wwWoyzeck brain-matters and mind-stuff_ part three: Aberystwyth

Aberystwyth Mon Amour: Crime or Passion?

March, 2002. The more I study these fragments the more I like their challenge of the well constructed play: no beginning, no middle, no end. Woyzeck is an inspiration, a vehicle to journey into guilt, innocence, and need with figures of authority precariously perched between sanity and madness. What is real? What do I really see? What is consciousness?

At the first production meeting on Woyzeck-Aberystwyth I visualise a tall room with walls made of white strips, and a conveyor-belt on one side. One of the walls will lift open in the end to reveal a white horse.

Thursday, August 15. Week one with the cast of the National Youth Theatre of Wales is almost over. I'm overwhelmed by the power of these young people. The level of presence and concentration is so high it feels like we've been together for a year and not a week. The absence of set forces us to concentrate on the text. What strikes me is that Georg Büchner died at the age of 23, he was only a couple of years older than these NYTW performers.

On day two, one of the participants wanted to leave, she felt uncomfortable and inadequate. She didn't leave, and tonight she made me cry, a silent and sudden implosion as I watched her simple and unaffected walk across a room full of mirrors.

Saturday, August 17. It's been raining. A hard ticking and slashing outside this white container. I stand in the middle of the performance space drawn out by electric-blue LX tape and think: what would it feel like to be forgotten here? I mean as a spectator- forgotten inside a theatre-building while life is carrying on outside these white walls. This is the starting point of this exploration. Like a sort of Big-Brother in reverse, the watchers take the place of the watched inside a box and wait for the performers to reveal themselves: accidentally, deliberately, furiously, tenderly, like a gallery of lives. The spactator can choose to watch the real performers on the floor, or their silhouetted shadows, or their virtual projection as live video links. Whether we feel confused or comfortable, our vantage point is inside this warehouse. An atrium where one is forever waiting to be received, or to be taken somewhere else. I feel small and insignificant.

Suspended. These walls have chinks, cracks, vertical wounds and gushes opened onto places of memory.

Wednesday, August 28. The production team have found, transported and unloaded a conveyor-belt. Apparently, John, one of the techies on the course, phoned up Rhoose Airport and asked: You don't happen to have a spare conveyor-belt, by any chance?" They said: "Yes".

Today we struck a chord in singing that reached our great-grandfathers and great grand-mothers in the centre of the universe.

Thursday, August 29. The performers are not cast. As we continue to explore and workshop the piece, they can claim their parts, the words they decide to utter. The power of these short scenes is so great that I can watch twenty different Maries and Woyzecks and Drum-Majors. The beauty is: they are all possible, they are all believable. There is something new and incredibly exciting in having a 44 performers claiming the lead roles in body and soul. There is no half-heartedness in what they do, they have totally taken on board the brief "incarnate, please, don't describe". I'm beginning to think that it is not only possible but actually desirable to see different kinds of human beings inhabiting the same dilemma.

Friday, August 30. The conveyor-belt works and Lettie is going to ride her own white horse. I'm happy.

Saturday, August 3. Aled sung the lullaby composed by David. This sixteen-year-old boy's voice is the inspired vehicle for the whole gamut of human condition. A phrase I read somewhere springs to mind: good actors are good because of the things they can tell us without talking.

Conclusion

Monday, September 16. There are visions and visionaries. Then there is a hoard of thieves, traffic-wardens and social workers. Creating is a journey with a loose map where North may blend with East and East with South. One has to be ready to listen to the wind. You may know the beginning and the end of your journey but you might not know all the stops in between. I have to let the journey unfold, take me by the hand. Give it time and be fearless.