One more day to go in our first week, and it has been fascinating, gruelling, exciting and, yes challenging in equal measures.
What is not in doubt is that this is a very talented team. The six actors selected to be our cast in September are, as I expect we should be expecting with the National Theatre Company, an impressive
group. Several have experience of performing with NTCK already, including Seong Gyung, who will be William. Unbelievably considering how young he looks, and in fact is, this will be his third play here. For Min Ju, who plays the other key role of Jiyoung, it is her National Theatre debut, but both are sharp, flexible, committed and strong. The four members of the 'ensemble' bring more range and experience than I had expected, and the level of preparation of he whole operation is evident in every aspect.
Today we had a meet and greet with the whole NTCK team, and it was possible to see just how big an operation this will be, although it is still being billed as 'work-in-progress' along our path to the bilingual version scheduled for next year. The National Theatre Company Director, Kim Yun Cheol, gave a lovely speech of welcome, showing an impressive depth of understanding of our project and underlining his commitment, which has seen them supporting two and a half years of preparation to this point.
So, what about these challenges then? Well we all know that this was a play designed for UK and Korean actors together, performing in two languages, and the workshop at On The edge earlier this month was exploring that version. Here we have only korean - language, actors and audience. Which makes the task quite a different one. Gone are the essential problems of the project - the way to make stories in two languages accessible to speakers of only one - and instead the problem is one of distinguishing fully the two sections. How do korean performers establish a story not just of UK characters, but of UK characters who are themselves migrants?
In addition we have two directors - myself [as the sole UK representatiove here, until the cavalry, in the form of Kerry ann and Hannah arrive in August] and Shin Dong, korean artist/designer turned director. Tow people with radically different skills and approaches, and we have to learn to understand each other, learn the systems within we each operate, and find the way to work effectively together. At times this week this has been tricky, and I have felt sorry for the actors waiting for us to finish our 'discussions' and give a clear decision, but we have been getting there, and we have certainly worked hard. Long days, and long discussions after the rehearsals, strong support from Sun Duck, the wonderful korean writer, and extraordinary stamina from Kyung Hoo, who is interpreting for me, have got us to a point where we have key decisions made, and the way the play will be staged is beginning to emerge. I am not yet prepared to furnish anyone with much detail of this yet, but from Monday we are now committed to standing it up, so follow this blog, and more will be revealed over the next week!