Tag: performance

MEDITATION 63

As I sit here gazing at the candle beside my tablet, I am recalling a different light, or rather lights from a visit I made last week. They were not candles but little electric lights and they were glimmering in trees in a park  on a balmy eveningas darkness was slowly descending. The park was situated in Chichester, where a friend and myself had made a return visit after a rather rainy one last autumn. I noticed the lights when we came out of the Festival Theatre after a performance of a new production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, ‘South Pacific’. Just as the lights were glowing on the branches, so we were glowing too after a wonderful and rather emotional performance. 

To my shame, I have never visited the Festival Theatre at Chichester before. It is one of the items on my retirement bucket list. I guess I can cross that one off now! My friend and I seemed to have fallen in love with the town and its environs on our visit last October so we decided to have an overnight stay as well as visiting the theatre. It was an opportunity to revisit the Cathedral and its beautiful gardens among other places. 

What could be better than a big musical with big tunes for a first live theatre outing after the asperity of the last eighteen months? The performance was quite an emotional occasion precisely because it was our first live theatre outing since lockdown. It was probably the same for most of the audience. Because of this, I sensed that the emotional moments in the show were somehow heightened, more potent than they might have been  in a performance under more usual circumstances. 

I knew the songs but had never seen ‘South Pacific’ live before. It was a highly imaginative and at times beautiful production, by artistic director Daniel Evans, with wonderful singing and dance numbers. It was one of those productions that never puts a foot wrong from curtain up to curtain call. 

I must admit to being a little uneasy when I entered the theatre. As with everything else at present, there were rules to follow about moving around in the building. Also, as I mentioned earlier, I have never been in Festival theatre before. Activities I usually never think twice about, such as walking into a restaurant or catching a train have become a little complicated because of the restrictions, hence my unease. However, the front of house staff were very welcoming and helpful and once I was in my seat, I felt at home (as I always do in a theatre). 

I was also a little apprehensive about how the performance would be received. After all the theatre was half-full because of social distancing and we were all wearing masks in the audience. Would the performers be able to achieve a rapport with the audience? Would the audience feel restricted in their response because of their masks. As soon as the orchestra struck up and the lights went up on that stage, I forgot all that. Mr Rodgers and Mr Hammerstein began to weave their spell. More than that, jaded theatre-goer that I am, I felt a visceral excitement as if I’d never seen a theatre performance before. This excitement seemed to pervade the auditorium. There was an eagerness to be entertained, no, more than that, a hunger. 

In the end, the fact that the audience were socially distanced and masked didn’t matter. We were totally with the show. The silence and attentiveness of the audience were palpable. The final applause was genuine, heartwarming – an act of love from us to the company. I suppose we were so acutely aware that we were so fortunate to be able to experience a big live show in these times. I think we also appreciated just how difficult rehearsals must have been, judging from the rehearsal photos in the programme with everyone in masks and visors, and not to mention the endless testing of such a large cast and necessary absences that must have taken place, which has been true of all work places. We were applauding to show our appreciation of not just the performance, but of the company’s struggle to get it on the stage. 

I remember that in one of my early blogs, I mentioned seeing performances of Wagner’s epic ‘Ring’ cycle of four operas at the Royal Opera House. This would have been in autumn 2018, I think. In that meditation, I mentioned that just as the evil Alberich and his brother Mime forge the Ring on stage, that a ring was also forged between the performers and the audience over the four operas. The mark of a successful performance is when the performers and audience become an invisible and indivisible ring or circle. It may not happen for the whole performance but when it does happen, those moments are magical. That was true of the performance of ‘South Pacific’ which I experienced last Friday. The experience was doubly magical because the ring or circle was somehow created in the midst of our common adversity. Theatre is at its most sublime when it renews the audience and the cast too, hopefully. The performance I saw was an act of renewal for all of us who saw it or performed it. It has reminded me of just how important theatre is. It is a crying shame that our present government fails to see this.

The auditorium of the Festival Theatre is based on the shape of the Ancient Greek and Roman amphitheatres, with the audience as two thirds of the circle and the stage completing it. Therefore, the configuration of the auditorium no doubt helped the company to achieve that magic circle with the audience. 

I mentioned earlier that I hadn’t been there before. However I have been to its successor many times –  the Olivier Theatre on London’s South Bank. Its auditorium is based on the Chichester one. Initially Laurence Olivier was involved in establishing the Festival Theatre which opened in 1962 and, together with complementary performances at the Old Vic theatre in London, it was the genesis of the National Theatre. When the National Theatre finally developed its  home on the South Bank, one of the three auditoriums, the Olivier, was given a similar design to the Festival Theatre.  

I have also been to the Festival Theatre’s predecessor several times. The design of the Festival Theatre auditorium, in turn, was based on the Festival Theatre at Stratford, Ontario in Canada. They have an annual Shakespeare Festival there, which I attended several times in the early 1990’s. 

I was thinking of those two theatres, the Olivier, on London’s South Bank and the one at Stratford, Ontario, while I sat waiting for the performance of ‘South Pacific’ to begin at Chichester. Here I was, sitting at last in the third of the trio, the Festival Theatre in Chichester, or rather the middle one as regards their opening.    

How many theatres have I attended in my life? How many magic circles have I been part of? Not in every theatre or every performance I attended. But when it happens, you know you have experienced something special.  How many productions have I directed or appeared in that have succeeded in achieving that circle with an audience? Again, not every one.  But when it happens, you know you have been part of something special. It is nothing to do with the price of the ticket or with your hard work as director or performer. 

And it is not guaranteed in every performance. It just happens. It is magic, the circle is magic. A magic which streaming at home cannot provide. 

I am looking forward to being part of that magic again in the future. Certainly as an audience member. Perhaps as an actor or director – who knows?

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

Meditation 45

I do not want to be seated here writing this meditation with my lighted candle beside me on the table as usual. I would rather be writing it in the Drama studio at my school. I revisited it yesterday and would rather have written my thoughts there, when I was in situ, than trying to remember my reflections now a day later. It will be a case of ’emotions recollected in tranquillity’ as the poet Wordsworth writes about his own verses. Most of these mediations thus far have been ’emotions recollected in tranquility’, the tranquillity of my own home. Wordsworth’s phrase would be a good definition of a meditation. A meditation requires a little distance from the situation; a calm detachment.

My emotions were tranquil yesterday when I called into school and wandered into the Drama studio where I used to work until February this year. There was non-one else there as the school doesn’t open for lessons until next week. The space was empty and silent.

But it wasn’t cold and dark as the sun was shining through the windows at the top of the walls and, for those of you who have never been there, it is not a ‘black box’ as other studios often are. The walls are a sky blue and the blackout curtains are a deeper royal blue. I chose the colours myself when we were designing it in 2007. Heavy curtains of whatever colour would provide a blackout for performances and practical exams anyway and I wanted a bright and cheerful colour for the walls as the space (the old school gym converted) would be operating as both a large classroom and a studio theatre. I remember that at the top of my list at that time was the phrase ‘a flexible and intimate space’.

In a previous blog, I described being on an empty stage before a performance. The house lights are up and you are standing or sitting there looking at the empty auditorium. It was the Kolibri stage in Budapest I think. I used to love that moment alone on the stage while the cast and crew were getting their lunch before the matinee. It wasn’t just the chance to get my thoughts together before the show. There’s an atmosphere of anticipation in an empty theatre before a performance, an air of expectancy, and even though it is empty there is also a special warmth. It’s not because of the house lights out there in the auditorium or the stage lights beaming down. It is a feeling of being at home. No more than that: for me one of those rare moments when you realise that this is where you should be, just for this moment. I shall miss that warmth, that realisation, now I am retired.

The empty drama studio yesterday was entirely different. The space wasn’t set up for a performance as there wasn’t one. It was set up as a classroom with the retractable theatre seating back against the wall. I borrowed my colleague Leigh’s directors chair (mine got broken somehow ages ago) and sat in the middle of the performing area at the other end between the scenic flats that make a stage. I looked around the studio from there, facing where an audience would be.
Needless to say, memories flooded in of rehearsals, productions, gala evenings, exam performances, lessons, which I won’t bore you with. I can’t remember them now anyway. They flew in and out of my consciousness swiftly.

I have experienced that moment of warm anticipation before a performance in the studio too. It would generally be on the second or third night after the first night was over. There would always be some crisis or other to sort out before opening night!

But as I sat there yesterday, I realised that since the studio opened in 2007, I had never sat down and taken a good look at it. I’ve been too busy teaching, acting, directing and creating to notice the space I was working in properly. That is as it should be. Nevertheless I obviously have a great affection for the space. It has been a joy to work there in the final years of my school career. Not quite an Indian Summer as I do not think an Indian Summer can last for 13 years! I greatly miss working on a scene in the studio.

So here I was, now retired, finally looking around my old workplace, my creative space, my studio. ‘My empire’ as I would jokingly call it. Marcus’ empire was considerably larger than mine! Mine is more intimate and as a result more meaningful. I do not think he would have felt as I did yesterday as he stood outside his tent looking out over the plains of Pannonia.

How did I feel? Well I wasn’t upset or sad. Nor did I feel a sense of ennui. I found myself smiling. I realised that so much of me was in those walls. As I have just mentioned, I came up with a concept for the space. I could see myself everywhere, as I looked at the lighting box, the lighting and sound equipment, the seating, the scenery flats, curtains and walls. I had a creative input in all of these, working along with the previous headteacher, Tom Cahill and an ex-student Colin Mander.

What I felt was another kind of warmth: the warmth of pride.
I am reminded of a short play by Noel Coward called ‘Family Album’ about a Victorian family gathered for a celebration. In the play a family member makes a toast:
‘Here’s a toast to each of us and all of us together.
Here’s a toast to happiness and reasonable pride.’

That is what I felt: reasonable pride. And a glowing sense of achievement.
So why, do I ask myself, now that I have retired, am I so anxious to keep on achieving having achieved so much already? Perhaps I should take to heart the next line of the toast:
‘May our touch on life be lighter than a sea bird’s feather.’

Perhaps Noel Coward was thinking of himself when he wrote that line. He had a long and successful career as a playwright, composer, actor and entertainer. He must have constantly felt the drive to achieve.

So I slowly walked out of that Drama studio smiling and with a glow of pride which is an achievement in itself I guess.

As the Proms isn’t functioning as normal this year (like everything else), the BBC are putting archive performances on the radio each evening. So I have been listening to a wonderful performance of Mahler’s 5th symphony from 1987 with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by the legendary Leonard Bernstein. In the middle of this amazing life-enhancing performance I have realised that life is not about achieving but about creating. I want to continue creating.
But I have left out the last line of the toast by Noel Coward. I think it is rather appropriate as we continue with trying to cope with coronavirus into the Autumn.

‘And may all sorrows in our path politely step aside.’

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up! And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested. A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube. I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks
Neilus Aurelius