I'm primed and will find my mark...

Mike said "you need a high waisted pencil skirt - grey if you can find it" so I did. I did it! Under duress from the amazingly talented designer for my new play DESIRE (13-31 July at The White Bear, London - box office: 020 7793 9193 - please come and see it or I will strike you from my FB!) I had to go to... Primark for the very first time.

I went early on Tuesday (they open at 8:30) before rehearsal. It was almost deserted, but even at this hour it had a few die hards getting in a bit of shopping therapy before going to work... Now, I don't usually go shopping for clothes. I'm like one of those poor souls on Gok's Fashion Fix. Shops scare and confuse me. They make my head spin. I walk in and get spat out again like someone who's put too much momentum going through revolving doors. I don't understand for the life of me how anyone can call it shopping therapy...

So imagine my surprise when I walked into Primark and made a bee line for their "tailored corner" and immediately found a rack with grey dresses, matching jackets, trousers and of course... the coveted high waisted pencil skirt... in grey! And I'll share something rather spooky with you: it looked exactly the way it did in my head. Imagine that! I'm on the same existential plane as Primark. I'll say that for Primark, their prices may be low but their designs are anything but cheap. They're very very good and in fashion parlance (gleaned from the rather shrieky but very funny blonde American designer on  Gok's Fashion Fix) "on trend".

But there's more... Wait for it...

I did not reach for the size 14 or even size 12... I am getting better, aren't I? I grabbed a size 10, and then almost as an afterthought spotted a lonely size 8 and grabbed that too, just in case. Off to the changing rooms.

The Primark changing rooms could teach the more expensive high street stores a thing or two. They are a thing of beauty: clean, spacious, with good mirrors and lighting.

And in the privacy of my Primark Tardis (you'll only get the reference if you saw my one woman show "There's Something in the Fridge..." - see, better book your tickets to my new play otherwise you'll miss out on all the witty references that I'll be peppering this blog with. Book now! 020 7793 9193.) I tried on size 10 - without any sense of apprehension. I am doing better! And it was too big! Not by much but definitely not fitted the way a pencil skirt should be. So I tried size 8: and bingo!!! It looked f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c.

So there you have it, my first amazing shopping experience - since that purple tartan mini-kilt I bought in Edinburgh - was sponsored by Primark! (there's another reference to the one woman show... if you're curious go and read my 2008 Edinburgh Fringe blog "Notes from the Fridge...")

Now, I could include a picture of me in the Primark grey pencil skirt (about £12) and the rest of my delightfully sexy and tight fitting costume but... I won't.  If you want to see it, you'll have to come and see the play. The details, one more time in case you weren't paying attention: DESIRE, 13-31 July, The White Bear Theatre, London, Box office: 020 7793 9193.

A love story

The rehearsal process - if all goes well - is a love story. A love story between you and the character. Because often, when you first look at the script your character is a complete stranger. You may empathise all you want but you still only know it or understand it from the outside.

No matter how much research I do, how I try to make every detail relevant by making substitutions in my mind (see the excellent "Respect for Acting" by Ute Hagen)... the magical transference from "her" to "me" is still out of reach. It a necessary part of the process but it's also b****y scary.

There are times when you never find the umbilical cord that links you to your character... and then you end up with something not very nice... not very real. Ever watched a film where you simply couldn't warm up to a character? Where you thought: I don't think this actor likes his character very much? Well, that's the missing umbilical cord (technically it's not missing, it simply hasn't been found).

Luckily for me, I find improvisation very useful in that hunt of the umbilical. Ever played make believe as a child? How real did it feel at the time? Couldn't you just taste the imaginary apple tart and peach cobbler and the tea served in your miniature Limoges tea set? (Or was that just me...) That's improvisation. Some people find it scary. I don't. It's the door to freedom and dreams and somehow the character takes over within a few seconds of the exercise starting and without me realising it and says things and does things, thinks things... and then after the exercise is over I come back to myself and sit down with the director and analyse the process discover so many things I didn't know! And suddenly, the character starts to make complete sense.

You suddenly understand, not with your head, but with your heart, why they are doing certain things in the course of the play, why they say certain things and how they say them. You no longer judge is as good/bad, wrong/right, funny/sad... it becomes the only way to behave, to think, to be... and that's an indescribably delicious feeling.

A feeling of freedom, a feeling of growing affection and love for this character who slowly merges into you and you into it. And if you work hard, and are very lucky, and don't peak too early, you're in for a real treat, playing a long lost twin, playing a former self from a past life, playing the person you always knew you could be.

That's what acting's really about. People will tell you that they get into it for fame and money but finding your character and celebrating it is what gets you through the rigours of drama school, through the endless castings for TV commercials, the bit parts, and the hopes of the next job.


THE SHOW: Isabelle will be playing "The Woman" in Desire/Desig by Josep Maria Benet i Jornet, 13-31 July, White Bear Theatre (London), directed by Julia Stubbs, co-starring Simon de Deney, Anabelle Cleare and Stephen Connery-Brown. For tickets: http://tiny.cc/gplor

Filled with Desire!

Last Wednesday we had our first rehearsal for Desire, a play which will have its UK Premiere in London this summer. It's by a celebrated Catalunian (as in from Barcelona, Catalunia, Spain) playwright and scriptwriter called Josep Maria Benet i Jornet who has just being honoured with a life achievement award by his government.  It'll be on at the White Bear (Kennington, South London) from July 13th-31st, and you're all invited...

First rehearsals are always unnerving. Will I find the character? Will the Director like what I'm doing. How will I get on with the rest of the cast. Can I do it? Will I pull it off? Will I enjoy it? Will the audience enjoy it? Can we do the play justice?

I find characters fall broadly into two categories: the angels and the demons. The angels are the ones that fill me with positivity and who teach me new things and whose presence I try to hold on to after the production is finished. I can never tell an angel ahead of time, they've included a simple scullery maid, a paranoid schizophrenic, a provincial prostitute, and an overweight Midwestern matron. The demons are the ones who suck the life force out of me and who bring out my worst qualities and play off my weaknesses. They can take me several weeks to recover. They are often characters that I'm initially attracted to but who turn out to be rather demanding tenants. They include an adulteress who murders her husband, a young peasant who wants a child, an addict, a widow in mourning, and a City banker (no surprises there!)

Characters have a way of weaving themselves into me. Apparently my entire demeanor and behaviour shifts slightly when I work on a new piece. I become slightly "other". If the character is older than me, I find that my skin will dry up. If the character is unhappy, I find it hard to resist grazing on food all day. Some characters make me want to smoke, or to drink. Some make me sleep like a baby, others give me nightmares or nightsweats. Some make me want to dress up feminine, paint my mails, be sexy and playful. Others make me want to be alone. Some make me want to cry - constantly.

This new character I'm playing is called "The Woman". (None of the 4 characters have proper names.) I haven't made my mind up about her yet. She's a romantic, she's passionate, she's a bit of an obsessive... angel or demon?

Watch this space...