So…Day two is here and so it is my turn to take over the Handheld Arts blog for an eve and an update on our rehearsals. As well as possibly a ponder on how it’s all going so far…
Today feels like a very full day of good things: we began (after a brief yoga session led my me) with the Waltz, which is looking good although it just needs practice to work in the timing and smoothness. But it will come I have no doubt. It is only day 2 after all.
We then put the Dave and Richard Afghanistan scene on it’s feet and it certainly found some sturdy size 9’s quickly! Our new Dave/Tom has brought with him a nice energy and warmth to the scene as well as a playful quality which it needs. We’ve found new bits hiding in it today (which is saying something seeing as we’ve been working on Paper Tom for quite a while now!)
After a cake and muffin fuelled lunch (it was Steve’s birthday yesterday so it’s only right and proper) our new Tom taught us a new game to rival our firm favourite: one touch tennis ball football. I think I may find room in my heart for FourSquare – a slightly gentler game, still high energy and focused but less likely to cause full bodily bruising due to rugby tackles gone wrong!
We then moved on to look at Cher Amie and again, our new actor has brought new qualities to the scene that draw you in and add an intense stillness and depth to it. Tis lovely stuff! The only difficulty I am finding is that because he is getting things so quickly in terms of how we imagine the character to be I am running out of helpful things to say with a Directors hat on! I think that he may expect or be looking for more but I find it hard to add anything very useful when I’m following the old adage: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
We then took a go at Transformation, always a slightly tricksy scene to rehearse as we haven’t got a projector set up so I think we will have to wait for the full effect until we are in the tech rehearsal. It’s interesting doing this after so long and re-blocking certain moves due to space restrictions on the Exeter stage. We have, I am sad to say, had to rework the infamous Lucy hat swap scene. There’s still some magic to behold but the slightly unattractive Lucy hat has been condemned and will not make it to Exeter with us in the back of our bus.
The final scenes we looked at today were the two couples scenes: Tom and Lucy and Richard and Rachel. The Tom and Lucy scene has had fresh life breathed into it and is a lovely start for his storyline. I struggled more with the Richard and Rachel scene as we have had to re-block due to sight lines and I suddenly felt out of my comfort zone performing the scene sitting on boxes where I was used to the floor before. I felt that I knew where I was with the floor. I felt comfortable there, but it is, as ever, good to stretch things and change things when they get too comfortable and I actually think staging it on boxes will make for a stronger scene once I get used to the shift and performing with ‘Richard’ on the opposite side to me. Still, if this is my biggest concern thus far in the rehearsal process (day 2 but with only 2 days left) and with most of the scenes covered at least a few times then I think things are going pretty damn well…