Teaching Gods & Bink! Audiobook Trailer

Coming soon to Milk Bottle Audio...
Teaching Gods & Bink! 
by Robert Crighton
Performed by Cat LaCohie and Robert Crighton

BINK!
Performed by Cat LaCohie
Molly was left alone a lot. Her parents were always out. So she started talking to herself, to the furniture, to the house. And then the house answered back. A children’s story... just not for children.

Teaching Gods
Performed by Robert Crighton
Winner of the “Best Writing” Award at the Lost Theatre One-Act Festival 2007
The Gods have invaded the University. All thoughts of normal academic life disappear as the campus dissolves into chaos. The flowers walk and the squirrels clean kitchens. Will the agents of chaos win against the hardnosed grey suited form of the Vice Chancellor? What do you think?

listen to ‘Teaching Gods & Bink! Trailer’ on Audioboo

Recording 'The Project After'

The Project After - discussed below - can be heard here.

"Just got back from recording 'The Project After' with Frequency Theatre. Fucking knackered..." was the less than subtle post I made last night about a little trip to Colchester.  For those new to me, and those who know this blog well but have not been paying attention (quiet at the back there), here's some background.
The Project After was a play I wrote as part of a series of short plays now collectively known as The Fantasy Terrorist Variations which has been quietly growing over the past decade or so.  The Project After is the latest performed addition (technically Variation 3) and was premiered at the Barons Court Theatre last November.  It is a tricksy little play, designed to provoke thought and unease among'st those watching (or very soon, listening).  The run at Barons Court was well received but shorter than planned and seen by few people, so it's still in the category of 'unfinished business' and ripe for revival.
Frequency Theatre is an online audio play producer, based in Colchester.  I've done a few recordings with them over the last year and passed on the script, which they liked very much.  So, I got cheeky and asked if I could be in the play as well.  They said yes.
The studio is based in an arts project called Slack Space, utilising the slack space (hence the name) in an unused retail outlet - I believe the old co-op store.  So, off I toddled and met up with Bethany Sharp-McLeod the director and Tom Edwards my fellow actor.  I was determined to not talk too much, not to impose myself and make it difficult for the director to do her job.  I think I got the balance reasonably right, I wasn't not going to talk about my play and the ideas within it, but then again I could be deluding myself and Beth wanted me to die for not shutting up.  I did have a coffee before hand (which I really shouldn't have), so I might have been a bit high.
Anyway, we chatted about the play, read it twice and chatted some more.  We were all pretty much on the same wavelength, no one was missing the point of the play, I was very happy.
Then we stood up in front of mics and actually did it.  And fuck me, to quote myself, it was exhausting.  It's twenty plus minutes of two people having a bit of a go at each other and my legs were shaking after just a few minutes into the first take - which was a straight run through.  When I directed it for London I don't recall the cast complaining about exhaustion - maybe I wasn't listening?  But then again, if by the end you aren't drained, have you really given it your best?  Discuss.
The problem for me was trying to get the old show out of my head - both in the sense I didn't want to play my character Mark as Keith Hill did (you're not getting royalties if I did) and in the sense that the pauses and flow of the dialogue was different because different actors find different rhythms.  It helped that Beth gave me many slightly different directions for certain lines; I couldn't do it the way Keith did it before, I had been told to do it differently.  Which was useful.
We (well I) crawled out after the recording well after 10 o'clock and made my way home.  I stopped briefly in a pub for a swift one and sat in a comfy armchair and tried to switch off.  Shouldn't have had the coffee.  Shouldn't really have had the beer.  But I'm glad I did.  In the background Elvis was playing.  A gentle refrain, to which I quietly hummed along.  And then it hit me that it was a perfect song to go in a play I'm planning to do next year.  Out came the notebook.
So, regardless of how the recording comes out (and it comes out on Friday, free online) I'm delighted to have done it - because if I hadn't come to Colchester and done the play and felt so knackered I needed a sit down, I wouldn't have been reminded of the music that changed the whole direction of a play that hopefully you'll get to see next year... something something something the House that Jack Built.

When Is Cinema Not Theatre? When It's Television.

I went to see The Audience the other day.  Popular West End drama, run finished a while back, but thanks to an encore digital screening I got to catch it in my local cinema.  It was rather fun, but I can't quite decide whether I enjoyed it because of the quality of the drama or because of the nature of the overall experience.  It was like watching an old friend coming back to me.  It was television.  Television as it used to be.  Some actors walked into a room and three cameras (I think) were pointed at them.  Someone vision mixed the images together, occasionally (but unobtrusively) the camera panned or zoomed in and out.  Otherwise, it just recorded the passage of action.  Just like television used to do.
Now, I'm not knocking the innovations in television drama afforded by following film techniques.  There are some very good bits of drama created by tight editing, jump cuts, filters, voice-overs and constant background music.  But these are effected created by the technicians.  The old school method, a few cameras and a vision mixer, the theatre as opposed to the film route, meant that actors played scenes - that the pace and timing of a scene were live, dependent on the skill of the players.  And I miss that.  Because not only can actors not play scenes on television, writers don't really write them anymore.  And I miss that too.
But now I don't have to - I can see theatre, by going to the cinema, to watch television.

Audience Participation

Audience's, it has been noted, are different every night.  You can go out one night and find a warm and friendly reception and the next feel like you have just insulted everyone's mother.  I have been on the receiving end of many a shifting audience; it is one of the hazards of storytelling (like stand up) that the relationship with the people in front of you is even more direct and important that in traditional drama - but I have not seen such a shift in audience and performance conditions as extreme as with last weeks community production of Much Ado About Nothing.  (Which is almost certainly my last show of the year, as I'm planning a bumper crop of activity next year - news on this from future Robert.  BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS ARE COMING VERY SOON!  Sorry for the capitals, I'm a bit excited.)

Firstly, this was an open air production and that adds an additional weather factor to the equation of audience reaction.  An audience in sun reacts very different from the drowned rats in the rain.  

Secondly, even if we say so ourselves, it was a damned good production - so we're not dealing with a restive audience that wants their money back.  The audience had a good reason to stay and enjoy and react.

First Performance:  If this were a scientific test I would call the first night the control.  The audience, a little slowly at first, reacted with laughter, nothing extreme; there were no highs and no lows.  The weather was perfect, sunny but not too bright, warm but not too hot.  We had a good solid baseline from which to pitch the show.  We did notice that the callousness of the British public was in full force as they laughed good and loud at the suggestion that Benedick "Kill Claudio", but this was to be a feature of the run (except the last night) and people can be such bastards.

Second Performance:  Weather wise the first and second nights were very similar.  The audience was quicker off the mark, laughing with good force from the beginning.  However, warning signs of what was to come were apparent.  Being outdoors in a lovely private garden, the audience were able to bring picnics and sit in comfort from an hour or so before the show started, so there's a fair amount of milling about from the audience and the odd bit of bumping into people when waiting for a cue.  Waiting to come on (in a Jeep no less) Don Pedro, Signor Benedick and I noticed that someone was taking a leak against the shrubbery in a corner of the garden.  About ten foot away from the public toilets (unoccupied).  Someone in the audience had obviously brought a well stocked liquid lunch to picnic on and was past the point of noticing minor things like an actual toilet facility.  It was the shape of things to come.

The first half went well and I was rather looking forward to the second.  As Claudio I don't get involved in the comedy of the second act, so I could focus on character and not worry about the timing of laughs.  How wrong I was.  The kindly weed waterer of the first half had come with a party of friends, all of whom were on a similar prescription of firewater.  In their eyes the audience was very much part of the performance and their job was not just to laugh, at whichever line they liked (funny or not) but also to introduce to the script additional witticisms of their own.  

My first encounter with this new situation came out of the blue in 4.1 - a scene where I denounce my bride at her wedding as a whore.  I had a cock-up backstage and (by dint of a brainstorm) couldn't seem to get the Sam Browne of my costume on until, literally, the last second.  So, I followed the priest on stage with heart pounding and somewhat unready (though it was kind of right for the emotional state of the character so I rode with it).  My first line would get a laugh, this I knew.  It's a laugh made of the unexpected bluntness of a man saying "No" at whether he wants to get married at his own wedding.  But I didn't expect the uproarious laughter from the well oiled rump who were sitting directly in front of me.  Or the muttering.  Or the continued laughter, where none should live.

Fate then intervened to make things worse.  Just as I was about to denounce my bride-to-be dishonest, my sword fell off.  More laughter.  I covered the fall with a quick pick up and brandished the sword throughout the scene with purpose.  It was at this moment that I'm all rage and really show off the nasty side of Claudio's character.  Our friendly spirit suppers started to boo and hiss.  It was pantomime.  I even had a comedy sword.  Bugger.

At this point I thought we might be able to put a halt to this section of the audience.  I've worked difficult crowds before - usually you can give a few pointed stares, give a bit more attack and speed up the text a bit so that they don't get a chance to jump in with retorts.  After a while they tend to step into line.  But this was open air, not indoors; they were throwing lines in over dialogue, not between it; and they were pissed, most audiences - even difficult ones - are not.  When Hero (my ex-bride to be) fainted one voice piped up "I'm a nurse".  And I knew we were doomed.

The next hour or so was hell.  Pleas were made by the owners of the garden to quiet them, to no avail; the surrounding audience told them to shut up, nothing.  The rest of the cast were having just as hard a time of it and were really upset that great scenes were being ruined.  I became incredibly angry.  It wasn't that they were ruining the show for me (they were, but it's all part of the job) but that they were ruining it for the audience.  I was also angry with myself for letting it get to me so much.  I became aware that everything I might do would now be seen as comic.  When I re-entered with the sword there was a burst of "there's the comedy sword" laughter, and any move I made made the sword wobble in what was now an hilarious fashion.  Control was lost - and I hated it.  It was also at this juncture in the play that one of this merry band of revelers left to find a bush in the garden to do a shit.

The only good thing to come out of this sorry farce was due, not to us as performers, but to the shape of the garden.  Luckily only half the audience had their evening ruined - the other half couldn't hear them because of the nature of the acoustic.

Third Performance:  Hot, hot, hot.  It was a matinee and the sun was shining.  The audience was a bit subdued, they didn't have the energy for big laughs.  Or, in some cases, consciousness.  You expect a few people to nap through a show, but when it's a picnic you can't miss 'em, because they roll out a blanket and lie down.  There were six people sprawled out at one point, but we didn't mind.  Unlike the night before, they didn't do us any harm.  And I'm sure they will claim they were "listening".

Final Performance:  Sun, cloud, rain, RAIN, rain.  The run up to the second show of the day was filled with prayers to the gods of rain.  Rain had been expected in the afternoon and it had been positively tropical, so hopes were high that we might, just might get away with a light shower after the interval.  We started in relative sunshine, soon obscured in cloud.  The audience were quick off the mark, reacting well.  The cloud got thicker.  Then, thirty minutes to the interval, the first spots.  It was gradual enough to give the audience time to slowly get waterproofs on.  The ushers went round with ponchos during the song in 2,3 - which was perfect timing as it doesn't really matter to the play, it's just a random song.  Transition from dry to wet was achieved without ruining the audience focus.  By the end of the first half the rain was well underway, though not torrential.  The interval was shortened, much to the general relief.

We lost the odd audience member, but it looked like more because many people headed for the trees at the edges of the space.  In the second half it all went a bit King Lear.  By the time we finished the wedding scene the rain was pouring down and the microphones giving us support were out of action.  The note went round - bellow.  I did 5,1 in the finest traditions of the Brian Blessed School of Acting - though afterward the rain lessened and the mics came back online.  Still the audience sat there, still they listened, still they laughed.

I have to say, the rain became the second half.  It had been odd playing some scenes in the afternoon in sunlight - as one cast member said: "It doesn't have that Gothic intensity".  In the rain, those dark scenes came into their own.  And by God, it's amazing how quick everyone is on cues when they really want to get back in the dry.

At the curtain call we applauded the audience for staying.  They didn't laugh as much as they might have done in the dry, but they were focused on the action.  And you can't ask for more from an audience.  You really can't.
And as we walked off the stage, the bloody rain stopped.

Ill Acting

Regulars to this blog will have noticed I've posted next to bugger all for months.  This has been due to a creeping illness which, as the consultant said to me the other day, "was moving in the direction of mortality".  Frankly that's an exaggeration, but I wasn't well.  Over a year ago I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, which is - bluntly and literally - a shitty disease.  I have had to cut back on much of my theatre work because making theatre is stressful and stress makes me ill-er.  So, I've been focusing on writing and small scale projects and have been winding down on bigger commitments.  (That said, I won't be sitting on my heels, there will be new stuff coming up in the next eighteen months, possibly more new material than I've managed in the last year or so, just it'll be on a smaller, more virtual scale.)
Anyway, the last big commitment was a community production of Much Ado About Nothing in my local town.  A last chance to play juvenile lead (Claudio) before I'm too long in the tooth, so it fitted nicely.

And for the whole rehearsals schedule I've been as sick as a parrot.  Not just the usual symptoms of my unhappy colon, but a whole smorgasbord of sick.  Acting through illness is very distancing.  It's rather like acting with your arms tied behind your back - you know what you want to do, but it's all surface, the interior life of the character just isn't there.  Act 5, Scene 1 - a long and tricky scene - requires Claudio to travel from defiance, banter, to realisation and grief (depending on your interpretation, though regardless of which stops you wish to pull it's a busy scene emotionally).  The script states that he cries.  Prior to hospitalisation I had nothing.  Nothing at all.  I walked on, tried to look sad, said the words in approximately the right order and then had a coughing fit.  However, two days after they gave me the drugs that work (rather than the ones that make me ill - I was ill primarily as a reaction to my medication) and nice solid tear rolled from my eye.

Now, let's not get carried away - emotionalism is not necessarily acting.  The ability to feel emotion doesn't necessarily mean that I am acting better than before (for all I know, I was over doing it and came across as total crap) but it is part of being alive and being alive in a scene is half the battle.

It reminds me of my performance in Everyman at Easter - I'd found a really nice line through the piece, especially the pain and hurt felt by God at the beginning.  Again, in some rehearsals, there were tears (though I decided it would be more effective if held back rather than released into the wild) and I was quite happy.  Then I got gastroenteritis and had to fight through the show, rather than play it.  It came off, but all that hard work had gone and I had nothing.

Again, sometimes having nothing is to the positive benefit of a show.  A neutrality of performance can be very effective; I've seen shows destroyed by the overactive emotionalism of a quivering upper lip.  But that's ultimately a directing issue - as an actor I'm delighted to be able to feel again, to have all the options to play with.
Now, let's see if the director asks me to dial it back a bit.

First Impressions

First impressions count - even with a script.  I don't mean your basic mistakes like using the wrong format, using different colours for characters or writing in crayon - it can be a much smaller thing.  Like how you describe your play.
I have a little quandary - I'm debating with myself - I'm procrastinating... How should I, if I should, describe a play?  The play is a comedy.  This should be indicated by the content, in the sense that it is funny.  I know this because at a read through people laughed, a lot, so I'm not delusional.  (Unless I am delusional in that they all actually sat in silence and this is a false memory / dream.)  However, readers of the play have - in feedback - seemed to have missed this point.  One response went something like this: such and such a scene was deeply moving.  I'm not going to describe the scene, but imagine saying that an episode of The Two Ronnies was deeply moving and you'll get the idea of the absurdity of the response.  Somehow the fact that the situation and characters are in no way particularly normal, comic in fact, doesn't seem to have come across.  It's not even that readers don't like it or don't find it funny (hell, people have different funny bones) - it is the failure to identify that it was a comedy at all that terrifies me.  I know the play is partly satirical, but please - dear [insert deity] - don't tell me people think it's a document of truth - that it mirrors the readers lives so much that it might as well be verbatim.  Kill me now if this is so.
So, do I point out to readers that it is a comedy?  I've put this question up on facebook and twitter and (as usual with actual questions rather than silly jokes) no one has said a damn thing in response.  (I love my followers - they're so unresponsive.  They're probably all closet trolls who just can't quite summon the will to reply with something rude.  Can't even be bothered to unfollow me.  Lazy sods.)
The obvious reason not to add an epithet is it sets one up for a fall.  A comedy (once identified) has to be funny, and that might be setting myself up for failure.  It's not as bad as putting it down as 'an hilarious comedy', which is the code phrase for 'crock of shit'.  I toyed briefly with a description - 'a moral comedy, without morals' - which fits the play well.  And then I realised it was a.) wanky bollocks and b.) even more off putting than 'an hilarious comedy' - so that one bit the dust quite quickly.
Perhaps, as it does have serious themes hidden beneath the comedic surface, I should call it 'a dramatic comedy', 'a comedic drama' or 'a comedy drama' - but everyone knows 'comedy drama' is what you call comedies that both aren't funny or particularly dramatic.  Another code phrase for 'crock of shit' then.
It could be worse - there are some people who label their work 'a play' (no shit Sherlock) as an offering to the gods of the patently fucking obvious.
The case against calling it 'a comedy' is less that it's nature is failing to get across to readers (the phrase 'a comedy' is more about marketing for an actual production, clearly selling the goods to the public) but that in the eyes of a reader 'a comedy' lessens it's importance.  Comedy, though big business, is not regarded as important (especially in theatre) as tragedy and it's modern offspring.  I look up to tragedy, comedy knows it's place.  So, perhaps missing that the play is a comedy could be my biggest bonus.  I look forward to earnest German productions where the whole mess of silliness is treated with the utmost seriousness and there isn't a titter to be heard throughout.  Except for me, of course, sitting in the stalls and laughing my head off at how easily people miss the point.
So - on discussing it with myself - I'm not going to call it a comedy then.  Right, now that's decided, I can actually have a look at the actual play...

I've sort of not written a play...

As per the now established pattern, I'm looking for people to join me for a read through of my new play.  Last time I did this at short notice because a play I'd let drift for a year had suddenly burst into life before me.  This time I'm calling a read through at short notice for completely the opposite reason.  The play I'm working on is, by and large, getting there.  But it isn't even a completed first draft.  It's about nine thousand words that follow some order, but which in no way, as yet, resembles a play.
However, I am working to a deadline, which is coming up very soon.  Problem is I need to work to an even closer deadline so that I get it written with enough time to then re-write it and send it forth with some sense of decorum.  So, I'm creating an artificial deadline, a read through, for which to aim at.  That way the play has to be ready, because the last thing I want to do is make a tit of myself in public.  If I wanted to do that I'd take up Morris dancing.  Oh, the horror, the horror!
So, usual rules - if you're based in Suffolk - make your way to the Quay Theatre bar on Saturday 18th May at 12.30pm and join in the read through.  I think I'll need about half a dozen (unlike the last two plays this has a relatively modest cast) and it shouldn't take much more than 90 minutes or so.  Following my positive discrimination policy it's mostly a female cast, of various ages, but we've had game men reading cross gender before (and visa-versa for that matter).  I offer a coffee or something similar in recompense for your time and feedback.  It usually is good fun.
And as you're in the area, then there is a production of a murder mystery Death in High Heels that evening, which I am not uninvolved in - go on, make a day of it.