Article Article:: Gavin Shankland Gavin Shankland— Year 2 of 3 year Acting course at ALRA North Last year I attended a directing master class led by Richard Gregory (artist director of Quarantine Theatre Company). I went because directing is one area outside of acting that interests me but despite being advertised as I directing workshop it was closer to a lecture about Richard’s work with Quarantine. It was still however very interesting. He began by talking about the work Quarantine does and how they rarely employ actors or indeed anyone that is unknown to the company on a personal level. This further cheesed me off, as I realised that I would likely never be hired by this company. However as Richard began to talk us through their first production (See-Saw) I became very interested in the innovations they had employed. On the way to the theatre and around the building itself members of the cast were planted and were enacting something related to what the audience was going to see in the show but they did not advertise the fact they were in the show so most people would pass them by totally unaware. Upon entering the venue the audience was directing into either door A or door B. When they reach their seats they were greeted by a large red curtain across the stage. Once everyone had settled the curtain dropped and on the other side was the other half of the audience. The performers were planted in the audience and delivered their speeches from where they were sat. The topic of each of their monologues was themselves, they all told a true story about an event from their own life. Nearly all of Quarantine’s shows are built around the company of performers and what they bring into the space (not unlike Storytelling project at ALRA, eh?). He went on to talk about some more recent shows the first being White Trash which featured 7 stereotypical white, working class, youths. He freely admitted that they were a nightmare to work with i.e. bad attendance and timekeeping, getting baked in the toilets during breaks etc. He also threw around words like “messy” and “flawed” but as a description of the work not a criticism. He elaborated on this and talked about how he didn’t mind if things went wrong in performance or if the performers couldn’t be heard. About this time an older guy in the room asked about a show that he was unsure if it had been one of Quarantine’s shows. He mentioned a striking image of a man picking up woman who was about 2 feet tall and placing her on a shelf at the back of the stage and said that imaged had stayed with him. While he was talking Richard had started rummaging through his laptop to come up with the promotional video for the show the man had been describing (Grace). The show had been put on 9 years ago and I was amazed at how much of an effect this had had on the old man as none of Quarantine’s shows have what we might refer to as drama or a definable plot. I have been very careful in the wording of this and have avoided referring to the performers in these shows as ‘actors’ because I’m not sure it is the right term to use when someone is sharing stories from their own life, even when doing so onstage. www.qtine.com Image courtesy of www.qtine.com
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