Complaining

This week I have been in the recording studio voicing a selection of interviews, news items and discussions to be used for educational purposes in Norwegian schools. Each type of recording required a different mode of voice ..a neutral newscaster voice for the news items, an informal chatty voice for the discussions, and character-voices for the interviews -in one of which I played an eager professor of natural history rattling on about carnivorous plants! However, in addition to these segments, I recorded a whole batch of different "complaints" in the style of people phoning in to a radio station and leaving a message. This was not only the most fun to do, but also strangely therapeutic! I mean -how often does one get the chance to complain loudly about day-to-day trivialities (most of which I agreed with) and get paid handsomely for it? Following the text, but using pure method acting, I voiced my rage on having to get up early,  on cyclists hogging the road, on telephone bills and false advertising and a whole variety of other topics. When I finally emerged from the recording booth I felt cleansed and elated. There is clearly nothing like a good, heartfelt, loud complaint to get the energy flowing -I shall now be using this as a great warm-up exercise!

This Week’s Flashback -Rev. Chasuble in "The Importance of Being Earnest"

Here’s something I just discovered in the archives of my old student-theatre group: The Oslo Players. Though the group itself no longer exists, the web-page is still out there, and an interesting record of the startling amount of activity we had. Goodness knows how any of us managed to study at all! Anyway, I was intrigued to be reminded of the fact that my recent appearance as the priest in "The Sound of Music"  was not the first man of the cloth I have played. As this rather fuzzy photograph shows, that distinction goes to the part of the Reverend Chasuble from Oscar Wilde’s "The Important of Being Earnest" which I seem to recollect was done as a performed reading at the University of Oslo and some schools way back in the nineties. Come to think of it, apart from reading his stories, this marks the only work of Oscar Wilde I have been involved with. Hmmm. Perhaps something should be done about this!

If you are interested in some of the other things The Oslo Players got up to you can always have a look at the webpage:   www.osloplayers.no/

Storytelling

I was recently asked to read or perform a story for children at Oslo’s Theatre Museum as part of a wide cultural event to encourage people to get to know their city better. I was given a free reign when it came to material, which made making a choice of story all the more difficult –there are, after all, so many fabulous children’s stories out there –some of my favourites being those of Hans Christian Anderson, Roald Dahl and Aesop. However, ultimately I wrote and performed a story of my own, which was the tale of "Sebastian the Theatre Cat". This had nothing to do with T.S. Eliot or Andrew Lloyd Webber, but concerned my own particular "mascot" Sebastian, with whom I am pictured here, and who already has many fans, being much more of a superstar than I am! The story is set in an old theatre, and tells of how Sebastian (and his animal friends) saved the theatre from burning down, and it is the first of what I hope is a series of tales about this feline character. 

Storytelling for children is one of the most demanding but enrichening performance experiences imaginable; a combination of mutual imagination and rigid focus on the storyline. It is also one of the fundamental acts of performance –how it all started, long, long ago, before there were theatres or stages or the written word, when tales were told around a fire. I felt very priveleged to get back to the roots of what performing is all about, and learned a lot from the experience, not least of which being to find one person in the audience to whom you direct your storytelling. This does not mean neglecting all the others, but gives you a focus point, a receptor, which you can return to, affirming that what you are saying is getting through. This is an old performance trick, but it works.