Qui peut faire de la voile sans vent
Qui peut ramer sans rames
Et qui peut quitter son ami
Sans verser de larmes

Je peux faire de la voile sans vent
Je peux ramer sans rames
Mais ne peux quitter mon ami
Sans verser de larmes

Qui peut faire du pain sans levain
Qui peut faire du vin sans raisin
Et qui peut quitter son ami
Sans verser de larmes

Je peux faire du pain sans levain
Je peux faire du vin sans raisin
Mais ne peux quitter mon ami,
Sans verser de larmes

Qui peut voir le soleil la nuit
Qui peut voir sans étoile
Et qui peut quitter son ami
Sans verser de larmes

Je peux voir le soleil la nuit
Je peux voir la nuit sans étoile
Mais ne peux quitter mon ami
Sans verser de larmes

A few images by Alex Rogers taken during our first weeks R&D at The Nightingale Theatre, Brighton

A creature has a life of its own and we are its keepers. Ours has just been born, and we couldn’t even tell you what species it is yet. But it is growing; there are definitely some stumps that that could well become legs, and a faint but unmistakable heartbeat.

Or is devising a  show like building a house? Without a blueprint, but with a feeling, a hunch, for what might be built. Strong foundations are key to support whatever takes shape.

Or both? May be we are in a process of building a home in which our creature can dwell. There is also this connected sense from sculpture, that a piece of stone has within it the object that wants to be discovered and it is the sculptor’s task to serve that desire. It feels as though we are responsible to our starting point sometimes, that a story is its own entity that wants to be told; we are raising our creature but also finding out what it wants and needs. Are we building a wheel for a hamster or a tank for a fish? How can be build a habitat rather than a cage?

All this begs the question: in what kind of enclosure does an ostrich live? Presumably, not one with a concrete floor…

First up (and i have a feeling that to begin with, Wiki is going to be a good friend), some info about the Minuet.

Simply, The Queen’s Hamlet is one of the oddest places that I’ve been, and at once reassuringly strange, as though the first time I heard of the place was a premonition; it looked and felt as I had imagined, like visiting a familiar fairy tale.

It was as rich, detailed, idyllic and haunting as I had wanted it to be, not to mention as dotty. There is a show lurking in between those rows of cabbages, or beneath the pan-flat surface of that prettiest of lakes, I’m convinced. But where to start? In terms of stimulus and inspiration, this short visit has yielded a right hoard, and I’ll share some further thoughts, images etc. over the coming days (once I’ve counted all the treasure).

Joseph it seems was a bit of a fruit loop and I love him already. As a ‘mere’ Crown Prince, in order to step out of the shadow his mother’s rule, Joseph assiduously set about becoming a ‘people’s prince’. Whilst Marie was busy dressing up as a sherpherdess, Joseph too was busy mixing it with the common man, performing incredible feats of philanthropy in disguise, whilst always being careful to let his cloak slip afterwards (the lure of anonymity didn’t appear to stretch as far as missing out on garnering credit!)

Back in France, tongues were wagging as it became known that after several years of marriage, Marie and the King had not actually had sex yet; a fairly significant barrier to fulfilling her duty through bearing an heir if ever their was one. A concerned mother dispatched Joseph to sort things out, and the intrepid master of disguise embarked from Austria to Paris, travelling as Count Falkenstein, staying in lowly guest houses and journeying by standard carriage (being sure of course that the right people knew to expect him). So you have this journey of one guy badly pretending to be someone else but to win the hearts of the poor, to visit another stubbornly deluded young woman unwittingly doing everything to harden their hearts against her. His visit resulted in an extraordinary rebuke that would ultimately lead to the Queen finally doing the necessary, and conceiving. Now there’s definitely something in there…

I’ll let you know how we get on with all that. But to finish with, a final word from the Emperor himself, reportedly uttered after whichever of his latest acts of anonymous kindness: “You shall never know my name… I am Empereor Jospeh!”. Priceless.

I did recently spent a fertile week on a theatre-writing course at The Hurst, brilliantly lead by Ola Animashawun and Laura Wade. As someone who makes work collaboratively through a devising process, to learn more about the basics of structure from a writer’s perspective at this very early stage in making a new show was a real eye-opener. Take the concept of premise, or the core of a show. This was something that in making Keepers we didn’t really discover until after our first previews! So although I’m wary of fixing too much before getting in a room with the ensemble, thinking about this now has really helped me look at the starting point in a different way.

I’m not yet able to craft a pithy premise a la “ruthless ambition leads to its own destruction” (guess the play anyone?), but I am starting to narrow down some ideas. It’s about retreating from reality, keeping the company of toys, shirking or hiding from responsibility, the separation of a body from a head (metaphorical and actual), ignoring the bigger picture, and maintaining a destructive delusion for self-preservation.

The journey and the research have also thrown up a possible title to replace the working one (just the somewhat uninspiring ‘The Queen’ at the moment). Marie became known by the people, less than affectionately, as L’Austrichienne (The Austrian). As resentment grew, a play on the wording led to the even less affectionate nickname, L’Autruche Chienne (The Ostrich Bitch). That the ostrich has become synonymous with the idea of sticking your head in the sand seems to offer an entirely appropriate new title for the piece. So, L’Autruche (The Ostrich) – watch this space!

The company’s Director, Simon Day, will be holding a workshop in July, and is looking for performers to explore some very early ideas with. Please get in touch if you would like to come and play.

WED 20 JULY, 10am – 4pm, The Nightingale Theatre, Brighton

Theses aren’t ‘training’ sessions, being instead an opportunity to devise, improvise, get lost and find our way together.

Numbers are limited. To apply for a place, please download an application form and return no later than 5pm, Mon 11 July . Any questions, please email simon@theplasticinemen.co.uk

Well, you heard it here first: I have absolutely no idea.

That may be a bit of an overstatement, let’s lose the ‘absolutely’. I know that we don’t want to make Keepers 2. I do know that we want to surprise, and also that we want to continue making the strongest work possible on the foundations of collaborative and interdisciplinary process; or to put it another way, I want to get some more very talented people in the same room together and see what happens when I ask them to start messing around.

What about the starting point, what about story? We’ve had a few high level creative meetings now and have rejected Sheepers (two Shepherds right? Only one night, in a terrible storm, one of them dies and the other goes mad) and after much consideration, had to say goodbye to both the epic Sweepers (two street cleaners, yeah? Only one of them dies, and the other goes mad!) and the tragic Leapers (two base-jumpers… you get the idea – any more suggestions we’d be enthralled to hear them!).

I have in fact begun ‘scouring the land for stories that beg to be told onstage’. I love this line, although always felt it was a little disingenuous: the stories for cargo and Keepers kind of landing in my lap rather than being actually hunted out, as the word ‘scour’ may imply.  I may elaborate in a  bit more length at a later date about this quality of a story that makes it inherently theatrical, as well as being a simply, a cracking yarn. But I’ve come across a few tantalising leads that I mean to look into  further. They’re just starting points really, rather than the framework for a show, but thought I’d share them.

Le Hameau de la Reine (or ‘The Queen’s Hamlet’)

Reading Gombrich’s A Little History of the World, stumbled upon a little gem. Apparently, whilst their country was crumbling around them in the days before the Revolution, the French Aristocracy used to dress up and play at being shepherds and peasants. Now, I’ve not found any reference to this yet other than the infamous example of Mary Antoinette herself, who had a rustic village built in the grounds of her palace:

http://www.pbs.org/marieantoinette/life/hameau.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hameau_de_la_reine

I’m really interested in this. It’s got an inherently theatrical element there, in the dressing up and pretense, and offers an opportunity to create a world on stage, something that really drove Keepers. Despite it’s historical context, it speaks to me of something quite contemporary, in the unrest across the world, and to very visual divisions of rich and poor even in our own country, and where city boys have taken to wearing wax jackets and flat caps. Even a cursory bit of research reveals some fascinating characters (not least Antoinette herself), and it gives us a chance to work with some women as well! There’s also an image that I can’t get out of my head: the combination of a sheep and a guillotine.

The Tregaron Elephant

This is just brilliant. A performer dies on tour, only it’s an elephant, and it gets buried underneath a pub!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-13094803

I’m not sure this has the making of a straight studio theatre show, but i would love to return to Wales and work on this with some young people, perhaps as a processional or site specific piece. I’m also fascinated by the idea of touring performance in general, I remember from being in Leamington there was slipway down to the river called the Elephant Wash where the touring elephants used to go and powder their trunks.

I can’t help being drawn to this as well, given that i saw it on the news the day after our last show of Keepers, when I was wondering what to do with myself next!

Charles Waterton

A funny one this. I started reading quite a lot about trees. And came across this chap:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Waterton

An eccentric apparently, always a good starting point. Deakin, in his book Wildwood, mentioned a rumour that he lived up a tree, which theatrically, is very interesting: a character in a theatre always in a tree, OR, a tree as a stage, i.e. bring the audience to a tree… even tour the country to a selection of trees.

Now the really wierd thing about this one is to do with Martin, who played Howell. Martin’s a real country boy, and there I was thinking of Martin up a tree, when I started to try and find out a bit more about our man Charles. Now here’s a biography of Charles Waterton. By a writer called Julia Blackburn. Hang on a minute, that name sounds familiar. Quick call to Martin later confirms that it is in fact, his mother. Proper wierd.

Anyways, there’s some thoughts that I’m going to start working on. If anyone has any leads, or feedback, would be great to hear from you.