To Sum up...for the moment

Tonight was the second years open dress rehearsal for their first public show and we were invited. It was performed as if it was a public performance. Let me state first that the second years are still at school, this is the end of their fourth term out of a total of six. I am only at the end of term one. And I can't afford term three so a part of me doesn't want to like terms four, five and six. So carry those facts in your head before you read my review.

I was underwhelmed. Not just slightly, massively. Technically it was good, the rhythm and movement was very interesting. But my expectations of this school had led me to expect more. Physically we as performers are worked more than than standard drama schools. So technique and rhythm should be good. And first year is about learning this. Second year adds a couple more techniques to the belt but is supposed to be about exploring your individual creative style and ideas. And I saw none of that tonight. What I saw was group after group of technique, some better than others but none unique in idea to the others. I could have been in any drama school in any part of the world watching any technique. Now I would like to add here that I am beginning to fear I am too critical of theatre. Although, is that a bad thing? Yes if you never appreciate anything. But that is not true in my case as anyone who has heard me drone on about the theatre I love can confirm. I have seen an awful lot of work I love and am impressed and inspired by and an awful lot which has left me with nothing. And those are just my opinions. Everyone sees things differently so there is no right or wrong, there can be no definative performance. But I think it is the responsibility of anyone creative to strive for the definative piece of theatre or the definative performance and it is on that expectation I criticise because I don't think there was a single piece or performer who could have been striving for that tonight. I know how hard it is transferring new skills to something other than technique and let me here acknowledge that there were quite a few very good actors, professionally so. Ready to go to work any day. But this is lecoq. This isn't just about how good you are, it's about what you can offer to theatre. How you will continue to shape what has been a dying art and is currently enjoying a creative burst and exciting change, not just what's on stage but how it's constructed, where it is and how it's run. Everything is being overhauled. It's one of the most exciting times to be a theatre performer because it's in a state of rebirth. I think that any art form should always be in a state of rebirth whether successful or not otherwise it is already dead. Even if rebirth just means performing an old text as if it were new. Unfortunately it is not always the case because business gets in the way and success sells until it's no longer fashionable and the art form in question goes through a rebirth.

Theatre is here right now. Lecoq is a school of creative exploration. It's actors, directors, dancers, singers, writers should be at the fore front of this time. Just as they have been in the past. But I fear either the method has got tired or the artists less distinguished because I saw nothing new or exciting tonight. I saw good and hard work. But a new age of theatre didn't spring off the stage at me. Maybe I expected too much.

What I saw was lecoq. The method. The school. Every one of the teachers. And like every other school before it, it has become a product of itself. It has become a religion. Something not to be tampered with. A way of thinking. A machine. Maybe it always was but it was a machine before its time and now time has caught up.

This is not to say I don't think the teaching is relevant. Or good. I think it is exceptional. I am loving every second of it and I think it is a method of teaching that offers a wealth of possibilities to the performer. I recommend it highly as a school. But I think the ability to break free from the confines of ones training and take it further comes only from the artists themselves. And if you can't do that then maybe you should do something else. This is not to say I don't believe there are no second year students who have the ability to do exactly that but it's quite clear they haven't found how yet, or they haven't found their individual voice yet or it's place in theatre. Or all three. God knows I haven't. But maybe second year Lecoq isn't the place for me to look. I know creatively I don't fit with my classmates now. And they will be fewer but still the same people next year. So maybe I take all I can during my first year and explore it all in the big wide world outside of the constraints of the school.

Or maybe I become a theatre critic...

Now can someone please pay for my third term? Even a theatre critic will benefit from a whole first year at lecoq.

...and maybe after term three I'll be itching for year two. In which case you're welcome to pay for that too.