the fence...

Towards the end of tumbling Jess sets up a drill for layouts which I stand looking at. “Can I try this one Jess? Nothing bad will happen will it? I just..just go?” She keeps nodding and grinning at me. After about six goes I do a layout. I am completely surprised. It’s the fastest I have ever done a tumbling move from being shown the drill to doing it.

We spend more time scripting “what’s over the fence?” playing with the things we love from the impro we did at artplay. Once it’s scripted we read it all through and it’s way too long. We cut some and then start to think about how we will move physically into and out of this bit of dialogue.
The fence is feeling like a problem. If we imagine the fence but we have a real toy there is nothing to throw the toy over – and we know our venue doesn’t have wings. If we have a fake toy the throwing really might not work. Christy suggests we build a fence and add it to the set. Kate says, can we disappear the toy? Luke suggests that he runs backstage and we hear him throwing and losing the toy. We revert to the flashback idea of us mining the story of how we lost the toy yesterday. We talk around in circles until Kate stops us. It feels to me like the one thing we don’t have a solution for. I’m home now and cooking risotto while I type. Getting half a sentence in at a time while I stir rice and add stock.