Post-Bill

I was deeply struck today by how extraordinary theatrical moments are usually non-textual. I suppose they are textual in the way that a director or theatre maker is translating an idea taken from a text or a score into visual form, but the deepest moments usually happen without speaking or singing. In Our Class, the image of a steel roof slowly and inexorably falling was unbelievably moving.


The reveal of the children in Duke Bluebeard’s Castle was unexpected and redirected the focus of the story quite radically. The opening image of the Rite of Spring communicated the metaphor of winter with an old woman smoking a cigarette while snowflakes cascade upon her (and only her). I have been thinking about this a great deal in my own work. We spend so much time trying to wrestle the text into a comprehensible shape, and yet, the moments that offer the audience a way in are likely to be non-textual. I am determined that I will address this in the rehearsal process for The Red Umbrella. I will find a way to get the story across clearly, but also to fully explore the potential in the piece for non-naturalistic and non-textual story-telling through scenery, movement, sound and lights.

(posted by Ed)