Ash Jones is a modern-day poet. In Thomus he has created a coming of age story inspired by psycho-thrillers, Shakespeare, divorce, and the modern coming of age experience. Below he shares more about his work, and why and how he wrote it.
What is Thomus about?
Thomus is about agency. To take action? Is it better to just observe? Is that still taking action though? We have a main character in a state of becoming. He is a teenager at the cusp of manhood, realising that he has the power to alter the world around him. But as soon as he takes action that starts a chain of events that spiral out of his control. Now he needs to take further action. And so on and so forth it goes.
In terms of performance themes, I have encouraged the performers to blur the lines between performance and non-performance. They look at the audience. They acknowledge their own and others' mistakes. They move the set around. And also their own performance levels are a play between naturalism, 'performing', and not-performing. This ties in with the central theme of whether to act (to actively engage and attempt to effect the world around you) - see 'performing', or just to observe - 'not-performing'.
In terms of performance themes, I have encouraged the performers to blur the lines between performance and non-performance. They look at the audience. They acknowledge their own and others' mistakes. They move the set around. And also their own performance levels are a play between naturalism, 'performing', and not-performing. This ties in with the central theme of whether to act (to actively engage and attempt to effect the world around you) - see 'performing', or just to observe - 'not-performing'.
Why Iambic Pentameter? How does it serve the story and the performance?
I love the way Shakespeare's work gives actors the chance to exist in this huge emotional space. I wanted to make a show that gave actors that opportunity, but was set in a local, modern environment. In terms of story, the verse allows things to go to those epic emotional places and the characters to be almost stereotypes. People are allowed to speak of deep metaphysical things just as often as banal ones because they are speaking poetry.
The effect on performance is that the actor no longer puts all their energy into making the audience believe that this is all real, that they are saying these things for the first time, because no one speaks like that!! Instead it is more obvious they are performing. Like a poetry reading. |
The skill of speaking to the meter keeps the actor focused enough so as to not get self conscious of their performance. It is another thing to assist them in losing themselves. They focus on their flow instead of their believability. I think that this modern fascination with realism is on it’s way out because let's be honest, nothing in real life is all that realistic. We just assume that everything is real because it is. Now we have computer graphics and such, we have proven that we can make fantasies that look realistic, now we can start heading back into the realm of surrealism again.
The story of Thomus is partly inspired by your love of David Lynch films. What else inspires you as a writer and director?
What inspires me? I would have to say the strange and disgusting beauty of real life. The way that you can literally take anything and if you alter your perspective, it can become intensely beautiful. Zoom in or zoom out, compare it to something else or nothing else. The mystery of consciousness. This collection of physical sensations that I seem to be and how they are constantly shifting. How there are so many paradoxes.
I get inspiration from ritual. Our daily rituals and old rituals of high worship. I love how story is a type of ritual. The traveller must undergo an initiation before they go on a journey. I also love magic in its pure loving purpose to move its magician closer to God. As a director I keep this in mind. Because theatre is magic, so we must be thoughtful with the magic we weave. And also thoughtless. Thoughtfully thoughtless. Thoughtless in freedom and detachment. Thoughtful in maintaining detached awareness. |
As a writer I'm fascinated by the rhythms of my deepest mind. I try to write as an observer of something that is happening almost not of my own volition. Words, sounds, syllables come to my mind one after the other and I type them down without judging. I read them out loud. How things sound is important.
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"You can literally take anything, and if you alter your perspective, it can become intensely beautiful." |
Tell us more about the technology used in the production (lighting, sound, AV) did you write with any of these things in mind? How do they help to progress narrative and/or create the mood of the play?
I think it is important to consider staging when writing for the stage. If you are making a play, I believe you should bring out its play-ness. It should be in the script that this is a play.
When I wrote, I kept a strong sense of mood. Sometimes images would come to my mind and I would put those in the script as stage directions. I found I overwrote these and cut lots of them out but they definitely helped me understand why I was telling the story and what I wanted the audience to feel about each character at parts. Sometimes I even wrote song names in the stage directions so that the person reading could get a feel for mood as they went.
When I wrote, I kept a strong sense of mood. Sometimes images would come to my mind and I would put those in the script as stage directions. I found I overwrote these and cut lots of them out but they definitely helped me understand why I was telling the story and what I wanted the audience to feel about each character at parts. Sometimes I even wrote song names in the stage directions so that the person reading could get a feel for mood as they went.
The AV aspects are hugely important for the mood of the play. The actors are incredible and can do so much, but things get a lot more palatable when they are lit and have a soundtrack. It also gives the performers something to play with. They become part of a tapestry and feel less exposed, resulting in being able to lose themselves in the world more. That is always of great benefit for the audience.
The stage has been made to create a world. It started as what we deemed a "lynch-box". So often, David Lynch's sets seem to be like doll houses, with everything, even naturalistic spaces placed just so. |
"The audience will be lucky enough to witness some sort of anomaly. A rupture in our dimension, alien vibrations that manifest as this play." |
We liked that and have expanded on that idea so as to make the set almost a conjuring entity, conjuring this play and its players into being, before being destroyed forever on the final night. The audience will be lucky enough to witness some sort of anomaly. A rupture in our dimension, alien vibrations that manifest as this play.
As a writer/director, how much has the work changed in rehearsal? Did you come in on day one with a full script? Or devise some of the work in the room?
The work has changed a lot. It has to change. First it’s in your head, it’s ethereal. Then as it becomes fully formed it grows. You include other people, and they need to be artistically enriched as well! They give to it their energy in their own individual ways.
At the beginning I was quite rigid with how I wanted this to go. I wanted it to play out as it did in my imagination. This is an impossibility. The show is not just mine any longer. And nor should it be. It grows and changes, and at times it has surprised me. Mainly in the actors interpretations of the characters. As soon as I started auditioning people I discovered there was so many different ways of approaching these characters I had written.
I have been open to the script changing but surprisingly it hasn’t really changed much at all, apart from stage directions and the odd line here and there. It’s the blocking that has been most devised. I have mainly got the actors to block it themselves by their instincts.
At the beginning I was quite rigid with how I wanted this to go. I wanted it to play out as it did in my imagination. This is an impossibility. The show is not just mine any longer. And nor should it be. It grows and changes, and at times it has surprised me. Mainly in the actors interpretations of the characters. As soon as I started auditioning people I discovered there was so many different ways of approaching these characters I had written.
I have been open to the script changing but surprisingly it hasn’t really changed much at all, apart from stage directions and the odd line here and there. It’s the blocking that has been most devised. I have mainly got the actors to block it themselves by their instincts.