​THE STRANGER ON THE PATH
24th February session
 
PROVOCATION ON STRANGERS ON THE PATH
On our next Wednesday session is going to ask you to imagine that you are walking in Happy Valley and sit on a bench to look at the view over High Rocks and Hargate woods. A stranger sits down beside you and you start a conversation and his or her story grows and develops as you ask questions.
This is the setting of a game between you, the curious questioner, and a seasoned improviser. The first part of the evening we will disperse as usual into break out rooms. Two or three people plus one of the members Claqueur impro theatre. You will simply ask them questions to delve into the life of a stranger. Neither you nor the improviser will know where the story they tell will go. The story will be prompted by the questions you ask. Questions will encourage the storyteller to dig deeper into the story. When it’s over we will return to the main group where you can share the stories you have been told.

PLEASE BRING PAPER AND COLOURED PENS AND DOODLE AS YOU HEAR THE STORIES. 
You don’t have to share them though it’s nice if you do. But drawing prompts your visual memory of the story. This is not an art competition its part of a process of stirring our imaginations, just give it a try.

DEVISING SESSION NOTES ON STRANGER ON THE PATH
PRESENT; Joe Mendel, Michael and Sonia Lawrence, Paul Fulton, Claire Edwards, David Jinks, Jill Scott, Kate Sargent, Richard Sylvester, Sally Sugg, Gilly Blaydon, David Brett, Julie and Bernie Madden, MJ Stevens, Alison Mackenzie, Lucy Edkins, Becca Maher, Jon Oram.
 
Jon talked about the idea of audience members being given a letter and on their journey they will meet a stranger (cast member). The audience will need to find out as much as they can about the stranger’s story, by asking them questions. The stranger may have nothing prepared and the questions will prompt a story.
We were then placed in break out rooms with members of the improvisation performance group acting as the stranger.
 
Jon did a practice run with MJ, Joe and David Jinks as audience members.
Jon(stranger) was a father looking for his son. His son had left home many years ago and until he had had a letter fairly recently there had been no contact. Jon carried the letter from his son (each stranger might have another object such as a key, a cup that would have significance). The letter was sent from The Happy Valley area. The stranger didn’t know why his son had run away from home when he was 13. 
 
Group 1. Richard, Bernie, Becca, Alison.
Richard (stranger) had come to Happy Valley looking for gold. A friend had told him there was gold in the rock or in the water. He needs money to claim the love of his life, Esme. Esme’s father gave him 5 years to make his fortune so that he could look after Esme and would therefore be a suitable husband. Since then, he has been working hard having many jobs including looking after pigs. He now only has a few days before the 5 years is up so is relying on finding the gold in order to marry Esme. Esme’s father owns a pub, The Walnut Tree, near to Happy Valley. . Not many people know about the pub as its tiny. The stranger is not allowed to work there to earn money as he has been in prison for arson. The stranger revealed that he has not told Esme or her father about his criminal record so some of the audience became concerned for Esme and wondering whether the stranger was after all a suitable suitor.
 
Group 2. Paul,  Lucy, Julie
Paul (The stranger) was very sad about the loss of his wife, Edith. He had met her when he was a DJ on a cruise. He had a dog called Wolf. The stranger had found a half written letter  (from Jon’s son, reincorporation). Audience felt that maybe they should pop in and see the stranger as he was lonely.
 
Group 3. Jill, Gilly, Kate, David Jinks.
 Kate (stranger) was a painter seeking inspiration. They pretended they were in an art class to enable them to look at the stranger’s painting. She lacked confidence; how could we make her famous? Maybe she could do a series of pictures. Gilly and Jill started drawing. It felt a bit like communal Art Therapy.
 
Group 4. David Brett, Joe, Michael and Sonia.
David (Stranger) was looking for his 3 friends. They had made a pact 50 years ago that they would meet now in Happy Valley. He had travelled from Australia on a steamship. He had broken his son’s arm so maybe he isn’t a very nice man? Maybe he was the problem rather than the rest of the family as he claimed? The bad apple in the barrel? They discovered that he and they were wearing kangaroo skin boots.

Group 5. Sally, Jon, MJ. Claire
Jon (Stranger). The stranger’s name was George who told a sad story. Thirty years ago, his father killed himself. In one of the rocks there’s a carving of the Frog Brothers Music Group, which his dad was a member of. George was anxious as his dad had buried a lot of money in a tin. However, he told George he wanted him to make his own way and then reveals that he has hidden treasure in Happy Valley and shortly afterwards kills himself. George has worked hard for 30 years as a butcher but has never found his way. He felt he was a disappointment to his father, and he is now the same age as his father was when he died. Something has motivated him to disclose to us, is he suicidal? I feel bad that I let him walk away.

Jon Postscript
The questioning of an improvisor Actor validated the idea that we could have improvised elements the involve the audience. We might need to think about how we set up the situation or brief the audience to find out all they can from the 'stranger' character. If we are to take the audience on a journey we next need to think about what roles they might play, whether they have a task, a mission, or a purpose for this journey. 

DEVISING HAPPY HIGHWAYS
February 10th 2021
Theme: "Stories"


Present:
Participants: Claire Edwards, Gilly Blaydon, Gill Scott, Lucy Edkins, Kate Sargent, Paul Fulton, David Brett, Michael and Sonia Lawrence, Richard Sylvester, Julie and Bernie Madden, Phil Byrne, Suzy Phillips, Alison Mackenzie, Jon Oram, Becca Maher.
 
NOTES ON DEVISING SESSION "STORIES"
Jon talked about reaching out perhaps further than the play to different groups in the village by sharing stories and perhaps displaying them at shop counters, shop windows, delivering fliers getting stories into Rusthall Life etc. Suzie talked about the quirky tree they had at the RCA festival in 2017 people hung items and poems.  Sonia spoke of a man called Arthur Tribe who lived at 15 Rusthall Road and died in 1961 aged 90. He had lived in the village all of his life and he loved the common. There is one particularly moving poem written when he was posted in North Africa during the First World War where he described memories of Happy Valley keeping him going. Sonia has since sent in the poem about Happy Valley.
Jon introduced the purpose of the session buy talking about the power and purpose of stories, why where and when do people tell stories? What situations encourage story telly? How might we deliver stories in the play; What situations can we set or recreate, from bedtime stories to Speakers Corner?  Jon mentioned the communal bath is potentially where people would tell stories to each other. People would come here for health reasons, not unlike pilgrims to Lourdes. Michael had set some atmospheric picture of the baths. He sent another this week building on the idea of it being a story telling station. Sonia said that her son had excavated the baths several years ago down to the tiles, it wasn’t very big. They then filled it in again.
 
GROUP 1 Bec, Suzie, Julie   
Grandparents passing down stories, sitting on laps. Imaginary friends. Folk tales, songs, rounds, ghost stories, stories around the fire; bonfires elicit story-telling and singing. There’s reminiscing, night and fire, sounds, smells. Morale tales, Victorian Struwel Peter, Johnny-Head -In - Air didn’t look where he was going so walked over a cliff. Matilda and the matches if you cry wolf (Matlida gets burnt to death). Grimm’s Fairy Tales, The Grimm brothers travelled all over Germany to collect and preserve traditional tales. Fairy stories portrayed females in a particular way ie: goodness and beauty go together, Cinderella and the ugly sisters, she will be rescued by a knight in shining armour. Giving messages to girls on how they ought to be, conditioning women, propaganda. Greek myths and legends, The Odyssey, men are heroes.
 
GROUP 2 Lucy, Gill, Sally
When, Where Why?
WHEN: bedtime stories, one on one, comforting, fiction and real life memories. Around a table; eating, drinking, Bonfire; stories through song, walking with a friend through lockdown meaningful conversations.
WHY: Sharing memories, making sense of our past, connecting, sharing, bonding. Draw from memories. Draw inspiration from emotions, does it have to have structure? Can be spontaneous don’t have to go anywhere. Story cubes, pieces of paper with prompts.
WHAT makes a story? It has to have emotional content.
 
GROUP 3 Kate, Gilly Bernie
We tell stories when we have time. More time in lockdown. When travelling, train journeys, exchanging stories, getting to know people. Confession in crisis, truth. Lies/showing off. Telling untruths. Fake news, political narratives. Unintended consequences of stories. Families have different stories/different versions of events. Excluding and including information.
 
GROUP 4 Alison, David, Michael, Sonia
Dark winter nights, passing on stories, campfires, bringing people together. Sharing stories. Pubs, the more you drink the more outrageous. Sailors yarns, soldier’s self-glorification, heroism. Children want the same story over and over again. Familiarity is safe. Stories of your past become more important as you age, Stories keep people alive who are no longer here.
Super- heroes used to be Gods now they’re Spider man, Superman. Folk stories, fairy stories, children want frightening stories. Eastenders/Archers/Shakespeare. Does it have to resolve? There are a limited number of basic stories.
 
GROUP 5 Paul, Claire, Richard, Jon
Stories inspired by College/family reunions. Stories develop into gossip. Future stories, fortune tellers. Churches/religion hopes and fears for future. Folk songs, letter writing. Dog walkers exchange stories about their dogs. First dates, interviews, interrogations. Hospital beds.
 
GENERAL DISCUSSION.
Invisible Theatre – rehearsed / improvised scenarios happen spontaneously on trains, busses in the street; the audience don’t know it’s been prepared.
Alison/ Belgian refugees Mayor and mayoress from a village outside Antwerp came to Tunbridge Wells with their extended family in 1914. They lived in Nevill Park and decided to come here as she liked Thackeray. They walked in Happy Valley. Both died in 2015 and there was a huge funeral as they were so well respected.
Looking at ancestry, who do you think you are? Reciting in military costume?
Phil talked was asked about Chimney Sweeps, they supposed to be good luck at weddings. Story is that King George was on his way to a wedding when one of his horses got spooked and a chimney sweep saved his life so they became a lucky symbol. The Queen and Prince Philip had a chimney sweep at their wedding.
The idea of story cubes was put forward.
Jon wondered about situations when we would be less likely to tell stories – short bus and train rides, in an elevator, just approaching someone in the street – this would feel weird. Situations that encourage stories – interviews, interrogations, First Dates,
`Gossip and Chinese whispers, telling tales out of school (splitting). Somebody mentioned imaginary friends.
The idea of Travelling theatre groups was added to the mix.
 

PROVOCATION ABOUT JOURNEY’S
What kind of journeys do people make and why do they take them?  Physical journeys of necessity, pleasure, or work, adventure or escape. Think of the t journeys in literature; Canterbury Tales, a Kentish pilgrimage where fellow travellers shared stories; Pilgrims Progress, a journey from this world to that world which is to come. The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy follows the yellow brick road to both find her way home and save Oz from the wicked witch, and on route picks up fellow travellers who help her, but have personal missions of their own, one to gain a heart, another a brain and a third to find courage. The Hobbit, a chosen band on a quest to win a share of treasure guarded by a fearsome dragon. Or think of real, local characters who are likely to have once walked through Happy Valley; would we like to meet our ancestors and hear stories from our own community?

Imagine an audience, not merely witnessing a story being played out before them, but actually taken on a journey, fellow travellers with the actors.  Might they collectively be set a task, or have personal missions of their own, what might they discover, what and who might they meet on the way? what paths do they travel, do they have choices about which route to take?  How do we go about creating a real adventure for them?
Imagine an audience divided into different travelling groups, will they be given a guide, or discover cast members as travellers as they set out? Will each group or indeed individual experience a different journey or story to the others? Where will the journey end? 

In Happy Valley there are many potential performance areas, where scenes can happen, events and rituals can take place, story circles can be created. Most notably there is a large natural amphitheatre. Could this be where the final part of the story is told, and what would that be? Maybe it's the journey's end, if so, where could that be?

This conversation is about gathering ideas that reveal how this unusual performance style might work, how we can both tell a story and involve the audience in the adventure. Could it be that the final outcome in not known to anyone, not even the cast?

DEVISING SESSION NOTES ON "JOURNEYS"
 
Present; Michael and Sonia Lawrence, John Harris, Paul Fulton, Gilly Blaydon, Gill Scott, David Brett, Richard Sylvester, Alison Mackenzie, Julie and Bernie Madden, Sally Sugg, Kate Sargent, MaryJane, Jeremy Woodruff, Jon Oram, Becca Maher. Mark Broad registered his interest but had to leave.

David talked about Nana Tomova a Sussex based storyteller. She is a qualified guide and professional storyteller who takes people across the Sussex Downs to tell her stories.  

Jon suggested play where the audience could be travellers be implicated in the drama. He reminded us that we will have to be flexible in the mechanics of the show because of COVID restrictions. Rather than thinking this as a restriction, perhaps it’s an opportunity to create a theatre experience that engages the audience into conversation, and physical engagement.
There are connections with first world war Belgians refugees in Happy Valley. Also, the Beacon pub housed Jewish refugee children during the second world war. Different destinations, rushing. Encounter images/events on way, Exhibitions in a suitcase. Problem pictures. Tableaux. Refugees take them on a journey. Audience as refugees- stories told to each other. Maybe 3 groups encounter different scenes different strands of a story.  Referred to Kentwell House in Suffolk as potential style – an area of re-enactment, crafts people – a living community in the valley. Canterbury Tales, encounter Inns on your travels, Sweeps cave? Fox hunting took place in Happy Valley audience hide the fox.  The idea of suicide as there are places from where you can jump – audience engaged in persuasion (talking them down) Reference to “wonderful walks” an article Alison discovered.  In the 1890’s there were geological walks, extraordinary descriptive language. In 1975 Rusthall primary school undertook a project called Wonderful walks where they walked around Happy Valley and wrote about it. Flash mob implicating audience actors not in costume.
Audience given a letter to deliver (refrences to Claque Mystery Houses where single audience member is engaged in one-minute theatre experience, where they make decisions.
Sweeps cage possible refreshment area,
An actor/ guide leading people through different experiences, meeting at a central point, experience of place/geography. Audience having independent choices of which paths to take Go down one path you receive a reward, or a negative experience (out of tune violin?).
Meeting figures from history, journeys happy and sad. Searching: “Where is Home” Caves/carvings/sacrifice/mythical energy about the rocks. Graffiti- loves lost/loves found. Murder most foul. Supernatural area -Owls in trees, themed areas; people in the trees. Land art in the trees.
Paths not taken. Do you involve audience. Actors not learning lines, but improvised characters.
Story stations, leader/guide/character. Chest of drawers with ancestral belongings, claimed by characters. The film The Point, starring Wayne Sleep. His character was ostracised and teased. He went on a journey and discovered everyone has a point. An outer and inner journey, bringing all stories together at the end.
Responding to environment. Boarding houses. Moved to Pantiles. William Cobbett. Actors question audience, “why are you travelling?”. A quest, letter in envelope.
Jon described his life changing experience of a little girl during a community play taking his hand and asking why a child in the play was being hanged for stealing bread as he was hungry. How those moments of reaching across the centuries to others like us can be so powerful for example a Jewish refugee child at The Beacon. Where is home?   John Harries knows Peter Cornwell the owner of The Beacon. His son runs a theatre company. They have an amphitheatre in the grounds of The Beacon.  The 101 steps down to the cold baths lead to a No Entry sign. Could we use masks (might be necessary anyway re: COVID). Land Art, Field, Forest and Sky on iPlayer.

SUMMARY:
These notes reflect the meeting as one idea stimulated another so are written in the order or form in which ideas flowed. They can act as stimulus for developing the form of the performance; also a provocation to develop of discover new ideas.
Overall, it seems that there is a feeling for hearing, seeing, witnessing, participating in a collection of stories which come together at the end so there is a sense of unity, a final event that connects all the stories or lives we’ve heard on the journey.

 We have been developing a devised community play project, our second. As with the first it will be in Rusthall, this time in an area called Happy Valley. We have secured an Arts Council Grant to continue developing the devising process and the play is the core of the programme. It develops process we tried the first time round with Legends of the Rocks. You will be able to follow the programmes as it unfolds through the category 'Devising the Legend" on this blog page. The project will be subject to changes due to the COVID pandemic but is designed to be flexible and adjust to changing circumstances. Here is our starting starting point:
​
THE PROCESS
The Project is in two distinctive yet dependently connected parts. The first. ‘Paths’ is a heritage project that could stand-alone but is strongly enhanced because it ‘feeds’ ideas and material to the second where they will be re-interpreted and developed to give them greater meaning, purpose and depth.  The second project, a legacy of the first, is The Happy Highway, a promenade Community Plays on and around the paths of Happy Valley on Tunbridge Wells and Rusthall Common.
 
PART ONE
‘PATHS’ A HERITAGE PROJECT
 
Path’s and The Happy Highway has evolved out of identifying needs following a series of projects we’ve undertook over the past 2 years locally and the past 40 years nationally and Internationally.  They are

• Build on the legacy of Rusthall Community Arts (RCA) festival
• Expand the number of Claques, partnerships and strengthening our relationship with our present ones.
• Develop new services and improvements of Claque’s Empty Gallery Heritage projects
• Deepen the experience of community members who are involved in the process of creating community plays.
• Increase our understanding and explore further the process of devising with a community
• Add material to complete “The Art of the Community Play” a book currently being written by Jon Oram.

 
Step One -The Basic Building Block (Preparation)
August - September 2020
Two of Claque’s core principles are inclusivity and community ownership. No one is turned away, we believe everyone has something to contribute and everyone is valued for what they bring.  The community ownership is such that they have considerable input into the development, management and devising of the process and the product and we are looking to expand it further. Over the past two years we have formed a local volunteer conservation group who help keep paths and rocks of the Rusthall Common clearer of bramble, fern and tough to encourage the royal fern, unique to the area, and wild flowers and meadow plants.  We worked in partnership with Rusthall Community Arts to devise and produce Legends of the Rocks, a centerpiece for the biennial festival in 2019. We’ve made a lot of ground establishing support, building networks and developing relationships with venue managers, services, school, clubs, organisations, pubs and shops, the commoners, association and friends of the Commons as well as the warden and his team. With the pause caused by Covid we need to reestablish our connection and get activities moving so we don’t lose energy build over the past three years. There is significantly more to do with developing that work and engaging with new partnerships.
 
The RCA committee was very small and remains small, due to a resistance for people to make long-standing commitments. We know once people get the vision for an idea and experience success they are more likely to stay. The success of Legend of the Rocks on a local level has increased registered volunteers from something in the 30’s to over 200. We will create ‘task teams’ that half clear briefs and distinct targets and that have interest values that suit the interests of the volunteers, who we now know better and can invite to help in areas they would more likely enjoy and excel at.

 In this preparation period we would establish project steering committee, research and devising teams and create platforms for the community to actively engage in dialogue that would include refining the aims, themes and programmed activities, identify resources, participate in devising heritage and theatre products (Exhibitions, the play etc). We also need to work together finding flexible ways to meet the changing situations of the COVID pandemic that is likely to be with us through the whole period of these projects. So in preparing we need to create contingencies for every event so that we don’t cancel activities but offer different ways of delivering activities remotely or maintaining the current government guidance of social distancing. We believe cancelling is soul destroying, but that pre considered alternatives or creative improvised solutions could be surprisingly bonding. We have had considerable successes with online improvised workshops and developing the Empty Gallery café for large group conversations, they are all well and consistently attended and it has developed a supportive atmosphere, we all look forward to them.
 
Step Two - Paths Gathering Material (Creative Preparation)
September - October 2020
The production Team, Steering Committee, RCA, Researchers, Partners and others start the creative process and engagement of the community s early as possible. Through Empty Gallery Café conversations if necessary (and more than likely in this early stage) We start gathering and selecting specific themes, ideas medium of expressions (window exhibition, landscape sculptures of rearranged natural flora, fauna and debris) selecting elements in preparation of composition workshop assignment, out of which the heritage presentation products and the ‘play will be composed. The nature of presentation will also have to have alternative solutions.  The material might include historical research, stories, pictures, objects, sounds, physical actions, text, theatrical conventions, and interactive on-line activities and display platforms. etc.  
 
Step Three - Heritage workshops, provocations, making and presentations.
October - November 2020
To cultivate community ownership, we will commit to allowing and encouraging everyone in having their say and being heard we will establish a deliberate policy of not over defining, and mostly not defining at all either the subject nor the mode and medium of presentation. In order to maintain the focus on the central focus of paths in context of heritage will set parameters on the content.  Projects will need to be responses to material derived from collaboratively researched and discussed ideas around ‘Paths’ gathered out of the research, Café conversations, and devising workshops.  The are other obvious parameters such as budgetary considerations, practicality and, essential at this time, maintaining covid safe working situations in line with government advice.
 
We are developing what we are calling ‘provocations’ to help keep us ‘on subject’, provoke creative thinking, charge conversations and challenge preconceptions.  A provocation around Paths might suggest walking around the paths of the Common and the village in small groups, or sending individuals out with a camera to take a maximum of ten photo’s of sites that inspire them as potential venues or subjects of a presentation; they might offer creative ideas of what could happen in them.  Ideas will be shared on line. If group gatherings are legally allowed a number of people might tour together and spark off each other.  We will gather notes and illustrated drawings of Empty Gallery Café group conversations. And provocation papers with lines of verse, headings, and questions. Heritage walks and talks; on line on talks or virtual walks if necessary can inspire conversation as can stories of personal stories of life’s paths
 
Covid requires a flexible, improvisational and creative approach. As we are in a world of fluctuating rules we may have to establish projects quickly to realise them under the rules existing at any give time. Workshop dates can be preset to allow people to plan their lives to attend but there would have to be alternative methods of running them. We will have a collection point or delivery for material if people have to work at home. Indoor venues may remain questionable, in which case weather may be an issue but less so up until end of September. It will require patience and generosity but working collaboratively can still be rewarding. We are finding it so. Setting up displays in open spaces, shop windows, in store, in our gardens, in and around the paths. In and on our cars, on what we wear, on our face-masks. We have to be open to unexpected solutions. We had a successful Heritage project in the City of London with exhibitions in a suitcase; perhaps we could do similar in shoeboxes, an item associated with walking paths.
 
HAPPY HIGHWAYS
Happy Highways is a Community Play informed by Paths Heritage Project. Throughout Paths we have been investigating the community and our individual past and present, and or dream and fears about our future in relation to the paths we have taken and could take.  Individuals and small groups will have already presented some of the material through exhibitions, rituals and other forms; some of these events may have involved theatrical elements.  Now we gather together as many people from as broad a spectrum of the community as possible and ask them to work collaboratively on the ambitious task of creating a work of art in terms of their community. 
 
 THE HAPPY HIGHWAYS
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content;
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
AE Houseman
 
Happy Highways is a Community Play informed by Paths Heritage Project. Throughout Paths we have been investigating the community and our individual past and present, and or dream and fears about our future in relation to the paths we have taken and could take.  Individuals and small groups will have already presented some of the material through exhibitions, rituals and other forms; some of these events may have involved theatrical elements.  Now we gather together as many people from as broad a spectrum of the community as possible and ask them to work collaboratively on the ambitious task of creating a work of art in terms of their community. 
 
 Improvisation and Devising Workshops (Preparation)
November-December 2020
The Paths project will have done much of the creative preparation of collecting provocations to stimulate devising workshops, we may want to search out more as the devising becomes more specific but we will have plenty to start.  One of the gifts of devising is the way in which it challenges us to become authentic collaborators, to work with the spirit of generosity. If a group is working together, listening to each other, not worrying about power and control, the work is usually fantastic. Improvisation workshops give people techniques to help them work generously. One key to composition work is to do a lot in a little time. When we are not given time to think or talk too much wonderful work often emerges; what surfaces does not come from an analysis of ideas, but from our impulses, our dreams, our emotions. Constructive but exquisite pressure comes out of an environment where forces lean on the participants in a way that enables more, not less, creativity.  
 
We now have twenty improvisers from the community and Claqueur Impro Theatre to help us. The community group has been attending weekly workshops since Legend of The Rocks and Claqueur have eleven years experience
 
 Step Four - Composition Workshops 
January -February 2021
Albeit Legends of the Rocks was Claque’s fiftieth community play it was the first one they have fully devised with a community.  I have devised with professional companies and smaller groups but co-ordination upward of 80 different points of view is a challenge to say the least. It depends on everyone understanding and accepting that the play can’t deliver so many views without confusion, nor are they agit-prop vehicles for personal causes. Challenging plays pose more questions than give answers. Characters, however can and do express a range of views and it’s only the involvement of people from a broad church that can deliver honest representation of the community. The world is polarised now more than in any time I remember, it’s a feature of Rusthall and Tunbridge Wells like everywhere else. Conflicting hard held views spawns an unhealthy side of tribalism, one aspect of which is we neither side listening to ‘opposing views. Acknowledging our differences and searching for points in common is an aspect of devising process, and paradoxically in my experience it has a bonding effect; it can surely therefor help heal divisions in the community too.
 
I want to bring the community deeper into the process of creating a performance from start to finish by exploring devising on an unrestricted scale through improvisation and composition. “Devising” is commonly a process in which all members of the production team from actors to technicians develop a show collaboratively; we want to open it further to the whole community, partnering groups, schools and local organisations. Opportunities to input into the composition of the play will be through composition workshops both open to public and customised to specific groups involved in arts and educational activities (music, performance, arts and crafts, dance, film, poetry, writing, literature, heritage and history, environment and conservation etc).
 
Alongside workshops are other activities to provoke conversation and ideas. The activities include tours of the rocks, photographic search for faces and creatures, workshops in prop, mask and paper costume making, performance, and singing.
 
Step Five - Present and Discuss (Composition)
March - April 2021
The different workshop groups perform their compositions to each other one after the next with no commentary in between. Then the feedback for each composition focuses on the positive innovations, articulating what is useful to the production. A semblance of a script or a running order emerges from these discussions.
 
Step Six- Construction and Rehearsals (Production Period)
May- July 2021
With Legends the eight-week rehearsal period began with an outline script, here we aim to leave more room for improvisation, parts will be left open to development and change. Decisions about costumes and masks will be more a part of the devising process, so they influence and inspire the creation of a character.. Under present conditions with regard Covid we couldn’t do an outdoor play with a seated audience, it would certainly limit numbers involved and audience size, and performing at such close quarters, especially singing wouldn’t happen. We must assume things could be the same so in the general preparation and planning we need to have a picture in our mind of what a performance in present conditions could look like. I have prepared a covid performance provocation page to get people thinking in these terms from the start.
 
We are limited in the numbers we can work with indoors so we have to rethink the Design workshop, a central design studio may not be practical. We will have to think of making in several and various environments and se where we can store images made at home, in our gardens or other outdoor spaces. Storage may be the one space we could use and it has to be found. ‘
 
Scenes can rehearsed in small groups, as can elements produced by different entities and groups (Djembe Drummers, Rock Choir etc) can be rehearsed separately and brought together with other parts of the production as rehearsals progress. The final rehearsal stage runs into the summer so we can use the performance spaces as much as possible. In the final week of rehearsal all elements are brought together for full cast calls. Limiting time is a deliberate and valued as part of the creative process.
 
Step Seven
THE PERFORMANCE
July - August 2021
The specifics of the performance will emerge through Composition and rehearsal, we deliberately stat with a blank stage so the community is an authentic collaborator in creative process. We do, however have certain parameters in place to fulfill social, educational, artistic, and community objectives.
 
The content of will be inspired by ‘place’; the Rusthall rocks, the performance venue, the location - Denny Bottom, history, the imagined drawn from folk tale and oral storytelling traditions. The performance will certainly include elements that reflect the skills and interests of the participants and partnership groups so we can determine there will be lots of music: drumming, string band, choirs and likely chorus. The performance is site specific so becomes are stage, set and backdrop. The artist groups involved will determine the props, likely to involve backpack puppetry, masks and painted banners.  There will elements of dance and physical theatre. Parts of the event will be improvised.
 
Paths’ was inspired by the limits of Covid which is why Happy `Valley seems more appropriate space for performance, there are various circular routes, great performance areas for individual and small groups and a potential amphitheater site. This requires small groups, distancing and an audience who encounter theatre as they walk in ‘bubble groups’
 
The performance style will reflect Claque’s wider agenda related to exploring the concept of the Social Actor, an idea born out of the Community Play and the actor’s relationship with the audience. Happy Highways as part theatrical walk will add a dimensions and ‘implicating the audience. It will be a personal experience for each audience member because their encounters with performance will be unique to tht moment they meet each other.
 
The process of composition is about involving the community actor in the ‘making’ of the play. In the same vein the performance will attempt to make theatre a more ‘social event’ by various means such as: Implicating the audience in the drama, giving the audience a performance role, involving the audience in ritual, incorporating social one to one dialogue; consulting the audience; allowing the audience to determine the direction of the play- such as passing a verdict, include a meal, social dancing or singing. There may well be post play event at the Toad Rock, the rues allowing.   
 
The performance dates are as yet unconfirmed; they are likely to be mid to late July or in early August. We have much do in preparation, finding funding, raising monies and support in other ways.. The performance will be no more than 1hour 30min, but may will be staggered with audiences starting a walk for instance at different times. We anticipate a local cast of around 80.  The audience size is so much dependent on Covid is an area that will comfortably take an audience of 250-300 standing and/or seated on the ground. We have taken a conservative estimate of audience as being between 160 and 250 per show.

. The Poor Man's Friend, a play by Howard Barker written and produced for Bridport in 1981., was my first experience of a Community Play. It was Ann Jellicoe's third production, after having set up Colway Theatre Trust two years earlier. I had heard about her work from Roddy Maude Roxby who knew Ann from her days at the Royal; Court Theatre. I drove down from Norfolk little knowing that it would change the whole direction of my life. I was to work with Ann on her next play in Sherborne and become director of Colway four years later. Community Plays have been a central part of my life ever since, This year, 40 years on I directed and helped my own community in Rusthall devise a play about Toad Rock just a hundred yards from my front door. It marked my 40th play. I indulged myself somewhat by hiding small moments and  lines from previous community plays within the script, most notably lines from the opening scene of The Poor Man;s Friend..  Alan Yentob made an documentary of the play for BBC Arena series called 'A Play for Bridport." I lent my copy of the film to someone years ago. I can't remember who, but it was never returned. I'm pleased to see it has re-emerged on line so I am  able to share it with you here.. I hope you enjoy it. 

At our full day devising workshop we explored ideas through costumes.  Costumes are transformative - they make us feel differently, help us adopt different roles; give us confidence and permission to be other than ourselves. It’s a perfect medium for devising. 
 
We did a few exercises to understand better a performance principle: making changes in our body shape, altering way we walk, or introducing new gestures, changes the way we feel.  We can find many ‘characters’ within us simply by changing physical thing about the way we move or stand and paying attention to how affects our inner feelings.  In our first exercise everyone walked around the room and tried to find a common rhythm for walking so that everyone was in step, once that new rhythm had been found they ‘listened’ or paid attention to how that made you feel different. Many said it felt ‘unnatural’.  Finding a character will initially feel strange just because it’s different.  They then worked in pairs, one following the other and imitating characteristics of their partner's walk. Sitting down they were asked to find a little mannerism, such as rubbing their hands together, or some small trait of someone they know. They were to then to allow the feeling they got from that to affect the whole body. Immediately we saw another character emerge in people, very subtle but clearly different to their usual selves.

People then put on ‘practice skirts and they walked about paying attention to how the skirts forced them to move differently and how that adapted movement made them feel. Laura Stanfield, our designer demonstrated different ways of wearing a skirt;  tucking them up into the waist, wearing them like a cape, lifting the bottom of the dress up and over your head (See below). Each changes solicited different manners of moving that and prompted different inner feelings; from feeling "more grounded" "floating", "spiritual" and so forth

So far in the process of ‘discovering the play’ our 4 heroes have been defined and have begun their journey, stepping through the threshold between this world, the one they know, and a different and unknown world of the Stone People. To move the story forward there were a number of things we wanted to develop and discover in this session: 
 

1. The heroes’ journey will pointless unless it changes or confirms things for them, so we have to decide a point and a purpose for them to have taken it.  We have agreed the Stone People represent ‘The Earth’ endowed with wisdom, knowledge and experience.  But we need them to have a potent philosophy or belief to relay to us through the stories they tell, their history, their rituals (including their birthing ritual) their dance and songs.
2. We need to find the stories they tell, (perhaps starting with a creation myth) or experiences that give them lessons they require.
3. We have previously imagined, our heroes’ destination being the land of the Stone People, but we agreed today that they should first face, trials, tribulations and hardships on the way. I (Jon) wanted to find characters and a situation to contrast with the Stone People.
4. Technically we need to find different ways of verbal communication to the audience to compensate for being outside and accommodate for people with ‘small’ voices. Important to think about this during devising as it influences ideas.

 
​We discussed a possible ‘Badlands’ the heroes need to cross before they meet the Stone People; somewhere that contrasts to them. Direct opposites of Stone people would be (no kind) Cruel, (not Creative) Destructive, (not Calm) Frenetic (not Ordered) Chaos (not Pure) soiled, (not Considerate) Oblivious (not gentle) but wild. We imagined a devilish King obese, and gluttonous, pushed around in a beaten up shopping trolley by buffoon cohorts. These clowns would tend to his every need, the flatter him; they are both terrified and in awe. They are ingratiating in front of the King and rude behind his back. This gives room for a lot of clownish business. Perhaps these creatures live in the darker underground fissure; fossil fuels, polluting smoke, volcanic ash, oil, coal dust and pure C02 is the air they breathe.  They have the ear of the Climate Change Deniers: Those taking fossil fuels out of the ground; self-interested profiteers - Car manufacturers; Big Government who depend on the polluting industrialist to prop up their expensive election campaigns.. Maybe these underground creatures in the Badlands know they are destroying the planet - their ambition to to destroy the Stone People. There is something Faustian about the profiteers selling their souls for earthly rewards in disregard of the consequences for others.
 
In groups we created four paper costume images of the self-Profiting Climate Change Deniers.

​Listening to previous discussions in the devising workshops the idea of their being spirits in the rocks, not least the Stone People has become very strong in everyone’s imagination. Our civilization of Stone People is very much like spirits’ and there may be others, in trees that are quite different; we should allow for others. I (Jon) pointed out that this is very close to the beliefs of the Australian Aborigine.  We don’t want to appropriate the Aboriginals belief but I think we can extrapolate a simple idea to serve the play and the story we want to tell, and that is of the world and everything in it being ‘dreamed’, and continuing to be dreamed. The ‘Creation’ was not a one off event but the start of a continuing process.  So maybe we can have ‘The First Dreamer” who dreams the land seas, the plants.  During the Dreaming the first creator made men women and animals, declared the laws of the land and how people were to behave to one another, the customs of food supply and distribution, the rituals of initiation, the ceremonies of birth and death which are required to be performed. They hold and practice their belief so that their own Dreaming is ‘pure’ and a period on a positive continuum embracing past, present and future. So our Stone people continued preserve life on earth for us. They live in secret places, out of site. Other spirits may live in the trees, trees and water holes; others in the sky as natural forces such as wind, rain, thunder and lightning.
 
We took these ideas into a Creation myth that Jon wrote for a Chorus exercise. Everyone dressed up in a costume - gender neutral, no period or cultural restriction. They could wear whatever and however they wanted (skirts as shawls, trousers as scarfs) so long as they paid attention to what character was emerging from the clothes and how they made one feel. We wanted a chorus not as a single voice but a collection of unique individuals.  

we finished the day thinking about how we move through, air, fish through water and how stone people might move through rock, perhaps it would need to be  be fluid for them. We covered a group laying on th ground with parachute silk and simply asked them to breath more deeply,  the material is very sensitive to movement. They were then asked to find their way out of the silks but to move very slowly, almost imperceptibly. This may be a possible image for the birth of the first dreamers.

An final thought: Connected to ‘Dreaming,” and to what we are doing when we listen to our own bodies and allow costume, new movements and ways of walking to change us and how we feel is the shamanic idea of dreaming. The Shaman’s term ‘dreamingbody’ is a name for unusual experiences and altered states of consciousness that try to reach our everyday awareness through signals such as body symptoms, movement impulses, dreams, and messages from the environment. It is a bonus that these exercises help us to be aware of these signals and become more in tune with each other and ourselves.
.

16th APRIL DEVISING WORKSHOP _ WORDS 
We started the workshop  with the following ideas of what we knew, what we needed where our heroes walk through the first Threshold on their journey.
 
WHAT WE KNOW OF THE ORDINARY WORLD
Time and Location of our story:  Today 2019 Toad Rock, Denny Bottom, Rusthall; possibly also Bulls Hollow or Paisley Street. 
 
Back Story of the area
The area was once the bottom of a freshwater Lake. 
The area around Toad Rock was once a prehistoric ritual site. There has been a cluster of finds belonging to Mesolothic people who lived 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. Springs and water were venerated at that time; there is a stone circle directly behind Toad Rock. Nigel thinks man may well have helped formed The Toad, as it is so different from any other natural rock formations.  There is what Nigel calls a
uterine canal (birthing passage to life) cut through the rock.
 
There are two unique erosion lines worn by feet - one line is deep cut by hobnails Victorian and contemporary footwear, the other outer line by soft leather or bare feet Medieval The tracks go right round and through the passage - through the narrow end and out through the wider. It does suggest a ritual walking through. The graffiti on the walls has many layers, the lower layers now lost by the contemporary carvings. The oldest that can still be seen are possibly Medieval. Rusthall was originally called Hungershall. Medieval quarrying took place around Toad Rock; it involved splitting stones for stone circles etc. There is no clear evidence of Victorian quarrying. Bull’s Hollow possibly
 
In VICTORIAN 1900 the barrow existed on maps.  The stone circle may well have been a barrow not necessarily for people but certainly they covered the stones.
 
THE ARCHETYPES WE HAVE MET OR LIKELY TO MEET

1. SEEKER ( SELF - HIGHER SELF) HERO
2. MENTOR
3. THRESHOLD GUARDIAN
4. HERALD
5. SHAPE SHIFTER
6. SHADOW
7. ALLIES & ENEMIES
8. TRICKSTER

 
1. THE HEROES/ SEEKERS
         
             Archie (R. H. C): Graffiti boy
             Matilda: schoolgirl climate change campaigner
             Mr Woodcock: Commoner
             Sophia: Woman Elder
 
NOTE: The HERO represents the ego - the part that separates from the mother, considers itself distinct from the rest of humanity. A HERO is one who is able to transcend the bounds and illusions of the ego. But first they are SEEKERS and are all ego.  They are searching for identity and wholeness - to become a complete integrated human being.
 
Descriptions of where the Heroes are- I’ve taken some license in the relationships between them. This can change or develop.
MATILDA is leading a local campaign to protest government inaction on climate change. They are expressing anger, fear and disappointment that adults have not acted. Across the world schoolchildren have taken part in 24 hours of climate action. 1 million students are said to have skipped school in more than 2,000 protests across 125 countries The student movement has been inspired by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, now nominated for a Nobel Prize. She kicked off a global movement after she sat outside Swedish parliament every Friday beginning last August. There is lots of evidence that Climate Change is not only happening but we have only eleven years left to reverse it making it possibly the most urgent crisis the world has yet faced.
MATILDA WANTS the world to come together as a people of the blue planet and save themselves.
MEANWHILE Brexit is taking everyone’s energies and resources while the planet is out of kilter moving fast to the cliffs edge. Everything is in fighting, division and separation.  The children aren’t being heard, people continue their lives paying no accounts to the dangers; there are millions of climate change deniers many among our leaders. The urgent policies that politicians need to make are not vote winners so they do nothing.
 
SOPHIA is a widow and a Village elder. She has a special project; she is chair of the Protect the Rocks Committee, a group of volunteers whose mission is to keep the rocks clear of litter, and brambles to encourage indigenous fauna and wild life.
SOPHIA WANTS and strives for Harmony, which is why she lives on Harmony Street.
MEANWHILE the country and the community are divided about their relationship with their neighbours   Britain is fighting wars of words with Europe and local people are more and more living separate lives. There are young people within our tribe drinking on the rocks, breaking bottles, making noise late into the night and spray-painting graffiti.
 
ARCHIE (“GRAFFITI BOY”) is an orphan, he is angry at the world in general. He doesn’t know what to do with anger,
ARCHIE WANTS  his parents back. No one understands.  He needs to be heard, but doesn’t have the words. Words are useless.
MEANWHILE He recently found a box of spray paints in his dead grandfather’s shed - he’s making his mark with them. He’s making them on the rocks that his Grandma loves so much. He knows it’s working, he hears the grown ups talking angrily about “Graffiti Boy’ it makes him feel proud like he’s a super hero. No-one knows he’s graffiti boy.
 
MR WOODCOCK has lived a long time. He is the archetypical Grumpy old man. He lives frugally. He lives off the common. He gathers wood and knows all the edible plants. He keeps himself to himself mostly. He’s against everything. He’s against people, cars, politicians, kids. Outsiders, change, graffiti, loud music, dog shit, cats, The Protect the Rocks Committee, electric street lights.

MR WOODCOCK WANTS  to be left alone.
MEANWHILE: There’s the people, cars, politicians, kids. Outsiders, change, graffiti, loud music, dog shit, cats, The Protect the Rocks Committee, and electric street lights
 

SOME OF THE QUESTIONS WE WANTED TO KNOW TO MOVE US FROM MEETING THE HEROES TO CROSSING THE THRESHOLD.
 
How do the audience meet our heroes?
What do the audience need to know about them at this point?
How do we let the audience know what they need to know?
What are the Heroes flaws? 
How do we put the Heroes in the right place at the right to to cross the threshold?
Who are we likely to meet on their way to and at the threshold??
Is SOPHIA our MENTOR and MATILDA our HERALD?
What is the first?
Is there a Guardian of the Threshold and is s/he an ally an enemy?
Is their any resistance from the Heroes to cross the threshold?
Who resists and how/ why do they go through?
 
WHAT WE DID IN THE WORKSHOP

• Reacquainted ourselves with the four heroes.
• Broke into four groups - an improviser in each group tok on the role of one on the heroes. The group interviewed them, if any one in the group didn’t ‘believe’ the answer or thought it didn’t match the developing character they could say “Change That” and the improviser had to come up with an alternative answer. After ten minutes the groups came together and reported back - we recorded the  reports and feedback.
• Four improvisers then improvised a scene at the threshold.  The scene basically entailed MATILDA and her friends painting protest boards, she gets into an argument with MR WOODCOCK who doesn't like the kids hanging around. SOHIA comes to her defence. ARCHIE is seen spraying the rocks on the plateau to the right of the Toad- the other three all shout at him. ARCHIE runs off through the "birthing passage" The other three chase after him but are stopped by a strange figure (THE GUARDIAN OF THE THRESHOLD) who warns them of the dangers of going further.* MATILDA & SOPHIE found convincing reasons to heed the warnings but go through anyway

The notes from this workshop will be translated into a draft scene. Below are pictures drawn by Scott of the improvised scene. Matilda writing on protest boards; Archie preparing to spray graffiti on the rocks; Matilda, Mr Woodcock and Sophia confront the Guardian.

 April 2nd 2019 our devising workshop focused on a form for developing a plot line. This is somewhat in advance of the 'Composition workshops when we select and shape devised moments into a play. Right now we are still in the devising frame of mind but it's useful for people to know the process of composition because I think it will help them identify what might be most useful to remember from our devising sessions. I'm asking people now to make drawings or some other forms of aide memoir of 'moments' in the devising workshops that most captured their attention. A drawing with a title is the most useful and immediate. These then might help compose a storyboard later on.

"The Hero's Journey' is a helpful guide to finding characters and developing a plot. Joseph Campbell presented the original concept in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Christopher Vogler has since both simplified and provided new insights in his book “The Writer’s Journey’. A memo he wrote about the form when he was working for Disney studios spread throughout Hollywood and has been hugely influential with such as George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg.    It’s really a description of the elements that exist in every story ever told. It not intended as a formula and we shouldn’t use it as such but it does name elements of a story and archetypes that will be of use to us.   

LEGENDS OF THE ROCKS & WHAT WE KNOW 
The Hero's Journey is one that takes us from the Known World, our everyday life into the Unknown world, in our case the world of the Stone People. In this narrative model this is what we know about the  The Ordinary World (1) and what is beyond in the Unknown World when we Cross the Threshold (5) :

The Ordinary World- What we Know (1)
 
Time and Location of our story:  Today 2019 Toad Rock, Denny Bottom, Rusthall; possibly also Bulls Hollow or Apsley Street. 
 
Back Story
The area was once the bottom of a freshwater Lake. 
Nigel Stapple believes the area around Toad Rock is a prehistoric ritual site. There has been a cluster of Mesolithic finds. Mesolithic people lived 6000 to 8000 years ago. Springs and water were venerated at that time and Nigel believes the site was so venerated.  He believes there is a stone circle directly behind Toad Rock; In 1900 the stone circle existed on maps. The stone circle may well have been a barrow not necessarily for people but possibly for buildings. There is also a passageway behind Toad Rock where there are 2 levels of erosion one possibly caused by bare feet and sandals and the other by modern day harder shoes form the 1800’s onwards. There may also be a semi stone circle below Toad Rock; it’s so large it can only be seen from above.  Nigel thinks man may well have helped formed The Toad as it is so different from any other natural rock formations.  Rusthall was originally called Hungershall. Medieval quarrying involved splitting stones for stone circles etc. There is no evidence of modern quarrying. Demand for stone started in 1650’s. Qualified archaeologists have overlooked the site. Wellington rocks were heavily quarried in the 1800s so the hotels on Mount Ephraim would have a better view.
 
Today

• There is lots of evidence that Climate Change is not only happening but that we only have eleven years left to reverse it making it possibly the most urgent crisis the world has yet faced. We need to come together as a people of the blue planet. Yet there are millions of climate change deniers many among our leaders.
• We are divided about our relationship with our neighbours in Europe and are fighting wars of words with them and between ourselves. It is taking all our energies and resources while the planet is moving fast to the cliffs edge. Are we best place to save ourselves with this in fighting, division and separation?

Meanwhile

• Children of the local tribe and across the world school children have taken part in 24 hours of climate action. 1 million students are said to have skipped school in more than 2,000 protests across 125 countries to protest government inaction on climate change. The student movement was inspired by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, now nominated for a Nobel Prize, who kicked off a global movement after she sat outside Swedish parliament every Friday beginning last August. Many students are expressing anger, fear and disappointment that adults have not acted.
• Local elders in our tribe have formed a volunteer team to keep the rocks clear and to support the Friends of the Common, Conservators, and the Warden of the Commons.

Meanwhile

• We continue to take more from the earth than we put back, destroy more than we protect.
• There are young people within our tribe drinking on the rocks, breaking bottles, making noise late into the night and spray-painting graffiti.

 
 
The New World -What we know (6)
 
Background
Stone people are born as stone and over time they become flesh. The stone people have to go to ‘birthing places’ (areas of exposed rock) to find their children. Stone people can be born in rivers and oceans when they will reawaken as water creatures. Sometimes they will be dug out trees that grow out of the rocks. Toad Rock is a sacred ‘birth place’ that was once covered by a fresh water Lake and many years ago the stone people were born as water creatures, fish, newts and frogs, until the lake dried up. The Toad is an ancient God of the stone people and a symbol of their past lives.
Women are obliged to dig for babies, “they’re waiting for us”. Their mothers are destined to find them; they know and recognise their own baby.  Families might consult ‘Finders’ who sense where the mother should dig for her child in dousing and birthing ceremonies when the ‘Finders encircle the mother holding long dousing rods they beat ground and do ritual passing of the rods.  Children and parents are destined to find each other. When they Stone people die they become stone and return to the earth retaining their knowledge and memory of past lives.
 
When the woman digs for a child she might accidentally split it so she then has to give it back to the earth where it reforms over several years. Stone people have a time when they must return to the ground, they are reluctant to go back as they remember what they call  “the long wait”.  They return to earth to absorb the collective knowledge of all the rocks. The earth is therefor imbued with intelligence, knowledge and wisdom far greater than our own
 When rocks return or reawaken after the long wait they will have changed form, and come back as sparrows, animals, men or women. Stone people always return older and wiser than in their previous lives, they only age underground.  In their final return, as toads, they are the eldest they will ever be. Toads are the highest order because they are returned heroes prepared to sacrifice themselves for the Tribe. They are therefor sacred - a life to be diligently protected. The death of a toad is a warning that life on earth is under threat, that the world is poisoned.
 
The Stone People live in a different dimension to us, they inhabit the same ground but beneath us. When we bury our dead we place them closer to the dimension the stone people live in.  They lie there sleeping and the Stone Women tend them. We are oblivious to the stone people but to them we are dark shadows and our actions are impinging on their world.
When the Quarrymen of our world started removing stone they removed many of the Stone People’s ancestors. The stones the quarrymen took were used for building Tunbridge Wells so many stone ancestors lay trapped in the building.
And then the Toad Stone* was taken. Since which time the no stone person has been reborn and they are fast diminishing in numbers.
 
Among the recorded Victorian names of rocks is The Bloodstain, known to other sources as the Bleeding Rock. It is generally understood as a spot where dripping water left an iron stain, but no site fitting this description can be pointed out today. It needs to be found. It could mark the place where the stone people’s spiritual leader was split. 
Another fact: From ancient times people associated the fossils with jewels that were set inside the heads of toads. The toad has poison glands in its skin, so it was naturally assumed that they carried their own antidote and that this took the form of a magical stone. They were first recorded by Pliny the Elder in the first century.
Could it be one and the same stone?
 
 Many of the leaders followers wear a mallet round their necks in memory of he who took the stone.  The Stone Tribe pays annual homage to the Toad Rock on the middle day of they year. He is their greatest hero about whom many stories of bravery are told of his previous lives.  
 
If the bloodstone was returned, perhaps it may reawaken the stone people and if the fleshlings were to revive their long lost ritual of dressing the Toad and talking to the rocks perhaps the stones may share their wisdom, and by listening to the earth we might save it.
 
We have started learning how the stone people talk to each other 

WHO IS OUR HERO?
One of many questions we may want to ask is who are contenders to seek adventure and travel to the world of the Stone people? And for why or for what do they seek? Please discuss. Better still come to our next Devising Session 

Workshop with David Brett and Jon Oram

This full day workshop devising with music and sounds, inspired movement and improvised scenes. 
A group of eighteen explored what images and sounds they could make with 10 feet poles. They first stood in a circle with the poles angled down to the centre and slowly raised them till they created the same shape reversed, poles ends meeting at the highest point in the centre of the circle, reminding us of ancient round huts. We played with the sounds of poles clicking together. The circle led to devising part of the  “ceremony of dousing and the birthing of the stone children” One could imagine a mother in the centre of the circle digging for her child. The group then passed poles round in a circle hand- to- hand in a rhythm finding a synchronised moment to beat  the sticks on the ground; and another moment to change direction from clockwise to anti clockwise. In the next exercise we found choreographed rhythms

The group then progressed further an idea from last Tuesday's devising workshop, finding out how the stones speak to each other. We found different pitched voices using combinations of large, medium and small stones and discovered stones can chatter, laugh, argue, get angry, flirt. It became natural for people to take the feelings the stones gave down into their bodies. Jon then led pairs in discovering scenes using the idea that the dialogue of the stones could either impelled you towards your partner, repel you away, or compel you stand still. They created funny and moving scenes, arguments and status exchanges. One exercise involved four people communicating with stone tapping and instructed to make friends with two other people, It was touching and moving to see and hear them jostle for positions as they realised that one person would be ousted from the group.  We were encouraged that we could tell stories an show complex relationships  in a language the audience could understand.

We took Sonia Lawrence's poem Digging is Obligatory (See comments 5th May Blog) and read it as a group one word at a time, then in pairs with the same exercise tried making it sound like natural speech. It proved impossible but gave each word equal weight. We read as a group again, two lines at a time. In smaller groups of five we composed a performance of 5 lines each exploring rhythms, expanded gestures, seeing what could heightened what sung, whether lines we spoken in unison or repeated, Each groups five lines contributed to a performance of the whole poem.  

We sang African, Inuit and Sioux songs and created a musical soundscape to accompany some potential movement states of tension - molding (moving like clay); floating, flying  (a state of fear or flight) and radiating energy ( strength, spirituality, reflecting the oracle

Thanks to Michael Lawrence for this picture of some of the group creating a soundscape. We want to encourage all of you to draw and send pictures of moments in workshops, or from stories in the blogs along with a title so that we can create a storyboard. The pictures will be an aide memoir of the highlights of the devising - it will guide is in deciding scenes and their order when we come to composition workshops.

DEVISING WITH MUSIC

These notes on are based on those I sent David Brett our Music Director. They are some early thoughts on how music might benefit the devising process and be employed in performance

I'd like the music to be an essential influence not just in creating songs and a *soundtrack for the show, but using it to devise the play. We need to brainstorm ideas together but here are a few ideas and thoughts to start us of. I see the music it as a tool for setting up the right rehearsal environment, inspiring theatrical scenarios, offering inspiration through lyrics and compositional content, providing structure for improvisation sessions.

*I'm using the  term "soundtrack" because I think for some scenes we will be aligning the music with the action and in some  cases direct choreography. 

I think the music could influence the structure of the show especially running time scenes. I estimate most  scene will last approximately 3 1/2 minutes, about the same as an average pop song. This seems a very watchable rate. It's pretty much what we've done with promenade community plays in the past and in a TV centric world that's about the average attention span. Maybe that is why pop songs are pretty much the same length. Anyway it's no bad objective when devising material to think in terms of 3 1/2 minute scenes. Of course we can always break the rule and have a splendid Bohemian Rhapsody, midway through the play.
 
I’ve had a thought that the stone children learn move by manipulation, I saw a mother the other day holding her child's hands to support it's walking it looked puppetry. Perhaps the stone elders play manipulation games with their children. We are already discovering the way stones communicate in sound  by tapping pebbles.. I feel this will inevitably lead to percussive music., choruses translating stone language with with words either spoken or sung in the same rhythmic pattern of the pebbles. Now we need to the equivalent in movement and gesture; music can inspire that.
 
We should pull out some film sound tracks - not to use in performance necessarily- but if we listened to music together we might get ideas, not least we will find a vocabulary. It's not a bad idea to start with recorded music to inspires a scene or accompany something we are already doing.  We can create a live alternative later. We can use Improvised music too of course, even in the show.
 
I think I mentioned the idea of an overture, something that happens in the space before the play begins. Sound coming from the cave or above or behind or among the rocks but unseen. Maybe something physical happens momentarily - like a trailer of things to come. We could pick out characters involved in moments from the play - dramatic highlights.
 
At the moment I'm mostly seeing the scope for instrumental music; but we need songs too. For me the song has to be integral to the story - we don’t stop for a song - The song should add to the narrative, or the argument. Work songs are a good example. I like what you said, David about singing comes when there are no more words to be said, It is a an outpouring though, bringing something felt to the surface; the lyrics have to be specific. When dialogue starts emerging from the devising workshops some might become lyrics.. I like the idea of using songs from popular culture and the suggestion of Tom Waites 'Underground' If we can replicate that gravel sound it could be wonderful. The words too are spot on, it brings a menace we've not thought about. Rocks can feel threatening.

Words will start to emerging in the coming stages of devising, including potential lyrics; people are already sending poems. I'll start recording improvisations and reusing the dialogue, and in some instances we could try singing it like opera - then we will discover rhythms that might allow the spoken words to be turned into a song. We should go back and forth with music, words and movement with people who are happy to do that so any one medium can inspire something in the others. 

There’s potential for music and sound in the spaces in dialogue (textual space) and the space between players. The Textual space is more than the gaps in speech it's those moments where there is a sense of absence, something being unsaid that might best be filled with another language. (this is where you might put in a song)

​But It’s also about the moment when the audience might lean forward to engage in what is really going on.  Song is great for bringing inner feelings and thoughts to the surface, Dance and Physical theatre works best illustrating the subtext rather than the content​.  usually a very intimate moment but we have a big outdoor space to fill; we can only create the subtleties of relationships by expanding on the moment; songs do that, but so does dance and physical theatre. I would like to try elements of song, dialogue, soundtrack, dance, physical theatre, heightened and natural gesture in different combinations., It's a great devising ploy in any event and forces discovery. 

There's a video link below that might explain a part of what I mean, It's from Can we Talk About This? by the physical theatre company DV8. They use a combination of dance, expanded and natural gestures that flows together. I think is remarkable. It displays extraordinary physical skill, strength and dexterity we wouldn't be able to emulate but the underlying theory is applicable. There is an essential language between gesture and dance that I’m interested in that might become the language of the Stone People.. Groups, families and cultures share the same language and pick up common accents, and they also have shared gestures. This might take us theatrically into chorus work and Corp du Mime but also its also says something about finding commonality which I think is becoming an important theme in the play. This to me is all about listening to each other. Look how these two performers are engaged in listening to each other physically whilst communicating something else out to the audience.  In devising and rehearsing the movement we find will come directly from the performer, so by definition will be in the physical range of whoever produces, it may need to be less dance more expanded gestures, with rhythms and repetitions, but who knows what we will discover. However big or small the movements it is  all connected to music.