7-7-12 No Time to Step Backwards

In the last four days at rehearsal, I have been in the scene we are working on for less than 90 minutes.  Today we spent four hours working on the final scene.  Final scenes in Shakespeare are often very tough and this final scene is certainly living up to that trend.  Lots of deaths... a few small fight moves...  numerous entrances and exits... it's a beast. 

Cassio doesn't enter until the last little bit of the scene.  He has five lines in the scene.  Two of them were cut today.  hahaha  I got to rehearsal at 2pm today and got on stage about 4:30ish. 

And that happens... it's part of being in theatre.  No big deal.  Of more importance is how I spend that "waiting" time. 

Before rehearsals began I kept talking about not wanting to craft a performance on my own independent of the other actors.  That is bad.

Now though, I do need to take what is done in rehearsal and improve my part on my own.  If the majority of the time I spend on my character is during rehearsals... I'm not going to give a good performance.  Less than 90 minutes of on stage time in the last four days?  That is not my cue to take it easy.  That means a lot of time outside of rehearsal to work on my own.

In fact, looking at the remainder of our rehearsal schedule, it is very possible that a number of scenes will never get the time to do moment-to-moment detail work again.  For the entire remainder of rehearsal, there are only 6 hours allotted for detailed scene work.  Some of that will, no doubt, be stage combat.  Most of our rehearsals at this point will be devoted to run-throughs.  The majority of new nuances that I am to develop will have to be done outside of rehearsal and then honed in rehearsal.  I need to take the scenes that we have crafted together, work on my aspect of those scenes outside of rehearsal, and then put them back into the mix and see what happens. 

The next five days of rehearsal is intense...

Sunday - Work through 2nd half.  (for the first time)
Monday - Run the show.  (for the first time)
Tuesday - Work through 1st half.
Wednesday - Work through 2nd half.
Thursday - Work through show.

Tomorrow we'll work through Act IV scene i.  We haven't looked at that for 10 days but there's no time to step backwards.  So what was I doing with my two hours today as I waited for my entrance?  I was going over the show... moment by moment...  entrances and exits... glances... handshakes... turns...   actions... objectives...  motivations...

Only 40 hours of rehearsal remain.  It's time to kick it up to the next level.

Off to spend some time with my script.  :)