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Posted Friday, March 28, 2003
I've just completed my first three days of Try outs' for So Much Things to Say' at Windsor Arts Centre. It's been quite a ride Kim Fuller and I produced the first draft of the script and I performed the whole thing, unedited, un-tweaked for our creative consultant, Complicite's Simon McBurney. Simon gave fantastic notes and basically told us not to worry about narrative too much just concentrate on getting the characters up to speed. So we did a second draft, and I performed the whole thing again for Simon. He was very enthusiastic about the whole thing, very excited, but he wanted me to write some stand up now. My reaction was mild F***king stand up? What do you F***king mean Stand up? I thought this was gonna be a one man play, like that Lily Tomlin thing I saw once?' Simon punched me hard in the face repeatedly until I calmed down. He then told me that although he thought our attempts at writing a play were admirable .the whole thing needed to be thrown up in the air, smashed to pieces and put back together again' He also reassured me that when he did The Elephant Vanishes' at the Barbican, four weeks before there was no show'. I was a little heartened by this, but not much. The prospect ahead of us was daunting write a load of stand up material that matches the characters that we've been developing, and do it all in a matter of a few days. Yeesh-someone pass me the medication.
Kim and I met at the rehearsal rooms last Monday this is a rock and roll rehearsal rooms, there are fluorescent lights, a P.A. system, a mirror along one wall so you can see how shitty you look, and no windows. Kim and I sat down and began to write. Over the weekend I'd made a big list of all the things that Simon had mentioned during his appraisal of our heavily scripted show:' Let's try for spontaneity. You have to acknowledge that you're in a theatre performing, you mustn't allow the audience to think that you think this is a great theatrical thing you're doing here' Buttocks squeezed. Tongue bitten.
Ok, what else? Let's try and create a synergy between Len the stand up comedian, the spontaneous present where anything could happen, and also the characters' story'. Ok-I understand thatanything else ? Could you have the stand up ready for Windsor next Wednesday?' I think the idea of performing just written' stand up is nerve wracking for any comedian but the idea of writing material on Monday and Tuesday and then performing that material on the Wednesday is nothing short of mental. It is how we work though we try stuff out, sometimes its great, sometimes it isn't but we keep moving. So at Simon's behest we pull out some of the characters that we think are funny and will work in the way that a slab of Deakus or Delbert would work in a stand up show.We're not attempting to put the show together or anything, we're just giving the audience a taste of bits, there's no shape, rhyme or reason. we're just funnin' around. Tuesday night, we assemble a presentation of material I'm going to do:
So much things to say
Intro-re: try outs laugh like black people, etc.
Stand up bit
Mr Lister the stroppy Jamaican shop keeper - several bits of him pulled from the show
More stand up
Then Dominic Chambers a black lawyer, also Tory candidate to the right of Attila the Hun
More stand up
And then Rachel Mr Lister's Wife on being married for a long time
Two more stand up bits and get off.
I'll print the script out at some point so you can see how it worked The Wednesday show was fanbloodytastic, great response from a very lively audience (for a lunchtime) who got all the jokes and even laughed at stuff that wasn't funny they laughed less at this stuff obviously, but its nice that they cared enough to let me down gently - the big revelation at this point is that Rachel Lister steals the show by a mile We're all very happy I go home elated. I'm back on the case hoorah!
The Thursday show was not fanbloodytastic in fact it crapbloodytastic . They still laughed, but I think I lacked energy or something it was a bit like wading through treacle there was no zip to it. The audience were ok, but I felt a bit like I was in the bottom three on Fame Academy and its that bit where the students have to vote for who they want to save the whole audience at Windsor on the Thursday would have held cards saying Anybody but Len'. Then I found out that there were quite a lot of people in from a Church group. Which might have explained some of the wincing, loud coughing and stony faced-ness during some of the racier material. Ah well it's never the audience it's always you big man. Crack on. Thursday night, I go to bed early to get my body rested in shape for the last day - Neither Simon or Kim attend the first two shows. Kim has got meetings about a new show for T.V and Simon has been cast in a remake of the Manchurian Candidate with Denzel Washington how bout them apples? Friday Kim shows up at last! I arrive at 10 30 and we begin to go through the script, editing as we go along, improving jokes, slimming down overly verbose set ups, etc. Strangely enough I feel pretty good about going out there. After an hour and 8 minutes, I leave the stage to a lovely round of applause. The cuts and tweaks that were done this morning really pay off and make the show leaner and funnier but we're still a long way to go. I found out on Monday that we have to write a show of two halves (not the original plan), so there's at least another 50 minutes of material to crank out. We'll have the first two drafts of character material to draw on but we also have to write more stand up stuff. Simon is convinced that at this stage, the stand up material gives the audience a root from which they can accept the characters I agree with him on that. Characters are difficult things to pull off if in a one-man show usually when a comic does a character, it is something he has performed on T.V. or something like that. Presenting characters that have never been seen before is different, they have to be set up and the audience need to know where they are. Simon's instincts are right so far on this: the improvisational stuff that moves me from stand up into the characters serves as a bridge that helps the show run smoother than before.
Now all I've got to do is get through my Open University Exam any tips?
Peace
L
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