Contents page Hergé Biography 2
INTERVIEW WITH CO-WRITER, DAVID GREIG
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- 13. INTERVIEW WITH DESIGNER, IAN MACNEIL
- 14. INTERVIEW WITH PAUL ARDITTI, SOUND DESIGNER
- 15. INTERVIEW WITH ORLANDO GOUGH, COMPOSER
12. INTERVIEW WITH CO-WRITER, DAVID GREIGAssistant Director Lucinka Eisler spoke to David Greig at the start of the second of six weeks of rehearsals. How was the first week of rehearsals from your perspective as co-writer? During last week the script was comprehensively trashed and torn apart. On the train down from Scotland yesterday I worked on finishing an ‘Ikea flat pack’, modular version of the script, which is broken down into units of action – essentially scenes – that can be removed and replaced with updated versions as we go. I’ve tried to be sure that I know what Tintin is actively doing in each moment. e.g. in the opening sequence, Tintin tries to reach a voice that is calling him. I needed to put together a story that I could tell in clear, simple sentences. How did you begin adapting Hergé ’s book into a stage play? The very first version of the script was the result of a process that I needed to go through to find out what the problems of adapting Tintin in Tibet were, and to have some preliminary material to present to the creative team. I knew that most of it would go. Rufus and I then spent a week putting together the play in pictures (from the book). Then there was a preliminary workshop with a group of actors that informed the writing of a new draft. This draft was sent to the Hergé Foundation for them to approve and is the basis of what we read on the first day of rehearsals. By the end of this week, I aim to have a kind of ‘pre-final text’ that the actors can have as their basic script. We’re close now to having finished the task of structuring the piece, of finding the main skeleton of the play. What have been your guiding principles in this work? As a writer I have begun to be pulled towards simplicity. It’s easy for a writer to get distracted by dialogue, but that’s not what makes a play - it’s just froth if you don’t know what you’re trying to say in each scene. Writing can easily crush everything else. This is probably an awful analogy but it’s a bit like when in your 20s you dress very sexily and then in your 30s you realise that actually you don’t need to try so hard and that what is attractive is something much simpler. You can’t start writing by trying to create elegant thoughts and moments, or trying to give images and ideas. All of those things will only be appreciated if the overall piece is about something. Often new writers are interested in creating very fragmented, open-ended and ambiguous stories. But I think that often leads to a play only having one thing to say. In fact there is nothing more complex and open to interpretation than a simple story. Has the writing process thrown up any particular challenges? A major one is knowing how Tintin should speak and how to make him likeable. In the first workshop we did, we found that Russell Tovey’s voice had a very contemporary quality – he doesn’t speak in RP - and this felt absolutely right. Another question was can you lift dialogue directly from the cartoon? I quickly discovered that you couldn’t. Also - how do you structure the piece in time and space? I’ve tried to congregate it around a number of main locations – Geneva, Kathmandu, the mountain and Tibet. When I write, I try to imagine real situations, not something that will happen on a stage. My stage directions reflect this – they describe what is happening in reality. The theatrical interpretation of that is left to the rehearsal room. What do you think are the central questions that you will have to confront through the rehearsal process? When does Snowy speak and how does this fit into the overall structure? How do we make all four central characters (Tintin, Haddock, Snowy and Tharkey) active and dynamic at every point in the story? It’s difficult to keep the four balls in the air. How much should people know about Tintin and his world? Ultimately the show has to speak to people who know nothing about the books. 13. INTERVIEW WITH DESIGNER, IAN MACNEILLooking at the set in the Barbican space, does it do the things you envisaged it doing? Yes I think it does. It puts the human body in an interesting relationship to the space, with the figures popping out from the stage at you in a cartoon kind of way. The stage is high and the frames are low, creating a tableau effect. What was your experience of adapting the comic book images into a design for the stage? I never normally work on material that is already visually laid out for you. In many ways it's not helpful - the job is already done for you. What you end up having to do is a different job. At first I was intimidated by just how good the books are, but you quickly realise how different it will have to be to work on stage. In the books, Hergé takes a 2D form and makes it look 3D. He creates a dynamic by shifting ‘the camera’ to different angles. In theatre we have to use other skills to create variety. For example, by creating a very dynamic floor, a space that has a strong relationship to the portals where actors make entrances and exits. You're energising the space by creating a visual rhythm that will be satisfying for the audience. It's a bit like serving a good meal - you have to anticipate what will be pleasurable. How has attending rehearsals developed your design ideas? I've been delighted by what I've seen in the rehearsal room and how that works with the design. Ultimately everything has to be story led. As a designer you have to sense when to do something and when to hold back. It’s to a large part instinctive - you can't legislate for things. Overall I'm surprised at how fast the whole process has moved. It's almost sad - the journey is the most interesting bit. What is particular about designing for the Barbican stage? It has been exciting to design the show for this space, though we have adapted it to suit our needs. The safety curtain is built in such a way that the stage takes the actor upstage before they can go downstage. We've built on to the front of the stage bringing the whole show closer to the auditorium. We've tried to put the actor in a more poised, dynamic relationship to the audience. You have to enjoy how stupidly big this space is. It has a reputation as a problem space and I now know why, but in the end things happen here that you couldn't predict and that couldn't happen elsewhere. 14. INTERVIEW WITH PAUL ARDITTI, SOUND DESIGNERWhat is particular about working on a sound design with Rufus? Rufus is very interested in absorbing influences from others. It’s a running joke that if you leave any object lying around in his rehearsal room, it’ll end up in the show. He is also immensely musical (he plays the violin) and has an ability to think in sound and music terms beyond most directors. Our working relationship is based on trust. It’s usually at some point quite late into rehearsals when you realise the enormity of what you’ve committed to. For example with Sleeping Beauty we’d set ourselves the task of doing a lot of sound acapella. However it proved difficult to create a really good sound this way, and we ended up using recorded sound to back up the actors’ voices. We get into some kind of scrape on every show. With Rufus, his ideas tend to come thick and fast in the later stages of rehearsal so I keep an open mind right up until the last possible moment. He’s very generous about who the ideas come from but really most of them come from him. It’s a very collaborative process – Rick (Lighting Designer), Ian (Set Designer), Rufus and I have worked together before so there is a lot of trust. At this early stage my role is all about absorption. Rufus’ productions tend to be extremely detailed and the best way I can serve him is just to be around as much as possible. I then need to gather together a kitbag of sounds that I can draw on in rehearsal once I’m needed. What challenges has Tintin posed you so far? One of the challenges on this production is that the set is very wide, with no room for speakers on the side or at the front of the stage. We have now found ways, with Ian, to adapt the design so that speakers can be hidden inside the set. Following our experience of transferring Sleeping Beauty to the Barbican last year, we have decided to use radio mikes for the actors. With each new production, I try to listen to some new material, to bring fresh blood. I also listen to a lot of sound recorded for previous shows, as very often sounds can be re-used for a different, unexpected purpose. The world of the Himalayas is a pitched world. The wind, the Yeti cry, the call of Chang and the Tibetan pipes, all have notes to them. This is the kind of sound world I think we’ll be playing with. A slightly abstracted soundscape; a world of hollow, slowly modulating, pitched sounds, where perhaps you don’t know which of the sounds is which. This will also allow for tricks - like giving the cast a start note for a song - in and amongst the general soundscape. The other thing we have to find is the Hergéness of the sound world. This might be in the way we edit between external and internal sounds. The main thing with sound design for theatre is to always leave plenty of room for the actors.15. INTERVIEW WITH ORLANDO GOUGH, COMPOSERI was intrigued to hear that you hardly composed any of the music before rehearsals began. I’ve discovered that I’m completely uninterested in writing incidental music for theatre – what interests me is writing music where everything comes from the company, from what’s happening on stage. If you make that decision, it becomes very important to work with who you’ve got. I also find it extremely useful to hear a read-through of the script by the company. You could compose all the music beforehand, but hearing the actors read the script tells you so much about the mood, etc. The other reason for not starting to write too early is that the script on this piece is still evolving, it’s not like having a Shakespeare script where you know the text will stay pretty much the same. So how important is mood as a starting point? With the Marlinspike Song, I spent quite a long time trying to get the mood right – I needed to create something nostalgic. But ultimately the most important thing is the narrative, and finding ways to help that along. In this piece for example, although there is a lot of music, it isn’t a musical. We get through the narrative at a much quicker pace than you would in a musical, so the score has to help this along. I’m very in favour of the one minute song. Most pop songs have a minute’s worth of material and the rest is variation on that theme, and is about drawing that material out. There’s a lot to be said for that. Any longer than one minute and it has to contribute significantly to the telling of the story in a narrative way. This is what ‘Marlinspike’ does – Haddock and Snowy are singing about something very different to Tintin, the song takes us on a narrative journey. Have your compositions been influenced by the fact Tintin is a family show? Well the fact that it’s based on a cartoon means that I’m not going to write the most profound music ever. It’s a Christmas show so we’ve gone for tunes, for something a bit pop-y, a bit pastichey - like the do-wop song or the bhangra song - which is not something I would normally do. It feels important not to be too clever, to keep it simple and perky. So for example when we’re in the monastery, the monks sing a tune, which would never happen in real life. It is consciously a Christmas version of what they might actually sing. We’ve given it a Christmas show twinkle in the eye, but I think this is still in the spirit of Hergé. What does the spirit of Hergé mean for you, and how does it affect your composition? It means that we give a distilled version of things, everything is essentialised. On the one hand this means there is a danger of being Mickey Mouse: over simplistic. But it also gives us a freedom – we’re creating the idea of something rather than actually trying to be it. So we create the idea of monks, but they can stop being monks at any moment. We’ve got the freedom to do the ironic version of things, such as the Marlinspike song (which at the end turns into a sea-shanty version of itself, completely undercutting itself). This is typical of Hergé, who goes to Tibet but actually everything remains very European – it’s giving a nod to something rather than actually trying to be it. The main thing is that it wants to be good on its own terms. Which song has posed the biggest challenge? The Corpse Song was one I wrote too early – ready for the first day of rehearsal in fact - and I got it wrong. Every song has to do the right bit of storytelling and as soon as I heard the read through I knew that what I had written was too sentimental. It needed more energy. Now that I’ve rewritten it’s more like a zombie march, with much more edge. Often the function of a song changes so it’s good not to put too much effort into detail when you’re writing, so that you can remain adaptable with it. For example with the first dream, I wrote it in a form that was very adaptable. I knew that I needed to provide something that was quite hyperactive rhythmically, with a lot of tension in it, something that could rise and fall. I presented the piece to Rufus as an ‘Ikea flat pack’ version with four sections, A to D. The sections could then be used in any order and repeated in whatever way would be most useful to the scene. 16. SONGS Porters’ Bhangra Song The Porters’ Bhangra Song features as Chang’s rescue party begins its ascent of Gosain Than. It is a work song that the Porters use to alleviate the strain of their backbreaking job. In narrative terms the song is about the journey up the mountainside, its rhythm mimicking the movement of walking.We’re a walkin’ all the day ah For to get a little pay ah And we climb the Himalaya And we climb the Himalaya
Where there’s very little air. Hey hey. Watchah sayah? HIMALAYA! Hey
Backpack cuts you straight away Well it ain’t a holiday ah No it aint a holiday ah Hey hey hey hey When you climb the Himalaya Hey hey Watcha sayah? HIMALAYA! When your life is full of care And to bed you do repair Then you can say a little prayer Yes you can say a little prayer Hey hey hey hey Take me back to Himalaya Hey hey Watcha sayah? HIMALAYA! Snowy’s Song Snowy’s Song appears at one of the bleakest moments in the play - as an exhausted Tintin collapses in the snowstorm. The dog sings his song as act of defiance and self-affirmation. It message is simple: even when it looks that all is lost, if you believe in who you are you can always pull through. I’m a dog my name is Snowy I’m a snow dog Got a bark I got a bite I’m not a show dog Woof woof woof woof I’m not shy, I’m a show you what I got dog I can’t deny, you get the eye Cos I’m a hot dog Woof woof woof woof What’s my name! I am the snow dog. Say it again! I am the snowy snowy snow dog! I ain’t a lap dog, I’m a low dog, I’m a bad meaning good I’m in the know dog. I’m a road hog, I’m a go dog. In the street the dogs all know that I’m the snow dog.
I am the snow dog. Say it again! I am the snowy snowy snow dog! 17. FURTHER READING Two excellent sources for budding Tintinologists are the official website and Michael Farr’s companion to the series. www.tintin.com is a colourful, interactive site. It includes original artwork; biographies of Hergé and all his major characters; as well as a guide to each of the stories. Particularly interesting is a map of the world that marks the location of each adventure, confirming Tintin’s status as a truly international hero. TINTIN The Complete Companion by Michael Farr (published by John Murray, 2001), is an accessible and detailed book. With a comprehensive chapter on each of the Tintin books, The Complete Companion is full of fascinating ‘behind the scenes’ insights. Particularly interesting is the way that Hergé grounded all of his outlandish ideas for adventures in meticulously researched fact. Farr lays out pictures from Hergé’s personal archive (newspaper cuttings, adverts, technical drawings) next to actual frames from the comics, proving how the real world directly influenced the artwork. 18. INTERVIEW: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH Needs to be pasted in. Directory: sites -> default -> files -> documents -> Resource packs Resource packs -> In the Red and Brown Water documents -> - documents -> Cbp and Trade Automated Interface Requirements Appendix: pga december 22, 2015 documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Mobile audio/video recording systems documents -> The south australian government gazette documents -> All public acts appearing in this gazette are to be considered official, and obeyed as such documents -> Union interparlementaire inter-parliamentary union Download 341.78 Kb. Share with your friends:
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