Problem Tree - First Performances

Before I begin, I'd just like to say YAY! this blog has now been read over 10,000 times.
And, back in the room...

Last week I performed the first of my one-to-one performance encounters, Problem Tree, and I was amazed how will it worked.  I knew it was a story that worked, having included it in a Teaching Gods & Other Stories... show a few years ago, but I'd never tried it myself in an one-to-one environment.  The one-to-one storytelling idea has hit some... shall we call it... consumer resistance.  When I announced it at the launch of my residency, I was surprised how many people really didn't warm to the idea.  "What, one-to-one?  Don't like the sound of that."  It got considerably fewer sign ups than The Summoning of Everyman which is a morality play featuring Death.  So, we can assume that people prefer confronting Death to sitting opposite another human being... which gives me an idea for a show, which I'll post about later.
Anyway, some people went for it and I performed the first shows on Saturday and it went rather well.  Each performance was different - more so than in any other performance situation I've worked in before.  Some sat and decided not to look at me.  Most looked into my eyes throughout.  Many found the normal cues of conversation kept coming up, making the usual noises you make when you're talking to someone.  Little smiles, ur-hums, nods.  But then, after a few minutes, they stopped... just listening... focused in a way that you don't always get in theatre, if nothing else because drifting off would seem rude.
I'm looking forward to seeing how the next set of audients react this Saturday - there are still some slots left, email me contact@milkbottleproductions.co.uk or call me 07704 704 469 to book your place.  And if you're not convinced - well, here's some of the feedback from last week...

“How fabulous!  Thank you Robert.  I will keep thinking about aspects of that story or two stories!  Truly wonderful!”  - Jacqueline Cooper Clarke

“Absolutely brilliant!!  Light and airy, dark, happy, sad, perfectly crafted and enjoyed every minute.  Bravo!” – Peter Day

“Funny, weird, intriguing, enthralling.  That’s the story.  The storyteller, knockout.  Beautifully delivered.  A thoroughly enjoyable experience.” – Kevin Roychowdhury

“Totally brilliant!  Mesmerising, intriguing, I could have sat for another 20 minutes!  Thank you! J” - Marion Tuke

Milk Bottle Productions Presents...

The Storyteller Will See You Now

One-to-One Storytelling in the Quay Theatre Bar

PROBLEM TREE

Written and Performed by Award-Winning Storyteller Robert Crighton

Artist in Residence at the Quay Theatre

“My father was a lovely, kind, reserved...

Nut job.  I say this in the nicest possible way.

When he died he believed that he was both fifty

and a hundred at the same time...”

Problem Tree is the impossible story of one man’s father and a tree that can’t exist.  A story of the First World War, of running away from your past and hiding in the future.  Let storyteller Robert Crighton guide you through his alternative vision of the world in the genial environs of the Quay Theatre – one-to-one storytelling, just for you.  Get yourself a drink and perhaps a bite to eat, sit back and relax for twenty minutes of you time.

All Performances Pay-What-You-Want

Performing Saturday 19th October 2013

at twenty minute intervals between 12.20 and 2.40pm

The Quay Theatre Bar, Quay Theatre, Quay Lane, Sudbury, CO10 2AN

Book your one-to-one encounter by calling 07704 704 469

or email contact@milkbottleproductions.co.uk

www.milkbottleproductions.co.uk

New Knowledge

Now that I have a blog dedicated to plays before Shakespeare, I'm a bit torn on where to post about The Summoning of Everyman.  I started here, with the one man version I performed over Easter which I am currently reviving.  I've decided to keep any active rehearsal of play posts on this blog, to continue the narrative, and write a compilation meta post for the other place.
So, I'm now into full rehearsal for Everyman again and it's good to be back.  Less than two weeks now before performing in London and I'm overhauling the whole text, going back to originals, looking at line readings and looking to see if there's any material I want to put back into the show.
I've cut, for the most part, very little.  As it's for one person, I've tried to rationalise some of the dialogue, making some of it into longer speeches, rather than back and forth.  There are only a couple of bits that I'm thinking of putting back in, but maybe only for a later performance, as I don't want to throw myself this close to the first show.
However, I did make one huge cut.  It's towards the end of the play, where Everyman is encouraged to see a priest and receive last rites and forgiveness before heading to his grave.  As he does this, two other characters discuss the goodness of this act and of priests in general.  There were three reasons why this had to go.
1. I spend most of the play as Everyman, stepping into other parts.  The idea that I could feasibly work a scene where he isn't technical present was too much to ask the audience to swallow.  Clarity was important.
2. One of the characters speaking was Knowledge - who I cut as a speaking role.  Knowledge became a visual symbol, a book that Everyman is given - and much of his dialogue was reassigned.
3. It's one thing to have a play that discusses the morality of doing good through a Christian lens, it is quite another to present what reads as direct propaganda.  It was just too obvious an exhortation, telling not showing, and had to go as it stood in the play.
So cut it was, and, also being very worthy and so the dullest part of the play - there is nothing at stake in the dialogue - it wasn't missed.  But I hated taking out such a large chunk of the play, even for good reasons, and I kept thinking about it.  And then I had an idea.
Irritatingly it came as I was watching an encore cinema broadcast of Eugene Onegin, which I was enjoying very much, until my brain defocused from the drama and played the idea around in different variations.

Play the text as a pre-show performance, play it as a street preacher, play it as speakers corner.

This adds two benefits - one, if gives the audience something to watch whilst some of the fiddly pre-show business is sorted (they have to write down their good and bad deeds) and two, it gives the speech bite - because then the character has a reason to be giving the speech, beyond discussing theology with someone else.  He is exhorting people to save their souls.  He cares.  We, the audience, however, are distanced.  The speech stops being worthy, it becomes something else.  It'll say something about a character, albeit one who is not in the play - unless I make him the same character as the Doctor who opens and closes the play, which I will look at when I rehearse it.
I haven't finished cutting the two speeches into one yet and I won't be using it in London on the 26th October (probably) and I may give up on the idea - but I think it has legs and it will restore to the play the full (ish) text.
Of course, I'll have changed the nature of the text, but the live shows are not about rigid conformity to the original source.  That is, to some degree, what the online Before Shakespeare project is about.  And that's why this post is on this blog, not in the other place.

Milk Bottle Productions Presents...

The Summoning of Everyman

An Immersive Theatre Production

Adapted and performed by Robert Crighton

The Summoning of Everyman is a powerful morality tale, written by an unknown author in the late medieval period, telling of the struggles for one man, for every man, to let go of his life.  This interactive performance brings this struggle directly to the audience, asking them to become part of the story, asking them to stand in the footsteps of Fellowship, Good Deeds and even Death himself.  It’s a question that each generation has to answer: can you really take anything with you after death?  Moving, beautiful and thought provoking – ultimately the Summoning comes to Everyone.

This is an immersive performance, everyone will be asked to help create the show in various simple ways.  Don’t worry this isn’t Pantomime, there are no songs or catchphrases.  The audience is moved around the space by Robert as characters in the story – the performance is personally addressed to you.  No acting skills required, just to stand, sit and be yourself, guided by Robert through the story.

Tickets are Pay-What-You-Want, so you choose at the end of the show how much you want to give for the show at the end.  For general booking enquiries us at contact@milkbottleproductions.co.uk – or call 07704 704 469.

Performing Saturday 26^th October at 7.00pm

Doors open 6.30pm, show starts 7.00pm – NO ADMITTANCE FOR LATECOMERS

The London Theatre - New Cross, The Lower Space, 443 New Cross Road, London, SE14 6TA

Tickets Available from wegottickets.com - http://www.wegottickets.com/event/236696

Website:  www.milkbottleproductions.co.uk

WHAT THE AUDIENCE SAID: Guildhall Lavenham, Easter 2013

“We were so impressed... Robert Crighton is a one man tour de force he has you gripped from start to finish.”  DC Starpop

“A rewarding experience both as an audience member and a participant!  A fascinating interpretation of this medieval morality tale and I recommend it highly... a compelling one man show.”  Nick Elliott

“Touching and inspirational.”  Phil Hope

“With absolute ease he made the text accessible to a contemporary audience...” David Owen-Bell

“I would certainly recommend Robert and this 5 star performance to Everyman and Woman!!   A truly sensational performance by Robert!”  Dan

“... a compelling and engaging piece of storytelling...”  Annie Eddington

"A veritable tour de force..."  Rev. Stephen Earl

“Great acting, and what a memory!”  Arthur

Hanging Around

The third project of Project 10/52 will be the curiously titled Hang.  I say curiously, because I have no intention of explaining why it is called Hang.  You'll have to come and see it.  Or listen to it.  Yes, we plan to stream this play live as a radio play and this will live online for free for the rest of the year - after that it's all pay-per-listen.  There will also be a published script of the play, probably not available on the show night itself, but shortly afterwards.

So, what's it all about?  It's going to be series of short scenes, lot's of variations on a theme, one of which is the story of Brian, who wants to be a zebra.  He is, at this time, the only recurring character - though this may change.  You'll meet him at the beginning of the play as he is interviewed about his lifestyle choice and follow him through the great changes that hit the world around him - namely, a bio-genetic plague which starts turning people into animals.  Brian's big chance you'd think - no, it doesn't turn out well for him.  Or for much of civilisation largely.

It is a play, a straightforward, people talking to each other play and it is roughly scripted at present.  There are whole scenes written, some sketched out and the general shape and tenor of the play exists in my mind - as well as outsourced on some memory storage devices known as scraps of paper.
Much of it is a comedy, but it is a play dealing with serious ideas and themes - specifically, how we define 'normal'.  Brian is considered a freak at the beginning of the play because it isn't normal to want to be another species.  By the end of the play he is part of the norm, because the world of the play has changed.  It doesn't take a genius to see the moral point of the play, so I'm going to not try and ram it home too obviously.
Tickets for the show will be available for reservation later in the year and payment is Pay-What-You-What on the night.  The number of tickets available is currently only twenty - part of the reason we'll stream online is so that more people will get to experience it - though the number of tickets available will increase on demand.

Hang by Robert Crighton will be performing at the Quay Theatre, Sudbury on Monday 31st March at 7.30pm.  All tickets Pay-What-You-Want - strictly limited seating - call the Quay Box Office on 01787 374 745 or book online here.

Please, I just want to be a zebra!

Watching Over You

Continuing my (almost) weekly expansion of the work I'm doing next year, we're onto Project Two of Project 10/52 - You Have Been Watching.

Now, unlike Project One, (see below - as opposed to in a book, above) which is developed to a reasonable degree, Project Two (YHBW) is positively unprepared.  If Project One is six months pregnant, Project Two is barely picking up it's clothing, wondering how much it drank last night and trying to remember if it used protection.

Okay, I exaggerate for effect - YHBW is not completely unprepared.  I haven't just plucked a title out of the air and hoped for the best (though I do have form in this regard - it is not uncommon for people to ask me if I've written the show yet just before curtain up).  I want to explore surveillance culture, the modern world of electronic everything and I have some material to start from.  I started a monologue many years ago about someone trying to live off grid.  Unobserved, undatabased.  Or undatadebased.  As it were.  This material will be the starting point, but it may get jettisoned.  I want to spend the four/five/six weeks rehearsal time developing material, working with people to collect data and ideas.  I want to identify every single camera in the local area and will ask people to help me do that.  I want to find other stories, other angles to the way technology effects us.  How a new generation is changing/is changed by the new ways of communicating.
It may not end up as a play.  Hence the probability that I will jettison past material.  I see it as an installation, a series of images, actions, discussions... half formed ideas are battling for control of the project as I type.
I know also what I don't want it to be.  There are many cliches and obvious routes that do not need to be trod.  I don't want it to be a straightforward technology bad, technology good debate.  That would be tedious.
I will need help from the audience to make this happen as well.  I want every audience member to document the show, to use their camera phones to film it, take images of it etc and post them online.  These files will then be available to anyone who wants to use them - I intend to create a video version of the show out of the recordings.  That way there isn't one version of the project, there are, if not an infinite then, a very large finite number of versions, depending on how you wish to view the material.
I'm hoping that most people will have their own cameras, but I will be supplying a number of small cameras for use in the show.  You are the camera, you are the director, you are the show.
That's sort of the idea, at this distant stage.

Cuckold's Art

I'm on the cusp of recording the audio book version of Cuckold's Fair, a storytelling play that I wrote in late 2009 and I'm looking for some helpers to be in the artwork as the original design work isn't really doing it for me anymore.  Basically I forced one of the cast to put a flower in their mouth and I took a rubbish picture which I then added a rubbish effect over and sort of got away with it.  So I want to create something new for the audio book and a re-issue of the book cover.
It's based, though not literally, on a nightmare sequence in the play that reads something like this...

They saw... a wall... and there were the Foliate figures

Building the wall, stone by stone.

            “It’s an ancient art, dry stone walling,

You need to examine the gap and then look and

Choose a piece that will fit the space perfectly.”

The dreamers watched these human shaped plants

Picking up the stones, examining them, but they

Didn’t seem to place them with any real care,

Just plonked them in, pushing other stones

Aside if they didn’t fit properly.

 “Man likes barriers.  This need to build

Barriers, boundaries, it’s something we don’t understand. 

Don’t respect.  We have no need for these things. 

These walls, these...”

And a Foliate Woman threw one of the stones

Across to the dreamers.  But it wasn’t a stone anymore.

It was a skull.

The dreamers silently screamed, a hoarse silent cry

Of dream-sick despair as the Foliate figures built

A wall, stone by stone.  Skull by skull.  Face by face.

Laughing, passing the skulls of mankind, the Foliates were many

With endless others building a great wall infinitely long.

 “It goes round the globe.  It’s our greatest work.”

And from the empty eyes, the millions of skull-sockets,

The shoots sprouted and crept and bushelled and expanded.

The dry skull wall burst into terrible life,

From dry skull to coppice in seconds.

 “This is our world and we want it back.”

And the dreamers felt the Foliate figures tear their heads off,

Felt their heads being added to the wall.  And the foliage forced

Its way out of their throats, eyes, ears and noses

And at last, when all breath was impossible, they woke up.

A cheerful image, as you can tell.  And for the artwork I want to create something similar, but different.  I'm fond of the covers for Asimov books which often bore no relation to the content literally, but captured something of the grandeur of vision.  

So, I want to create the image of a wall of, if not skulls, then heads, wreathed in foliage.  

And for that I require heads.  

Your heads, if you're willing.  

I'm going to organise a photo shoot for the image and if you're free and can make it to the bar of the Quay Theatre from 12.30pm till 2.30pm on Saturday 28th September I'd like to take a picture of your head.  

Just your head.  

It'll be fun.

You'll get to sit in a comfy chair, be lit interestingly and I'll take a selection of pictures.  It'll take a few minutes and then you'll be free to enjoy the benefits of the nearby bar or just the joy of freedom.

And, with some luck, you'll be one of the heads in a wall made by the foliate spirits.

I will use the image to create, not just an LP cover, but also a final work of art which hopefully will be displayed and available for those who helped make it happen - and I can send you copies of the originals if you want.

Return of the Trolls

Time to start giving you some details about what's coming up next year.  I've given you the broad outline, now for a little bit more.  The first project for Project 10/52 begins on New Year's Day 2014 and continues online for the whole year.  In fact, a bit of it will start in the fag end of 2013, but that's the old material, so it doesn't count.

The Trolls Trilogy
An Overview

It all started two years ago, when I decided to write a piece of storytelling over the course of a year.  I would vlog and blog about it, premiere it towards the end of the year and then do a run over Christmas.  And then I promptly killed that idea off by booking it into performance in July.  This was The Natural History of Trolls (NHT) - which appeared at the New Wimbledon Studio July 2011 and then in Suffolk and London again in late November the same year.  For full info on the 'journey' of the production of this show go to this blog post and work your way up forward in time, or watch the vlogs - the first one is here.
I've been coming back to this story every so often, as there seemed to be more directions to take it.  Slowly, two other stories came to me, mixed in with all the random material that didn't get used the first time.  So, in line with the original plan for NHT I thought it appropriate to write the next two stories over the course of a year, ending with a masterwork epic showdown in December.  Only this time the story will be 'broadcast' online in weekly installments - so you get to follow it as it goes along.

Part One: The Natural History of Trolls - revisited

Because a trilogy tends to work best in three parts and not everyone who might listen to the weekly show will have seen the first part, I'm going back to NHT and recording it for free online release this December.  That way everyone gets a chance to listen to the story from beginning to end.  However, this recording will only be in four episodes, not strung out over months, so a more involved listen.

I have made changes to NHT over the course of its life and the audio version will have a number of minor revisions.  I'm going to change a couple of names and slightly alter the way the second half works - but it will still be in essence the story of Bernard, Vicki and a mass chorus of orange penguins.

The Natural History of Trolls - the first part of The Trolls Trilogy - will be released online daily from the 28^th to 31^st December 2013 on my audioboo board, latest by 12pm each day.

Part Two: Lost Tribe of the Trolls
The first part was all about a rather buttoned up tribe of trolls, trolls with a Victorian view on life, who were trapped underground for much of the 20th Century.  This story (LTT) is all about the trolls that got away, about The Noble Guild of Trolls (Luton Branch) who adapted to the modern world and (to some degree) lost their souls.  In it a person called Robert (who's remarkably like me) is guided by a character currently known as the Recording Angel, who collects memories, specifically of war.
It's a story about how the old world changed into the present, about how we remember the past and how much that we think is new is just repackaged.

Part Three: The Paper Moon Trolls

I won't abbreviate the title of this show as (even with the late addition of a The) the acronym is most unfortunate - but it's such an apt title I won't change it.  This is the final chapter in the lives of the trolls, creatures who change at the will of others, who are effected physically by ideas.  The guide character in this story is Peter Git - a bio-engineer and theorist - who is trying to find a way of splicing troll and human DNA.  It's a story about ideas, about changing the world by changing the way you see it, and about what the dark side of the moon actually looks like.  It is also, as eagle eyed observers will have gathered, partly a homage to Peer Gynt.

So that's the outline of Project One - appearing on a laptop near you.  This project is the opening and close of Project 10/52 in that the final live performance of the trilogy will mark the end of the season.  It'll be a big performance and a closing party, hopefully with food and drink and laughter and thought.  I have a feeling I might be quite tired by the end of it all.

Damn You - That Was My Idea! Except, it wasn't really...

I had this really great idea for a show about five / six years ago.  I can't prove this, there are few decent notes and no witnesses.  I was going to get recordings of a famous production of Hamlet and get a modern cast to exactly copy the performance from the recording and put that on stage.  It was going to be great.
And then I found out The Wooster Group had done it this year.
Bastards.
How dare they? I thought.  That was my idea!
Bastards.
Well, no, that's not fair, it's not their fault.
Bastards.
Ideas are cheap, ideas are easy - it's not that I'd told them and they nicked it.  I'm sure loads of people had the idea.  It's just they did it first.
Bastards.
No, look, they're not bastards.  They're not.  They took an idea and they ran with it.  Good on them.
Bastards.
Okay, now I think it's clear that what's really going on is that I'm beating myself for not doing it first, externalising irritation with myself and projecting it onto The Wooster Group.
Bastards.
Nope, still haven't dealt sufficiently with this yet.
To be fair, my idea would have been staged a bit differently.  I didn't catch the show, so I can't be certain.  I was going to have the "To be or not to be" speech done as a showdown between different actors, just like that bit in Zoolander when David Bowie turns up for no readily apparent reason.
That would have been cool.
Oh well.
Never mind.
Think I've calmed down now.
Or maybe I'm just glad I dodged a bullet as many of the reviews said it was a bit dull.
I think the point I'm attempting to make is that you shouldn't sit on an idea for too long, because anyone can have an idea.  However, not everyone will make that idea come true, and if you've had the idea you should get off your arse and make it real.  This is what next years Project 10/52 is all about.  I'm clearing out some of the ideas, the ideas that are sitting about, not really doing anything.  They're not fully fledged plays, many of them will never be born into the world as such, but they might make it into something special over the ten projects I've got lined up for next year.
And if they get written up, recorded, performed or published then no one is going to get to those ideas first.  They'll be my ideas, made manifest.  So there.  And then perhaps someone will write a blog about how some bloke called Robert Crighton got to their great idea first and call me a bastard.
Except you can't, because I've already had that idea and written a blog about it.
This'll be the point where someone emails me a link to a blog/book/thing that's said this same point already, then I'll look pretty stupid.
So, just in case this happens, I'll get in an early...
Bastards.