At this stage, it's a little tempting to think that the back of our task here has been broken, with two shows now up and running in front of live audiences & just the one left to get on its feet in the rehearsal room (and learned! ). Tempting but not true. The interesting mental switch between the two running shows has to be achieved, performing the glorious romp of Dry Rot on a Saturday night for example, then adjusting your mind into the desperately funny but often bleakly comic Bedroom Farce world on the Monday. To add to that, rehearsals of the third play will sandwich in between those two events, adding another set of character thoughts and attitudes to the mix circling around your skull. Particular challenges again thrown up for us all, because to add to that melange, some parts come to us more easily than others and so not only can the preparation for a part differ from actor to actor, but the individual's own preparations can be wildly different as attitudes & behaviours far from his or her own have to be explored and found before setting foot on stage. That can mean that someone who is perfectly chatty backstage in one production can become reclusive and morose in another. Instead of merrily nattering between scenes, they can be found glowering in a corner. Or in my case, marching up and down obsessively going over & over the ghastly events that happened to my character in Bedroom Farce before we meet her on stage. Sergeant Fire in Dry Rot is mostly the uniform doing the work. All part of the strange magic of creating a character.
The oddness of rep can be brought home to you while waiting to go on stage. Standing backstage during Dry Rot, I can see the walls of Bedroom Farce all tucked up out of harm's way behind giant curtains. In the dressing room, rather unnervingly, Susannah's wig from Bedroom Farce sits expectantly on her stand as I climb into Sergeant Fire's regalia, leaving the 70's garments for their next outing in a week's time. Everyone is having a ball in Dry Rot, but the other character lovingly created weeks ago is very much a part of you and the costumes start to look rather sad, hanging aimlessly around. Occasionally, we might just have a word with our other characters, reassuring them that we'll be back. Have I mentioned the special kind of madness necessary in this business? All this while, we also hope that the words & moves are all very much in place and will spring back with very little effort- just a refresher run on Monday afternoon before galloping into that other world again.
The two plays still waiting to have life breathed into them are very different, reflecting Ian & Stefan's shrewd scheduling, giving audiences lots of choice and offering new writers valuable opportunity to be performed. Dickens' Great Expectations adapted by Neil Bartlett will be in the main house while Roma & the Flannelettes will be performed for the first time in the studio space. I will be getting stuck in to that play and working with yet another permutation of the summer season company. I think there's just one actor I don't get to work with over this season, although who knows what projects bubble up when we have a little time to ourselves? There is already talk of trying out writing projects by various members of the company, even a radio project; another reason why a rep company is such a good thing. It's a melting pot that can provoke all kinds of creative work between actors and trainee directors, anyone who has an idea.
So the week to come represents a little still water relatively speaking, with our days now to ourselves and Dry Rot to play with in the evenings.. what to do? Which hill to climb? Which much-neglected hobby to pursue? Of course, it's bound to rain...
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