Empty space, buzzing mind

And whooosh! Just like that the R&D is over. An incredible week. At the end of Friday I raced back up the many many stairs to the gorgeous top-floor rehearsal room at MakeTank and for a moment was alone in this big space.

The week had just crescendoed in the final sharing with a bunch of cultural leaders and all the other R&D companies. I’d spent the afternoon surrounded by people performing and talking about the work they’re making and their plans for what next. The downstairs space at MakeTank was a-buzz with conversations between people reconnecting, meeting for the first time, sharing opinions, references, suggestions and solidarity. There was so much bloody hope and intention in the room, it was fantastic. I was high on performance adrenaline. And starving.

After three gentle exploratory days playing with ideas and exercises to nudge the piece forward, I decided that I wanted to present something tangible for the audience to respond to, rather than just talking about things we’d been doing in the room. I was painfully aware that ‘I don’t know’ was my answer to so many of the questions the other team members were asking me: ‘Where is the play set?’ ‘What’s your plan for the piece?’ ‘Do you want live vocals or recorded instrumentation?’ ‘What are you thinking in terms of casting?’ ‘What is the essential structure of the piece?’ ‘Where are the major story-beats’ and on and on and on. It felt so hard to sit in that vagueness but I had to – that was the honest answer. But I knew we needed something to cling on to, to start to apply some of the exciting discoveries we’d been making in the room. Show, don’t tell, and all that.

So on Wednesday night with a poorly baby sleeping on my chest, I bashed out a few pages of script. By half midnight, my eyes were square and I’d lost all discernment so I left it at that. Then followed a day or so of whirlwind rehearsal. The tempo in the room ratcheted up several notches. The tone had moved from playful to purposeful. We were trying to learn a three part harmony song in about an hour, blocking the script, working out what it was we were trying to say – it’s amazing how other people can find ideas in your words that you fail to see yourself, thanks guys! And suddenly I realised my attitude to the piece had massively shifted too. I could feel myself really caring about the story, I suddenly believed in it. And I could feel that same level of commitment from the others. Even after a handful of days together, this project was starting to matter to us. After such a long hiatus, the chance to be in a rehearsal room felt almost like a dream.

And so to the Friday afternoon sharing, as part of the Exeter Fringe Festival. We had the final slot so needed to boost the energy into the room after three hours of concentration from all involved – you could see the droopy body language at a glance. We’d seen fully formed scripts, developed concepts with technical sophistication, innovative collaborations and themes. Eek. we were about to share something I was proud of, but still, it was very new and unformed. I’d barely had a moment to breathe let alone step back and critically assess what it was we were doing. And here we were facing a bunch of important and talented people with expectant eyebrows and thoughts of the weekend no doubt creeping in. The world of myth is so epic, but had we veered into melodrama? I was also bloody singing in it and I’m not a singer, and using movement work, when I’m not really a physical performer. Who was this ‘fuck it, let’s just do it’ person? Was that really me? Luckily though, the sheer joy of being able to perform to a room full of people kicked in and jitters vanished. So after doing it, talking to others about it, gathering feedback plus a hearty dose of slapping ourselves on the back, people started drifting off and it was time to go.

Back up alone in the room, I packed away into a Bag for Life the random objects we’d been using to play with (mostly stolen from my kids’ toy collection, who needless to say were extremely curious about why mummy needed a djembe, some toy snakes, balls and a party blower for ‘work’), folded up the big flipchart sheets of bullet points and scribbles, gathered the images we’d responded to, the notebooks we’d scribbled in, the laptop I’d tapped on, the books we’d flicked through, the speaker we’d danced near and the packaging from all the snacks and hot drinks we’d devoured. The big open space, so filled with a sense of ‘what if…’ was once more empty.

And I had that feeling you get when you leave a home you’re moving out of, when the boxes have all gone and you say your quiet little final farewell to the space. So long, thanks for the memories. And then I headed back down the many many stairs, bags bumping against hips and handrails, out into the cooling evening air. The final song we’d performed was playing on loop in my head, my eyes were still wide with adrenaline and exhaustion and off we all headed to eat triumphant pizzas and drink cider (when in Devon…) and talk about life beyond Medusa and her unsettling myth.