I suppose I am determined not to prepare in some small way for things I see on theatre. This is another installment of the preparation for my July 8-9th trip, for which the schedule again is thus, together with the surrounding commentary from an earlier blog on another event (the whole is at this link):
Other events are linked to their own blogs in the table.
Wednesday 8th July Thursday 9th July LNER Train Durham – Kings Cross 10.40 – 13.32 Leave Hotel by 11. 00 Southbank Hayward Gallery, Anish Kapoor 14.30 – 16.00 National Gallery, Zurbarán Exhibition 12.00 – 13.30 Hotel (Travelodge, Kings Cross) Haymarket Theatre, David Hare’s Grace Pervades 14.30 – 17.00 Bridge Theatre, Simon Stone’s Oresteia 19.30 – 21.45 LNER Train Kings Cross – Durham 18.33 – 21.23 I prefer to go prepared to events – if I see an author read, I like to have read and thought out in informal print (my blogs) what I have learned and felt (aspects of the same process I hope) so far. Likewise with a play where a script is available – for this visit it is for David Hare’s Grace Pervades (which premiered in Bath not London) but is not (yet) for Simon Stone’s Oresteia (which has not yet previewed at the Bridge Theatre).
This piece is a way into thinking about the Simon Stone adaptation of Oresteia, which appears to be in preparation. My history with Simon Stone is short. I would have loved to see his two feted London productions thus far, both by playwrights I love. I was in London when the National Theatre staged his Yerma (adapted from Lorca) but was too tired to venture out whilst on another mammoth trip. I desperately wanted to see his version of Ibsen’s The Man from the Sea, lauded for the theatrical bravado of a flooded stage and at the Bridge Theatre again – floods being de rigueur in Ibsen, note Rosmerholm, but failed to feel I could afford to go. It appears the Oresteia is still in preparation. One role is take by David Morrissey, a stupendous actor who has recently raised his game in the Russel Davies series Tip Toe (see my blog which mentions that at this link). But first for Simon Stone.
I took a look at an excerpt from his Ted Talk on YouTube (https://youtu.be/M6VFfGvAVZI?si=ZQNXu4msJgKwSnzy) entitle ‘What is theatre capable of?’. It is not a piece characterised by authoritative conclusions, starting experimentally as way of testing out some theses from the opening of Peter Brook’s magnificent book The Empty Space, which I first read when I bought a copy whilst studying in the 6th form at school. This is its first pargraph, though Stone satisfies himself with interrogating the first two sentences, which I have bolded below:
I CAN take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged. Yet when we talk about theatre this is not quite what we mean. Red curtains, spotlights, blank verse, laughter, darkness, these are all confusedly superimposed in a messy image covered by one all-purpose word. We talk of the cinema killing the theatre, and in that phrase we refer to the theatre as it was when the cinema was born, a theatre of box office, foyer, tip-up seats, footlights, scene changes, intervals, music, as though the theatre was by very definition these and little more.
Brook’s polemic starts by attacking the simplistic assumption that people, when they speak of theatre, speak only of the concept as it exists as a reflection of what goes on in certain institutionalised buildings, together with its socio-cultural characteristics and generic conventions, Stone tals over an empty space – a stage and shows how it is transformed when a male actor, who at first walks over the lighted space, and then is lit in different ways, even down to only his lips, with space definition and colour varying by virtue of light. Variously he speaks, telling us the contents of his breakfast: ‘Two poached eggs ….’. In accretion and by changing configurations he is joined by other actors – two crossing the space from opposite sides of the space, interspersed with talk signifying recognition of each other, or with music (romantic – the rendezvous is one of a man and woman though this ideological limitation is not examined) – or with a crowd, rising to 63 people, to see how the specific interaction of the original two people changes.It’s all great fun but hardly the idea-shattering answer to ‘what the theatre is capable of’ I was expecting – but test that for yourself. It avoided Peter Brook’s thesis about the politico-social-economy of the theatre space, but it showed a director ready to take a certain kind of empty space theatre back to brass tacks.
Meanwhile the show is in preparation and Morrissey has already spoken of it on The One Show on the BBC (I missed it). A preparation has been circulated by the theatre of its own preparations: quoted in full below:
In the rehearsal room with Simon Stone 🎭
Rehearsals for The Oresteia are now well under way, and new script pages are being written at a feverish pace.
For those that are not familiar with Simon Stone‘s way of working, the day starts with the cast gathered around on sofas. They spend the morning talking about this, that and everything – the story, the characters, what’s in the news.
And then Simon departs, to spend the afternoon writing. And the cast get to rehearsing what’s already been written. Scenes change from day to day, developing, deepening, and sometimes being entirely discarded.
We invited photographer Helen Maybanks to spend a morning in the rehearsal room to document what they were all getting up to…
The cast starting the day in a group discussion with Simon Stone
Simon Stone in rehearsal
Simon Stone & Tom Glynn-Carney
Archie Madekwe & Rosie Sheehy
Mary-Louise Parker
I cannot see enough here to make me understand what I am to see. This is exciting though. The Oresteia is a theatrical monument in almost every way – good and bad. It is correct that its staging is continually rethought and re-contextualised. I am expecting to be surprised. As I say this, I understand why I prepare for theatre!
It is about the fear of being disappointed by unguided expectations, expectations without parameters, except a classic text that could be entirely re-visioned and re-felt. Watch this space for my response after July 9th.
When I was a boy, I used to ‘act up’ as Richard III. What a growing up might be here!
With love
Steven xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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