A Kiss of Inspiration - from a Sheep
[Heading towards performing with animals in France, a 'Black Beauty Ballet'... tonight's the night!]
We rehearse again after a day’s break, during which I offer to make a carrying basket for the hens, which a Parisienne hen-like friend of Marthe’s will then let out in the arena and demonstrate that hens, too, are intelligent.
There are only two rehearsals to go, one of which is the dress rehearsal. We are nowhere near having the production, choir, lighting, cast (animal and human) ready…
Our rehearsing is all that theatre directors are familiar with – chaotic, a cauldron of emotions, and occasionally loud and shouty.
‘Never work with children and animals’… and I believe the theatre world adds in ‘or amateurs.’
Of our co-directors, Chris B has worked with all three and dreads the latter most. Marthe is new to the ways of the theatre. Both are having their patience tried beyond what is reasonable.
For the rest of the cast? Some of us have become children – at their worst. The animal experts are exceptions, familiar with Marthe’s ecocentric approach. They know that ‘infinite patience brings immediate results’, a koan I see roll out before my eyes as a young shepherdess demonstrates with sheep.
We wait ‘an eternity’ before witnessing a moment of intimacy a world away from the sheep farming TSM (The Sheep Man) is used to – a sheep gingerly walking up to the shepherdess and kissing her on the cheek. I do not know if there is a sheep term for this. But these kinds of interactions ignite something I’ve lost in the dregs…
The barn becomes a crucible for my creativity.
Poeticals form unasked as I sit on the wall of straw bales which will act as seating for the audience.
I remember that this is the play I used to call work. Words tumble out… and among them, poetic homage to Velu which [for readers of The Book when it's eventually published, will find itself at the end in a section named 'The Menagerie'.]
#writing #sheep #creativity #inspiration