after a firely & exciting meeting with vice yesterday, i guess i should have prepared for my crash.....
nothing deadly, but i seem to have no energy today. we have two shakespeare facilitators who had come over from london to work with the drama students at the Lab Theatre. they contribute to the further disection of the chosen texts, but for me, i don't know where to go or what to suggest to the actors to further develop the work.
as usual, i guess, the outline that vice & i came up with yesterday proved to be weaken than we had thought. we began to improvise around it and soon found out that it was going no where.
our last attempt using our script outline as a basis is a robbery of sonny's home in durban seaching for this valuable 'bible' that the two young robbers had heard about. sonny then intervienes and 'teaches' them the lessons that stem from the bible. i am biting my tongue, hoping to get inspiration from it, but it is bravely up to tod to point out the obvious, 'We shouldnt start out our play with a robbery of Sonny's house. That isnt a good idea.'
Yes, he is right.
i felt a bit like banging my head against the wall to get something to start clicking between my ears, but the actors pull through with dan suggesting that we stage a scene from a tour our robben island as it is today with a flashback or ghost of sonny haunting his former cell. this set off a hilarious scene with one of the actors taking on the role of the tour guide who couldnt be understood, but still is overly reverentiable to 'madiba' island, as he called it.
things finally begin to flow, though without much of my help.
but finally something sticks. unfortunately, it is now the end of the day and so we have to leave any further development to tomorrow. but at least we end on a positive note.
the artists participating are great. though we all ebb & flow in our creativity, i never sense that they dont want to be here and that they are contributing as best as possible.
tonight, it is home early for dinner and then for me to try to straighen myself out. i have got to be more front footed tomorrow in my contributions to the development.
