Rehearsals – Day 7 – Helena Blair

So, in true student/actor/generally hopeless and forgetful me fashion, I let the blog fall behind a little, but it’s back, nearing its end, and drawing very close to what all our preparations including the writing of this blog has been for- The Music Box’s two week run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival… I’m so excited!!

I joined this production not quite comprehending how much work would be required in order to fully realise my character, ‘the Mother’ of the play’s protagonist, Laura. She and the doctor aren’t onstage as much as the others, they don’t interact with anyone other than each other, and most significantly, they don’t speak. So, playing that part will be easy, right? Surely there’s not much responsibility there? Wrong! The Mother is an incredibly lonely woman, who has been hurt emotionally in the past to such an extent she has become a kind of recluse, developed a twisted relationship full of jealousy and resentment towards her daughter, and finds herself falling wholly for the doctor and the attention he gives her when he steps into her world. The play takes place essentially as a result of the Mother’s past actions, and much of what she and the doctor do during their time onstage influences what happens between Laura and the other characters throughout the play. There is so much to be told, felt and done by the pair, in silence, and it has been an amazing, challenging experience in rehearsals working out how to communicate such a large amount when we perform. Every scene has a story, and every action has a motive behind it, and a consequence- it’s up to you, the audience, to work to understand this couple and their effect on the play, and become as engaged with their tale as we all have!

I am so, so happy to be involved in The Music Box Edinburgh run. To me, this beautiful and enthralling play is what the Fringe is all about- pushing the boundaries and experimenting with theatre. The cast are an amazing group of people, who are all immensely devoted to the play, worshipful of Emma’s writing talent, and proud of what we’ve all managed to achieve in a process that has been very much about group work. We’re having the time of our lives, and can’t wait to continue it when we hit the Big Fringe. I’d say we’re laughing and enjoying ourselves too much, but then, can you ever laugh and enjoy yourself too much? Our neighbours might disagree, but I hope there’s no limit anyway. Wish us luck in Edinburgh!

Dress Rehearsal

Courtesy of Nick Rutter

Rehearsals – Day 6 – Emma Stirling

We still have two full days of rehearsals left and already I feel sad that it
will be over soon. Even though the play is quite dark in places, rehearsals
have been really fun. And not just fun in a bracing sort of way: we’ve laughed
a lot. (Maybe too much…)

Co-directing and acting in the play I wrote makes me sound like an ego-maniac.
But honestly, at this stage in rehearsals, the play belongs to everyone in the
company as much as it belongs to me. The positions of writer, director and
actor are becoming increasingly seamless as we all figure out what the
characters want – and how best to show that honestly. During an interview with
Hannah from Cam FM yesterday, we had a chance to talk about how everything’s
been so far: intensely collaborative and creative, but also weirdly private.
Having only nine days to work on the play together has meant that we got to
know our characters independently before beginning rehearsals. James mentioned
in his blog yesterday that his character has changed a lot since last time he
performed, and it made me realise that I feel differently about my character
Tess: I understand her more.

Hannah also asked us why we are going to Edinburgh, and my first thought was
simply because it would be fun. But it is more than that – I wrote the play to
tell a story and I think that’s what all of us are trying to do now. I tend to
see characters in plays and book as real people, and I feel great affection for
all the Music Box characters, not just Tess (even if I don’t exactly like
them).

The Flyer!

Thanks to Ella Jackson Illustration

 

Rehearsal Shots

Rehearsals – Day 5 – James Evans

It’s the fifth day of rehearsals, the entire play has been blocked and now we have five more days to run this baby to perfection. I’m James and I play perhaps the play’s most enigmatic character: Oliver.

 

This is my second time performing in The Music Box. I first played Oliver in the Corpus Playroom in Spring Term 2012 and since then, things have changed considerably. With some new additions to the cast and crew, this time round it feels like we’re approaching The Music Box in a completely different way. This change isn’t just purely circumstance. We may have a different cast who bring something new to their roles, but I can safely say that the Oliver I am playing now is distinctly different to the one I played a few months ago.

 

Maybe it is because I play him that I have such a fascination with Oliver as a literary creation, but in a play of so many ambiguities and multiple interpretations, Oliver seems to me to be the biggest mystery in The Music Box. One thing our directors – Emma and Pete – have encouraged us to consider when approaching our roles is each character’s ‘frighteningly brave’ truth. I won’t give away the ending by revealing what I consider to be Oliver’s integral truth but this, coupled with the ability to construct two drastically different interpretations of the same character, highlights the profundity and the complexity of the construction of our protagonists in The Music Box. Unlike his Dickensian counterpart, Oliver Twist, our 21^st century Oliver is corrupted. He is not exactly corrupt in himself, but he is most certainly influenced by outside forces.

 

This, to me, is the most attractive element of The Music Box: nothing is black and white. Young or old, articulate or mute, real or imagined, each character is tinged with shades of grey. The characters may do bad things, but they are not evil and they are always motivated by their inherent ‘frighteningly brave’ truth. There are no heroes, only anti-heroes.

Rehearsals – Day 4 – Sarah Malcolm

After an evening of cast bonding, involving wine and plastic spoons, I think it’s safe to assume that today’s rehearsal was tackled with aching but nonetheless excited faces; too much laughter goes straight to my cheeks! I’m Sarah and I’m playing the role of the bewildered protagonist Laura.

Exploring the role has been a challenging experience.  Laura is struggling to deal with the dazed monotony of her bed ridden state and as a child who has never seen a stranger or felt real affection, she is lost in a world of forgotten memories and absent dreams which she attempts to articulate through her creations of Blake, Tess and Oliver. To grasp a character with so much control and power over others has been interesting as she switches between playful child, commanding adolescent and numb patient.  Ultimately she is afraid, just like any other human with the fear of the unknown, and to witness the destruction of such a beautifully complex character has in itself been one of the most magical experiences in this process.

Perhaps this image of a frightened kitten sums up Laura quite well. Or perhaps it is just a cute image that I wanted to include. Either way, the rehearsal process is going brilliantly and I am enjoying both the unravelling of this beautifully imaginative play and the chance to get to know a truly wonderful cast.

Blog Day 3

Hello – Russell the producer here. Being the aforementioned producer (as well as a work-shy layabout) I haven’t actually been to rehearsals today… I did dutifully turn up at 5pm, reliably informed the cast were putting in 9 till 6 days, only to find out they’d just left. Shameful. 

So what have  I been doing all day I hear you cry. Being a proper Cambridge student and cracking on with a bit of coursework – that’s what. I’m currently researching an essay on Mongolian travel literature’s influence on Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’ . I think the Mongols would have liked the Music Box. It’s common knowledge that their favourite punctuation mark was the backslash and that Gengis Khan dared to go outside. 

Anyway, everyone here is getting a bit excited. We hope you’re all ready for a unique artistic experience (and a more relevant blog tomorrow.)

Rehearsals – Day 2 – Oliver Marsh

Day two in The Music Box House, and it’s time for an actor’s take on the whole business.  I’m Oliver, and I’m taking on the role of Blake – one of the characters dreamt up by Laura, the invalid protagonist.  Blake is an excitable, puppy-like, but completely mute child, whose constant vying for play and affection hides his prophetic pre-knowledge of the play’s tragic climax.  I also pretend to be a bear at one point, which is just great.  Pete’s post yesterday presented some thoughts on the plot from his external god-like director’s viewpoint, so I’m going to discuss something that’s becoming increasingly apparent to me from inside the scenes: the play’s great theatricism.

 

For me, the oddest thing about rehearsing this play has been how much theatrical power has come from just the blocking (that’s ‘deciding where we’re all going to move and when’ for non-theatrical types).  Normally that’s quite a boring walk-through process, and the magic only happens when scripts go down and dialogue gets confident.  But this is one of those rare plays where the stage directions don’t just get an actor to another bit of the stage ready for their next line.  The movement says a lot, so we’ve been carefully crafting a series of tableaux, subtle physical interactions, significant moments, to get those meanings across.  But, meaning aside, they just look great.  And when they’re woven together into continuous scenes, magic occurs.  Being in the middle of it is really quite spine-tingling.

 

A lot of this comes from the script.  We’re trying to represent the fevered imagination of a young girl in a pretty minimal setting.  So basically there’s quite a lot for us actors to do.  We go from exuberant play-acting to trance-like clockwork movement in the space of a heartbeat.  Also, as I mentioned, my character is a small child, and mute.  (And yes, as many people have pointed out, that does make line-learning easy.  But I’ve still got to learn my stage directions, and Emma’s sneakily hidden quite a lot of those inside other people’s lines).  That takes me a little way outside my comfort zone.  Quite a few of the other characters are similarly mute, or of indeterminate age, or change to suit Laura’s fickle imagination.  The demands this places on the actors produces an incredible level of focus, and even by day two we’re already really in tune with everything else that’s occurring on stage.  I can honestly say that having zero lines in my final scene has been more emotional than a couple of beautiful death monologues I’ve had in the past.

 

The Music Box is a play you can get a lot out of.  There’s a lot of themes, a lot of ideas.  And the great thing we’re finding in discussions is that the play in its entirety can mean different things to everyone, and yet throwing all these different ideas together produce yet more exciting insights.  But that’s all for after the show.  Even in this early stage of rehearsals it’s becoming apparent that we’ve got a lovely piece of theatre coming together, something that will totally grip and enthral in a whirl of ever-shifting beauty.  My bear impression is worth the ticket price alone.

 

For Oliver’s other blog, check out sidewayslookatscience.wordpress.com

Rehearsals – Day 1 – Pete Skidmore, Director

Hey everyone.

Rehearsals have officially started for The Music Box, and a different member of the cast and crew will be blogging each day throughout the next couple of weeks to give our own insights into the creative process. I’m starting the ball rolling with my take on things as co-director.

The Music Box is no easy play to define, nor is it one which can be summarised in a handy plot synopsis. Deliberately deviating from a linear time structure, the first scene may well be in the middle, or even at the end, of each characters journey. But this ambiguity is vital, as much of the play takes place inside the mind of a young girl, struggling to come to terms with her own illness and the confinement which her overbearing mother imposes on her.  The only limits to the scenes unfolding in front of us are those of her imagination, as she concocts varied characters to share in her solitude.

All of this may sound impenetrably vague, but there are themes within the text which are familiar to us all. One such element is the transition between adulthood and childhood. Our heroine, Laura, veers between infantile play with her imagined siblings, and a very adult fascination with mortality. The intrusion of a new fantasy in the shape of a boyfriend reflects the changing interests of a girl who is beginning to grow up, threatening the existence of more childish play-mates. Another overarching theme draws the parallels between entry into adulthood, and the transition between life and death. As directors, Emma and I are trying to incorporate these factors into how we approach scenes. Each movement the actors make signify something, and we are using recurring motifs to show how the relationships between the characters are mirrored in each other.

The result is something both beautiful and haunting, and all of us are looking forward to develop this exciting project further.