Run-throughs

Run-throughs are rehearsals where you work your way all the way through a whole play (or a whole act) taking the scenes in order.  They have their own variations – stagger-throughs, race-throughs – but the essential factor for them to work properly is that the full cast is present.  And as it is still the case that I have never yet seen the entire cast in one place at one time, it was optimistic in the extreme that these two rehearsals – Act one on the Monday, Act two on the Tuesday – would be successful.  We have had a number of Sunday rehearsals, each one with the intention of being some sort of run-through, and they have all been of strictly limited value.  But with one week to go, the hope would be that some sort of urgency would provoke a better response, something closer to full attendance.  I always live in hope.

On Monday, I did arrive at the rehearsal in a positive frame of mind, a spring in my step and a smile on my face; it is about now that the production should start to come together.  So it was particularly disappointing that seven actors were missing.  Two had sent apologies in advance, with medical explanations (though I was to discover that one of these had understated the problem – he told us there had  been an accident, but not that his sister had been covered in blood, and that he had had to get her to hospital, bring her home, and then look after her… which made Saba and mine rather waspish comments all the more painful to withdraw.  Two told me there and then, with smiles on their faces (which did not help!) that they were unable to attend, both with fairly feeble justifications.)  And three were not there with no explanation at all.

Which collectively pretty much wrecked the run-through: it was as though they had deliberately worked out how to make a mess of just about every scene.  We did get from beginning to end, with gaps of course, and were at least able to establish entrances and exits… for those who were there.  Though I was not happy with this result, and did make my displeasure clear, I also did my best to remain as positive, cheerful, and good-humoured as I could.  I refused to shout, at any rate AT them; I did still have to shout FOR them on occasions.

The following day, we had to tackle Act Two, and though the attendance was much improved, with just a couple of absences (irritatingly it was Sheep 1 and her understudy, the only actual understudy in the whole cast!) my own mood was far darker.  Which I then darkened further by snapping at one of yesterday’s absentees… who then revealed she had been granted permission to miss the rehearsal, though not by me, and without my knowledge .    There were tears.  Not a great start.

We did somehow stumble through to the end, though in the process revealing all sorts of staging problems, and concluding we were short of an actor.  Actually, these were all important lessons to learn, and the one truly positive result was that I decided to ask TG, a member of the cast we had asked to withdraw because of poor attendance, to return.  I had felt bad about his exclusion even at the time, and all the more so when others proved far less reliable than he had been.  But I had no sooner mentioned this as a possibility than his friend had rung him, and the phone was being held out to me to speak to him.  This was too much for me to cope with, but he had already accepted, it seemed – I messaged him later.

It had been a pretty dismal couple of days, and I was unable to conceal my disappointment at the way things seemed to be heading; I had thought to overcome such a strong emotional response, but obviously not.  But despair gets one nowhere, and in any case I know that there will inevitably be an improvement as we approach the performance.  I have had high hopes for this production throughout, and there is no need at all for me to feel that they have been dashed.

Onwards and upwards.