At the Burton Taylor in 5th week, The Aphorist, written and directed by Fred Sugarman-Warner, is going to be performed. Olivia Reilly has been going to rehearsals, interviewing Fred and Joe Charlton (Producer), and will be one of the reviewers at its first night performance on Tuesday. This process will mirror the way that the OTR is going to be involved with the New Writers Festival in 7th week.

Interview with Fred and Joe: “When you let it out of your control and give it to the actors they bring things to it and it becomes something different. I never really saw it completely, especially Harry’s character. You need the actors to complete it.” Fred Sugarman-Warner

Watching rehearsals: “When not involved in a scene the other actors sit and watch, making observations and comments when there is a pause and when an issue is raised the whole group have things to say, suggestions to make.” Olivia Reilly

A bit from Fred’s favourite extract from The Aphorist:

“Cynthia I loved the half-rhyme. To show just how putrid that glory-hole really is.

Rudolph Exactly. I think it really twists the knife in on modern society. Should go down well at Lenin’s this Friday.”

Tuesday-Saturday of 5th Week (16-20 Feb)

Burton Taylor, 9.30 p.m. – 10.30 p.m., £5/4

Desperate, lonely man; loves home-grown proverbs and marrows, would like to meet a woman – any woman – in doomed quest for love and self-confidence.
All applicants obsessively considered…

Interview with Fred Sugarman-Warner (writer and director) and Joe Charlton (producer)

Interview by Olivia Reilly

Why did you decide to write The Aphorist? What inspired you?

Fred: I have always been interested in drama, love watching plays and felt the need to take advantage of the opportunities available. Second year seemed like the time to do something after the dissoluteness of last year and before the stress of finals!

I wrote The Aphorist at the end of the summer and for pretty much the whole of last term. It took three or four months. I started off by writing down bits and pieces – started off with the padding and expected the bones to fall into place where I now know I should have written the bone structure and padded! [Both laughing] If I write something again I’ll start with a cogent story. So I showed it to Joe first of all and he had some ideas, which was great.

What did you think of it, Joe?

Joe: I thought it was funny – a group of idiots saying strange things is always funny! It’s witty but not patronising of the audience – it patronises the characters not the audience, anti-pretentious, doesn’t overarch or try to confuse the audience into a state of chaos, which sometimes seems the norm and which we should fight against as independent humans! [Both laugh]

Fred: It’s drawing-room humour, a modern comedy of manners so everything is word based. One extreme of possibly not engaging theatre is the totally self-absorbed, the other is that which is entirely focussed on spectacle. If it didn’t sound incredibly arrogant, I would say I was trying to find something between, something maybe more about language. It was also obvious from the beginning that it would be put on at the BT in a small space so it was more or less written for its surroundings, knowing that I would direct it myself.

Joe: It is quite a self-contained universe, rather than a play about wider issues –

Fred: – hopefully it’s completely issueless. There’s a bit after Rudolph recites a poem about death, which he declares was inspired by Camus – they say the poem twists the knife in society – but of course it doesn’t. It’s weird talking about it – having a kind of self-analysis. It was originally about what I call pseuds – a dramatised version of that. Lots of us would be happy to walk around in velvet jackets and talk about Sartre and The Prelude. It’s all about self-consciousness -

Joe: – how you can get away with acting in this way in a specific context. Rudolph has an audience that allows him to think he is a genius.

Fred: Harry is aware of Rudolph’s bullshit while indulging in it himself – what he tries to deny he indulges in private. As English students we know how easy it is to turn every sentence in an essay into some little phrase about the author so the play dramatises what happens to everyone – you say ‘I could never be like that’ but find yourself slipping into it.

Joe: It’s satire that doesn’t submit a cure. [only half serious – they accuse each other of demonstrating what they’re trying to say]

How have you found page to stage?

Fred:  I have been worried that there isn’t a lot of action in it so it’s changed a lot.

Joe: I think you realise when you write anything – poems, short stories, anything – that thoughts aren’t that interesting but actions are.

Fred: There’s the robot in the last scene, which Joe hates and I don’t really like, but it got put in because I think when he comes on the stage it’s going to be really funny – a guy dressing up in a cardboard box that he has clearly made at home. Then there’s a scene where Harry is soliloquising and playing chess against himself. Matthew can’t play chess so he’s moving the queens all over the place and everything and it’s really good. When it all goes well, the bit where he picks up and addresses a pawn and spits in its face I think is one of the strongest moments. You can make anything funny. I love slapstick, Pink Panther, Peter Sellers, all that stuff and I don’t think it’s a bad thing, though there isn’t a lot of real slapstick in this. I’ve been worried about humour – would people laugh at things that I found funny. When you let it out of your control and give it to the actors they bring things to it and it becomes something different. I never really saw it completely, especially Harry’s character. You need the actors to complete it.

Joe: It’s been a bit scary – really scary in fact. It’s a very volatile process. When Fred first read me the script it sounded completely different, the whole character of it has changed. It’s  a fun dynamic but we’re all quite different people, which is good.  It’s good to have a bit of a motley crew. It’s very different from school – there’s a much bigger range of people.

Fred: It’s been a great learning experience. When I’ve written short stories they’ve always been a bit muddled too so I’ve learnt how to map out a story – or rather this has taught me the problems of not laying out a story! It’s been really exciting. There’s lots I’ve ended up liking about it and lots I really don’t like about it.

Joe: It’s not The Invention of Love [Fred: wasn’t it the most expensive Oxford student production ever?] – it’s a modest production. This is not meant to be romantic or nostalgic. It’s all about bathos and anticlimaxes that keep repeating themselves.

Fred: Every phrase has an echo elsewhere in the play.

Joe: Like Paradise Lost.

Fred: Yes, it is, in fact, based on Paradise Lost. An homage to Milton’s masterpiece.

[We become hysterical]

Do you have any other drama experience?

Fred: I wrote a play at school – farcical – it was an all boys’ school so it had lots of guys dressed as girls. It wasn’t that bad! But it was a lot more visually funny. Joe runs the art society which is funding The Aphorist – the [Oxford Combined Media Arts] “Comma” Club. I’m not really experienced in the Oxford drama scene, but New is quite a creative college – there’s lots of drama and drama people here. It’s been exciting building it from nothing. But we’ve had lots of help. Matthew Monaghan, who plays Harry has been in about eleven shows so far at Oxford – he’s in his 2^nd year so he’s one of the most experienced actors around at the moment.  Aggie, who plays Cynthia, has been in several shows as well. Felix (Rudolph) directed a big musical last summer with about 40 people in the cast. In a way I am the least experienced and the least capable of running the ship and but it’s not been too bad! It would be almost impossible to start thinking one day I want to write a play not knowing anyone. You need that. And some of the people we know here will probably end up being very important one day! It’s a great opportunity.

Watching rehearsals: BLOG ONE

Olivia Reilly

Rehearsals for the Aphorist (BT, week 5) on Wednesday were in the Long Room of New College, which, with its exposed wooden beams and warm yellow lighting was a completely enviable rehearsal space, depite the inevitable ‘yoga smell’. The actors, the writer/director and the producer grouped around the piano, discussing the mid-week/mid-term slump and the work that was inevitably piling up in defiance of thespian commitments. No wonder when in the space of five days they have scheduled no less than eleven hours of rehearsals. As the Aphorist of the play’s title exclaims ‘The busy stone gathers no moss’.

Fred Sugarman-Warner, the writer and director of the piece and producer Joe Charlton are determined to get everything as snappy and polished as possible. The play is, Fred explains, dialogue driven so this has to be as professional and quick fire as possible, suggestive of the play’s indirect debt to Oscar Wilde. The next question is obvious – how is the line learning coming on? This is met with a long pause during which the actors look with comic reluctance from ceiling to floor, finally followed by ‘Well….they’re good lines…!’ This proves to be no real problem, however, rather it is the honing of on stage dynamics, significance and timing that emerges as the rehearsal’s chief object.

The rehearsal space is above all a private and intimate one and this is only heightened by the fact that here Fred is directing his own work. But the process is also very collaborative. When not involved in a scene the other actors sit and watch, making observations and comments when there is a pause and when an issue is raised the whole group have things to say, suggestions to make. I am conscious throughout my time there that my position is a privileged one, given access to what is not generally public and able to see the effect of minute alterations, tiny changes in inflection, timing and gesture which suddenly make the meaning shine through and work the disparate fragments of bits of scenes into part of a comprehensive whole. It is a chance too to sit, as it were, on the edge of the stage, watching audience, director and actors, the lack of raised stage and dimmed lighting revealing the democracy of the rehearsal process, where everyone is to a degree equal. Then, as things start to come together, as things move from page to experiment to more or less concrete intention, the ‘audience’ is forgotten, the actors seem to create around themselves the set which is as yet absent, the small apartment where Harry sits making aphorisms, invaded by Rudolph, who eats a banana from the sideboard, declaims his performance poetry, and mocks his friend’s small marrow.

I watched the first scene through twice before leaving them to continue unobserved and was vaguely surprised to find that it was dark out – a frostly winter evening in New College.

Watching rehearsals: BLOG TWO

Olivia Reilly

Saturday at Aphorist rehearsals and only two days of rehearsals left before the first performance. Inevitably tensions are showing – cast and crew are tired and small slips result in increasing amounts of frustration. Matthew, the lead, has an inevitable cough that makes shouting difficult but fights on despite it, shouting when the scene demands it even when a moment previously he was determined to save his voice. At all times the pressure of not letting the group down extends to making sure that even on the millionth run through everyone remains good-humoured and any frustrations are self-directed. Meanwhile there is a definite sense of it coming together, some moments really strong, with a sense that the actors have achieved a kind of breathing space within the scene and the script where they feel comfortable and where the whole thing begins to live.

Being so dialogue driven, intricate and fast-paced, slips are inevitable, especially as the desire to create a sense of the lines coming fresh, seeming to come out of the moment, leads to an impulse to improvise, which Fred and Joe intervene to correct. The actors too have no wish to alter the lines. At one sticky moment in a particular scene Fred’s suggestion that he could just ‘leave that bit out’ is met with universal gasps and condemnation. The script is now as much the property of the performers as of its writer and they inhabit it with increasing ease, moving between their on-stage personas and off-stage lives, though at times, in the rehearsal space, blending both in a manner sometimes quite uncanny.

The increasing number of props appearing adds to the sense of the blanks being filled, colouring between the lines, and of everything emerging into a kind of reality. And even illness, tiredness and general irritation cannot stem the essential energy and enthusiasm of the group. As the rehearsal ends they melt into different parts of the college, back to their real lives, but ready to be back in the Long Room to do it all again tomorrow.

Watching rehearsals: BLOG THREE

Olivia Reilly

This is the final rehearsal I will attend and I can’t help thinking about the progress that has been made. The concentration is immense now – the air practically crackles with the energy of everyone’s focus. Things have shifted from enjoyment to determination, though there is still plenty of humour, more if anything than before, one interlude in particular proving hilarious where they discuss the anticipated arrival of the marrow carefully ordered online from Waitrose and the disaster to continuity and authenticity that would result if they were obliged to substitute, for example, (horrors) a courgette. This leads to Fred announcing that The Philanthropist want to borrow a marrow and have offered to lend a cauliflower in return!

The relationship between actors and director/writer has also developed as each balance the tensions in the other, recognising and compensating when frustrations arise. Meaningful looks are exchanged as previously problematic lines come up, revealing the level of understanding that has been reached. There is a sense of the decreasing amount of time available lending everything a sense of containment, as every moment becomes precious and each note becomes pressing. Meanwhile debates are becoming more common as the actors achieve further confidence with the script that had once been seemed solely Fred’s. The way moments should be played is questioned by the actors; tone of voice, blocking, everything is thrown open to be discussed in these final moments of fluidity when things are still capable of being changed.

There is a slight sense now of the lines having been said millions of times as the script cements itself in the long term memory and stress pushes the actors onto automatic pilot. But as the rehearsal progresses and things are mixed up, even at this late stage, the freshness comes back and everyone strives to raise the bar once more as the final wrinkles are ironed out. The transition from page to stage is well on its way and I can’t wait to see it complete tomorrow – marrows, cauliflowers, and all.

Fred Sugarman-Warner’s favourite extract from his play The Aphorist:

Rudolph We were just saying that it would be nice to see you. Weren’t we just saying, Cynth?

Stony glare. Cynthia turns away.

I’ve written a new poem.

Harry Oh… Good.

Cynthia (irritated) Well, would you like to hear it? He’s spent a week on this masterpiece.

Harry Right. Yes.

Cynthia Recite your poem, darling.

Rudolph Hey Death. Get out of the way, Death.

You pollute with your stinking breath.

Children suffer, doped on meth,

Little Simon, Peter, Beth.

In a public toilet’s wall

A disgusting glory-hole, (deliberate half-rhyme)

A mouth like a tortured soul.

Evil killers on parole.

Hey Death, you can’t be well.

Hey Death, go back to hell.

Don’t come knocking at my door.

I won’t answer – anymore. Death.

Pause

Harry My God.

Cynthia Oh Rudolph!

Rudolph I just finished it an hour ago. You’ll see it’s reactionary.

Cynthia I think it’s fantastic, darling. Reminds me of Camus.

Rudolph Exactly. Camus was an inspiration for this poem.

Cynthia I loved the half-rhyme. To show just how putrid that glory-hole really is.

Rudolph Exactly. I think it really twists the knife in on modern society. Should go down well at Lenin’s this Friday. What did you think of it, Harry?

Harry I thought it was…

Cynthia Yes?

Harry …interesting.

Cynthia Which part of it interested you?

Harry The whole general idea of the concept was interesting to me as a whole.

Rudolph (attentively) Exactly, exactly.

Cast List

Harry – Matthew Monaghan
Rudolph – Felix Legge
Cynthia – Agnes Meath Baker

Producer – Joseph Charlton
Writer/Director – Fred Sugarman-Warner
Marketing – Shaan Sahota
Stage Manager – Clio Adam