I managed to secure a free ticket to Waiting for Godot, currently playing at Theatre Royal in Haymarket, thanks to a fellow Twespian. Waiting for Godot holds a special place in my heart, as it was my introduction to absurdism way back in high school. Having studied it at both high shool and university, I’ve seen countless filmed productions and quite a few staged excerpts, mostly by students. As a result, I’ve often found it a largely innaccesible play. Even the Beckett directs Beckett production felt incredibly academic in it’s approach. Even though I love the play, I had written it off as a piece of theatre reserved for actors, directors and academics; a slightly elitist play that would never be popular theatre.

This was definitely the case when Godot premiered in France in 1953. Audiences left half way through and The Irish Times famously deemed it a play where “nothing happens. Twice.” Waiting for Godot features two four and a half characters, a bare stage save a tree and a bucket load of absurd dialogue. Vladimir and Estragon are two clown like figures who are stuck in an endless loop, waiting beside a road for Godot, the heavily symbolic, never present title character. They are joined by Lucky and Pozzo half way through each act, but the why is never truly explained. It’s a play that is heavy on symbolism and dialogue. However, this production manages to defy convention and actually present this revered text in an engaging and very entertaining way, and not just for the theatre snobs.

It doesn’t hurt that everyone involved in the production are seasoned professionals. When you enter the theatre, you are struck by the art of the set design. Shying away from the bare stage that is often usedfor Godot, Stephen Brimson Lewis has instead created a decaying stage, complete with crumbling proscenium arch and balconies. A bare brick wall stands upstage and a gnarled bare tree sits on the back of a sloping stage. It’s an appropriately apocolyptic design that works brilliantly. Similarly, the way that Sean Mathias has staged this is almost apocolyptic. Vladimir and Estragon are presented as two old men, beaten by life and feeling as if the end is nigh.

Ian Mckellen is a force to be reckoned with. His portrayal of Estragon as an aging, doddery Northerner is an interesting interpretation, quite often reducing the absurdism of the dialogue to the rambling of an alzheimers sufferer, but it works a charm. The very straight and sane protrayal of Vladimir by Roger Rees, who replaced Patrick Stewart in this revival of last years production, is a perfect contrast. The stand as a dichotomy, representing both hope and despair, optimism and pessimism. These two, quite rightly, were the definite standouts in the production. both Matthew Kelly and Ronald Pickup as Pozzo and Lucky respectively were both very good. The problem is that the two characters aren’t particularly likeable, and when standing against two formidable actors playing two revered characters, they didn’t really tans a chance. In saying that, special mention has to go to Pickup for Lucky’s thinking speech, which was delivered with such madness that it left you feeling slightly exhausted.

It was a shame not to see the original pairing of McKellen and Stewart, but Rees was more than enough. The only problem I found was that with someone like McKellen on stage, he makes everyone else look nowhere near as good. The man is one of the greatest actors on the stage today.

Waiting for Godot is playing at Theatre Royal, Haymarket until 4 April

I’ve been attending tweetups for about two years now. The idea behind them is that they strengthen connections that you’ve made with the people you talk to on Twitter, as well as introducing you to more like minded people. Most of the tweetups I’ve been to have been based around social media and marketing. That is, quite often they are tweetups about Twitter and how to use it.

One thing I lamented about in Sydney was the fact that there weren’t many people on Twitter from the theatre. Theatre is about community. Twitter is about community. It makes sense, doesn’t it? However, the theatre people I talked to couldn’t really see the value in it and so they stayed away. However, when I got to London it was a different story. I suppose it comes down to the fact that while there are a decent number of theatre loving folks in Sydney, there are a whole lot more in London.

Finally my dreams of having a tweetup solely for theatre people might actually become a reality.

Twespians, the tweetup for theatre types, held it’s first event on the 2nd of February at Theodore Bullfrog in London as part of the global Social Media Week. I was never sure of how successful it would be. I was half expecting that of the 50-60 people who registered, I may only get 10 or 20 people actually turn up. In the end, we managed to get about 40, which was an amazing number.

However, the numbers meant nothing.

Who was there was *far* more important.

The thing that really struck me was the diversity of the people who attended. We had the usual tweetup fodder of journalists, bloggers and marketing/PR types, as well as a mix of actors, directors, musical directors, choreographers, producers, festival organisers, social media artists, theatre administrators and students. Also, the type of theatre was mixed as well. We had musical theatre, straight theatre, physical theatre, dance and spoken word.

To tell you the truth, I was a little surprised.

For some reason, I was expecting majority of musical theatre fans, with a few ‘proper’ theatre people thrown in for good measure (kind of like a cat/pigeons scenario). I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t, and the evening was all the better for it.

Was there value in it, though?

I see Twitter as being used in one of two ways. You have a ‘leader/follower’ arrangement, where somebody has a whole bunch of followers, but doesn’t follow back and only engages when directly engaged with. Then you have the ‘community’ or ‘network’ arrangement. Say you had a diagram of all the people you follow. Draw a line from you to them, then draw lines from them to the people they follow. What you would end up with is very distinct communities, or networks, based around similar interests. For example, mine would have a very distinct social media/marketing/PR circle, as well as a theatre circle. In addition, there’d be smaller circles about fairly specific interests, which are more niche communities.

This second way of using Twitter is where tweetups come in to the equation. What you are effectively doing is strengthen a connection that you’ve already made online, which is made easier by having a common passion. The other thing it does, is break down the barriers that would normally exist in traditional networking situations. Twitter is a level playing field. Tweetups like this don’t only bring people from different areas of the industry, but also different levels. For example, students are networking with newspaper editors and West End musicians. It’s great, and the possibilities that come out of these events are endless. Not only is it great on a personal level, as networking is a key part of succeeding in such a fickle industry, but also it builds a sense of community amongst people who have a passion for theatre.

We’re currently in the process of organising the next Twespians event in London. Follow the twitter account to be kept up to date with what’s happening.  If you have any thoughts, comments or suggestions then leave a comment.

On a whim I went and saw Nation at the National Theatre last night. Nation is a play with music based on the Terry Pratchett novel of the same name. It’s been adapted for the stage by Mark Ravenhill, which was an odd thing considering I was only familiar with his earlier work like Shopping and Fucking. Nation seemed to me a slight departure for a playwright who’s works have mostly been in the ‘in-yer-face’ style. What was a playwright who had previously written a great scene where a character gets raped with a knife doing writing what is ostensibly a Young Adult’s fantasy book. However, what I didn’t know is that Ravenhill seems to have tamed a bit in recent years, even writing a pantomime.

Yes, a pantomime.

To tell you the truth, I probably wouldn’t have bothered if I hadn’t picked up a £5 ticket offer for some insanely good seats. I’m not a big Pratchett fan. This could probably get my nerd status revoked, and I have honestly tried, but Pratchett just hasn’t captured me in the same way as other fantasy authors. In fact, the thing that stands out for me from Pratchett’s novels is a single quote.

62 books. 1 quote. Not bad.

I’m being unnecessarily harsh about Mr Pratchett. I also enjoyed the Hogfather when it was on TV. I also had a read of Guards! Guards! the play, and thought it was quite funny, if not a little too nerdish. Anyway, back to Nation.

Nation is the first non-Discworld novel that Pratchett has put out since 1996. It’s an alternate history of our world set in the 1870s. It tells the story of Mau, a native of ‘The Nation’ who finds himself alone after a giant wave washes away everyone he knows and loves, until he finds the ghost (read: white) girl. Daphne, who thinks that she’s the sole survivor of the wreck of the Sweet Judy is stranded on the island with Mau. They fall in love, things happen and they ostensibly save the world (paraphrasing here).

Nation is flawed. I felt that I couldn’t really get attached to the story. There were some interesting and funny characters within the story, and there were some great moments, but the story as a whole left me feeling a little empty. It was nice enough but I had a sense that I’d seen it a million times before. It seemed a typical Pocahontos/Avatar style white person meets and falls in love with a native style story.

In saying that, Nation by National Theatre was an absolutely revelation. In fact, the play itself is about the only thing I can fault in the production. The cast were great, and did the most with what they had to work with. The staging was brilliant, the lighting, set and sound design were truly impressive and the puppets and puppetry were fantastic. It’s an extremely strange and disconcerting feeling for me to say how much I enjoyed the production, considering I really didn’t like the script all too much. The production values were so high that they overshadowed the piece itself, which in this case is a good thing.

I’ll start with the cast. The two leads, Gary Carr and Emily Taaffe were very strong. They both had great comic timing and made the most of what was often trite dialogue. Carr, who plays Mau, is an exceptionally talented man. It’s always pleasing to see a production where the lead character actually stands out above the rest. He played Mau with such conviction and seemed to own the stage with his every movement. Taaffe, as Daphne, was spot on. She managed to be likeable and irritating at the same time, which was absolutely perfect for the character. What I was most impressed with was that she never turned the character into a caricature, which would have been so easy. The other standout, by far, was Jason Thorpe as Milton the Parrot. His movement and delivery of lines were perfect. According to the woman behind me, the parrot was a Shakespearean device. I just thought it was a nice piece of comic relief in an otherwise boring story. Each to their own. The rest of the ensemble were extremely good, but hard to pick out individually.

Secondly, the direction. Melly Still did an exceptional job with Nation. It’s often hard to see the direction behind a show. However, the staging of Nation was hard to ignore. The way that the actors interacted with the set, lighting and soung, along with the interaction between the actors themselves was awe inspiring. There were moments where my jaw simply hit the floor, especially towards the end. This is an incredibly well staged, tight production. In addition, the use of puppets for the slightly surreal animals of the island was inspired, providing menace and comedy in equal measures.

Finally, the design. I would recommend seeing Nation for, if nothing else, the set, lighting, sound and projection design. The way all elements interacted was a thing of beauty. The I have never seen such an effective use of sound and projection within the theatre before. I sound like I’m gushing, but in all honesty, it absolutely floored me. One scene in particular, where Mau is shown paradise and then taken back to the stark reality of the world was beautiful. The juxtaposition of the stage filled with tiny, pretty lights, to the barren world that was created with one lighting change was inspired.

That happened to be a long winded, rather conflicting review. All in all, I would recommend seeing Nation. It runs until the end of March at the National Theatre. What it lacks in story, it makes up for as an experience.

£5 tickets aren’t bad, either.

At first this was going to be a post on Marketing theatre (I’m guessing a rather long post), but instead I’m going to use it to give my thoughts on how Twitter could be used to build (and/or strengthen) online theatre communities.

There has been some interesting talk about Twitter and Social Media and their use in Theatre, particuarly around marketing. The Stage published an article last week about internet marketing and building communities through social media, using Legally Blonde: The Musical as an example. There’s also been some good posts over at London Theatre Blog about Social Media and Web 2.0 by Sinead MacManus. However, most of these have been around promotion and marketing, and I really think that Twitter can be used to do more than this.

First things first… There is no one way to use Twitter. It is an extremely powerful tool, and the rules keep getting rewritten by the users themselves. For a decent overview of what twitter is all about, check out the Twitter Wikipedia Entry. If you want a help guide, then check out Twitter’s help portal. If there is anything not covered in either of these, I will attempt to link to a relevent article. Also, this post is relying on the fact that people don’t protect their updates. If you protect your updates, you aren’t willing to fully participate in the wider community.

Twitter is a powerful community building and networking  tool. I have been using Twitter for close to a year and have got to a point where I can’t be away from it for long periods of time (Withdrawal-type symptoms can occur including profuse sweating, gnawing of fingernails/limbs, and random screaming. I’ve almost joined a 12-step program). For the most part, I have used it for a mix of socia and professional networking. Within PR and marketing, Twitter has become a fairly important tool for a number of reasons. Here are the key areas I use Twitter for: networking, sharing, resource gathering and promotion.

Let’s see how each of these could be used for theatre…

Networking

Networking within theatre does happen. However, it seems to happen primarily in and around productions. You build your network by performing in shows, and occassionally by seeing them. However, between shows not much else happens. Also, theatre can be rather cliquey. It is rather impossible to penetrate certain theatre circles due to their closed nature, especially when the only opportunity is to perform with these people, or know someone who has performed with them.

Twitter, on the other hand, seems to put everyone on a more even playing field. Unlike facebook, you don’t have to get approval to follow someone’s twitter feed. That means that you can follow anyone (who doesn’t protect their tweets) from your best mate Tim to Oprah. This also means that you have a means of connecting with anybody you follow through @ mentioning them (similar to tagging and commenting in Facebook) or DMing them (similar to a private message in Facebook).

Where these connections really come in handy is at tweetups. Tweetups offer you an opportunity to meet the people within your twitter network and start to really build a community. When I first started attending networking events within the pr and marketing space, I found it rather difficult considering I didn’t know anyone at all. However, at my first tweetup, there was much less apprehension, considering I had already interacted with quite a few people on Twitter and therefore had a starting point.

Tweetups can then strengthen the bond within your Twitter community, as meeting someone in person can often make the connection more tangible. Also, it’s always great to get a group of people together who are all passionate about the same thing!

Sharing

One of the other great aspects of twitter is the ability to share. When I first starting using Twitter, a common description I heard was ‘it’s just like facebook status updates’. For me, Twitter is more about sharing information with your network (although facebook seems to be incorporating more and more Twitterlike features).

Sharing links to interesting articles, blog posts, youtube videos, events etc. has become a really important part of Twitter. Also, Twitter offers you the ability to ReTweet tweets that you might find interesting or useful, but that your followers may not see in their tweet stream, pushing the original tweet out to a new audience. Sharing interesting and useful information benefits you, as it increases your personal profile within your twitter community. Also, this will spur others to do the same, which will prove beneficial to you…

Collecting resources

The other upside to you posting your links to information is that you can then take advantage of others doing the same. Through this you could find out the most up to date news, find interesting articles and blog posts about theatre and related industries, find out about upcoming events, productions and auditions, take advantage of special deals or get free stuff. It’s all about building a community that is based around a mutual interest, trust and reciprocation.

Another side of collecting resources is the idea of crowdsourcing. This could be as simple as asking your followers a question (sometimes lazy questions, often hashtagged as #lazyweb), to more complicated crowdsourcing possibilities. For example, Next to Normal on Broadway has used crowdsourcing through Twitter in a really interesting way. The composers are using their Twitter account to improve their show. This ranges from running ideas past their Twitter followers, to asking their followers to submit lyrics or song titles to new songs they are writing for the show. They then work these into the show.

Think of all the ways theatre groups could use crowdsourcing… what about an impro show that relied on a twitterfeed from the audience using a hashtag for the event? It’s probably already been done, but there are millions of ways that theatre groups could use crowdsourcing, and for theatre venues or companies, it provides an automatic way to connect with your audiences.

Promotion

Finally, promotion. Let me put this out there… Twitter is not a tool purely for promotion. Many brands have attempted to get on Twitter and push their marketing messages out without attempting to engage at all. Many brands have tried and quickly failed.

The important thing with promoting yourself, your event or your company on Twitter is to provide some value for your followers. Although opinion does vary on this, I believe that it is important to show yourself through your tweets. Mix in personal with professional. Not every tweet needs to be about theatre (or marketing or PR etc etc). The main rules I stick by with my Twitter are One: would I say what I’m about to say on Twitter out loud in a room full of people? Two: would the people in this room be interested in what I’m saying? Three: have I been talking about myself too much?

However, promotion through Twitter can be beneficial. Building strong communities and networks can helpl when attempting to promote something related, as you can leverage your position as an influencer, and also leverage other people within your network who are influencers within their own groups. However, it also comes down to the value of what you are saying. Twitter is a great place to promote through special deals or offers, as this provides value to the other users and they benefit from being connected to you.

Also, authenticity is fairly important when it comes to promotion on Twitter. If you are promoting something that you are involved with, whether it be an event, a production or just promoting your new blog post, make sure you are upfront about your involvement. Nothing is worse than being told about how great something is as if it’s a product endorsement, and finding out that it’s actually that person’s product.

Basically, if you are going to promote something, be upfront and honest about it. Don’t spam and make sure that the people who follow you are actually interested in what you have to say.

Wrapping Up

There are loads of great articles out there on building communities through twitter and general overviews for what social media is. I’ve provided a few links to them below.

Even though this post was a bit of a ramble on how we could use Twitter, I hope it still made sense. If it didn’t, comment and I’ll try and clear things up!

Links:

What the F**k is Social Media? – One Year Later – A great presentation on social media and why it’s important.

How To: Build Community on Twitter – Tips on how to build your own community

Community Building 101: Building a Community on Twitter – Some great rules of thumb on building and maintaining a good community on Twitter