the next world premiere

ONE MILLION TINY PLAYS ABOUT BRITAIN
by Craig Taylor

TODAY: SUNDAY

58 tiny plays to coordinate
18 actors - 2 of whom are in the other premiere play - to install
Crowns Band to integrate
2 buses to sort
Music to rehearse

And the following to create:

• train stations


• restaurants


• offices


• classrooms


• theatres


• parks


• fairgrounds


• airports


• supermarkets


• hospitals


• surgeries


• hairdressers


• bars

ALL AT LIBERATION BUS STATION !

And in just 9 hours - minus an hour for lunch - so that's just 8 hours!

Technical Rehearsals are a wonder: creative and v. exciting...

conservation-fringe

Photo: Bruce Liron

With 512 people attending over the first three days, My Family and Other Stories has proved to be a tiny experiment in theatre, alfresco, storytelling and keeper-acting.

It is almost conservation-fringe.

This was perhaps crystalised yesterday when we met Rebecca from Sydney, the research and conservation director from Taronga Conservation Society, Australia. She was on a trip with her husband who had been a keeper at Durrell in the very early seventies.

http://www.taronga.org.au/

Rebecca saw five of the pieces and was intrigued at how honest, uncomplicated, 21st. century, and keeper-like, our storytellers were.

She thought Janette, Yildiz, Jack and William had created an incredible ensemble and, like me, was impressed - not that anything is about contriving impressiveness - at everyone's ability to communicate the conservation elements in a hugely accessible way with theatre.

Theatre is certainly a force.

An exciting conversation thus ensued about exclusivity and inclusivity in arts and business and how the two can co-exist simultaneously. Though, of course, the latter is preferred...

A grey, cloudy start to the day, which might have necessitated going indoors, but we went with the weather forecast and remained outside to be sun-drenched instead.

'Sunshine!'

The pieces were hugely relaxed, fluid, had settled a little more - with some poignant new improvised moments - and were even more confident.

This shift in gear created something quite engaging and dynamic in the inside/outside storytelling arena at Durrell.

http://www.durrell.org

But from one world premiere last week to another this week...

25 June - 25 July 2009 (not Mondays)

Gerald Durrell's
MY FAMILY AND OTHER STORIES

a medley of storytelling, literature, drama, dance, music, autobiography, education, conservation, comedy, physical theatre, documentary, natural history, zoology, family history, travelogue and travel guide - to entertain all ages...

10:30 MENAGERIE MANOR (1964)
11:30 THE AYE-AYE AND I (1977)
12:30 GOLDEN BATS AND PINK PIGEONS (1992)

2pm BIRDS, BEASTS AND RELATIVES (1969)
3pm FILLETS OF PLAICE (1971)
4pm MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS (1956)

A Jersey Arts Centre project in association with Durrell and Jersey Tourism

gallery

Gerald Durrell's
My Family and Other Stories
Jack Speckleton and Janette Froud




Menagerie Manor (1964)
Yildiz Hussein as Bali and Janette Froud as Oscar




The Aye-aye and I (1992)
Yildiz Hussein, Janette Froud and Jack Speckleton
in Madagascar

Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons (1977) Janette Froud, Jack Speckleton and Yildiz Hussein in Mauritius

Birds, Beasts and Relatives (1969)
Janette Froud as Mrs Durrell
Yildiz Hussein as Margo
William Howell-Jackson as Gerald Durrell
Jack Speckleton as Lawrence Durrell

Fillets of Plaice (1971)
Yildiz Hussein as Mr Bellow
William Howell-Jackson as Gerald Durrell

Photos: Bruce Liron

Dress Rehearsal: Wednesday 24 June 2009

factor 50

In rehearsal three weeks ago - not alfresco...

a sweltering day dressing in true Durrellian-style

tea and cake between the stories, laughter, fun and reminiscences of Corfiot adventures

Lee Durrell pitching up for Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Aquarium - and laughing lots

watching four beautifully skilled, natural people working so very industriously with six of the most difficult pieces of theatre imagineable

documentary-style / 'doing' animals / and alfresco peformance is a challenge

even more challenging than sustaining a run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

but an exquisite day, with some fantastic photographs, too, in preparation for the world premiere tomorrow

Day 1 / Week 4 / Tuesday

In rehearsal three weeks ago...

Going into the production week, with performers taking two restful days to consolidate all that had been explored and discovered in mind, body and soul over the past three weeks, was totally refreshing.

We rehearsed on Saturday [a rare thing for me] which meant that Sunday and Monday were days off. But only because the pieces will be playing from Tuesdays through Sundays.

I also had time to develop some thoughts on style, content, technique, production elements and the minutae of storytelling in all its facets, modes and nuances. And to catch up on running an Arts Centre...

Day 1
Week 4
Tuesday
48 hours until the world premiere...

A blisteringly hot day to be alfresco; 4/6 of the stories tech-ed, if that is what it is, amidst a thoroughfare of curious, passing Durrellians up at Trinity.

The following were challenges:

• the sun
• the heat
• the bird poo
• the wind in the trees
• the running
• the planes

Wow! How to keep focused and still be able to communicate something of the life and times of Gerald Durrell - in his own words.

An absolute security of being, and knowing what is trying to be communicated, is essential here because there is no foldback: the resonance is in nature, the air - everything dissipates into the ether and seems gone in milli-seconds. But we know that. We knew that.

So: there has to be a constant energy - almost like a running tap.

Like running a marathon, even!

A relentless energy to sustain audibility and interest.

Essential: vocal, physical, intellectual and emotional power.

the aquarium

Photo: Gregory Guida

started, and thus began the exploration of, one of the chapters from Fillets of Plaice

published 1971

a collection of five stories: ours is chapter two

a fourth actor / performer / storyteller is now in the rehearsal room

the dynamic thus expanded and there is now even more side-splitting laughter

and there wasn’t any more room for hysterics: we were already at capacity

creating this menagerie of animals and characters, these past two weeks, has meant physical boundaries have been shattered

everyone has been uniquely uninhibited

and freedoms have been explored

a beautiful experience and a privileged one

quote: ‘i have never laughed so much in a rehearsal room – ever’

quote: ‘this is lunatic’

quote: ‘Gerald Durrell was incredible’

fillets of plaice: chapter two

our working title: the aquarium

the story of the 'the aquarium' pet shop in which Gerry got a job when the family returned from Corfu in 1939

exquisite in its observation: absorbing, original, charming, witty, nostalgic, poignant and sad

about: strangers, change, passion, creativity, eccentricity and story-telling

totally enchanting - especially when you consider that world war II had just been declared