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It is a question often asked, how do artists, theatre makers, and other creatives create? What is their process? That is what I wanted to explore in my latest TheatreArtLife article.
As a maker I’ve always been interested in inter-disciplinary work. My chosen field is theatre and live performance but in work that I have created has always drawn on different artistic fields mainly film and photography. I am very much a visual maker and use visual references as a guide. For example a recent piece of work I created I used the visual style of American film maker Wes Anderson to inspire a creative piece of writing. I was very much drawn to the vintage aesthetics of the film trailer The French Dispatch.
In previous works I’ve produced I’ve been drawn to the films of Film Noir of the 1940s and 1950’s. These have included Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon as well as newer Neo Noirs such as LA Confidential and Sin City. These films have served as a basis for the world that I want to create. The stylist use of lighting, the dark undertones and the moody landscapes were the backdrop for the characters to inhabit. I would then add in additional layers particularly modern ways of communicating such as tweeting and sending SMS to audiences from the characters in the story but keeping to the conventions of how characters in noir films talk to each other.
Andy Kempe who I had the pleasure of working with recently on a production of Bloody Wimmin by the playwright Lucy Kirkwood as part of the 40th anniversary of the protests at Greenham Common in Newbury very kindly shared the following insight into his processes below.
“Many years ago playwright Noel Greig introduced me to his mantra that “limitation is stimulation”. I have, in turn, introduced all of my students and the many drama teachers around the world with whom I have worked to this powerful aphorism. The idea that people become creative when given the leeway to do whatever they like is, I believe, patent nonsense. I guess Noel’s wise words come from the same school of proverbs as “necessity is the mother of invention”. I spent my entire career in the world of state education.
When you have limited logistical resources and even more limited funds to use on a production then the strategy of begging, stealing and borrowing (or, in the case of one’s actors, encouraging them to do what they can with what they’ve while looking for something they didn’t realise they’d got) is only surpassed by being inventive. You keep thinking about the problem. When the answer doesn’t present itself, you think a bit harder and trust that the answer will appear either in a flash of inspiration, through experimentation or, and this happens quite a lot, in that liminal space between sleep and waking when the body is relaxed but the mind is continuing to tick over.
I was almost half way through my career as a drama teacher, director and designer when I met Noel, but as soon as he gifted me his words I recognised that my best work had come about because, one way or another, I’d been working within tight constraints. When I realised this and found myself having to deal with fewer externally imposed constraints, I set them for myself.”
I completely agree with Andy. My process is often guided by limitations. Limitations in this sense could be the duration of the piece, the space in which the action takes place or the format the piece takes place. Limitations help focus the mind on the task at hand. I often think that radio is a great example of this. The limitation of radio is that it is the imagination of the audience, therefore the scripts and the acting of the performers need to enable the audience to imagine and fill in the gaps. During the Covid-19 lockdowns I listen to podcasts more than I had done before. The very fact that I had to use my imagination was the main driving force, it took to me to different worlds.
Our processes as artists differs, as it should be. The unique voices that artists present provoke, inspire and entertain audiences. We all have different approaches to making our work, yet limiting ourselves can often yield different outcomes because we are forcing ourselves to a particular way of thought.
A special thank you to Andy Kempe for his contributions to this article.
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Experienced Theatre professional with a demonstrated history of working in the performing arts industry. Skilled in marketing, event management, presenting, workshop leading and working with young people.
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