Jam-packed June: Jeremy Herrin, Opus No. 7, Fathers and Sons, Yorick and Avignon

So, as promised, I am writing from Avignon this month. We have been here just over a week now, having arrived on the 30th June, and are here until the 28th July when we spend a night in Paris before returning under the Channel to London.

June started back in Soho though with a fantastic talk organised by Soho Create with director, Jeremy Herrin, and actor, Ben Miles, about their work on the (quite brilliant!) Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies - now playing at the Aldwych Theatre until October having transferred from the RSCs Swan Theatre. This was quite simply the most intimate and insightful director/actor discussion I have been to (and I've been to quite a lot now!). Both were incredibly relaxed and candid in the beautiful setting of the chapel in the House of St Barnabas - originally founded as a charity to support London's homeless people, it is now a rather swanky private club! Jeremy Herrin firmly established himself as one of my favourite directors working at the moment, espousing the need for the actors to have the freedom to be creative and spontaneous on stage and in the rehearsal room, and understanding the importance of the audience's imagination to create a world on stage. His private words of advice to me afterwards - encouraging me to 'embrace my limitations' and strive for 'progress not perfection' were useful for any young director to take the leap out of the production in their own head and into the reality of the rehearsal room. It was also interesting to learn how he decided that he needed to be slightly 'ignorant' of the books and the history in order to be able to see the play through the eyes of a first-time audience member with no prior knowledge.

By contrast, Ben Miles certainly did his homework! He created a detailed timeline for Cromwell's life (Hilary Mantel's Cromwell specifically, not the historical one), read the books multiple times and even took trips by boat along the Thames, exploring Putney and Austin Friars. His dedication to the role certainly shows in the richness of his performance.

I managed to get to the theatre a couple of times this last month. The first was to see the experimental Russian theatre of the Dmitry Kyrmov Lab, Opus No. 7. This was an example of me trying to broaden my horizons as a theatre-maker and it certainly did that! Kyrmov is a designer at heart and his work is incredibly visually stimulating. If at times lacking in coherency, the play was full of life, stimulating the imagination and emotions throughout, in a manner quite unlike anything I have ever seen before. The play is divided into two halves - the first, 'Genealogy', being a very moving and refreshingly unique treatment of the Holocaust; the second 'Shostakovich', being a gripping biopic of the great Russian composer of the Soviet years. The first half feels a little bit like a series of rehearsal room improvisation exercises strung together into a loose narrative but within that (and largely as a result of that) it presented a very fresh and personal depiction of the Holocaust. The cast throw buckets of black paint onto the white card of the back of the stage and transform them into orthodox Jews before our eyes, stimulating our imagination in the simplest of ways. Perhaps the most dramatic moment was when these figures are blown forward from up stage and we (in the front two rows of the audience) are covered by an avalanche of tiny pieces of newspaper, fired more or less straight into our faces, representing all those killed during the Holocaust. Not something to forget in a hurry.

The second half, for me represented an absolute triumph in storytelling and universal theatre. Using the music of Shostakovich and real recordings from his public speeches, Kyrmov's actors created a brilliantly moving, exciting and dramatic telling of the composer's life in a world of artistic persecution in Russia. This half saw a giant puppet of Mother Russia turning from slightly pushy matriarch, into monstrous persecutor (chasing Shostakovich around the stage with a giant pistol), into a maternal figure that grotesquely smothers her own children to death. This is mirrored by the transformation of Shostakovich from exciting independent composer, into a 'puppet' of the state - ironically the actress playing Shostakovich became more of a puppet than the real puppet of Mother Russia. This was immensely powerful theatre, that crossed international boundaries with a clear and universal message.

My second play of the month was, I'm afraid to say, something of a disappointment. I've become slightly immersed in Russia at the moment, working on a Gogol play, reading War And Peace, and watching Opus No. 7, so I was looking forward to Fathers and Sons at the Donmar Warehouse with much excitement. Unfortunately, for me, it failed to deliver. All the performances were fantastic, without exception and, as many of the reviewers have commented, the set is quite beautifully designed. But I felt that the play lacked drive and argument - it missed the point of Turganev's novel and, as a result of Brian Friel's adaptation, the whole world felt far more Irish than it did Russian. I never felt like this was set in a major turning point in Russian history, where generations were arguing over the future of the nation. It become a rather tame family drama, rather than a microcosm of a nation in turmoil. It is possible that I'm being slightly unfair on the play! And, despite this, I think it would be difficult to give the play less than four stars - as most reviewers have. In particular, Joshua James, gives a quite captivating performance as Arkady, and the Donmar continues to impress with casts that contain not a single weak link.

Before leaving for Avignon, I was able to organise an afternoon's workshop for writer, Piotr Klinger, to help him bring his script to fruition. I was paired up with Piotr for my first New Writing Night at Blackshaw and fell in love with his concept for a telling of the 'unofficial' story of the fall of Elsinore in Hamlet. We spent an afternoon getting actors to improvise scenes and play with different possible character interactions. I have to say a massive thank you to the actors (Alex Maude, Will Holyhead, Rupert Sadler and Victoria Hamblen) for their commitment and the speed with which they embraced the essence of the play. Piotr went away with lots of ideas and I'm sure we will continue to work together over the coming months.

Finally, to end where I began - Avignon! Even after a week I still can't quite believe I am here. As you will be able to see from some of the pictures, it is a simply beautiful Medieval city. The first week was mostly taken up with getting Le Journal d'un Fou into the theatre, with a full day of technical rehearsals on Tuesday, a dress on Wednesday and an open-dress on Friday. We opened on Saturday night with great success and Sunday's performance was the best the play has ever been. Most of my work has been stage management based this week. I have an enthusiastic and very capable team of interns taking on the role of ASMs during the show, so much of my time has been spent training them and teaching them the (rather complicated and precise!) scene changes. Andrew Visnevski (the director) has now returned to London, so my role now takes on new importance and moves more towards the directing side now that the ASMs know what they are doing. My challenge over the next three weeks is to keep the show at the standard that it was on Sunday - keeping it alive and maintaining everyone's focus.

Below are a selection of snapshots of the city and the beautiful team that I'm working with down here!

A bientot!

May Madness: Le Journal d'un Fou, Henry V and Privacy

This month has seen rehearsals finally get fully underway for Le Journal d'un Fou - a French adaptation of Gogol's The Diary of a Madman - destined for the Avignon Festival in July, that I am assistant directing. I have been assisting Andrew Visnevski (the director) and Mark Antoine (the actor and producer) with the translation process since last November so what has been a slightly exotic sounding, abstract project for the past six months has now suddenly become a reality!

It truly is a fascinating play, that delves into the mind of Aksenty Ivanovitch Poprichtchine, a lowly civil servant in the Russian bureaucratic machine, to a psychological depth that I have never worked before. The story explores the effect of schizophrenia on the mind of Poprichtchine from Poprichtchine's own perspective - we see the world through the eyes of a madman. Not only do we see the world from the perspective of a schizophrenic but from the perspective of the most accurately depicted fictional representation of a schizophrenic ever written. In typical Gogol style, the play is also both farcically comic and deeply moving.

I have very quickly realised how lucky I am to be working as an assistant on this production. There are a huge number of reasons why this provides invaluable experience for a young director: 

Firstly, it provides the opportunity to work in a foreign language. French has a very different quality to English - it has a much faster pace and doesn't contain mid-sentence 'pauses for thought' in the same way that English does. Words and phrases that are comic in English, simply don't work when directly translated into French. I am by no means a French-speaker and it has been (and will be) a real challenge getting to grips with a difficult language - my GCSE French is certainly being stretched to the limit! - but this is a fantastic opportunity to see how different languages behave differently on stage.

Secondly, it provides the opportunity to work in a different country. It sounds stupid but I had never really considered the possibility of working outside of the anglo-phone world before. For me (and, I imagine, most other young British directors) I had always thought in terms of gaining experience in regional theatre and fringe theatre before eventually breaking onto the West End and the larger subsidised theatres like the NT, RSC and Globe. This has opened up a whole other world of possibilities for me. Surely gaining experience of theatre in other cultures and languages can only have a positive impact on the theatre that I then create myself in my own.

Thirdly, as a one man show, it provides a brilliant insight into the actor-director relationship and allows for incredibly detailed work. Our rehearsal process is principally about one actor creating a completely believable individual on stage. As a result, it is an excellent case study in characterisation. It has also really demonstrated the importance of recognising and specifying changes of thought and intention - one thought has to completely end before the next begins but at the same time there can be no point where thought ceases entirely. Having only one actor highlights very clearly how a momentary lack of specific focus can completely drain the energy from a scene. I have learnt an awful lot in just six rehearsals!

Fourthly, since music provides a crucial accompaniment to this production, it has provided me with an excellent opportunity to experience how music can be integrated into a piece and how a composer-director relationship can work. Music is used throughout our production to reflect Poprichtchine's state of mind. One of our biggest challenges over the next couple of weeks is going to be getting the music and the acting to become two halves of a complete whole.

There are undoubtedly many other reasons why this is an excellent opportunity for me but it would bore you to death for me to list them all here! What it has demonstrated, more than anything, is the importance of simply being back in a professional rehearsal room.

The assistant work has also had an immediate impact on my own directing. I directed another piece for Blackshaw Theatre at their New Writing Night this month which, coincidentally, was a one man short with more than an echo of mental illness! The play was called Geppetto's Funeral by Eva Moon and imagines a middle-aged Pinocchio after the death of his creator and father Geppetto. Working with actor, Merlin Fox, I was immediately able to put into practice what I had learnt on Fou. We went through the text pin-pointing each change of thought, highlighting the points of introspection in contrast to those directed to his invisible interlocutor, the Blue Fairy. It was a very challenging piece for just a few hours of rehearsal and I was really pleased with the results and the positive feedback that we all received. As always, the Blackshaw team were brilliant and organised a really enjoyable and varied evening of new writing - I will be sorry to miss their next night when I will be working hard over a glass of rosé in the south of France!

As I mentioned last month, May has seen my new production company, Cyphers, begin to take on a more established form, as we build a team for our first production, Henry V. This month we interviewed for assistant directors - it was slightly bizarre leaving rehearsals as an assistant director in order to interview candidates for my own assistant director! This was also an excellent experience for me - reading and assessing applications was the perfect way for me to see what directors are looking for in an assistant, and will hopefully benefit me when I start applying for assistant positions again later in the year.

As well as interviewing for an assistant director, we also auditioned for our two student actors from The King's Shakespeare Company. I always find auditioning people an incredibly nerve-wracking experience - much more so than being auditioned myself. When I'm auditioning actors I'm always acutely aware that I am being assessed as a director - that they are working out whether they want to work with me just as much as I am assessing their suitability for the production. In the first half of the day we saw each of the applicants individually, before having a group workshop in the afternoon to see if they would respond to our collaborative, story-telling approach to the play. This workshop was also the first opportunity I had to test out my ideas for the production! During the workshop I asked the actors, in groups, to explore sections of the Chorus from Henry V, finding a way of telling us the story of the speech, in their own words and using sounds and physical actions as imaginatively as possible. After this they then transferred what they had learnt to their delivery of Shakespeare's words. The results were fantastic and unlike any other rendition of Shakespeare that I have experienced to date. It got us all very excited about September!

Shockingly, I have only been to the theatre once this month - it is certainly true that as soon as you are working in theatre you have much less time to see any. The one play that I did see was, however, an absolute treat. Privacy at the Donmar Warehouse (rapidly becoming my most frequented theatre) is a triumph. Josie Rourke has created a production that perfectly mixes cutting, relevant satire, audience interaction and engaging narrative. I am not normally a fan of 'techie' theatre, but the use of projection really aided the storytelling and completed a fully-conceived world on stage. It was also a production that made you think and had you on edge - you were never sure whether your personal information or 'selfie' would appear on the rear wall of the theatre (all with your consent, of course - you just didn't know if or when it would happen). Multi-roling was used to great effect - with actors literally switching characters mid-speech. Once more, however, like in Jane Eyre (see my March blog), one actor (in this instance the quite brilliant Josh McGuire, who delights and impresses in everything he does) played one character throughout and this did ground you as an audience member, giving you a focal point you could rely upon. Which was just as well, since there wasn't much else in the production that you could rely upon - the production was full of twists and turns, though there was one particularly brilliant twist that we were sworn to secrecy over at the end of the play! Will be surprised if this doesn't transfer - it certainly deserves to.

Focus is now almost completely on Fou for the next couple of months, whilst getting everything in place for Henry V and my next blog will almost certainly be from Avignon! I am also managing to get some cricket played - in between the appalling weather. I think it is good and healthy to have a complete break from theatre every now and again. Weather-permitting I should be able to get three or four more games in before leaving for France.

A short month not short of activity: Romeo and Juliet, Wolf Hall, Bring Up The Bodies and Versailles

February may be the shortest month but it has definitely not been short of activity!

It got underway with the production of Romeo and Juliet that I described as 'joyously irreverent' in my last post! After a slightly nervy first night where neither the cast nor the audience were entirely sure of what to expect, we relaxed into the show and it proved a great success! Having an audience laughing continually throughout a production of Romeo and Juliet isn't something one would normally aim for but this was exactly what we had hoped for and it was an absolutely pleasure to perform. My Friar Laurance, with questionable morals, even more questionable substance (ab)use and copious amounts of plastic bags, was without doubt one of the most enjoyable parts I've ever played. Everyone involved with the production was an absolute delight and I was very sorry to see the end of it.

Alongside being in Cardiff for a fantastic Welsh victory over the French - I challenge any sporting arena to beat the atmosphere in the Millennium Stadium on a Friday evening with the roof closed - and my continuing work in schools, I have also seen some truly brilliant theatre this month. It is all too rare that you feel privileged to have witnessed a piece of theatre but this month I have felt just that and on three separate occasions.

The first two were at the exquisitely performed RSC adaptations of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies. When I first heard that these were being adapted for the stage I was highly sceptical - it screamed of a shameless money-making bums-on-seats ploy. But after reading the books I started to believe and with the masterful Jeremy Herrin at the reigns these are two productions that are an absolute joy to behold. The atmosphere and flavour of the novels are captured perfectly, whilst the performance of Ben Miles as Thomas Cromwell is not only captivating but a phenomenal demonstration of endurance (on stage almost throughout each play's 3 hour plus running time). Herrin's direction is simply faultless. The play flows with unstoppable energy, trusting the audiences' imagination to transport the actors from scene to scene. I loved every minute of it and could easily have sat through another three hours - unfortunately we'll have to wait until Mantel has finished writing the final part of the trilogy before that can happen!

The third play was Peter Gill's Versailles at the Donmar Warehouse. This is quite simply a play that everyone should see. Not just because of the remarkable performances from the whole cast or because of the exquisite writing and design but because Peter Gill has created a piece of theatre that ingeniously uses the politics of 1919 to shed light on our own contemporary world. This is a play that is not only riveting but also makes you think. There's a beautiful sense of dramatic irony throughout the play since the audience knows the eventual repercussions of the Treaty of Versailles (most notably Nazi Germany and the complete mess that is the Middle East) whilst the characters can only guess (some in a more educated fashion than others). The stunning performances from a host of young actors (Gwilym Lee, Josh O'Connor, Tom Hughes, Edward Killingback, Tamla Kari and Helen Bradbury) shows that the future of British theatre is in safe hands on the acting front.

As well as going to the theatre, I am now back to directing for the theatre. March will see me directing a short piece for a new writing evening in Bristol, running from the 11th-15th March at the Little Black Box Theatre. I held auditions last Sunday, am delighted with the cast and cannot wait to get rehearsing this weekend. There are also plans afoot for me to direct my first short film in early April.