Sanctuary Lamp at Riverbank Arts Centre

A few of us went to see "The Sanctuary Lamp" in Riverbank Arts Centre last night.

The production was directed by Tom Murphy and produced by b*spoke Theatre Company.

I really didn't like the first half, and the second half was really excellent. So overall, I really liked it. The set and lighting was really beautiful. The sound was excellent, they created a reverb to make it sound like a Church and it really gave the production a sense of space in a relatively small performance space. All of the performances were good, a special note has to go to Declan Conlon who for me anyway was exceptional and lifted the whole production. B*spoke have put together a really good touring piece of theatre that will hopefully be a great success for them.

So where was the problem? It was all with Murphy's direction. The was a real sense of the writer and none of the director. Murphy seemed way to caught up in the beauty of his own words that he seemed to forget he was meant to be directing a play. There was a huge amount of actors having their back to the audience, and I could see no real artistic need for that. It almost seemed that Murphy didn't care about the audience.

For me it brought up the question, should a writer direct their own work? For me it has to be a no. They are two different creative processes and need to be treated as such. Now, of course there exceptions to that rule and some writers are really great at directing their own work. But in this case I think Murphy should just stick to what he is best at and leave the directing to someone else.

The Creative Block

I'm blaming Ninja Cat on youtube for my current creative block. When I can't get inspired, I usually look to the internet for inspiration. And it's never high brow thought provoking websites, blogs or visuals I go for, it's always purile nonsense! And I have no problem with that as sometimes you need to completely turn off your brain in order for it to percolate an idea.

I usually go for some trusted favourites like this daily webcomic www.explosm.net (be warned once you look at it you could get lost for days!) or Charlie Murphy's true Hollywood stories with Rick James, or of course youtube. They always make me laugh, a lot of the time in very, oh my god I shouldn't be laughing at this but nobody else is around so it's ok, kind of laugh. And after about 20 -30 minutes I can get back to work. The same with playing "Call of Duty" online on PS3. 30 minutes of killing nerds in the US for some reason is really relaxing and puts me in a creative mood.

But not yesterday. I'm working on adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" and it is going pretty well, but I hit a complete block yesterday.
Don't worry I told myself with assured confidence! I will consult the interweb and we will be back on track in mere minutes. Ah yes, youtube my old friend, we meet again, what videos of "Man getting hit by football" do you hold for me today? What's this? "Ninja Cat" A cat who is a ninja? Why this sounds right up my street.

4 hours later...

I have watched all of the vides of "ninja cat" and other related videos as suggested by youtube, I have watched the original "ninja cat" video 7 times and "ninja cat in box" 3 times. I have watched a video of "cat playing the piano", "cat talking", "flying cat" and a brief dalliance with "Greatest The Rock moments" before returning to "Simons Cat" (whose book I purchased in Barcelona last year). I feel dirty.

My creative block is still there, I can only think about how funny cats can be, and following my own cats around hoping to catch them doing those funny things cats do and post it online. I need to get past this and back to work.

I need to stay clear of the internet for a while so, does anyone have any suggestions of how they get over creative / writers block? Music, walking, whatever... just nothing to do with Ninja's or cat's.

Eoghan