The Squirrel Play

I had a great morning working with Elyssa today on the squirrel piece. Things have changed quite a bit since the first meeting.
Lou has decided to completely drop out which has meant that Elyssa had to totally reassess the piece and the narrative of it as she will now be the only performer. She has also wisely decided not to push the piece too quickly and cancel the performance this weekend and try and find another space, sometime in July, so that she can keep the motivation going and develop it further. I am excited about this as it means I can be involved after I get back from Prague.
It was really interesting to have a discussion about dramaturgy - of this piece and in general, in terms of how things change but how they often come full circle to the original origins of the idea, whether that be just a tiny part of it; i.e. in this example, it was Elyssa who was originally thinking about the piece, as a response to an article she found about grey squirrels as menaces in a magazine, and then thinking about them in terms of the 'other' and our attitudes to immigrants, and preserving our English identiy, whatever that is. Then after enthusiastic discussions with Lou, she was brought on board, characters developed and a love story between the squirrel and the jam making lady developed. However, things have now returned somewhat to their origins, but that process has not been forgotten. The character of the squirrel is still prsent. We had an interesting discussion about how the way you devise work, the strategies you take and the process you develop, can often or in Elyssa's opinion, always, inevitably become the dramaturgy of the piece itself. With hindsight, looking back at the nature in which the piece was conceived, it is clear that it was always going to be a one-woman show.
Things Elyssa needs to think about now in working on the final stages, as she has most of the elements in place:
-Identifying the three stages of the preserve-making, which I think we have almost really. Trying this out practically in a performance context, and working out where these are going to sit within the piece, as the tension of having something cooking on stage could be disastrous, if trying to focus the audience's attention on another element.
-Play with the squirrel mask as this will help develop the character - do we want him to be presented as a victim or a nuisance? This will effect greatly the message of the piece.