The Magical Muddy Puddle
You know those moments when you are sat watching genius. London 2012 after that amazing opening ceremony, cheering on the Olympic and Paralympic teams. Feeling all manner of emotions in Danny Braverman’s autobiographical performance of the one man show, What No Fish! Reading the last few chapters of JK Rowling's Harry Potter saga.
Well, it's another thing actually being involved in genius - and around 2 O'clock on the 6th September will be a moment that I will never forget.
In this blog post, I will try to describe that unbelievable feeling of sheer creative process which is pure magic. Also, there will be some words from Sam Parker, who has been an unsung hero in YMMV's journey. There from the very beginnings, Sam has kept a distant eye on progress and is now actively working as a much valued outside eye for the scripting. I will then conclude with how the energy created within that session will be brought forward into the rehearsal process.
Returning after a 'summer break', myself, Steve, Erin and Jen were slogging it out on the floor of the great Eyeview space in Winner Street. To add to the creative feel of the space Mair George and Later Nat Palin plus others were working away in their own creative way in the background on projects of their own... and we....................... we were stuck!
Erin creatively called our predicament a 'muddy puddle', so we splashed away and the mud seemed to spread everywhere until we realised it was forming a beautiful pattern of its own, as yet again YMMV starting dictating its own direction. With our eyes and mind scanning through the pages of script, the much needed energy was provided by 3 year old Lucas (advise for any devising session, 3 year olds are amazing, distracting, but brilliant). We knew we had all the elements for a meaningful performance, YMMV has never needed to be rewritten, it was just fitting the pieces together to maximise each aspect.
At about ten minutes to the amazing breakthrough, Lucas starting singing. To channel his playfulness, Erin started to make him a track for his cars - then during the 'moment', Erin used the same pieces of paper which had recently been a car track to scribble down each scene and put it in the correct place. Instantly we started to see connections between these elements, sparking a mass of excited flow and that muddy puddle became a stunning lake!
Then we were off! Like the racing cars on their track, we had fuelled, changed our tyres and the creative juices were flowing. Everything started to click. Steve worked out how the musical interludes would work, Jen chipped in with genius lines, I found another connection between two scenes and Erin put it all together, mixed it up again and then put it together even better than before. I was fully in this moment and cannot quite remember what happened next, but the result was extraordinary. Sometime after this moment, I took a weird look, as if i was viewing the whole thing like a fly on the wall, all three of my companions were deep in conversation and creativity. I then remembered our creative comrade Sophie was at that very moment at South Devon College, building bridges in both her career and for YMMV. Even though not present in the room with us, she was ever present in the YMMV creative flow on that day! Reflecting back I try to put into words how magical it was, but perhaps we need JK Rowling back to help bring the essence of the feeling into this blog, so instead, I'll take a breath and share some words from our amazing outside eye - Sam Parker:
Myself and Hugh first met over a year ago now, brought together by our involvement with Doorstep Arts. Since then, we have both worked for Theatre Royal Plymouth as practitioners, usually touching base on You Me and My Voice when Hugh and the team have a new draft of the script to share.
I have been working on this project as a dramaturg/outside eye, asking questions of each iteration of the script that aid Hugh and the team in getting to the core of the piece, deciding what to explore further, and even shedding light on parts of the writing which are not as effective with regards to the issues and themes they want to tackle.
An archived image from early 2018 - Sam Parker Steve Sowden and Hugh Malyon discussing initial concepts
An archived image from early 2018 - Sam Parker Steve Sowden and Hugh Malyon discussing initial concepts
For me, the most important consideration in this role, and it is one that I always try to bring myself back to, is to ensure you are placing yourself in the shoes of the writer you’re working with, allowing you to ask questions that bring the artistic team closer to what they want to make, as opposed to pushing them in the direction I would be moving in, should I be leading on it. This is something that has been made more achievable by the fact I have not been in the room as much on this project, communicating with Hugh outside of rehearsal hours. This has given me a distance from the show, hopefully meaning I can bring fresh observations and questions which may not have been considered by those completely immersed in the process.
Of course, this works both ways. There may be times in which I feed something in that is not in-keeping with conversations had in rehearsals, so I think it’s important that Hugh and the team are free to be selective with which bits of feedback they build on, and which bits they discard. Hopefully, some of what I have fed in has been useful!
No, still can't find the words, and JK hasn't shown up yet... I can only say Wow! and it is all worth it. Creating YMMV is a long process that will continue to throw out more challenges, much inspiration and many tears of both joy and frustration. Yet, for that moment every ounce of struggle was worth it, everyone had a voice in that room (and some who were not in the room) and those voices were harmonic!
So that's the essence of the piece sorted out... now onto rehearsals. The script isn't quite there yet, but there is so much joy and emotion packed into the words that the only way to unleash its potential is to let it run free on the track and I for one can't wait!