BlueForms' Beat About the Bush is a project that uses that techniques and methods of extended improvisation developed by British dramatist Mike Leigh during a lifetime of work on stage and screen. In this unique world premiere, four lost souls stumble into each other's lives: Howard, a fourth-generation Indiana Jones joke; Will, a lovelorn career counselor with no ambitions to speak of; Carter, newly an uncle, who hears his own biological clock ticking the days away; and Jill, a youth-obsessed, narcissistic proof-
reader from Bowling Green.
Director Brant W. Jones guided the process of creation, carefully selecting and ordering the information volunteered by the actors in a two-month long series of exercises. Improvisations with the actors started on an individual basis, working from very general information to very specific details. Eventually four unique characters were created with rich, complex worldviews and intersecting histories. The actors then came together in rehearsal to improvise situations in which their characters interacted and developed relationships. Continuing in this manner, the scenes were explored and refined until they were finally arranged as a full-length play.
Beat About the Bush is unique in that it explores a method of creating drama that is devised from the minds of many artists working in collaboration. This method is in stark contrast to the traditional idea of a single "auteur" laboring with pencils and legal pads in quiet seclusion for months on end. While the product of the process is a script that the ensemble learns and honors as they would a traditional script, it is in the creation of the script that we find a new way of thinking about theatre. |
