"PASS the food; who's got the food?" As it comes closer to lunchtime, this refrain from Annie Ryan becomes more tantalising, and there isn't a sandwich in sight. The four actors seem to feel it too, glancing wistfully at the clock. Gary Cooke looks at me accusingly. "We've never worked this hard before," he says. "It's just because you're here.
The rehearsal in the basement of Findlater's Church is intense and concentrated, but it is also great fun. The Corn Exchange theatre company, under Annie Ryan's direction, is reviving its production of Streetcar, a pared down, rapid fire, exuberantly camp version of Tennessee Williams's play, A Streetcar Named Desire, performed in the corn media dell'arte style. At last autumn's Dublin Theatre Festival Fringe it packed the atrium of the Temple Bar Gallery for a week, keeping audiences poised between laughter and fascinated horror.
In The Corn Exchangers version, all the sexual, emotional and dramatic tension of Tennessee Williams's New Orleans tragedy is intensified. "The film version denied the rawness of what Williams wrote," Annie Ryan says. "We're bringing that to the fore."
In a style that evokes silent film, the four actors - Tony Flynn (Blanche), Gary Cooke (Stanley), Liz Kuti (Stella) and Barry Comerford (Mitch) - play directly to the audience, facing outwards rather than towards each other, with their faces painted in lurid colours on a white, mask like base. At the beat of a drum, one actor turns to look sideways at another, with a heightened or grotesque expression, before turning outwards again. This precise, freeze frame progression, with its staccato rhythm, is maintained throughout the 45 minute piece, sustaining the feverish pitch.
"This is what having the food means," Annie Ryan says. "When you've got the food, your focus is out, and is making connection with someone's eyes in the audience. The actors are constantly bouncing off the audience.
"There is a very strict structure to this method and strong choices to be made. There are four emotional states from which we move and speak: happiness, sadness fear and anger. At any moment the actor has to be able to identify which state he or she is working from. Of course, there are other; emotional states, yes, but these need to be related to the basic flour. The actor's intention has to be made absolutely clear; he or she needs to be rooted in the feeling and to be as honest as possible."
WHILE the style is highly choreographed and non naturalistic, not a form of mime or clowning; it remains grounded in language, narrative and the creation of forceful images. Observing the actors at work, and the discipline required to maintain the rhythm while remaining in the exaggerated, almost cartoonish mode, it is clear that Ryan is right about the demands of this method. "The style shows, frame by frame, where the story is. If you don't know what you're doing, everybody can see it, and you're very exposed."
Like the company's Cultural Shrapnel, which was devised for the previous year's Festival Fringe, Streetcar is the outcome of a long process of actors' workshops held over the past three years at the Ormond Multi Media Centre, Dublin. Annie Ryan began her acting career in the Piven Theatre Workshop in her native Chicago, before training at the New York University Theatre School and returning to Chicago, to the New Crime Company, run by John Cusack and Tim Robbins. This company developed its own wildly energetic version of the commedia dell'arte style, which Annie Ryan has now brought to Dublin.
Although it has ifs roots in the richly emblematic, 15th century Italian tradition, The Corn Exchange's approach is less stylised and less wedded to the use of stock social and political stereotype. "I don't actually know that much about the Italian corn media tradition," Ryan says, candidly.
"Although the New Crime people had tremendous energy and improvisational talent, I don't think they channelled the style very well."
For the future, Annie Ryan hopes that The Corn Exchange can secure the funding to develop as an umbrella organisation, to support the growing number of actors who want to work in specific forms of movement based performance, including dance work. She is aware of the existence of Artslab (Ireland), the performance ensemble established by Jarlath Rice and Chrissie Poulter from the Samuel Beckett Centre, TCD, and regards it as a useful model.
"I'D PREFER us have this kind of accessible, resource exchange function, rather than becoming a dedicated commedia dell'arte company. My dream would be to have a centre, a performance space with studios, where we could train teachers to work using improvisational games and physically based ensemble techniques.
In the meantime, while she would like to do some more acting herself, her energies are channelled into learning how to be a director, producer and publicity manager and into continuing the workshops she leads, in collaboration with dancers such as Cindy Cummings and Morleigh Steinberg and the director Michael West. "I want to make sure that there is a pool of performers in Dublin who have come to know this style in their bones, and who can develop research based rather than product based work."
The Corn Exchange's lack of funds dictates its venue choice, to an extent, but Annte Ryan is happy to bring the revived Streetcar back to the Temple Bar Galleries. "The people at the gallery have been curious and excited about our work, because it brings people into their venue in a different way. Of course, we'd love to perform at the Project some time, but it's out of the question, financially, at the moment. This 10 day run at the gallery will just about pay for itself."
She had no nostalgia for Chicago, however. "Maybe in 10 years' time, I still won't have a penny, she laughs, "but there's no going back now."
