An Actor's Life

The Language of Theatre

2005-12-13T17:55:00.000Z

When I was still living in Denmark, I remember going to a local theatre to see Macbeth. This particular version of Macbeth was performed by a visiting Japanese theatre company, and included puppetry as well as actors. I had a thoroughly enjoyable evening and remembering coming away from the experience with images I still remember today. In London, many regular visiting companies regularly perform a huge range of plays from Shakespeare to new writing in an array of different languages. These events are almost always oversubscribed, the interest in foreign language plays clearly on the rise; and rightly so: Theatre, being the amalgamation of the visual and the spoken, remains an international language. Hearing a familiar line spoken in a foreign language with its different vowel and consonant sounds often opens up a completely new way of understanding or experiencing that same line. Where we fail to understand the spoken word because of the unfamiliar language we tune our senses in more acutely to what we see before us. Thus, it can be more enriching to watch a play in a foreign language as we are less prone to sit back and relax and let it come to us. Foreign Language Theatre demands active viewing and is not always an easy task, but if you invest in it you often come away with lasting impressions, as the one left me by the Japanese Macbeth many years ago.

Which is why the task set us by our producers, American Drama Group Europe is a hard one: Although we perform in Theatres, our main audience (the bread and butter of the company) is still that most fickle and enigmatic of audiences: The Teenager.
Moreover, because our play demands more engagement (being performed in French) this is often an audience that we are struggling with; there are different elements in this struggle:

First is the willingness: One of the premises of theatre is that the audience is willing to be there and willing to listen. In our case this is not always the case.

Much to our credit and our director’s we almost always manage to draw them in, in spite of their sometimes openly voiced reticence. Still, many of them have been told to go and so between a maths lesson and a “boring” French play, well guess what they opt for?

Then there is the engagement: Foreign language theatre plays demand engagement and concentration. Most young people nowadays need constant stimulation and cannot sustain their concentration for more than a couple of minutes. ( see my forthcoming entry “ generation X-BOX” )

So this is our daily task; Mostly we are quite successful, sometimes it is an uphill struggle to “save teenage souls” in spite of themselves.

58 Movies: nothing on!

2005-12-04T14:36:00.000Z

The thing we have come to miss the most while on the road, has been English language movies. Germany, along with Spain, Italy and France are the only European countries left (to my knowledge) where dubbing still applies. All TV shows, and most Feature films are dubbed. Here is a quote from an article from the Goethe Institute’s website:

“In no other country in the world are so many films dubbed for the cinema and TV screens as in Germany. The preference for dubbed German versions of international productions has given birth to an industry with its own professions, which have to deal with the issue of remaining faithful to the original – and at times with sceptics “

More info on the dubbing history in Germany can be found at: http://www.goethe.de/kug/kue/flm/dos/en218244.htm

Now off course, this is excellent news for the large contingent of German actors working within this industry, but for tourists, it’s a constant irritation if you do not know the language. Only in major towns like Berlin, Hamburg are you able to find cinemas that show feature films in their original versions, and even then the selection is usually limited to a few films and odd screening times. When we are in smaller cities, the suggestion of going to the movies usually gets a laugh from everyone and then we resign ourselves to watching James Bond in German on the TV.

However, from my own experience of picking up languages I can only say that when you hear a language it is usually easier to retain: “Upstairs Downstairs” “When The Boat Comes In” “The Professionals”, “The A-Team” ,were all series that helped me achieve better English when I was a kid, because they were shown on TV and at the movies in original languages and subtitles allowed me to understand words that I didn’t know. Subtitles are just a question of habbit, but then off course if the Germans started reading subtitles, what would all the German actors do ?

The acidental tourist

2005-11-16T23:02:00.000Z

Göttingen, Rosenheim, Stuttgart, Ingolstadt, Chemnitz, Lübeck, Paderborn, Marburg, Hannover, and tonight Lüdenscheid.
In the last 2 weeks we have it seems seen a lot of towns, but in fact it has been more the case of being accidental tourist. And that is the main frustration about being on tour in a country that you have not visited before: You pass through all these beautiful towns, and their sights and sounds keep taunting you as you pass through them with barely enough time to check in at the hotel, grab something to eat then make your way to the theatre for that evenings show, the next day we repeat the story. We have to remind ourselves constantly that we are not on holiday but working…. So a lot of times we content ourselves with the thought that we still have some great cities in store .We had a nice day and a half in Berlin in preparation for the 5 days we will spend there in December. The weather is getting colder now, and I have just bought a hat and gloves in preparation for the cold that will be here shortly….what am I saying that is here NOW!!
There are new pictures uploaded on Flickr and I will try to write new post on as soon as I can.

Goodbye to the Fabrik !

2005-11-04T15:31:00.000Z

I may have seemed overly enthusiastic yesterday about The Fabrik. I guess the vip treatment and the perks got the better of me; Overall our shows there (last one this morning) have suffered from the fact that this space is only used for concert at nights. The skylight completely blew away any intentions of making the same kind of magic as we do in normal theatres. This has been slightly better at night, although the very small stage has meant improvising and cutting where needed.
As it is already hard enough to draw in a audience of reluctant teenagers (and these do make out the main body of our audience) in a normal theatre, it has been nigh impossible to create the same sort of enchantment during our day performances there.
So our day performances at the Fabrik have definitely felt as if we were selling the same product to people but without all the nice packaging.

The night performances have been better, that said the audience has also been more adult. I guess everything was redeemed today as we got our free ticket for tonight’s concert with Chuck Berry! (Yes I am easily bought!) . And to finish it all off we added to the graffiti and left our mark on the changing room wall (see above pick) and who knows….Maybe Chuck Berry knows the story and will notice it and ask us round for drinks…..

But for now it’s the week-end in Hamburg...
For more pictures of us at the Fabrik check out flickr as usual...

Le Petit Prince...followed by CHUCK BERRY ?!

2005-11-03T15:53:00.000Z

yes it's true we were warm up act for Chuck Berry ( so to speak !)

Hello again!

Iam sitting in the backstage area of The Fabrik in Hamburg. The walls are completely covered with grafitti...not a very nice sight normally if it weren't for the fact that the people who have been writting on the wall are for eksample: Spyro Gyra, Mezzoforte, Aimee Mann, The Ethiopians....all bands that have played here..for the Fabrik is one of Hamburgs oldest Rock Venues..strange place to stage a play I hear you say..well it certainly has its difficulties : a small stage, and no blackout possibillities during our daytime shows, and very hot Rock lamps..( for those who are technically minded I can tell you that theatres use slightly different lamps from Rock venues, basically rock concerts are always lit from behind on stage ) but anyway, let's look at the perks: I am sat in the same dressing room as Chuck Berry will be sat in tomorrow ! Yes that's right ..my claim to fame..so far..we are getting free drinks ( non alcoholic ) in a fridge backstage and fresh coffe and croissants in the morning ...Who said rockn' roll was all about drugs and sex? And the final perk: we got free tickets to see Chuck Berry tomorrow how cool is that !? He is playing here tomorrow evening. If you want to find out more about the place go to

http://www.fabrik.de/en/fabrik/ .

So although we have had to amend the show for our daylight audiences, the one evening show we had last night was good and the audience was very responsive.

Warning mutations !!

2005-11-01T16:21:00.000Z

Just a little post from our hotel in Deminhorst, where a hotel sign asking you to save the environment by not having your towels washed everyday just doesn't do it for me: it looks like ET already has mutated into something QUITE DIFFERENT !! UAAAAAAHHH!!

On to Hamburg !

2005-11-01T15:00:00.000Z

Hello from the ice cafe in Delmenhorst

It is strange when you are on tour…this time last week we were in Bayreuth in the strange 70’s Hotel, and this week we are near Munich, in between performances at the Kleines Haus Theatre. Audience this morning was rather chatty, and did not seem to understand much a lot of them were quite young as well, which doesn’t always help.
We are in Delmenhorst a suburb of Bremen and tonight after the show we are driving into Hamburg. Weather is getting colder, but we still have lots of sunshine but no doubt that will change, we are November now and I haven’t yet
used any of the thermal wear that I have packed…no doubt that that will change. We had a nice week-end in Munich! Went to see the Bavarian Film studios were apparently Dustin Hoffman had just been filming Patrick Suskind’s Perfume. Pictures will be available soon on Flickr. I am still trying to upload movies to my blog as the ones that I take with my camera a quite good.

Talking Swiss

2005-10-30T15:04:00.000Z

Nice view but where are we playing ?! (the gymnasium at Sarganz)

I notice I have not mentioned our shows in Switzerland: This is mainly because the Swiss did not impress me much: We arrived late in Zurich after a long drive, and had to do a get in at he Opera house, sound posh I know but we were playing the downstairs CABARET venue and poor Fillipo was only given one technician to help him out and had to do most of the lights himself. The venue itself (pics on Flikcr)
Is mainly used as a cabaret venue and although it has a stage and some lights, the fact that the audience are sat at individual small round tables and are served drinks by a flood of waiters makes for quite a different occasion than what we had to offer.
Theatre requires engagement from the audience…..language theatre even more so but when the audience is sat a tables that encourages disengagement from what is going on stage (and this does work well for lighter cabaret shows) it becomes very hard work.. The clatter of crockery and glasses does not go well with our somewhat more emotional scenes.
Therefore, I think audiences were among the least responsive so far, hard when you have a show that is actually full of laughs. The following day we drove to Sarganz Gymnasium and played a school hall (they had promised us a theatre) this left everyone with a bad taste in the mouth and we did a quick show...although some of the audience seemed to enjoy it. Then we left Switzerland..all in all , you will agree not the best experience…and we did not even get to try a Swiss fondue..

Ulm and Bayreuth

2005-10-26T15:20:00.000+01:00

Well it couldn't have lasted... I am writting to you from Heilbronn, after two days in Ulm and Bayreuth respectively...and the audience reception has gone back to the more reserved though still poppular..this is mainly due to the somewhat large houses of young students that we are getting and so the energy is different. Ulm was a huge theater ( pictures on flickr! ) were they do Aida on one of the largest and most modenr theatres I have seen since beeing here..We had fantastic lights and about 15 technicians on call to help us out...We were in the wardrobes normally reserved for the Kammersingers( opera singers on a fixed employment ) and even got a warm up space with piano. I was looking forward to Bayreuth, a city largely know for its yearly Wagner festival : suprisingly enough most of the town seemed fairly stteped in the 70's in terms od decor, and our performance space and hotel especially seemed no exeption. Check out the pic of my room ! Audience there was also muted but they were still listening.
As Fellipo said he thought the initial " adrenalin" in the play had gone because we were settling into it,but he said that the energy was still high and the quality good.
I feel that I will have to revisit some things on stage and maybe try out new things to keep everything fresh..but that it our job...and it's not half bad..tomorrow we are off to Switzerland !!

Flickr

2005-10-24T15:48:00.000+01:00

Hello again !

I have been told that some of you don't know how to view the pictures on FLICKR...well it's very easy: just click on ANY of the PICTURES in the Flickr frame and that will take you to my flickr photo collection!!

Keep checking as they are beeing updated regularly..

Got show in ULM tonight so

Ciao !!

Heidelberg

2005-10-23T23:33:00.000+01:00

Yours truly in the theatre in Heidelberg!

We arrived in Heidelberg, well that is to say to the tiny village of Shriessheim outside Heidelberg, as our Hotel, which smelt like an old people’s home was located in the middle of the woods…hmm we thought…not a good start. We promptly went for lunch in the Hotel’s dubiously decorated dining/breakfast room ( very 70’s) were we dinned on fresh trout ( which was surprisingly good) in the company of several stuffed and mounted animals that looked down on us from their places on the wall.
We decided to drive in to Heidelberg with Fellipo and the set ( actually we did not have a choice if we didn’t fancy walking the 20 odd miles ). At the theatre we did a get in with the help of some of the 20odd technicians it seemed on call to help us for the nights performance. While Fellipo put them to work, the rest of us took an hour or so to explore the streets of Heidelberg which seemed a bustling town full of tourists and students. When we came back to the theatre Fellipo had set out some fantastic lights including our planet which saw the first use and it all looked great!!
We the proceeded to place our props and go though some of the songs since this was our first show since Kempten! The stage manager told us that 500 seats had been sold,out of a 600 seat house..so that was all very exiting. As far as I could tell the audience was mixed, with lots of students but also as we found out during the play a lot of French speaking people. As the play went along the laughs were much more based on the understanding of the play than the visual gags.. so that was a pleasant surprise. But the thing to remember about last night was the curtain call: 7 CURTAIN CALLS!! And standing ovations! I have never had that in my life!! What a great feeling!! Heidelberg we Love You!!!!

New pictures on Flickr !!

2005-10-18T23:21:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone !! I am busy doing 2 show a day in munich and will catch up soon but please check out my pictures on Flickr (see the link below) since there are now too many pictures to post individually..btu you can see them all on Flickr.....

Preview Night!!

2005-10-17T17:39:00.000+01:00

Hey all. I am sat in the hotel lobby in munich but I finally have a little time to tell you about our Sold OUT !! preview in Watford :see the above picture of the Pumphouse Theatre.
The 4th wek of rehearsal went pretty well, and very quickly. Before we even had time to say " Petit Prince" the preview was upon us: and the full house in the small and intimate pump house theatre helped make a magical perfomance. The audience was mainly a-level students but also a lot of middle to elderly french savy people wich was very refreshing.. We had to turn people away so there is already talk of us comming back there to run for a week if possible..

All of the pics from that performance are now on Flickr...check it out !!

WE ARE IN MUNICH!!

2005-10-16T12:01:00.000+01:00

Hello all, I must let you know about the preview night another time, suffice to say that now we are in munich, just arrived and waiting in the hotel lounge.
We will go to the venue later today to check it out and then hit the town!!

The tour has started !! So here is a picture of our van ! It's in this thing that we will spend most of our time.....

2005-10-05T14:19:00.000+01:00

La Veillee Des Abysses !!

Went to the theatre with Peter ( our director) and we saw this show that had rave reviews and I did not know quite what to expect...But it was FANTASTIC!! Amazing imagery, poetic tableau's , fantastic movement sequences, all in all an amazing night of theatre ! Better than Cirque du Soleil if only because even though it was essentially stil circus, it just didn't appear that way on stage ...I can only recommend for anyone to catch it while it's still around !!

L'etranger Confirmed !!

2005-10-02T14:43:00.000+01:00

I am overjoyed to say that it has just been confirmed that I will be playing the lead as Meursault in the FIRST EVER adaptation for the stage of the classic philisophical novel "The Stranger " by Albert Camus. This is great news and a fantastic challenge for me as an actor!
If you do not know the novel I have as usual provided a couple of links,( even one in danish :you know who you are ... ) for you to find out about it :

http://www.camus-society.com/the-stranger-albert-camus.htm

http://www.dr.dk/kultur/Bog/Tema/vold/camus.asp

Off course this won't start until February next year and run until April!
But first off course is the little Prince!!

Petit Prince Preview Announced !

2005-10-02T14:33:00.000+01:00

For those in London we are previewing the show at the pumphouse, watford on the 14 of October at 8pm before taking it to Germany!

To get there : The Pump House Theatre

Local board Road,Lower High Street Watford. / Watford High Street station is closest. More info on www.pumphouse.info

For tickets call 01442827934 tickets are £8/£6 concessions

Hope to see you there !!

First 2 weeks of Rehearsals

2005-10-01T19:10:00.000+01:00

The Little Prince in rehearsals!!

Sorry about the long overdue post I have been busy with rehearsals !

Rehearsals are in Watford, which is in north London, next to the Pump House Theatre where
we will also preview the show, prior to flying out to Germany on the 16th of October!

Let me introduce you to the cast: There is Nigel, who will be playing the
Prince, Saskia who will be playing the Rose, Gregory who will be playing the King, and yours truly as The Pilot. All except Nigel will also be playing other characters from the book.

Our first day was spent on trying out different costumes and making publicity shots for the German theatres. I have uploaded a couple of pictures to give you a better idea..

Then we very much got stuck in with a reading of the play and movement exercises to get us to get a sense of togetherness as a company. This show is very much an ensemble piece and a visual one at that. This is why we spent the rest of the day playing around with flags and movement. Peter (our fantastic director) wants us to explore both the visual and poetic to create the world of the play.

We are now going into the third week,most of the lines are memorised and an initial bloking has been made for most of the play. We are quite confident that we will be able to create a magical world in which to tell the story of the little prince!!

I will attempt to take more pictures as we move towards the last week before the preview !!

2005-10-01T18:23:00.000+01:00

I wonder if this tastes good ?

2005-10-01T18:11:00.000+01:00

Our director showing of the feathers in his cap ?

2005-10-01T17:53:00.000+01:00

Once again the cast blew the fuses of the theatre ,and had to work by flashlight!

2005-10-01T17:51:00.000+01:00

Help !! Lost in the desert ! ( yours truly as the pilot)

2005-09-25T18:33:00.000+01:00

And here is our little Prince, Nigel...

2005-09-25T18:31:00.000+01:00

He believes he can fly.....

The Gorilla Suit

2005-09-14T08:52:00.000+01:00

“I’m looking for someone who can wear a gorilla suit for the day and walk around various offices. The client is a major supermarket and this promotion is for an upcoming commercial.Payment would be £100 for the day - 9am to 5pm (payment would be made in cash)”

This is an add I saw in one of the online job newsletters
(http://www.talentcircle.com/) that I received this morning….

Yes! I can just imagine myself walking down Holborn (where I once used to temp) handing out leaflets for a major supermarket! Do they have any idea what the security is like these days? Not only do couriers have to take of their helmets as they enter offices in the city, but, and I may be wrong here, wouldn’t it just break the illusion a little bit if the gorilla has to walk into every reception, take off his head and say “ Hi, I’m the gorilla, I’m here for the promotion ?” Not to mention the fact that if anyone has ever travelled on the tube in rush hour...they wouldn't even contemplate doing it in a gorilla suit !!

Hmmm.. Anyway you have to send in a C.V …and there are probably even auditions on this…....

- Hi my name is Allan and I'm here for the Audition ?

- Great ! Wellcome, well if you would like to show us your piece, in you own time....( the actor goes into a corner and as he "prepares" he emits several grunts,and squeaks and finally breaks out into full Gorilla mode......)

Wasn’t it Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie who said “ But I was a great Tomato !” …wonder if I would be a great gorilla ? ………on second thought…Don’t Answer that !