The Cherry Orchard Diaries: The Event Horizon
Happy Bank Holiday folks,
Hope you've had/are having an absolute blast. We rehearsed Saturday til 2pm and I've been stuck inside for the most part aside from that trying to get my head back into other writing now.
Facebook - which is increasingly a memory trove - reminds me that, on this exact day four years ago, I was in the final week of rehearsal for An Adventure at the Bush and was writing my acknowledgements and thanks for the publication. In a strange bit of symmetry this was also our last week of rehearsals for Cherry Orchard. In one way, that's a nice overlay of experience, in another the comparisons do make me a little dispirited. The main one being that I feel so much less capable at the moment than I did back then. That year I finished up my first Doctor Who episode, rewrote another play multiple times and worked on a couple of pilots. I was also managing to do a fair whack of writing around rehearsals.
Which I just...cannot do right now. I was a bit burnt out in February and was looking forward to a week off around my birthday in March but instead sickness and more bereavement sucked away all the time without giving any room for respite. No real breaks or holidays all year which I think is a familiar story to a lot of us. It's the sort of thing I would have perhaps lionised when I was younger and have promised myself I never will again. So I will figure it out. There are a few very delayed things I need to finish up before I can step away but I am hoping to just fully take the whole of December off (and a bit of November if I can manage it).
On the plus side, I think the greater part of my long Covid issues are subsiding and - general exhaustion aside - I do have more energy and will than I did before. It's only now that I've really grasped how that's shifted me emotionally as well as physically. I think a couple of years back I was willing to break structures or just push on with work to make sure I got it done in time. Nowadays I've essentially been very scared to put myself in that position. I've prioritised good habits and stepping away when the exhaustion comes, and that is great, but it also has definitely knocked my resilience a bit and on an emotional level, if I'm being really honest, I've found it harder to open myself up fully to the work. Because work is work and life has made me feel vulnerable enough. Why risk it for the words? Why not prioritise being a level and happy human?
Well, the paradox of artistry is that it is that same vulnerable expression that makes you truly level and happy. Like 100% happy rather than a solid, respectable 75-80%. Survival mode happy. It's more tumultuous as a process than not engaging or pushing yourself, but I've never left a project that I've given myself over to not knowing myself or the world a little better. And it's that knowledge that I want to make the quest of my existence. So yes - going to gently nudge myself to turn the heart tap back on. Which I've done here and it's resulted in a far too long and off-topic introduction...
Today? As we approach the inescapable pull of the run, the event horizon of the process, I'm going to look at The Other Stuff around rehearsal and the writing that you might have to handle.
Hope you've had/are having an absolute blast. We rehearsed Saturday til 2pm and I've been stuck inside for the most part aside from that trying to get my head back into other writing now.
Facebook - which is increasingly a memory trove - reminds me that, on this exact day four years ago, I was in the final week of rehearsal for An Adventure at the Bush and was writing my acknowledgements and thanks for the publication. In a strange bit of symmetry this was also our last week of rehearsals for Cherry Orchard. In one way, that's a nice overlay of experience, in another the comparisons do make me a little dispirited. The main one being that I feel so much less capable at the moment than I did back then. That year I finished up my first Doctor Who episode, rewrote another play multiple times and worked on a couple of pilots. I was also managing to do a fair whack of writing around rehearsals.
Which I just...cannot do right now. I was a bit burnt out in February and was looking forward to a week off around my birthday in March but instead sickness and more bereavement sucked away all the time without giving any room for respite. No real breaks or holidays all year which I think is a familiar story to a lot of us. It's the sort of thing I would have perhaps lionised when I was younger and have promised myself I never will again. So I will figure it out. There are a few very delayed things I need to finish up before I can step away but I am hoping to just fully take the whole of December off (and a bit of November if I can manage it).
On the plus side, I think the greater part of my long Covid issues are subsiding and - general exhaustion aside - I do have more energy and will than I did before. It's only now that I've really grasped how that's shifted me emotionally as well as physically. I think a couple of years back I was willing to break structures or just push on with work to make sure I got it done in time. Nowadays I've essentially been very scared to put myself in that position. I've prioritised good habits and stepping away when the exhaustion comes, and that is great, but it also has definitely knocked my resilience a bit and on an emotional level, if I'm being really honest, I've found it harder to open myself up fully to the work. Because work is work and life has made me feel vulnerable enough. Why risk it for the words? Why not prioritise being a level and happy human?
Well, the paradox of artistry is that it is that same vulnerable expression that makes you truly level and happy. Like 100% happy rather than a solid, respectable 75-80%. Survival mode happy. It's more tumultuous as a process than not engaging or pushing yourself, but I've never left a project that I've given myself over to not knowing myself or the world a little better. And it's that knowledge that I want to make the quest of my existence. So yes - going to gently nudge myself to turn the heart tap back on. Which I've done here and it's resulted in a far too long and off-topic introduction...
Today? As we approach the inescapable pull of the run, the event horizon of the process, I'm going to look at The Other Stuff around rehearsal and the writing that you might have to handle.
The last week of rehearsal is one I've always found to be a little distancing. Tech, which is next week, is a process that announces itself as not needing the writer around. The team need to figure out what's what and clearly don't need you messing with things anymore.
This final rehearsal week though is a place where you could technically be of some use, but it's also the point where the majority of the time is less about discovery and more refining what's there and stitching it together. I.E. The writer definitely should not be fucking with the play now. As such, I've been self-conscious about throwing in thoughts and tried to let the actor and director firm up what's in front of them - which they've been doing wonderfully. I've said before that I think this'll be good and...yeah...I still do? I really do. I wish that didn't feel so odd, but I guess it's an expression of satisfaction with process. The most you can ask for is the play to reflect your intentions in their fullest and this production more or less does that. Whether others agree is another matter (but that's for next week).
Anyway - I've kept myself around the room as much as possible in case I'm needed, which was exactly once. There was plenty else to keep me busy though. Here are some of the things I was dealing with behind a laptop in that time...
Playtext Proofing
The script went in to Methuen (my publisher) the week before last, after which it was typeset into their format. Once that's done, you work with a proofreader to make sure it's all as it should be. It's also the chance to make very, very last minute adjustments. In fact, this project maybe has the latest I've ever managed to adjust a script! The one time I was needed this week involved adding a line and i managed to sneak that line into the published version in my final email. If you've ever noticed that plays have the disclaimer "this went to print before the end of rehearsal" on them, this is why. One of my favourite things to do after watching a play is figuring out where it diverged from the printed text but it's always the nightmare place for the writer themselves since there's still (some) room for cuts and edits.
Blurbs
So alongside the script, you'll also get a chance to look over the copy for the covers too. When I received the first version of this play's cover, it turned out they'd used my very first pitch about this project for the blurb on the back, which made me smile. I often write up the future blurb at the start of a project as both a pitch and also to give a sense to myself of the way I'd want future audience members/readers to encounter the story. It was nice that this one wasn't actually too different too what I had imagined. However! It was still going to exist in print forever so I of course spent endless hours refining it.
Of course, not every writer needs to do all or any of the above. Many don't. In fact, rewriting the blurb was quite funny to me because I looked at the back of other playtexts for inspiration and they're all like "this is yet more hot brilliance from award-festooned top lad Jimmy Wordsmith!". I guess it's possible some of them wrote that themselves but I don't have the stomach for that kind of narcissism - only the kind that involves making work for a medium that demands huge amounts of resource and effort from loads of people to make your brain farts seem half-way decent then convincing other people that said brain-farts are worth the cost of a very nice lunch.
Publicity
On the above note, now you've created The Thing, there's also the task of selling The Thing. I always find myself compelled to help with this part of the process, partly out of vanity, partly out of muscle memory from starting on the Fringe and partly because this particular project is fairly...esoteric...and I'd like to help as broad an audience as possible feel like it's for them. That might involve helping with behind the scenes write ups, photos, trailers, interviews. Unfortunately, while I am enthusiastic about doing this stuff and I am also fairly bad at it so am very lucky that its the job of much more talented people to take care of 99% of it.
The main thing from this week was an interview where I found myself talking quite freely and felt pretty emotional in which feels good in the moment but does sliiiightly make you wonder afterwards about what sort of cancellable opinions you've just put into the world. I guess we'll find out!
P.S. I've discovered that during the 2018 Bristol Old Vic production of The Cherry Orchard, the assistant director, Evan Lordan, kept a rehearsal diary across the 6 weeks. It's a nice insight into the process of the creation of a cousin production and you can read the start of it here.
Saying Goodbye
Slightly off-beam, this one. But if you've been reading these letters from the start I mentioned that there is a moment where the actors know these characters better than you. That's where I feel like I am now. They are still discovering lots within those characters, but I look at the performances now and the points where the character ends and the actor begins are pleasingly fuzzy. And it's that, ultimately, that makes it easier to step away from the play because it's palpable - from the immersion of performers to the diligence of the production team - that it lives through other minds, hands and hearts now.
If this is what an event horizon feels like then I'm a lucky man.
CHEKHOV CORNER
When I started out writing, I relied heavily on friends to be my first readers and critics. Once we accepted that being nice about each other's work wasn't all that helpful, we found a way to critique with compassion and every bit of my early work was vastly improved by my being fearless enough to ask for the opinion and them being fearless enough to give it.
Yet - How much fearlessness does one need to have to send their work to Chekhov just as he was coming into his dramatic prime? More than I would have. But this (un)lucky soul went for it...
When I started out writing, I relied heavily on friends to be my first readers and critics. Once we accepted that being nice about each other's work wasn't all that helpful, we found a way to critique with compassion and every bit of my early work was vastly improved by my being fearless enough to ask for the opinion and them being fearless enough to give it.
Yet - How much fearlessness does one need to have to send their work to Chekhov just as he was coming into his dramatic prime? More than I would have. But this (un)lucky soul went for it...
You ask me for my opinion of your stories. What is my opinion? There is not the slightest doubt of your talent, it is a genuine, a major talent. It manifests itself, for example, with extraordinary strength in your story 'In the Steppe', so strongly that I even feel a touch of envy at not having written it myself. You are an artist and a highly intelligent man, you have extraordinary sensitivity and plasticity, by which I mean the way you describe things is such that one can see and touch them with one's hands. This is true art. There's my opinion for you, and I am very glad to be able to give it to you. I repeat, I am very glad, and if we could meet one another and talk for an hour or two you would realize how greatly I esteem you and what hopes I place on your gifts.
Shall I speak now of your shortcomings? That is more difficult. When it is a question of talent, analysing defects is like criticizing a great tree that grows in a garden; what matters is not the tree itself but the tastes of the person who is looking at the tree. Don't you agree?
I'll start by saying that in my opinion you show a lack of restraint.
You are like someone in a theatre audience expressing his delight in so exuberant a fashion that neither he nor anyone else can hear the play. This lack of restraint is most apparent in the descriptions of nature with which you intersperse your dialogues; reading them one wishes them shorter, more concise, two or three lines at the most. The frequent invocations of languor, murmurings, velvetiness and so on lend your descriptions a kind of rhetorical uniformity - this can become dispiriting and slightly wearing. There is also a lack of restraint in the way you depict women ("'Malva', 'On the Rafts") and in the love scenes. It has nothing to do with the scale of your work or your broad brush strokes, it has everything to do with lack of restraint. And you are rather given to using words that strike one as out of place in the sort of stories you write. Words like 'accompaniment', 'disc', harmony" are apt to jar. You make frequent references to waves. There is a feeling of tension, almost wariness, in the way you treat educated characters; this comes not from any lack of perception in your observation of educated people, because you do know them, but from an uncertainty about which direction you should approach them from.
If I remember correctly there was more, though my actual book is with one of the actors at the moment so I can't check. Still, I think this gives plenty of the flavour. No doubt something of it was has been lost in the translation but that pivot from "You're great! It's a question of taste?" to "Right, buckle up..." really makes me laugh.
KITTY KLUB
This is already far too long a newsletter, sorry, so instead of a cat related story, please enjoy this dramatisation of Pretty Cat approaching a black hole...
See you next week for the last diary and first preview.
Vin x
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(The Cherry Orchard runs at the Yard Theatre between 5th September and 22nd October 2022. It then goes to HOME from the 2nd to the 19th November)
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