Spring back into Winter

In a few short weeks I shall be returning to Italy for my second year of theatre study and for my fourth winter in a row.  Amazing.  But true.  Just when the sun is starting to beat down and Spring is well on its way... with the promise of a blazing summer filled with early evening swimming, flip flops, skirts and sunblock.  Instead, i'm wondering around the final clearance sales for umbrellas, jerseys and tights...  Audibly from my cupboard my summer dresses sigh.  Outside we have finally taken the plunge and called the landscaper my sister has been talking about for far too long.  We are in the process of getting a garden.  With flowers and everything.  Wendy - after she came to have a look at our mess of a garden - took a deep breath and searched for the right words... 'look I have to be honest - there's nothing much I can save.'  That's okay we reassured her.  It is very exciting. 

Hanna and Hugo on the Christmas bed they made on the scraggly lawn (and our attempt at a Jasmine creeper at the end of the pool) - but never the less - cafe lights strung up with the odd lantern can make any garden enchanting.  Even ours.  Kids don't care.  Memories in the making. 

Roadkill Rocked...

[Note... Roadkill is now called Sunday Morning... x]

I am in Cape Town getting ready for a run of Dirt at the Baxter - yes it is terribly exciting!  And I am taking a few minutes to up load this long overdue post.... Roadkill was staged this weekend in a gallery space supported by the Goethe Institut... called Goethe on Main.  We were running technical rehearsals with the oh-so brilliant Strike Team while William Kentridge - next door - was working away with a host of artists on his next opera... it felt all very special and creative and stuff...

We had a short three night run... so we went through all the emotions... the terror of opening... the lull of second night blues... and the bliss of the final performance.  James Cuningham who performed in it was so wonderful on the third night that I had a lump in my throat!  Nicks writing is just brilliant.  Jenni-Lee's stage design was gritty and beautiful and plain enough to support James alone on stage... and of course Leah McCrae's team from Strike Productions created the most gentle and stunning lighting states that took the show to a whole new level...

A new show in the world.  What a wonderful thing.  And what fun was a gallery space... we painted the programme and the backdrop onto the wall... bolted our rigs into the ceiling... such fun... hung origami birds where the audience entered the space...

Thank you to the amazing team... Nick Warren, James Cuningham, Jenni-Lee Crewe, Deborah Da Cruz Meyer, Amelia Warren and of course The Strike Team with Leah McCrae and Goethe Instit.  Rocking.

James, Nick and Deborah - ahh.

Nick and I - being corny!

Amelia's beautiful origami birds - which she spent so much time working out how to do... so pretty (people pinched them after the show!)

Our wall of credits - all the wonderful people on our team!

A late night tea party

The brilliant and talented Alida Van Deventer sits and works late into the night painting butterflies and dragonflies.  The stuff of childhood stories... when the beetles shine their shells, the centipedes put on a hundred pairs of shoes, the crickets play music and the butterflies and dragonflies dance dance dance.

Of fights and friendship...

Bizcommunity wrote a fab synsopsis for Dirt...


"From the sap star actor Sam, with an ego the size of Everest, to the exhausted new father Grant, who's terrified of his post-natal wife, and to Wayne, a man whose life has fallen through the cracks but who hasn't realised it yet, Cairns inhabits his comical characters with hilarious effect and takes the audience on a journey of fights and friendship."  Bizcommunity.  Rock on.

We opened in an apparently very cold Grahamstown yesterday.  We leave this afternoon.  
I love this time of year.

Roadkill emerges

[Note... Roadkill is now called Sunday Morning...]

Very exciting news... Roadkill is about to get up and start running!  In the heart of Joburg... a man sets out on a jog to escape a minor problem and runs into a major situation... oh sinner man where you gonna run to... and on that day...

 

Roadkill written by oh so brill Nick Warren

With the super fab James Cuningham

Directed by Jenine Collocott... that's me

Goethe on Main [at] Arts on Main

Friday 12 August 8pm

Saturday 13 August 8pm

Sunday 14 August 2:30pm

Apparently just below William Kentridges studio - although I didn't see him through a windowpane working away behind his easel... so i'm not so sure...

A wonderful Gallery space...  theatre shall be on display.  Mm.

Yes this is main city life.

Left off the Highway...

A few days ago I took off my wedding ring and typed in the coordinates for the Windybrow Theatre in Joubert Park to hand in my forms for the festival in June... Only to discover that the theatre is honestly one turn off the highway - and therefore not that scary a drive at all... They are in the midst of drastic restoration renovations. The inner city of Johannesburg... in the shadow of Ponte tower... a stones through from Hillbrow... lies a magic not-so-little theatre. So if you are brave - like me - I think you too should venture one turn off the highway and come and see this spectacular old theatre whose lights are being turned back on.

So, here when we're on...

Tuesday 14 June at 6pm

Wednesday 15 June at 7pm

The festival poster. How pretty. And funky. And Joburg.

Weekend Special... Christ Church from Jenine Collocott on Vimeo.

For those of you for whom it would take more than one turn off the highway to come see us... here is another little clip of the show we did for Christ Church high school. We adapt the play to perform it in school halls without lighting... and it works. If they can't come to the theatre - take the theatre to them xx

Ciao for now...

Amazingly first year Helikos... International School of Theatre Creation.... came spiraling to an end with an action packed few weeks... or maybe months... of some of the most exciting theatrical tricks and techniques in what turned out to be stellar end to an amazing year in Firenze. So to recap on the steady slide to the finish line...

Characters! After months and months of running around our studio being blue, boiling water, baboons and blustering wind... we moved onto human beings... ooh... and the dynamics that us commoners call 'Human Nature.' This period started with the wonderful teacher Amy Russell from LISPA London... where we were introduced to the wonderful CLAP! technique... Moments in play where the actor interrupts their performance - with a literal external or a figurative internal clap - to consciously up their performance by doing something! In our workshop improvisations with Amy she would clap her hands and call out a characters name... that character had to say out loud what they were thinking and in turn what they thought they could do next. And the results were fabulous. It was such fun to discover that broad hidden world of potential action... That made the 'sense of play' sky rocket... the stakes raise... the tension build... the humor emerges... What can you do? Not what can you say! Thus keeping with the highest level of engagement. It was quite wonderful. Truly. On stage one can do what one only dares to think in life. And once you have done this for long enough, like 6 claps later, the counter character is revealed... or true character is amplified... So, if by nature you are chaotic - then somewhere hidden you are also ordered... If you are are against - then somewhere you are also for. Fascinating stuff. So our improvisations went to such beautifully bizarre places...

Like, for example, a quiet restrained woman climbing into the coffin when she can no longer bare the situation any more... a straight-forward boss bursts into song at the horror of having to retrench half her staff... and a woman trying not to let her true feeling show eventually starts throwing frustrated air punches at her provoker.

As part of this cycle in the programme we had to develop two opposite characters - Doppio Personagge - if you don't want to Be Italian about it... Such a blast. Arriving for class as a whole other person... Someone who really is, and really isn't you.

This is Rosemary - aristocratic, entitled, British, passive, above... and reluctantly kind. Enormously fun to play. According to Vika in a pair of ancle revealing black tailored pants and this oh-so fetching jacket I would be a hit... This is Denmark.

This is Maria - chaotic, loud, brash, common, against... and 'with' at the same time. Also loads of fun, but totally exhausting - continuously looking for the next distraction.

With our 'doppio personagges' we created scenes using paraventi or black flats creating a multitude of entrances and exits - we told the story of a dodgy health spa that unexpectedly comes under investigation for health and safety compliance... 4 actors... 8 characters... and one major crisis. Rock on.

During this time we went on weekend Spring day outing to the beach at Viareggio... if you ignored the rubbish strewn on the sand... it was quite pretty, with snow capped mountains rising up behind the buildings on the shore line. But mostly it was nice to be out... and not hiding indoors from the Winter rain. We spent most of the day wondering around the little town and eating ice-cream, but for the time we were on the beach we practiced the Le Coq 20 movements... mostly handstands... for our individual presentations... but more on that later.

For now, I'm back in South Africa and loving being home. Straight back into work - and straight back to the hairdresser! A luxury one cannot afford whist a student in Europe... and perhaps not here anymore either... I wanted to ask the hairdresser if she highlighted my hair with gold dust. But no. What is quite strange is how quickly one fits back in to the every day - almost like it never happened - like I haven't been away doing this amazing thing for 6 months. But I have. Everything changes and everything stays the same.