Greetings from the Trenches in performance at Jakobus Theatre

For those of you who have been following the progress of my new play 'Greetings from the Trenches' and weren't able to see the two European Premiere shows at Jakobus Theatre in Karlsruhe I wanted to let you know how it all went.

Emma and I arrived separately in Karlsruhe on Wednesday 3rd December. Emma arrived by train via Cologne and I flew over from Stanstead airport arriving about half past four. We met up at Café Bleu opposite the theatre and Emma's first words were "I am soo glad to see you. I don't think I could have done it on my own!" With this being a two hander it is very unlikely either of could have performed it on our own. During our time there we had a tremendous amount of fun outside of the play as we both have a very silly sense of humour.

On the Wednesday we had an interview with Andreas Juttner of the big regional newspaper the - Badische Neueste Nachrichten and they published a nice big article with picture in the Friday morning edition.

Wednesday evening was spent collecting furniture for the show and working with our German technician Lennart on the few technical light and sound aspects of the show. Luckily his English is very good and he is proficient. Such professionalism is important when there is very little space for error and time for rehearsals.

In the daytime of Thursday Emma and I met up and enjoyed some relaxation at the Karlsruhe Christmas market along with a reasonable amount of mulled wine, flannkuchen and coffees and some very important shopping messing about in Primark.

 

 

The early evening found us back at the Jakobus theatre joining Lennart for a technical rehearsal before the actual show. All seemed in order as we worked through the play out of costume and we were both looking forward to the actual performance - only half an hour away! Just about time to get changed, take a breath and get downstairs into the wings.

Jutta Berendes did a welcoming speech to the audience, there was applause, and suddenly we got the chords of the opening music recorded on piano in Leiden Holland and the play began. It was good to play to an actual paying audience amongst which were some familiar faces from the Jakobus theatre and that of our translator Thorsten Feldmann. Later, in the following few days Thorsten explained why there more laughs on Thursday than on Friday. Apparently there was a much bigger audience membership of English speaking people on the first night and they were appreciating all the subtle humour in the text and the relationship between Frank and his daughter Madeleine. Emma's parents had also made the trip from Nottingham to see the show too!

Whilst I enjoyed all of the performance I guess that the piece I wanted to work the most was the end of the play where it is revealed to the audience that the two people on the stage actually died in a car crash before they had even reached the television studio. Given the reaction during the announcement at the very end I would say that it worked very well and I was glad that we decided to end with our backs to the audience holding hands in a cold blue light while the announcement played and a police light flashed on the stage.

The second night's audience was a quieter audience in terms of any laughter but very attentive at the same time and a nice big group from Theater Die Käuze came to watch as well as my friend Birgitta who had travelled all the way from Friedrichshafen to see the show with her friend Jutta. We hadn't seen each other for fourteen years to it was great to chat before the show in Café Bleu and catch up.

Overall, it was great to know that all the ideas, text, poems, German translations, songs and rehearsals had paid off and my first professional show was an artistic success. Hopefully we can repeat that success in Nottingham next year. Thank you to everyone who made the Karlsruhe shows a success and big thanks to my co-star Emma Brown for her enthusiasms, talent and relaxed approach and to Thorsten for all the translating work. Thanks too to all of the great people at the Jakobus Theatre, especially Carsten Thein and Markus Kunstler, for all your support along the way and during the weekend! Especial thanks to my hosts Gerd and Herrlich for giving a bed, a lovely breakfast, some beers and a chance to pay with and pat Fricker the friendly Alsatian!

Emma had to return to Leiden early on the Saturday morning and I remained in Karlsruhe until Monday morning. It was nice to be able to have a chance to relax after our performances and I spent some time with my friends Lena and Sacha and with my former hosts - the Corneli family.

See you soon Karlsruhe and Café Bleu!

Introducing Emma Brown - actress and mezzo soprano.

Over the last five months I have had the great pleasure of working with the very talented Emma Brown. Emma is originally from Nottingham in England but is currently residing and working in the beautiful Dutch university city of Leiden - south of Amsterdam. Her main professional work is as a much sort after mezzo- soprano. Emma read Music at the University of Cambridge before continuing her studies at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and at Utrecht Conservatoire - both in the Netherlands. At Cambridge University Emma regularly participated in the Marlowe Society's play reading sessions for young playwrights.

As mentioned in a previous blog post we have found a way of rehearsing together that requires some flexibility to put into practice because not only are The Netherlands are an hour ahead but also because of each other's busy creative schedules. Emma is very much looking forward to performing at the Jakobus Theatre in Karlsruhe Germany in my new play, Grüße aus dem Schützengraben. In this Emma plays Frank Philip's daughter Madeleine and various other characters. She has a great dedication to the piece, a fun approach, a good instinct for dramatic levity and weight and poetry within the text and is continually offering creative and editorial advice, always in an enhancing and positive light. It is an enormous pleasure to have Emma on board this new production.

A brief resume of Emma's creative and educational background would have to include the following:

• December 2014: Jakobus Theatre Karlsruhe: Grüße aus dem Schützengraben by Phil Lowe

• October 2014 Leiden Memorial Service singing solo with the Dutch Royal Navy.
• Leiden English Freshers new adaptation of Volpone playing the outrageous Lady Politic Would-be.
• June 2014 Pancras Consort singing Ravel's Trois Beaux Oiseaux du Paradis.

• Ongoing: Reads audio books for City Books (www.citybooks.eu)

• Work-shopped with professional actress Prunella Scales on The Importance of Being Earnest.

• April 2012: Jakobus Theatre in The Lace Market Theatre Company's production of Hedda Gabler.

• 2010 Singer in Dutch National Opera production of  Il Priggioniero by Dalla Picolla

• Has sung for the Dutch New Opera Academy at the Dutch National Opera and sang the role of Eve in Carlijn Metselaar's new opera - In The Beginning.

• Her church music has been performed in The Netherlands and England including the prestigious and acoustically beautiful Hooglanse Kerk in Leiden and the Laurenskerk in Rotterdam as well as St Mary's Church in Nottingham's historic Lace Market district.

Emma is working to maximise her talents for a solo career that is both challenging and fulfilling. She is currently studying a wide range of repertoire, including standard opera and oratorio and works by new composers. She told me that she enjoys the challenge of new music and the satisfaction of bringing new life to existing repertoire. Her thrilling and powerful voice, rich in colour and highly versatile has already attracted international acclaim.

Emma also has a great stage presence as an actress and is looking forward to her roles in Phil Lowe's new play Grüße aus dem Schützengraben premiering at Karlsruhe's Jakobus Theatre on 4th and 5th of December before a possible run in Nottingham in 2015.

Rehearsing Greetings from The Trenches in Leiden Holland.

It's not often you get the chance to go abroad to rehearse a play but it recently felt very necessary to go over to Leiden to rehearse my play - Greetings From the Trenches - with my friend, fellow actor and singer - Emma Brown. I flew by Flybe from East Midlands Airport and transferred by train to Leiden at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. Emma met me at the airport and accompanied me to the house I was staying in. As I mentioned in a previous blog post we had been rehearsing by Skype before and that is fine for text work but sometimes you need to be physically together to work things through and to block the play. Such was the case in late October 2014 and I took myself off for five days' worth of exploration both theatrically and continentally. The libation of Dutch and Belgian beer was a constant theme throughout as well as experiencing a fibrous meal called 'sauerkraut surprise' - but that's another story altogether!

Interior Hooglanse Kerk

Emma arranged a rehearsal space at the Hooglanse Kerk around the corner from a city centre stretch of the Nieuwe Rijn canal. It was a very pretty part of the old town of Leiden and near to the old roman fort. I have never seen so many bikes in my life! It was here we deconstructed the text and worked with it on a daily basis to find how it would work visually for the audience and ourselves in order to tell the stories with conviction and variety.

 

A tender scene in the play.

Emma has a very creative mind and we work in remarkably similar ways so the whole process was a joy to develop and great fun to explore and discuss. I like Emma's intuitive responses to change and her ability to retain the information quickly. We had particular fun with the scene about Hans Schwabe's Strassenbahn  (tram system) obsession. I am not at liberty to reveal anything more about that because it would spoil the surprise. Trust me when I say it should be very funny and show another side to the character Frank Philips and his relationship with his mostly tolerant daughter Madeleine. Through our rehearsals in Leiden we have discovered a lovely chemistry between the father and daughter in the play born from my original writing and the simple fact that I get on well with my friend Emma. It is an easy relationship built on mutual respect and an ability to see the funny side of most things.

We paid particular attention to finding how we could create ghostly moments through isolated lighting and our positions on the stage. After all it is essentially a ghost story.

 

rehearsal space

We worked particularly hard on the scene where Frank describes how he gets his creative inspirations and I recalled creative development exercises from my University days where getting down and dirty on the floor with some chalk and the liberty to randomly scribble could be inspiring. Sometimes taking oneself away from a desk or a laptop keyboard and just being 'free' can achieve surprisingly good results. Once again Emma's input was exceptional for our finished result and I guess it helps that I am not an arrogant director.

"When two mind begin sparking off one another...

... the result is pure creative magic."

Further into the week we went out to a local cemetery to film Emma (in costume) singing part of the German version of Silent Night. Her friend Hans suggested the location and we filmed by an angelic statue and also by a big old tree. The statue placement worked best. This was for the promotional video now seen on the Jakobus website. When filming with a video camera outside you become very aware of every little disruptive noise. Luckily the boys marching band, very audible throughout the afternoon, had now drifted away to another part of the city.

Towards the end of my stay we utilised the time related objects in one corner of the church in order to film myself talking Simon Schama style to the camera about the play. It proved to be an inspirational spot and visually appealing. So much so that I on the last day in Leiden I took some publicity shots of Emma for her own singing career.

We also recorded the theme tune for the show on piano (Die Vermisster) as well as me singing "If I Had A Door" and her friend Hans's beautiful rendition of Stille Nacht. Hans also took the rehearsal photos for us.

On Sunday afternoon we had a rehearsal in front of a group of English speaking audience and they gave us some good feedback (very favourable) which we have taken on board to improve the play.

Afterwards we retired with some of the audience to the Café De Bonte Koe for some 9% Dutch beers and a couple of shared cooked Dutch sausages! Sausages are a constant link (sausage link geddit?) in the play so this was most appropriate as well as amusing. Loved the tiles inside. I could just imagine my fictional characters Hans Schwabe and Frank Philips enjoying a drink or two together in there as well as sharing a hot sausage with mustard.

Promotional video for Greetings from The Trenches by Phil Lowe and Emma Brown

"Greetings from the trenches" promotional video made during rehearsals in Leiden Holland.

More rehearsal details in the forthcoming blogpost.

Play rehearsal by Skype with Emma Brown

I don't know why I didn't latch on to the benefits of communicating by Skype before but I recently created an account for myself and Emma and I had our first Skype based rehearsal today.

Emma currently lives in Holland and I live in Nottingham in England so our regular rehearsals for 'Greetings from the Trenches' need to be actualised somehow. The Skype system turned out to be brilliant. With good web links the aural and visual communication were as clear as if we were sitting in the same room. Plus it is free and a great way to rehearse. Shame I couldn't make her a cup of tea online though and Emma, if the interruptive telesales woman selling Italian olive oil and sausages calls again please give her my number. Her sixty-two euro deal sounds a bargain.

We managed to go through the last twelve pages of script that have been written recently and in the practicing of reading aloud we agreed that two of her concerns about certain scenes do actually work theatrically. There may be a few other small things that need rephrasing or tweaking still plus considerations over songs and music. All in good time.

Rehearsal by Skype

Otherwise, Emma said that she thought the play was 'gorgeous' and would be a pleasure to do. I was thrilled to hear that good news and look forward to further rehearsals and what we can achieve from the piece destined for its premiere in early December at the Jakobus Theatre in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Poster for 'Greetings From The Trenches' designed by Phil Lowe

 

My one act play 'Greetings from the Trenches' completed

A couple of weeks ago I had eight pages of text out of a possible twenty completed and a synopsis and an ending in the bag. I wanted the piece to be just over an hour with no interval.

In order to complete the rest I went through all my research notes that I had unhelpfully filed in several notebooks and scraps of paper. To get a bigger picture of how the play would look I got a large sheet of paper about three foot by four foot and roughly marked it out with a good amount of squares. Each square counted as one page. This meant I could instantly fill in the first eight squares with rough plot notes. As I progressed I circled the squares where I believed there was a change in the dramatic journey. I don't know if this common practice as I just went on instinct and wanted a visual resource to work from. Plus, it is good to see you are actually getting somewhere in the writing.

 

 

So, up to page eight the script established the characters on stage and spoke of them and their relationships with a slight edge of mystery and quirkiness. Pages nine and ten continue luxuriously in letters about the two men's love of meat and then we get a supernatural event where Frank is compelled to write his famous poem - The Two Butchers. The tone changes and we start to delve into notions of exchange not just of letters but of creative ideas and Frank dreaming about famous people, historically and contemporarily to them in the 1920s, offering him and Hans creative advice in a dream café. By page twelve Hans has written about his rescue of a drowning dog and he includes a poem in German about a trench dog called Wolf. All the German language translations were done by my German friend Thorsten Feldman. My co- star Emma Brown has been kind enough to offer some advice on presenting various aspects of dramatic text mirroring the way of a musical composer. In particular she suggested talking about the ideas of The Two Butchers poem ie 'anti war - creation vs destruction' rather than trying to write Frank's fictional famous poem itself. All the poems in the piece are written by me other than Arthur Rimbaud's poetic work - Sensation.

Three more poems are included in the next three pages including a key poem Am Durlacher Tor written by Hans after falling from the tram. He sees this event as a near death experience in peace time and hopes it is not premonition. Am Durlacher Tor is spoken creatively both in English and German by Frank and his daughter.

Frank writes back with the first of two confidential letters about his feelings of melancholia and possible suicidal thoughts including the poem Falling In Melancholia.

Pages sixteen and seventeen give us a comical insight into what turns out to be Hans' obsession with the Karlsruhe tram system and its history. I have tried to write this to be shared between Frank and his daughter and read with amusement and I guess enjoyment at some cheery news from Hans without them encouraging his obsession too much.

By page eighteen we start to really understand how these two former combatants are finding their creative feet with ideas of inspiring themselves in their writing of poetry and in developing ideas.

In the case of the German Hans he imagines cabinets of curiosity - the Wunder Kammer - as his motivator and (at a much later date) I introduced a song into the following pages sung by Frank. I have called it 'If I had a Door'. This is based on a question I was asked at the entrance interview by professor John Newling. He actually gave me the idea of a brick and asked me, in a creative sense, what I would do with it to create something artistic or thought provoking. As there are several times during the play that Frank hears whispered requests to 'Open The Doors' I have chosen a door as the motivator.

I made a short video of the tune to demonstrate what it should sound like. And to be sung better too! I had a cold and didn't want to freak out the neighbours!



This song was only introduced after I thought I had finished the play and then I got the tune in my head and developed the lyrics over a couple of days to the point where I felt they conveyed what I wanted to convey. That being the creative doors of his mind being utterly inspired and his letting in all these influences.

If I had a door: final written draft

There is another piece of piano music I have called The Missing (visited in a previous blog post) and I have decided to keep it just the piano with no lyrics and it may get extended.

For the remainder of the play we hear that Hans is getting inspired and healed by new anti war poetry and books like All Quiet On The Western Front and the poetry of Gerrit Engelke. Frank and Winifred share good news about the new baby Madeleine and Hans gets new work in the city library. Frank writes to Hans with a new confession - the true reason why his daughter is called Madeleine and Hans writes back. Emma Brown sings Sensation by Arthur Rimbaud at the piano in connection with the Madeleine back story. Is that the end? No, but I suggest you get out the hankies because things get decidedly weird in the last two pages and there is a huge surprise for the audience in the last few seconds of the play.

For a blogpost about the first read through click HERE