The rehearsal room is starting to fill up. We have a costume rail in the far left corner, boxes of props against the right wall and the table I sit at is covered in cables, a sound mixer, pre-amps and the previously mentioned Maschine Mikro. It’s the beginning of the second week.
These new additions have had their effects. Scenes feel much fleshed out and we have more things to experiment with/react towards. At one point Pia and Zephryn take everything in the room and divide the contents between them. It is a glorious mess.
Even with a level of routine kicking in there’s still room to explore and be surprised. One afternoon was spent working on one scene, abandoning our previous idea about how to stage it, coming up with a new one, scraping that idea, and going through multiple revisions of that idea before going back to a previous idea but done by a different actor. So it goes.
Jude and the cast have started doing yoga. On Friday Kaaj, the design assistant joined them. I need more persuading. The bigger shock was when I came in on Friday and found Jude and the actors actioning the text!
What!
Actioning!?
That’s what people working on naturalistic plays do!
We’re making a piece of “European” theatre!!!
What would Falk Richter think?!?!
I joke. It was actually very helpful, and takes the scene to much more specific and interesting places. We’re halfway though now, and I’m starting to realise there won’t be a real sense of falling into a routine. Things will change, either slightly or completely. There is still room for surprise. And who knows? Maybe next week I’ll be doing yoga.
