First week of Moby Dick Thoughts from Rebecca Megson

Production Week Blog
Friday 6th April

Well. What a very good Good Friday it is today.

And that was it. Our first week out there, sharing our adventure aboard the Pequod with the great and the good public. It has been an exhausting week. Multiple 16 hour days to transform the Bierkeller Theatre from nightclub into 19th century whaling ship (Sunday & a chunk of Monday), to rehearse all the technical aspects of the show (Monday and a chunk of Tuesday), to undertake the first full run of the show and dress rehearsal (Tuesday), to open our doors to welcome aboard our first audience (Tuesday) and then the press (Wednesday). We rounded off our last show of the first week (Thursday) with a few fizzy lemonades & some homebaked whale cake (by director Anna Girvan, is there no end to her list of talents?) to celebrate the birthday of our rather marvellous ASM (Pepz Cannell) and today we performed a mini get out to enable the Bierkeller to fulfil its other important function of being Bristol’s darkest and heaviest nightclub on a Friday and Saturday night. Busy? Yeah, you could say that.

BUT, what an awesome week! The hard work of the weeks of rehearsal, prop and costume sourcing & making, in addition to the very physical slog of get ins and outs have really paid off. The production has received great reviews (links below) and has been well appreciated by the audiences who have been fortunate enough to partake in the voyage thus far. We’ve received nods of approval from our producer/writers and, well, yes, I’ll admit it, we’ve really rather loved getting the old girl launched and isn’t that really the magic fairy dust of theatre? That a bunch of crazies get together and enthuse about making something happen and then work their proverbials off until, there you go, a show, an invitation to another world for a couple of hours is created. Yes. It’s all a bit emotional. There really hasn’t been enough sleep this week. You’ll get more sense out of me next week. Possibly.

Well, we’re all off now, for some well earned shore leave. We should probably save the celebratory babysham-and-brandy and fat-cigars-all-round levels of excess to the end of our run (which is an unthinkable amount of time away yet, thankfully) but a wee measure of grog is surely to be enjoyed by all before we board and relaunch the show again on Sunday evening.

All that’s left to do is wish you all a very happy Easter/long weekend from DarkStuff Production and the Dickatrons…

http://www.guide2bristol.com/news/2036/Bristol-Bierkeller-Theatre-review–Moby-Dick-by-Darkstuff-Productions

http://www.thepublicreviews.com/moby-dick-the-bierkeller-theatre-bristol/

http://www.thisisexeter.co.uk/Dive-appreciate-depth-watery-threat/story-15735516-detail/story.html

Moby Dick Image

Rebecca Megson 2nd Rehearsal Blog

Rehearsal Diary
Rebecca our first mate and production/stage manager gives us her second dose of thoughts on the forthcoming show. Starting April 3rd

I’m late with my blog. (not as late as some Ed.) I know. I am sorry.

That’s sort of the way of things the week before opening night. Suddenly the best laid plans seem to be moving too slowly or some evil creature from another universe (maybe even an alien mythical great white whale…) seems to be eating up huge chunks of time, but so quietly you’d never know it. Sneaky.

In the illustrious words of Douglas Adams though DON’T PANIC! Really. Things are actually under control and the levels of stress are just indicative of the sort of furious drive to perfection that fuels the best theatre making. But let me take two minutes over a steaming mug of coffee to bring you up to date.

Last week we were hurtling though the script and figuring out how to make best use of the phenomenal space at the Bierkeller. The alchemy that is the mix of venue, actors, direction and script began to weave its dark magic and the patchwork of scenes started to develop an intensity and integrity that made them at once exciting and compelling: In one dream sequence we experience being alone with Captain Ahab, living with the heart and heat of his obsession, feeling the way around its rough, compulsive edges with him; in another we are chortling along with Stubb and Ishmael and the crew, developing in our familiarity with them as they do with one another on this voyage; in a third we chase whales across the ocean and follow the lances, eager for them to hit their mark…

The Bierkeller is a fabulous venue for all the reasons you’ll see next week and beyond (if you aren’t already familiar with it that is) but it is dark and in comparison to the Mediterranean temperatures we are experiencing outside at the moment, it’s a tiny bit chilly. One of the highlights therefore, of last week was taking the team out on the river to rehearse on one of the Bristol Ferry boats. The actors had the chance (in addition to receiving their weekly quota of fresh air and light) to practice their sea shanties, rehearse key scenes from the play aboard ship, ask questions of the ferrymen pertaining to knots and nautical navigation and to spend some quiet, reflective time in character contemplating their relationship with the water and with a life aboard ship. I won’t lie. It was useful, productive, even. It was however also damn good fun too.

Which is something nice to reflect on as this week we fret about soundboards and laptops and projectors; when we wonder if it is possible to ever have enough rope and whether we’ll reach the end of the stagger thru before the weekend descends upon us and we hit the tidal surge of tech and dress that awaits us, almost as though it were our destiny…

Moby Dick

Rebecca Megson our first mate and stage manager on the production kicks off our first blog of 2012.

Rehearsal diary – Monday 19th March

It’s hard to believe that it’s really only two weeks ago today that we met, united around the body of that epic beast, the great white whale of Moby Dick….and I have to stop writing for a moment to confess that as I write this I’m having an internal battle about avoiding or using hackneyed seafaring expressions….damnit all. I’ll use them now and get it over with.

The crewmates all aboard (baring one lost soul who we managed to scoop up out of the brine the next day), we examined our craft the Pequod (aka Bierkeller Theatre) before proceeding in a seamanlike manner on foot to the Grain Barge for the first read through of the script.

With the wind in our sails, the past two weeks voyage have taken us from the shared maps of our lives, through balls of pain, into shapes of ships, discovering the whale in the sound of a saw, via in-depth character work, building backgrounds and relationship that give a tacit wholeness to the present moment we find ourselves on the hunt for Moby Dick. Last week the actors got down to the dirty business of line learning and, freed from the script on key scenes, began to build the bones of their storytelling performance. The speed at which the piece is forming and unfolding before us is breath-taking and speaks not only to the quality of the script, the direction & the excellent casting but also to the verve and dedicated spirit of all those involved. Exciting times indeed.

Made more so by today. Today is the day we move our rehearsals into the Bierkeller so we really get to play with the story in the place that we’ll be living it and sharing it with you all in a couple of weeks. This week in general looks set to be another busy one in which we nail down props (not literally obviously, that would be cumbersome and I suspect Bierkeller Alex wouldn’t be too pleased with us), sound & music and costume. Phew. Lots to do. Right m’hearties, I’d better get back to it.

Bex – Stage Manager (or First Mate??)

RARG writes.

RARG the musical overlord and composer for the fantastic soundtrack to the show this year gives us his thoughts on dance music, rave and…hippies. A great read. Enjoy.

I’ve got this theory, right? My theory is this: Most of the great cultural movements in music do not involve a lot of people, but those people who are involved go on to be in a position to write a history that favours their particular movement, so naturally we now get a distorted view of the truth – what we think was a mass, popular, zeigeisty thing, actually wasn’t that popular. It’s just that, with hindsight, it seems millions were involved.
Here’s an example for you: The late 1960s did not, in fact, see the entire country enthralled in a collective dribbling of peace n’ love. The sweaty irony about the psychedelic era is that, for the most part, only a couple of hundred middle and upper class students were involved. Oh, it blossomed outwards and thousands – millions even – eventually took part in all manner of freak outs and happenings, but in fact, most of the rest of the country were bemused, and a few were disgusted, by the concept of the hippie era. So my theory goes that those few hundred people who had core involvement had very good PR, or were written about by the popular and underground press of the time, or were influential in fashion, design and the media (and they continue to be), and have gone on to have influence over our perceptions of our pop-culture history. Thus we think of the late 1960s as one big tie-dye free-for-all.
It wasn’t. It’s a lie. Listen to the charts in the late 60s – there was precious little actual psychedelia… most of it was bland easy-listening and novelty songs. The Psychedelic movement was underground, hidden. Oh, it was talked about, but rarely seen. Look at contemporary film of London and the Provinces at the fag-end of the 60s and you’d be in for a shock. Far from the Hipgnosis-designed, patchouli-scented, bubble-light show, London in the late-60s was drab, austere, and still heavily scarred by the Second World War. Imagine what it was like elsewhere in the British Isles. Towcester, for example, or Leeds, Carlisle, Ullapool, or Kings Lynn, or Swansea. And most people hated hippies.
The same goes for the punks, 10 years later. The original punks – the “Bromley Contingent” – numbered barely a couple of hundred people. If all the people who claimed to be at the 100 Club on 21st/22nd September 1976, when there was the great weekend-long punk festival, whereupon the legend of the Sex Pistols/The Damned/Siouxie & the Banshees exploded. If all of these claimants decided to get together for a nostalgic reunion, you’d need to hire Wembley Arena. Clearly the 100 Club had TARDIS-like properties and held several thousand people, judging by all the old punks who swear blind that they were there that weekend.
Most people are liars, as I’m sure you know.
But those people who were there, or on the fringes, or read about it in the NME have told us how important is was for them. The punks won, they wrote the subsequent books, made the documentary films. If the Goths of the early 80s went on to write compelling narratives of their culture, we’d assume, from the standpoint of 2011 that in 1983 everyone listened to The Mission (nobody did, they were rubbish).
What would be the legacy of the current generation? What happens if the Mumford & Sons fans went on to hold positions of influence in the media? Would future generations assume that the rise of insipid, folk-inspired rock bands was the hip thing of 2011? Or would fans of Dubstep write the books? Or would it be some other culty underground thing which we have no knowledge of. There are “scenes” and sub-cultures everywhere, and they rely on liars to perpetuate myths.
I’m one of those liars when it comes to the rave scene of the early 90s. I wasn’t really there, you know, being provincial and a bit horrified. My actual experience of the 90s rave culture is extremely limited – especially as I only really became an active participant when the whole scene was on the wane (and even then I wasn’t that much of an enthusiastic “raver”). Thrashing around wildly to basslines in farmhouses in Devon, to beats and tunes spun by barely competent DJs who were only just out of their teens, spinning into a fug of badly-rolled joints and sticky, heady, marijuana smoke is my vague memory. The only acid, or acidic content, in my life at that thrilling time was teeth-tingling homemade scrumpy, and the thought of Ecstasy brought me out in a rash. Still does. Hugging people? Strangers?? In a marquee somewhere in the home counties whilst mashing my teeth to a nostalgic childrens’ television theme put to a blistering 808 breakbeat?? With gyrating bodies all around me, all waving glowsticks?? Didn’t Hieronymous Bosch draw something similar for his depictions of Hell and damnation?
The other great youth and music culture of the early 90s was Grunge. Grunge was totally different to rave. It was a lot more immediate, probably because it was just guitar, bass and drums – teenagers are remarkably conservative when it comes to sudden shifts in musical trends, and traditionalists (those who have grown up with serious-minded rock/muso parents) reacted to rave music with horror… Music? Done by sequencers and drum machines? Where’s the skill in that?? For muso-snobby teenagers, it was an anathema. And they all scurried back to their Stratocasters and learned the riff to Smells Like Teen Spirit. It was a lot easier to digest. I knew loads of people in Grunge bands. I didn’t know anyone who was a budding DJ.
The trouble with Grunge was that everyone was into it. Everyone’s a miserable teenager. We’re all losers, slackers, dropouts, stoners, lazy, indolent, Generation X-ers under the skin. And we’re all massively angry and stroppy about it, and Grunge articulated all of that – usually quite badly.
Thanks to Nirvana, suddenly everyone was a misunderstood outcast. Even the people who weren’t really that misunderstood and outcast. The same people who played rugby for the town, drank in the pub, yelled in groups, did that masculine roar thing that men do, and beat you up on the way home from clubs, were also secretly at home, weeping to In Utero and writing faux-junkie prose about everyone else – you included – being a corporate automaton, following the herd and selling out, like brainless sheep. Fancy that! The guy, with all his mates, calling you a poof and kicking you in the balls actually listened to Jeremy by Pearl Jam and felt affinity with it. Even wankers have layers, you know.
Grunge wasn’t underground culture, it became mainstream yuck to satisfy a) some moody bloody teenagers who just want music that whinges; and b) some greedy record company execs who saw dollar signs in mass-marketing plaid shirts.
In a way, dance music in the early-mid 90s, before the megaclubs like Cream and Ministry of Sound took over, had a purity that other music of the time couldn’t offer: Bleepy loop, beat, repeat.
God, it was boring.
Actually, that’s not fair. Yes, it’s boring to sit and listen to in the cold light of day in your front room (unless you were coming down), but that wasn’t what it was about. It was the lifestyle, the togetherness, the tribal, communal, ritual music and experience. That ritual, once any quasi-spiritual, astrological, new-age bullshit was stripped from it was this:
Get caned. Dance together.
(You know, you could do the same with Morris Dancing, or at a Ceilidh, by substituting DJs for three old men with accordions and mandolins, and substituting Es and weed for cider, but let’s not get distracted)
The majesty of the rave still holds a place in my heart, because that culture was part of my formative experiences. And the same can be said for all my contemporaries. We were all THERE, man. Exactly in the same way as our parents were THERE, at the vanguard of hippiedom in the 60s (except they weren’t really).
We all felt it, wherever we were in the arse end of the UK at the time. We felt it all right. That intangible feeling, of being part of a movement, of being part of a crowd that ebbs and flows to the touch and pull of the DJ. The hot sweaty thrill of dancing with hundreds of others. The music: Loud, sweaty, pummelling, invigorating, welcoming, womb-like. With all of us feeling the mother-heartbeat; the ur-beat… soaring glissandos and siren-like analogue synths, blissful gospel vocals and throb throb throb throb… all sex and violence and danger and possibility and freedom. No wonder the Conservative Government of the early 90s sought to curb rave culture as firmly as it could.
Some people never get over the idea of dancing in a stone circle in Wiltshire to Trans Global Underground at 6am as the sun rises. Somewhere, in the room of our mind lit by ultra-violet bulbs, some of us still hear Voodoo Ray by A Guy Named Gerald on a permanent loop, our body juddering and jerking to 140bpm.
When I was asked to write music for this trip into a nostalgic underworld, I had to rechannel all those experiences. The beats, the sounds, the whoosh of a MiniMoog Low Pass Filter, the sibilant doosh of a Roland drum machine. Bom-tss, Bom-tss Bom-tss Bom-tss. And the sweat, and the noise, and the confusion, and the constant shuffling and writhing, and strangers hugging you. There was something about the music which gave the impression the creators lived the music. You couldn’t fake it. You had to live the lifestyle, take the drugs, dance to the beat. If you didn’t, everyone could spot the fake. A dance music producer of my acquaintance (not a friend, I hasten to add, he was a coke-addled wanker) told me the secret of great rave music was all about tension and release. Once he told me that, all those formative, Devon farmhouse-party experiences dancing to music that seemed to envelop me actually finally made sense. All about tension and release, the thrill, the excitement, the let-down, the peak. The great, gushy, sticky, two-in-the-morning climax. Gosh, it really is all about sex and drugs, isn’t it?
Reaching back all those years to create music to capture that vibe was my challenge. Unlocking those memories and channelling the thub and wob of synthetic basslines If you then listen to the music as part of this show, and it causes you recall your own ravey experiences – whatever it was – then my work ain’t been in vain for nothing.

(Although to be honest, if you’re only vaguely aware of the music when you see the show, that’s fine by me. If I’ve turned you on, find me at www.soundcloud.com/rarg )

HELEN PARKER.

Helen Parker explains how she came to create her work for this years show:

‘FOR REAL LOVE’
By Helen K Parker

Writing on a subject I know nothing about is a challenge I usually avoid as a new writer, so when I was presented with the opportunity to create a monologue set during a rave, my first reaction was something akin to panic. I knew I wanted to write a strong piece for a female actress. I also wanted it to be dark, something for an actress to really sink her teeth into. Trouble was, I knew nothing about rave, and my speciality as a writer is dialogue. OK, I told myself, play to your strengths and go with what you know.
First off, and I admit this unashamedly, when it came to the monologue structure I used a loophole. Thinking of the Listener in Beckett’s ‘Ohio Impromptu’, I included a second, mute character who actively participates in the piece, but has no words to say. As a result, I not only maintained the monologue structure, but I created two meaty roles for female actresses, instead of just one. Bonus.
As for the subject matter itself, my own standout memory of the 1990s rave scene is of the media frenzy surrounding the death of Leah Betts. Teenagers like myself were being told that if we took even a single E then we’d either die like Leah, or become junkies like the kids in Trainspotting. And that’s when I realised I did know something about rave after all – I had been a first-hand witness to its media trial and public execution.
And besides, what better way to symbolise the death of rave than to have a death, at a rave? But I didn’t want to mirror some inglorious and grubby story like the ones the media had revelled in when I was a teenager. I didn’t want to vindicate that ignorant and small-minded perception. I wanted a bigger subject. A more universal explanation for the carnage human beings cause, to themselves and to others. And for me, you can’t get much bigger than love.

We’re all looking for love, right? For real love.

And some of us will do terrible things to get it.

CORRINNE CURTIS -THE PRODUCER ON E.K AND THE DEATH OF RAVE

More behind the scenes accounts about the forthcoming Eddie King show, this time from Corrinne Curtis who is overseeing the whole production as THE PRODUCER –

Corrinne writes:

Twas a blustery June day when Mr. Simon Harvey Williams accosted me thus: “Corrinne, d’you fancy putting on a show in five weeks’ time?”. How could I respond but with “Er…”? With little more than that I was whisked away to the depths of the Tobacco Factory Café Bar to begin my very first Darkstuff adventure. Ah the thrills of that first meeting – such excitement, such visions, such grandeur – and swiftly following the descent of reality. Ah. Well, no we can’t really have pyrotechnical displays, or Johnny Depp, or personalised rave gear for every member of the audience.

That sad fact aside we are fast approaching the opening night and we have five fantastic writers who have created some wonderful pieces, six exciting actors and one very imaginative director. Who needs an obscene budget and spectacular effects when you’ve got an incredibly warm company to be working with and a great show in the making? It’s all starting to come together and while I’m far from being supremely undaunted, my dominant feelings are of great excitement and pleasantly nervous anticipation.

My checklists are very slowly diminishing but there’s still plenty to organise. At times Producing can be a tad on the heart-attack-inducing side of things, but for the most part I’m enjoying liaising with new people, sourcing all sorts of paraphernalia and being a large part of helping to bring everything together. My favourite part is yet to come: the rehearsals! Having read all of the pieces, cast the actors and discussed things at length with the creative team I am thoroughly excited at the prospect of seeing the production in the flesh. This year more than any other the pieces will all be connected by the setting and, I won’t say much more, but paths will cross and links will emerge.

So although we didn’t engage Johnny Depp (apparently he’s busy) I am nonetheless confident that our night of tales will weave a wonderfully dark story, binding the fates of six characters and giving a last hurrah to those acid-happy days. Come lurk in dark corners and witness the death of rave.

Simon Harvey Williams on his piece for Eddie King and the Death of Rave

As promised here are the thoughts of a variety of people involved in the creation of this years LTD EDITION spectacular spectacular!
Kicking us off is our own Simon Harvey Williams with some notes about the piece he has written.

Simon writes:

Ashputtel

I decided fairly quickly that my piece for ‘Pills, Thrills’ would have the feel of a fairy tale or a fable – Ashputtel is one of the alternative titles for the original ‘Cinderella’ story. What inspired me was the memory of my first Glastonbury Festival. I remembered my experience of climbing over the – then manageable – festival fence and emerging on the other side into a dream-like world with people carrying lit torches and different kinds of music coming from all directions. I’d lost my friends and I wandered around feeling like a complete innocent taking it all in, knowing that my perception of the world had changed slightly.

Ashputtel is a solitary character who watches life from a distance and initially observes the rave from the safety of her tree-house. She sees her two ‘ugly sisters’ wandering across the fields leaving her behind again but on this particular night Ashputtel finds herself in the heart of the action.

I’ve never owned a smiley t-shirt or waved a glow stick but I thought back to my clubbing experiences and that feeling of waking the next day with vague memories and the snippets of surreal conversations in my brain. Ashputtel walks around telling strangers elaborate tales and far-fetched sounding stories which in the heady atmosphere of a club or rave are taken at face value.

I hope the play manages to capture some of the excitement and wonder of going to your first gig, club or rave.

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This is part of a series of reflections to do with the new show. More to follow.

Pills thrills and Bellyaching – Eddie King and the Death of Rave is on 2-4th August at the Tobacco factory 8:30pm. Book now. 0117 9020344

Two shows

darkstuff Productions is pleased to announce we have a summer of new work presented at the Tobacco Factory Theatre in Bristol.

The first of which is Thrills Pills and Bellyaching – Eddie King and the Death of Rave.

Once again Eddie returns to host a night of new writing in around the strange and heady euphoria of Rave. Were you there? Can you remember even if you were?

It was arguably the last great social happening of the 20th century – before a facebook age. The acid generation, where did they all go? Did Eddie King that famous everyperson – overdo on the little pills and fry his brain?
Come see in a night of music, loved up hugs and fine theatrical writing. Join us on August 2-4th.

As for the 2nd show. Aha! More to be announced soon…

in the meantime why not book your tickets for Eddie King and ‘let him be your fantasy!’

Go on!

All work is play

Its been a while since we posted, but we’re all hard at it at darkstuff towers.

We are aiming to have one if not two shows completed by the end of the year in Bristol. Also the ongoing exploration of new areas to bring our work reaches the virtual realm of the interweb soon. Finally in the new year we are looking to consolidate on some of our monologue work by establishing a regular platform for this work in not so regular places.

In the next few weeks we should be able to provide more specific details of what we’re up to and when “stuff” is happening.

Enjoy the sun.

Up in the cloud

Technology is moving and developing so quickly it’s easier to become a little blasé about it. Soundcloud appeared from nowhere with very little fanfare but it I think it’s an amazing and liberating innovation for artists (particularly musicians). Its another step in opening up the media to anyone with ideas and enthusiasm; obviously there’s going to be an awful lot of crap posted up but it helps eschews the traditional need to go past any commissioning editor or committee. The other thing is it’s free and easy to use it.

Darkstuff – with the help of Eddie King – are going to enter the world of soundcloud. There are some past audio pieces featuring Eddie, which are weird and very wonderful (best listened to at 3am with a bottle of absinthe). On top of this there might be a couple of Darkstuff podrants – basically Phil or myself venting our spleen about things – not for the easily offended or anyone involved in ‘performance art’.

So keep a look out for some audio links here and – hopefully – some updates on future projects.