Written for the British Council's Edinburgh Showcase blog, (here).
June 2013
Postcards from Paris
and Rio
I’m writing this on the way home from Rio De Janeiro, where
we’ve had a brilliant time at the Cena Brasil Internacional festival.
Rio de Janeiro is the furthest I’ve ever been from home, and
standing on the beach this afternoon, being the map-obsessive that I am, I was
keenly aware that I was the furthest south I have even been. I took a screen
grab of my GPS location and took a photo of the view.
All of which is to say that this obsession with my location
on the planet, in relation to the place I call home, is one of the starting
points for this show. And if any of our shows really ought to take the
opportunity to try itself out in front of audiences in other countries, it is
this one. This is what we’ve being saying
about you. We tell a story about Brazil in the show. Each country is
represented by a single story. (Before Rio we were in Paris, and the show tells
a story about France, too). And the reception for the work was great – and I
think they liked our admission that in our Brazillian story, when Chris plays
music, he plays “something Spanish, because normally, no one can tell the
difference.”
Surtitles
For Paris and Rio we were performing the Portuguese version
of the show, meaning two different sets of surtitles, new ones for Paris, and
the existing Portuguese surtitles for the English text for Rio. As ever, the
existing surtitles needed updating, prompting a discussion about how to
represent the freer sections of the show in the fixed medium of projected text.
We like the presence of the surtitles – we have them to a
greater or lesser extent in every version of the show – and for at least half
of the show it is straightforward for them to give a precise version of what is
said on stage, as these stories are crafted and precisely written. However, the
show has several sections where Jorge, Chris and I tell the same story, explain
the same idea, but using much looser language, responding to each other, the
audience, and any moments of inspiration that strike. Consequently the exact
text varies from night to night, and evolves over time, as we find new jokes
and ideas to play with. There are also two different stories in the show each
performance, drawing on the bank of stories we’ve been told during the life of
the project.
How can/should the surtitles represent this? As many
audience members use the surtitles to double check their understanding of the
text, is it off putting if the text is only giving an idea of what is being
said, rather than a line-by-line translation? Can the formatting of the
surtitles indicate when they’re just giving an idea of what is being said? What
happens if the surtitles just take a break? They’re improvising…
The preferred option will be different for each audience
member of course. But as this a key part of the way a section of the audience
understand the show, it feels important to explore this, and keep playing with
it.
Workshops (etc)
Another great thing about Cena Brasil is the invitation to
stay for the whole festival, so as to see as much other work as possible (and
we saw some great work, the programme was really exciting), and to run, and
take part in, workshops and talks: sharing ideas, techniques, processes, with
companies from around the world.
Running workshops (from 3 hours to several months) is
something Third Angel does a lot of, and Cena Brasil was a change to further
develop a workshop based on the processes of making What I Heard About the World. This is something that has proved
tricky to do in half-day workshops, because of how research-dependent this show
is. But the two-day workshop format offered in Rio meant we could explore the
ideas more. Chris, Jorge and I jointly ran a workshop that ended being
delivered/presented in English, Portuguese, Spanish and French, which felt
entirely appropriate, the our participants came up with some great, thoughtful,
responses.
Exotic Animal Update
In Paris they found us a full-size, “teenage” giraffe – to
stand in for the Parisian giraffe we have on the Portuguese set. In Rio they
went English style and acquired a stag’s head.
Actual Edinburgh
Preparation
Meanwhile, as all of this touring was going on, we signed
off on print designs, the Fringe Brochure came out, venues announced their
programmes, and the ‘What to See’ blogposts and articles began. And a couple of
days after that, we announced the full line up of work that we’re showing in
Edinburgh this year.
As well as returning for the Showcase, we’re opening a newshow for the first time. Cape Wrath
is a solo performance in a minibus, (also at St Stephen’s) telling the parallel
stories of two journeys – mine and my grandfather’s – from England, through
Scotland, up to Cape Wrath, the most North-westerly point on the British
mainland. I’ll be performing the piece twice a day from the 9th of
August. Chris and I are also contributing to The Bloody Great Border Ballad Project at St Stephen’s; I have
collaborated on Hannah Nicklin’s A
Conversation With My Father, and Third Angel is making a new one-off
performance, The Desire Paths, for
the event Make. Do. And Mend. – all at St Stephen’s, too, that last one in
collaboration with Forest Fringe. Chris also has a new play opening at St
Stephen’s, and a new show created with Hannah Jane Walker at Forest Fringe. Add
our breakfast performances of What I
Heard About the World in Showcase week, and you’ll see that we have a very
busy schedule.
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