Rehearsal 5, Tuesday 30th April 2002

Another quick bout of walking about like Worzel Gummidge's inebriated cousin is followed up with a glimpse into David's latest reading material. This week it appears to be 'Tantric Yoga' as he gets us into pairs for a slow 'roll-down' exercise. This could be some kind of test to see who can stay awake between scenes. I almost fail - probably largely to do with the immense amount of energy I burn up during rehearsals.

Still, back to reality. We put the chairs in rows and David asks who is familiar with working in masks. Apparently, being made to wear a paper bag on your head until you were 20 doesn't count, so I put my hand back down again. The people who push the audience about are going to wear masks. According to David, these ones are Italian 'Comedy-Ear Del Larty' masks, although no-one else seems to notice that they don't have any ears at all! (One up for me, there). Perhaps the lack of ears is what's meant to be funny - Italian humour, I guess.

Anyway, we spend most of the evening taking it in turn as groups to wear the masks and 'experiment'.

"What do I mean by experiment?" you ask.
"Surely, it would be irresponsible and, perhaps, dangerous to mix chemicals while wearing humorous masks - with or without ears."

No need to fear. In our case, or in my case at least, experimenting means staring at the masks blankly for a while until inspiration hits. Then donning the mask and totally forgetting what I meant to do, as I lurch about in front of the audience like a bewildered zombie. To put on the mask I have to remove my glasses, and so have to identify the direction of the audience by the catcalls and thrown objects whenever I face the wrong way.

Watching the others is fun too, with the possible exception of Darren's disturbing scared/scary paradox. Despite spending most of the time hidden under the table, his brief appearances and regular cries of fear should see about half the cast getting nightmares.

After we finally get through with the masks, we split into three groups again to put together a short prologue sketch for one of the shows in the Theatre brochure. My group decides to do 'Fame', which gives me a chance to show off my remarkable dancing abilities - which so dumbfounds the rest of the group that we confuse our cues at the end. The last show up is 'Postman Pat', which includesd Darren as a friendly cat - so ensuring the other half of the cast will have nightmares too.

Oh, crikey! The evening ends with a reminder that we've each got to prepare a short speech from the play to perform before the others on Thursday.

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