Our final rehearsal at Colvin College; it is remarkable that we have had two such wonderful, magical spaces for our rehearsals. I had travelled there directly from my final workshop for CMS at Golf City campus (though with no sign, so far as I could see, of a golf course.) The idea had been to go through the music cues (again) with Vikash, though once again this was a rushed process, and I was not convinced that we had covered everything.
It was also a costume call, which inevitably took time (though this did mean a little extra time with the musicians.) Considering the costumes had been gathered, borrowed, made in just a few days, they looked wonderful. Rich Indian jackets for the nobles; earthy, ripped and mismatched items for Caliban; a very Indian take on a butler and a jester for Stephano and Trinculo. I was disappointed only with Ariel. For the sake of modesty and ease of movement, they all had black leggings and T-shirts beneath filmy blue-grey material… which meant that it was the black that predominated. This would be modified by the performance, but could not get away from the same basic flaw (to my mind.) It was a consequence of a limited budget, but, even more importantly, a serious lack of time to acquire a less pervasive base costume.
Other aspects also appeared for the first time. I had always suggested shadow puppets for one short sequence, illustrating Prospero’s explanation to Miranda as to how they arrived on the island. I had been assured that these were under construction, but had not yet seen them, let alone see them in action. But a sheet was hastily thrown up in front of one of the stage lights Ehsaaz had to enable the rehearsal to continue after dark. And considering they were pretty simplistic, cut out of cardboard, they were very effective. The issue was that there was no opportunity to work on how they might be used. I had asked for a series of tableaux, effectively, telling each part of the story with a still picture, like the pages of a storybook. But such things require time, and a calm environment in which one can focus; we had neither.
There was one remarkable, unexpected development. I had asked for a seagull to be created, to fly above the ship during the second scene, before the arrival of the tempest. One oof the Ariels had been assigned to fly it, and had dutifully stood at the back during rehearsals, waving an imaginary pole: I had envisaged a long cane with a piece of string at the end, with some sort of stylised representation of a bird, probably in origami form. So I was absolutely stunned (as was the Ariel concerned) when I was presented with a lifelike model of an actual seagull, complete with flapping wings. It had been made by Shreya, one of the students from Amity’s Mimesis group, who formed the backbone of the backstage team. I do not know for certain that she made everything (though I think she was the main designer behind other wonderful props, such as Prospero’s staff (with breakable versions for his final scene.) Ariel was delighted; so was I.
