Rehearsal 15, Tuesday 11th June 2002

Since our last rehearsal, Gary G, Shelley and I have appeared in our other performance with the open-air theatre event. Before we had done that show, I had been kind of nervous that too many people were going to come to it and see me make a mess of it. I needn't have worried, apart from Eddie, who'd probably mainly come to see his good friend Gary, and Deborah, no-one else from this group came at all. Not even Matt or Jenny who'd been quite clear about coming. Oh well.

Actually, I'm already missing the people and the manic mayhem that symbolised the rehearsals for that show. The whole thing was a kind of disorganised creativity, as opposed to this - which is more like organised insanity.

Today, we spend some time practising the prologue, where we take on our 'actor' personas and mingle with the crowd before being rudely brought to earth by the surprise nature of the performance.

We also work on the 'dumb show'. I don't want you to think that I am being rude about the whole performance now, or that I have unexpectedly turned American. No, it is a quite literal term where we all freeze on the spot in positions and attitudes clearly laid down by Gogol himself - although some of the instructions lead one to believe that the average 19th Century Russian actor was a somewhat deformed affair. Perhaps it's all that cold Siberian type weather. In fact, perhaps Gogol, forgetting the extreme winter climes and the lack of decent heating at the popular theatrical venues of the time, mistook the unfortunate, and rigid, demise of the entire cast at the premiere, for a spontaneous act of inspiration, and so wrote it into the script.

David is very keen for us to get the 'dumb show' to match Gogol's instructions, so we had to practise getting into the position repeatedly and holding it for long periods. I get the impression that he feels that he may not be able to get us to act or speak as he wants us to, but we'll damn well learn how to stand still (or, in my case, kneel) correctly.

The soccer World Cup is under way at the moment and we're all excited about the prospects of the England team after beating Argentina. There is another game tomorrow which will determine whether we play on Saturday. Showing us his true priorities, David says there will be no rehearsal on Saturday if England are playing. Hurrah!

The other bit of news we get in the pub afterwards is the name of the play that we'll be performing next year. Actually, when I say 'we', I mean The Royal Company - David's keen to remind us that all bets will be off and we'll have to prove ourselves to get into that production. We are all keen to point out that it is sure to be a major hit, with such astonishingly good directing. I won't reveal the name of the play in question, for the sole purpose of protecting David's plans and not at all to do with keeping the acting competition in the dark.

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