Notes from the national theatre

 So today we received our feedback from Tom and it’s nothing we aren’t aware of which is a good thing because we already knew our mistakes. 

Here’s his feedback 👇

he play was performed by a large company of over 30 who for the most part are all level 3 acting students at the college. The production is being used as part of their learning and the students will be assessed on their performances. The company has been rehearsing four days a week since January. This is the first ‘normal’ production since Covid-19.

The venue was a large studio theatre space with lighting rig and sound system.

It is clear the company have connected to Remote’s themes and have enjoyed the opportunity to work on a play with chorus and ensemble at its heart.

Realisation of the Play and Direction

     

     At the centre of this production of Remote is the effective decision to create a number of different groups who occupy the park with the named characters and comment on the action as an ensemble. These groups are nicely recognisable for the audience (the old men who meet each day to read their papers and moan about the world, the women who meet to do Yoga and then open the wine, the new parents etc.) and each has their own personality. This is often used well to create humour as the audience gets to know these groups the same way we get to know the named characters and the distribution of the ensemble lines to link to the groups personalities is clever. The park really feels populated and alive.

It strikes me the writer does a number of things with the ensemble- for instance sometimes they describe what is happening and sometimes they comment on it with their own views. The creation of the different ensemble character groups works brilliantly when they comment on the action, but I wondered if the ensemble could serve what was happening in the story more at times when describing? Still of course as these characters but with the level of pace / tension that is needed in the story in key moments. Occasionally the company falls into the trap of the default energy of the groups (for instance the old men) which may not help the dramatic storytelling at that point. This in turn can lead to a slightly slow pace at points.

I also wondered if more work could be done to explore the ensemble’s relationship to us, the audience. Are we part of their group when they have lines (for instance are we one of the old men when the old men are speaking)? At the moment it often feels we are outsiders looking in on conversations. This means the ensemble don’t always connect to us effectively as they are speaking mainly to the rest of their group. I wonder if it might be interesting for the actors to play with the idea that we are part of their group, they are gossiping too us or sharing their frustration with us for instance. This may also help with the vocal energy.

There were moments when I felt the action could have been focused more to help the audience concentrate on what they should be connecting too at certain moments. For the most part the ensemble effectively turn down their “physical volume” well when they are not the focus, but occasionally they can pull focus - examples include actors getting up and walking across stage, changing yoga positions at key moments or for instance the moment where the yoga women brought out the wine just when Antler was explaining to Crystal why she had made the decision to climb the tree.

Characterisation and Performances

As mentioned, the different characterisations for the ensemble groups works well and the group should have confidence in this idea and continue to grow these performances.

The named characters also effectively create strong sense of individual characters and deal with the play’s emotional moments well.

I did feel that the pace of picking up cues etc. could be worked on by everyone.

Design

            

      The design effectively creates a sense of place and gives the company a nice variety of levels to stage the play on. The tree has been effectively created using steel deck to give a nice sense of height and separation to Antler that works well.

   Vocal Clarity

    The company needs to work at building more volume and diction in the performance and were at times difficult to hear - this was particularly true for some of the early ensemble lines which are really important to set the bar which others need to then match. You mentioned that you had been rehearsing in a much smaller space, so I wonder if the group had carried some of that space into their vocal energy.

There is a tendency to play thoughts down into the ground which doesn’t help vocal clarity and the company could be encouraged to do more thinking up. An example of this is when Finn is telling the dog story - the actor is clearly emotionally connected to the text at this point but because they play these thoughts down into the floor the audience do not get to see the actor’s expressions and the actor’s voice is lost somewhat into the floor.

Lighting, Sound & Video

Projection effectively creates the sky and there is some nice lighting to create the sunset at the end of the play.

Sound is used to create a sense of place and this works well, but occasionally it felt like the actors’ vocal performances were having to fight against the volume level of this. I also wondered if the sound needed to go all the way through the play as it currently does? At times it feels that the continuous sound maybe doesn’t help create the different levels of tension and atmosphere in the play and it might be interesting to try what happens if you lose the sound earlier in the piece once the world has been established.

          Transitions, Entrances and Exits

    There are some lovely and imaginative uses of entrances and exits to create the sense of people passing through the park (such as the roller skater and scooter driver). Occasionally it felt that entrance cues were not picked up quickly enough and we were left with gaps between moments while actors came on stage. The fluid nature of the play being “one moment”, as the writer describes it, particularly exposes this and it adds to some of the moments where the pace can feel a little slow.

   Safety

  

     The tree structure looked well built and safe and the actors were clearly safe when climbing it etc. The moments of violence (pushing etc.) looked safe, but occasionally almost too safe in the sense they didn’t tell the story of the violence. I wonder whether sometimes the threat of violence can be more effective that the act itself? For example, once a character has been pushed to the ground the threat actually dissipates a bit.

The waving of the branch felt safe in the home venue but as you have identified will need to be looked at again on the smaller stage at York Theatre Royal.

   Further development

    You have eight days rehearsal, around 40 hours before your performance at York Theatre Royal. As you have mentioned some of this time will need to be used to adjust the production so it works on the new stage but, if you have time I would also focus on:

- Vocal energy and clarity.

- Pace, picking up cues and exploring moments when the play can have a variety of rhythms from

the different ensembles to compliment the action of the play. You could do a heightened energy

and pace run and discuss if there were moments that worked in that slightly different energy?

- Attached to the above - thinking about moments when the ensemble can help support the

narrative of the named characters through the creation of tension and atmosphere.

   Transfer notes / Stage layout at Partner Festival

As discussed on the evening of my visit there are a few elements that will need to be thought of ahead of York. These include:

- No projection

- A significantly reduced playing space. You mentioned you may use smaller items of furniture to

help counter this. Your current tree design will take up significant playing space. You could mark out the York Theatre Royal studio stage size in your rehearsal room to get an idea of how much smaller? Ultimately the area I suspect will feel significantly reduced is the centre stage playing space.

- The wings configuration at York Theatre Royal is different to those used in the home performance as we discussed on the night - see the technical information YTR has provided for further information.

- As we spoke about on my visit, a plan probably needs to be made for how the tree gets constructed if you use the same idea and how much of your tech rehearsal time this will take.

We’re definitely going to improve before our next show and take everything he said into account. I’m very pleased he thought we were unique and creative and that he could see and appreciate the different characters that we used to bring the park to life :)