Rehearsal Preparation
I found the performers through previous Arthaus classes and personal recommendations. My audition process was a conversation over zoom or coffee, and having them send a short video of a performance that showed me how they could move. In these initial meetings, I gave them everything I knew about the piece so far, and made sure they knew it was a thesis project and experiment. I wanted to establish very clear lines of communication from the very start of the process.
I cared about their abilities, but I was mainly looking for a personal connection, an interest in the material, reliability, and a group with interesting collaborative potential. The biggest asset of my casting ended up being using individuals from different spheres of the performance world:
-Jonah, an actor who mainly worked in classical and commercial theatre, but had an interest in Lecoq and devised physical theatre.
-Maryna, a trained contemporary dancer who was beginning to venture into acting and devised performance.
-Cat, who had recently graduated from a classical theatre training program, but also performed drag and cabaret.
-Lea, a performer whose main interest was clown and performance art, but also had extensive experience in devised physical theatre and group collaboration.
-Roméo, a performer who made collaborative experiential pieces in settings like clubs and bars, but recently started acting and writing.
I thought working with people from these diverse backgrounds could help me resolve some of the tension in my own work between structure and intuition, freedom and confinement.
Rehearsal Preparation
In the weeks leading up to the start of rehearsals, I knew I needed a more detailed rehearsal plan. In trying to understand what this plan should contain, I added to what I knew and didn’t know about the piece thus far ─
Additional things I discovered:
-I wanted the audience to experience the piece like a night of sleep; there are moments when a dream has a long arc, a ‘plotline’ one can follow, moments the dream suddenly switches or transforms into another reality, and also gaps in between where you remember only darkness.
-I wanted it to look like a moving version of the script’s paintings. This was relevant to both the projection design and physical language of the performers.
-From the actors I wanted moments that contained the physical intensity of melodrama, but find ways to move beyond stereotype
-I wanted rehearsals, particularly the generative ones, to feel playful and game-like.
What I still didn’t know:
-How much of the Bacchae would I end up using vs how much of the dream images. In the script, I had image and plot points together as one scene, how would each inform the actual creation?
-What were the actors? All of the paintings contained human-like entities, but they also contained animals, landscapes, geometric colors and patterns. Were they ever characters from the Bacchae?
-Did I want to use explicit violence or sexuality? If so, what preparations needed to happen beforehand for the performers’ safety.
My final rehearsal plan ended up being structured similarly to a more traditional play, but the content of each day was left much more open. A very useful addition to my plan was a list of things I wanted to elicit from the actors, and corresponding exercises I found or created that could potentially provoke them. The categories were: Bouffon Physicality, High-intensity, Tragic Physicality, Vocalizing, and Working as a Chorus. I did not get to all of this, but they were helpful to have ready when needed. My approach to exercises was informed by my conversation with Briony, who advised ‘’Understanding the exercise about knowing what dramatic territory it correlates to, what is the game supposed to illicit—how to bring those two things together.’’
I additionally sent the performers my ‘script’ along with a survey to help me understand how they worked and their initial physical and emotional boundaries. This survey helped me be able to work with them more effectively as individuals and I believe started establishing trust before the process began. I planned the first rehearsal, but wanted each one to inform the next. The structure I built from the overall plan and survey information gave me enough to lean on.