Two weeks further on, and in both cases we had new members trying out. Which is, it has to be said, vital; it is proving very difficult to make sensible progress when we are always filling in. On the first week, it was Jaden, a young black British guy, and as such, outside our normal demographic. Which does give me a little cause for concern. On the other hand, it was jmmediately apparent that he was a very capable performer, instantly getting into role.
The question at present is what that role is to be. Today, he read in for the role that Roji has (and we have no intention of taking that away from him.) So we have it in mind that he could take on the role of Frank, a new character who only appears in the final scene or two (and today we were starting from the beginning, rehearsing most of the first half.)
We have made the decision that Connie should take on the role of Ahmad (the role originally taken by Davood last year.) She is a very capable performer, and is mostly reliable. Ahmad is a major character for the first half of the play, so we really do have to fill the role and get on with rehearsing those scenes.
Week two, Hamed turned up with a friend of his, Meraj (and yet another candidate for the elusive Frank.) Probably a better fit for the character, being Iranian, and that much older. As I had feared, Jaden did not turn up today, but did message Hamed to say he did want to participate in the project. Which does give us another problem – who might Jaden play. Hamed has suggested he play one of the smugglers, and that is a distinct possibility (though it js not the biggest role, and does only appear in the second half of the play.
During this second rehearsal, we did tackle the second half, including the difficult scene of the boat crossing the channel. We really do need to get the ladders that we are going to use to create the frame of the boat, as this is likely to prove problematic. And we really need to work out how this might be achieved physically. Equally, we need to work out how to handle the sound, especially for this scene; it needs to combine the wind, the waves, the engine, the tension…
We must hope that we can soon complete the casting, so that we can focus the rehearsals more directly, and only call people when we need them. But this might not yet happen. Ali, who appeared in Zhvan’s earliest productions, has been cast as Najim, the crazed bailer in the boat, but he has always proved a little unreliable. But WeRESTART tell us there is another actor arriving next Tuesday. Also called Ali. Unless it is the original Ali after all. Time will tell.
