Every rehearsal room is different. Directors, choreographers, stage managers and actors all expect different things and bring a variety of attitudes, history and personalities. Combined, these perspectives will create a unique atmosphere and any other combination would be a different experience. Of course, the rehearsal room of Orange Polar Bear is no different but there are other factors that are contributing to a distinctively unique rehearsal process. Often enough, there is are shared elements within the creative team, for example culture or an understanding of where their colleagues come from. More often than not, the common factor is language. This is not the case for this production.
English is arguably a universal language. As an English speaker in another part of the world, there is an expectation that you will be able to ‘get by’, that in most large cities there will be a level of English in restaurants and shops that won’t require you to learn much, if any, of the language. The status that is given to knowing English has given a fortunate elitism to Native English speakers. You might imagine that within the Orange Polar Bear rehearsal room, English is the primary language. It is true that many of the Korean cast and crew do speak English well, and the British contingency have very limited Korean, but if the majority of communication happened in English, it would not achieve the egalitarianism between the cultures that the project it striving for. So, potentially the most important member of the creative team is 수연 (Soo Yeon), our interpreter. Essentially another director, 수연, must ensure that the nuances of Peter the British director, 윤정 (Yun Jung), the movement director and others are communicated carefully. A slight difference in a piece of vocabulary used could change an entire meaning and when director theatre, precise language is vital. 수연 is there at every rehearsal, meeting and throughout the day for different communications. She is vital to make sure the process as a whole is successful and the project would arguably not be possible without her.
Orange Polar Bear moves between the two worlds of South Korea and Britain and the lives of William and 지영(Jiyoung). The actors playing the two protagonists stay firmly within their worlds, but for the other four actors (two Korean and two British), they multi role and form the ensemble. The ensemble become the students in both Korean and British classrooms, become friends, parents and individuals that make the world whole. Even when the world is in one particular country, the actors speak in their native language. This creates interesting scenes to watch and the team are working hard to make this as seamless as possible.
Because the languages are interwoven, all actors are working hard on lines. Learning lines does not mean you simply memorise your own. The actor must also make sure they are completely familiar with the lines coming before and after, the cues and context of the scene. For the audience, this blending and integration of the scenes, helps create a lack of distinction between the different worlds. For the actors, they must learn cues in another language. This takes practise, dedication and a lot of time! The play is being performed in both Birmingham and Seoul and it could be expected that the audiences would mostly focus on the native language being performed. There is a risk that the audiences will other. The integration will keep them on their toes and realise that they can have an understanding of both stories, not just the one that they are familiar with. Subtitles will also help with this!
Ultimately, the fluid combining of the two languages is about respect. Neither language has a greater status, neither is more important and so, no actor is more important. All are responsible for moving the narrative on, for creating the world and for telling us the story of William and 지영. It’s still a work in progress because they are still in the rehearsal room. But that’s what is exciting about creating theatre – the unique rehearsal experience.