Prototype

Dear reader I am very tired, so please much allowances for me.

Just back from another excellent Prototype at the Tobacco Factory Theatre.

Again it was well attended, with a large slice of the performance / theatre community in the audience. I really felt that the feedback session was much more focused and therefore useful, because this time most people actually answered or at least tried to answer the questions they were asked by the artists. Giving good and useful feedback is a skill that needs to be learnt and it felt to me that progress has definitely been made in the audience that attends Prototype.

So what was on show?

1st up we had Arkward City with a piece about relationships and the difficulties in communication within them, that was in an early stage of development. They made use of some excellent devices and and elements of repetition that were both pleasing and surprising. However the physicality felt too generalised, perhaps because it was very neat and for the most part graceful which meant it didn't respond so much to the subject matter. Also it featured taped voice which I react to very badly. I recognise this as my own preference and not a jibe against the work. For taped voice on stage to work for me it needs to be of such high quality that I can forget that it's coming out of the speakers, otherwise it draws me out of the live action. Plus it makes me think that if you cared so much about that writing why don't you just say it? Here it felt like a lot of the words were already said within the actions and that it would be more powerful to communicate the text with images and transitions within the physicality.

Next up were The Plasticine Men, and here I must declare an interest (this will happen a lot tonight) because the director of this piece Simon Day is a friend of mine. That said this was a STORMING bit of work. It was honest and truthful within the world that it created, it didn't drop the physical game for comic effect or make excuses for itself. I thought that there was a beautiful complicite between the performers Fionn Gill and Martin Bonger, as well as the lighting, and the sound. All put to effect to tell an interesting story. It took me a little while to place the story because the first narrative thread that emerged was during a song and this, it turned out, was not where the story took place but a sea shanty intended to evoke mood rather than provide concrete information about plot. Minor trifle mind, producers of the world get emailing these boys.

The third piece by Once was an interesting anomaly because it wasn't really meant for the wider audience but rather a small group who volunteered to take part in it. It was a short scene followed by questions to the participants regarding someone they knew who had died. As I didn't volunteer I don't feel I have any useful feedback.

Fourth on the bill and first on after the interval were Tittle-Tattle Theatre, a collective so recently formed they don't have a website, but should they ever want one I can recommend they check out this guy who builds websites. Again a declaration Saini Manninen is a friend and fellow member of Residence.org.uk. I found it hard to get to grips with the Shakespearean sections of this performance response to The Taming of The Shrew because of the language and the sheer number of different characters that are brought to life. It carried a sense of desperation, constriction and isolation that I feel can be built upon.

The final piece of the night was brought to us by Angus Barr, Wayne Clendennen, and Holly Stoppit. Again this will be biased because Wayne is a friend of mine as is Holly, who also directs my solo stage shows 10 Ways to Die on Stage and The Middle Bit. This piece was a great showcase for the writing, comic timing and facial manipulations of Angus, who is a brilliant comic actor. Wayne displayed a perfect deadpan throughout with some spot on swearing whilst Holly switched between quiet confusion and rampant passion. Overall the show uses the technique of droping the game for comic effect, but i started to see the drops coming so it lost some of it's power. Also I wasn't sure about what the wider idea behind the work was. Still if it was to be funny then it was a success.

Another excellent night of work, well done to all the artists, Katie Keeler, Tobacco Factory, Bristol, and you for reading this far.

As ever do get in touch and feel free to build on the piece using the comments section below.

Well that was interesting, I did a performance of The Middle Bit as an almost totally audience driven improvisation session. It was interesting but might have had a tendency to become white noise rather than a symphony. Next time, as every time, I will do a few things differently. I learnt a lot, which is the idea, this time it was the more subtle suggestions that, on reflection, were the most interesting. Namely John Arbuckle seeing his own death and having a happy thought.

Watching Iain Morrison and Leiza McLeod's "Gimme the Beat Girls" last night at Prototype has made me think. The show presents a series of poems by female Beat poets, which are sung whilst the two performers respond to each poem with props and actions. The female Beat poets have been a marginalised and largely forgotten part of the Beat narrative that focuses upon the genius of the lone, rebellious male. The poems themselves are full of genius and like much Beat poetry they really need to be spoken, better still performed, to be brought fully to life.