Theatre Director Oliver Driver Makes Cinema Come Alive in New 4D Play

Part of the 2015 NZ International Comedy Festival, Live Live Cinema is a live movie re-creation – described as a conversation between film, theatre, live music and sound design. After two ground breaking shows in previous years,  for 2015, creator and composer Leon Radojkovic, sound designer Gareth Van Niekerk, director Oliver Driver,  and musicians/actors Hayley Sproull, Byron Coll, Laughton Kora, and Barnie Duncan will create a brand new score using props, foley, and their wild imaginations to re-create the musical score of the cult classic, with the original black and white film being played silently in  the background.

We had coffee with Oliver Driver following the gloriously ambitious Live Live Cinema's Little Shop Of Horrors opening performance.

Concrete Playground: What should the audience expect on the night?

Oliver Driver: I think they can expect to see four very funny actors try to do the impossible, and nearly do it.

The previous two Live Live Cinema productions were beautiful, the previous two were ballroom dancing, whereas this is drunk in a nightclub. So its not the same type of thing. This is like, how do we make this a wild, crazy ride.

CP: Where the show is headed after Auckland?

OD: So we are doing the comedy festival for ten days. Then there is a little tour that goes around some places like the Warwick Arts Centre, the Galway Festvial, you know, little festivals, and some big festivals in England and Ireland. After that we do it again in Taranaki and then we take it to Australia in August. We have got quite a lot of interest on the back of the first two productions we did.

The dream is that this one gets picked up for a London season or you know, a season somewhere that it can fly on its own.

CP: Tell us about all the ridiculous props and foley for the production.

OD: We have Fafina Nou Gou who did the foley for the last two projects we did so he had a bunch of things that made noises similar to things but what we then had to do was go, no, it needs to be bigger than this, it needs to be more visual than this, it needs to be more interesting than this.

We always try to make a thing, that the thing making the sound shouldn't actually be the thing, if its a gun it shouldn't just be a gun you know, it s needs to be something different than that. If its a magazine we shouldn't just have someone rattling a magazine. It was always trying to find things that sound like that thing but look completely different. Thats the joy of it.

There is probably up to 100 elements that they (the actors) have to push, turn, twist.

CP: What behind-the-scenes constraints do you face?

OD: The biggest constraints we had with this one is that it needs to tour. So it needs to pack into two suitcases. As soon as it finishes in Auckland it goes on a six week tour of England and Ireland. its still going to be that when they get to England they will need to buy some buckets and some umbrellas, some things that they can kind of rematch, but 90% of that set has to pack into two suitcases so thats what your real constraint is.

The other thing was finding the right sounds for things ya know, like, how do you make the sound of a plant eating, how do you do that. It took us ages until we realised that if you hang a towel from a piece of string and drop it into a bucket of water, it sounds like a schloompy schloompy sound, and then you need that at the same time as you rub a thin piece of metal up a piece of corrugated cardboard.

CP: Did you have any challenges when casting for the show?

OD: It was really tricky, ah you know because the last one we did, you just cast actors who are really good voice actors and who are really good at doing you know, character voices. Whereas with this one it was like, okay you need that but they also need to be able to play music and they also need to be funny, and they need to kind of be inherently clown-like because the dream of it is that you're watching four naughty humans do something that seems impossible but pulling it off, and that's when it works best.

Its that thing where you rub your stomach and pat your head ya know, we kind of ascribe it to that. Playing the music without the sheet music is hard, you have to learn the music off by heart, orchestras don't do that. When we did the previous ones, the bands would have music right there. Learning 40 pieces of music off by heart, that's difficult. Learning the script off by heart is difficult and lip syncing is a difficult thing too. And then to try and do all of those things at the same time is incredibly difficult, its like patting your head while rubbing your stomach, while dancing a waltz on a boat.

So yeah it took us a long time to find the right people but I really couldn't possibly be happier than that cast. I think we have got a really really strong cast who all have their own sort of uniqueness but then play really well together as a team.

CP: What's new about this round of Live Live Cinema?

OD: The previous films were dramas or thrillers and we had seven full time musicians just doing the music, four actors just doing the lip syncing, a foley guy in the foley booth just doing the foley. This new one was kind of like, is it even possible for us to do everything with just four people. But because of the history of those other two shows we were able to sell this with the hope  that people love it.

They've all been early 1960's films. They (the previous two) were both beautiful films that had terrible soundtracks and hammy acting. So when we re-did the voices it made them way more engaging and way more watchable. Whereas with this one we kind of went, its not as beautiful of a film. We are not trying to go, 'look at this incredibly beautiful piece of cinema', with this one we are trying to go more down the comedy kind of route.

Its that danger of four people trying to run around and do everything ya know. So its not like a balls to the wall laugh your whole night through, but its pleasurable, as in you had a smile on your face the whole time and you leave with the thought that that was an awesome experience.

CP: How's the show likely to evolve in the future?

OD: I think seeing it early on, in a way will be the best time to see it, because it is chaotic, because at this point in time there are moments that things fuck up, or they have forgotten what they are supposed to be doing, or every thing goes wrong, and sometimes those are the most enjoyable moments when you're seeing that the actor has lost it and lost any idea of where they are to go next.

As they progress through the season and more so the tour they will get better and better and better at it and it will become slicker and slicker and that will add a whole new dimension to it but it will lose some of the absolute fear in the eyes type moments where you can sort of see that that actor is having a bit of a shift on stage.

It was pretty shambolic last night. And that was probably the best thing we learnt was that even if it fucks up and it all goes wrong, people still love it. They are going to need to end up faking that, which you do do in shows. Once they get to the point where they get it all really fast and its all precise, audiences still want to see you fuck it up and they want to have those moments ya know. So that's why I say its better to see it this season than in a years time when its them faking it, because right now they really are sometimes completely lost.

You want shows to be phenomenal, every aspect of it needs to hit the right thing for something to become phenomenal. otherwise its just "oh it was really enjoyable, it was great", but I want you to go "they were amazing! how the fuck did they do that", and thats what it will get to.

 Live Live Cinema: Little Shop of Horrors is being performed at the Herald Theatre from May 13 until 24.