Events! – Assistant Director Neil Bull’s Blog

13 May 2014

Week one of rehearsals is complete, and a full week it was. After the read-through, our designer Tom Rogers showed us his set and costume designs for the production. I had seen Tom’s designs previously on a production of Joking Apart by Alan Ayckbourn at Nottingham Playhouse, and this design is just as inventive and beautifully detailed. We then cracked on with Act 1.

Each Director has a very personal process, and it is always very interesting as an Assistant Director to share and learn new approaches and techniques. Caroline Leslie has previously assisted Director Katie Mitchell at the National Theatre whose method is very specifically rooted within Constantin Stanislavski’s method, based in socialist realism. Stanislavski was a Russian Director and actor who was closely associated with Chekhov.

A key element within Stanislavski’s system is called Events.

‘I am more and more convinced that our happiness or unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life, than on the nature of those events themselves’ – Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767 – 1835), philosopher and linguist

An Event is a moment of action when a change occurs. This change effects everyone present. For instance; how are you feeling at this moment? Do you know why and when you started feeling this way? What was the event that triggered this feeling?

These are just some of the questions Caroline and the actors set about asking as we worked through Act 1, scene by scene. We worked our way through the scene, agreeing and marking the events that effected or impacted on the characters within the scene. The events that change what the characters initially set out to achieve, impacting or changing their intention.

I attended a workshop recently with a Director called Audrey Sheffield. She gave a wonderful example of Events in relation to characters within a scene.

Four people are sitting in a circle in a room eating dinner (an event within itself). Suddenly, through an open window a cooked chicken flies in, circles the room and then flies out. Three of the people are amazed and shocked. Their thinking has been intensified, as they have vivid and fresh new pictures on their mind of the event that has just taken place. One member of the group is a magician’s son and he regularly sees cooked chickens flying through windows, circling rooms and flying out. For him, this is not an event as he has regular pictures in his mind of such happenings, although the rest of the group’s reaction to the flying cooked chicken may well be an event.

I agree with Caroline’s approach. This work informs the characters, mines the text and enriches the production. It gives the work a deeper quality, creating vivid pictures in the actor’s minds, which the audience subconsciously pick up upon.

I had an event at the Watermill during the week. I walked from the rehearsal room to the main office block and as I entered the door, out of the corner of my eye I saw that a chicken was closely following me. I turned and pointing, politely said, ‘Chicken, out!’ It looked at me, seemed to sigh, turned and strutted off. This could only happen at the beautifully unique Watermill Theatre!

Neil Bull
Assistant Director, A Bunch of Amateurs