WORDS Ellie White

Hugo Lau is a second-year student of English and Drama.  In the past, he has acted, directed, produced, and been involved in designing all manner of plays and productions.  His first foray into playwriting, a show entitled We Need the Eggs, which he is also directing, goes up in Players Theatre during Week 5. Ellie White sat down to chat with him.

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On being inspired to write his first play…

I was in second year, and I was studying History and Classics (at the time) and I decided, having not being involved in Players, that I would direct a play.  So I directed Closer by Patrick Marber.  I did my own adaptation of it because the original version of the play is two and a half hours long …It just sparked something in me, it was something new.  I knew this was what I had to do: this was it, this was my life, I was going to spend the rest of my life doing things in theatre, and this was my creative medium.

And on putting pen to paper…

In terms of writing, I’ve always been jotting little things down in my notepads – I’m always “that guy” – but Closer then spurred me on to write a play specifically. Before that it had been angsty poetry in the back of my books.

As for the play itself, I always knew I wanted to write something to do with memory.  So it started off very, very surreal, just smatterings of memories that I had, and memories that these characters I created had, all put together.  And then when it started to take shape, and the characters started to have names, and I initially started thinking, “oh, who shall I cast in this?” – that’s how the characters began, and then they totally became their own people.  It took me two years to finish writing it. It’s been a long process.

On directing a play he’s written…

It’s a lot more intense directing your own play.  Directing Closer… I sat down and I spent months with this script, adapting it, and thinking “What can I do to make this script mine?” Whereas, when you write a script yourself you forget this, because it’s already yours; you’ve already spent so much time with these characters and these scenes, and you forget that you have to do something with them.

In terms of the actual rehearsal process, it’s very bizarre;…you see these characters embodied by a person, who brings new things.  A lot of the time, it’s not better or worse, it’s just different. It’s an impulse you can’t put into words. Not a lot of sleep is had by me during this process because it’s so stressful and personal – but in the end, cathartic and lovely.

 

On the casting process…

I’d had experience of the auditioning process before…We had almost a hundred people come and audition, which was absolutely amazing.  It’s just so wonderful, it’s really, genuinely humbling…that they deem your play important enough to give you a half an hour, even an hour of their time. But honestly, you just have to be cut-throat about it initially, “yes, no, yes, no” and there’s a lot of Facebook stalking that goes on, trying to remember people’s faces.  It was surprisingly quick, initially, getting it down to about five people took about five minutes.

Patrick (Culhane), who’s playing Lucas, is the first part we cast.  And – it had to be him.  He just has that charisma, and he’s obviously just the most handsome man, and that’s very important to the part – he has this presence, and whenever he’s onstage you’re just always looking at him, because he’s integral to Isaac’s memories.  He’s the centre of it all.  And then, in terms of chemistry and the way they looked and everything, we had to decide on Caitlin (Scott) and Colm (Gleeson).  It’s one of those things where you make the decision and then you realize that obviously you were always going to do that.

And after casting…

 

It’s actually taken quite a long time for them to find their characters.  I’ve developed this phrase in the last few shows that I’ve worked on, where you run into a brick wall… normally it happens about a week before the performance, you reach a scene or a point in the rehearsal process where you put your hands up and say “I have no idea, this scene just isn’t working, what are we supposed to do?” and you bash away at it for three or four hours and nothing happens.  And then, suddenly, there’s that eureka moment.  And with We Need the Eggs, that happened in rehearsal three.  And it took a week, and then suddenly it just clicked.  They became completely different people.

 

On rehearsals…

The play is very fragmented in terms of the chronology of it – kind of like (500) Days of Summer, I suppose!  It’s all about Isaac remembering, he’s trying to piece together what’s happened, what’s brought him to this place in his life.  So it starts off with Isaac and Zoe’s first meeting, but it’s actually not their first meeting, just their whole relationship encapsulated in a scene.  So, Colm Summers (Assistant Driector) and I came to the decision that we should rehearse it in chronological order.  So we started by rehearsing Colm and Patrick in the scenes where they’re in boarding school, just to start that relationship and get them really close, and then suddenly introduce Caitlin.  Just like in the play, they’re brothers, they’ve been through all of this together, and then suddenly this girl comes along and comes between them.  In hindsight, I think it was a good move.  When they did a run of the play for the first time, it all clicked, whereas if we’d rehearsed the play in order from start to finish, it would’ve been very confusing for them – and for the audience.

On the title…

I didn’t know what to call it for a long time. I think I was re-watching Annie Hall for the third or fourth time, and at the end of the film…there’s no resolution.  He has this relationship with Annie Hall, and he learns a lot about himself, but at the same time he doesn’t learn anything. I think it’s very telling of human beings and the way we interact with each other.  So, at the end of the film he thinks about this old joke: a guy who goes to the doctor, complaining his brother thinks he’s a chicken, but can’t cure him because “he needs the eggs”. And relationships are just like that: they’re completely insane and irrational, but at the end of the day… we need the eggs.

On why you should come and see the play..

It’s just a touching story about this guy who’s trying to make sense of it all, and I think people will relate to that.  And, it’s funny.  And, it has pretty people in it!  And, it’s only two euro. [DU Players] literally give you money and a space; they give you time to be creative and put on something, which is an opportunity we won’t have at the end of college, so we should ALL definitely make the most of it. Whether that means directing and writing, or just going to see it.

 

On what’s next…

 

Directing is very stressful. I find that I’m sitting up all night, and that I have to go out and have a drink, let loose after rehearsals for a little while just to level out.  Whereas acting gives you that catharsis, it gives you that release.  So I think the solution is to just do a bit of everything.  I have this impulse to write, and direct, but to keep acting as well.

 

 

We Need the Eggs, written and directed by Hugo Lau, is running from February 10th-15th at 1pm in Players Theatre.

Twitter: we_needtheeggs

Tumblr: weneedtheeggsproduction.tumblr.com