Rehearsal - the Nonologue (IFS – 5)

I've just discovered that discussing work in progress is a very sensitive issue.

So many things remain in constant flux in the making of a text, that any 'left-brained' activity that tries to rationalize this process too much, can sabotage any hope of a meaningful creative journey. A text is vulnerable in its 'draft state' and is still in the process of being born – so I'm toeing the line here and reporting on some of my work.

Also I've just spent a huge twelve hour burst hammering away at Into Stone and thought I'd call a time-out and report progress.

I spent most of my four days of rehearsal at the residency engaging with the second act of my play – and specifically the collision of the three stories – in what is a potentially a scene of absolute theatrical mayhem.

For this to make any sense I'll just share some facts about the play…

The play takes place at night, and moves between three timelines:
- present - 2007
- mythological past – somewhere in Treta Yuga
- historical past – 1857

The action occurs at a stone fort by the sea, which is
- a beach resort in 2007
- a shrine in the Treta Yuga
- a colonial bastion in 1857

In ACT 2 the space is a prison that exists in all three timelines.

This is a summary of the essential structure of the piece – with regards to time and space.

The reason I've chosen these three specific timelines, comes from the investigation of the space itself (Fort Aguada) and is best summed up in a sentence that I discovered in conversation with my director Raz.

The investigation of a space must address the necessary confluence of its present, mythological and historical contexts.

Why? The space is as I mentioned earlier, polymorphic – so to explore all the possibilities and contradictions that it has to offer – I felt the narrative needed to represent the entire array of activities that might have taken place. The scale of the play needed to be able to devour the space it was investigating.

The play then exists in triple layer – three stories within the same physical space.
At this point everyone had a headache…

Why these contortions? Each timeline represents a 'voice' - a 'discourse' if you like - and I'm fascinated by the possibility of allowing these voices to mingle and collide – as it happened in real life for me.

On questioning the space - one minute you're being hit with a mythological explanation (this was once the site of a temple where Ramachandra stayed during his exile), next minute it’s the ground reality (it's just a touristy beach resort) – then it's legacy (yeah, but it was once a colonial military structure). This polyvocal clash of worlds is what has been keeping me engaged.

SO – if the place is constant, but mutates over time, what does this do to character?

In this play as space mutates over time so does character. All credit to my actors in rehearsal (Vincent, Abhin and Farzana) because after a day of grappling with this idea – it made a fair bit of sense.

Each actor plays three roles. A character in this plays consists of a primary self – one who owns that particular story and two secondary selves – one for each other story. In one secondary self, the attributes of the primary character are distorted by power – a negative version of the self. The other secondary self – is a weak and ineffectual version of the attributes of the primary character – a minor self.

Why? My notion of character in this play emphasises the importance of 'now' – the present. Going back and forth in time can easily diffuse the immediacy of the concerns. You might get the cyclic indolence that suggests the sentiment – "Aw the same stuff happens again and again, why bother!"

Cycles exist – but the human element remains as alive for every iteration of the cycle.
So we get the characters :

Uttara from the present
who is
- young lady in 1857
- Priestess in the Treta Yuga

Satya from the mythological past
who is
- young man in 2007
- Dom in 1857

Maraj from the historical past
who is
- old man in the Treta Yuga
- SK in 2007

So the play involves three stories and nine parts to be played by three actors.
This was when everyone had their second headache. (There was no third - you go numb now.)

Also, in the second half of the play – the stage space is a prison. This prison exists in all times. If I were sitting in this cell and I were to collapse time – could I see everyone who was ever in that cell? What if I was once there, in another timeline?

To take this hallucinatory concept onto stage, in the second half of the play the stories collide – characters begin to wobble, mutating between selves and the plot jumps across timelines.

Why? Juxtaposition.

If each self is a voice – then a question posed by one voice, is answered by another version of the self. If a self is threatened it retreats into its minor self, or attacks by turning into its powerful version. The prison - becomes a howling scream of nine voices – a roar of voices across time and space.

And we've christened it, the nonologue!

We spent the first two days of rehearsal getting our heads around the play. I wrote a bit of the lead up to the nonologue over a weekend and we spent the next two days of rehearsal putting that extract on its feet.

I was hoping to get through all the complexities of the piece through the rehearsal and this did happen. The actors physicalised the action and I needed much less brain-bandwidth to orchestrate dramatic movement. Now I'm working on the second draft and taking a shot at the crescendo of the play – the orchestration of nine voices – the nonologue.

Hopefully now that I've got all the homework done – it's just a matter of emotionally experiencing each moment and fleshing out each instant of the play. No easy task – but hell – looks a lot easier now.