Wednesday 23 September 2009

"My balls are stuck"

I'm a very happy bunny today, I must say! I may have a sore, hoarse throat and feel like I haven't slept in a month, but the last couple of rehearsals have been, well, pretty darn fantastic.

On my way to Sunday's rehearsal I was mildly worried that we wouldn't get everything done - we only had Peter for the first four hours and I was hoping to get through the entire play in that time, before focusing on other elements in the afternoon. It kinda worked: we managed to get seven of the first eight scenes done before Peter had to shoot off. That afternoon, we also focused on two more scenes - which meant the only scene we didn't touch on Sunday was the final one.

Much of the afternoon was spent testing the limits of the bed and working out how brave David was willing to be. We had a lot of fun working out how David would get on top of the bed, how he would get done, how he would move, who would support which leg and when... The audience obviously won't see it but Daniel and Mark are working hard backstage to support David and make it possible for him to create some pretty beautiful images. Risking having no future offspring (see this post's title!), David really pushed his limits on Sunday and the result is going to be brilliant.

We also spent a little time with Ella and David choreographing their dance. Neither of them are trained dancers and I sometimes forget that performers won't have had the ten years dance experience I've had. Often, even if something that I think is easy and that my body is capable of, doesn't necessarily translate to someone else. However, they're both willing to give things a go and it's starting to get close to what I'm after. From experience, I've also found that non-dancers find repetition a lot easier to work with - so while the dance is very short, we may just choreograph half of it and then repeat. We'll see.

I've got to be very careful what I say regarding a particular item of set but what I will say is that on Sunday we tested it to destruction (literally) and it's going to amaze the audience. I can't wait for you to see it...

Sunday ended on a high and last night (Tuesday) we had an evening rehearsal. We started with Scene 10 and I warned the actors to not be fazed by the addition of some music. There are only three words I can use to describe what happened: God. My. Oh. (you may need to rearrange them yourself). I got genuine goosebumps watching the scene, verging on tearful. The actors performed it beautifully with a gorgeous sense of emotion to the events in the scene; the music elevating it to another level. From the view of the writer, the scene has quickly gone from my least favourite to possibly the complete opposite.

The rehearsal continued at the same very high level. The actors are starting to know their characters and lines a lot more now so they're able to immerse themselves in the scene more fully - Mandy, in particular, was even better last night than I've seen her before. We got through the first act and finished shortly after 10pm, ending on Scene 6.

I've always had problems with Scene 6, long before we started rehearsals. At times it can feel a little hammy, although with the actors up and performing the scene it works a lot better than reading it from the page. I told the actors last night that they were doing a sterling job with the scene - they're performances are great but for me it feels like we're polishing a turd of a scene. We'll look at it again tonight and maybe rethink some of it. (Sorry to bring it down! The last rehearsals have been fantastic so please don't let this make you think otherwise!!)

Another rehearsal tonight and Stevie Pickering is coming along to take the actors' profile photos for the website, blog and programme. She also came on Sunday to take some rehearsal shots which will hopefully be up on this blog soon-ish. Stevie gave me a massive confidence boost on Sunday when she whispered to me, with a massive grin on her face, the wonderful words "It's looking really good!" Big smiley face for Bradley!

(P.S. Last week the counter for this blog jumped from just over 300 visitors to well over 11,000!! Not sure why this is, definitely don't think it's had that many hits - and I promise I haven't been repeatedly refreshing the page...!)

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