Leo Day 1 - October 31

What does it mean for this production, Rosa Laborde's Leo, that we're starting rehearsals on Halloween?

Of course, this is just one more day in a creative process that started a long time ago. But as the first day of rehearsals, it is an important landmark, and an occasion for many of us (your humble assistant director/narrator included) to get caught up on the work to date and "begin" this new phase.

First off, some ground rules. This blog is about a glimpse at the creative process behind GCTC's shows. I'm looking to describe the nature of how we work, as seen from my perch as assistant director. No spoiler alerts here: this isn't about the content of the show (for a quick intro see GCTC's website), but a look at what activity goes into shaping that content.

So, how do I boil down this mass of work into an easily digestible blog entry? Well...

Sorry if this is dizzying, but it's the best compromise I can manage between bogging down with details and failing to capture the enormous work that gets a production ready to even start rehearsing. A script was submitted. Read. Enjoyed. Approved. A director, production team, cast all sought out and confirmed. (Eventually an assistant director got added to the mix.) People read, re-read, re-re-read the script. Ideas, images, themes emerge. Talk, email, sketch, paint, draw, scan, print, build, shine tiny flashlights on scale models and take pictures of the results... and a VAST amount of other stuff that I'm leaving out. I myself get a tiny glimpse of sneak-peek on Day 0, at an afternoon design meeting yesterday before the big launch this morning.

And somehow, out of all of this, we manage to have the staff and Board of the GCTC several rows deep facing the U-shaped tables where I find myself lucky enough to be counted among the production team. After a quick round of introductions, the cast (a fabulous trio) reads the play, and we laugh, we have chills, we applaud. The maquette (scale model of the set) and costume sketches are shown, accompanied by director and designer discussions of the themes and images they want these designs to convey. More applause. One actor literally bows to the model of the set!

We go on through the rest of the day with an exercise of reading all the lines of each of the three characters, one character at a time. This provokes much discussion of how we see the characters, their relationship to each other and their experience of the historical situation in which the play is set. (I just said this blog isn't about play contents, but it's relevant that this play is about three youth coming of age in Chile over the period leading up to and through Salvador Allende's 3 years of socialist government, ending with the military coup that saw him shot and Pinochet put in power. So the work and this afternoon's discussion involves finding the right amount of attention to pay to the rich historical fabric into which the fictional play is woven, without being distracted by it. It also involves getting comfortable with frequent use of Spanish names, words and phrases used in the play.) This exercise gives me and all of us new incites into the characters. I for one gain several new layers of respect for the richness of the text. And also for director Micheline's reflections on it. Not simply a matter of her knowledge and appreciation of the text, but her deep understanding of its possibilities. It's not yet necessary or even appropriate to have all the answers (though she certainly has many), but Micheline clearly knows exactly what questions to ask.

I leave Day 1 feeling frankly a bit overwhelmed. I've directed several shows and it's a bit strange for me to be assistant directing, to not have the buck-stops-here responsibility over artistic choices for the show. I can't help but project myself into the director role, and I'm painfully aware of how far behind I'd be if I were about to start directing rehearsals of this show myself. Of course, that's not what I'm here to do! But I am itching to contribute. And they've so far been very polite to hear my odd interjection here and there (will that last, I wonder?). But I need to read the play a couple hundred more times and read at least the dozen books I hurriedly checked out of various Gatineau public library branches last weekend to begin to start to get to the point where I can start to share the appreciation the other members of the creative team so clearly have of this rich world of this text and it's sharply contrasting, beautiful, flawed inhabitants.

But intimidation aside, I can tell off the bat that this is going to be a very strong show. Sure, this is what everyone always says, I know, but it really feels credible: I can see the play's potential, and I can see that the cast and production team not only see that potential too but they know how to tap it. And that feeling that there's all this power and we're ready to unleash it is very exciting to be a part of.

It's a happy Halloween.