Aural Coq

I know Ad Infinitum as a Lecoq style company (I just saw Red Bastard at the weekend and have a new enthusiasm for Lecoq!) Yet Smoke seems to be more about the voice... how do these elements come together?

The fundamental idea behind the Lecoq pedagogy is to find the most effective and theatrical way of telling a story on the stage through the body. The voice is a part of this body, a muscle and a tool, but at the school there is no voice training as such. The method focuses on the performer’s body and its movements, and at the core of the training is a dedication to understanding the dynamics of basic human interaction, situations and dramas that can be found all around us in nature. How can we most creatively and effectively translate these observations into a theatrical experience that will touch the audience in one way or another?

 

In this project we had to experiment and find out how we could apply our training to voice and music, but the pedagogy encourages students to do just that; take what you have learnt, apply it, experiment and find something new: The Big Smoke is the result of months of experimentation. We had to find a theatrical style that would suit the delicate subject matter of the show; the story of a bright young artist who mentally deteriorates before our eyes; a woman waltzing with the idea of suicide. Music came to mind very quickly -what doors can music unlock within the hearts of the spectators?

 

The challenge was to take what we learnt about physical theatre-making at Lecoq - which focuses on creating from the body and its movement’s –and apply this to music and the voice to create the same larger than life effect but play with the colourful musicality of the performer’s voice.

 

We began experimenting with musical melody, using it as a tool and imagining that it moves in the space like a body; creating characters, spaces, emotions, provoking the audience`s imagination and exposing the internal world of our heroine - her stream of consciousness, her flashbacks and her obsessions.

 

The show has an aspect of the tribute show to it- a biography of a great singer- yet it is obviously exploring new territory, and looking at broader issues. Does the company hope to explore the nature of creativity through the Big Smoke?

 

We are exploring creativity as something that gives meaning to life, both for artists and for their audiences alike. And how we struggle to feel as if we exist without it. We started our project by looking at the confessional poets who were not afraid to be brutally honest about the most painful parts of their lives. This led us to Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Virginia Woolf, all women obsessed with death, who wrote fiction about their very real battles for a reason to live: all three authors asked the question: is there a meaning to life?

 

They asked this question through their art –in writing and poetry, and this art became their reason to live, and gave meaning to their lives. But eventually, even this was not enough, creation was not enough of a reason to keep living and these three women chose death.

 

The Big Smoke is the story of a young painter with a lot of talent and a very promising future. Like the confessional poets, she feels herself to be an outsider; she struggles to find her place in society, to find fulfilment, and to find some meaning in life.

Through her character we are investigating a phenomenon that arose in the last century and remains very prominent now: What is it that makes it so hard for so many people to find satisfaction and happiness in modern life? In the face of so much choice, many people get stuck, confused, and frozen by indecision. It is this sense of limbo that we are exploring.

 

 

Is Lecoq a style that encourages solo work? I have a limited knowledge of the writings, but they don't seem to insist on the solo show. That said, every Lecoq show I have ever seen is a one-hander...

 

The Lecoq style encourages play -finding the drama in a situation through improvisation, up on your feet, reacting off of one another. The entire two years of training is a process of devising theatre through group work. You are instructed to collaborate; you are never on your own. However the basics of the training can be interpreted and translated into almost any type of performance, large choruses or one person shows. Although a solo show is not something that we are taught to aim towards, it is not surprising to hear about a lot of Lecoq one-handers, as we are trained to strip down to essentials, to use only what is absolutely necessary to communicate. If that means ditching unneeded words, performers, costumes, props, set changes or musical cues, then so be it.

 

But why a cappella singing and not accompanied?

When we started developing the idea of The Big Smoke we had lots of different ideas of how we wanted it to look and sound. We experimented with delay pedals, sound effects and soundtracks, but we soon discovered that the more that was added, the more was lost. When the very first note was sung at the very first rehearsal we both clearly saw the potential; the pure and honest strength of one woman’s voice, alone on the stage. She is telling the story of her own journey, unaccompanied, and nothing more is needed. The loneliness of the performer and of the character came together in a very powerful combination.