Rehearsal 8, Thursday 9th May 2002

On my way to tonight's rehearsal, I've been to the library and picked up a video of the community theatre affair that some of the cast were involved in last year. Last night, I seem to have signed up for the sequel….

Tonight, we do away with the walking about at high speed and have time for a bit of chatting. I show Gary the video box and he points out people I know in the pictures on the front. After a bit, David calls us into a circle to recap on the situation so far and what we're going to do from now on. On the bad news front, Naomi has dropped out - there is a certain amount of part shuffling to fill the gap.

David tells us he wants to do some 'skeleton blocking' over the next few rehearsals. I try to point out that it probably goes beyond the bounds of acceptability to introduce the undead into a famous Russian play - despite the inspiration offered by my acting. David wisely backs off quickly from the potentially career damaging direction. He says he was talking about something to do with building a house: working on the brickwork and structure first; adding the wallpaper and curtains last.

He reckons that now I'll write something in this diary about turning up to rehearse a play and being given a building course instead. Well, I won't - so there!

We spend a bit of time working out and practising the beginning of the play, where we move from mingling with the audience to starting the first act. This involves large parts of the company walking to and from the doors while David shouts: "No! Do it again!". Ah, this'll be the walking exercise that we missed out earlier.

We move on to the first act - which takes up the rest of the evening. Luckily, I'm in this bit, so I get to join in rather than sit and watch. All goes reasonably well except for a small slip-up: I read a line that doesn't exist. I suffer the slings and outrageous taunts of my fortunate fellows as they accuse me of being on drugs and rewriting Gogol. I figure it's best not to admit that I've been comparing our script to another translation earlier in the day and got a bit confused. With a bit of luck, they'll never find out.

"Anyway," says David, "I'm probably going to cut that line."

Barbara says that it's a funny line and shouldn't be cut, but David reckons he's planning to cut loads of funny lines. Now, I may not be a famous director, but it seems to me that the concept of shortening a comedy play by cutting out the funny lines is not quite as well thought out as it may at first appear.

In an effort to help, I suggest that he cuts out the second and third acts completely, to leave more time for the others. I've not read them through, because I don't appear again until Act 4, but it seems to me that they would be unlikely to add anything important to an already solid script.
Barbara reminds me that she is in Act 2 quite a bit and can vouch for it. We compromise and agree that only the third act needs to be dropped. David, however, seems quite prepared to ignore this democratic decision and ride roughshod over the wishes of the cast. So much for 'Theatre of the People'.

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