Kaos Theatre

We were working on Oberon, Titania and Puck. It was strange. I know the play well, I've edited it, ripped it apart and then trying to come up with material yesterday it seemed to me that I had not read the play at all. Or was it that I suddenly realised that of all the characters in the piece it is these three that I have failed to properly assess, beyond the cliche of what the fairy characters should be? We tried all sorts of wierd games, I got Oberon and Titania to fight sideways, upside down and developed a great clown entrance or Puck (which actually might work better at the end for the mechanicals - so not wasted work) but all this running around, gynastical twisting was upstaging the lack of character development. It was like I was inventing tricks and games to smokescreen the fact that I hadn't read the play properly, which I have - but I was afraid of doing it yesterday. I wanted this characters to fly but stillness better works with their poetry - if you move them too much you loose the beauty and power of their language... and also the other characters of the play are already being portrayed like physical super heroes. So perhaps that might be the twist of the show... Working on a show can be so confusing.

Told Lieutske, the costume designer, that we might need to change some things as a result and I could feel her tense. Ahh the joys of working to a deadline!

Xav