Life Less Literary

Tonight was our first rehearsal off-book, flying without a safety net. We played through the whole of Act One in one go.

I had been dreading this, but over the last week or so everything has finally started falling into place. I’ve been carrying a copy of the script almost everywhere I go, out in the park walking the dog, running through lines in my head, pulling the dog-eared bundle of printouts from my pocket each time I feel a little unsure. It worked to the extent that, by last night, I could quite easily do a mental run-through of all my lines in the first half of the play (with of course the odd word substituted accidentally). So my worries slipped away, and I started to look forward to tonight.

But once I got there… well, almost everyone was late, which didn’t help, all that sitting around thinking. I became more and more worried that I would dry up: I know full well that I can recall my lines when I’m unstressed, walking around and with all the time in the world, but I know equally well that a bit of pressure can be enough to induce mental blocks. I pictured myself getting a few lines in and then having to be prompted for every remaining line of the act.

I needn’t have been so concerned. For two reasons: firstly, I did fine, I only needed prompting on two very small sentences (out of perhaps 70 or 80 that I get to say in Act One). And secondly, everyone else was far worse than I was, some stumbled on almost every line. Even Will, who is directing the play and also has a fairly small part in it, went to pieces after a good start and needed a fair bit of prompting.

So that was good. What was also good was that I felt my acting, although slightly hampered by my straining to remember words, was pretty good: I even threw in a few new facial contortions or exaggerated movements. The previous rehearsal had been, I felt, pretty atrocious on my part, so I was glad to get back into the swing of it. (I just hope everyone else gets it together soon… though I’m sure they will).

And Will seemed to acknowledge this at the end. He said something along the lines of “Andy and Dan acted like comic geniuses, wonderful stuff, so at least we have a brilliant solid double-act to base everything around”.

I love it when a plan comes together! OK, next week… Act Two! (I’m a lot less well prepared for that - so far).