Just Hamed and Roji today. Actually, this is a circumstance I have long been hoping for. Good though it would be to have a larger crowd, when people suddenly appear without warning, sometimes with pretty limited English, I do have to come up with something on the spur of the moment, sometimes entirely mime-based, in order to accommodate them. Whereas today, we were able to focus entirely on Godot, and make some real progress.
I have been producing two A4 sides of the text each week, which I type out, and somewhat edit, as I go, hoping this way not to overwhelm them, yet make steady progress. And I am enjoying their performances very much. They make a great contrast physically, but both have most expressive faces. We worked on the section where they discuss hanging themselves, which leads to a debate, within the text, as to which is the heavier, finally coming to the conclusion that it’s probably fifty-fifty… more or less.
We continue to work in the dining-room foyer, there being no alternative, but actually, I quite like it, once we get over the distractions of small children running around kicking a ball, people strolling through on their way to eat, small groups sitting and chatting. For the most part, they ignore us (as we do them) but just occasionally someone stops to watch, and sometimes laugh. Hamed and Roji are also both very popular, Hamed as a sort of unofficial adviser, Roji to supply certain goods, so that too causes an interruption at times. But neither of them seems at all bothered by rehearsing in such a public space, so I don’t either.
As to where this might be leading, the real answer is that I have no idea. It would be good to perform it as a part of Refugee Week, but that would inevitably require getting official permission. But an informal performance just to the Iranian community, for example (and in Farsi – why not?) might be manageable.
