06. Moving the Colour of Blue - Theatre & Science with Jack Lowe of Curious Directive

This is a conversation with Jack Lowe, Artistic Director, CEO and Technical Dramaturg of Curious Directive. The conversation is based around the groundbreaking work of Curious Directive that blends science and theatre into emotionally driven, unique and memorable experiences. Along the way, we touch on a range of topics including quantum biology, devised theatre, virtual reality and lots more beyond.

There are some swears, but they were carefully chosen for artistic expression. 

Links

Curious Directive curiousdirective.com

Arcade Fire - The Wilderness Downtown thewildernessdowntown.com
(make sure you enable pop ups or it won't work and you'll be sad)

Music by Simon Rolfe
Thanks to Immersive Studios for letting me record in the office
Thanks to Niky for letting me use his microphones.
Thanks to YOU for listening

Transcript

00:00:05:24 - 00:00:11:02
Robin Fuller:
I know it sounds like the start of a roller coaster or something. He was not quite sure exactly what you're about to do next.

00:00:12:03 - 00:00:14:01
Jack Lowe
That's good. Hopefully stay on the rails.

00:00:29:20 - 00:00:46:00
Robin Fuller:
My name is Robin Fuller, and this is Hatching Crows, a podcast about creativity, creative people and their processes. This is episode six, in which I talk to Jack Lew, who is artistic director, CEO and technical dramaturg of Curious Directive, a theater company making some really inventive and original work.

00:00:46:07 - 00:01:40:07
Robin Fuller:
You will find out more about the work during the conversation itself, which as always covers a range of topics looking at device, theater, fire, the magic of science, quantum biology, virtual reality and lots more beyond enjoy. So generally I start by introducing people because I like to introduce people.

00:01:40:07 - 00:01:51:21
Robin Fuller:
So when they're in the room, because generally of onion cheese people I'm a fan of and then they know that I'm being nice about them. And what's really good, mate. So here we go. With me today in this conversation is Jack Clow.

00:01:52:01 - 00:02:09:06
Robin Fuller:
Jack is artistic director, CEO and technical dramaturge of Cue. All right, let's let's do this again. Jack is artistic director, CEO and technical dramaturge of Curious DirecTV, a multi-award winning theater company that creates multi-layered performances that blend science and art to create fascinating, innovative and emotionally engaging work.

00:02:10:07 - 00:02:21:21
Robin Fuller:
I'm a big fan. I think what I have, which set me up, was that I was so I'm pleasing myself for saying the word dramaturge and then I tripped up on them. Curious directive. Dramaturge. Is it right to draw drama?

00:02:22:00 - 00:02:22:20
Robin Fuller:
Dramaturg?

00:02:22:23 - 00:02:24:19
Jack Lowe
It depends. Dramaturg. Dramaturg.

00:02:25:08 - 00:02:29:02
Robin Fuller:
Okay. I even looked it up. I keep it up on the Internet cause I wasn't. I wasn't confident.

00:02:29:18 - 00:02:30:10
Jack Lowe
That's all right.

00:02:32:11 - 00:02:46:18
Robin Fuller:
Anyway, yes. So curious directive. That's kind of the thing. So I see. I see. I've seen a couple of your shows, which I found really fascinating. Could you maybe just give us a little bit of background on I'm curious, this kind of what's yeah, what's the history behind it?

00:02:46:19 - 00:02:49:17
Robin Fuller:
Kind of how did it start? When did it start? Who was involved?

00:02:50:03 - 00:03:12:21
Jack Lowe
Yeah. So the first show, a process began with a group of US students in 2008, set sort of the end of the summer, a really interesting time to be making theater because sort of the nights are closing in and we decided to make a piece of theater about neuroscience, about the kind of strange and interesting things that

00:03:12:21 - 00:03:29:11
Jack Lowe
happen to the human brain at really at the kind of at the service of looking at the writings of Oliver Sacks. And we were a group of students. And theater is a space where everyone is kind of invited to contribute their ideas.

00:03:29:11 - 00:03:47:05
Jack Lowe
And that's the type of theater we were making. And we made a piece called Return to the Silence, where it was a series of vignettes, and the audience were put on pieces of eight by four foot steel deck with wheels, and they were pushed around a studio theater to experience theater in all different dimensions.

00:03:47:06 - 00:03:56:21
Jack Lowe
So you normally think of there. So we all sit in rows and look at something straight on. But we were working where you could do that and then also side on and also audiences with their backs to each other.

00:03:57:09 - 00:04:14:03
Jack Lowe
So from the very early days, I was interested in disrupting what a studio theater kind of is and was. And it had a live score and kind of was the central story of a neuroscientist called Jill Bolte Taylor, who basically, as a neuroscientist, experienced herself having a stroke.

00:04:14:03 - 00:04:24:24
Jack Lowe
So she sort of was able to break apart what was happening to her when she woke up one morning. And I just found that amazing in terms of a scientist being able to understand moment by moment what was happening.

00:04:25:22 - 00:04:37:10
Jack Lowe
And I thought that was sort of going to be the end of it in terms of working with science. But then the next show that I made was about I was just fascinated in light and how light works on a fundamental level.

00:04:37:22 - 00:04:49:24
Jack Lowe
And then a friend and colleague of mine who I'm still in touch with said, maybe you could make a third thing about science. And then it sort of kept on going from there. And yeah, and this September, where are we, 20, 22?

00:04:50:00 - 00:05:00:03
Jack Lowe
Yeah, we're 14 years on this September, which is pretty mad. And think about it in terms of working in artistic, such a specific artistic practice from such a young age. So yeah.

00:05:00:15 - 00:05:08:24
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. It's kind of I was going to ask you sort of was the the mission, if you like, always the same two kind of blend of science and theater. Yeah. To combine those two things.

00:05:09:07 - 00:05:23:09
Jack Lowe
Yeah. I trained in France at a school called Echo Jacques Lecoq, which that there are another kind of odd word there. Pedagogy is sort of, yes. So how they teach is based upon observation and based on the beauty of nature.

00:05:23:13 - 00:05:36:15
Jack Lowe
And you do a lot of very odd exercises where you're trying to work out how how colors move and what that looks like in the body physically. And that coming from a British theater background, I was like, That's mad and exciting and wonderful.

00:05:36:20 - 00:05:50:23
Jack Lowe
And particularly where you've got a group of international students sat there watching, you know, someone get up from Southern America and they get up and they move the color of blue. And you're like, everyone agrees. Like that looked like blue to me.

00:05:51:03 - 00:06:04:10
Jack Lowe
Yes. And when everyone is coming from so many different cultures, backgrounds and ages and you're all agreeing that that feels in their space like that thing, I was like, Well, that's wild. That's amazing. So so it kind of went a bit further back than that show.

00:06:04:21 - 00:06:16:12
Jack Lowe
And also my dad was a science teacher, so I grew up with books about science and I was very, very, very bad at science at school. And then my mum was a professional actor and I went around with her doing dramatic stuff.

00:06:16:12 - 00:06:29:24
Jack Lowe
So I kind of had the two things early on. But like, I'm not saying that then, you know, everything aligned. It just, it just, you know, it's everyone has their own personal lineages that you kind of tap into a different moments as an artist.

00:06:30:02 - 00:06:50:02
Jack Lowe
And it just so happens that that. Elision of those two things, particularly such a strong artistic mission, just made sense to me. It was kind of the kind of very practical side of my brain was like, that's not fluffy, that is very specific and a little bit alien to people, but interesting enough to interest enough people.

00:06:50:14 - 00:06:58:15
Jack Lowe
But still to this day, people are like, Don't you feel restricted by doing all your theater shows about scientific things? And it really is the opposite.

00:06:58:17 - 00:07:14:23
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think I guess one of the things one of the many things that's quite interesting about what you do is use the works are often about a scientific topic, but you're also using aspects of science in the in the production itself and in the work that goes into the production, the kind of those formative

00:07:14:23 - 00:07:32:13
Robin Fuller:
things. So it's kind of like a dialog between theater and science in and of itself. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you said something really, really lovely just now. The idea of different people from different cultures, different backgrounds, they are able to agree on quite abstract concepts.

00:07:33:12 - 00:07:48:06
Robin Fuller:
That's fascinating. Yeah, I think that's one of the things you can only get through and maybe, maybe not. But one of the things that I think one of the most succinct shortcuts to that is through art, through an artistic expression of some kind, through theater or something like that.

00:07:48:15 - 00:07:51:08
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, it's lovely. That sounds like a really lovely experience.

00:07:51:23 - 00:08:07:04
Jack Lowe
Yeah, it was. I think that internationalism felt really strong, you know, because I hadn't really hung out with international artists before then. And I think probably the key thing was that people just came at the same question from very different perspectives.

00:08:07:04 - 00:08:18:20
Jack Lowe
And we were also working in when we were creating little theater where they could alter course. So you basically a teaching yourself is what it means, which is very that's a very French thing to do, just like you can do it.

00:08:19:09 - 00:08:35:14
Jack Lowe
But that's very empowering. And when you're working in French, German, Spanish, Italian to devise. So device data is the type of theater I make. You're there and you've got a week to do it, and then you have to present your stuff to the entire school, not just the first year, but the second year and the third year

00:08:35:24 - 00:08:51:03
Jack Lowe
. And then the best feedback you get is when they go municipal, that's the best you'll get. You know, so when you get to say, Well, you all go and get trashed in the local bar because they're like, and everyone in the school is coming up to you and going, Yeah, you captured something in that auto core that

00:08:51:17 - 00:09:04:08
Jack Lowe
and also it's quite brutal because then if you don't click with the other people that you're working with and the presentation fails, it's brutal because you sort of know it. And it's as I said, it's quite French in that educational structure.

00:09:05:01 - 00:09:16:01
Jack Lowe
And I had to unlearn a little bit of that brutality coming back to run a company in France. Yeah. So in terms of you meet people who went to that school and they've got a very like they know what they think is right.

00:09:16:01 - 00:09:26:24
Jack Lowe
It's dogmatic, interesting and that can be amazing. You know, you see work that's led by people living in that company. You just like it was so amazing. But there is collateral along the way if it goes wrong. And that's something too.

00:09:27:16 - 00:09:47:14
Jack Lowe
That's something that I feel. It's an uncomfortable truth of an advising room. I'm making it sound like a utopia. It can be like really can be. But it is actually also really hard at times to make when there isn't one universal, there isn't one like central kind of person's opinion that that goes, yeah.

00:09:48:03 - 00:09:59:12
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. I can imagine that being very difficult to navigate, those kind of clash of personalities and clash of ideas and being able to resolve that kind of peacefully and constructively. Yeah. Yeah, that must be quite challenging.

00:09:59:12 - 00:10:00:20
Jack Lowe
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:10:01:04 - 00:10:14:14
Robin Fuller:
Cool. So I'm sort of sticking with this idea of sort of the combination of science and theater. Is there anything particular sort of like keeps you, keeps you hanging on to that? Like you said you did one show, didn't intend for it to kind of everything has to be to be following that path.

00:10:15:07 - 00:10:19:02
Robin Fuller:
But yeah, is anything particularly that kind of keeps you, keeps you interested, keeps you holding on?

00:10:19:10 - 00:10:38:04
Jack Lowe
I think that it's it's interesting to me to keep exploring different landscapes. It's something that's come up quite a lot. So whether that's forests or underground cave systems or the skies or the oceans, because those are places where amazing popular science books have been written within that context.

00:10:38:04 - 00:10:53:06
Jack Lowe
And you can like really geek out on someone writing a book about clouds. And then of course that book about clouds is never really about clouds. It's about overcoming grief or it's about a loss of a sense or it's about family or, you know.

00:10:53:08 - 00:11:10:18
Jack Lowe
And so actually sometimes I come to like ideas, but they're two shows from that place and sometimes I come at it from I don't actually often come from a, like a very personal place, if I'm honest, like directly, except for maybe a couple of ideas coming up that I've been saying to a colleague recently about how I

00:11:10:18 - 00:11:29:15
Jack Lowe
might get quite personal about a certain story I want to tell about Norfolk and about Norfolk landscapes and farming and water security and stuff like that. But the go to is not a regular. I don't go right. I'm going to sit down and come up with what I think the next show will be.

00:11:29:15 - 00:11:48:07
Jack Lowe
It just it's unfortunately not as simple. That gnaw is like the connectivity between technology and weather shows are going to be. But the constant now I guess is in Norwich we've got this making space where we put all our we sort of put this sort of line in Sandown that like every new show that we make is

00:11:48:08 - 00:11:49:04
Jack Lowe
going to start here.

00:11:49:10 - 00:11:51:15
Robin Fuller:
Right. So it's or has to work in that space.

00:11:51:16 - 00:12:05:16
Jack Lowe
Has to work out space, has to start here, has to privilege Norfolk and Norwich audiences to see it before that goes off to Melbourne and Singapore, etc. like that. Because there's a sort of there's a pride that I've got from coming from this place.

00:12:07:06 - 00:12:11:17
Jack Lowe
So that's a bit of a new constant that's sort of emerged, and that just comes from getting bit older.

00:12:11:24 - 00:12:33:04
Robin Fuller:
Okay. And so, again, that kind of thinking around this this sort of combination of of technology and science and theater, as I mentioned, you kind of know what's making theater about science and scientific subjects, making theater that quite often involves, yeah, quite cutting edge stuff in some instances other than like really long tech rehearsals.

00:12:33:23 - 00:12:39:21
Robin Fuller:
Is there anything that you think is is kind of a drawback or kind of constraining in that process?

00:12:40:03 - 00:12:52:05
Jack Lowe
Yeah, I mean, like, people think that science doesn't move very quickly, but it does. I.e., like people have a sort of if you shut your eyes and think what a scientist looks like or what an area of science feels like, you've got a snapshot of that.

00:12:52:05 - 00:13:06:05
Jack Lowe
Snapshot of that. But the thing is, like, you know, it depending on the air science, whether it's research driven or or anything else, it's moving so fast. So. So when you're making a play, if you set it in the seventies and you're doing I haven't seen a play in the seventies.

00:13:06:05 - 00:13:19:15
Jack Lowe
I'm skipping example. You start in the seventies and you're doing about like tree science in the seventies. So you don't have to like furrow through to the perception of what tree science was then. And then the counterpoint to that is the audience who are now, I mean.

00:13:19:16 - 00:13:30:21
Jack Lowe
Yeah. So that's quite hard to understand where research or science was up to then. And or maybe you're setting it now because of lack times and or of your setting in the future. So like.

00:13:31:01 - 00:13:31:14
Robin Fuller:
Lag time.

00:13:31:14 - 00:13:44:20
Jack Lowe
Well, just the lag time of that research becoming part of public consciousness is right. Kind of those great science communicators who are making TV shows, that's often science that's being like brought out a couple of years before. Yeah, he published a couple years for.

00:13:44:20 - 00:14:03:04
Jack Lowe
So that is a restriction. And also sometimes you have scientists who are very it takes time to for a scientist a bit to not be nervous about how it going to present their research to the public. But fundamentally the great thing about science and being out there is that it's funded in the same way the is sometimes

00:14:03:05 - 00:14:18:17
Jack Lowe
in that is for the public. So we're public we're publicly funded to make theater. So I think it's my responsibility to not only, you know, make it super clear what that means, but also taking publicly funded scientific research.

00:14:19:04 - 00:14:33:18
Jack Lowe
It's it's really interesting because, like, it's not like adapting a novel where it's like private ownership. Yeah. This is stuff at odds. Right. Like if they get funded by the Science Research Council, that research that's coming out is the possession of the people who pay their taxes.

00:14:34:07 - 00:14:49:17
Jack Lowe
So that's often a really interesting like question. And sometimes basically I see my role sometimes as actually finding the really interesting research that doesn't find the light of day, possibly because it hasn't got the right communication channels to like flourish.

00:14:50:11 - 00:15:04:09
Jack Lowe
And there's some really beautiful science out there that isn't being explained or told or explored through the storytelling. And that I do see, you know, all projects. But every now and again, a project comes up where I'm like, This is going to be a really hard sell.

00:15:04:23 - 00:15:14:17
Jack Lowe
But the science at the heart of it is super profound or or the potential at the heart of it super, you know, profound for for progression and what we mean by things.

00:15:14:18 - 00:15:24:11
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, that's really interesting way of thinking about it. So you sort of taking these really difficult ideas and kind of making them relatable by by kind of attaching these narratives in and around them.

00:15:24:18 - 00:15:25:00
Jack Lowe
Yeah.

00:15:25:09 - 00:15:28:21
Robin Fuller:
The other people haven't been able to see or kind of can't approach.

00:15:28:22 - 00:15:45:19
Jack Lowe
It's just not their world, you know? That's so yeah. Like the show we're doing in May about quantum biology, that's like a couple of famous people are writing books about it. But the fact that quantum biology could actually explain like how quantum mechanics is involved with, like making life itself possible.

00:15:46:01 - 00:16:03:08
Jack Lowe
It's pretty profound stuff. Yeah, right. But it's not the same thing as like at the moment, I guess people talking about like vaccination science or like climate science and these are things that people have worked really hard to make them relatable, like really hard almost from every angle of communication you can imagine.

00:16:03:19 - 00:16:22:20
Jack Lowe
And then quantum biology. The reason why that's really important is because you know that that area of science could go on to explain like how things like photosynthesis work, which could then feed into climate science or how animals are able to use a compass in their an enzyme in their eyes to be able to navigate the planet

00:16:22:20 - 00:16:40:20
Jack Lowe
, which is really important in terms of climate science. So it's sort of like I do make it a little bit difficult for myself in terms of like palatability for an audience. But then I have to. Go through a process of of exploring how a story can then manifest itself in a way that is entertaining and fun and

00:16:40:20 - 00:16:43:10
Jack Lowe
interesting and thoughtful. And that takes a long time.

00:16:43:11 - 00:16:57:06
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine that you kind of mentioned this idea of palatability for an audience with the current, the type of the work that you do. Some of it is very kind of high concept and introducing these scientific ideas.

00:16:57:06 - 00:17:06:11
Robin Fuller:
Do you think? Yeah. Do you have, like a good idea of who and what your audience is and how their expectations of your work might be different to more traditional theater?

00:17:06:19 - 00:17:21:16
Jack Lowe
Well, the thing to say about second guessing about who's going to engage or enjoy piece of theater is there's a whole like structures in place to try and do that. And I think often they fail because I don't think you can second guess really who would be interested in stuff.

00:17:21:16 - 00:17:36:09
Jack Lowe
I think people, you know, you're often surprised by who turns up to see a play. And obviously, part of my role is to try and pin that down. And but I would say that people who are like open to what theater is come and see the shows.

00:17:37:01 - 00:17:52:06
Jack Lowe
We do have fans and I would probably class some superfans within that. Superfans, you hope, will then become ambassadors for the work and sort of try and bring people who, I think it's fair to say, like, we ain't making work that you'd go and see in, you know.

00:17:52:24 - 00:18:05:02
Jack Lowe
You know, nor is there will main house. That's just not what it is. It's people who probably like are interested in are interested in the liveness of being in a room with other people and seeing stories played out.

00:18:05:18 - 00:18:24:18
Jack Lowe
And so I'm a big ambassador for theater as an as a ritual and experience. At times you make work that, like draws in other people to do with digital tech and stuff, which you know very well. But the work does talk to lots of different contexts, be that capital cities in other countries, you know, be that, you

00:18:24:19 - 00:18:41:03
Jack Lowe
know, in China, in Beijing. And I feel like the people who are drawn to it, it does basically fundamentally go back to the the story that we're telling. And then there's a profundity that comes through of the stories underpinned by something that is like the wonder of nature, right?

00:18:41:03 - 00:18:52:01
Jack Lowe
Like there's something if we're kind of going, you really enjoy that family story. And underwritten in that family story is this area of science. The people go away and go, Oh yeah, I really want to learn more about that.

00:18:52:15 - 00:19:06:05
Jack Lowe
So yeah, the approach is sort of to think about audiences as not second guessing, but that there's that there's a broad range, of course, in the office we have to like try and mark down the types of audiences.

00:19:06:05 - 00:19:14:10
Jack Lowe
So I do find that a very reductive exercise. Yeah. And no one, no one thinks it's a good idea, but you have to try and say who you think the audience is.

00:19:14:10 - 00:19:18:20
Robin Fuller:
Sure. Yeah, I think. Yeah, no one's just one thing. I think I think.

00:19:18:21 - 00:19:21:16
Jack Lowe
Problem with that is the problem with saying who's the audience. Yeah.

00:19:22:01 - 00:19:35:23
Robin Fuller:
And one thing I've come to realize quite well, quite recently, actually, when I was younger, I always made things that were sort of quite combative. You know, like the music I was making was very like a ha, I'm making this music and fuck you if you don't like it, you know?

00:19:35:23 - 00:19:49:01
Robin Fuller:
And the films I was making were just like, Look at this film. Doesn't it make you want to throw up? And it was I don't I think there's something almost offensive in that. Yeah, but from that I've always and I have quite marginal tastes.

00:19:49:01 - 00:20:02:12
Robin Fuller:
I think the things that I like are generally, you know, off in the left field a little bit. And so I've always assumed that I'm trying to say that people won't be interested in things that I make because my, my tastes are too far off to the side.

00:20:02:15 - 00:20:16:08
Robin Fuller:
Right? But then I just kind of like, come on, like, you're not that special, Robin. You know, you're not that much. You know, like, if you like something, the chances are other people will like it. And then it's just a case of finding nice people and putting the thing, making the things that those people are able to

00:20:16:08 - 00:20:17:01
Robin Fuller:
find it and.

00:20:17:01 - 00:20:33:13
Jack Lowe
Realizing that it's not just first person singular is first person plural. So the we of like the way of who is making the devised work is the different, it is the different perspectives. Just think about deciphering that we made like, yeah, there's so many people called in making that show with different perspectives.

00:20:33:13 - 00:20:55:21
Jack Lowe
And so if you think about an audience sat there with all the different people that may deciphering that would be a really interesting like diverse audience, you know, different ages, backgrounds, interests, experience, interest even in theater, frankly. So if you go if all those people have made this thing and agree they really love it, then I think

00:20:55:21 - 00:21:13:08
Jack Lowe
it's okay to say that's a pretty good start, as opposed to me being a solitary auteur, surely, which it just isn't. And I yeah, I'm on a bit of a journey about that. But yeah, it's a way, it's a way that like, the shows would never be what they are if I just sat on my own in

00:21:13:08 - 00:21:20:22
Jack Lowe
a room and go and went, Oh, I'm going to storyboard this and come up with it. And I just it just wouldn't work. It would be dreadful. It'll be something, but it wouldn't be very good.

00:21:20:23 - 00:21:32:03
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, that's necessarily a good point, actually. So that's sort of just inherent in the devising process and having so many different voices. Yeah. And like you mentioned earlier, that almost kind of conflict that can happen. Yeah. And the resolution of that.

00:21:32:04 - 00:21:44:12
Robin Fuller:
Conflict is something that actually all these different voices are kind of interested in and happy with. And those different voices are almost like representatives of. Yeah, the student representatives that are in tribes.

00:21:44:19 - 00:21:59:21
Jack Lowe
Yeah. You do have to check yourself, obviously, as the leader of that room to make sure that's the case. And also, as I've got a bit older and a bit more experienced, I brought up the things that could be thorny, like we in the room live, you know, not kind of little subsections.

00:21:59:21 - 00:22:19:06
Jack Lowe
Elsewhere in the room, I sort of said, is this this is this okay? Like this, which is important in any creative process, but really important when it's like poorly authored and when the work is public. And I think probably up to this point, the reason why the poly authoring has worked really well is because I think I

00:22:19:06 - 00:22:27:22
Jack Lowe
do sort of hide in the background as an artist with the work when it is eventually presented. I'm looking to a colleague who sat next to me and wondering, I'm looking for sort of a smile or an affirmation.

00:22:27:22 - 00:22:29:06
Jack Lowe
She's raised her eyebrows and nodded.

00:22:29:07 - 00:22:29:23
Robin Fuller:
So that's that's.

00:22:30:24 - 00:22:46:15
Jack Lowe
But the poly authoring is, like, totally unique and does give confidence that people will like it. And that's that's good. And then, of course, like the weird thing, maybe, given what I've described so far, is that then critically, the work has had an incredible success.

00:22:46:21 - 00:23:03:13
Jack Lowe
Critically, I'm talking about national papers and awards and going to really amazing festivals and stuff like that. And I think all of that comes from a sort of artistic integrity, basically following an integrity. And it's not earnest. It's like it's more interesting than earnest.

00:23:03:13 - 00:23:12:24
Jack Lowe
It's like 100% commitment to trying to get it right and it not being about one thing and letting the science help us.

00:23:23:10 - 00:23:40:09
Robin Fuller:
Just sticking with this devising process is something I'm really fascinated in because it seems quite unique to theater in some ways from the different creative things that I've done, the things in my career. There's nothing really that is quite like that that quite follows that model.

00:23:40:18 - 00:23:49:21
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. Yeah. Can you just sort of and maybe just talk us through a little bit of what is the devising process? Is there a kind of a template or pattern? Is it different for each show?

00:23:50:19 - 00:23:51:18
Jack Lowe
Different for every.

00:23:51:18 - 00:23:52:14
Robin Fuller:
Show. Okay.

00:23:53:15 - 00:24:17:06
Jack Lowe
The devising process is a kind of is a collective answer to a question that that collective one have agreed to explore. And those that collective people generally have different skill sets be that sound designer, actor, director. But I often have actors in my company are also directors, and I talk about everyone in that company having at least

00:24:17:06 - 00:24:39:19
Jack Lowe
four or five different head spaces. So actor, writer, dramaturg, outside, eye, etc.. So it's a, it's a type of creativity that only really works for people who are open to being more than one thing and are open to being led by something they don't understand, i.e. an area of science, but brave enough to get up and have

00:24:39:19 - 00:24:57:13
Jack Lowe
a cracker embodying maybe a scientist or or playing, playing. And I have developed techniques to fast track that a bit if I feel like artists in the room are less comfortable with that. And that's a way of saying that we don't have.

00:24:58:03 - 00:25:17:16
Jack Lowe
Even though it takes me years to make shows, actually in the rehearsal room, we don't have that much time to make things. And then also techniques for understanding who might need a bit more support to get into the subject matter ahead of time and to basically push myself down from the orator of everything about like I read

00:25:17:16 - 00:25:25:05
Jack Lowe
everything to do with this, our science. So often what I'll do is I'll read the first bit of a book, so I've got a sense of it and then send it to an artist to read the whole book.

00:25:25:08 - 00:25:39:22
Jack Lowe
I said that art is the one that holds that. That sort of an understanding for me is interesting. Sometimes it comes from an actual lived experience that I've kind of been through, and I try not to make shows about things that no one else could go and experience.

00:25:40:16 - 00:25:52:10
Jack Lowe
Or I build things, you know, narratively around, you know, for example, going to visit cave systems in France. Not everyone can go and do that. So I try and make a show that sort of does explore that, but also explores what it's like to be a kid in a classroom.

00:25:52:10 - 00:26:08:11
Jack Lowe
And everyone's done that. I mean, yeah, so but the process is different every time. And when tech gets involved, that is a totally different world and a world that like, yeah, it's just a world that is moving even faster than science, I would say.

00:26:08:17 - 00:26:23:09
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. And so since I just want to dig into the devising process because I'm, you know, it's quite foreign to me and I'm sure it's quite foreign to a lot of people as well, that my understanding is the case that sort of when you start the process of devising for something, yeah, like you say, you have a

00:26:23:09 - 00:26:30:14
Robin Fuller:
question you're trying to answer and that's it. You don't really you have no idea of what the outcome might be or even if there is an outcome.

00:26:30:23 - 00:26:42:14
Jack Lowe
Yeah. You have to follow your instincts from a blank sheet of paper and that is something that does start before in the room kind of starts. If you're meeting new artists for the project, which I try and do as much as possible.

00:26:42:19 - 00:26:54:03
Jack Lowe
It starts well before then and it starts, you know, like I don't really audition. It's yeah, I do audition of course, but I'm not auditioning. See you. So I can act. I'm auditioning with see if someone's interested in asking the questions.

00:26:54:17 - 00:27:11:04
Jack Lowe
And you can just tell if you talk about something with or anything with anyone, you can tell if they like perk up. You can tell a brightness in their I know like this person's got something within them that they want to talk about cave paintings or whatever, whatever that science may be.

00:27:11:05 - 00:27:33:07
Jack Lowe
And so, yeah, it's a blank sheet of paper. And we do processes such as research and development where we're developing like landscapes to set narratives on. And we're developing really like in some cases quite traditional storyboards and developing artistic practice, like autistic responses to things and palettes of music and sound and video.

00:27:33:07 - 00:27:47:17
Jack Lowe
And when you start getting folders full of compositional ideas and folders full of sound ideas and like, you know, video edited ideas in a folder, you start to build something, you start to build a tapestry, and you start to see the commonality.

00:27:47:17 - 00:28:06:01
Jack Lowe
And then you start to see the artists you're working with who may be a bit lost, find themselves or might have been really comfortable, suddenly get a bit lost. And so my job is to try and weave and sort of help people to feel help people to feel like they know where they are on that journey with

00:28:06:04 - 00:28:06:16
Jack Lowe
a show.

00:28:06:20 - 00:28:07:06
Robin Fuller:
Okay.

00:28:07:10 - 00:28:22:14
Jack Lowe
And sometimes I do that really well and sometimes I don't do that really well, and sometimes that's okay and sometimes that's not okay. But more recently, I think I've kind of got better at that. Yeah. Okay.

00:28:22:23 - 00:28:38:01
Robin Fuller:
So you sort of have this idea and this theme. Yeah. And these all these different avenues of exploration going off in kind of different directions and you sort of coaxing them to kind of coalesce into something. Yeah. Have you ever kind of gone through that process and sort of realized it's a dead end and like, actually, you

00:28:38:01 - 00:28:38:23
Robin Fuller:
know, there's nothing here.

00:28:40:03 - 00:29:01:08
Jack Lowe
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, of course, you sort of. Or you realize that it's deeply problematic, for example, all the time. Well, and that's that takes a you have to be quite brave to like go. Right. Well that's not, you know, like the last show we made deciphering in the R&D, we had this whole storyline with two

00:29:03:01 - 00:29:20:10
Jack Lowe
Spanish or Spanish heritage sisters going on this like road trip to, I think, a small, halting Spanish farm in northern Spain to their family farm, even to discover this cave. And when the two artists that I did the R&D with couldn't do it, one of them sat next to me and she couldn't do it because she was

00:29:20:10 - 00:29:35:04
Jack Lowe
off doing brilliant things, her own work, actually. I was like, Well, it's not going to be appropriate for me just to find two Spanish speaking actors. I need to rethink this. And in rethinking it, I went, Oh, actually, cave paintings, there's such a deep Eurocentric thing to cave paintings.

00:29:35:05 - 00:29:48:17
Jack Lowe
Why don't we work with the fact that I've been and worked with Indonesian artists in rural Sulawesi and and then that that became a beautiful fact. There was a dead end. Hmm. And it's not just story that ends its emotional dead ends.

00:29:48:17 - 00:30:05:20
Jack Lowe
It's artistic dead ends. It's like sometimes it can be like just financial dead ends. I mean, like, we can't do the set that would make that idea live. Yeah. In deciphering in the end, we had a floor that moved up and down for a part of the show, but we couldn't afford it for the whole show.

00:30:06:00 - 00:30:22:09
Jack Lowe
And I had to make a choice as to whether then like how I was going to stage going into a cave. I mean, so it's sort of like those dead ends around. The creative process happen like probably more than I've acknowledged to myself in the past.

00:30:22:09 - 00:30:26:13
Jack Lowe
But the resilience comes, I guess, from like as long as there's enough people who go, I'll be alright and be fine.

00:30:26:14 - 00:30:41:23
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it sounds like a really quite exciting process. I mean I just, it's very different to some of the work that I do. It's very results driven in terms of like people want to know what the final result is going to be before the project even starts.

00:30:42:00 - 00:30:42:11
Jack Lowe
Nightmare.

00:30:43:18 - 00:30:46:05
Robin Fuller:
Well, it does, but it's difficult.

00:30:46:17 - 00:30:56:04
Jack Lowe
I've actually done about that and I've done it so hard. So I think you're amazing. Failed to do it. I just. Yeah, it's. It's hard to do that. Some ways it might be easy because everyone knows what you're aiming for.

00:30:56:04 - 00:30:56:16
Robin Fuller:
But yeah.

00:30:56:19 - 00:30:57:03
Jack Lowe
Yeah.

00:30:57:07 - 00:31:10:04
Robin Fuller:
It's difficult because you have to sort of yeah, you do have to balance kind of being specific enough so that they know what it will look like, vague enough that you still have room for exploration and room to kind of to grow and you know, yeah, explore those different paths.

00:31:10:10 - 00:31:15:09
Robin Fuller:
But to go in with, yeah, with no idea of what the actual thing is you're building towards, it's going to be.

00:31:15:09 - 00:31:27:11
Jack Lowe
Yeah, I call that the Disney sketchbook. Right. So you have like you watch Disney plus they like coincide how they make films at Disney and they like show you this picture. Some do like some way I do like sketching a new animation.

00:31:27:11 - 00:31:36:08
Jack Lowe
It's like, yeah, yeah, we just like, yeah, we just see how it flows. I was like, Fuck me fucking down. You've decided that from the beginning. What's going to look like? You'll make it look like it's something else and that's.

00:31:36:18 - 00:31:52:11
Jack Lowe
That's fine, but it's hard to. Yeah, too. And, but there are times when I've been asked that especially work of attack. Yeah. Especially when there's tech involved because people at the other end of it want to know what that text going to do and how to sell a show based on that.

00:31:52:11 - 00:31:56:19
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, I think it's what come. Don't have to sell a show isn't it. That's kind of things, it kind of really comes down to.

00:31:57:00 - 00:32:08:01
Jack Lowe
And that's where the critical, critical response, if it's good, still is useful because they are essentially ambassadors. Yeah. For, let's say, a more traditional theatergoing audience. They'll be like, you'll have a good time and you can't see this.

00:32:08:07 - 00:32:08:15
Robin Fuller:
Yeah.

00:32:09:04 - 00:32:29:11
Jack Lowe
Yeah. And I'll be really lucky, given how experimental or maybe not, and how it eventually emerges as a play. But certainly in terms of the process, how experimental because normal theater is like really different. You know, if you're working on a a new play, there's a script there that you're starting with which is just so different, you

00:32:29:11 - 00:32:36:23
Jack Lowe
know, and there's loads of difficulties. So I'm not I'm not devaluing that type of theater creation, but it is really different. Yeah. Hmm.

00:32:37:13 - 00:32:46:20
Robin Fuller:
Speaking of scripts, so just again, I'm. I'm interested in the processes that you go through. Like, at what point during the device and process does a script.

00:32:47:10 - 00:32:49:23
Jack Lowe
When my stage manager says, you're fucking scripts.

00:32:50:07 - 00:32:50:18
Robin Fuller:
Okay?

00:32:51:00 - 00:33:11:01
Jack Lowe
When, when Jade's like, Hey, there's so many video and sound cues going through your hair, can we put something together? Generally what that looks like is it looks like a manifestation of the storyboard. Then, then and then the tech elements need to be described, okay, into a sort of written fan.

00:33:11:13 - 00:33:25:24
Jack Lowe
So eventually, normally very, very, very late before an audience see it, a kind of full script comes together and it's annotated in what would look like an alien language to something that's under. Mentally, it's all crafted to make sure the audience have a good time following the story.

00:33:26:00 - 00:33:43:09
Jack Lowe
Yeah, I've never done a play that just doesn't have any of that. I've definitely done plays where there's parts of the show like Astronomic when they are in the baggage handling place. Like I basically just said to the two act, it's just like Hit A and Z and then in you do what you want.

00:33:44:01 - 00:33:58:03
Jack Lowe
Because the whole point was just to make the audience realize that there are two idiots waiting in Heathrow who have no redeemable features at all and they're just not very nice people. And so just go with whatever you want and treat and treat the audience like that.

00:33:58:07 - 00:34:12:04
Jack Lowe
Right. You know, which is very funny. Yeah. In a sort of in the round dining experience. So there are times where it's super loose. And actually I'm on a journey as a director to try and work in more of that to make things feel more alive.

00:34:12:04 - 00:34:21:11
Jack Lowe
So I'm less concerned about every single beat, which I think all artists go on a journey with that. But I'm getting better at it, I think. Yeah.

00:34:22:04 - 00:34:30:02
Robin Fuller:
And so until you have that script where everything's written down, everything is sort of just as kind was like tribal knowledge. Everyone just kind of shares.

00:34:30:02 - 00:34:44:15
Jack Lowe
Yeah, there's lots of fake bits of paper with stuff written on and lots of like bubbles of things. And we normally have a piece of paper saying This needs to be in the show. And it would just be a list of things, list of ideas, list of images, list of like sequences.

00:34:45:00 - 00:35:02:06
Jack Lowe
So this has to be in it. And sometimes all you've got is that. But there's always lots of quite unusual maps and like x, y accesses about like arcs of story about like I always talk with different all the kind of different other designers.

00:35:02:06 - 00:35:17:09
Jack Lowe
So sound and video and stuff. I always talk about like the language of it and always talk about I've got a couple of rules where I always try and make sure that in the first 15 minutes of a show I'm making all that, all the like potential languages have been established and then they get explored and dissected

00:35:17:09 - 00:35:27:05
Jack Lowe
mostly just so the audience can then see some lighting design and they go, I know where I'm going to be now. Or it's it's a sort of it's a I think it's a sort of kindness towards.

00:35:27:17 - 00:35:29:04
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, you know, setting the rules. And so yeah.

00:35:29:06 - 00:35:32:16
Jack Lowe
Expectations up. Yeah. And there's a politics involved with that obviously.

00:35:33:03 - 00:35:44:20
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. I think there's, there's an interesting correlation between game design like, like video game design in terms of like, yeah, sort of this means this, this situation means this and this situation means this, like this color palette and whatever.

00:35:44:20 - 00:36:04:11
Jack Lowe
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gaming is, of course, like way more sophisticated in terms of branch narratives. And the, the structuring of gaming is we could we we do talk about it a lot in theater about how how a gaming maker's making you know what what they choosing to how they choosing to do that.

00:36:04:12 - 00:36:14:02
Robin Fuller:
Yeah but the idea of setting the rules down early on and then giving people time to explore those rules, I think that's quite that's like a really strong thing that you always kind of look at in game design.

00:36:14:02 - 00:36:23:19
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. And how do you know when something's ready after when you through this design process, is it just because you've got a deadline or.

00:36:24:05 - 00:36:45:22
Jack Lowe
I mean like if I go if so if there's like a transition between two scenes or like a moment between two actors in a scene or, you know, I see a sort of a moment happen. I'm still like boyish and and youthful enough to go, Yeah, I'm still really, like, joyful enough to be like, that's fucking.

00:36:45:22 - 00:37:03:16
Jack Lowe
Yeah, and it's not. What I like about that is the, it's not a cerebral thing. You just get that just feels great. That feels like such a brilliant manifestation of stuff we've been working on. And when you see something play out and it doesn't have to be a big thing, it can sometimes be a delicate thing because

00:37:03:16 - 00:37:15:21
Jack Lowe
actors are geniuses of emotion. They're they're they are the geniuses of human emotion. And they spend a long time learning how to do that. And I try not to I just try and bottle that hurricane if I can.

00:37:16:01 - 00:37:29:21
Jack Lowe
But sometimes I realize I can't, and that's when I feel really sad. But if you see an actor able to like do something that you're just I don't know how you're doing that. That's often when I know that something's sort of close to being ready.

00:37:29:23 - 00:37:44:00
Jack Lowe
And in traditional theater, people talk about like getting stuff ready for like fire previews and then press night. And if press night fires, then the whole show is successful. Now, in my type of making that that is important to sit in that.

00:37:44:00 - 00:37:57:13
Jack Lowe
But actually I get equally excited where I'm from. I didn't really start getting started firing on all cylinders until about 78 shows in, right. Yeah. Just when sort of I kind of understood how to take the audience through that experience a bit more.

00:37:57:23 - 00:37:59:03
Jack Lowe
Does that make sense? Yeah.

00:37:59:09 - 00:38:02:24
Robin Fuller:
So so what were what was different? What was different about the first.

00:38:03:00 - 00:38:14:10
Jack Lowe
Audience being more comfortable? I didn't know how to make an audience comfortable when I first made Rock Man, okay? I didn't realize that was really important, which is a real failing from my side. I mean, I thought about it lots, but I hadn't done enough.

00:38:14:10 - 00:38:27:22
Jack Lowe
I had underestimated how weird it is to see if they are there to show stuff like that. Yeah, but like most art it most dangerous. To say that show was never ready. Yeah, I would say. And that it's never finished.

00:38:28:09 - 00:38:39:13
Jack Lowe
And that it begins way before you think it does. And there's only a few occasions like the first show I ever made, and the most recent show I've made are the only shows I can watch where I don't feel really cringe.

00:38:40:10 - 00:38:53:19
Jack Lowe
And that's probably because the first show, it was just such sort of joy. And its most recent show was there was a similar kind of joy. But I think it's like I think it's to do with how empowered everyone making the show kind of was.

00:38:53:21 - 00:38:59:03
Jack Lowe
Mm hmm. So that's that's a good example of knowing when a show is ready, when you feel like you don't. You don't need it anymore.

00:39:07:23 - 00:39:17:24
Robin Fuller:
These are less questions and more sort of thoughts that I have had about your work. I think if you just kind of said to someone within the saying, it's a combination of science and data, it's only said that to me.

00:39:18:04 - 00:39:40:07
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. My expectation or my kind of supposition of what that might be. I can imagine it being quite educational, potentially quite dry or like a bit, almost like a bit too wacky. But I think what I've seen of your work is very the technology is it's inherent within the story and it's always there to serve the story

00:39:40:09 - 00:39:50:19
Robin Fuller:
. Yeah, I think it's very finely balanced. But I'm curious, has there ever been a point where you, like, feel like it hasn't been finely balanced? Like, like the technology is getting in the way of the story or vice versa?

00:39:50:20 - 00:40:05:08
Jack Lowe
Yeah. Well, firstly, that thing about I just want to address that thing about what people expect a science show to be. And that's like, you know, I mean, that's kind of the work, isn't it? Because people expect to have sort of their strange education thing.

00:40:05:08 - 00:40:17:08
Jack Lowe
You know, they expect, you know, someone to come on stage. If it's a show about neurons to be like, Hello, I'm Nelly, then you're wrong. We're here to tell you about the brain. And it's like there's there's there's a space for that.

00:40:17:09 - 00:40:30:01
Jack Lowe
There's a place for that, but also woven into that. So it's not that, obviously, but also woven into it is everyone's experience of science, which generally is someone telling you, someone with a comb over, telling you that you're not good at science at school.

00:40:30:21 - 00:40:40:23
Jack Lowe
And what's actually sat in front of you is one of the most beautiful things you'll ever encounter. Hmm. And that is such a shame. No, I'm not saying I want our work to go in and and sort of reconfigure that.

00:40:40:23 - 00:40:57:09
Jack Lowe
And I'm not saying that's what it's like now, because I like to think that education moves on, but you've got a lot of people. So I'm 30. How old am I? Oh, my God, I'm 36. But so there's a lot of people my age, maybe at younger and older, who were just made to feel like they weren't

00:40:57:09 - 00:41:12:24
Jack Lowe
any good at science at school, and maybe they want to be good at science school, but that there's absolutely no shadow of a doubt that they would have engaged with science, whether that's like lying on the grass for care as a kid and watching a leaf cut and, you know, carry ten times its body weight across.

00:41:13:08 - 00:41:32:19
Jack Lowe
That's like that science, isn't it? That's what you Wilson was doing. He was sort of looking at how science is incredibly engaging, beautiful normally as a child, because that's where we all tend to start. But yeah, that's something that I feel when you see the show is you get a sense that that's the group of people, that's

00:41:32:19 - 00:41:48:01
Jack Lowe
the approach that coming to you from science. And then in terms of digital tech, I mean, I would say that I wouldn't say that digital has gone away. But interestingly, when I have made shows that's meant to work with some digital tech, like the other elements of a show have sort of outshone it.

00:41:48:20 - 00:42:02:17
Jack Lowe
So when I made a show called Gastronomical and I work with augmented reality, just I was feeding people. So like the food, just, just breathe the air out of the water. Right. And I reflect on that as a bit.

00:42:02:17 - 00:42:13:16
Jack Lowe
I'm a bit sad about that because I should have done it. I should have done more to think about how I was feeding into the story. And I did it through a character and a character's experience of being an artist working with air.

00:42:13:17 - 00:42:28:03
Jack Lowe
So I really thought about it, but it basically just got overshadowed by the fact that there was some lovely food being presented to people in a really compelling, thrown story about migration. So yeah, that's an example where digital tech has kind of got lost in the storytelling.

00:42:28:17 - 00:42:40:16
Jack Lowe
And the heavy example of use of tech, I guess is Frog Man, where you're wearing a VR headset to literally go back in time and I don't think it got in the way at all. Tech is interesting when it goes wrong, though.

00:42:41:06 - 00:42:56:16
Jack Lowe
Yeah, because it's life. Yeah, it's going wrong. Life, you know, it's glitching and it's sort of not quite doing the thing. Some people make whole shows about. Mm hmm. I mean, I've struggled to make a I've struggled to make this motion capture show that I've been looking on for a long time.

00:42:56:16 - 00:43:03:01
Jack Lowe
And I think it's because, like, the central idea is so simple. I'm just like, is that central idea just like, enough.

00:43:03:12 - 00:43:03:22
Robin Fuller:
Right?

00:43:04:11 - 00:43:13:18
Jack Lowe
Yeah. You know, like, is that is there more to like, I've been talking to Jenny about motion capture. Jenny was like, well, is there any more you can tell me about motion capture? I was like, I don't think so.

00:43:14:02 - 00:43:32:09
Jack Lowe
I don't think I've got anything else to say about it. And I'm like, God, is that just a real like, is that a real sort of failure in my imagination? It probably is. Probably is. But it could also be that just thinking about the sort of space of a a theater space and how tech can help to

00:43:32:09 - 00:43:47:06
Jack Lowe
aid storytelling. I might have just like run out of time at with that particular thing, right? And sometimes you have to go away and then come back. Yeah. When things have got easier or when things have, when someone else has gone through and broken ground and you've gone out, that person shown that that's possible.

00:43:47:07 - 00:43:52:24
Jack Lowe
Yeah. And something about tech, right? Because there's always people breaking ground everywhere. Yeah. It's just. Where are you looking?

00:43:53:00 - 00:44:05:17
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think sometimes you you have an idea and it's just it's not quite possible. Like, it's or it's possible, but there's too much friction to actually get there to make it really workable. Yeah. And sometimes it just.

00:44:05:17 - 00:44:09:02
Robin Fuller:
That's the way. Is for the, for the technology to catch up with the idea.

00:44:09:03 - 00:44:22:07
Jack Lowe
Yeah. And I don't mind it when artists say that, but when programmers and producers say that, that's like one of my big because my top five pet peeves, right? When they say, oh, and I just wave like people say, oh, just wait for taxicab it better.

00:44:22:08 - 00:44:28:08
Jack Lowe
I'm just like, Oh, don't be. Oh, no. Try it now. Yeah.

00:44:28:14 - 00:44:31:06
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there's always a way to get the.

00:44:31:10 - 00:44:34:08
Jack Lowe
VR, the wait until the screens get better. Well, if you.

00:44:34:08 - 00:44:35:10
Robin Fuller:
Think the screen's the thing.

00:44:35:10 - 00:44:51:14
Jack Lowe
That you've completely missed the point, you can make something so boring on the best possible screen, and people hate it. Yeah. I mean, yeah, if you're what you're making, for example, 360 film, if what you're making is compelling, it doesn't matter whether your screen is 1080 or 4K.

00:44:51:14 - 00:44:51:20
Jack Lowe
No one.

00:44:51:20 - 00:44:52:09
Robin Fuller:
Cares.

00:44:52:09 - 00:44:55:03
Jack Lowe
Yeah, that's the other thing. I just don't think audiences care.

00:44:55:16 - 00:45:03:02
Robin Fuller:
No, I think you're right. I think it take people care. Yeah. And people who, like, really know the industry kind of. Yeah, but yeah, that's okay.

00:45:03:02 - 00:45:04:10
Jack Lowe
There's a space to have that.

00:45:04:10 - 00:45:05:01
Robin Fuller:
Absolutely.

00:45:05:16 - 00:45:10:13
Jack Lowe
Caring. Yeah, but I don't think the people that we want to make work for really care.

00:45:10:14 - 00:45:18:22
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, well, you know, we have those discussions here in the studio, people kind of, and you hope that comes out and people tend to like, okay, oh, I can only handle how many follicles. And I'm like, so what?

00:45:19:08 - 00:45:23:06
Robin Fuller:
Doesn't it doesn't matter. It's like, say, it's the content. Content is the, the thing that drives.

00:45:23:11 - 00:45:29:12
Jack Lowe
Yeah. Like we watch the ark far as HTML5 post code suburbs. Mhm.

00:45:29:15 - 00:45:32:15
Robin Fuller:
Thing that's when was that was a long time.

00:45:32:15 - 00:45:47:07
Jack Lowe
Long time ago. So the idea was so brilliant and so ahead of its time and still stands up and that's a bit of digital tech that's outdated. Yeah. Or tech times. But someone told me a better idea for a music video than that and I can't think of one that personalized the music video.

00:45:47:07 - 00:46:03:02
Jack Lowe
It's just genius. I don't like some of the other things, though, Chris focused on that. That particular. I still think that's like breaks my heart. Think about that project and it's also who you hear it from as well, because a colleague of mine who's in a band first said that to me because he's he's from Music World

00:46:03:03 - 00:46:12:05
Jack Lowe
. Yeah. And he was like, you got to see this thing, you know? And I saw it and I was like, Oh shit, that's really good. Yeah, it's still really good. It is. That's, I think what you're saying, isn't it?

00:46:12:06 - 00:46:14:16
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. And that there's nothing else like it. Really. Yeah.

00:46:14:20 - 00:46:19:21
Jack Lowe
Like Shakespeare's still really good as well, though, isn't it? That's the thing. Change is still really good. Yeah.

00:46:19:21 - 00:46:21:06
Robin Fuller:
The jokes are bad dated, but.

00:46:21:18 - 00:46:41:12
Jack Lowe
Yeah, they're problematic. Definitely. There's a lot of smiling at me. They are really. A lot of the jokes are very pragmatic and a lot of the thing. But let's say some of them are like metaphysical things that that group of writers called Shakespeare were doing, which by the way, is a very for those who didn't know about

00:46:41:13 - 00:46:42:02
Jack Lowe
that, we.

00:46:42:06 - 00:46:43:17
Robin Fuller:
We officially saying it's genuine.

00:46:43:22 - 00:46:57:07
Jack Lowe
There's a lot of very interesting people who who are saying that it's all party authors like, which is I believe that I mean, that's just my bias. But I believe that that must have happened. I can't believe one person sat down and wrote all that stuff.

00:46:57:07 - 00:46:57:21
Jack Lowe
Can't believe it.

00:46:58:15 - 00:47:22:16
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, I don't know enough to comment, I'm afraid. Sticking with your work. Well, leave jokes physical aside for the moment. Or the Shakespeare's maybe something like I kind of noticed a kind of parallel parallelism. Yeah, a parallel in frogmen and deciphering just this kind of back and forth interplay between an adult character and their childhood self is

00:47:22:16 - 00:47:41:21
Robin Fuller:
kind of almost like a conversation that kind of goes back and forth through time. And there's other narratives that kind of seem to connect people across time and space in very personal ways. Yeah. Is that that thing, particularly if the the adult self and the younger self engage in a kind of back and forth, is it just

00:47:41:21 - 00:47:45:04
Robin Fuller:
coincidence that it happens in Nice to show? Is there something that you find particularly interesting?

00:47:46:10 - 00:47:59:13
Jack Lowe
Well, in Frogmen that was to do with I'm just super interested in the childhood imagination and like what you tell yourself as a child to like make sense of things. And then when you're grown up, when you're looking back at moments, we all have that right.

00:47:59:15 - 00:48:18:23
Jack Lowe
We've all got things that happened when we were kids and we're like, what happened there? And that's, that's, that was probably just my way of like fitting into a wider I think everyone around the world thinks that because if you think about, you know, your own existence and, and in that case, frogmen, that was quite a traumatic

00:48:18:23 - 00:48:42:01
Jack Lowe
event in the case of deciphering the idea of like when you are young, the idea that teachers aren't there to enable you to be anything upsets me. And I think that the British education system is really flawed because it's set up within the structures of Victorian ISM.

00:48:42:12 - 00:48:58:10
Jack Lowe
And that's why, you know, thinkers like Ken Robinson, the late Ken Robinson were so brilliant and funny. We based that character on Ken Robinson to sort of go, Wow, you know, you might be there, but you might also be that and you might not be very good at that.

00:48:58:10 - 00:49:12:01
Jack Lowe
But that's okay. You got to try. And that is just something that isn't necessarily about my childhood, but it's certainly about a lot of people that I know. About my childhood. I was lucky to have a mum who basically the only thing she insisted in was that I did languages.

00:49:12:16 - 00:49:24:23
Jack Lowe
To be honest, she was just she was always dogmatic about it. I was shit at languages, but I still tried. And that. So yeah, that. And in the case of deciphering, we had an eight year old in the room.

00:49:24:23 - 00:49:39:14
Jack Lowe
So that was really easy. I mean, she's an eight year old going on like 35. She was more mature than everyone else. So smart. And the other complicating wonderful thing was that the person responsible for that was also in the room playing the lead role.

00:49:39:23 - 00:49:58:15
Jack Lowe
And so having a mum and daughter in a creative space was incredibly leveling. And it reminded me of like a humanity that I don't think is possible to capture very easily in a theater normally. And that took a lot of just took a lot of trust.

00:49:58:18 - 00:50:16:22
Jack Lowe
So not just from Steph, the mum, like Masha as an eight year old giving up a summer holidays to come in and play with with a bunch of artists and make a play. But that that commonality, it's interesting, you know, and it's definitely something that is now forming part of like the practice, right?

00:50:17:24 - 00:50:35:17
Jack Lowe
Because I just think it's a nice like it's a nice it's going to be a universal thing that will continue forever, I should think, with anyone who comes in the room, if you've had a troubled childhood especially, or things have happened in your childhood that you are still processing, which is definitely the case for me.

00:50:35:17 - 00:50:46:15
Jack Lowe
You know, it's it's something that is a it's an it's a good space too to have that happen. Um, that was the first part of your question. Was the second part of your question?

00:50:47:05 - 00:50:53:15
Robin Fuller:
Was there second part? Yeah, I think I just really it's just about exploring that idea. I think probably getting more.

00:50:53:15 - 00:51:07:14
Jack Lowe
Successful in deciphering for like connecting emotionally with people of really good friend and colleague of mine wrote a monologue at the end of it about being brave and people just came out for 1/2. Yeah, that was me writing that.

00:51:08:02 - 00:51:09:19
Robin Fuller:
You know. Yeah. And no, I just.

00:51:09:19 - 00:51:24:22
Jack Lowe
Just to be super clear, like that's the part you authorship that's an awesome cool Craig Hamilton who is involved in the project. And I remember when he just sent that through to me and I shared it with Amanda, who played the French archeologist, and we were just, just about like, put it on the desk.

00:51:24:22 - 00:51:32:10
Jack Lowe
Want me to play? Yeah. And, you know, how do you end it? Yeah. With such a complex show. And I saw your reaction there and it was it's, you know, some.

00:51:32:12 - 00:51:32:21
Robin Fuller:
Bets.

00:51:32:21 - 00:51:39:17
Jack Lowe
There was you ended up doing just landed it as if it was a Shakespearean. It was amazing, you know, so.

00:51:39:18 - 00:51:52:01
Robin Fuller:
But it took the context of the whole play for that to have that impact. If someone just came up to me and wrote that monologue, I'd be like, Oh, yeah, great. I feel a bit better now. But like the fact that it came after the in the context of that whole performance.

00:51:52:02 - 00:51:54:04
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. And he gave it such weight and gave such.

00:51:54:06 - 00:52:06:16
Jack Lowe
A new balance and teacher character who's basically been incredibly enabling and joyful and an eight year old who's been on stage the whole time and the kind of the both the genius of an actor to be able to do that.

00:52:06:16 - 00:52:21:03
Jack Lowe
Right. Like if you read that, if I read that, if you know what, Jane, he's brilliant. But like me, if you read that, we'd be like, I wanna be like, Oh, that's nice, you know? But it takes an actor to be able to transform you to the classroom where you're learning about blotting paper or looking out the

00:52:21:03 - 00:52:28:12
Jack Lowe
window and picking your nose and wondering whether you could have that instead of lunch or whatever it is that you're doing. Yeah. As an eight year old in a classroom.

00:52:29:08 - 00:52:43:19
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, yeah. It's powerful stuff. I think perhaps the timing of it as well, because it was we were kind of slowly emerging from one of the various lockdowns at the time, I think. And so I think for for myself and probably for a lot of people is the first piece of like life performance I've seen in a

00:52:43:19 - 00:52:52:19
Robin Fuller:
long time. Yeah. And so some I'd been in, in that room with that many people for, for a long time. So I think all of that kind of added together to make Yeah. This really emotional punch.

00:52:52:22 - 00:52:56:11
Jack Lowe
Yeah. I think a lot of people were making shows at that time. Felt the same. Yeah.

00:52:56:12 - 00:53:17:04
Robin Fuller:
No, it was, it was. Yeah. It was really powerful stuff. I think I wanted to kind of pick your brains about this a bit. And we've spoken about it briefly before, but I get you on the record a virtual performance.

00:53:17:16 - 00:53:30:03
Robin Fuller:
Everything that you guys do includes features, an element of kind of in the flesh theater, you know, kind of physical spaces, you know, physical audiences, physical spaces. I think that I have seen some interesting stuff being done in, you know, in virtual spaces.

00:53:30:08 - 00:53:35:23
Robin Fuller:
Yeah. Yeah. You know. Do you have any thoughts on that? You have any plans on that? Is that something you're interested in or not interested in?

00:53:36:09 - 00:54:00:04
Jack Lowe
So I guess my specialism as a theater maker is like life environments and how that intersects with with like location based digital stuff. So, you know, wearing headsets and articulating a digital experience into a life space. But there's totally space where, you know, you make a show inside an aircraft hangar and there's like a huge capture area

00:54:00:04 - 00:54:16:12
Jack Lowe
with a group of 60 people are on a journey together and doing things in a in a sort of like purist VR space. I mean, the answer is no, I'm not making anything that's like dealing with be all wearable, but I am really interested in all wearable.

00:54:17:10 - 00:54:38:19
Jack Lowe
Mostly to normalize and all wearable is like a better form of like live video design in a theater environment. Be that for articulating the like psychological experience of a character in a play, you know, it's I hate to keep referring to well, but there's a reason why it's interesting that, like, there are little 20 birds rotating round

00:54:38:19 - 00:54:54:23
Jack Lowe
the heads of of a cartoon character when they hit on the head with a hammer. And that's because you're, like, led into what's going on in their head and where they are in a theater environment. You can put a headset on and you sort of get to experience something that is psychologically going on.

00:54:54:23 - 00:55:14:17
Jack Lowe
Without that, obviously you can look at an actor and take a guess as to what's going on based on what they say and how they are in that physicality, in that space. But I think that wearable air is way more like it takes away the number one thing that I find is frustrating to navigate, which is this

00:55:14:17 - 00:55:27:01
Jack Lowe
object that is fundamentally cutting your vision away. And no matter how good the cameras are that you can see out of VR headsets, you are cutting out a sense in order to project into that eyeball something else. Yeah.

00:55:27:02 - 00:55:43:12
Jack Lowe
And I think that wearable air is a very like is a very good answer to, to how we could do live digital stuff in a theater environment. And then of course, you've got all that, you know, the new Magic Leap series coming out.

00:55:43:12 - 00:55:59:00
Jack Lowe
This can be two grand. So you kind of 60 people. And that's all I've been saying quite a lot recently. I'm just not interested in that as a barrier. And of course it is a massive barrier. Yeah, but then that's a really exciting prospect and probably probably will become as normal as wearing headphones.

00:55:59:00 - 00:55:59:08
Robin Fuller:
Yeah.

00:55:59:20 - 00:56:10:04
Jack Lowe
Because we're going to plan putting on headphones now is not a marketing device. It's just like that's a way of accessing a live experience as you saw it, deciphering. Yes, it's a it's a very intimate way of experience, sound design.

00:56:10:19 - 00:56:30:00
Jack Lowe
So I wouldn't be surprised looking into a little crystal ball if like there were shows that carried on using VR headsets and and those wearable like blocking out the light type moments, but also shows that begin to use XR in a way that is still actually a traditional theater space.

00:56:30:00 - 00:56:35:00
Jack Lowe
But just looking at those things in a bit more with a bit more creativity. Hmm.

00:56:35:18 - 00:56:44:00
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, I think that's kind of the promise of wearable air is amazing. It doesn't quite line up with the reality of where it's at the moment. No, but you know, I think.

00:56:44:11 - 00:56:57:21
Jack Lowe
If you were to say to me, if you say, right, we've got 60 old magic leap's, do you want to do a theater show using them? That wouldn't worry me if you were like, it's a bit clunky. I'd be like, I don't care.

00:56:57:22 - 00:56:58:05
Jack Lowe
Yeah.

00:56:58:23 - 00:57:00:18
Robin Fuller:
You work within the constraints, you use those.

00:57:00:19 - 00:57:12:03
Jack Lowe
And so that's why we're here, or we're mongrels in data. We'll just like, we'll kind of get involved and. Well, we like water. We just fill gaps. Yeah. And that may be the difference between the world of digital tech and stuff.

00:57:12:03 - 00:57:24:16
Jack Lowe
Digital tech is very keen to critique, you know, field of view in magic leaps and stuff, whereas we'll critique it, but we'll critique it and still like honor and love it as to what it is.

00:57:24:16 - 00:57:28:23
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, I think if you can work within the limitations and that not limitations anymore. Yeah.

00:57:28:24 - 00:57:35:11
Jack Lowe
I think they've become, they've become part of it and I do sometimes wonder with a show like Folkman whether that's basically what I was doing.

00:57:36:03 - 00:57:50:18
Robin Fuller:
But thinking about kind of the digital world and the physical world to kind of become more interleaved within each other, you know, there's a lot of sort of market forces that are kind of. Trending in that direction. And I think, you know, it will take a while and I'm not going to use the N-word.

00:57:51:11 - 00:57:51:21
Jack Lowe
On, you.

00:57:52:14 - 00:57:52:20
Robin Fuller:
Know.

00:57:53:13 - 00:57:57:17
Jack Lowe
Never go or just communicate over WhatsApp about it afterwards.

00:57:59:23 - 00:58:13:16
Robin Fuller:
But in kind of shared virtual spaces, yeah, I'm thinking things very easily to excess, like VR chats. Yeah, old space, things like that. Yeah, there's really interesting things happening and it's very it's happening at very kind of grass roots that's quite there.

00:58:13:16 - 00:58:28:05
Robin Fuller:
I see when you talk about VR, but whatever the VR equivalent of grassroots is level of people making performances and making performative spaces in those three those VR channels that I think are really interesting in terms of their their global reach and the way to be able to communicate.

00:58:28:06 - 00:58:31:19
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, I read globally and has no idea where that stuff is going.

00:58:31:19 - 00:58:44:01
Jack Lowe
But I guess like I'm sat here as a theater maker, like a defending. But I still think it's better when everyone gets in a room together. Right. Yeah. Like, and there's a lot of money swilling around for theater to try and convince themselves otherwise, and they'll just arrive.

00:58:44:08 - 00:58:58:11
Jack Lowe
I just. I think they'll just arrive at the fact that actually we all quite like being in a theater or like a space where we're all that together. I mean, I think that they can probably, you know, I think theater would do well to start using VR chats, to have thorny conversations about technical elements of the production

00:58:58:11 - 00:59:06:20
Jack Lowe
that they're going to do in a real theater. That because yeah, but yeah, yeah. Although maybe that's just me being really narrow minded about it. I don't know.

00:59:07:05 - 00:59:12:06
Robin Fuller:
I don't know. I mean, there's a reason we're not recording this over Zoom generally, and there's a reason we sat in the same room together.

00:59:12:07 - 00:59:31:14
Jack Lowe
Yeah, because there is kind of actually to be talking to real about these things like sat there and being like because we're picking out the millions of like the millions of micro reactions in your face and like the choices of take your drink of water and all those things that you probably get as an avatar in the

00:59:31:20 - 00:59:36:15
Jack Lowe
in the M space. But you don't get it. You don't get the details because it's.

00:59:36:24 - 00:59:47:10
Robin Fuller:
Yeah, it's just something it's kind of one of those things that I just I keep an eye on, you know? Yeah. I find it really interesting to see what other people are up to. And I just, I keep an eye on and I think it's yeah, it must be interesting to see how it develops and where it

00:59:47:10 - 00:59:47:22
Robin Fuller:
goes.

00:59:47:22 - 00:59:48:05
Jack Lowe
Yeah.

00:59:59:01 - 01:00:11:07
Robin Fuller:
There's one thing I wanted to ask you about a phrase you used earlier, which I really liked. I highlighted it on that. That's all right. It's just a theater as a ritual. I can just, like, expound on what you mean by that a little bit.

01:00:11:14 - 01:00:30:06
Jack Lowe
Well, it's campfire stuff, isn't it? You know, it's like people meeting together in a space to see a story told. And people pretend I don't have a problem with people pretending to be other people. I think that it goes in and out and in and out of fashion.

01:00:31:06 - 01:00:50:12
Jack Lowe
But that I think it's mad, right. That you get people who are sat there and they're like they're pretending to watch people who are pretending and you all pretend together. And there's a lot of cynicism around that. And it annoys me because it's like, that's magic that the brain is able to go, I believe that you're a

01:00:50:18 - 01:01:07:03
Jack Lowe
scientists and I believe that you are a teacher. And it's a part of the brain that I think goes back to the campfire stuff and it's a part of the brain this way. That's why is exciting. If you're trying to like break that down, it's a different thing and it's a different sort of ritual, but it's fundamentally

01:01:07:03 - 01:01:26:06
Jack Lowe
a cerebral ritual, I think. Hmm. And I don't have a problem with. And it's a sliding scale, right? Like, I don't have a problem with sort of things that I don't really like musicals. But musicals do it very sneakily because they're like tapping into, like a part the hippocampus on there, they're like tapping into rhythm music, which

01:01:26:16 - 01:01:32:24
Jack Lowe
explains why we're in tears. Naughty, very naughty. Type of. Type of rich.

01:01:33:02 - 01:01:34:05
Robin Fuller:
It's manipulative, isn't it?

01:01:34:17 - 01:01:38:15
Jack Lowe
It is. And that's why a lot of people who dare to make it don't like musicals.

01:01:39:03 - 01:01:40:05
Robin Fuller:
And you feel like it's cheating.

01:01:40:17 - 01:01:54:19
Jack Lowe
No, I don't think it's just that. I think it's like also the types of stories that are being told. But there's also I'm just thinking of names of companies that fit across the full spectrum. And yet we all call it theater, which is really bad in itself.

01:01:55:10 - 01:02:10:00
Jack Lowe
So that ritual of like all working in the theater world, in industry, it's sort of there's a there's an axis of what I've described there from one end all the way to the kind of like other end, which is like dissecting what a theater space is.

01:02:10:00 - 01:02:26:05
Jack Lowe
And there are lots of companies have been around for a long time doing that. And then the kind of north to south poles of audiences and stuff like that. And we all sit within that ritual. And the one thing that is unfortunate is that as kids, often when we go to the theater, if we don't see something

01:02:26:05 - 01:02:47:22
Jack Lowe
that sparks this really boring production of something that's on tool to really boring regional theater, then it kills it. Hmm. And you get people who go, I don't know, we go to theater, but I love that. And that's like that's a really a thing that everyone is trying really, really hard in that massive map of theater ritual

01:02:47:22 - 01:03:01:18
Jack Lowe
industry creators to try and solve. Mm hmm. So, yeah. So, like, and if that means that people go to musicals and have an amazing time and then would take what they seem to be, would feel to be a risk on such a curious trip to play.

01:03:01:18 - 01:03:02:08
Jack Lowe
That's awesome.

01:03:02:23 - 01:03:12:14
Robin Fuller:
Speaking of going to take your research to fly, walk a Segway. I'm getting really good at this. When is the next performance? When's the next thing out that people can come and see? I'm never over. What is it?

01:03:12:15 - 01:03:13:20
Robin Fuller:
It's normal to come on stage.

01:03:13:20 - 01:03:30:15
Jack Lowe
I mean, I'll never have to be like, I'm going to apply. So, yeah, there's a play on on the 19th of May until the 4th of June, which is the one about quantum biology called Spindrift. And it's about what happens to a mum when she gets pushed into because of her amazing research, gets pushed into the limelight

01:03:30:15 - 01:03:54:05
Jack Lowe
in terms of her ideas around how life is possible, and her three daughters, who are all doing extraordinary things and are all dealing with sort of the grief and guilt of the loss of their father, who was involved in the in a scientific research 20 years prior saying a man in the US sent a lighthouse and there's

01:03:54:05 - 01:04:18:19
Jack Lowe
a lot of nautical quantum physics and biological kind of things going on in the show. And it's funny enough it is underpinned and wrapped up by two podcasts. So it centers around the Science of Science podcast as Hey, yeah, so having a good, have a good go at poking fun at podcasting and fun.

01:04:19:06 - 01:04:31:22
Jack Lowe
I like the ritual of podcasting and obviously with the audience all in headphones, that's can be quite, quite a fun experience. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that's, that's a show that we actually made originally six years ago and we're bringing it back.

01:04:32:01 - 01:04:32:13
Robin Fuller:
Uncle.

01:04:32:24 - 01:04:38:21
Jack Lowe
Because it felt like a really good sort of companion piece to deciphering. So people saw deciphering. I think they'll quite like this one.

01:04:39:05 - 01:04:40:05
Robin Fuller:
Is it going to make me cry?

01:04:41:07 - 01:04:50:10
Jack Lowe
Like I think it probably will access different places of wanting to cry?

01:04:51:06 - 01:04:53:18
Robin Fuller:
So I'm up for a cry. It's random on the birthday as well as.

01:04:53:19 - 01:05:15:20
Jack Lowe
Oh, right. Okay. I have nothing like a sort of laugh of. Nothing like. The lap of the sun is that I make you feel very introspective. Like, oh, yeah. Like everything is falling apart and speeding up. But yeah, quantum biology is mega interesting, and there's some really cool, politically active female scientists involved in making the show.

01:05:15:20 - 01:05:29:16
Jack Lowe
And they're like, right on the kind of what I would say the, the, the interesting space between really abstract physics and like messy biology and ask these big questions from a little old studio theater in Norwich.

01:05:30:00 - 01:05:30:22
Robin Fuller:
I think so, yeah.

01:05:31:19 - 01:05:34:16
Jack Lowe
And obviously we do like to play point deals.

01:05:34:19 - 01:05:35:21
Robin Fuller:
Don't pay 20.

01:05:35:21 - 01:05:37:22
Jack Lowe
Quid for a piece of pie. What you're talking about.

01:05:39:06 - 01:05:39:20
Robin Fuller:
Sign me up.

01:05:40:04 - 01:05:40:16
Jack Lowe
Nice.

01:05:51:12 - 01:06:06:14
Robin Fuller:
So that was Jack. I really enjoyed that conversation. We spoken a few times in the past and I find after conversation with Jack, I always kind of come away with something either the start of a new idea or a slightly different way of looking at things.

01:06:06:15 - 01:06:18:14
Robin Fuller:
And this conversation was no different. So I'm really grateful to Jack for taking the time to speak to me, and I'm really glad that I could share it with other people as this podcast. There's a lot that we spoke to about to kind of unpack.

01:06:19:14 - 01:06:34:14
Robin Fuller:
I really like the way Jack spoke about his sort of respect and reverence factors. I think that kind of really comes through in his work, and it's lovely to hear a director who works with actors talking about actors in such kind of such a warm and reverent way.

01:06:35:10 - 01:06:51:17
Robin Fuller:
I think something else I mentioned was this idea of how my approach to making things used to be kind of adversarial in this way that I was throwing things out and this kind of attitude of like, I don't care if you like it or not.

01:06:52:14 - 01:07:09:24
Robin Fuller:
And that's kind of true and has held true for a while. And in some ways, this podcast is the first thing that I've made outside of professional work, which is obviously made for a client. This is the first thing that I've made just for myself, where I'm kind of just putting it out there in the world and

01:07:09:24 - 01:07:25:01
Robin Fuller:
saying, Hey, is this thing I made? I hope you like it. And I really do hope you like it because I like making it. Anyway, that's enough for me. I'll throw some links up in the description as always, so you can find out more about Jack's work.

01:07:25:17 - 01:07:34:22
Robin Fuller:
Also, see if I can track down the Arcade Fire music video that we spoke about, because that's really interesting. And really, I think you should check it out if you have a chance. All right. I'm out.