Wheeew. So here is a rather belated post for week 8 which seems now on Monday ancient history as we go jibbering into week 9 and the technical rehearsal of Dry Rot. Apologies for the lateness, but week 8 consisted of the collision of two shows in my head: Dry Rot by day & Bedroom Farce by night.
I definitely feel I know what it's like to be that guy spinning plates on sticks while 'hurry up' music plays frantically in the background! One play is as I've said before a ha ha comedy the other an oh-my-god comedy and the two are odd bedfellows ( no pun intended seriously), rendering this actor's brain more mush-like than usual and the default facial expression that of dazed bafflement. Yesterday I forgot where I'd parked my car. Again I feel compelled to acknowledge that this ain't rocket science or brain surgery- no lives are lost if an actor fluffs a line- but it is very, very special to experience this and to also remain calm. At times that 'special' means tired and emotional.. for some reason your brain takes a while to leave one show and get into the other, resulting in lots of cross-looking people cursing themselves for missing that line or 'dropping' that gag.
The effect of charging about in a rehearsal room for 6 hours can mean that the other show you thought was rock solid suddenly slips out of your grasp. Add to the mix the utterly extraordinary weather, resulting in temperatures up in the 30's in the rafters of TBTL or as we call it the rehearsal room and it's a wonder our amazing lead actors can remember their own names when it comes to 8 o'clock and curtain up! Again this is time to say what a champion job Stefan & Ian do casting people who can not only do the job but who get on with it and keep the off- stage dramas to a minimum. To say nothing of the production team who are also running several shows in their heads and having to deal with us lot.
Ok- I will admit that I should have been toiling over a hot computer yesterday but as a direct result of that aforementioned insane weather and the fact that my fellow actors are all such blastedly excellent company out of rehearsals and that Keswick is a little piece of heaven on earth, I spent all day eating & drinking by the lake and generally mucking about. Shoot me.!
Our first week of audiences for Bedroom Farce have been a great education, varying each night in their reactions, but always 'getting it'. It's a cheeky title for a play that contains so much anguish, but as we all know, often the funniest things happen to us all when life seems grimmest. Some characters are funny to listen to, some disasterous but their behaviour produces genuine situational comedy. We've had quite a few lovely comments as we've been busily acting away, from people all caught up in the action and excellent feedback from friendly folk in the bar. Whereas in Dry Rot, we are all busy finding funny things to do, in Bedroom Farce you sometimes have to resist any attempts at 'funny' or waving from the train as Stefan calls it. In Dry Rot we're all on that huge comedy train and waving for all we're worth. And in this instance it's just the thing to do! Buy a ticket and climb on board. You know you want to. We got to peek at the set today, which is absolutely perfect; a country house hotel of yesteryear. Now we get to climb into our lovely frocks and play on it and we can't wait!
Monday 28 May 2012
Sunday 20 May 2012
Week Seven: Through the Tech & Into a Live Audience
Oooh. Tech weeks really can divide people. Some love 'em, some not so much. Personally I really dig getting in to the space and having a good old bounce on the mattress and fettle with doors & light switches etc. Then a fair bit of time passes as things are done with the aforementioned bits & bobs by skilled folk dressed in black and you realise it's been a while since you did any acting or even thought about your lines. Then you get scared. It was even scarier on Monday to be told that as far as Stefan was concerned, we wouldn't benefit from another run through so we could have all of Tuesday off. A quick glance at our scared & blood drained little faces and he shrewdly suggested a line run, to keep us on our toes. Our Stage Manager Daisy kept a close eye on us to prevent us from larking about through this line run and picked us up on every little slip.
Our bedroom world on stage in the main house has been lovingly created by the devoted team at TBTL and resembles three bedrooms collided together. Those old enough to have been there will I am sure, enjoy the 70's references that are oozing out of the wallpaper & furnishings. Everyone needs to explore the newly created space to get a sense of sightlines for the audience and how vital things like the beds differ from those knocked up for use in the rehearsal room. This is especially important if fights take place in a space, where the material a bed is made of can change how a fight will work, or require change to the blocking to prevent an actor knocking themselves out on a metal bedstead.
One odd part of a tech is the way in which a close-knit bunch of people in rehearsal can become separated by moving into dressing rooms and the sudden addition of walls where none previously existed. You can feel distanced from people you've been sharing the same space with, especially in this set with all its walls, doors & black flats. I certainly missed being able to sit by & watch the other cast go through their scenes as I had done in the rehearsal room.
We have been relishing seeing each others' costumes and especially some of the wigs. Yes we're professionals, but we are human and so we too get a kick out of seeing each other all dressed up.. or down, depending on the desired finished look.. As for wigs, well a good wig just adds to the whole excitement. Needless to say, that coupled with the good spirit with which everyone seems to work here has resulted in us whizzing through a large chunk of the technical rehearsal in great time, allowing us to be let out a little early for a well-deserved glass of something refreshing-- I mean, for an early night. That is a first for me! Most techs can drag on day after day into the wee small hours. Here though, everything is done with great efficiency. So we got an extra 'last night' of freedom. The luxury of being able to wander home after having had a good feast in a local eatery with your fellow actors & crew is to be cherished wherever possible. Certainly, from here on, it'll be Sundays only that we can sit and watch the sun set over the lakes & mountains. I'm not complaining! Just making an observation..! Carpe Diem & all that.
So after our amazingly painless two days of technical rehearsal, with only minor interruptions to sort out amongst other things one broken bed, which went under an actor as he sat while uttering the immortal lines, '..a great, heavy weight' and a slightly bent door which sees a lot of action in this play,
Friday raced past in the shape of two more runs on the main stage, one a tech/dress, the other a dress rehearsal proper with photographer in action.. Then Saturday dawned and a second dress and the first paying audience in the evening, what we'd all been waiting for.
Now we have our first show under our belts- a preview by name but a show nonetheless- we can start to see how it will all 'work'. The audience in any live show is like the missing cast member; their presence changes how a comedy feels. Their reactions can be guessed at and anticipated in rehearsal but until they are all out there living & breathing and laughing when they feel like it, the actors have to wait. Saturday's audience were ready to have good evening; within minutes of curtain-up lovely warm chuckles and guffaws greeted the opening scene between Maggie Tagney & Steven Aintree. Standing & listening by the prompt corner, I felt that heartening feeling that everything would be just fine, which when you're playing a crazy person can sometimes feel all too far away!
Needless to say, from the inside we were all feeling a bit mixed about how we were doing, what we were doing, what might be tried the next night, all the usual worries and niggles of a new opening.
Bottom line, lots of happy smiling faces, especially from Stefan & Ian waiting for us in the bar.
So- roll on next week and lots more audiences to play with. Oh- and a return to the whacky world of Dry Rot... no pressure..!
Our bedroom world on stage in the main house has been lovingly created by the devoted team at TBTL and resembles three bedrooms collided together. Those old enough to have been there will I am sure, enjoy the 70's references that are oozing out of the wallpaper & furnishings. Everyone needs to explore the newly created space to get a sense of sightlines for the audience and how vital things like the beds differ from those knocked up for use in the rehearsal room. This is especially important if fights take place in a space, where the material a bed is made of can change how a fight will work, or require change to the blocking to prevent an actor knocking themselves out on a metal bedstead.
One odd part of a tech is the way in which a close-knit bunch of people in rehearsal can become separated by moving into dressing rooms and the sudden addition of walls where none previously existed. You can feel distanced from people you've been sharing the same space with, especially in this set with all its walls, doors & black flats. I certainly missed being able to sit by & watch the other cast go through their scenes as I had done in the rehearsal room.
We have been relishing seeing each others' costumes and especially some of the wigs. Yes we're professionals, but we are human and so we too get a kick out of seeing each other all dressed up.. or down, depending on the desired finished look.. As for wigs, well a good wig just adds to the whole excitement. Needless to say, that coupled with the good spirit with which everyone seems to work here has resulted in us whizzing through a large chunk of the technical rehearsal in great time, allowing us to be let out a little early for a well-deserved glass of something refreshing-- I mean, for an early night. That is a first for me! Most techs can drag on day after day into the wee small hours. Here though, everything is done with great efficiency. So we got an extra 'last night' of freedom. The luxury of being able to wander home after having had a good feast in a local eatery with your fellow actors & crew is to be cherished wherever possible. Certainly, from here on, it'll be Sundays only that we can sit and watch the sun set over the lakes & mountains. I'm not complaining! Just making an observation..! Carpe Diem & all that.
So after our amazingly painless two days of technical rehearsal, with only minor interruptions to sort out amongst other things one broken bed, which went under an actor as he sat while uttering the immortal lines, '..a great, heavy weight' and a slightly bent door which sees a lot of action in this play,
Friday raced past in the shape of two more runs on the main stage, one a tech/dress, the other a dress rehearsal proper with photographer in action.. Then Saturday dawned and a second dress and the first paying audience in the evening, what we'd all been waiting for.
Now we have our first show under our belts- a preview by name but a show nonetheless- we can start to see how it will all 'work'. The audience in any live show is like the missing cast member; their presence changes how a comedy feels. Their reactions can be guessed at and anticipated in rehearsal but until they are all out there living & breathing and laughing when they feel like it, the actors have to wait. Saturday's audience were ready to have good evening; within minutes of curtain-up lovely warm chuckles and guffaws greeted the opening scene between Maggie Tagney & Steven Aintree. Standing & listening by the prompt corner, I felt that heartening feeling that everything would be just fine, which when you're playing a crazy person can sometimes feel all too far away!
Needless to say, from the inside we were all feeling a bit mixed about how we were doing, what we were doing, what might be tried the next night, all the usual worries and niggles of a new opening.
Bottom line, lots of happy smiling faces, especially from Stefan & Ian waiting for us in the bar.
So- roll on next week and lots more audiences to play with. Oh- and a return to the whacky world of Dry Rot... no pressure..!
Sunday 13 May 2012
Week Six: Time to Focus
Whew... at last it seems the chance is come to get down to settle on one play, one story, one character & what a luxurious thing that is after see-sawing back & forth from show to show for the past few weeks! The atmosphere in the rehearsal room subtly changes a little.. Thankfully this crowd are as funny and generous as ever between scenes, but the difference is what happens when Stefan calls us to action; more signifacant adjustments are quietly made to the characters & relationships as he gives us new ideas to try or lets us continue to fine tune 'problem' moments, giving us specific notes to work through. As we now have the lines set firmly in we can experiment further.
So as we charge through this short week, we run Act One & work bits, then do the same with Act Two, then up the pace to running the whole show once with notes & work then finally on Friday we blasted through the whole thing twice. We often find ourselves ditching ideas or blocking that we have stuck to for weeks, as now the story is becoming more ingrained in our heads and old early days notions are dismissed. The Thursday run was marked by us having a small but high calibre audience of four of our esteemed colleagues from the Dolls' House company who were keen to watch us during an afternoon off - they will not get the chance to see Bedroom Farce until sometime in October otherwise. Having bumped into these guys in the pub the previous night, we all leapt on the idea of having some of our 'other half' sit in to watch a run. This was okayed by Stefan and goes on record as another TBTL rep company first. FYI, rehearsals are very private things for a reason; actors & directors need to feel free, uninhibited & un-judged prior to opening a show & the last thing contemplated by any of them is an 'early' audience whose reactions can upset the sometimes delicate balance. In this case though, we are already working - and getting along famously - with these guys and so had no reservations about admitting them to our hallowed sanctum. I cannot stress how unusual that is. I know of actors who have even banned their understudy from the rehearsal room, never mind other thesps. Heavens only knows why your understudy shouldn't see you at work.. but there is nowt queer as folk. Needless to say it really helped us to hear and see the reactions of our colleagues to the extreme & funny goings-on of Bedroom Farce and we were chuffed to bits to have them there. Next day even more chairs appeared & it was the turn of all the important production folk to sit in and make technical notes between (blessedly) guffawing with laughter & groaning in all the right places.
I think we all feel pretty good about the state of things at this stage; our glorious leader gives clear and zingy notes, buoying us all along with great feedback and encouragement. The only problem at times is genuine hysterics from yours truly as Susannah ( and others-you know who you are!), veering from tears to laughter if any little thing goes wrong. I lost a prop address book at one point that shot across the stage in the middle of a big tantrum scene, only to have to chase after it a few moments later in order to make essential use of it. That provoked much merriment around the room, setting me off in the middle of my tears and misery. Very professional.. must tackle that before inviting a paying audience in!
As I write we come to the end of our last weekend of 'freedom' after week six. So we have been making the most of going out for walks, visiting friends & family and generally chilling out before plunging into the tech week and the dark inside of a theatre. Cinema club, walking club and most importantly, ukulele club might all have to wait a little as we tech our first show, open it then get into double shifts of Dry Rot rehearsals by day & Bedroom Farce performances by night. Don't even think about play number three: Roma & the Flannelettes or Great Expectations!
Looking out of my window, I don't think we'll be missing any stunning weather as we disappear into the dark of the theatre itself at last to ready ourselves for the lovely audience we now need so much to make our play really take off.
Don't let that weather put you off venturing up to Keswick and joining us one night for a rollicking good show!
So as we charge through this short week, we run Act One & work bits, then do the same with Act Two, then up the pace to running the whole show once with notes & work then finally on Friday we blasted through the whole thing twice. We often find ourselves ditching ideas or blocking that we have stuck to for weeks, as now the story is becoming more ingrained in our heads and old early days notions are dismissed. The Thursday run was marked by us having a small but high calibre audience of four of our esteemed colleagues from the Dolls' House company who were keen to watch us during an afternoon off - they will not get the chance to see Bedroom Farce until sometime in October otherwise. Having bumped into these guys in the pub the previous night, we all leapt on the idea of having some of our 'other half' sit in to watch a run. This was okayed by Stefan and goes on record as another TBTL rep company first. FYI, rehearsals are very private things for a reason; actors & directors need to feel free, uninhibited & un-judged prior to opening a show & the last thing contemplated by any of them is an 'early' audience whose reactions can upset the sometimes delicate balance. In this case though, we are already working - and getting along famously - with these guys and so had no reservations about admitting them to our hallowed sanctum. I cannot stress how unusual that is. I know of actors who have even banned their understudy from the rehearsal room, never mind other thesps. Heavens only knows why your understudy shouldn't see you at work.. but there is nowt queer as folk. Needless to say it really helped us to hear and see the reactions of our colleagues to the extreme & funny goings-on of Bedroom Farce and we were chuffed to bits to have them there. Next day even more chairs appeared & it was the turn of all the important production folk to sit in and make technical notes between (blessedly) guffawing with laughter & groaning in all the right places.
I think we all feel pretty good about the state of things at this stage; our glorious leader gives clear and zingy notes, buoying us all along with great feedback and encouragement. The only problem at times is genuine hysterics from yours truly as Susannah ( and others-you know who you are!), veering from tears to laughter if any little thing goes wrong. I lost a prop address book at one point that shot across the stage in the middle of a big tantrum scene, only to have to chase after it a few moments later in order to make essential use of it. That provoked much merriment around the room, setting me off in the middle of my tears and misery. Very professional.. must tackle that before inviting a paying audience in!
As I write we come to the end of our last weekend of 'freedom' after week six. So we have been making the most of going out for walks, visiting friends & family and generally chilling out before plunging into the tech week and the dark inside of a theatre. Cinema club, walking club and most importantly, ukulele club might all have to wait a little as we tech our first show, open it then get into double shifts of Dry Rot rehearsals by day & Bedroom Farce performances by night. Don't even think about play number three: Roma & the Flannelettes or Great Expectations!
Looking out of my window, I don't think we'll be missing any stunning weather as we disappear into the dark of the theatre itself at last to ready ourselves for the lovely audience we now need so much to make our play really take off.
Don't let that weather put you off venturing up to Keswick and joining us one night for a rollicking good show!
Tuesday 8 May 2012
If it's Tuesday, then it must be..er..
So we rattled to the end of week 5. Fifth week already!! And done with! Then another b****** bank holiday weekend ( I am guessing TBTL would be 100% behind redistributing some of these Spring bank hols elsewhere in the calendar as we seem to have had more than our fair share & consequently lost valuable days for rehearsing ). Still at least it has meant that folk have been able to dash from one end of the country to another to spend valued time with in my case aging parentals, before high-tailing it back to the beautiful if utterly soggy & cloud-draped Cumbrian Mountains.
As I flew through the Sussex countryside on Monday morning courtesy of the Gatwick Express, which for reasons known only to them didn't stop at Gatwick (go figure), I reflected on where we have got to thus far. Feelings in the BF/DR camp ( there are 7 of us doing both out of the 8 who met to start BF rehearsals, remember ) are very much that one play appears to ask great emotionally truthful things of us, while the other simply requires that you stand in point A at a certain time, say your line, get a laugh, then get off. Week 5 was a split one as mentioned previously, meaning 2 days on Dry Rot & 3 on Bedroom Farce- still keeping up? You are? Good.. So inevitably we end up comparing these two kinds of play- and that can be dangerous. With Dry Rot, we seem to feel rather guilty about simply playing for the fun of a thing, but as was written on a chalk board in the local park pitch & putt hut, 'A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men' ( Roald Dahl). I think he knew a thing or two about such stuff and that sums up why Ian Forrest has chosen this lovely romp. Both BF & DR are going to have people rolling in the proverbials, but in very different ways & for different reasons.. The creation of Dry Rot has also been written about by one of the creators, Lord Rix in his biography and so it can be seen to an extent how the play was put together simply by numbers to give folk something to have a jolly good laugh about after a World War & years of rationing.. if you're not too careful you can then conclude that the whole thing is shallow fluff. That would be very wrong. You would then have to dismiss Morecambe & Wise, Dick Emery, The Two Ronnies etc etc. And frankly, if those acts leave you cold then you are in fact not alive. Or the right audience for us here!
If I'm repeating myself, I can only put it down to the unearthly effect this schedule has on the brain. It could of course be the local brew.. or all that fresh air...? Honestly, we are all having trouble remembering what we did which day and with whom..
Anyhoo. On to the prospect of week 6, which gives us one bijou day on Dry Rot where we hurtle through the piece once more, linking up all the gorgeous work that people have done separately & apart, tightening cues and polishing entrances ( stop it). Then we leave that play for almost two weeks and re-enter our alternative identities in Bedroom Farce ( and Dolls' House for Nick, James & Nicky). I feel that at this point I should add a full roll-call of our glorious Dry Rotters:
In Alphabetical order
Stephen Aintree, George Banks, James Duke, Jessica Ellis, Nicky Goldie, Nicolas Goode, Chris Hannon, Adrian Metcalfe, Zoe Mills, and last but by no means etc, Lou Yates.
To get your head fully round the full summer season cast list, who is doing what in all our shows etc, please visit the Theatre by the Lake site for lots more info.
Buy your tickets now!! Seriously, the good folk of Keswick always book early so do it now to avoid disappointment!
So onward into week 6.. The Dry Rot day is over and I felt a tremendous urge to imprint the moment on my retinas, like when you are in a stunningly lovely place in a foreign country for what might be the last time, so I was trying to burn the moves and lines even more firmly into my head and storing it safely for retrieval way off at the other end of May. The outcome may be rather like a squirrel with its nuts initially, but we live in hope. Then tomorrow getting our heads down for the run into Bedroom Farce tech week next week & our glorious opening night on the 19th May. We'll be running the play over & over to eliminate the bits that still feel shaky, making slight changes to get the thing to work 'effortlessly' before presenting it to a live audience. Effortlessly is in quotes for a very good reason. Ayckbourn is hard!! Currently I am trying not to think about how we handle the huge laughs we'll doubtless get as a result of Stefan's urging us on to braver choices. Cue deep breathing & much inner pep-talk. The last thing anyone should do right now is panic.. Welcome back to Bedroom Farce for the big push!
As I flew through the Sussex countryside on Monday morning courtesy of the Gatwick Express, which for reasons known only to them didn't stop at Gatwick (go figure), I reflected on where we have got to thus far. Feelings in the BF/DR camp ( there are 7 of us doing both out of the 8 who met to start BF rehearsals, remember ) are very much that one play appears to ask great emotionally truthful things of us, while the other simply requires that you stand in point A at a certain time, say your line, get a laugh, then get off. Week 5 was a split one as mentioned previously, meaning 2 days on Dry Rot & 3 on Bedroom Farce- still keeping up? You are? Good.. So inevitably we end up comparing these two kinds of play- and that can be dangerous. With Dry Rot, we seem to feel rather guilty about simply playing for the fun of a thing, but as was written on a chalk board in the local park pitch & putt hut, 'A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men' ( Roald Dahl). I think he knew a thing or two about such stuff and that sums up why Ian Forrest has chosen this lovely romp. Both BF & DR are going to have people rolling in the proverbials, but in very different ways & for different reasons.. The creation of Dry Rot has also been written about by one of the creators, Lord Rix in his biography and so it can be seen to an extent how the play was put together simply by numbers to give folk something to have a jolly good laugh about after a World War & years of rationing.. if you're not too careful you can then conclude that the whole thing is shallow fluff. That would be very wrong. You would then have to dismiss Morecambe & Wise, Dick Emery, The Two Ronnies etc etc. And frankly, if those acts leave you cold then you are in fact not alive. Or the right audience for us here!
If I'm repeating myself, I can only put it down to the unearthly effect this schedule has on the brain. It could of course be the local brew.. or all that fresh air...? Honestly, we are all having trouble remembering what we did which day and with whom..
Anyhoo. On to the prospect of week 6, which gives us one bijou day on Dry Rot where we hurtle through the piece once more, linking up all the gorgeous work that people have done separately & apart, tightening cues and polishing entrances ( stop it). Then we leave that play for almost two weeks and re-enter our alternative identities in Bedroom Farce ( and Dolls' House for Nick, James & Nicky). I feel that at this point I should add a full roll-call of our glorious Dry Rotters:
In Alphabetical order
Stephen Aintree, George Banks, James Duke, Jessica Ellis, Nicky Goldie, Nicolas Goode, Chris Hannon, Adrian Metcalfe, Zoe Mills, and last but by no means etc, Lou Yates.
To get your head fully round the full summer season cast list, who is doing what in all our shows etc, please visit the Theatre by the Lake site for lots more info.
Buy your tickets now!! Seriously, the good folk of Keswick always book early so do it now to avoid disappointment!
So onward into week 6.. The Dry Rot day is over and I felt a tremendous urge to imprint the moment on my retinas, like when you are in a stunningly lovely place in a foreign country for what might be the last time, so I was trying to burn the moves and lines even more firmly into my head and storing it safely for retrieval way off at the other end of May. The outcome may be rather like a squirrel with its nuts initially, but we live in hope. Then tomorrow getting our heads down for the run into Bedroom Farce tech week next week & our glorious opening night on the 19th May. We'll be running the play over & over to eliminate the bits that still feel shaky, making slight changes to get the thing to work 'effortlessly' before presenting it to a live audience. Effortlessly is in quotes for a very good reason. Ayckbourn is hard!! Currently I am trying not to think about how we handle the huge laughs we'll doubtless get as a result of Stefan's urging us on to braver choices. Cue deep breathing & much inner pep-talk. The last thing anyone should do right now is panic.. Welcome back to Bedroom Farce for the big push!
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