Lovely Rita, meter maid

Set in Berlin after the Second World War, Lovely Rita tells the story of a seventeen-year-old girl amidst the Soviet occupation of East Germany. Orphaned and alone, Rita must learn to survive in a city tainted by the aftermath of war. Here, co-directors Maria Hildebrand and Juliet Clark give us the inside details about Freshblood’s upcoming student production at the Arts Centre Studio.

Why did you choose this play specifically?
Juliet Clark: Lovely Rita is originally a German play by Thomas Brasch. When Maria first told me about the plot, I was intrigued by the intense, gripping storyline. Though it only consists of eleven scenes, this is a one act play brimming with content. For us, it was the combination of the themes and the writing style that inspired us to stage it. For example, the play explores the redefinition of the woman from a romantic, Weimarian prostitute to a dishonest whore.
Maria Hildebrand: It also portrays the broken spirit of immediate post-war Germany, and the irreversible effect that the atrocities of war have imposed on its inhabitants. Our aim is to make a social comment on war in general, and the nature of human error to repeat mistakes. Once a war is over, does it truly end? No. It simply continues with violence, occupation, censorship and corruption. The obvious issue was that no English translation existed, so we just did it ourselves.

How did the translating process work, and what challenges did you face?
MH: We aimed to be as authentic and meticulous as we could when translating the text. Our prime goal was to remain true to the German version, in order to capture the darkness Brasch had written with. It was a big decision to take on the challenge of translating the text. While I have the advantage of being bilingual, Juliet was the one who made things make grammatical sense. Our sessions consisted of me dictating what the words meant and Juliet typing them into English.
JC: The most challenging part was discovering how differently the German language works in relation to the English language. We had many sessions where we would simply discuss the meaning of a single word. German is a lot more direct and harsh, which was often difficult to get across in English. There are many more words in German to describe something, which results in a more precise and efficient manner of speech, so we sometimes struggled finding the right English word that fit. An interesting feature of Brasch’s writing is his absolute refusal to use any punctuation, other than full stops. He never uses question or exclamation marks, which is a very intriguing aspect in the text. In rehearsals, it’s given the actors much more scope to experiment with their lines.

Why did you decide to co-direct?
JC: Maria and I went to the same school, where we worked together on various performances. Our best memory together would have to be devising and collaborating on our school’s senior production of Attempts on her Life by Martin Crimp, so we already had that background that we brought into this project. We are used to a way of working that is very direct. If there is something we don’t like, we say it to one another. We bounce off each other’s ideas and where one struggles to find the right solution, the other has the answer. Maria never stops working on Lovely Rita and brings so many incredible insights. She is well-versed in Sandford Meisner techniques, without which we couldn’t have hoped to put on this production. Often when we are directing together and I may find myself stuck, Maria always comes in and finishes my sentences. She also always remembers everything we have to do, whereas I am so forgetful sometimes, but I never have to worry when she is around.
MH: This project would not be possible without the other; we both carry it so close to our hearts and we both know the world of Rita inside and out.

How have you approached rehearsals and acting style?
JC: I like to call it a ‘gradual to boom’ approach. We first analyse the script with our actors, discussing the story, the sub-text of the lines and the political context in order to get the general idea of the scenes. We invest a lot of time into character work as well; we find it important to build the characters from scratch. We expect full input from our actors and we enjoy it when they surprise us with new ideas and new approaches to playing a character. Once we have done all this prep with them, everything clicks and the scene comes together.
MH: In order to authentically replicate the relationships within the play, we laid a heavy emphasis on cast bonding and exercises designed to build rapport before the Easter holidays. For example, incorporating Meisner’s repetition exercises were useful in getting cast members to really focus on one another, as opposed to over-thinking their own thoughts. Meisner once said, “The text is your greatest enemy”, meaning that actors often become trapped by the words of a script without the opportunity to experiment or question it. Therefore, we’ve used workshopping and improvisations to allow the actors to truly understand their character’s motivations and intentions. In the second part of rehearsals we moved away from Meisner and drew from epic theatre techniques. Since Brasch has constructed his characters in such a manner that they represent a specific set of ideas rather than a fully developed back-story, we used Gestus and movement to help form the second phase of rehearsals. Our cast are a very talented bunch, bringing things to light we never thought of before, and they definitely keep us on our feet. Plus, Juliet and I have a hoot watching them, it’s so much fun, they make us laugh too much.

Why incorporate film into a theatrical production?
MH: Brasch’s stage directions indicate the use of film, and since Rita’s ultimate goal is to become a film star, it seemed apparent for us to include it. Having seen performances from contemporary theatre companies, such as Gob Squad’s Kitchen (You’ve Never Had It So Good) or Teatro Cinema’s Sin Sangre, blurring the line between cinema and theatre has always been something I have been eager to implement in a production of my own. The film scenes at the beginning and at the end highlight the era in which the play is set, and also indicate the massive transition the play goes through. Without giving too much away, we see a different Germany by the end of the play in comparison to the first scene, and this is achieved by the film. We were excited at the prospect of working with INC Films and have enjoyed collaborating with them very much.

Why watch Lovely Rita?
JC: Our production of Lovely Rita upturns the traditional set up of cast ensembles. It is so common to see a male lead with female supporting actresses in the theatre. However, in our case, we have a leading lady, as well as other strong female roles, who are accompanied by a male chorus. In addition to this, it will truly be something new that you come and see. As far as we are aware, Lovely Rita has never before been staged in English, and we are excited to see how a relatively unknown German text will work in an English context. And, most importantly, because of all the incredible amount of work that has gone into this by our team and cast. We have a large group of people to coordinate — a production team of 14 and a cast of 12, which is a lot. But everyone has just thrown themselves into the process and have made it all happen. We’re really proud with all the things they’ve come up with and they are essentially who are making our vision come true!

What does the set and staging look like? We’ve heard there’s movement involved…
MH: We have said too much already. It’s best you come and see what it’s all about for yourself. Lovely Rita is being shown from the 16th to the 19th of May in Week 4 of term three.