REHEARSAL LOG Appendix B For the purpose of consistency with the publicity materials and production records, the director Low Kee Hong is referred to as Ken Ikeda in this rehearsal log. List of people who appear in this log and their roles in the production: Nora Lecture-performer Ken Director Kaylene Text writer Jean Stage manager Margaret Assistant stage manager Wayne Production assistant Qianwei Production assistant Jeremiah Artistic curator Casey Sound and image designer Fred Theatre practitioner, a guest audience member at one rehearsal Rehearsal #1 27 August 2009 7.30pm – 9pm Present: Ken, Jean, Qianwei, Kaylene and Nora 1. Discussion - Flesh out who is this character? how different from Nora - Religion aspect of this piece, not a moral judgment, but religiosity about birth, death, life and art - Create an environment of the questions (E.g. Who is Huang Wei? The paintings?) - Interested in the writing, conceiving of the character - 3 types of writing: a) historical/archival about Huang Wei b) internal dialogue c) dialogue with somebody else (Huang Wei, niece, the children) - need the 3 parts to make the piece work (the archival, conversational and allegorical) - Interested in the soundscape of the show - Begin by exploring Nora Samosir the curator (secret life), Nora Samosir the Actor, Nora Samosir the NUS lecturer. - Start the show in the Living Room of the Arts House where other paintings by Huang Wei will be exhibited - Curator mingle amongst the audience, talking extemporaneously - A lot of re-writing and re-inventing history, create histories that people believe - Melt visual art, art history and performance into a lecture 2. Script Read (24m 17secs) 3. Thoughts after script read Nora: History writing most markedly different from the other two types of writing. The other two, slippage is harder to see. 1 REHEARSAL LOG Appendix B Kaylene: Archival and historical as main framework, the other two as inserts made up of anecdotal comments from Nora and excerpts of conversations between Nora and Huang Wei Ken: - Slight disjuncture between the paintings on the slides and the narration - Slides create a separate track - Sound create a separate track - Lecture – main track - A lot for audience to sink their teeth in. - Women of Nora‟s age (Dr Yong etc.) dealing with marriage/no marriage, children/no children - Disjuncture between women who want to have babies (opportunities not there) and girls aborting babies (based on the article: Grave with no names) - Conversations that are poignant in the subtext: recorded text vs. live - Script changes: Pg. 3, to be painted in his thirties rather than twenties Kaylene: First part, Kaylene imagined it to be fast. Interesting to hear Nora‟s pace reading it. Ken: Explore how Nora will use the space and the paintings. Ken: Audience to be seduced by the fiction Kaylene: Not an emotional but visceral reaction. Why children? Ghost haunting the canvas. Ken: Different responses from men & women. Nora: Women are more matter of fact about children 4. Follow-up - Saturday to start exploring the demeanour of the curator, lines down for “An introduction”. 2 REHEARSAL LOG Appendix B Rehearsal #2 1 September 2009 7.30pm – 11pm present: Ken, Qianwei, Wayne, Kaylene and Nora 1. Discussion - Only form of constant movement and shift are the presentation slides for the lecture 2. Script Read (31mins) 3. Thoughts after script read - Certain parts of the lecture in the script to come across as a form of confession to oneself 4. Discussion (Ken) - Create another world “effect” at the end of the play to arouse the audiences - Inspired by children toys installation - Using 26 paintings in total, 6 would be out in print the rest on slides - Nora to find the voices of children in the paintings - Thinking of injecting more humour into the script - Nora to make the lecture as literal as possible - Presentation to include various paintings from the 30‟s & 40‟s era to show the stark contrast between the “norm” then compared to Huangwei‟s - Pauses in scripts to represent a moment of connection; conversations with children - Important that audiences are able to engage with Nora from the start till the end of the play 5. Discussion (Kaylene) - Last scene last paragraph of script pre-recorded by a child 6. Discussion (Nora) - Huangwei‟s paintings drawn from memory - Huangwei trying to recreate a family or a moment of prosperity and joy (period) before the war - Huangwei might be trying to repaint the childhood he had lost 7. Next rehearsal - Nora to familiarise with script (beginning/lecture 1) - To help Nora set up a form of exercise & direction - To establish the script 3 REHEARSAL LOG Appendix B Rehearsal #4 3 September 2009 7.05pm - 11pm present: Ken, Jeremiah, Nora, Margaret, Jean 1. Script Read (Draft 3 Sep) 35 mins Nora: Everytime she comes to a new chunk, it‟s like she‟s starting again. Not sure if that‟s what Ken wants. She tried to maintain the same tone. Even when she tries to maintain the same tone, she can hear the difference. Ken: This new draft Kaylene broken the chunks into new lines. (Gives Nora space to breathe) In between chunks is where all the slippages begin to happen. Very purposeful. New draft, a lot of scope to play with what has been discussed these couple of days. - Don‟t announce the journal entry: Nora becomes Huangwei & vice versa - Point about Nora holding the space of lecture. Didn‟t work when Nora tried to process the reading technically - Impetus to analyse is stopping Nora‟s performance as she is trying to detach for writing her thesis - Need to find the emotional core of the piece first before finding out how to manipulate the audience Nora: - Perhaps the impetus to analyse is part & parcel of an actor‟s craft. In the past, Nora don‟t tend to analyse but let the director analyse for her. - More and more of Nora‟s work allows analysis on the floor which can be seen more as technicality. Need to return to an earlier creative process. Ken: - Need to take things step by step. - Predicated on a realism of another kind. - Need on the get-go to believe everything Nora says - Need for Nora to hold the text even more - Push through entire piece in this read so as to look for an emotional arch in order to carry on crafting the piece - Nora‟s co-actor – Sound and slides - All the shifts & slips Nora has to do it. Nora: - One complication: Nora as the lecturer is also very dramatic Ken: - If you are living the moment, it‟s true, you are not acting. - Full grasp of material, familiar with setting. - the moment you take on personas, personalities, beings that are outside of Nora, it breaks down and becomes problematic. Jere: - Biggest problem: Nora is not familiar with the pictures. - I Don‟t have a sense that she knows each and every picture 4 REHEARSAL LOG Appendix B - the intimacy with painting is very important - See Nora through the paintings – Missing - Are the children channelling Nora or Nora channelling the children? - The premise of the piece. - Singapore is a construct. Nora is real. - Telling stories of Nora‟s life through made-up stories - Actor‟s voice, moments when the actor engages the audience for who they are. Vulnerability is what people want to see in theatre nowadays. - Let material sink into Nora first. - Need to see more of Nora‟s emotional connections between Nora & the paintings. - This piece must also be something Nora want to say. 2. Run. 45 mins - State of acting that becomes familiar to Nora‟s state of body, almost like the body is vibrating. - Nora doesn‟t know whether it‟s the structure of the piece that the state takes over. - She discovers the state during one point of the text but she just carried on. - When Nora creates characters, sometimes in their pieces, she gets very technical, uses the space she is rehearsing in to get into a state. - What is different is when Nora addresses the audience in the text because it is the text addressing the audience. Ken: - Go with the impulse. - Most crucial thing is Nora is in a moment, she just goes with it. - Moments Ken felt it was over when he can see the actor is indulging – how sometimes when a part of us is in the moment , we just let it delve. The ordinary reaction at the end of the breath is to start a new breath, the actor tends to stay a bit more. - Lecture breaks down at the end. - 1st time Ken felt there is some connection with the paintings - Need Kaylene to input a lot of Nora‟s vulnerable bits. 3. Run p11 “Huang Wei painted in layers” – p12 “Dream of me. I‟ll try” 4. Run from top. 51 mins - Acting: already from the start Nora was trying to recreate the previous run - Stuck for good half hour in the same zone - What is Nora‟s relationship with each of the portraits? - Stories that generate out of these paintings - Exercise that Nora has to do till show opens: a) Name the children for herself. b) What is her relationship with these children? c) What is she like to each of them? d) The girl maybe is the oldest? e) Who is it that she speaks to when the cupboard opens? (This child can change every night) f) Try not to go up to the painting. g) Allow audience to find out who is it that she is speaking to. 5 REHEARSAL LOG Appendix B Rehearsal #7 7 September 2009 7.10pm - 10.30pm present: Ken, Nora, Kaylene, Jean, Margaret, 1. Script Read (Draft 7 Sep) 2. Discussion after Script Read - Could Nora be dreaming that she found Huang Wei? Should be left ambiguous. - What is Nora‟s impulse to want to move out of her comfort zone (Theatre) into Art? - Premise: Connects Nora‟s interest in ruins, lives that are forgotten that drives her to exhibit these „artefacts‟. But this is as though she is an archaelogist who discovered the paintings. Much more than „dear‟ to Nora – this find actually redefines who Nora is – once in a lifetime thing. 3. Run (Draft 7 Sep) 41m 16s 4. Discussion - Like the opportunity of having a person on stage - Have the conversation with the audience member - May have the 6 pictures just in the playden rather than bring in from the gallery so audience would take more interest in „Why these 6?” Audience member has the privilege - Possibility of changing the blocking of the paintings everyday - Line on p4, “Huang Wei‟s paintings express the trauma of war on the psyche and on the body” shifted up to after “One match finishes it all off” Note to Alfred: Advisory that exhibition will begin at 7.30pm 6 REHEARSAL LOG Appendix B Rehearsal #14 19 September 2009 7.05pm - 11pm present: Ken, Nora, Kaylene, Jean, Margaret, Casey and Fred 1. Run #1 (4.15 p.m. – 50 minutes) - Discussion on the run: (a) Ken: * Whole piece can only show its significance if Nora goes off-book. * It‟s ok to be a little bit confused but what‟s more crucial is the clarity of how the text is delivered. * When Nora goes blank, it‟s hard to calibrate things. * Wants Nora to be able to locate where the audience is. * The whole piece is all about Singapore, Art and History. * Nora forgot to say “self-taught photographer.” * Char Kway Teow anecdote is too predictable. * Be careful of frowning during first time meeting with the ghost child. * `Singapore as an impregnable fortress‟ is still messy * Frequent habit of turning around * Lift up after „ghosting your eyelids.‟ * Whole connection with niece could be much lighter. * Words in italics from the script are the most important but tend to be messy as Nora has difficulty reading it – Nora can wear her reading glasses. * Need more clarity when saying “Huang Wei was lucky.” * There will be no slides at “Merdeka”, but Nora still pressed the projector remote. * Whole section of imprimatura was too distracting – Nora couldn‟t tell which painting to go to. * Volunteer from audience is not a prop – should try and engage with them. * Open up the space to let the audience absorb the paintings. * First part (Lecture 1) was good. * After „burning with optimism‟, there should be a long pause. (b) Nora: * Lecture 5: Not necessary to say „he said, she said.‟ But for first time listeners, there may be difficulty in telling who is talking. * How much do we want to differentiate the voices? Is it a concern? * Difference in calibrating if not playing the whole text and animating it. (c) Kaylene: * Felt that Nora was stuck at the centre of the space. * She should make use of the whole space to play out the piece. Casey and Fred arrive at 5.15 p.m 2. Run #2 (51 minutes) - Near the end of the piece, Nora missed out the conversation part (a) Fred: Wonders how people who know Nora will react (especially hearing the passing of father). 7 REHEARSAL LOG Appendix B (b) Casey: - Has become a turning point for him; illusions shattered and facts are slowly eroded. - Opening too performing; jump in style - Piece is more disturbing without the music. (c) Kaylene: Last bit on father could be lighter – imagine a child speaking. (d) Ken: - Enjoyed the run and felt more confident about the direction it‟s going. - Would rather prefer Nora to take the piece like it‟s all hers. - Whole piece will become easier over the time if she goes completely offbook. 8  ...REHEARSAL LOG Appendix B Kaylene: Archival and historical as main framework, the other two as inserts made up of anecdotal comments from Nora and excerpts of conversations between Nora and Huang... Nora goes blank, it‟s hard to calibrate things * Wants Nora to be able to locate where the audience is * The whole piece is all about Singapore, Art and History * Nora forgot to say “self-taught... personalities, beings that are outside of Nora, it breaks down and becomes problematic Jere: - Biggest problem: Nora is not familiar with the pictures - I Don‟t have a sense that she knows each and