First showing of QUACK! to a live audience. Check out the FTH:K blog…we’ll see you from Festival when maybe there’s a second or two to breathe.
Travel safe, all you clowns. Look forward to the annual mecca of all things theatrical.
Phew. So time is upon us and we are very close to our first public foray now. If you’re an FTH:K member you’ll know what that’s all about. If you’re not, then contact us to become one!
It’s been a long hard process, with many a winding turn, and a change here and a change there that has kept us all on our toes. Much deep contemplation and stress and trying to keep each other motivated. Sometimes we really gotta ask ourselves why we do this crazy thing we do called theatre.
But slowly slowly it comes together and moves towards its end. 
It truly is a strange piece as it stutters and flops and finds its way towards the light. The cast have really been epic, the designers working their asses off, and we’re more or less keeping our kak together, waiting for the click together of certain pieces.
Today was one of those clicks. We’ve progressively been fed new stuff for the set, costumes, sound, masks every day, and it’s been great. But today I was messing about with the lighting rig, and we got a couple of things well on their way. It’s not perfect, of course, but there’s enough to sift through and check it and implement changes. But finally, [finally!] we’re making headway, and you can feel the frisson of excitement build up inside the cast, and it’s this stuff that will spur us on to even greater heights.
Phew. The Grahamstown clock…nay, the special showing clock…is counting down relentlessly, but slowly slowly the show is coming together. This week has been a flurry of meetings and consultations – design, logistics, admin, narrative, publicity, and funding. Somewhere in all of this has been the need to actually direct the show…but bit by bit it’s finding its way.
Janni has created some awesome masks – they’re creepy and graphic, and more than slightly African…and they not even finished yet! They are gonna rock wildly. It’s been amazing just messing about with them – the whole show has shifted forward almost effortlessly. The cast has been undergoing a series of “lightbulb” moments – the ones that go “ping!” on the floor and when the masks come off, there are looks of almost disbelief – wow, did I really do that?
Jesse has done some amazing things with the set also, and we’ll get the final version delivered to the theatre Monday morning. We have a week and a half to clamber about it like kids again, and finalise a few scenes. All this ready for the special showing on Thursday night. If you’re an FTH:K member, you’ll already know what I’m talking about. If not, you need to get informed! Give Tink a call at 021 448 2838 to find out how you too can join the swelling ranks of FTH:K fans, supporters, friends, and members.
Phew. Here we go, then…the final dash towards the line…
So, with a huff and a puff, our posters went to print last week, and here’s how they turned out:
You’ll notice just minor little changes from the last post about it’s development. Can’t wait til I can see ‘em in their glory, all full-sized and spooky.
And the Pictures poster looks like so:
Quite a handsome pair of quirky darknesses…
It’s a wintry Saturday and damn we should all be huddled up in warmth and rest and doing great weekend stuff, but the ‘flu has been claiming time from us in terms of mask making etc, and we are seeing Grahamstown hurtling towards us. Aargh!
So the whole cast has given up their Saturday to muck in up to their elbows in glue and papier mache, and get our faces together some. Which is great, and more than one should maybe ask for from a cast, but there’s a strong sense of ownership coming through with the ensemble. So…pressurised, stressed, but with much in the bag already, we continue into the good fight.
Here Liez chats briefly about the process and how it’s going.
So the venue renovations soar ahead, and we are very grateful, but man – is it hard to work in the cacophony or what?!?
Doing yoga yesterday morning was a case in point. So there we all are, deep breathing, stretching, flexing into our asanas, it’s a good morning…when the van rocks up outside. Heavy electro pop music screams through the shattered silence, followed by a chorus of greeting/general abuse. Ah, the builders are year. Undeterred, we continue. Aforementioned shattered silence gibbering in the corner now, we transition to the sound of the scaff being set up. Then more abuse and another round of salutations to each other’s mother/girlfriend/etc. Heavy workboots on the roof. heavy scaffolding on the roof, but no worry, it’s upended extended lotus blossom flower and breath through the…shower of brick and plaster debris. Is that an angle grinder?!?!? WTF?!?! Peaceful meditation last seen scribbling on the wall in its own confused spittle.
It’s flippen great that the place is getting a facelift – at last we can look our neighbours in the face and stop being apologetic for the run down shell of a building at the end of the road, but I say again it’s the worst timing in the world. What should be a place of quiet, committed, and very focussed investigation and rehearsal is a bit of a rubbish tip – dusty when dry and warm, gritty from all manner of evil lurking in the old roof beams, noisy as all hell, and when it rains – cold and water running down the inside of the walls in places. Madness.
It’s certainly one of the reasons we feel so rattled, but time is so laughably short now that we’ve actually got to just grit teeth towards themselves, carry on, and finish this puppy in whatever form.
And at least we’ll have a swanky looking building at the end of it all. Small mercies. We’ll go on.
Still trying to get my site sorted so that I can upload youtube vids, so for now take a gander at the FTH:K blog and see what the cast are saying about the process so far. Nerves showing? You think?
Sweet as in sa-weet, of course.
So many people had been chooning me we had to see this movie as a reference to QUACK! that finally we made the mission. I’d been meaning to catch it earlier as the book is written by Neil Gaiman (of Sandman fame) and the movie directed by Henry Selick (who helmed Nightmare before Christmas)…needless to say two big time all round influences and cool guys.
This movie is flippen awesome. If you haven’t seen it yet, go now. It rocks. We sat spellbound for the length of the movie looking like Jarvis in our thick black-rimmed specs (which are wayyy better than the last 3D film I saw with white cardboard glasses that cut the bridge of one’s nose) and just entranced by this work of art. I don’t think it’s perfect, as a movie it’s got lots of narrative hiccoughs (and what does the Other-Mother do with the lives she takes? We all sat up to pay attention cos we’re trying to answer that in QUACK! but sat back feeling a bit puzzled. Did we miss it? Or does it matter?), and sometimes you wish for something grittier.
But Tink had many popcorn-thrower moments (named after that scene in Lord of the Rings where Bilbo suddenly screeches “Give me my ring!” and Tink managed to lob half a box of popcorn all over me in fright. Brilliant!) and we oohed and ahed like little kids again, which I think is really necessary in this world.
Was struck immediately by the time and effort put into the creation of something quite unique and special, and the amount of love and commitment that takes and how that is one of the best parts of this job…I mean, life.
So, inspired and beefed up, we careen into the new week chasing that strange intangible magic all over again. May we catch even just a moment of that.
All theatre types who read this will be used to the to and fro of poster design, but thought I’d post this anyway…
So, for QUACK!, we’re looking for an enigmatic poster to set the mood for the show, and somehow encapsulate our clown noir idea. The first draft I come up with as a filler and to set balls rolling is this:
It’s OK, it does the job, but it’s not, y’know, perfect. Which is why I do the directing and not the designing.
So enter Tom Schwarer, an all-round genius and particularly hot graphic designer now sadly based in Durban…sad ‘cos it’s far and we don’t get to see him or his family much. Anyway, Tom has long been a friend and collaborator and has, in fact, done all the FTH:K designing since our first show (as from the hip) in 2000. With the exception of Birds’ Eye View in 2006 and ‘Nuff Sed in 2007.
So he has a whip around and comes out with this:
Which is an interesting inversion of the skeleton man, and ties in the hypnotic circles of our “Listen with your Eyes” logo. But it feels not quite there so we send feedback and the next draft comes back thus:
Which is getting more interesting – the skelly man has become more scratchy (which is good), but I’m not convinced with either the white at the top of the poster or the titling – it doesn’t quite feel right. We talk through the concept of the show again, discuss some influences and atmospheres, and Tom returns soon thereafter with this:
Which is now getting really interesting – it looks a bit like a Sandman graphic novel cover, which is awesome (as the show is drifting towards graphic novel territory), as is the skellington now upside done, which is lank unusual and quite catching. But that titling…hmmm, just not buying it. So Tom has another go and we get to:
And we’re almost there, methinks. We need to add a few more funders’ logos, and Tom wants to clean up the titling a bit more, as it’s a bit difficult to read bigger (a little too ornate is the opinion of his office), but we’re real close. And it’s sexy and dangerous and way cool.
So remember that name – Tom Schwarer. Black Square Web Solutions. He’s a genius. Seriously.
Oh, and you can’t see it so well ‘cos the pic is small for web purposes, but welcome onboard the team to Brydon Bolton who’s going to be working with James on the sound design. We are indeed honoured!
We’re probably slightly behind the clock, but that I actually could have predicted. Never mind – we’re forging ahead as best we can and will get as far as we can for Grahamstown. We always did see this as a first draft of a much longer process that sees a Cape Town week later on this year, a national tour in 2010, and (hopefully) an international festival . No small stakes, then.
It’s quite interesting to feel the pressure build as we grow in experience and reach – suddenly the room to flop becomes less as expectation mounts from previous work. I guess that could really make one back off, slow down, or stick to what one knows only, and we always have to remind ourselves that we have to keep pushing that envelope, that our journey has only really started, and we must prevail and continue, and if that means flopping, then flop we must. How else are we really gonna learn?
So we’ve been busy doing a lot of thematic investigation and character research this week. At the same time combining interesting scraps that come up with stories and relationships from last week, and trying them out against each other. Last week we were exploring ways of lying and being lied to, and stripping stories down to their bare minimum – a gesture, or a moment, or a pivotal look or shape of the body. We’ll then choose a moment, or story and amplify that again, adding other bodies to occupy space and either add reinforcement, or a contrasting feeling that does the same thing a different way. We have a fair amount of material to be used for the show, though how much will survive is up for grabs. But slowly slowly, catchee play…the thing starts emerging out of the shadows.
This might sound fragmented and a slightly haphazard way of working, and to be fair it is, but it is the road we are on at the moment, and as usual, there are no real landmarks, or maps, or guides, and we have to mission along as best we can, working our way through the back streets.
Design wise, the show gathers steam. Everyone is hard at work to deliver the final goods as soon as possible (I have a feeling Jesse 
might hate me as we’ve been rattling the set design backwards and forwards most of the week in the need to arrive at as perfect a design for something that isn’t made yet and we have no real way of knowing what it will ultimately be). To the right is a preliminary draft of the PREACHER character mask. I’ve been meaning to post it for ages now as it’s morphed and developed since, but here are first looks, as promised!
And this is the ASSISTANT. At first we were worried that she was a little close to the Janet mask from Pictures of You (and played by the same performer) so we’ve been pushing the hairline back more and more ‘til she’s starting to resemble a cancer patient more, with the effects of chemo. Leila’s been toying with the idea of building in sagging breasts to her costume, so she’s gonna be awesome to play we believe, and fairly pivotal to the story. Ag, they’re all pivotal to the story…what am i saying?
To the right is the INNOCENT. As with the others, there are traces of African masks in all, the difference with her being more sprightly hair. The mouth has a protruding bit which will allow for thumb sucking and a really curious alien bafflement with the world and how it all works.
And below are the ACOLYTES. Now, interestingly, I always saw them operating in a more Butoh-esque sphere…slow, sustained, spooky, and ethereal. But interestingly, running some exploratory improvs, based on observed characters, there was an awesome suggestion for the two of them to be something of a clown duo. Which could actually work very well by offering a little more relief into what is pretty dark material. The lightness also enables them to lose more as the show goes on, thus allowing the audience to experience the sense of loss and decay. Hmmm. As Giovanni would say, rubbing his hands in glee: “Curiosity! Curiosssssiteeee!!”
