Three Days Pass (Danke Herr Brecht!)
It’s lunchtime on Tuesday and in addition to our selected courses we have swapped for 1 ½ hours with another skills group. Peta Lily’s Acting Skills, Delivering Comedy, would certainly have been my first choice if I hadn’t had to complete the Direction course. In the brief time available to her she ran us through the basics of clowning and we began to realise why some of the students on her course were going to bed so early. Imagine trying to make someone laugh just by looking at them. (Easier for some than others.) If I’d had a spare hand I would have been taking notes but what with the two full plates of virtual spaghetti I couldn’t really manage. However I was able to memorise the Boss and two henchmen routine and no I’m not telling. You’ll have to wait until the next Panto.
About this time, the infamous bottom-watching share made its appearance. Under the cover of teaching cross-gender Panto technique Graeme De Fresne had his students observe each other’s walk (bottoms) in an effort to teach boys how to walk like girls and vice-versa. Graeme informed us that it is absolutely necessary to observe the walk (bottom) in detail otherwise an imperfect parody of a cross-gender walk will be the sad result. I am reliably informed that many hours were spent on this demanding topic before they finally got to the bottom of it.
After Lunch comes Graeme’s special session with everyone, including Tutors involved. We all assemble in the chapel and the warier straight-acting types nervously eye the piano in the corner. Yes, it’s the traditional Munsbach “Let’s get this shower through a piece of harmony vocals” assault course. This year’s victim is “You’ll never walk alone” from Carousel. Graeme, feeling rather outnumbered (He & Helen Ireland normally gang-up on us for this) springs his ace in the deck announcing that we will have to sing in perfect time since he’s got an orchestral Karaoke style backing track. One hour later despite those out of time Karaoke musicians we stagger through the piece, almost observing the dynamics, eh sopranos? Deciding not to tempt fate again we are given another song from Carousel, “Blow High” This highly politically incorrect song (All about whaling) was just the sort of rousing blast to finish the session and we all reeled from the Chapel in good shape for the start of Project 3.
Project 3 Special Mention (Again)
Project 3 deserves a special mention. If you have ever even slightly considered Directing a show attend Munsbach and do Project 3. You are given co-operative actors, who have been your friends and co-students during the week, tutors who will assist you (but only if you want) and a warm comfortable atmosphere in which to try out your ideas. Neophyte, or old hand, this is the Directing lab – Experiment!
“There is no such thing as writer’s block”
is Noel Greig’s firm assertion as we begin the writer’s skills swap. This can’t be right? Doesn’t he know how long it’s taken me to write this bloody article! (For the paradoxically inclined - of course he didn’t, because I hadn’t yet written it. But you know what I mean). As a veteran of some of Noel’s courses I well recall the remarkable toolbox of techniques that he brings to the Summer School. So, writer’s block eh?
Splitting us into groups of three we are to go somewhere within the Chateau grounds and find a view that appeals to us. It doesn’t have to be pretty, just interesting in some way. Two members of each group are designated as talkers while the third is the writer or observer. Settling down in front of the chosen view my two talkers, I was an observer, as instructed began to chat about things in the view and let the conversation meander around the topics raised. After ten minutes of this we re-convened and each of us took a copy of the conversation. We were then given twenty minutes to construct a short piece of text using the natural conversation forms of the view example but with an underlying reason or motive for the conversation, that we were free to choose. The results of this small exercise varied in success but some of the pieces were remarkably lively, with an unforced conversational tone. During the limited time available for the swap we skimmed over one of Noel’s many techniques for stimulating creative writing. From conversations with other students on the course there was a genuine sense of excitement as people who had thought themselves either blocked or uninspired poured out pages of text, producing several proto-scripts by the end of the week.
The End of The Agenda
As usual at the Summer School it seems to take an age to get to the end of the second day and then suddenly it is next Sunday! Time has a funny way about it within the walls of the Chateau. My particular Agenda is completed and next year I will be free to choose whatever takes my fancy. It is always sad to leave the thrilling atmosphere of The Summer School but the prospect of a tasty al-fresco lunch at the Villa d’Este softens the blow. Anyway since I’ve been mad enough to agree to run the Website we’ll at least be able to keep in touch.
“You’ll never walk alone…”