The Rehearsals Weeks
The very first impression from Edinburgh: warm enough but slightly raining; smiling and friendly people; original cabs; the buildings reminding some sceneries from Harry Potter movies and a great apartment. Moreover, everything is in English! Ough, I forgot to mention, it was the first time when I visited native English-speaking country. So exciting! The evening of the first day was spent on unpacking and examining local surrounding.
Already from next day we started the rehearsals for Chaplin. We had a great rehearsals venue at Dance Base in Grassmarket: a spacious studio with a proper sound system. Thanks to company visits at Culture Export Management Program and some of my previous experience, I have been to the rehearsals, but never followed them from the very beginning. I know the script, I have seen the play from a recording, but I do not know what to expect from the process and from the actors. I have never been inside this environment!
When the actors arrived, I understood that all of them are amazing individuals! Round of introduction, and straight to the business – reading the script together, planning the working tempo, specifying some practicalities. Worth mentioning that our amazing cast Sarah McCardie, Michelle Edwards, James Bryce, Christopher Page, John Scougall and Ross Dunsmore was gratefully supporting each other and us, so it made our working together such efficient and enjoyable at the same time.
However, I was assured once again that production work and artistic work are the two parts of creating one successful piece of culture, but these tasks have to be under different persons’ responsibilities. Thus, while the creative team worked on rehearsals and putting all great ideas together, the production team consisted from Hongjia and me were working on logistics, communications, promotion and all ongoing tasks. Some tasks included coordination of order and delivery printed marketing materials, looking for the props, update ourselves with the latest important information from the venue and Fringe Society, social media promotion, supervising that PR materials are ready and correct, taking care of the guest list and complementary tickets. Once some props and the costumes were delivered from Helsinki, there was quite a lot of work with trying them on, seeing what costumes can be altered according to their sizes and what has to be replaced. Some alterations I have made myself, some of them by a professional tailor. In addition, I was assisting our director and providing feedback and advice when needed.
I shall admit that by the end of the third (and the last) week of the rehearsals I knew the script and most of the acting gestures by heart. There was quite a lot of routine that I simply had to take care of in order that the artistic process could go smoothly. However, there was something magical seeing how within such a short time some text on the paper becomes an accomplished and beautiful play. So much hard work stays behind the scenes! I think if audience see and feel completed, and all-sufficient play without noticing how much work was done in order to make it vivid and natural, then the work is done perfectly! Working on every single move, gesture, tone, look, accent and even minor details – everything stays behind the scenes, and audience shall enjoy the experience!
Also quite a lot of my time I decided to spend on self-education. Chaplin is a fascinating and touching story, a bibliographical theater play about Charlie Chaplin as a person with such a rich, tragic and at the same time beautiful life story. I did not know anything about Charlie Chaplin apart of a few films with him starring as a Tramp. Therefore, I decided that in order to understand the play that I am helping to become a success, to talk about it with potential audience better and professionally, I have to learn myself quite a lot. Therefore, free evenings I was reading Charles Chaplin’s book “My Autobiography”, searching for articles in the internet and watching his movies.
Almost here!
The closer it was to the official days of the Fringe Festival’s opening, the more people and more vivacity was on the streets. Every day after the rehearsals, I was walking down from Grassmarket to Canongate (20 min by foot) and it usually took me over an hour. What performances, what an amazing festive mood in the air! Amateur and professional street performers, street art, portray, live statues, hand crafts, unique and creative styles of the shows – everything you could find on Royal Mile! To run ahead, I will note that Royal Mile was a centre of the entire Festival. It was an accumulation of all street promotion, scheduled street performances and events. The street of 0.2 miles long later on took over 20 min to pass through because it was overcrowded.
At the end of the third week of Chaplin’s rehearsals, Juha and Mikko came with rehearsed in English Last Call play. A little bit earlier that time Sari Jagielski, who also takes part in Culture Export Management program, came to Edinburgh to help. I genuinely appreciate Sari’s help who brought so much positive energy to our production team! All together we started physical marketing promotion (flyering and postering), also a just before the previews there was quite a lot of work with moving the props and the costumes for Chaplin from the rehearsal venue to Pleasance and going through technical rehearsals together with the venue’s stuff. Chaplin was performed at the Pleasance Theatre Trust venue, Pleasance Courtyard Forth; and Last Call was staged at a new venue for the C-venues: Riddle’s Court. In my first blog post I mentioned that once the contract with venue is signed, the venue becomes the first contact for the performer. In order to ensure a successful arranging and conditions for the performer, there should be close cooperation between venue and performer. Venue shall become a second home, a host for the performer; and this relationship has to be trusting and reliable. Having great and organised atmosphere in the venue, performer can focus on the performance itself. Unfortunately, it does not necessarily happen. For instance, Pleasance has a very professional attitude, yet it is clearly seen the all the stuff loves what they are doing. Therefore, it was a pleasure to work with these people. Whereas in C-venues were quite a lot of problems in communication and in finding solutions in some difficult situations. As the conclusion of everything mentioned above, a producer and all production team (venues also can be seen as a production team for all performances happening at their premises) shall have a passion towards what they are doing. Professionalism, right ways of communication, some knowledge and networks are very important in the creative industries, but it might be gained with experience. I believe that if production team do not have passion towards what they are doing, cannot enable performer’s success, not striving for excellence and not being proactive, the piece of art that they are producing cannot be successful.
Jaha Hippi at C-venue with Last Call poster on the wall
The billboard with Chaplin outside Pleasance Courtyard
Text and photo by Maria Strelkova
…to be continued.
Culture Export Management 