The Webs We Weave and Working In the Matrix

Good morning.

So for the last few days I have been in gathering mode, building possibilities for new projects - in a cerebral space really. (well not too cerebral actually!)

But today I am in rehearsal with Mullered by Clifford Oliver and I am really excited. Going into the rehearsal/imaginal space is warm and familiar, but also stark and sharp. It embodies the imagination, and as such can offer up many goodies, but it also the empty space. Its a playground and a factory.

Today though I am not starting from scratch as I have made this piece already - it just hasn't been out for a few months. Today is about revitalising and igniting the material. Finding it freshly. 

And the other great thing about today too is that I don't have to worry about budgets, persuasive outcomes or targets. Hurrah! (Don't get me wrong - I do LOVE targets!). Yesterday's blog was all about that really - in fact my friend Amari told me it was a bit boring, which made me laugh, because sometimes that searching for a connection/narrative bit of my job can be like looking for a needle in a haystack and it takes a while to spot it. Its technical.

But today its about four actors in the imaginal space and me. As you will know if you regularly pop in on my blog, I have been writing a bit about emotional access recently and the steps to releasing character. So in anticipation of today's rehearsal and the reorientation of the actors into character, I am thinking about webs and matrixes.

Webs and matrixes are beautiful and complex structures - the dictionary definitions say:

Web: 
Noun
A network of fine threads constructed by a spider from fluid secreted by its spinnerets, used to catch its prey.
Verb
Move or hang so as to form a weblike shape: "an intricate transportation network webs from coast to coast".

Matrix
Noun
An environment or material in which something develops.
A mass of fine-grained rock in which gems, crystals, or fossils are embedded.

And that pretty much sums up the job. I will spend time today with the actors revisiting and building the character's web of relationships within the matrix of the play. This is always a great process as it produces fertile networks and connections.

We all live in webs, indeed the invention of the world wide web is merely a mirror image of this probably  - its an exquisite architecture. 

If you think about your own life and the web of family, friends, work colleagues etc imagine just how many relationships you live in and with? You manage this physical and  emotional landscape on a daily basis and you are different in each of them. At any one time we might be engaged in several hundred complex emotional relationships and we have to adjust to each as we need to. Depending on who we are with, talking to, the intimacy or formality of the relationship will determine the energy we use, the tone of voice, the physical proximity. Its a dance.

Its pretty easy to manage that one on one (is it?) - but faced with a room full it can be daunting. Is it any surprise that the bride and groom fall exhausted into their marriage bed after a wedding day full of "managing" relationships.  Its no surprise that these hot house occasions are wonderful settings for life's biggest intimate dramas!

Making these rapid emotional shifts is what we do. 

Have you ever had that experience when you are in the middle of a heated  argument with a family member and the door bell rings and you have an unexpected visitor? You invite them in for coffee and both you and your family member have to perform emotional gymnastics to change the mood in the room and cover up the previous antagonistic energy! Its life isn't it?


So to the actor. In creating character I work with the web. I ask the actor to place themselves (their character) at the centre of an imaginary web. This is done physically, so the symbolic web is set in space in the studio. The actor employs visual and emotional imagination to 'people' the web with all those others he conjurs to life for his character. The web is as big as the actor wants to make it. The people closer to the centre are those very 'present' in the character's life at the moment in which the play is set. This does not mean close in an easy trusting way necessarily, or even alive at the time of the setting. Sometimes a person in the life of the character might be huge and very close, but extremely intimidating or dark and dominating.

Working with 'summoning' these relationships into the space does a number of rich things. It deepens the emotional work needed by the actor, references the narrative arc fully, but perhaps most importantly embodies the inherent emotional and rational contradictions and incongruities in the character's life. 
This is where lazy character work can let the actor down. It can be too neat, too systematic and linear. People are not like that - we are full of contradictions. 

And so in creating character the actor must learn to imagine and tolerate things that don't fit nicely together. For example if you had to play Hitler, how would you approach him? You couldn't just play evil. In fact you would have to work hard to create love from Hitler's perspective.

So it is with character as with the people that we base them on - the same person can be loved and admired by one person in their lives, and hated and reviled by another. But of course they are still themselves whichever "face" they choose to reveal at any time, or on which others project.

This work on relational webs in creating character is very useful - and a tool I use unfailingly. You can do it in lots of ways and its useful for the actors to capture it in a drawing that they can take away with them for their character portfolio at the end of the rehearsal day. 

So excitedly off to the studio- catch you tomorrow.