Ahhhh. Saturday. A day of rest. Oh no, wait...
Saturday was a day of fun for the cast of "Marat/Sade", as Mike felt a fun-run of the show would help keep it fresh and loose - two adjectives we like in this profession. It was nice to speed through the play, enjoying the characters, making fun of ourselves and each other, occasionally even finding new things we hadn't discovered already. At one point, Nico and I engaged in an "Alec Guinness-off" as we battled to see who could deliver our lines in the best Obi Wan Kenobi voice. Amazingly, a lot of the lines worked almost as well with Star Wars references as they did when referring to the French Revolution. We have decided that "Vader/Kenobi" would be a worthwhile sequel and shall be approaching George Lucas about it. To be honest, he should be approaching us - I don't know why no one has ever thought of this before. "After each pamphlet was published I had to go into hiding - on Tatooine. They came with lasers. A thousand men of the Imperial guard surrounded my house". Seamless.
Sunday was a real day of rest, and it turned out to be the hottest day of the year, closely followed by Monday when we gathered for rehearsal, men in shorts, ladies in dresses, everyone in a shiny gleam. Nico had come in an hour early to work on some things with Mike before the rest of the Merry Men arrived and it was a very steamy day all round, both weather-wise and acting-wise. There were some quick-fixes to be done on act one, keeping everything on track, while the singers tightened up songs and revised things which had become sloppy. We all reconvened shortly after midday and Mike took us through a visualisation exercise in which we imagined ourselves as the characters and plotted our mental states throughout the play. It really helped to reinforce this, like double-checking directions even though you're sure you're on the right track.
Lunch saw several of the cast indulge in ice-cream in an effort to replenish sugar supplies and keep cool, but it was still a glistening group who assembled to run the play with no set, costumes, props or air-conditioning. It was never going to be the best run ever under these circumstances - even lucky old me, topless though I was, ended up perspiring heavily, and there were dropped lines and a few bum notes. Nevertheless, it wasn't a disaster and didn't destroy confidence. We all know the show is in good shape and hopefully nothing will occur during the tech or dress to disillusion us! We go into the theatre for the first time tomorrow night which is very exciting - I keep having moments where I think "Wow - we're doing a play! HURRAH!" It's what all the training was for and now here comes the payoff.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: In a Scouse accent, "Calm down! Calm down!" The puppets in the National Assembly give Liverpulian Coulmier (played by the even more Liverpudlian Ryan) some cheeky backchat.
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