100 Shades of Being
100 Shades of Beings follows the timelines of seven characters finding their way through the months of Ireland’s first lockdown and the months that followed. In the format of snippet video diaries that weaves Spring, Summer and Autumn, 100 Shades of Being is a piece that knits through the emotions we deal with when confronted with the unprecedented.
Written and directed by Graham Butler Breen, Ryan O'Donnell, and Rachel Ann O'Sullivan
Produced by Luna Collective
Music Production by Greg Kearns
Poster Design by Hollie Murphy
Starring
Pippa Molony as Clara
Praise Titus as Deirdre
Jerry Iwu as Jadyn
Martina McCormack as Muriel
Eliza Pauliute as Maia
Enzo Benvenuti as Robyn
Evelyn O'Sullivan as Sally
100 Shades of Being was Luna’s longest running production with pre-planning for it beginning in May 2020 and not releasing until March 2021. It was a dream project, a culmination of what we had learned during our run of releasing online theatre pieces that had many stages of evolution during its lifetime.
It began with a prompt from Fishamble’s Tiny Play competition: Write a tiny play which denotes change in 100 words or less. Incredible challenge, how ~ how ~ can you write a story of change in 100 words? (Apparently, it is possible as evident by the published volume of Tiny Plays from 2020). The attempt was a first draft of Sally’s story split across 100 days and was aptly titled 100 Shades of Being. It showed 100 days of miniature change, brief vignettes of a video diary. We could see potential in the story; it would ultimately have to be longer, developed some more, but how to format it became a bigger question. It was evident quite early on that 100 Shades would take a long time to craft and develop into a fully fledged project, and so we began to muse and write a few more entries into what became the 100 Shades canon.
Almost every second meeting we had we would discuss what was to become of 100 Shades. We would spend a large portion of these online meetings dissecting what it was we wrote, how we could develop the project further, ideas for new entries, how to knit or sew the threads together. Each entry within the small scripts were dated; how do the dates match up? Is there something out of sequence? Does your entry that you wrote match my entry from a few days later timeline-wise?
We knew we wanted this project to be a voice for people who, during lockdowns, felt they had no voices. We wanted 100 Shades to capture at least one emotion for someone out in the world. This universal experience of lockdown brought up or confronted a lot of people with the same question: Who am I when I’m alone? How do I combat this sense of loneliness in a vacuum? We began to even question our own motives around this point too. How evangelical and saviour-esque of us to want to comfort – what are we doing? Who does this speak for? And why are we the ones telling it? 100 Shades could not continue as a solely interior designed project. It was so very important to conduct outreach, to open the collective once again and go into the community. What is lockdown actually for you?
We were also at this time confronted with the tragic and brutal murder of George Floyd in America. There was no escaping the news at this time; you must have lived a very sheltered life under a rock if you didn’t know about it. His death sparked many conversations within communities and confronted a lot of people with their own vices. It prompted us again to go into the community, to open ourselves to listen: lockdown for me is not the same lockdown for a person of colour; everyone's lockdown is individual and this tragedy highlighted this. We knew at this point we needed to speak to the community, to conduct interviews with people who are not Graham, Ryan and Rachel. These interviews touched on topics such as daily life, lockdown life, loneliness, systemic racism and the role of the person within these constructs. 100 Shades is forever indebted to those we interviewed; this piece was made for you and, partially, by you.
Our rehearsal process was difficult. We had cast actors from Dublin, Kerry, Kildare and even London. Could we ever get all of us in a room? The short answer to that is no. No you cannot. Everything was done online – but that was fine because it was all going to be filmed as if it was on zoom! Adapt, overcome, achieve. 100 Shades had to be different to other online theatre pieces. We couldn’t do another ‘stood at the wall’ performance. It had been done by so many theatre companies by this stage: how do we enhance it? How do we elevate it to another level?
We became quite attracted to the idea of set as a character and how each actor could help create their own character in relation to the ‘set as character.’ How can we best utilise where you are currently to tell a visual story. If you use a setting or a space more than once, what is that saying subliminally about your mental state? What does it reveal about the character?
As well as this, each of us split up to take on two performers each with Ryan and Graham sharing a third. Each director brought with them a different approach. Informational research between director and actor, director as facilitator, and emotional sense memory led work. The fusion of styles between all three directors gave an ever present sense of change. Everything feels fresh when looking at the difference between one actor and their director and another. It was important for us as a company to explore what directing means for us, how we can safely do it and be responsible for the work. We held each other, supported each other's rehearsals, writing processes, developmental phases. This was Luna Collective at its core. It was when we became a true collective.
100 Shades of Being culminated in a release in March 2021. It was the longest production we produced, edited, wrote, dreamed of at this stage. An immense sense of catharsis was felt by not only us, but the cast, our families, our friends. Luna Collective is capable of making something that to us felt worthwhile. One review we had received from Brian Byrne from the Kilcullen Diary summarises it perhaps most aptly:
“Luna Collective is a young performance art group. But its portfolio is growing fast, as is the members' confidence in pushing beyond themselves. I don't know the routes to competition in performing arts these days. But somewhere there is a big international prize waiting for 100 Shades of Being. If they can get this production before the eyes of a judging panel, they'll mesmerise them.”