How I avoided making a crisis out of this drama - my RADA training experience - part 2

There were times during the first week when I wondered if I had bitten off more than I could chew during my short sabbatical from my business to attend a theatre directing course at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.

I was expected by the end of just 11 days to demonstrate my improved skills by directing final-year RADA acting students to stage a dramatic piece I devised with them.

But before that I had to get to grips with units and actions. On day 2, Sue Dunderdale, our course leader, worked with Kevin Bennett, one of the 11 aspiring directors on the course, to demonstrate the method she uses to enable actors to find and feel the truth of a line or phrase.  I say aspiring, in fact I think all of us had some directing experience, but were there to learn more and improve our skills.  Kevin, a young actor/director who had flown in from Vancouver to attend the course was already signed up to direct Hamlet back home (see a review), took Sue's direction and found a physicality to the famous To be or not to be speech that I had not seen before.

Kevin has clearly been putting his RADA learning to good use, as he said to me in a recent email:

Hamlet has been going extremely well. We've gotten a lot of great press from our major newspapers here and there is a great buzz in the theatre community. I am proud to say I also utilized a LOT of uniting/actioning work in my own sort of way for the whole play and it was extremely useful. Really helped us get specific and not get trapped in playing general stereotypes of the characters.

At Resound we use Forum Theatre, a drama-led learning method, as a way to help identify solutions to problems in clients’ organisations, either as part of a training programme or as part of a conference. For my RADA test it was inevitable that I would focus on a subject related to the human condition. I chose to highlight the hidden horror of domestic violence – under the title of Nothing to Tell.  But first I had to absorb and use the experience I was gaining at breakneck speed.

Observing Sue's work was both inspiring and daunting.  This was a completely different approach to the one I normally use.  Could I get to grips with it and could I really get my actors to do it?!