Fitting the pieces together

Goodness gracious me, today was a brain drainer but such a productive one. Having spent the previous three days working on changing the structure, clearing up the narrative, adding and taking scenes, today we tried to run the show and in every scene change I was trying to remember what on earth happens next, and then trying to remember what bit of set I move to where, what props do I need.

Making a show about trawler fishing is not the easiest choice of subject matter, it is such a complex trade, the issues are environmental, political, financial, and with so many different points of view to take on board it would be easier to do a seminar than a show. However we don't really do seminars, and we don't really do easy either, so we are making a show, oh and to make it harder our main characters are puppets who do not speak aside from recorded messages. So when we have been deciding on narrative we have had to then work out how we can portray this many-layered issue in such a way that we do not lose the audience, or bore them.

In writing this now I realise that this fits our research perfectly, we don't want to talk about it and argue and fight over who is right, we want to encourage everyone to act; it seems to be that if the various parties work together and find a way to move forward then the trade will progress so much quicker and in a more positive way. Environmental organisations don't want to get rid of all the fish in the sea but fishermen don't want to get rid of all the fish in the sea either, because then they won't have a job.

So in the same way that we think it is important for the various parties involved to collaborate and act together, we use our puppets to show the story of one fishermen, we don't talk about what he does or how much quota he is allowed, we show the audience a section of his life, we allow them to step into his world and begin to understand how complicated it all is.

In the show we see Alf and his team physically working very hard not knowing how much money they will make each day. We see Alf finding it difficult to maintain a relationship with his son who lives and works in a very different environment. We are shown the financial and physical dangers when the weather does not allow a fishermen to work.

There is so much that we can not cover within a 45 minute work in progress performance but hopefully our piece suggest the potential of collaborative action and progression, because at the heart of all of this there are people who are trying to do what they think is right and what they need to do to survive. Not monsters but people.

I apologise if I have rambled, I just think it is a wonderful thing to focus on the actions which lead to the issues that we are referencing, rather than just the issues.

Russet