly unique and you should feel that; had someone else taken it on it would have emerged looking and feeling drastically different.

To elicit this flair, this difference, we have used games. Lots of games. Sometimes actors can resent games, they enter the rehearsal room tired and uninspired hoping for some robotic blocking to be taking place and we make them run about like zombie penguins. What’s the point? They wonder. Are these games adding anything, or going anywhere? The truth is that they are (for me) a crucial part of the creative process, they allow the actors to play, to free up their imaginations both mentally and physically, break down inhibitions and give them license to experiment. I do not think they should be considered as separate from the staging process either. Every scene is a game, or a chase. For example: Person A wants something from person B, person B does not want to give it to them. Also, when putting a text ‘on its feet’ you have to think tactically about space. It should not be left up to the director to manipulate the actors around like puppets – where’s the fun in that? The actors need to own the stage space, think tactically and imaginatively about it to find their own shape to the scene, their own journey through that space and their own, very personal, relationship with the audience.

At this moment in the rehearsal process we are experimenting with the thrust shape – discovering what works, what doesn’t, how you avoid sightline pitfalls and use its inherent diagonals. We are also playing, letting the script guide us and then adding a good dose of messing about, and libbing and silly voices. Characters are changing, evolving and growing, with the actors being encouraged on to new levels of silliness and fun, to keep this comedy fresh and buzzing.