As I type this I am watching fireworks from my hotel room window. Indy is in a horrible dry spell and there was talk of no fireworks at all but they decided that professionals could still set them off, but amateurs couldn't.
Ummm yeah... I'm sure that will work this week.
Anyway...
Usually when you work on an equity production, Mondays are your day off. This gives you a full business day to do things like go to the bank, doctor, etc.
Sometimes, if you are working in a very religious part of the country, you'll have Sundays off. I know this was the case when I worked in Utah.
They way our schedule works out here, we have Fridays off for most of the rehearsal process. It's a great day to have off because, among other things, you can go and see other theatre.
Yesterday I was starting to get stir crazy. I had only left the hotel for rehearsals, to run, and to get groceries. I woke up at 6am to run 11 miles before the heat got too bad. I went over my scenes in my apartment, and then just got out for a while. I hit up the mall, got a burger at Steak and Shake, bought myself a new hat, quick little stop at the Godiva Chocolate shop...hahaha Included in all this was going to see a show. As always... it just makes me excited to do theatre when I see theatre.
Today I went to rehearsal. Now today we had an afternoon rehearsal. We usually rehearse from 6-10 but on Saturdays we rehearse from 1-5. Most people don't realize how different that feels. Your body just has different energies at different times of the day, and when you are used to performing or rehearsing at one time of the day, and then you have to do it at another time of the day, it can be strange... the rhythms are just different. It's one reason why I often try to stay away from seeing matinee performances. The odds are that the actors have been mostly performing in the evenings. The matinee is often an alteration from the routine. It can be jarring. So... it took me just a little bit extra to get locked in this morning before rehearsal. I could tell that my breath just wasn't that free, so I did a little extra stretching around my core to try and free up my breath. And my diction... yikes! If you wake up at 10 and have rehearsal at 6pm... that is 8 hours of talking time to naturally free up your diction a bit. If you wake up at 10 and have rehearsal at 1pm.... you have just lost 5 hours of natural warm up time for your diction... so you have to force it more with more exercises.
Today we worked the three scenes that make up Act I. This was fun because, while Act I is a light act for me in terms of lines, I do have a decent amount of stage time. So, I had a lot of time to focus on movement. I started to lock in some choices and then, the actor playing Iago, during one of his monologues, started mimicing my choices as he was talking about me. When you make a choice as an actor, it doesn't just help your own performance, it is a potential gift for other actors to use. The actor playing Iago did just that and made a really cool moment for himself by drawing from what I had been exploring. I was impressed that, even with this being the first day that I was trying it, he was so in-tuned to things that he picked up on it and used it. He's fun to watch, man.
The funny thing is, some of my movement choices I was kind of stealing from Othello. Cassio wants to be Othello someday. So I thought it might be kind of fun to draw from what he is doing movement-wise. What are some of his military stances... and then can I do them, but a bit sharper. Othello can be a bit more relaxed because he is the General. If Cassio is trying to impress Othello, does he keep his stances crisp? Official?
With an hour to go we switched over to rehearsing the drunken fight that takes place in Act II. Often when you have fight scenes in a play you have an official fight choreographer who is in charge of crafting the stage violence. We don't have one for our production. This meant that the cast and director were crafting the fight. Since I kind of drive the fight, and since I have done a good bit of fight combat, I had a lot of input into what was going on.
All I can say is, this may be the coolest freaking fight I have ever done! Cassio is the #2 soldier in this army but what we hear from Iago is that Cassio is more a scholar than a soldier. hahaha... nope... not after this fight! In this fight we really get to see how vicious Cassio might be on a battlefield. I take on a total of four people and, at one point, I cut one guy with my sword, shove him out of the way, pick up his sword (so now I have two), and start fighting two other guys! In other fight in other shows I have fought with sword and shield, I have fought with sword and dagger and I have fought with machete and side-handle baton. I have never fought with sword and sword! It's awesome. I felt like some crazy lethal super-hero and we all worked together to craft some really cool moments. (Of course, in the story, Cassio is fighting friends... not foes. So the more vicious Cassio fights, the more trouble he is getting himself into.)
One benefit of having a fight choreographer is that they are very good about reminding the actors to fight slowly. It is so easy to speed up and go too fast too early when you first learn a fight. And stage combat weapons are real weapons. They have dulled edges but we can do real damage with them. So, I've got to remember to keep things slow. We really don't need to be going even close to show speed until the week of the show. If I can't do it perfect at 50% speed, there is no way I can do it perfect at 100% speed. And if I don't do it perfect, there's a good chance someone will get hurt.
I went to wal-mart today and picked up a couple of thin dowel rods. I can practice the moves with the dowel rods in my hands. Dowel rods mimic rapiers pretty well. Baseball bats or whiffle-ball bats mimic broadswords pretty well. I actually brought my personal stage combat sword but the dowel rods will be a little bit safer in the hotel room and will freak people out a little less. hahaha
Meanwhile... Cassio's sword is beautiful. Oh how I love it. It's delightful and looks so damn good.
There is always the day when the swords first come out that most of the cast (in my experience it's usually most of the guys) turns into an 8 year old jedi wanna-be. Today was that day.
The force was totally with Cassio... even if he was drunk.
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