Some directors just know what they're doing. Mike is one of those directors. He's making this up on the hoof, allowing the play to grow organically, but you get the impression you are in safe hands no matter what. First thing this morning, as I walked into Murray Hall, he came up to me and said "I think we've made a mistake about the waving in the trolley". And that only confirmed how "on it" the man is - last night I went to sleep thinking "Hmm, the waving doesn't seem right..." and this morning the director decided we would do something different.
Mike furthered the belief that he's got us all figured out by getting myself and Nico, and then Robbie and Leonie, to do our dialogue while walking about the space together. In the case of Sade and Marat, a great deal of their back-and-forth is conducted from static positions (a chair and a bath) and Mike was determined to prevent the declamatory nature of the text from obscuring the fact that it is still a conversation between two living, breathing human beings. Simple medicine, walking around, but it hit the spot precisely.
The day also saw Colin Sadler, the vocal coach, drop by to see how things were shaping up and he offered advice on RP, being heard over loud noises (a hazard of my part, especially) and general fix-ups. He arrived as we were figuring out how to chop the heads off imaginary aristocrats, then creating a graveyard of ghoulish, masked figures to frighten the bejaysus out of Charlotte. We got past Marat's liturgy before Mike called a halt and we sat down to read more of the play, keeping ourselves going forward in order to then go back to go forward again. By close of play, we had cracked the back of act two - wow, that's a lot of 'ACK' sounds. Tomorrow, we begin adding our background lunatics into the mix and the Coulmier family gains two members, although Ryan is off up to Liverpool for the day so things may get a bit unruly without the governor's iron grip on proceedings!
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I love this shit, it's right up my street!" Claire Hughes heartily approves of creating a Thriller-esque wasteland of spooks.
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