The unintentional art of HEAD
More often than not, it happens that I am involved in a project and wonder “how did I end up doing this?"
A couple of years ago between lockdowns, me, Jill Korn and Lorenzo Novani had an idea about developing a filmed theatre event. The idea arose in response to what seemed then a plethora of online theatre plays. The ones which I saw suffered due to the medium in which they were presented: online with added buffering for unintended effect (any piece which starts with “can you hear me?” loses a lot of the magic of theatre). Often, screened theatre (even NT Live) comes across as ‘flat’ when compared with drama made for screen. So, together we came up with the concept of Tenement: the life of occupants of three flats up one close. We hired a film-maker (Alasdair Ferguson) and tried, where possible, to remain faithful to the spirit of live theatre. I think it succeeded. Certainly a more interesting endeavour, and feedback was very positive. However, the creative process is completely different: the jeopardy of opening night is reduced simply to audience feedback (no fluffed lines or audience response to add a frisson to the live performance). Equally, any uncorrected mistakes during filming will be there forever. There is no opportunity to fix it tomorrow night. Furthermore, lockdown and its restrictions meant we had to perform the pieces ourselves; the playwright as actor. And on top of all that, direct as well as stage-manage. It all felt a little overwhelming for a person who had not previously worked in film. Speaking for my own piece (‘Malcolm’), the end result was OK but not great.
‘Malcolm’ was written in an abstract way - the story was presented non-linearly to be pieced together within the audience mind. I’m not altogether sure that was a wise choice since if you zoned out at any point, you might lose the thread of the story. Further, the protagonist was a misanthrope meaning that the humour was not only dark, but also very dry. You might smile in your head but not laugh with your voice. Tenement served a purpose. It broadcast for a week in August 2020 when normally EdFringe would have been on. It was again made available in February 2021 (another lockdown) but engagement was significantly down and it seemed that was that.
HEAD / Hope Expectation And Disappointment
The kernel of the idea in ‘Malcolm’ remained with me. I have worked in the world of research and engineering for many years and met some very clever people, a lot of whom lack social skills. As a result, it is not uncommon for them to get into a bit of bother from time to time. It is their misfortune to work during a period where there has been much focus on communication skills and ‘optics’. When at first I came up with the idea of ‘Malcolm’, I had been listening to a podcast where decades previously a designer had proposed developing occasional seats that could be ‘switched off’ and be present only when required. The idea conjures sharp images in one’s mind and perfectly complements our transitory world where we accessorise to accommodate mood. I completely re-wrote the script, re-emerging as HEAD. The protagonist is still graceless but not misanthropic. The immediate effect was to unlock the humour: dark and universal, it was no longer dry. I shared the script with fellow playwright, Jill Korn, who provided favourable feedback as well as the final line of the film (thanks Jill!). Next, I approached Alasdair, the original film-maker, who agreed to the project. The question arose: who would play the protagonist? It did not, this time, have to be the playwright. Remembering how ‘lacking in presence’ I had felt interchanging between actor and director during the filming of Tenement, I decided to bring on board an external actor. Having worked with Andy Jones on a reading of my play, The Now Of Then (where he played ‘Gropius’), he seemed the perfect choice. Andy skilfully sculpted the script making every line resonate to perfection. By turns he was: identifiable, problematic, clever, funny and disturbing.
Within the film is a phantasmagorical sequence. Having the protagonist simply describe this, I think, would have been underwhelming. So instead, I attempted something I have not done since leaving school: I drew the scene using high pigment soft pastel sticks. It provides a nice Jackanory effect. The results were a lot better than I could reasonably have expected. I won’t be taking it up but I will put it down to experience.
Special thanks to Alasdair who displayed great patience during the editing stage. I hope you’d agree it was worth it!
HEAD is available to view here: HEAD