Good morning,
Following on from yesterday's blog about accessing emotions and methods to unlock them for actors, I found myself in conversation with a colleague who is a musician and counsellor. She rightly said that music is of course possibly the most powerful way into emotion, and I missed that entry point technique in my list yesterday. Of course its a number one gateway!
I was very recently introduced by some friends to a song cycle by William Finn called Elegies which are small musical stories about death, told through the specific testimonies of people's lives. I am thrilled that they shared them.
These are an eclectic and soul searing collection of songs about people touched by 9/11, Aids and cancer. Sounds like a barrel of laughs doesn't it? Well they are indeed a joyous call of the soul, and they make you cry and roar simultaneously, at least they did me!
I was very grateful for the gift of this introduction, because it struck me also that each of these tiny elegies although often no more than a minute long captures a huge life, saturated with love, pain, absurdity. They are sung poems really - with lyrics that defy any neat well made song structure. They are fiercely alive, rebellious and defiant, and therefore deeply authentic. As a director I would want to use them as exercises with young actors to cut straight through the emotional flab to the heart of the person, the narrative. These songs take you into the collective unconscious of emotional life and sharply and simply expose the sheer pain and beauty of being human.
Which brings me back to the biographical entry point for emotion. In my conversation with my friend yesterday I was thinking about my own framework of emotional reference. We were talking about keeping diaries. I told her that I have done so since I was 6, and these are like my emotional sketch books, where I can record experiences which I will inevitably call upon in my work at some later point. She was sharing her stories about music with me and in the exchange I found myself taken back again to my trip with Triple Action Theatre to Poland in 1981, on which I have written two previous blogs.
During a rare day off that early spring, the company had decided to drive the couple of hours from Wroclaw to Krakow, and to Auschwitz concentration camp. It was 1981 and it was well before the camp had become a museum and destination for pilgrimage which it has rightly become over the past 20 years.
Then it was pretty much as it had been when it was liberated in 1945. It had been tidied up by a few survivors who wanted to ensure people would know how it was for them and how human beings can do unspeakable things to each other. With little financial support they had begun the early stages of making it into a museum. But it wasn't a tourist venue in any shape or form.
On arrival in the early afternoon, we parked in a pretty run down concrete car park with weeds sprouting up everywhere. There was mixed enthusiasm amongst our team of actors and technician about this venture, some feeling it was voyeuristic and ghoulish, some going along for the ride, and a couple wanting to witness the space in which such atrocities had happened. I admit to being in the latter group, but I was also painfully aware of the dangers of indulgence and questioned my motives to be sure.
We were the only visitors that afternoon. We were greeted by an elderly man, who it turned out had been an inmate. He waved us unceremoniously to go in. There were no guides or maps, and what we saw in front of us were rows and rows of single storey barrack blocks, and a couple of larger brick buildings with maybe three or four floors. There were five of us on the walk around, we had left two to sleep in the van.
To begin with, we stayed close and walked around in silence. It was a beautiful sunny day, and I could not help but look up at the cloudless blue sky, and then at the silent buildings that were saturated with brutality and notice the absurdity of their contrast.
After a while our pace changed and the others moved ahead quickly. Being able to speak german, I wanted to move more slowly through each block and read some of the papers on display, scraps of stories and glimpses of other lives. The blocks did not indicate what you would find in them on entering. But things were organised well. In one a great glass wall separated the viewer from a sea of human hair, a nondescript mousey colour. I remember standing looking at it for ages. And then another block with shoes, and another with cases and another with glasses and gold teeth. I will not attempt to give language to the feelings stirred in me. You can do that for yourselves, and probably have many times.
I was now on my own walking. I entered a door into a larger building and found myself in a cavernous concrete room. I paused for a moment and only when I raised my eyes to the ceiling did I see the holes. I then realised that these were the entry points for the Cyclone B gas. I stood there for about 20 minutes. The place riven with absence so thick you could almost touch it.
I walked out and on further into the camp. There is a place where emotion is non-emotion, where it becomes clear that it is in fact a luxury. There is beyond emotion. Walking along the cobblestones my imagination played tricks on me and I could swear that I could hear the sound of boots against the stone.
Now there was no one in sight anymore, and it was getting a little darker as it approached sunset. I found myself in Block 13, where there are some standing cells. People would be locked for days on end forced to stand in the tiniest space with no room to move, sit or lie down. In each of these there were small candles alight. A couple had tiny barred windows.
I didn't stay there too long. I went out to the courtyard where prisoners were routinely shot against the wall of the yard. Its called the Execution wall. There was no one there. I walked to the wall and stood up against it, facing in the direction of what would have been the firing squad. Again my eyes were drawn upwards to the sky, which was still calm, blue and still. I could see the bare trees like skeletons towering above the wall.
Leaving the Execution yard, I decided it was time to go.There was a slight chill in the breeze now and it would be dark soon. I walked back towards the gates, increasing my pace as I started to feel a little uneasy. As I arrived almost running, I saw that the gates were locked and the old man was nowhere to be seen. Now I really did start to feel scared. I urgently looked round the back of a couple of small buildings, tried the gate but couldn't budge it. Then a bit of me tried laughing at myself - only you could get locked in Auschwitz! but the thought didn't comfort me for long.
I started running, and eventually found a small gardener's shed with spades and forks propped up beside it. Pushing my way round it, I saw that there was in fact a small gate leading out from it. The gate opened easily, and there I was outside the camp again, with the carpark within sight about 500 yards away.
I got back into the van quietly. I didn't tell the others I had been locked in.
This experience has been a lifetime touchstone for me.
Have a good day.
Following on from yesterday's blog about accessing emotions and methods to unlock them for actors, I found myself in conversation with a colleague who is a musician and counsellor. She rightly said that music is of course possibly the most powerful way into emotion, and I missed that entry point technique in my list yesterday. Of course its a number one gateway!
I was very recently introduced by some friends to a song cycle by William Finn called Elegies which are small musical stories about death, told through the specific testimonies of people's lives. I am thrilled that they shared them.
These are an eclectic and soul searing collection of songs about people touched by 9/11, Aids and cancer. Sounds like a barrel of laughs doesn't it? Well they are indeed a joyous call of the soul, and they make you cry and roar simultaneously, at least they did me!
I was very grateful for the gift of this introduction, because it struck me also that each of these tiny elegies although often no more than a minute long captures a huge life, saturated with love, pain, absurdity. They are sung poems really - with lyrics that defy any neat well made song structure. They are fiercely alive, rebellious and defiant, and therefore deeply authentic. As a director I would want to use them as exercises with young actors to cut straight through the emotional flab to the heart of the person, the narrative. These songs take you into the collective unconscious of emotional life and sharply and simply expose the sheer pain and beauty of being human.
Which brings me back to the biographical entry point for emotion. In my conversation with my friend yesterday I was thinking about my own framework of emotional reference. We were talking about keeping diaries. I told her that I have done so since I was 6, and these are like my emotional sketch books, where I can record experiences which I will inevitably call upon in my work at some later point. She was sharing her stories about music with me and in the exchange I found myself taken back again to my trip with Triple Action Theatre to Poland in 1981, on which I have written two previous blogs.
During a rare day off that early spring, the company had decided to drive the couple of hours from Wroclaw to Krakow, and to Auschwitz concentration camp. It was 1981 and it was well before the camp had become a museum and destination for pilgrimage which it has rightly become over the past 20 years.
Then it was pretty much as it had been when it was liberated in 1945. It had been tidied up by a few survivors who wanted to ensure people would know how it was for them and how human beings can do unspeakable things to each other. With little financial support they had begun the early stages of making it into a museum. But it wasn't a tourist venue in any shape or form.
On arrival in the early afternoon, we parked in a pretty run down concrete car park with weeds sprouting up everywhere. There was mixed enthusiasm amongst our team of actors and technician about this venture, some feeling it was voyeuristic and ghoulish, some going along for the ride, and a couple wanting to witness the space in which such atrocities had happened. I admit to being in the latter group, but I was also painfully aware of the dangers of indulgence and questioned my motives to be sure.
We were the only visitors that afternoon. We were greeted by an elderly man, who it turned out had been an inmate. He waved us unceremoniously to go in. There were no guides or maps, and what we saw in front of us were rows and rows of single storey barrack blocks, and a couple of larger brick buildings with maybe three or four floors. There were five of us on the walk around, we had left two to sleep in the van.
To begin with, we stayed close and walked around in silence. It was a beautiful sunny day, and I could not help but look up at the cloudless blue sky, and then at the silent buildings that were saturated with brutality and notice the absurdity of their contrast.
After a while our pace changed and the others moved ahead quickly. Being able to speak german, I wanted to move more slowly through each block and read some of the papers on display, scraps of stories and glimpses of other lives. The blocks did not indicate what you would find in them on entering. But things were organised well. In one a great glass wall separated the viewer from a sea of human hair, a nondescript mousey colour. I remember standing looking at it for ages. And then another block with shoes, and another with cases and another with glasses and gold teeth. I will not attempt to give language to the feelings stirred in me. You can do that for yourselves, and probably have many times.
I was now on my own walking. I entered a door into a larger building and found myself in a cavernous concrete room. I paused for a moment and only when I raised my eyes to the ceiling did I see the holes. I then realised that these were the entry points for the Cyclone B gas. I stood there for about 20 minutes. The place riven with absence so thick you could almost touch it.
I walked out and on further into the camp. There is a place where emotion is non-emotion, where it becomes clear that it is in fact a luxury. There is beyond emotion. Walking along the cobblestones my imagination played tricks on me and I could swear that I could hear the sound of boots against the stone.
Now there was no one in sight anymore, and it was getting a little darker as it approached sunset. I found myself in Block 13, where there are some standing cells. People would be locked for days on end forced to stand in the tiniest space with no room to move, sit or lie down. In each of these there were small candles alight. A couple had tiny barred windows.
I didn't stay there too long. I went out to the courtyard where prisoners were routinely shot against the wall of the yard. Its called the Execution wall. There was no one there. I walked to the wall and stood up against it, facing in the direction of what would have been the firing squad. Again my eyes were drawn upwards to the sky, which was still calm, blue and still. I could see the bare trees like skeletons towering above the wall.
Leaving the Execution yard, I decided it was time to go.There was a slight chill in the breeze now and it would be dark soon. I walked back towards the gates, increasing my pace as I started to feel a little uneasy. As I arrived almost running, I saw that the gates were locked and the old man was nowhere to be seen. Now I really did start to feel scared. I urgently looked round the back of a couple of small buildings, tried the gate but couldn't budge it. Then a bit of me tried laughing at myself - only you could get locked in Auschwitz! but the thought didn't comfort me for long.
I started running, and eventually found a small gardener's shed with spades and forks propped up beside it. Pushing my way round it, I saw that there was in fact a small gate leading out from it. The gate opened easily, and there I was outside the camp again, with the carpark within sight about 500 yards away.
I got back into the van quietly. I didn't tell the others I had been locked in.
This experience has been a lifetime touchstone for me.
Have a good day.
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