#george perrin

[theonlydramailove]

Sea Wall Film with Andrew Scott

"Sea Wall" will be available on YouTube for a week from today. The piece was  performed by Andrew Scott 12 years ago at the Bush Theatre, directed by George Perrin – it was later revived in 2018 at the Old Vic. The filmed performance is directed by Stephens and Andrew Porter.

[moripartylove]

Sea Wall q&a 21/06/2018

I was lucky to attend the Sea Wall q&a last Thursday, and I thought I’d share some bits and pieces. Please keep in mind that this is from memory and I’m paraphrasing, so there may be some inaccuracies. If you were there too, feel free to add if you remember anything else or correct me if I got something wrong :)

George Perrin, the director of Sea Wall, was the other guest. The event was moderated by Matthew Warchus.

One of the best audience questions was “What does the director do?”. It got a big laugh from the audience and from Andrew, too. George said that in Sea Wall he just tried not to be in the way and “not fuck this up”. Andrew said that wasn’t really true and mentioned some things the director had done: he made sure the lighting was right and that the empty space on the stage didn’t look to romantic or something, it was all supposed to be as natural as possible. He also said that when he first did it, he found it really hard to look at people, so the director invited “4 friends” over when they practised. And they all agreed that generally, the director’s most important job is just to watch the rehearsals and spot if anything is not going to work for the audience and then nudge the actor into the right direction.

Andrew said he was a bit worried if the play would work in a bigger theatre like this, but that now he thinks it works even better than the small places because “the space gives it depth”, which mirrors the depth of the Sea / Sea Wall when Alex talks about it

He thinks that the play is particularly relevant in 2018 because we live in a time when people are strongly divided about everything, and we are quick to hate other people because they have different opinions (or something like that?), and Sea Wall is about 2 people (Alex and Arthur) who are almost polar opposites and disagree about everything (the existence of god etc.), but they still love each other and just accept their differences

The hardest part of the play for Andrew is the beginning when the audience walks in, he’s scared of that every time. But he said it’s also cool because you connect with the audience in a different way, for example he saw someone with a shopping bag today and thought “oh you went shopping” (lol)

He was asked how he learns lines: He has to say them out loud, and he usually has someone read the other character(s). And he said when he learned Hamlet at one point he got so frustrated that he threw the book across the room (lol totally relatable 😂)

He talked about how draining Hamlet was and that some mornings he woke up and thought “I can’t believe I have to do 3,5 hours again - I want to go to the beer garden!”. But he also loved doing it, and in those moment he just reminded himself of that

About the sad part of Sea Wall: He thinks what touches the audience most is not to see someone break down on stage and cry a lot, it’s watching someone try not to cry, because that feels real. “When people go through something like this, they don’t want to feel it”

Since the play was first performed, 2 lines have been dropped, but otherwise the text is unchanged. One line was “even in this light” after Alex says “You can see the hole in the center of my stomach”, which was written specifically for the first venue but made no sense later (or something?). The other was some reply/comment by Alex after Arthur talks about god being in the space between 2 numbers etc., and it was dropped because Andrew didn’t like it. He felt like Arthur deserved one moment of dignity, so they just let his ideas on god hang in the air.

They said that the cruel thing about the play is that there is nothing that allows the audience to distance themselves from it and to think “it’s just a play, it’s just acting, it’s fine”

He was asked what he does before the play starts, if he needs time to get into character or if the time while the audience comes in is enough for that. He said “There’s no such thing as characters”, but then corrected himself to say “that’s not quite true”. But he said that for him, acting is not imagining to be someone else, it’s imagining how he would be if he went through that experience. So he doesn’t really need time to “get into character” because he doesn’t do that. He also doesn’t need to get himself into a sad mood for Sea Wall because “the darkness plays itself, you have to play the light”, so before the audience comes in he chats with the ushers to get into a light, chatty mood. 

He said he has a very clear idea of what Alex said to Arthur (the cruellest thing he ever did), but he would never reveal it and people have the most amazing ideas about what he said

That’s all I can remember for now... Anyone remember anything else? :)

[akajakeedwardmarks]

Saw this last night and it was terrific!  Charming, warm, and very moving.  The audience is used in a very unique way to tell this story.  Now playing at the Barrow Street Theatre thru March 29th.  

[mildlybitter]

"It stopped being about the weapons.  It was people." The 2013 Brits Off-Broadway series kicks off this week with David Harrower's two-hander Good with People: a thoughtful drama about dying towns, the past, the future, changing your direction in life, and the meaning of bullying on a local and international scale.