Pots pots pots

We knew we were interested in using water carriers of some type in the choreography to explore and highlight that the very act of carrying water is a significant burden - as Stuart says in one of the scientific voice overs 'Water's very heavy. You wouldn't want to carry a lot of water a long way'. But we never imagined how that iconic image of a Bangladeshi woman balancing a water pot on her head would become the primary design feature of the production. Back in April William discovered, after much trawling through the kitchenware shops of Southall, 4 beautiful copper pots. We used these extensively in the early development of the choreography and then pur Sound Designer Filipe Gomes got his hands on them. Fil works at the cutting edge of sonic technology and immediately whipped out some battery powered contact speakers which would sit within each pot playing a tone (tuned to the resonant frequency of each particular pot) effectively turning the pot itself into a generator of sound. Depending on how the pot was moved through space and across the stage would affect the sonic experience. Then William jumped back on the pot bandwagon and decided we needed another 8 pots to create a line of them curving across the stage partly to suggest the curve of the well. When lit from the side they shone like burnished gold and remained on stage throughout - a constant reminder of the heaviness of water and the chore that it is to collect it. Now we were on a pot roll Will went back one final time to the bemused kitchen ware retailer in Southall and bought another 4 which he then suspended in the air around the aerial equipment and wired each one with a light bulb both marrying the pots with the aesthetic of the aerial equipment and also creating beautiful moments where a performer could be lit simply by a seemingly empty upturned pot floating above their heads. The last Hurrah for the pots came in the very final moments of the show when 4 of the pots from the curving line are placed around the body of one of the performers. Again thanks to some technical wizardry these 4 pots had remote controlled LED lights set within them so at the touch of a button could be transformed symbolically into candles placed around the corpse.

Our partner charity

Back in April through the wonder of social media we were introduced to the work of a brilliant charity called Impact UK who work with several developing countries on a range of issues, one of which is safe water and sanitation. They contacted us through twitter and our know partners with us on the project as they launch a crowd funding campaign to raise money to buy filters for arsenic contaminated Wells in Bangladesh just days before Well opens. I hope we can help raise awareness of both the situation out there and the brilliant work they're doing in helping villages affected by arsenic in the ground water throughout Bangladesh. Please check out their work - they also have some brilliant videos on their website that give a real sense of what's going on over there. And as well as donating directly you can also help by spreading the word about the campaign through email Facebook and Twitter.

End of the First week

We've just finished our first week of full rehearsals for well. It's been intense but amazing. Because we are lucky enough to have the same performers who were with us in the research and development period earlier this year it means we already have a shared vocabulary and indeed a lot of material which we generated then. So somewhat miraculously we've already sketched out the whole show which for work of this kind is incredibly quick. I have no doubt we'll edit and remake much of it as we go but it's reassuring to know the bones are there and the narrative is clear (hopefully) and emotionally charged. Baby Noah joined us in rehearsals today, which was surprisingly easy. Working in a room full of crash mats and with very little in the way of props except our beloved (and sturdy) copper pots is pretty baby friendly it turns out. So onwards to the next week and really carving out the detail...

The last story-teller

We walk around the small village quite early - too early perhaps - the one cafe isn't open yet and the few villagers we encounter are shy. If we are to hear the stories of the Berbers (the indigenous people of Morocco and from whom the storytelling traditions originated it will take more long term work and introductions. Nonetheless Noah makes some friends (of course) and we share a few words - or more accurately gestures - with a group of women waiting for the bus into Marrakech. Noah is the key - as to so many of our interactions with Moroccans. The language of baby is universal. Before we leave we do have a long conversation with Susan, our host and owner of the sanctuary. In her own way she is also a bridge like Lahcen and Tahir, on the surface she provides days out for sight-seeing tourists but as a retired human rights lawyer with a keen intelligence and sensitivity to the culture she has embraced as her own she also sees it as a responsibility to educate and re-educate the tourists who come to Morocco with no knowledge of or sensitivity to the customs and culture of a country so different from their own. In her own way she is a story-teller embedding her tales with a moral just as the tellers in the square do.

With literally hours before our flight home Lahcen has got hold of Abderahim the story-teller, so we head back to the Jemaa El Fna and (unbenknownst to Lahcen) to the very terrace on which we spent our last evening in Marrakech. The other storytellers we met before today were fascinating in their way but fundamentally showmen of a more general sort. By contrast Abderahim is the real deal, a master and a craftsman and it shows. He has spent decades mastering his art - reading books, translating them from classical arabic to darija and then learning them by heart. Some of his stories take days and days to tell, in blocks of 4 or 5 hours at a time. And some of his tales exist only orally and have been passed down from teller to teller over generations. Lahcen is so taken with him that he asks if he might return and work as his apprentice for a few months learning his stories and the ways of the halqa. Graciously Abderahim accepts.

3 hours of tea and stories later and we drive to the airport and board the plane. After a few Gin & fizzy waters (they were out of tonic - Lahcen threatens to complain!) we are all a little giddy with the altitude, the alcohol and the countless stories of the last fifteen days. It has opened our eyes, our hearts and our minds and made us re-examine what it is that we do as artists, as theatre-makers, as story-tellers.

And now to turn it all into a show.

10 hours of driving

We leave early. Just as well as it takes us 6 hours to reach our destination - Beni Mellal. On the way we see a tiny donkey by the road - it could have stepped straight out of the tale we heard last night in Fez. We aim to get there by 11am. As it turns out we arrive at 3pm! Luckily our host - the gentle and gracious Fatima Zahra, an academic at the University of Beni Mellal and expert in story-telling - is not at all put out and provides us with a feast of salad, tagine and fruit. Also a feast of ideas as we delve into the nature of story-telling at a more abstract and theoretical level than before. She argues hard for embracing the 'betrayal' of storytellers and storytelling and says if the art form is to survive we must find a new way to tell. After 3 hours of food and conversation we are stuffed, physically and intellectually,  and we continue our drive further south to a Donkey sanctuary just south of Marrakech. But before we leave Fatima gives us the number of a story-teller back in Marrakech who we might have time to meet before we fly tomorrow - his name is Abderahim - the story-teller from the documentary!

After another 4 hours in the car (thank goodness Noah slept literally the entire time) we arrive at the sanctuary at 10pm. It is the first night time driving we have done in Morocco and it's terrifying. But we arrive in one piece to Gin & Tonics on the lawn followed by a 3 course meal. After his 4 hour nap Noah is wide awake and ecstatic to meet no less than 10 different dogs. The house - a new building overlooking a small village in the foothills of the Atlas mountains - is even more grand than Dar Al Khalifa. In fact it's a bit like staying in a 5 star hotel... that is also a family home. But now to bed - it's the biggest bed I've ever seen - before we meet with some Berbers from the village tomorrow and hear their stories.

The story-teller of Fez

Another early morning drive, another journey several hours longer than we'd thought it would be, and we arrive in Fez, hopeful that we might find a story-teller. Before we find the story-tellers though we have to find somewhere to park and we spend another hour driving round and round trying to find the right gate to enter the Medina from. We ask one guy for directions, he is such a story-teller. I have no idea what he's saying but the moment we drive off we burst out laughing at his 'performance'. And the directions he gives do eventually see us right.

Entering the Bab Bou Jeloud on the edge of the Medina swarms of birds fly above us, swallows or swifts or something like that. Lahcen calls them 'hair thiefs' because they swoop down and pull out people's hair (presumably to line their nests). After lunch in a converted palace (another pastilla - a speciality of Fez) it's still too early for the story-tellers so we wander into the souk. I have another mission while in Fez - to find a Fez (the hat) for a Moroccan friend back in London who is getting married. We find a shop with boxes from floor to ceiling - each containing a Fez. I retrieve my paper with the head measurements and Lahcen begins the haggling game. The key to any transaction in Morocco is to remember that the haggling is a game. It's all a game. Not only are all Moroccans story-tellers but they are also all jokers. A few minutes later we leave triumphant, the Fez wrapped in paper and safely stowed in the basket of Noah's buggy.

It's much hotter here than it was on the coast, hotter even than the desert - partly because the temperature has been climbing everywhere day by day and partly because Fez sits like a bowl in which the heat is trapped. I am really feeling the heat, but Noah of course is unstoppable as ever, still running around at top speed. As the afternoon wanes we return to the Bab Bou Jeloud, on the other side of which is the square where the halqa assemble. It is like a much smaller much calmer Jemaa El Fna - there is only one snake-charmer, a few orange juice sellers. We wander from halqa to halqa desperately hoping for a story-teller. One man is selling medicines but Lahcen is keen to talk to him after the audience have gone because he seems like a natural storyteller. Another man is telling actual stories. Or jokes at least. Lahcen translates and it transpires he is a kind of political stand up comedian. Lahc asks if we can speak to him after the audience have left. He says come back when the sun comes down. Lahc asks at what time? He says when the sun comes down.

When the sun has set we meet the storyteller and over tea he tells us of the golden age of story-telling when he would come and find the audience already waiting in the halqa. They would come one by one until the circle was full but now the art of listening is dying. Now he sees the young people and he adapts. If they want a story he tells a story, if they want a joke he tells a joke, if they want music he makes music. The truth is though that there is little appetite now for the old tales, some of which take several hours to tell. He has been ill, story-telling is an unforgiving trade, standing outside all day long. More importantly you only earn a living if you're able to turn up and tell a story.There's no union for storytellers! He has been off sick for 3 weeks and today is his first day back. Had we come yesterday - which was the plan before Lahcen missed his flight and set us back a day - we would never have met him. We ask him for a tale and unprompted he tells us another tale of Harun Al Rashid. Strange. It's a totally different story and involves a tiny magic donkey, but strange coincidence none the less. Obviously there are no coincidences as we're coming to accept.

The National Theatre

After some amazing croissants (we could be in Paris - Rabat is much more European than the Morroco we've seen further south) we wander round the old town - the Medina and the blue and white-washed Kasbah. After lunch we meet up with Said again who has organised an introduction to Mohamed Benhsain, the Director of the National Theatre, who gives us a tour round the building. He seems really interested in the show and before we know it we're already talking about co-producing! He also tells us of a story-telling Festival in Beni-Mellal that they co-produce with - we know a bit about it already because we've already planned to meet with the festival organiser Fatima Zahra on the 13th. Turns out they are great friends.

In the evening we manage to see the Peter Brook 'Flute', thanks to the  Alex's lovely girlfriend, who offers to babysit. An offer she probably regrets now as Noah cried the whole time he was with her. On the plus side it was an abridged 90 minute version of the show, so it could have been worse. It's a deceptively simple staging, a stunning design and the symbolism has a huge impact on Lahcen. We're still discussing the production late into the night.