For people on Ideas Tap, the Ideas Tap group for the 4th April can be found here:

ideastap.com/aprilperformanceopportunity

We are looking for short dramatic pieces, to be performed as part of a one-day event at the Camden Head on Sunday 4th April. In association with Muso’s Guide, the day will showcase innovative approaches to theatrical and musical performance.

We are open to submissions of complete pieces from theatre companies and individual performers working with fresh approaches to live theatre, with a maximum running time of 25 minutes. Please email a short CV of previous work and proposals of no more than 300 words to alex@brokenglassplay.co.uk or vicky@brokenglassplay.co.uk by Monday 1st March.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Vicky & Alex

Photographs from the November Short Fuse can now be seen on facebook and flickr. Site pictures to follow soon!

Short Fuse facebook group

&

Short Fuse II on flickr

Last night was the second Short Fuse at The Camden Head. We’d like to thank all of the acts for showing us something new and interesting. Helen Mort’s ‘CarelessTorque’, which has been in the pipeline for Short Fuse for a long time, brought to life one of the scripts both myself and Alex have been the most determined to see staged at Short Fuse so far. At the other end of the evening’s entertainment, in tone although by no means in quality, was the anarchically refined comedy of Burrows, Calvert and Evans, in ‘Death of the Author’ - although I am less convinced by the hygiene issues involved in the on-stage (or indeed any prolonged) handling of raw bacon.

The one thing we’ve realised over and over again during the last couple of years, is that sometimes the biggest surprises can produce the most exciting theatre. It’s the unexpected set-restrictions, necessary re-writes, and all such things, which have created some of the work we’ve done that I’m the most proud of. I know this was the case for some of the acts at Short Fuse yesterday - and I suspect it might be the case for Broken Glass in terms of where we go next: the problems we have to think around.

We’ve realised firstly that Short Fuse needs a change of venue: next time we’re aiming for a larger stage, with a more comfortable audience capacity. The original point of the performance platform, however, remains unchanged: we still believe it is possible to create good theatre without all of the strings - without a high budget, without all of the expensive trappings - simply by virtue of the performances of talented people in works of theatre which matter - we’ve been very lucky to realise this with our own cast. But the one thing we have discovered to be a non-negotiable factor is space - both in terms of the performance platform and in our own performances as a company.

Rachel makes a very true point in her post below: to create the dystopian vision we want for ‘Paul’, space - in terms of staging and I think also the time-frame in which we are working (performance-duration, subsequent narrative development, and the rehearsal process itself) - is essential. As with every new production we are trying to create a new world; this one is more difficult than most, and we need a certain amount of space in which to realise it. In many ways it is a very naturalistic piece: movement, particularly in the first portion of the play, is considerably less stylised than in our previous production; dialogue - although admittedly intentionally odd in places - for the most part is intended to mimic the rhythm of normal speech patterns, rather than beats and musical lines. But this is the essential point about ‘Paul’, and something I hope we can develop for the full production in the summer - it is itself a mimicry: a world in which all looks at first, though perhaps a bit eccentric, a bit hazy around the edges, for the most part fine, familiar, bureaucratically functioning even, but in which all is not fine. It is a world full of absence - a dystopia. But dystopias can be hard to create because these come closer, indeed the closest Broken Glass has ever come, to the real. The world of ‘Paul’ is only a partial fiction, and so it’s comedy is not straight-forward, it is jarring.

Like every play - at least every one I think it’s worth us doing - we are starting out in a new direction. I’m looking forward to working this one out, and creating some space, whereever we can find it. We’ll put a large sign on the door saying ‘Shh now, I’m acting’.

Last night at the second Short Fuse event in Camden, Broken Glass presented scenes from a new play, ‘Paul McCartney Is Dead’. The play is an interesting dramatical experiment: What happens when you take a company of young actors, fresh from a play with an pervading aesthetic, and throw them into a play that is primarily ‘ordinary’ in movement and voice?

For one, the play lacks the ready-made atmospheric possibilities of ‘The Golem’ that were provided by the music, highly choreographed movement and stylised voice work. Aside from one residual bin bag, the puppets were gone too, including the human shadow. Now, all the focus falls on the actors to create a world for the audience.

Furthermore, last Short Fuse, the scene from ‘The Golem’ which was presented (entitled ‘Salon Loisitscheck’), was a stand alone entity. Without telling the full story that the extended play went on to tell over the summer, the piece was coherent within itself. It also involved all the actors, all of whom were on stage all of the time. The offering from ‘Paul’ was instead the opening six scenes of a play, and the company have not begun work on any of the subsequent scenes (much to Daniel’s surprise!). This meant that the play had to gain a momentum, made possible physically by the culminating fight in scene six. Did the plot gain enough weight to leave the audience wondering ‘What happens next?’ ? If you were at the Camden Head last night, let us know!

Many of the actors have now left Cambridge, meaning that rehearsals were few and far between, and trains did their utmost to stop them happening altogether! And having Steve King living in the far far away land of Brummie cannot be good for the mental stability of the directors. There was also a quick actor swap two days ago, and director Alex was given a brief moment centre stage.

Reading over the above paragraphs I detect in my own writing a note of pessimism or negativity that was not intended. However, to list all the things I think we did brilliantly seems a little arrogant in a blog for the company website! Assuming we go on to finish work on the play (as I believe we plan to?) I look forward to upping the contrast between the scenes based in Paul’s formalin-filled home, and those in the clothes-strewn offices. The dystopian tinge to the play was not given much space in the opening scenes, but may have more space to breathe in the full play.

Credit to Miss Flood for another great script, and to the other actors for braving the train, rain and pain (?) to make it yesterday. Do let us know what you thought of last night as a whole, and of ‘Paul’… if you have yet recovered from the shocking Truth of the PMID!

Hello world,

We are very excited about the second Short Fuse tomorrow evening at 7.30pm at The Camden Head.

In what is looking to be a very strong line-up, we have a light-show from visual artist Jennie Pedley and puppeteer Zsuzsa Kohan; more puppetry from The Dummy Company - brand-new and previously unseen; a live radio show by Ian Burrows; a new play by the award-winning Helen Mort; the song-writing talents of Lola & the Clic; and new material in an acoustic set from Lydia Birch. We hope everyone will see something they like there - and something new and unexpected in the best possible way.

We will also be offering for your viewing pleasure the first scenes of our new production ‘Paul McCartney is Dead’. The cast valiantly braved post-gale-force-winds-travel-chaos (and/or some quality time in Costa Coffee) to get to today’s rehearsal - preview pics from which will be going up tonight. And we are very glad that they did! I think we can quite confidently say (knock on wood, knock on wood,and pretend that Steven King didn’t open an umbrella indoors today) that among other wonderful things, ‘Paul McCartney is Dead’ contains quite possibly the best fight scene in the history of the company, if not all theatre, EVER. Very, very exciting!

Did I mention that we’re quite excited? We are.

Vicky

Hello all,

Just a very quick post to link to our Fringereport review:

http://www.fringereport.com/0908thegolem.php

And to thank the Camden Fringe, the Roundhouse, and everyone involved with Broken Glass this Summer for making ‘The Golem’ something we are very proud of.

In other news, applications for the November Short Fuse have now closed, and we are currently putting together the evening’s programme - more details to follow! Watch this space.

I have just returned from a tasty meal of sausages and beans with the rest of the Hainault-residing cast. (Repetitive diet? Us?)  The brunch was a neccesary next step to last night’s sequence - pickled cauliflower, visit from the Austrian embassy, gin, crazy seat-bound dancing and the inevitable tube ride home. Oh, and, of course, we performed the play for our first real audience. I shall avoid the equally inevitable analysis of every minor slip-up or triumph. Instead, a note on an exciting, semi-accidental change to the play.

Broken Glass, as I understand them, have always aimed to be transparent in their approach to theatre, with the phrase, “You can see the strings” being bandied around regularly. This approach is not in itself new. Companies like Kneehigh Theatre, and even large-scale musicals like Chicago (so I am told by Alex) keep the costume changes visible, keep the actors continually on stage and lay bare the mechanics of the theatre equiptment. And so with Broken Glass. It might not be Brecht, but there is certainly an element of estrangement and astonishment. However, arriving at the theatre yesterday morning at far-too-early-o’clock to discover that there were no wings, and thus no real “off-stage”, The Golem was forced to make its strings even more apparent.

We had previously performed a snippet of the play above a bar in a crowded, dim room filled with collapsing scenery. People were clambering in and out, the sound of SCLub7 and police sirens trickled in and the pool table Steve and I were perched on creaked ominously throughout every performance we sat through. Yesterday, we walked into a studio space with a lighting rig and raked seats. The words “neat” and “clean” were used of our expected movements during the scenes in which we were NOT on stage. The play was going to be very different this time around.

If I may say so without sounding pretentious, it seemed to me that this unforseen aspect of the studio space added a new intensity and clarity to the play. Rather than fumbling with props and whispering questions to my fellow actors, I was able myself to engage with the storytelling onstage, allowing the piece to seem more of an emsemble effort, and more of a unified whole.

I was also struck again by the thrillingly unpreditable nature of stage performance. I love the fact that you never know exactly what will happen each night. The play is well rehearsed now, and often runs smoothly. But it is a changing, evolving beast, brought to life each evening by living actors. You can never be sure that another actor is about to deliver the right line, or know exactly where you will place your foot. However many times you practice, nothing can remain fixed. In a play which implies an eternally, unflinchingly cyclical movement in its action, this becomes all the more interesting. Not even the wonderful Miss Flood who is responsible for putting the secret words in our mouths can prophecy precisely what will happen next. Predictability is utterly unable to “obstruct the emotional resonance of [the] performance”, even for those of us who have seen the play and heard its words numerous times.

The Golem runs for a further three nights at the Roundhouse Theatre, Camden.

“What will you do when you are the last one left?” We are about to find out! Terrifing how easily lines from the play slip into my everyday speech and writing. The rest of the Hainault-residing cast are cooking sausages and beans (actors need their nutrition) so I am taking the chance to share my thoughts on the progress of Broken Glass’ latest theatrical venutre, The Golem. As mentioned in Alex and Vicky’s posts, the show opens tomorrow for a four night run at the RoundHouse, Camden, so everyone is fully immersed in the mental world of the Jewish ghetto.

Indeed, the rhythmic quality of the dialogue and the haunting music mean that they seem to be almost clinging to us as we leave rehearsals. “The Golem [...] clings to our hair and clothing as persistently as the fog and deeper still. He’s not just in our voices.” This line is, ironically, spoken by Louisa, who’s gravelly alto haunts my evenings the most pressingly.  Spoken words are not only important in the play as a means of conveying information or setting mood. The concept of the whole piece is the importance of oral tradition - rumour, myth, hearsay. This perhaps fascinates me, a recent English graduate, more than most. But the power of storytelling and the ability of human bodies to inhabit myth has long been a theatrical concern. (See Jerzy Grotowski’s writing. Grotowski has been mentioned several times during the rehearsal process. In fact, the only theatre practicioner to have been named more times as an inspiration is Simon Amstell, who is also appreaing at the Camden Fringe this week).

Perhaps the play will succeed in presenting “a myth come to life”. Perhaps it will succeed in driving the cast insane. Perhaps it will succeed in increasing your love of Simon Amstell. There is only one way to find out…

We are now less than 46 hours away from the Roundhouse Studio - not that I’m counting or anything - and it is all starting to come into focus.

One of the primary aims of Broken Glass is the meeting of dialogue-driven and physical theatre, and the primacy of live material wherever possible. In ‘The Golem’ physical performance and live music form an essential combination, in a production which is greatly indebted to the various talents of our performers: the skills of our actors, Alex and Tom’s music - itself so integral to the atmosphere and indeed the very rhythm of the play, and the ingenuity of Andrew’s set design - quite literally the fabric of our play’s world.

For us the tale of Athanasius Pernath, his experiences and his time, is a very public spectacle: the mysteries, crimes, loves and small acts of kindness of the ghetto are a type of giant human puppet show, presided over by Zwakh, the master-puppeteer. As a representation of a the time and place documented by Meyrink, and a particular way of telling stories - in a world where stories are the lifeblood of its inhabitants - we hope we have remained faithful to the atmosphere and tone of Meyrink’s novel.

A short synopsis of ‘The Golem’ is below, and a link to an extract from the adaptation - Zwakh’s prologue - as published on crashmagazine.co.uk - by way of both explanation of the original golem myth and a taster of the play.

THE STORY

‘The Golem’ is Viennese writer Gustav Meyrink’s most famous work, following the protagonist Athanasius Pernath through the streets of Prague’s Jewish quarter, in the days before the destruction of the ghetto. During this time the mysterious figure of the golem, whose appearance has heralded bloodshed in the quarter for hundreds of years, is glimpsed.

Through the stories of the community around him, Pernath encounters the crimes of the crooked ophthalmologist Dr Wassory, the tragic love of the magistrate Dr Hulbert, and the brutal murder of Zottman the freemason. These tales are interwoven with Pernath’s own experiences – the golem’s first visitation, the supernaturalism of his encounters with the Kabalist Hillel and his daughter Miriam, the rising threat and intrigues of the starving student Charousek, and Pernath’s final meeting with the golem in the fabled house on the Altschugasse. The history of the golem’s presence in the Jewish quarter runs through it all.

Zwakh’s prologue is published in Crash Magazine, here.