Praecox-blueprint

Too much creativity, too little time

Everyone involved found the atmosphere "campy" in the first morning, when we entered the theatre with not-so-familiar artist friends scattered around stretching their bodies lazily. The feeling was almost nostalgic but everyone was relaxed and open. After some warm-up in yoga style (initiated by Eve) and physical games (by "Van Gogh"), we briefly talked about the "rule" of this last phase of the Directors Lab and the three texts chosen for the experiment:

1. "The Wanderer" by Luxun (a short playscript)
   
2. "The Bucket Rider" by Kafka (a very short story)
   
3. "Sleepless Night of the Princess" by a young Taiwanese writer (a poem from his awarded book)

Then every two of the six directors were allocated to a separate studio with 3 performers. In 3 days every director would have worked through all the 3 texts in one or two sessions, while all performers would have experienced different methods and approaches of 6 directors in one single piece. It sounded impossible but when (positive) people came together things found their ways naturally.


There had been a lot of challenges still. How are two directors without previous discussion and compromise work together in the same rehearsal room? How are the artistic "languages" communicate with one another in the piece? (This may be problematic, with the assumption that 1 director has 1 particular style/way to work 1 piece out) What are the characteristics and quality of the performers for possible development? What is the best way to deal with the developed parts which one does not agree/prefer much?

If one consider the programme as a whole: shall we try to leave "traits" in every piece as a signature? -No, that's not the objective aligned with "searching" (for theatre narrative) Shall we let the piece be inconsistent and "broken"? If we shall execute the director's job in editing, how far can it go bearing the collaborative nature in mind? Is it feasible for the performers to shift their methods during a piece so short? Or that should succumb to the artistic exploration in the experiment instead?

It WAS very interesting and inspiring experience and exciting. Every stage/session you had quite different challenges. Curator Chan Ping Chiu was right: it gave us at least incessant reflections on how one worked in the theatre and their relationship with the performers and the audience, then opened up more possibilities by the very natural response of the co-director under the same roof and holding the same text.

Another utterly amazing part was the performers work while facing a handful of different instructions from all directors. They constantly digested various approaches and magically applied them in one body, their performance. Some audience found at least the two stories were too "completed" out of their expectation which gave the impression that the artistic clashes were subtly diminished or avoided. The poem which gave many directors a hard time, in contrast, created obviously diverse and conflicting styles in fragments which triggered and exposed the relationship between theatrical narrative and text to a certain extent quite interestingly.

Hong Kong is too hectic to accommodate elaborated project (over a year) like this, unfortunately. Encore, Chan Ping Chiu gained my total respect in making this near impossible long-term experiment happen, meaningfully.

Update (18 Sept): my article on the project is published on Mingpao today, you can read it on inmedia too.

-Photos by Chi Wai

posted at 12:52 AM | View by Post