Hello. Well. We are at the end of our first week of rehearsals for Origins, written by Steven Canny and John Nicholson. I thought I would attempt to sum up each week on here, along with some rehearsal photos, to give a flavour of how the show is progressing. So. Monday morning saw the beginning of ‘the hottest of the hot heat wave ever to have hit London ever in the history of the world’, and saw the 5 cast members Emily Wachter, Damian Lynch, Harry Arkwright, Max Hutcheon and Joseph Alford, myself, Orla, Caroline and Joni (stage management) head to Ealing Broadway, where we would spend the next 5 weeks rehearsing at the Questors Theatre. Our first few conversations were dominated by how long it had taken each of us to get there (1.5 hours seemed to be the average) and how delightful Ealing appeared in the sunshine! We are in a fairly lovely spot, a park just opposite (more of that later), Stan’s cafe, which sells ice creams, and the centre of Ealing a mere amble away. Perfect. The Questors Theatre itself is quite the hidden gem. Big, spacious, airy (but somewhat like a sauna in the sunshine) rehearsal rooms, 2 theatres, incredible prop and costume stores, all run by volunteers. So, after we had had the obligatory ‘how long did it take you to get here’ conversations and wiped the sweat from our brows, grabbed a cup of tea and a donut, we all sat around the table and Orla opened the week with a brief chat about Pentabus, and about the origins of Origins. After official introductions, we gave the play a gentle first read, which was highly exciting. The cast are quite simply, excellent, and seemed immediately at home with the style and pace of the piece. We then chatted about the world of the play, the world of historical fact, and where the two meet, the play’s visual, physical, robustly comic style, and the sense of responsibility in doing a piece about THE Charles Darwin. Steven and John (the writers) are willing for the text to evolve within rehearsals, and open to the fact that rehearsals might illuminate some better/sharper/ clearer ways of telling the story.

After the first read, a few slight changes to the text were made, and after lunch, we gave it another read, to begin to find the rhythm and momentum, to become familiar with the play as a whole, and to test the small changes Orla had suggested before lunch. The rest of the afternoon was spent reading character biogs which I had prepared, for us all to get a sense of who these people actually were. And the majority of these characters seemed to live such fascinating and busy lives, changing the world and discovering things all over the place!

Tuesday saw everyone connected to the production arrive at the Questors for a meet and greet. (more sweaty arrivals and more ‘wow, isn’t Ealing lovely and isn’t it ages away). John Moreton, Development Director at Pentabus had arrived with the Pentabus van, bursting with rehearsal props and other curiosities that might prove useful. Very exciting to see everyone involved-we have a rather huge team of rather wonderful people. One of the writers, Steven Canny, kicked off the morning by talking a little about his and John’s journey from idea to rehearsal draft, giving everything a bit of context, which was so useful to hear. They were interested in what it was in Charles’s early life that allowed him to become what he did. What was open to Charles in the years following 1809? The enormous amount of coverage that Charles Darwin has had this year seemed to overlook the fact that he had a childhood, so Steven said he was interested in exploring what that might have been in a story that recognised and celebrated diversity, variety, and possibility. What was useful for me was that Steven described this play as being about a family, and how a family dynamic can affect the choices we make. James Humphreys (the designer) then talked through the model box, which looks to be a thing of beauty (and a thing that can be put up in 20 mins, our turnaround in Edinburgh!).

After a production meeting, Orla asked the actors to sit in a line, and read through the play again, but this time whenever they were in a scene, to stand up and play their lines out. A remarkable exercise; just a simple instruction was all it took to begin to bring the play to life. Lots of laughter.

Wednesday saw us work from the very beginning of the play, up on its feet, exploring the broad brush strokes. It is a play written to be performed, not read, so the only way to discover what it is, is by getting it on its feet and playing with possibilities. It is also immensely technical, with quick costume changes, multiple roles, puppetry, animation, so much for the actors to get their heads around. And they totally embraced it all, such incredible energy, focus and downright brilliance from the cast and from Orla, that it was quite astonishing to watch the progress! We are using a bizarre mix of rehearsal props from all over the place (mainly from the Pentabus store rooms, which appear to hold many a weird and wonderful item!) as the stage management and design team get to grips with locating the many props that are needed. The hunt for a pink flamingo is on……

Thursday saw the hottest day in the heat wave. The sun creeps around so it beams straight onto the rehearsal room all afternoon, which means that we have had not tea breaks, but ice lolly breaks (from Stan’s cafe, naturally). Joni provided some respite from the almost unbearable heat by providing the rehearsal room with 2 fans. Thank goodness. It is such a physical show, and doing it in intense heat is not the ideal condition, but maybe a good warm up for the theatre in Edinburgh….
Mark Down from Blind Summit spent the day with us today. Charles for the first 15 years or so of his life in the play is played first by a blanket with a head, and then a puppet. So today was all about beginning to understand the language of these puppets, and the relationship between puppeteer and puppet. This begun with a very simple, but very effective object exercise, which involved us working with ordinary objects and making them gradually come to life. Brilliant. The presence of a puppet adds such a different element to a scene-there is something incredibly moving about watching a puppet interacting and responding with people. Everyone had worked so hard today that Orla thought a glass of wine in the park might be in order. So, in the idyllic park we were, happily chatting over a chilled glass of rose as the sun set, when two police approached us to say that there were bylaws in the park which made it illegal to drink alcohol. And that they would have to ’stop and account’ us!! After quite a bit of incredulation from our part, they spent the next 40 hours (felt like it anyway) taking down our names and addresses, which would be kept on their system for one year. We had to sit sheepishly as they took our details, as groups of 12 year olds walked past and laughed. The only person spared was Joseph, who had conveniently left but a few minutes before. (highly suspicious behaviour on his part, we suspect he had tipped them off. He denies it.)

Friday, after being able to laugh about our partial criminal records, we went back to the beginning of the play, working through in more detail and incorporating the work that was done with Mark yesterday, before moving on. I am astonished by how much has been achieved this week. Bring on week two, which will see the arrival of the set, the beginnings of projections, costume fittings and photoshoots, more puppet work with Mark, and no doubt more ice lollys.