The intention for this week’s rehearsal was to start from the beginning and work our way steadily on; unfortunately, circumstances (as ever) got in the way. Chief problem today was the absence of Connie and Cristina, both unavoidably. As they tend to dominate the early scenes, it seemed sensible to abandon our first idea, and return to our usual pattern: to rehearse whatever scene we have the actors for. Though we did start with the opening, which involves everyone, as there are one or two who have never seen this.
After that, discovering we had everyone involved in the boat scene, we decided to tackle that, and when J arrived, we were also able to include the beach scene, in which he is the major character.
The boat scene is the most challenging in the whole play, as it involves several elements. The actors have to keep up the pace of the scene, so that it never drags (which means very solid learning of the lines and cues). They need to virtually shout, over the supposed sound of the waves and engine. They have to create the illusion of first assembling, the carrying, then climbing into a boat constructed basically of four ladders. They have to indicate the movement of the boat itself, both the rocking from side to side, then its progress across the Channel. And finally all of this has to be co-ordinated with whatever sound, music and lighting we can come up with to create the atmosphere.
And that is the aspect which is affecting me at present: the tech. Cristina from WeRESTART has mentioned one or two possibilities, so let us hope we can sort that out soon.
