its all over... for now at least

phew, what an adventure. Having spent all of saturday saying to myself "i'm never doing this again. No really Cherry, never do this again, don't do it to yourself!" I have spent the time since saying "that was great, let's do it again".

It was nerve-racking and incredibly hard work, but we pulled it off and "the old hotel" went without a hitch (more or less) - although that's not to say i would do exactly the same again - so many interesting problems and ideas raised... where to start...?

First, the performers. They did their jobs perfectly. It was really interesting to see the difference in the two pairs (Rich and Jonny (A&B) and Ming and Mel (B&C)), as they had rehearsed separately and gone about it in two completely different ways. Rich and Jonny had worked very quickly, getting through the entire text once or twice in every rehearsal. They came off the book later in the week, but had gone much deeper into the thoughts behind the words and how they might use/subvert these. Because of this they were able to be very flexible with audience intervention and general presence/noise. Mel and Ming, on the other hand, worked through each scene much more slowly and thoroughly and focussed on accuracy rather than flexibility. The result on their side was a quieter more crafted approach to the scenes, which seemed to draw the audiences just as effectively as Rich and Jonny's energetic approach. I hope I will be able to work with Mel and Jonny for the next stage of this project too, so we can keep building on what we have rather than starting from scratch again (Rich and Ming will be working on their own performances in July).

The audience. Something you can never quite predict. How interesting to see how people's reactions changed over the course of the night. At first people listened intently, but by the 4th installment (there were 15 'scenes' spread across 90mins with 3-4 minute gaps between each), they started to realise that their full attention was neither necessary nor expected and began to drift off into groups, just catching bits here and there. Some parts went completely unnoticed - just a conversation amongst the crowd, others had people shushing and straining to hear. One thing that was common to every part was that as soon as a 'performance' was recognised, the audience drew back to a 'respectful' distance - and then complained that they couldn't hear!!! One brave audience member asked me if she could ask the performers questions, I said 'of course' and she walked straight into the middle of a conversation between rich and jonny. What was really wonderful about this was that not only were the performers able to answer some of her questions, but then other audience members asked her what information she had gleaned from them - so a lovely organic process of gossip/rumour was begun.

The space. Well just look at the pics on the website, absolutely amazing. with the layout of the old rooms still marked on the floors and the crumbly bricks...mmmmm... It was really exciting at the beginning of the evening when some students turned up outside the site; I asked if they were there for the exhibition and they told me they used to live in the old hotel! So I invited them up and they looked around the space, tracing out the positions of their old rooms etc. It was exactly what the piece was all about. The performers watched them closely! Sadly they couldn't be convinced to stay for the performance.

The text. I was really pleased with how the performers brought the text to life and made their own stories out of it. I hope the text will be the vehicle for developing the stories further in my collaborative work for 070707 Upstage festival (see news and events on my website). This time, however, I want to expand the text to include imagery as well as words, and perhaps use my website as a 'script' so it can be constantly in flux rather than a static object.

Enough for now. More retrospective thoughts when I come back from my camping trip and am all relaxed!