Remote: Protest, Isolation, and Connection – An interview with our director and designer
Mon 7 Feb 2022Connections sees the National Theatre commission 10 new plays, specifically for young people to perform across the country, including here at The Marlowe. On Friday 11 & Saturday 12 February, 12 of our Youth Company members will perform in Stef Smith’s Remote in The Studio.
Ahead of their performance, we sat down with the director, Ellie Wright, and designer, Constance Villemot, to find out what exactly the show is all about, and how it’s been going…
Could you introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about your work in theatre?
Ellie: My name is Ellie Wright, and I’m an actor and a theatre maker from Kent. I didn’t properly engage with theatre until I went to university to study something totally different. I auditioned for my university’s production of Lysistrata and that was it! I ended up dropping out of my course and moved back to Kent, was working in retail, and heard about The Marlowe People’s Company. I joined, loved it, and was supported in applying for theatre training at Fourth Monkey. When I completed that I returned to Kent and my retail job, started auditioning, and started work with the Learning and Participation department here at The Marlowe. I have assisted on Youth Company productions, acted as Director Mentor for our RSC Associate Schools, and ran the 15-21 sessions both physically and virtually. I was so excited to be asked to direct our NT Connections play this year.
Constance: I am Constance, a set and costume designer. Originally from Paris I moved to London in 2014 to finish studying and never moved back. I have a master’s degree in scenography from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, a bachelor’s degree in technical theatre, specialising in design realisation from Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I have also completed a bachelor’s degree in spatial design, focussing on set design, architecture, and landscape design at ENSAAMA – Olivier de Serres in Paris. I like to design meticulous and poetic spaces to enhance and engage with the audience’s imagination beyond what they can see. Theatre for young audiences and youth companies is very close to my heart.
For those who have never heard of it before, what is NT Connections?
Ellie: Every year the National Theatre commissions 10 new plays for young people to perform, bringing together some of the UK’s most exciting writers with the theatre-makers of tomorrow. 300 youth theatre companies and over 6,000 young people from every corner of the UK are producing a Connections play this year. The Marlowe acts as the host theatre for some of these companies, and this year our Marlowe Youth Company will also be performing in the festival.
What is Remote about and what drew you to the play?
Constance: Remote is a play about a teenage girl, Antler, who climbs up a really tall tree in a park on an autumnal evening. She doesn’t want to be found and wants to stay alone. The story happens during one evening. Remote is about protesting and protecting yourself. What drew me to the play was Stef Smith’s writing, I like the short lines and the themes of the play. I am definitely drawn to plays like Remote that explore all sorts of emotions.
Ellie: Remote is a play about protest, isolation, and connection. Young people have so much insight into the world and its problems but have very little tangible power to change things. Remote is about that feeling of powerlessness, which I think will really speak to our audience. There’s an endless news cycle that we are subject to, and we all have an internal struggle of wanting to connect with it and change things, and wanting to run away from it. It’s also, very definitely, about a tree.
What made you choose this particular design for the play?
Constance: I started by reading the play and later had a video chat with Ellie – the director to discuss her vision. Before I start designing, I always try to answer these three questions: ‘what emotions are at the core of each scene?’, ‘what message do I/we want to deliver the audience and how is the design going to help this?’ and ‘how is this relevant to society right now?’. I knew quite quickly that I wanted to have a tree – ideally a real one. I was really keen on creating an environment, I wanted the audience to feel as if they were in the park with the actors. For the costumes I wanted the costumes to be quite colourful and to reflect each character’s personality. I live near a park and used to go there quite often during the first lockdown to get some fresh air. In that park there is a bench under a tree, I think this was one of my inspirations for the park we created on stage. I am also drawn to the work of Giuseppe Penone and his large-scale sculptures of trees which explore respiration, growth, and aging which I thought it was relevant to the themes of Remote.
Ellie: In the very first moment of the play, Antler leaves her house, walks to the park, and climbs a tree. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a real tree? I put that thought out of my brain and tried to be as open as I could to whatever final form that tree took once Constance had worked her magic. I think the only thing I said in my first meeting with Constance was that there was a tree, and that it would be great to have leaves, or a reference to leaves on the stage. She took those vague thoughts away and presented me with a beautiful model box with… A REAL TREE. I’m writing this in The Studio as our tree is being constructed. She’s presented us with a very distilled ‘essence of park,’ that allows our actors to take centre stage.
Have there been any standout moments in the production so far?
Ellie: I am so lucky to work with such an engaged and articulate cast. Right from the start they were having really thoughtful conversations about the text and the characters, and that has continued all the way through. They speak about situations in a way that I certainly could not have done at that age. During one rehearsal, we were exploring a line from the Chorus that describes Antler clutching her chest. The actor and I spoke about the physical feelings of anxiety and another actor described wanting to push your heart back into place. It really resonated and was such a useful way of working stage directions that had been difficult to access. I’ve also loved working with the Chorus to come up with their shared language – they’re unnamed in the text but each actor has named themselves in line with the other characters. They spoke about the qualities that they have found in their lines and initial physical work informing those names. Tweezer, for example, has found precision and detail, and Rom Com is particularly interested in moments of human connection. It gives them such ownership of a difficult and crucial role in any play- the ‘Ensemble.’
How have things been going so far in rehearsals & productions meetings? Have there been any interesting moments?
Ellie: I think making any theatre at the moment means having to be very quickly resilient, and particularly when working with young people. They have so many other things that are competing with their time; exams and revision and self-isolation has meant that we have rarely been all together as a company. I’m amazed at how professional they all are, and I’m always delighted to see how readily they jump into the work despite absences or changes to rehearsal plans. I think the tree – it feels like I should capitalise it at this stage – has always been our most interesting question. When our young people, along with other youth theatre companies, had a Q&A session with Stef Smith (the writer) it was the first question on everyone’s lips. ‘How do you see The Tree? How did you imagine The Tree looking? Do you think about how to stage things like The Tree when you’re writing?’ Stef was wonderfully and intentionally vague and has left it entirely up to the different companies. We worked with climbing the Chorus and used blocks in rehearsal to simulate height and were intentionally working everything except what and how The Tree was. So, when we could show them Constance’s model box with a tiny – real – tree, the feeling in the room was electric.
Constance: As I am answering these questions the tree is being put together which is really exciting! We managed to get some pieces of an actual tree and it is now being put back together like a jigsaw puzzle which is quite amazing! I am really looking forward to seeing it in real life!
How does it feel to be back putting together a physical full-scale production with a group of young people after the last two years?
Constance: I am so over the moon about it!! I was really eager to get back in a rehearsal room after these various lockdowns. It is fascinating to witness so much creativity and hard work!
Ellie: I have to stop myself from getting too emotional, to be honest. The last full-scale production with Marlowe Youth Company that I had any real involvement with was Troilus And Cressida in 2020. I assisted the early rehearsals before going on a theatre tour myself and managed to see it just before the first lockdown. During that first lockdown our Learning and Participation Department delivered digital sessions – for some of us they were a joy and a respite, and for others it was another screen session after a day of school through screens. Being back in physical rehearsal rooms, working with young people on a physical stage and seeing how they can own it and their performances has been a joy.
Remote, performed by the Marlowe Youth Company, is playing in The Studio on Friday 11 & Saturday 12 February and tickets can be purchased here. You can also find out more about our Youth Company here.