start of rehearsals.
Rehearsals took place over 5 weeks from June 19th to July 18th, having 3-4 rehearsals per week. These 5 weeks consisted in table work, blocking of act 1 and 2, rehearsing each act and then finding the fluidity to both.
The first act, as described in the research and context section, is a more introductory approach to 'what is a toma?', 'who are these characters?', 'what are the dynamics built in this setting?' as well as the first encounter of the audience with the immersive nature of the performance. The second act explores the relationships and back stories of the characters, an emotional space that has already been set for the audience to experience and, therefore, to be surrounded more confidently by the cultural differences they started to comprehend during the first act.
tablework.
As the first act and second act had different objectives for the audience, the script approach we did had to be done in a similar way. At first we broke down the script in beats, this way it would be easier to study, work and rehearse it. Then we analised the script as a whole, discussing the event of the toma in Chile and Latin America, how the protest culture in our home countries differed from what we had seen in the UK, where we could observe the cultural gaps in between all the information that this script carried, and what we had learnt since coming to the UK. At the same time, a lot of resources (archival photos and videos, documents from assemblies, news, etc.,) were given to the cast to be able to research on their own. It created a very interesting space of conversations, as every actor could co-relate in a way to parts of the story we were telling from their own personal backgrounds and ask questions on how things work in Chile particularly.
When going further into detail we also observed the singularity of the characters. What's the role of your character in the play? Has this character been in this situation before? Do you think this character likes this other character? What does this character represent in the larger frame, not only of the play, but of the feminist movement? Lots of these questions were discussed in this moment of the rehearsal process, but were polished during the actor's discovery -and my own- when we put those theoretical answers on its feet.
Issues within understanding characters
Even though most of the actors could easily understand the generality of their characters, one of the actors -who had never approached these political questions or social issues- had the most trouble getting into his character. From a very early stage, he misread the nature of his character -who was supposed to be a man who doesn't understand his privileges, who always wants to stand out and be the visible face of a movement - and interpreted him as something totally different, that even didn't make sense to the story. Even though this actor had the best intentions and constantly proposed new things, there was a foundational problem of him not understanding and proposing too much from a space that didn't make sense (and was, at some point, very evident and uncomfortable for the rest of the cast). A more careful relationship with him had to be created because this situation clearly started to affect him emotionally as a professional.
Even though tablework was mainly done during the first week, during the next weeks of rehearsals and blocking we faced moments in which we needed to come back to certain documents, information about the political atmosphere of Chile at that moment or archival videos that could help them understand particular questions that are natural to rise during rehearsals.
First week of rehearsals, tablework
blocking - act 1 & act 2.
Spaces
My first approach to the script was the space. From a very early stage I knew how the space of this play had to look like: the audience ‘inside’ the stage and the characters/actors with them. This would simulate an actual assembly, were people are entering all the time and sit in any available space they can see while there’s others talking. However, even though I knew generally the concept of the immersive space that I wanted to create, I had not yet thought of how the actors would actually move around the audience.
To be able to create a space that was ‘movement-free friendly’ (considering the audience that would be so close to the actors, and that they would be sitting in the floor) I first thought of how the actual classroom looked like:
Entrance
Whiteboard / projector
Where people sat
Another entrance
The classroom has two entrances (one at each side of the classroom), both from which people could enter; and creating a ‘two entrance’ space on stage would also allow a more dynamic movement freedom to feel the ‘everything happening everywhere’ atmosphere I wanted to create. In addition to this, the fact that in the occupation all the chairs were used to build up the barricades inside the building and left most of the classrooms without any chairs or furniture, was the reason why everybody had to sit on the floor. Everything happened on the floor: food collections, conversations, moving around for people to pass, and being on your phone. This was a central aspect of the performance: when you’re sitting down and in the floor with everybody else in the same vertical and horizontal level, there’s a natural feeling of equality. When people start standing, you would innately think they are on a higher level, and therefore would have more power, because physically they were in a different level as well.
Deciding the distribution of the audience at the beginning of the play was a personal challenge, as the intention was not for the audience to sit down as soon as they entered the space. The idea was to fill the space as much as possible and for the actors to enter the space as they were audience members, also for the audience not to know who were actors and who were audience like them, to not focus their attention on any person in particular and not know where the dialogue would come from. It was natural that, as the performance went by, they would start recognizing the actor’s faces and expecting (re)actions from them. As a first approach I was hoping to create the most blank environment I could, to recreate the disorientation feeling you can have when entering these kinds of spaces as well.
Something that was complicated to work on was the use the mask in the very beginning, because audience members would easily recognize that someone was an actor if they were using a mask – and when I wrote the script, CONI said ‘it’s so easy for you to be there and demand things because all your faces are covered and I have been showing my face from the start’, which demanded me to have, at least some of the actors, wearing masks. I could have changed the line, but it’s a quote I personally remember when being inside the toma myself, so I felt it was a good point to argue in that specific situation and felt personally attached to that -real and fictional- line. So, to approach this, I figured out I would just ask the actors: let’s say the security cameras have been covered already but not everybody is certain that the task has been done. Do you think your character is confident to take the mask off yet or wants to get in the classroom first, check the situation, and then take the mask off? And, as the actors thought about it (myself having my thoughts as well), we determined who would enter masked and who wouldn’t.
We started playing around the space by them entering from the outside with the audience: only Coni would have to be inside the room and invite the audience inside, being this the first and only information the audience would receive. As they entered the space, we imagined audience members would naturally walk towards and how, then, they would have to move around. In this exercise, I figured out how the space needed to look during the whole show: if they were going to sit down in a scene, they should be closer to the audience and not really needing to move that much; if their character needed to move a lot (e.g.e. exit the room, have to talk close to another character, etc), they would need to be in the peripheries of the space. Therefore, the space should look like this:
Understanding this space made it easier for us to approach the rest of the act, first analising if their character moved, where they were in relation to the ones they spoke to, if they wanted to be heard or seen or wanted to maintain their presence more low-key, etc. Afterwards, I also broke down this space in different areas: the ‘natural stage’ of the front where most of the action occurred, the side against both entrances where it should be easier to move, the side with the entrances which should be mainly free, and the back where characters mainly would be in the shade. With these thoughts in mind, the blocking of the first act, was a more ‘static’ one than the second one.
Area A: movement
Area B: must be sat down/ audience area
The second act explored more intimate relationships between the actors, mostly one-to-one interactions that would allow the audience to understand their personal stories and specific dynamics better. This encouraged me to think of how to focus the attention on just two actors when there was a total of ten, and that the other eight should still be continuing their own life inside the occupation. For example, there’s two main conversations that happen in the beginning of the second act, between SOLEDAD and JAVIERA and CAMI and TOMÁS. My attempt was to keep these conversations far from each other, therefore, one occurring in one side of the room and the other one in the other, allowing to move the attention around the room and keeping the dynamic of the room alive at all times. While they were having their conversations, it was important that the rest of the cast kept their activities alive too: what do you think your character is doing? Are you talking to someone? Are you checking your social media? Are you watching someone else talk? Are you studying for a test? These questions helped them stay in character, considering that most of the characters spent the whole show in the room and had to stay in character the entire time.
velatón
The commemoration moment of the Velatón had to be a little bit different than the rest of the play; I wanted to change the atmosphere of the space so that it felt like something new. It was a challenging scene to create, because even though it can be very still, it needed to be emotionally driven by the intention of giving out candles to audience members. An excitement built around the activity of remembering, commemorating and celebrating was a way to come to this cathartic decision. Approaching the velatón scene as a cast had to be done in a responsible, caring and safe way, because of the sensitive topics that are discussed and what it means for us -culturally- to hold a velatón. I could not tell them to just start reading their lines while thinking of the blocking, as it would be a real velatón within a play (as discussed in the research and context section). Therefore, I let the cast know in advance to read about the people that are mentioned in the text and why they are there, what their story is. So, when the day came, we took at least an hour sat in a circle talking about the topic, the women, why it is important for us to be representing a toma /commemorating these women. More about the development of that session and a reflection about it can be found in the 'journal' section here.
After taking the time to discuss the topic with the deepness and sensitivity it required, we got into how the actors would exit the room to pick up candles, how they would give them out to the audience and where they would sit, taking into consideration the spaces they needed to be in for the next scene.
Check on Tuesday
Candles
Change in frontality
Beat/ Scene after the Velatón
Change from front X to Y
Whisper
end of blocking
Even though the blocking of the show seemed like a big challenge in the very beginning, as we moved it became gradually easier. However, we always had the challenge of not knowing how the audience would actually behave; we did not know where they would sit, if they would naturally sit in the beginning or not, if they would be too uncomfortable by sitting on the floor; so keeping these things in mind and thinking of hypothetical situations we could encounter was crucial. Marking the rehearsal room with tape on the floor also helped the actors move easily around the space, but having actual people in the room was still going to be different.
Even though we had an open rehearsal for the actors to experience how it would be to act with people sitting there amongst them, and how they would feel, for example, crying right next to a person, the situation was clearly on a larger scale for the show itself. Most of the more specific movements through the space that the actors had blocked ended up being removed in the show itself, as the room was more crowded that we could have ever rehearsed and moving around the space was nearly impossible. Basic and fundamental movements were kept, but in the moment when they found themselves not being to move at all, they had to ‘re-block’ some scenes that were completely different when done in the rehearsal room. It was not as bad as it could have been; we had done very good foundational work in thinking where we were moving and why does it want to go to another place/person. So, in that same line, when the actors approached me after the first performance and communicated me they couldn’t do what we had been rehearsing, I asked them how they felt about that and they felt confident enough to move around because they knew their intentions and how to approach them. I trusted them, so a good analysis of the movement through the space during rehearsals was evidenced when approaching this problem.
playing. with. language.
As an example of how language could influence a lot the emotional environment to be achieved in rehearsals, we initiated the session with a warm-up exercise that involved walking around the room. We tested different speeds and explored different scenarios, immersing ourselves in the initial sensations that our characters would encounter at the beginning of the play. The emotions that needed to be achieved were: chaos, confused, excitement, stress, and sleep deprivation.
To achieve this, we delved into language. Participants roamed the room, progressively walking faster until abrupt halts, while I bombarded them with questions like, "What did you eat yesterday? What will you eat later? Did you take out the trash? Did you wash the dishes before leaving? What will you do after this? What are your plans for next week? What did you do the day before yesterday?" These questions were delivered in rapid succession, forcing them to swiftly switch their thoughts. The aim was to provoke rapid cognitive transitions, creating a mentally taxing and somewhat disorienting atmosphere.
Following this, I introduced an element of linguistic playfulness. Amid this chaotic state, I instructed them to respond to the same questions and pose them rapidly in Spanish or Portuguese. This added a layer of amusement to the linguistic dimension, which I believe is a significant facet of this play. Participants were in an active state, leaping from one thought to another, attempting to comprehend various situations, all while acknowledging the disparity between what we experienced in one language and what we would perform in another.
Exercise on language influence on emotions
Even though the questions that they were asked were very neutral, it was an interesting first approach to how language can help create emotional states needed to build up a scene.
Something interesting that happened with the Spanish scene was that, even though the majority spoke Spanish as their native language, the Spanish scene was written in 'Chilean Spanish'. When going through it, even though the words did flow better in their acting, you could tell that the slang did not come natural to them (in their own accents, except for the actor that was Chilean) so we modified the sentences to be said as they would say it in their own accents and slangs, including the actor who was from Brasil, who performed the line in Portuguese. The objective of this scene was to also evidence how the actors acted in their native language and, even though it did change a little, it was an interesting discovery to evidence the importance of vernaculars, dialects and accents in the personal connection with language.
emotionally driven stories. directing style.
I always start my rehearsals with a check-in. I believe it’s important to be able to develop an ‘out-of-work’ initial space, where we can all sit in a circle and talk about how our lives are at the moment. It may seem subtle, but these spaces really allowed us to connect as a team and know other parts of our lives that were not only work-related. I would dedicate an important amount of time for these, considering we were ten people and that it was important to dedicate time to every person on its own.
In this space, it was very interesting to observe the way that everybody chose to communicate. As a language-driven observer, I tried to find which language they chose to use when talking in this space, but there were not many regularities that I could find. What I did observe, and made sense as well, is that whenever one person decided to code-switch and go to the other language, that would input the language ‘subconscious’ decision they would take. It was very relatable to all of us how, at some points mid speech, or just before starting their points, they would clarify ‘I will say this in Spanish/English’, depending which language they felt more confident with.
Creating an emotionally intense story, from my personal perspective and as a director, requires the actors to connect with the emotional foundation of the story as well. I could observe the commitment from each of the actors changed in relation to how much this story touched them personally. My aim was to make this project their own as well, as I knew lots of their personal stories could be found in this one. Especially during the tablework week, I asked them to think of things that reminded them of what we were studying and always encouraged them to tell each other stories if they wanted, personal stories or experiences they had lived that resonated with the core of this story and the struggle that was behind it.
As the nature of the play can be triggering for people, it was necessary to approach this element with responsibility as well. From the earliest stage of the process, when we first had a reading of the first draft, it was constantly communicated to the actors that if they needed to take a moment and exit the room they could absolutely do it without any kind of further explanation -unless they wanted to-, or if they had any thoughts, opinions or issues with anything that was part of the play, they could always reach out and we could work on it together. Being able to communicate that you are a ‘very human’ director creates a safe space for the actors to explore their own emotionality towards the topics that are being told, that, in the end, it was still something inevitable.
The whole process was taken very responsibly, understanding that it would be an emotionally tiring process and that the actors would have to go through all the emotions of the play -and, naturally, their own- several times a week. It was always encouraged for them to be very aware of their energies, to try to take as much time for themselves as they could and that, even though learning lines was important, they needed to be able to take space from the play to be able to give their best. It finally became a paradox: in the last week of rehearsals, in those last check-in circles, most were communicating how tired they were, but that when we found each other again in the rehearsal room they felt motivated, happy, comforted, and supported. It was a space they genuinely enjoyed, and that, more than ‘the fun’ they could have creating this story, they felt the inner emotional process they had been on since we started rehearsals had clicked something in them and felt different to when they started. These ‘check-in’ circles started to be longer than when we began: it could have started with telling a funny thing that had happened to them during the weekend, and by the end there would be certain situations, for example, where one of the actors would tell a very uncomfortable sexual-violence situation they had lived during the weekend and would say that they wanted to talk about it with us, so we could give them our opinions and support because they still didn’t understand very well how to observe the situation. It was clear that we had created a safe space for them to be vulnerable, safe and trustable. And if they could be vulnerable as mortals, they could be vulnerable as actors with connecting with the important stories that needed to be told. I believe this is an important element of making justice to these stories and the people behind it as well, as it wouldn’t feel ethically correct to interpret a story you don’t resonate with or don’t have the openness to understand.
By the end of the project, it was very noticeable how the cast had engaged with the team, the story and the process. This could be seen in the emotional fragility they were living and unfortunately, the emotional weariness everybody was feeling. Yet we had created a space were we all took care of each other. They were always responsible communicating it and we were able to handle it in a safe and comfortable way, but I personally could realise how, in the last two performances of the play, the actors would actually start crying in an intense monologue or emotionally heavy speech.
Doing emotionally driven plays that resonate with one's personal background are a challenge, but an act of truthfulness that we had the privilege to move our audience with.