Learning the Rules of Chinese Whispers
Learning the Rules of Chinese Whispers was a very special site specific piece of work with Poorboy theatre and was written by Scottish writer Jan Natanson. The play managed to stimulate all of the senses exploring love, sex and family relationships in a visceral and immediate production. It asked how we remember what we remember using sound-scapes of real voices describing memories of families, food, homes and holidays throughout a stimulating and evocative 2 ½ hour long performance. The work was staged across three main spaces in St Andrews – The Crawford Art Centre, The Martyrs Church and The Preservation Trust Museum.
Being a part of making this piece of work was one of my own personal favourite experiences as an actor, it was a truly organic process and aside from being hired to act in the work I was also very much encouraged by my Director Sandy Thomson to collaborate and bring ideas to the table during the development and rehearsal period – nothing was ever too far outside of the box to suggest to her and I learned to be a braver actor from the experience.
I had waited a long time for such a gift of a part as I played in this project – I actually played three very different parts in the work and though a very physically and emotionally demanding piece of work I can only remember smiling a lot.
Jan is most definitely an actor’s writer and her words are some of my favourite, most beautiful and easiest that I have ever read or had to learn as a performer.
Not many people saw Learning the Rules of Chinese Whispers – I like it that way and makes it all the more special to me.
After finishing work on Learning the Rules of Chinese Whispers I was sure of the kind of actor I wanted to be – it is the piece of work that I set my bar, my values and my standards of work by.