Acting Somewhere Else
Today (9 August) I was in the Undercroft at the Serpentine Shopping Centre to see the second rehearsal of Somewhere Else, with John Shields playing Victor and Fiona Putnam playing Fiona. My anxiety about whether a verse drama could really work nowadays has gone – at least in this case.
At the reading on Tuesday 2 August, about 24 hours after they had first seen the script, they delivered it strongly, but it was too soon for subtlety. After a single rehearsal period they were already bringing out its shape and developing the characterisation. Performance is not dependent on the text alone, but on what actors bring to that text from their own experience, and how they and the director interpret the text.
Their thoughts about the roles led them to ask for a couple of script changes, which is perfectly reasonable, and shows a serious engagement with what the characters are saying and why. Their reasons for one change (concerning Fiona’s health) were very good, and so I rewrote it then and there. The other issue (whether or not people running things themselves is anarchy), led to a discussion which gave tham a better idea of one of the fundamental themes of the drama.
It was fascinating to watch the rehearsal explore the precise relationship between the characters as the play goes forward. Poppy Rowley repeatedly got the actors to physicalise emotions, so that they could learn where there was a good fit, and where there were discords. Gradually the underlying layers of change in the text were being brought out and worked into a rich fabric of performance.
They allowed me to photograph part of the rehearsal, and I include some images here to give a flavour of the event.
The six Future Floodlands pieces – in order of performance – are:
Somewhere Else by William Alderson
Beside the Seaside by Olivia Jones
In the Wake of the Flood by Elaine Ewart
Spilling Convention by Clare Currie
Losing It by Vikki Touzel
On Such a Full Sea by Hilary Spiers
Get along to see them all outside the front of Peterborough Cathedral at 11 a.m. and 3.45 p.m. on Saturday 13 August. They will only last an hour and a half altogether, but they will be a treat!
