Notes from the Blindness rehearsal room (and Zoom)
Donmar Resident Assistant Director Sara Aniqah Malik offers an insight into the unusual rehearsal process for Blindness, a new socially distanced sound installation adapted from José Saramago’s novel by Simon Stephens and directed by Walter Meierjohann.
Discovering Blindness
When I first read Simon Stephens’ adaptation of José Saramago’s novel Blindness, it felt like a story borne from our own times. It explores the breakdown of society in the face of an unprecedented epidemic; the panic, the loneliness, the veiled incompetence of a government holding onto power by a thread. To experience this piece now is to examine the new world order we have been thrust into.
It’s an extraordinary thing to gather together and create art in this time. As theatre artists, we yearn for the act of gathering; of assembling in a shared space and experiencing a story together. Our national lockdown has disfigured our acts of community. But Blindness has gifted us a window to gather. To create art together for the first time in four months and — more importantly, to allow an audience to be absorbed into the aural and visual effects of this installation and be transported beyond their lockdown lives.
Rehearsals at a two metre distance
Most rehearsal processes start with the cast and creative team excitedly huddling into a circle in the centre of the rehearsal room and introducing themselves over a hastily brewed cup of tea.
By contrast, our socially-distanced process, started with the five faces of our brilliant creative team — Walter Meierjohann (Director), Lizzie Clachan (Set Designer), Jess (Lighting Designer), and Ben and Max Ringham (Sound Designers) — popping up on a Zoom. The new normal! As we all buzzed with excitement within our contained squares on gallery view, creativity sparked from all corners — the work had begun.
Just a week later, the five of us, along with writer Simon Stephens and actor Juliet Stevenson (who voices the Storyteller/Doctor’s Wife), met to rehearse — keeping a keen eye on face masks, the hand sanitiser station at the door, and the 2 metre rule!
We began by working through the text. As we do, we speak to our Production Consultant Hannah Thompson. Hannah is a Professor at Royal Holloway and a specialist in blindness studies. Our conversations are rigorous and energising; Hannah speaks on the misconceptions of blindness (only 2% of people with vision loss are blind) and helps us to understand the negative stereotypes of people with vision loss as lacking human capacity, helpless to day-to-day tasks, and wholly relying on sighted people. As we learn more, we revisit the text, analysing and evaluating how to tell the story of societal breakdown whilst remaining sensitive to audience experiences.
Lizzie Clachan’s brilliant set design for Blindness is inspired by the Donmar in lockdown and the moment our previous show, Far Away, was cancelled mid-run. With chairs half ripped out of the seating bank, and the set nearly fully dismantled, it was the picture of a theatre in quiet isolation. As we re-create the Donmar in the rehearsal room, Juliet, using the mic stand as her acting partner, starts recording.
Time to press record
First up: how to use a binaural mic.
Ben and Max Ringham — sound designers extraordinaire — introduced us to “Trevor”, our trusty binaural mic. Binaural literally means “involving both ears” and Trevor is a replica of a human head, fitted with a microphone in each plastic ear. The advantage of recording in this way is that you can control how audiences receive sound through their headphones.
Audio can be filtered through just the left headphone or just the right headphone; it can sound very close to you or very far away. Everyone in the room, except for Juliet, wears headphones to replicate the experience audiences will have in the Donmar auditorium. As Juliet speaks into Trevor’s left ear, we hear it in our left headphone, jumping as if she were standing right beside us. And, as she walks around Trevor, we feel as if she’s circling us — but we never quite catch sight of her.
As we listen back to the recorded audio, Juliet’s presence is haunting; weaving in and out of the Donmar’s seating configuration, whispering in our ear for a fleeting moment as we turn to our side, hoping to catch her standing beside us, but never quite succeeding — wisps of voices and movement that float and land around us. It is arrestingly moving. An ode to an empty theatre and a fervent promise to return soon.
Blindness runs at the Donmar Warehouse from 1 August — 5 September 2020. For more information visit donmarwarehouse.com
