Wednesday!
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
The only way I can express how good the cast is doing is that we were let go an hour (AN HOUR!) early from rehearsal. We went through the dream sequence a few more times, working on giving Thin Elderly and Littlest a sense of urgency by playing a theater game. Since each of the cast members are sitting behind them making the soundscape noises, their job (during the game) is to try and sneak up on the two actors while they are acting. This causes the Thin and Littlest to have to constantly look around in order not to get tagged and thus automatically amps up the action.
The dream sequence is breathtaking. After working out all of the kinks and getting the actors comfortable with what they are doing, it flows together wonderfully. The actors, who are physically in the scene, have perfected the slightly slowed movements, so that the dream world can be distinguished from the other worlds by the movement onstage. The soundscape by the actors in the back is just as impressive, three girls sitting in chairs can believably fill the entire theater with noises that sound like the onset of a storm. The skill and teamwork is incredible. Also, the rewrites to the dream sequence help to tidy up the script and lets the audience understand what is going on a lot better. Not only is the Old Woman helping John recover from his nightmare in his dream, but he also helps to comfort her in her dream. This makes the movement of the woman a lot more pronounced, showing she really is lonely in the beginning and the boy’s company helped her change.
After a small break, the cast started at the beginning of the play and did the whole show without stopping. Incredible. Keep in mind that this show was never fully blocked, the actors just fell into the positions that they felt were comfortable with some well placed instructions by the director. Perhaps this is what made going through the whole show a lot easier than expected, that the actor’s chose their places and had a better time remembering them. The more and more I watch this play being produced, the more I understand that giving the actors the respect to come up with their characters feelings and backgrounds, the more ownership they have over the whole piece, which results in a more genuine play.
The cast was a lot punchier and silly tonight, I think they are starting to feel very comfortable with the piece. They are delving even further into their characters and it’s starting to show because they are able to throw more personality into their performance. Especially Toby the dog, he’s excellent.
And as for the dramaturg, from what Stan has told me, it is a person who checks for consistency in the play, although the job description is a little undefined. What Cecily does is she reads along with the actors and will point out things in the play that could cause confusion. Such as the fact that while John said he never had a dog, he was still forced to eat dog food that his father had lying around. From what I gather she is a sort of editor as well as another voice to go to for a second opinion.
Olivia