I’m sat in an overly crowded train with greenery rushing by. “You’re in my seat” is a scene echoed down the red-lit carriages, a ten-carriage infinity for the ticket officer’s slow creaking journey, laden with squishy chocolate and overpriced hot-water beverages. The sun is out, warm and soft, despite a slash of pink in the sky this morning. Shepard’s warning.
But perhaps this is only in homage to the challenge of Made in Bristol this week, where had our first exercise in making theatre- both daunting and exciting in equal parts. We were lead through a series of exercises which got us to remember and reflect on the important events in our lives. In conclusion to this, we performed short pieces that were autobiographical in some way. Imparting some piece of our lives, some part of what we are. Whether that was through the depiction of a life-altering moment, or simply the choices we made with how it was performed.
I think the hardest part of this was the hours we spent developing our work, being on such personal material. It can be difficult to distance yourself from the creation and performance of a part of you, and highlighted for me the importance of focussing on your audience foremost when you’re creating work. What questions am I asking with this piece? What do I want to communicate to the audience? Am I contributing to a wider narrative? Making a comment on a universal experience?
I was inspired by this exercise. Not only in awe of the different tastes and skills of others in the cohort, but also of the power of theatre to resonate our experiences. A reminder that we are not alone, as I’ve seen so clearly by the second life each of our experiences have had played to an audience. We even did an exercise in merging some of a pieces together, this for me a reminder of the cycles of life. Things happen to us but we are never really alone in that. Our experiences echo and mirror and refract, across our different worlds, across time. And for this theatre remains for me a way of drawing those different worlds together.
Speaking of awareness of our world; we also completed our ‘carbon literacy’ training this week, or ‘global warming awareness training’ I suppose. Global warming has been an issue I’ve always avoided because it feels too big too handle. Now I feel empowered with a bit of knowledge of the situation but also what I can do, in my own small way. I’m a pretty big foodie and meat-eater, so this October I’m going to avoid eating out and try vegetarian for a while too. Feel like it’s about time I tried.
Hope you enjoy the coming week.