Which is something of an overstatement, of course, but actually not by much. I am, after all, only here for one reason, which is to put on a play. A point which has been exaggerated by the fact that I have been asked to do very little else, so that my daily rehearsal achieves an even greater importance. And today’s in particular was beset by any manner of things not going right.
There is no rehearsal schedule as such, as first of all I could do with a certain amount of flexibility; and secondly any sort of planning ahead does not seem to be part of the culture here (witness the public holiday called at 9.30 last week.) I do try to lay out a weekly plan on the Saturday, but even that is liable to change, depending upon circumstances. Today, I had asked for the Capulet family to attend, but that was already dented by the fact that Lady C/Pranita told me she had a wedding to attend; nothing to be done about that. But then I had problems communicating with Paris/Hridaya (honorary Capulet); WhatsApp is my only means of communication, and when they don’t reply… Lord C/ Bikram had told me he would have to be coming in from outside Dhangadhi, and if Paris wasn’t there, that would be pointless. So I told Bikram not to come. And then Hridaya turned up anyway, pointlessly. And then Juliet/Richa was twenty minutes late.
But the whatever the opposite of icing on the cake came – final straw? – when I asked Khushi to read in for the absent Richa. This was the first time we had attempted any of Act 2… and this was when Khushi rather shamefacedly admitted that she had been lazy and used Google translate for Act 2, and that it was virtually unreadable. So even with the two actors I had left, I could not rehearse a single thing. I sent Khushi, Aashika and Richa home, and then did the same myself.
I did have to walk past Yogi as I did so, so he could not help but see that I was in the blackest of moods. Which has actually had a slightly beneficial effect (see tomorrow.) And the other very beneficial effect was that Khushi immediately set to work when she got back, and sent me the whole of Act 2, re-written to make it performable, and divided into individual scenes, so that I can access each scene as necessary. I think the script is still not perfect; when Khushi finds a section that is not clear (such as virtually all of the poetic bits) she leaves it out. Which is something of a shame. And Aparna has told me there is still a certain clunkiness in some of the language. But still…
