Peter's Brook letter

from "I Try to Answer a Letter" , The Shifting Point (1987)

"Dear Mr Howe,

Your letter comes out of the blue and puts me on the spot.

You ask how to become a director.

Directors in theatre are self-appointed. An unemployed director is a contradiction in terms, like an unemployed painter – unlike an unemployed actor, who is a victim of circumstances. You become a director by calling yourself a director and you then persuade other people that this is true. So, in a way getting work is a problem that has to be solved with the same skills and resources that you need in rehearsal. I don't know any other way other than convincing people to work with you and getting some work under way – even unpaid – and presenting it to the public – in a cellar, in the back room of a pub, in a hospital ward, in a prison. The energy produced by working is more important than anything else.

So don't let anything stop you from being active., even in the most primitive conditions., rather than wasting time looking for something in better conditions that might not come off. In the end, work attracts work.

Yours sincerely,

---

Yeah... that's just about what I'm doing.

My dog in the press

Sing Tao Daily:
Firemen climb mountains to save 70 pound Golden Retriever:
Heatstroke on Pat Sing Leung Hike -- Owner Simon Chau powerless to save dog"

(Um, well. The most publicised disaster of family outings...
Click on pictures to enlarge for full articles...)

Apple Daily: "Four firemen carry Simon Chau's beloved dog down the mountain"



Oriental Daily: Environmentalist's beloved dog's legs give way on hike

Day Twenty two, the Draffin workshop

As a cumulative step our learning, the workshop ended with three nights of “open rehearsals.” The first night was fine, if a bit tense. The second night was challenging for the group, and the third night, the group coagulated into a chorus. And as for my part with the text, it really matured in its own jo-ha-kyu over the three nights. On the final night, I reached a place where I felt- yes, it all comes together:

It began well. The chorus lay still, a field of corpses at my feet as I recounted the devastation of Thebes-

I saw a heifer slaughtered.....her body was a
sackful of filthy tar.....filthy bubbling tar

As I spoke, the air became thick and turgid. You could feel the swollen gaps between my words -

everywhere cattle are dead in the fields.....dead in
their stalls..... in silent farms there are bones in
cloaks.....skulls on pillows.....every gutter stinks
death.....the heat stinks.....the silence stinks

As I walked forward into the aching space, I walked with knowledge of my second night inside me, a knowledge of raw anger that had me clambering across the chorus, up a pole and swinging from rafters.

where are the gods.....the gods hate us.....the gods
have run away.....the gods have hidden in holes
the gods are dead of plague.....they rot and stink
too

How did I get up there? I thought, walking into the studio the next morning. It’s really high. Dust had rained down as I clambered hand by hand, blinding the chorus, who scattered ready to catch me in case I fell-
I now took this strength and put it in my voice. I took that intensity and compressed the space in my walk forward.

“Please don’t side-coach me,” I said to Draf. “I want to take responsibility for monitoring my own voice.”
“No. If you go under I’ll remind you.”

Our eyes locked in confrontation.

“I know when I’m backing away- I want to figure out myself how to recover. I want to take that responsibility on myself.”
“Okay, but if it goes on for too long I will say something-” he threatened…
............................

................................... limbs suddenly go numb
Head begins to pound.....your face flushes puffs
and swells.....you go into a stupor.....eyes come
bulging out

Because of its four syllable units, the Cantonese rendition actually pounds even more relentlessly than English. I love how the rhythm is set up and then broken-

你四肢麻木.....頭昏腦脹... 面紅耳赤 ...又腫又脹
你失去知覺 ....腹部滾火... 眼突耳嗚... 鼻流黑血
你向四壁亂撞 .....被咳声震碎
為咗心涼乜都燒毀 ....尖叫 ...攬石頭 ...飛身投河

The chorus clung to my legs as I waded forward. I strained onwards, trying to drag free of their collective weight. They grasped my hands. I fought tooth and claw. My voice ripped from earth through center as I flung the words across space in primal rage towards the heavens at the gods until my voice cracked and sundered.

God, it was exhilarating.


And now… in the aftermath of the workshop…. lines still hum in my head as I sprawl on the sofa, with my cat warm on my belly. Already my head is planning logistics for the new piece, “Concrete Jungle.” Actually, it’s all logistics right now... I look forward to actually spending time thinking about the piece itself. But I feel good about it. I press forward with the visceral knowledge of an immense capacity for strength and love-

And the knowledge that there are people with immense creative energy, who even as I write, are figuring out ways to build on our shared experience….

Day Twenty, the Draffin Workshop

As the workshop draws to a close, I am taking this time to reflect upon what I have learnt this month. It's been an intense month. The first two weeks were pure fun, movement, contact, space… very good for me in terms of基本功, a return to the fundamentals.

Then, in the third week, we entered the world of text. It was a introspective week – we spent a lot of time spent "dropping in" with our own monologues, plastique (authentic movement), contact guide (where someone tries to free you vocally and break your habits…
It was a challenging week in many ways, as working with text is still a relatively new thing for me. I like the journey from body to voice to text – this makes sense to me – and I think it gave me a much clearer idea of how to stay authentic to the moment in both body and voice.



One question that I have been mulling over quite a bit is about the balance of in : out
There seems to be a number of steps to this process.

First you create the world in sensory detail. I can still remember Paola (my teacher in Lecoq) holding my hand and walking through my imaginary childhood bedroom. You have pots of paint? Feel its weight. What is the lid made of? Feel the coolness of the metal. Open the pot – smell the paint…

And then, if you breathe in these sensations, certain feelings arise.
For example, in my monologue my opening lines have a huge sense of space for me.

田野佈滿死牛牛掤塞滿死牛
Everywhere cattle are dead in the fields dead in the stalls

This sense of space aches in me.

This feeling, therefore is a by-product. Now it is very important to stay with this feeling, and just let it be what it is. Neither to push it (when the actor expresses more than he or she feels, the emotion will feel forced, because you are "telling" the audience what you feel), nor to hold on to it past what it is.

In some ways, it is not unlike the chi (氣感) in tai chi. At first it is very exciting to feel the chi, this new dimension of yourself. You feel like you are doing something right. (好有"feel"). But chi and emotions are by-products, they can give you feedback, but are not things you should seek for or hold on to.

Now the question, the crucial question that I am currently trying to figure out is: having created this inner world, how do I become transparent, so that this world can be accessible to the audience?

This is something I need to work on, I know. A few months ago I was doing some authentic movement with Adrian and Tuen. It was a really rich exploration for me, but I suspect this world was largely opaque to the two witnesses. I was closing them off.

I suspect in life too, I hold a certain reserve.

連死神都病咗....喺自己哩埋喺房喊.....同啲牆自言自語

My monologue is very well suited to me for many reasons.