April 8th - My Actors workshop with Teatru Arka in Wroclaw!

Teatru Arka: The Temple. Dybuk - Jewish Legends

Dzien dobry!

Good morning to you all!

Turning now to the title of today's blog. Some of you may remember way back in January I became exercised by the fact that this Cinderella Blog was  getting a high level of visits even though the project was finished. 

But more than that at least 70% are coming from Poland. I am still curious about this. I have spoken to a few Polish people about it including a lovely woman called Marta who does a mean holistic massage at the Zen Health Spa in Notting Hill. She told me without much hesitation that she believed Polish people would be reading it because of hope. Hope to come to the UK maybe to improve their lives economically, hope because we have the funding and resources (!) to make theatre in the UK and its virtually impossible to get funding now in Poland, a country well known for its experimental theatre and some of the greatest 20th century directors.

Marta's may be a helpful hypothesis, plus Pradeep's suggestion that it might be used as a case study by students. 

In any event it prompted me some weeks ago to further my conversation with my friend Maciej (was a fellow actor with me in Triple Action Theatre) in Wroclaw. After our great catch up SKYPE conversation I decided to book a trip to Poland, to see if I can get a feel for things there and get a sense of what's happening artistically and socially for myself.

Teatru Arka: Edyta Stein

I am so excited about the news I got yesterday from Maciej that I have been invited to lead a workshop at Teatru Arka  (love the synchronicity of this - a company with the same name as ours!). Indeed Maciej was off to see their new show last night at teatrarka.pl

I have yet to get more details of Arka's work. I hope to speak to Anna, their Artistic Director this week before I head over to Poland in early April. 

I will be leading a workshop called The Soulful Actor on April 8th which will be a practical and physical exploration of the beginning of creating character through archetypes. I will invite actors to enter the imaginal space to work both on their own imaginative skills development and their emotional and spatial connection with each other in an ensemble. 

This is an entirely new workshop project in which I hope to develop a laboratory approach to exploration of the actor's work outside the pressures of putting a show together. I know I have a lot to learn and I am very excited to use this opportunity to experiment with actors in Poland,  a country and theatre which very much influenced my professional career as a young actor in the eighties. 

If you are interested in attending this workshop in Wroclaw on April 8th 10am - 2pm please email me asap carole@arctheatre.com

I also plan to run The Soulful Actor as a four-day laboratory programme for professional and emerging actors in the August Bank Holiday week at our studios at Arc, and will post more information about this when I get back from Poland. 

Have a good Easter Sunday.



nb: new header photo ©Theresa Snooks for Arc Theatre

Kristin Linklater's list of Voice Dos and Donts

(From today's blog: A Life in Theatre: Towards the Simple and the Sacred

http://carolepluckrosealifeintheatre2013.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/kristin-linklaters-list-of-vocal-dos.html) 

Good Morning!  

Oooh its very cold this morning, and I can't find my scarf. Not good to set off the day walking in the bitter cold without having something warm around your neck! My mum would nag - and she will!  And to boot, the day I had planned has been cancelled! I was due to spend some time visiting an unusual hospital in Kent for the NHS project we are currently developing. Its a shame, especially as it means that I now have to confront a complicated grant application today that I have been putting off! 

Cicely Berry

Since starting this blog at the beginning of January I have written a lot about theatre practitioners whose work has influenced me, from Brook, Grotowski, Steve Rumbelow to my early drama teachers Joyce Ashton and Jenny Evans. 

When it comes to voice training I am a great fan of Cicely Berry's work as voice coach with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her books are excellent practical work books for the actor, which I have used consistently over my years as an actor and director. If you don't already know them her books include: 

Voice and the Actor (1973)
Your Voice and How to Use It
The Actor and his Text
Text in Action
Word Play: A Textual Handbook for Directors and Actors

My personal voice inspiration though since I was a student is Kristin Linklater. Kristin is a is a Scottish vocal coach, dialect coach, acting teacher, actor, theatre director and author. I have never met her but I feel as if I have! 
She is currently Head of Acting in the Theatre Arts Division of Columbia University. Her book Freeing the Natural Voice is my bible for voice. Its among those 10 or so seminal and  precious books that have been my companions throughout my career, and to which I turn for a chat, refreshment and inspiration.So I thought I would share Kristin's list of vocal Dos and Don'ts this morning which are fundamental for actors and directors. Enjoy!

'Know your voice—it's strong, it's sensitive, it's resilient, and it's you, so be good to it' 

Dos for the Healthy Voice

• Do get lots of sleep. Rest relieves the vocal cords, for obvious reasons.
• Do try to persuade your director not to set your play in a sandpit. Sand can seriously mess with your voice.
• Do a 20-to-60-minute voice and body warm-up as close as possible to the start of every rehearsal and performance. A long, slow warm-up in the morning and a short, quick one in the evening work well.
• Do fall in love with your breathing. It's you. It's your emotions. It's your voice. It's not a machine.
• Do open your body down to your pelvis, into your belly, and round to your back for many deep-down enjoyable sighs.
• Do pant loosely, often, and happily, like a puppy. This is to awaken your breath.
• Do yawn a lot. The idea here is to open your throat—and smile as you yawn.
• Do stretch the middle of your tongue out of your mouth, placing the tip of the tongue down behind your bottom teeth.
• Do laugh out loud, and do cry if you feel like it. If you feel like it a lot, set the alarm and give yourself a deadline to stop and do something else.
• Do sing in the shower. Singing is good, helpful. Join a choral group for weekly singing.
• Do practice tongue twisters.
• Do lie on the floor and whisper all of your text to yourself before each rehearsal and performance. The point is to relax and let thoughts be freely in touch with your breath.
• Do drink plenty of water. One of the many reasons is that water reduces the viscosity of mucus, making it thinner and less likely to adhere to the vocal folds and interfere with movement. If you are using a decongestant medication, be sure to drink lots of water, as decongestants will dry out your tissues.
• Do consider mucus helpful. Regard phlegm as a friend. You don't want to strip the folds entirely of mucus, because it does lubricate. Eat fruit, because mild acid helps clear phlegm. Also, fruit adds a bit of natural sugar energy.

Don'ts for the Healthy Voice

• Don't smoke. Smoking is bad for your vocal cords and your lungs. It also tranquilizes your emotions, so it's bad for the art of theater.
• Don't drink alcohol of any kind. Alcohol acts as a diuretic and can dehydrate you. It also interferes with your liver's ability to filter germs. If you do drink any alcohol, follow up with lots of water.
• Don't drink caffeinated drinks. A caffeinated drink will act as a diuretic. If you do drink them, follow up with water.
• Don't stay up late. When you do, it often means shouting over the noise in a bar.
• Don't spend your afternoon yelling at a football match or the like. This is a temptation, especially during championship seasons.
• Don't do imitation Broadway belting at a karaoke bar.
• Don't eat chocolate or cheese. These foodstuffs are particularly harmful to the vocal cords.
• Don't drink milk before a show. See previous "don't" for the effect on the vocal cords.

Do's and Don'ts for the Afflicted Voice

• Do, if you strain your voice, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.
• Do get lots of sleep. Rest is an obvious tonic.
• Do hum gently in whatever clear bit of your voice you can find. Lip trill like a baby up and down your range.
• Do relax. Get a massage.
• Do, if you have to perform, rely more than usual on clear articulation. The sore throat that comes with a cold will not necessarily affect your vocal folds. You may sound a bit funny, but there's no need to lose your voice
• Do, if you develop laryngitis, go to the doctor. Laryngitis is an inflammation of the larynx that causes swelling in the vocal folds and is induced by stress or a virus. If absolutely necessary, find a very good throat doctor. 
• Do, if you are experiencing postnasal drip, use a neti pot. Warm salt water is good for the throat, but honey may not be, as it can congest further. Slippery elm is soothing to the throat. Osha root—also called "singer's root"—is ideal for viral infections of the sinuses, throat, and upper and lower respiratory systems. It helps bring out respiratory secretions and relaxes smooth muscle, making it beneficial for coughs and asthmatic breathing difficulties.
• Don't use decongestants! Nasal irrigation with salty water is a great alternative to decongestants, but do it earlier in the day. Don't try it just before a performance. That's because salt water can, if there is reflux inflammation already present, further irritate your vocal folds and larynx.

Memo: Do remember that all work and no play make Jack and Jill a dull boy and girl.

Over and out for today  - have a good one and keep well wrapped up! 

Tracking Down Maciej Suszynski in Wroclaw Poland: Shared from A LIfe In Theatre Blog 52.

Maciej Suszynski

Good morning.

Its over 25 years since I last saw Maciej in New Hampshire in the US. A few months ago he found me on Facebook and we had a flurry of messages as you do when you first reconnect with an old friend. But then what do you do?  Do you go on and meet up again? Well for me, only if there is a new project or purpose, or I guess maybe a bit of genuine curiosity! Its fun to get a snapshot of where life has taken them, and indeed to see their images, photos and preoccupations. 

Anyway - after sharing my blog with Maciej (in which I have talked a few times about my time in Poland) we got to talk on Skype last Sunday. I suppose at its basic level it was two old friends/colleagues reconnecting, which is great for us, but would be deeply boring for anyone else of course. But niceties out of the way our attention turned to talking of how we record our own theatre history. 

We worked with Triple Action Theatre, which was a controversial physical theatre company in the '70s and '80s led by the maverick director Stephen Rumbelow. Maciej and I were on the tail end of the company's life. I dipped out in 1983 and returned to London from Chicago, where the company carried on for another year or so. 

Our conversation turned to how we might make a record of the heady days of theatre making in the early eighties, and the huge Polish influences and exchanges. Much of this is lost. We promised ourselves that we would start to record the detail for a theatre archive. As I mentioned the other day Peter Hulton wrote a Theatre Paper about the company in his fourth series. But little of the work that took place in Poland is recorded anywhere, and its an interesting story for students of theatre, not least because of the stark challenges and dangers of making art in a military state. It was a highly fertile time in Poland's art history.

I mentioned earlier in January that I have been exercised by the fact that my previous blog about our Cinderella at the Broadway is still getting over 500 pageviews a day, mostly from Poland! I couldn't really understand why a local pantomime in East London would be of interest to Poles. I asked Maciej what he thought - and he was as curious as me. I thought maybe it was to do with the importance of the core fairy tale - but I don't think that's a very convincing reason. It certainly doesn't satisfy me.

Pradeep Jeyaratnam

But I think I may have got the answer I needed  from my dear friend Pradeep, who cooked me a lovely dinner a few days ago. He and his partner Caroline and I were discussing a number of things including Pradeep's recent show House on The Edge by the dance company State of Flux. He was sharing the enjoyment he had in a new experience of working with older dancers, and the challenges of bringing dance and theatre together.

A bit later I posed the Polish question. Without a moment's hesitation Prad told me that the answer was obvious wasn't it ? Not to me I reiterated.

He said the simple answer was nothing to do with the story of Cinderella, but quite simply that the blog tells the story of the the making of a new show from beginning to end, and all the quirky and strange challenges on the way, including the full process and the detail from the rehearsal room. He assured me that the consistent flow of hits on the blog is most likely to be from theatre students. And theatre studies is a very popular course in Poland. I suspect he's possibly right - and I hope so too. It was a very 'warts and all' account of the creative and practical process of making a piece and the collaboration between the creative team. And of course the 'characters' become familiar develop through the story. 

I plan to check in with Maciej to test Pradeep's theory - as he may have a few and is familiar with the specific theatre courses in Poland. So thanks to Maciej, Prad and Caroline for their wise counsel.

So Maciej and I are about to embark on a similar exercise for those early years of making work in Eastern Europe. I think our memories might be a little challenged, but between us we may be able to excavate enough to capture much of it to share with those same students in Poland and the US who are the other large cohort of the Cinderella blog followers.

I feel like I may have a bit of a better understanding now.

Have a lovely Sunday