In Space

I've been emphasising to the cast for our up-coming A Midsummer Night's Dream that they're going to have to adapt very quickly to the performance space for the show. We're using a familiar venue, but we won't be able to get in there on a regular basis until five days before we go public and they'll need to adjust to our fairly elaborate sets for Athens and the enchanted woods. I foresee some fairly radical alterations of the blocking (the basic moves we're prepared) once we're in there, if we are really going to exploit the possibilities available. Considering that there are a thousand and one other things to get ready, this is a little intimidating. Having said that, in many ways it's all to the good. The more autonomy young performers get the better in terms of what they finally take away from the whole experience.

I sometimes think that one of the things that separates 'theatre people' from ordinary, sane human beings is the obsessive concern of the former for space and how you occupy it. Even those performers who instinctively know where they need to go in relation to others, don't really know they know this. You need to develop a consciousness for what is, in the normal run of things, entirely unconscious, accidental. And once you've done that, boy it's hard to shake it off.