My experience: Tiffany Tondut
Speed…A false God?
A director once gave me some advice. ‘Speed is a false God’, he said after I broke the sound barrier on my way to rehearsal. He was right, but in his weary understanding came to light his constant and somewhat ironic struggle with this modern disease; a dominating aspect of both youth and age that I would at once have to capture and wilfully obey during Friday’s frantic pace.
If speed is Baal, he was more than benevolent with only one hour and twenty minutes to write 100 words. Only one hour? Only one hundred words? The ratio is deceptive. Which writer was it that wrote, ‘Forgive the length, but I didn’t have time to write something short’? It takes more ability and time to produce something of succinct quality than one might imagine. However, with time and abundance staunched, the mind was forced to adapt, to discipline, to focus and to produce results. Easy to say, but at this point of the day we were ‘evacuating ourselves’ rather than predicting our coup would prove itself within the constraints.
Trance-like and recovering with a post-climactic cigarette, I had little time to converse with the other seven writers, but our newfound ability to communicate tersely had us familiar in half the time. It was then down to the dressing room for an interview recorded on camera. Now, for myself and many other writers, it is here another of many fears peak, for artist’s ability lies mainly in his pen and not his tongue. I thank the informal atmosphere and wonderful interviewers for my half decent menagerie of words that fell out. I tripped over them on the way up to the theatre space to encroach on rehearsals. It’s an absolute privilege and experience, not just to have one’s work performed, but to see a director take hold of that work you’ve desperately created and sculpt it into something performable quality (!) Especially so short a time after it’s conception. What is happening?! I ask. Am I really here? I was numb with otherworldliness, a place I visit when my senses drift away in a stunned wind. By now, I couldn’t stop laughing. My words had become jibbers and my eyes were burning (better check that water supply), presumably a consequence of the following nervous alchemy: excitement, lack of sleep and writing 100 words while attempting to keep one’s savoir-faire a dignity rather than a disastrous denouncement, ie, potential career flop. God knows how I must have seemed, but I remember one girl who sat looking magnificently dazed into space. She was spent. I joined her and the two of us pondered our fates.
It was now five thirty and the tech was beginning. Redundant writers scattered for fear of self-harm. Intelligent move, for my dazed companion and myself began sweating fear (the operative word here) as we watched Natasha and team fight through actors, lighting and sound cues. The experience was akin to a maddened night of dancing, i.e., epileptic lights, pulsing music and crowds and general disillusionment with reality (except with the added spark of fear similar to stage fright). At one point, a writer spoke out to correct to cue. Natasha, understandably wired yet sympathetic, replied, “If the technical is too excruciating for the writers, please could they leave the room…” I laughed unprofessionally like a hyena and longed for some kind of narcotic. However, the very acme of fear was yet to come…
Darkness. The performances began with the room full of expectant, enthusiastic actors and public. I sat quietly sweating and knocking back a friend’s wine with a strained, sweet smile on my mouth. I was astounded by the actors’ dedication and professionalism to perform without scripts. If they missed any dialogue, it was utterly understandable. The quality, considering, was superb. I think this week, including Friday, each writer, actor, director and personal involved proved themselves under the very restraint they were searching to communicate. Afterwards, the many tense faces dissolved with the flow of relief aid in the form of red wine. Congratulations everyone! I look forward to more.