Some Images of the upcoming Hall for Cornwall production, Barabas

The Great Globe itself; yes, all which we inherit...

I’ve spent a large part of this week squashed (or standing) on the train to and from London, where I’ve been to see Dominic Dromgoole’s KING LEAR, in which Joseph is playing Gloucester, over at Shakespeare’s Globe.Unlike Cornwall, which has been wet and windy, London was basking in sunshine – and with a bare 20 minutes to dump my laptop and overnight things, I raced off to The South Bank to meet Colin and see the show.I love The Globe. Dominic’s doing a great job to widen the creative vision of this significant theatre, and it’s always good to be there. I always stand in the Yard – the only way to experience the work, really – and it never ceases to amaze that the original Globe, which Marlowe must have been familiar with, would have been half the size, with twice the capacity audience.It would have been hot, smelly, noisy and dangerous. The structure is so imposing that it is not really a designer’s theatre, but the arena, the connection between audience and performers is close. Vivid memories of emails from Joe describing his first experiences, in preview for LEAR, of playing that great stage, of the epic feel to the playhouse, of the danger and the magic.I have read accounts of Marlowe’s sometime lover, the playwright Thomas Kyd, who, whilst appearing as an actor in Tamburlaine the 1590s, witnessed death from the stage. The historian Robin Chapman, in his novel Christoferus or Tom Kyd’s Revenge, writes in Kyd’s voice: ‘...the day I played the governor of Babylon was that very day our auxiliary soldiers overshot and killed a woman suckling her child. At first no one could believe it. Minds in a theatre are seldom ready for real hurt. Were these screechings part of the action? Was this another attempt to provide spectacular horror? Her breasts were real and spouting blood. In the pandemonium that followed I was quite forgotten, left to hang on my mock-marble pillar. As they carried the dying woman outside I had time to realise my own good fortune. Why, I could have been her! We never discovered who placed the real bullets in our carbines...’Real death in a theatre where these play-makers played out death and destruction on a regular basis. A rawness.Not so tonight, where the audience are gripped and where standing for over three hours hardly seems to matter. LEAR, at its end, is a catalogue of deaths – putting the ten fatalities in BARABAS into perspective. The gouging out of Gloucester’s eyes make me want to vomit. I fear for Colin; it’s his first visit to The Globe, he’s not great with gore, and he’s so tall and thin that standing for long periods of time makes me worry (has he had enough to eat...?). But when I look round he’s relishing the scene.Joe started working on KING LEAR a week or two after we met, and his first reaction on playing that great stage was the importance of having a close relationship with the audience. Tonight, it is easy to see how readily the audience warm to Gloucester, and I to start to feel excited about the potential to take that kind of playing much, much further.By the end of the show I had started to feel pretty ropey. It’s been a long couple of weeks – only one day off in the last fourteen –a hectic journey to London, and to cap it all, I’ve come down with an ear infection which means I have no hearing at all in my ‘good’ ear and only patchy hearing in the other. Joseph has also forgotten his contact lenses, so it really is a case of the deaf and the blind!Even so, we have a great discussion after the show, into the small hours. We talk, in particular, about the opening speeches of the play, and start to patch together our impressions of how we first want to present Barabas to the audience. There is much talk – inspired by that first speech – of Marlowe’s attitude to money. He never had enough, and suffered throughout his life from the sense of having a chip on his shoulder, the wrong clothes, feeling out of place, feeling ‘other’. BARABAS in many ways is his fantasy about what it is like to amass and lose wealth. The attention to detail that he pays in that opening speech to types of commerce is impressive in its illustration of how well he understood (and coveted) different money-making schemes across the world.On my way back to Paddington the next day, on the bus from south east London, I was struck by the many powerful images of commercial desperation, which are also prevalent in the play. Shops closing down. Sales. Special offers. People feeling the pinch. And this jostling, as the bus moves into SW1, with the glossy richness of Belgravia. A sharp contrast, just as we have in Act One of BARABAS.Am I the only person this summer to see the possible artistic benefits of an economic recession? Transferring this modern resonance on to the stage suddenly feels very exciting...and relevant.

He did esteem St Paul to be a juggler…

A few weeks back I have a surprising phone conversation with somebody who wanted to question the moral nature of BARABAS. The caller hadn’t heard of Marlowe, so I suggested that DOCTOR FAUSTUS might be a useful starting point (a bit naughty) and the caller expostulated about the way that Jerry Springer – The Opera had alienated and offended the majority of the general public (quite frankly, not true).Actually, I think it is great that people are ringing up to ask about this controversial production. It is great that it is actually starting to touch nerves. We have since had more calls and emails. You are welcome to ask any questions that you like about the nature of this play. I’ll do my best to answer them.I can see why a project like this might make the hackles rise. Hall for Cornwall is a high profile organisation, and theatre is the most ephemeral of the live performance forms. Whilst theatre gives people of all kinds the chance to understand the world they live in better, it also gives people an opportunity to experience, awful, difficult things that they might prefer to hide away from. And because it is live you don’t always know what you are getting in to.But good theatre asks questions, rather than making judgements. This play asks huge questions. There is no getting away from the fact that BARABAS is ambitious in its thinking, in its questioning of the world, and in its many messages. Rather than deliberately courting controversy our production aims to open doors rather than make blatant and one-sided statements about religion, commerce or human nature.Whilst there is no getting away from the fact that the play is controversial, it also has a serious and pertinent message for modern audiences. It is violent and extreme, but BARABAS is also a celebration of life. It provides a spectacular meeting point for all of us to find out new things about the world.BARABAS asks difficult questions. It exposes society’s cruel potential to transform individuals for better or worse. And no, it is not a morality play. Nor is it a religious decree. The play is both anti-Christian and anti-Semitic, and it is also neither of these things. None of its three main religious representatives (a Christian, a Muslim and a Jew) ever acknowledge the existence of a God. There is no clear moral stance – it simply exposes endless uncertainty about who is right and who is wrong. It is up to the audience, to you - decide. If you are brave enough, and generous enough.It is a play about the frailty of humans. Marlowe shows us a messy world where love, death, fighting and war are unremittingly regular events just as they are today. He rightly believed that that the world was a confusing and disorderly place but he also believed it to be a place where there was much to celebrate. These two things go hand in hand in BARABAS. Through this work we aim to give all of you the chance to ask why this is so. Why, on the one hand, we are so ready to judge and why, on the other, so ready to turn a blind eye to the doings of the world.The nature of the play, its themes, and subject matter may cause offence in some quarters, and we hope to tackle this with as much sensitivity as is possible. But it is through plays such as this one that we have an opportunity to change attitudes, and broaden minds. This is why we are doing it now.During my first job, at the ripe old age of 18, as an assistant director at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, I remember a leading actor of the time saying ‘...if you want to be a theatre director, remember that there is no right or wrong. There is only not quite right’. In the same vein, what we are doing is neither right, nor wrong – but the best we can do for Cornwall. I hope you’ll be part of that. I also hope that you are all open-minded enough not to say that what we are doing is ‘wrong’.

Units, Units, Units….

The worst day of rehearsals for me is always the first day and this is often because the ice is not fully broken between the different members of the group. It’s often when all the actors meet for the first time (if possible, that’s a situation best avoided).

As a director you’re the conduit for every aspect of their work; you are the person who helps to channel all their hopes and fears into productive, workable material. The sense of responsibility can be crippling and often it is possible to cut the nervous atmosphere with a knife.

My favourite way of dealing with it is to work as closely as I can with each cast member on an individual basis – often for several months before full time rehearsals start. It necessitates a degree of tenacity but means we go into that month with a basic shared understanding of who we are and what we are like, rather than starting from scratch.

If you have a cast of 12 then you are in effect directing 12 different plays, and it is in those first few days of rehearsals that the director must establish the tools which give actors a good start. But starting can be a torturous process – and hard to plan or get right. Flexibility can be everything. Will this idea work? Will that technique fall flat or be a raging success? And then there’s all the preparation too…

So let’s get to the point. A few months ago a director I greatly respect was talking about ‘units of action’. What, you may want to know, is a ‘unit of action’? Well they are some times also called ‘beats’ and were first suggested by Konstantin Stanislavski as a means of helping actors determine the through line of a role.

I found this in a dictionary: ‘A unit is a discrete piece of action in a play-text, marked by a significant change in action.’

Units are also used by writers and dramaturges as a means of analyzing text for editing purposes. Dividing text into units makes it more manageable and easier to edit. They also make it easier to understand!

None of Marlowe’s plays are divided into acts or scenes – any scenes or acts that you see in published editions today are at the editor’s discretion. This means it is important to go through and define the action very clearly – and in lots of different ways.

Everybody has a different view about ‘the unit’. And each character will have a different set of ‘units’. For me, a unit of action is a way of identifying the ‘wants’ of each character, and then identifying the different actions that they undergo to achieve what they want. So it might be that Barabas does certain things to get what he wants…and Selim-Calymath does other things. What, for example, are the units of action that lead up to the murder of his daughter, Abigail?

Acting is about ‘doing’ more than it is about ‘feeling’. Using this technique is a great way of making ideas specific, and in this case, making the huge vista of ideas in the play manageable.

With a play like this one, there are also a million ways to work the principle of the ‘unit’ to advantage. It’s a bit like being let loose in a sweetshop (or in a bookshop – much better). So be prepared – I think this blog is a theme on which there will inevitably be variations…

There’s a certain person who’s been encouraging me for some time to get to grips with the Unit (you know who you are). I hope you’ll finally be glad that I‘ve started to get the message!

Speed

Okay I admit it – last week I nearly killed my boss. No, it wasn’t a confrontation; Tim and I get on brilliantly - we are a close team. It was in a car. We were bowling along between Truro and St Austell (me driving). For some reason we were traversing a pretty narrow lane when he pointed out a house owned by a friend of ours, nestling in the distant hills. I braked, and swerved, and no harm was done. Thank God.This is not an isolated incident – Tim was the only person brave enough to be a passenger when I drove for the first time after passing my test. As always, he remained very calm. But what is it about theatre directors and cars? I have had close encounters of the mobile kind with at least two leading lights of the theatre world. To the eminent director who nearly killed me when swerving out of a T-junction without looking, I apologise for my bad language. As for the other who somehow managed to navigate us across a jam packed London high street without so much as a bump or a scratch, I thank you for putting my safety before your own, but not for the rise in both our blood pressures. And as for the (nameless) one who proceeded through the West End at a highly illegal speed on that long distant Sunday afternoon...well, enough said.Would Marlowe have been great in a car? I can only imagine that the prospect of Kit behind the wheel would have been more hair-raising than the above incidents put together. To people living in the 1500s, transport must have had a whole different edge to it. Walking thirty of forty miles was nothing, and horses were a luxury. Then of course he also wrote a whole play about transport – DOCTOR FAUSTUS.Not only does FAUSTUS contain my favourite extant stage direction of the period (most stage directions are an editorial fancy) ‘enter Faustus to conjure’ there is also this crucial moment.Marlowe clearly saw people at the zenith as having winged feet. Faustus, having travelled round the world at the speed of light, elects to walk home to Wittenberg. Walk! He could have been there in minutes with Mephistophilis’ help. He could have flown by magic chariot. But his line ‘I’ll go on foot’ says it all – this is a man who has given up, and knows he is preparing for death, and tramps dispiritedly home on his own rather than being magicked there. It is a pivotal point in the story.Although The Jew of Malta does not contain so many references to getting around, I’ve been thinking a lot about means of transport in the play. Colin and I have been working quite hard on exits and entrances - or arrivals and departures – in order to get a sense of how flexible our set needs to be. We started off by working through the play, talking about each arrival and each departure as it came up. We have now replaced this discussion with a complicated chart, and it shows that arrivals (often by sea) and people secreting themselves in corners of the stage are going to be crucial if we are to express the mystery and secrecy, as well as the high drama of the play. More next time…

Why BARABAS?

So why BARABAS, The Jew of Malta?I think it’s because people are a little bit scared of it.Marlowe as a writer, and as a person, is ‘difficult’. The play is a challenge. It’s not easy.But there’s something about it...It is both dangerous and tremendously funny. It runs at a cracking pace. It is wild. It is naughty - very. It was one of the most performed plays of its time. Whenever staged, it made its audience laugh. By laughing, audiences are drawn in to the appalling web of intrigue that Barabas, the main character, generates - and this laughter, in a way, condones the nasty side of the tale.The play exposes much about how cruel humans can be towards each other. It also shows us how loving they can be. It’s an untidy mix. There is no moral stance – it simply exposes endless uncertainty about who is right and who is wrong.Marlowe shows us a messy world where love, death, fighting and war are unremittingly regular events just as they are today. But violent acts are also part of the fun.And there’s a strange connection between Malta – where the play is set – and Cornwall. Like Malta, Cornwall is an important staging post for communications, has a strong sense of its own identity and is a home to people from all walks of life.Like Cornwall, Malta is a place people fall in love with and return to. Both sit on a fault-line of cultures. In Malta there are links to Spain, Turkey, Africa, and Italy. ‘Mediterranean’ means ‘to link cultures’. Both places have an island culture. Both places, as a consequence, look outwardly.Above all other plays of the time this one is a celebration of life. It provides a spectacular but also a sensitive meeting place for audience and performers to find out new things about the world.Whilst it asks difficult questions about the world we live in, it does so in such a way that is charming, mischievous, and utterly irreverent.You may be surprised by what you discover…

Decisions, decisions...

Deciding ‘which play’ doesn’t come easy. It’s right up there with buying a house, starting a new job. This might sounds strange but from my point of view you’re committing to something pretty big – after all it’s a case of spending most of your time with the play, month after month. A bit like being in love, there’s this THING that fills – in some guise or other – most of your waking thoughts, and some of your dreams...Initially we thought hard about producing a new play by one of the many talented writers that we work with. But somehow this didn’t feel right. Whilst it is terribly important for playwrights to see their work in front of an audience it can go badly wrong if the circumstances aren’t right. Our theatre is not very sympathetic to new plays – the stage is 16 metres wide for a start – and it takes 14 seconds to get from the wings to the sweet spot.So it’s a challenge for writers to come up with words just to get people off and on! Shakespeare, of course, was brilliant at overcoming this problem; if you look at any number of Renaissance plays you’ll see scene after scene written to cover exits and entrances in those huge Renaissance theatres…So I wanted to find a big play that would sit well in our space and appeal to lots of different people. I also wanted a play that would give a whole range of artists the chance to learn new things. It’s a bit different when a writer is in the rehearsal room with you, you are facilitating their vision and this means that the circumstances for actors, musicians and designers are less free-ranging.It felt logical after RESPONSES to choose a Renaissance play. These are big plays – they cover universal themes and have been produced all over the world for centuries. They are rarely done on a large-scale down here – and hardly ever in a purpose built space.Our job at Hall for Cornwall is to encourage audiences to fall in love with the magical experience of live performance. It’s also our job to do things that others can’t do – after all we are the only purpose built large scale theatre in the space of nearly 100 miles!I’m interested in helping people to develop a passion for text-based work in particular, whether new plays or old. Through our new writing programme we help some exceptionally talented writers gain confidence and build skills. I wanted to use this production as a way of giving our audience new confidence in big, classical plays – and come to love Marlowe, his world and his words.

A bit about Marlowe

If BARABAS is to work then we must get right under the skin of the man who wrote it.History has left us a fair bit of information about Marlowe – in comparison we know next to nothing about Shakespeare - and it’s my job try to work out what he would have been like, and what he wanted to achieve with the play.One thing is clear. Marlowe is unnervingly honest. He wrote earthy, naughty plays and he was far from polite. How well he understood the world in which he lived, and died!Fascinated by street life, his early years in Canterbury must have witnessed a great many nationalities coming and going – as well as many flare-ups. It is clear from his play that he was good with a sword, great with his fists. He loved as passionately as he fought. I have a strong feeling that a night on the tiles with Kit would have been quite an occasion…Marlowe was no really a poet in the traditional sense – he wrote what he heard in daily life, often verbatim accounts of conversations on the streets. As a result, his plays are very immediate –full of phrases that we still use today.It’s really easy for us to treat people like Marlowe and Shakespeare with reverence. But they were just folk. Marlowe was not over-bright academically (feel free to challenge me on that) and I don’t doubt he wrote plays because it was one of the few ways that he could make a shilling, fast (and feel free to challenge me on that).He educated himself on the streets. He survived a university education by the skin of his teeth. But an extraordinary thing about Marlowe was that he was curious – about almost everything. And as he lived in an unstable world full of political, scientific and religious change and consequently, being curious necessitated being very brave.He sought through his plays to understand the conditions of his own culture. He knew the limits of what he could and couldn’t stage (censorship was rife at the time) and like most of his contemporaries he broke those limits.No other playwright of the time is as deeply imbued in his own work as he is. And no other writer was brave enough to share such controversial views on so many topics – sexuality, religion, politics, commerce…I have always loved him. He was a mischief maker, impetuous, quick to fire off, with strong survival instincts and an uncanny ability to turn things to his advantage. Like Marlowe I’ve got strong views about stuff and believe that the theatre is a great arena in which to air them. He had the courage portray the world as he saw it and he lived at a time when to do this meant dicing with death.Like I do, Marlowe saw the world to be a confusing and disorderly place. Yet he also believed it to be a place where there was much to celebrate. Though making plays he tried to change attitudes. All his plays ask huge questions – about the world, about life, and, above all, about what it means to be a human being.Then, of course, nothing quite became his life like the leaving of it.But that’s for another day…

How it all started...

BARABAS is a version of The Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe, and is Hall for Cornwall’s main-house production of 2008. Unbelievably, our show will be the first professional, large-scale revival for nearly a decade of this the most controversial of Renaissance plays. Whilst we put on touring work from all over the world it’s important that we make our own work as well, giving local artists and our own staff to be part of a creative process right from the start.

The roots of BARABAS were planted in 2005 when we started OPENING LINES – a playwriting competition set up to encourage people of all kinds to write a short stage play. As everybody has a story to tell, we wanted to get people writing. We also wanted to find out just how many people in the south west were interested making plays. We had more than 100 submissions and in the end, we produced three of the works at Hall for Cornwall – by Cornish writers Jane Pugh, Henry Darke and Victoria Field. Since then, Hall for Cornwall has produced many more works by local writers, as well as all manner of projects.

After OPENING LINES came RESPONSES, a project that initially involved ten playwrights and national artists working together over the course of a year to write original responses to plays from the Renaissance. Last summer, in 2007, we staged extracts from five of the plays at Hall for Cornwall and brought together more than fifty professional Cornish actors, musicians, writers, designers and artists to create the work.

RESPONSES was all about getting professional artists to use the idea of the Renaissance to expand their own understanding of why we make plays today. Something we learnt from the project was that to make great ‘new’ plays you have to be able to understand ‘old’ plays clearly. Just because a play has been around for a long time and is in print in a million different editions doesn't mean it’s sacrosanct. RESPONSES allowed Hall for Cornwall’s staff to realise that we had the ability to make more work of our own.

Hall for Cornwall is an ambitious project - everybody works very hard all the time to keep it going – and RESPONSES involved staff from every department.So shortly after RESPONSES we started thinking about our next production....Barabas.