Group 2 first off. Very Good. The whole hour was spent finding different States of Intensity for each beat of each unit. (we already know the objectives - they're very clear). Tracey's first is exhaustion. Rebecca's in Neutral. But Tracey turns her ankle and falls with a Highest. Rebecca's becomes an Attraction (concern that Tracey has hurt herself). Tracey's becomes a very strong attraction (sex), which R breaks with a... etc etc. This all goes very well and gives us a very clear structure. And very amusing and watchable work. No repetition. Lots of variation.
Similar work with Susie and Laura. Susie comes on with an extreme lowest - tottering and staggering. Laura is following with an Attraction. Susie turns on her and pushes her all the way back with a Highest. Leaves her their and walks away with a neutral. Laura calls her back with a highest which stops Susie in her tracks. She comes back with a Californian etc
Laura does her monologue well with a little mixture of States. All very pleasing.
Group 3. We decide we'll see if the Line acting option will work for us. It seems to. And we combine it with S of I. For example, Puck and Oberon precede the lovers on in Attraction and Californian. Karine is in Attraction, if I remember correctly, and Jessica is in highest with her back to her. But they all walk in on the line and this structures the whole scene. The scene develops between Karine and Jessica varying States and we also have fun with P and O with them having to jump out of the way of Jessica shunting K down the line at one point, and at another following the action like one of those cameras they have at Athletics on the TV that run along beside the runners.
We take time, in this section, to make sure that P and O act like a double-act, jumping, moving and looking in unison.
We find a lovely solution to K falling asleep by doing an elegant yawn, stretch and reach over Kelly's back before being eased to the ground.
And then a massive change of energy and intensity with O's anger towards P and some great physical solutions, including hair-pulling, rolling P along the ground and finally banging her head against it.
Then the beginning of Rhian and Verity. The former crying doing an Outbreath angry with 'him'. Both going upstage. Then after Kelly's lines they begin line-acting until Karine awakes (not before we have to find a way of O getting K out of the way) Karine then does a long slow Attraction in a curve onto the line and her and Verity doing a kind of Tango down the line. I was about to suggest that this ends with a lift when time ran out on us. More to do. But this is all going to be excellent.
Group 1. First time with Zihannah and Nicola who both need to have more confidence in what they're doing - and to relax more. They kept losing lines as they were rehearsing which seemed more through stress than not knowing them (but I said that they must keep learning and learning and learning so that they can do anything without getting thrown by new moves, changes ). And too much thinking going on on the part of the actors, rather than going with the flow and trying to make things work physically. This may have been lack of confidence in this method of working - or lack of experience in it. But it's best to think of it in terms of dance and choreography than 'feeling it' or 'would they REALLY do this?'. It's in the Enchanted Forest, don't forget. Anything can happen. A good start, though.
Then looked at the scene setting up H and L going to the Forest and Hel deciding to follow... We decided that this needed trimming to about a third of its length. Once again this was the first time we'd looked at the scene.
Finally, we just had a little time to look at the Egeus entry which we've now changed. Rather than having the original 'looser' groupings of the beginning, we've formalised it more. T and Hyp are in a line. E, D, L and H are also in a line on the other side. It's all very formal. Geometric even. We do some work on D and L formally stepping out - each with a different State of Intensity (D Bomb in the Room; L with Outbreath, exasperation) - and E yanking D back. Also began to look at E saying the whole of his diatribe against L looking towards Thes and not at L at all. This seemed a bit strange at first and it isn't there yet but it has an excellent chance of working if the speech is 'all one' and not broken up, sliding from Californian to Neutral to Attraction to Tragic/Highest on one rising escalator....
Again, good work and I'm looking forward to the next ten or fifteen final hours of rehearsals with all groups.
At the request of a certain Mr D Law of this Parish, we have taken the unusual steps of publishing photos of the opposing teams in the League this season. But out of their team kit. Actually the 'Old Firm' fixture passed off without incident on Monday with no dirty tackles or coins thrown onto the pitch. In truth, by all acccounts, both Gian and Chris thought the standard very high and I know for a fact that Duncan and Steve were really pleased with the work...
