Delaney Simon's assessment of Max Stafford Clark workshop

Max Stafford-Clark Visit

Max Stafford-Clark is known as one of the most influential directors
in Britain. He became well known in the 1970s with his company Joint
Stock, working with playwrights such as David Hare and Caryl
Churchill. There, he developed many of the methods he is now famous
for, including the workshop method, in which he works with writers
using his company to research subject matter; the writer subsequently
turns the research into a play. After his work at Joint Stock, Max
worked as artistic director for the Royal Court Theatre, leaving after
14 years to create a new company, Out of Joint.

It was Out of Joint that created the play that year 12 Drama are
working on as our final piece. 'The Permanent Way' was created using
the very same workshop method that Max created at Joint Stock. In
short, the play is about the railway disasters in the late 1990s and
early 2000s. However, the play is more than just the reaction to
Britain's failing railway system; the railway failures are a symbol
for the failure of the British government, more specifically the
disillusionment of the British people at New Labour. The crashes also
suggest the immorality of corporate greed, the quest for justice, and
the difficulty for those involved to move on with their lives or deal
with the grief of losing a loved one.

The play is inspired by countless interviews with those affected by
the crash. Max, David Hare and Max's Out of Joint company met most of
the people portrayed in this play. Max has insight into the lives of
each character because of his personal relationship with many of them.
He also directed the play originally, so he probably feels very
protective over the piece as a whole.

It is an interesting experience to work with the original director;
our group understands just how lucky we are to have this opportunity.
Max worked with us the way he would have worked with his cast of 'The
Permanent Way'. His status games, in which he used playing cards to
denote status (ten being the highest, two being the lowest), would
have been utilized in his rehearsals. We applied these games to a
scene in the play about the 'Permanent Way Gang', a group of untrained
railway workers responsible for the safety of Britain's railways. Max
knew each character and the status that each was assigned in the
original production. He gave each of our characters a different
status according to their nicknames in the play. My character is
nicknamed Big Heap, and as Max explained candidly, "Big Heap means big
heap of shit", and so he would have a low status, probably a two or a
three.

In a group of workers, status is very important. In fact, status is
very important in any relationship. Max made us realize the
importance of status to the portrayal of our characters. Not only
does it colour the scene and make it more dimensional, but it also
gives us deeper insight into our characters.

Throughout the rest of the workshop, Max asked us questions about each
of our characters. Because much of the play is in direct address, he
asked us the status of each character in relation to the audience. He
also asked how much money we made a year, who we vote for, what our
job is, how important is what we have to say.

The most valuable exercise was hearing Max's impressions of the
characters we were playing. We may have some idea of who these people
are, and some are known well enough we can research their lives; but
Max actually knew the characters, and he could tell us exactly what
kind of people they are. His views on the characters were very
opinionated, to say the least. He explained to one of our actors,
Amanda, that her character, a 'Senior Civil Servant', was a
conservative, stiff, traditionalist, and suggested that Amanda should
play him "like a man" and "wear glasses". He told me bluntly that he
disliked my character Maureen when he met her, and described her as a
simple woman who revelled in the media attention she received after he
son's death.

As an actor, I considered whether this insight was more interesting
than it was helpful. We do not have the advantage (or disadvantage)
of knowing our characters. We had to create our characters from
scratch, using our own individual influences and ideas. Thus, our
play will be very different to Max's original production. But how
important is it to portray our characters as realistically as they
were in real life? Should I take Max's suggestions, and play Maureen
as she was played in the original production, or should I continue to
develop my own version of Maureen, and honour her in a different way?
I think that I will use both Max's ideas and my own. His insights
into Maureen are helpful and important, and mine are as well. He has
helped me gain a deeper understanding, but ultimately, I will portray
her the way that I see her- I have no other choice.




_________________________________________________________________________
What we did
1) Max talked a little about the play
2) Status games
a. We get a card, 10 is the highest status, 2 is the lowest
b. We have to walk around the room as our status, then line up from
highest to lowest
c. Then we each get a status, (there are two twos, two fours, two
sixes and two eights). We have to find the matching status
d. We transfer this to our permanent way gang characters, decide what
their status' will be, then play with different names and accents and
then decide what the status will be from there
3) Telling our stories "we had to train our actors to become journalists"
a. We think of 5 stories, each one very personal and very significant
life experience
b. We start off where were born as shown by a chair in the middle of
the room (London). Anywhere abroad was out of the door. And each 5
stories had to be told in a place. So if you had your first kiss in
Manchester, go the north of the room. If you visited Japan, leave the
room ect.
c. Then we tell one of those stories to a partner who has to repeat
the story with the other partner's movements and physicality
4) Scene one
a. We work on the scene in a very confined space using two chairs like
a railway car. Each person said one of their lines and have to be
centre attention, and we had to work as an ensemble to achieve that.
5) Actions
a. Reading the bereaved mother scene with Max's actions
6) Question time
a. We got to ask max about all the characters

Max Stafford Clark Workshop 19th April 2007

The AS students were very lucky to have a workshop from Max Stafford Clark, the Artistic director of Out of Joint and the orginal director of "The Permanent Way" by David Hare.

The workshop consisted of techniques that Max Stafford Clark uses in rehearsal. He started with status games. Asking the students to take a card and then using the number on the card, play that status, 1 being low and 10 being high. They then had to line up against the wall in the order they think they should be, not knowing what each others card number was. They discussed status and then applied this exercise to the Permanent Way gang. They discussed how the names of the gang suggested their status. They then looked at status through the financial means of the other characters in the play. Max gave excellent insights into the characters and their real counterparts.

Next They looked at pictures of war and one by one the students entered the space and created a pose appropriate to recreate the war pictures. The students were asked to keep changing their pose to help support the development of the picture. They then applied this technique to the passengers scene, including one line for each character from the scene.(see Photos).

They then looked at the superintendent's speech using "Actions" Max Stafford Clark's famous adaptation of Stanislavski's objectives. They finished off the workshop asking questions about the real people the characters were based on.

The workshop was invaluable for the students who will perform their exam on May 10th. Look out for a student's assessment of the workshop.

yet another 60 second film from year 8

Another year 8 60 second film