Why my play is different every time (From Gazette)

Why my play is different every time

1:00pm Saturday 23rd April 2011 in Leisure

HOW do you direct a play when the dialogue is all improvised?

That’s the task director James McNamara set himself when developing his new play, Exterminating Angel.

Inspired by the surrealist film-maker Luis Bunuel, the play is set at a smart dinner party with five young twenty-somethings.

As the conversation starts to flow, there’s a dawning realisation that none of them can leave the room.

While that premise is intriguing enough, what sets this piece of theatre aside is the actors invent every line of dialogue, making it a different performance each time.

James explains: “It came about in 2008 when I was workshopping a production of the Blind I was directing.

“There were some scenes I wanted to place in a modern context, so we worked with a more improvised technique, where actors would speak over each other.

“What we discovered is that the audience tended to tune into different parts of the conversation. In that respect it was almost an anti-performance in which the humdrum of the conversation is highlighted, rather than the main text.”

This unusual method of working was then developed further, eventually producing a show that is completely different each time.

But how easy is that for the actors, or James, who has to direct them.

James, who is currently working as staff assistant director for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 50th anniversary season, adds: “I think some actors are more comfortable with it than others, so it’s my job to point them in the right direction.

“Actors like to know what they are doing, so there is a narrative with a beginning, a middle and end. It’s what’s said in between that is improvised and that’s the point, to analyse the way people speak to each other.”