Gregory Doran: Development of Oroonoko during the rehearsal process

I think there was certainly quite a lot of the play developed in rehearsals but we did, we’d certainly had a script, and a shape and to a large extent a sense of design by the time we went into rehearsals. The company themselves invested a lot of their own research and themselves into the show, so it did change as we went. To some extent as the west Africans introduced some of their culture to the West Indians and vice versa. And as we explored certain issues and worked out how to present certain parts of the drama, like how do you do a war? This great war. And somebody being shot by an arrow. All those things were just simply developed in rehearsal.

I think Biyi’s script was largely secure before we started. He certainly responded to very crucial moments in the play that seemed to have a life of their own, which needed corralling in some way in the process of rehearsal.

So it was very much an organic process I think, rising out of a very thorough grounding in the period and the culture and in all that research which took a long time to do but was very rewarding in the end.

[Oroonoko cast singing]

Foreman: Get back to work.