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Previews…Press night….Press Club?

Our production of Glengarry Glen Ross is now in previews and our opening/press night is nearly upon us. As I mentioned previously, our tech week went incredibly smoothly and we were able to get a few full dress runs in, hence the first preview wasn’t too nerve-racking…..!

The actors did incredibly well, and it was fantastic to finally get an audience in and watch how and what they reacted to. Sometimes when I have been working on a show, I take time to actually see what an audience is doing, rather than the actors on stage! It is really intriguing to see how people are engaging with the show. One unusual aspect of the play is its brevity. Some audience members seemed surprised when the lights came up for the interval as they weren’t expecting the first half to be over so quickly. It is an exceptionally fast paced play that doesn’t seem to stop for a moment. The actors have commented on it being like a rollercoaster, once they are on they can’t get off, and just as they are really getting in to it, the whole thing is over!

Chris Honer and I have been taking notes during the preview performances and we have continued to work during the daytimes on scenes that still need a little work. The kind of notes we have taken can vary from an issue to do with blocking, mistakes over lines, or a problem with sound or part of the set. Thankfully all the notes we have taken have been about fairly minor things. You can normally tell how happy the director is by seeing how many extra rehearsals we need prior to opening night!

Chris and I will continue to see the show once or twice a week to keep a director’s eye on it…..Later on this week I go in to rehearsals for a one man show I am directing titled ‘Mr Happiness’ by David Mamet. Performances are at 6pm before Glengarry Glen Ross on 31st March, and April 1st and 2nd. Before I know it, we will be back in full time rehearsals for the final production in the current home of the Library Theatre, ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’…..! But before all that, press night beckons……Thanks for reading this blog, and look out for the next one!

Six men and an old lady……?

We are now finally in the theatre and gearing up for our first preview on Friday night. It has been so exciting for the actors to finally get on the set and get used to the new environment. There is always a little bit of adjusting to the set as although everything is measured out in the rehearsal room it is never an exact replica of what they will be working with on stage.

It was great to see the revolve working during our technical rehearsal as I have not worked on a show using the revolve in my time here at The Library Theatre. I am always surprised at quite how large the stage is and what one can do with it design wise.

This show would probably win the award for ‘most stress free technical period’ as we haven’t been rushed and the technical sessions have gone incredibly smoothly. This has a lot to do with the fact that the play is relatively short and doesn’t have a huge amount of technical requirements. Our deputy stage manger informed me that there are normally twice the number of cues in an average Library Theatre show.

One issue has been the actors moving off the large step on stage and in to the darkness in the scene changes. We have had to sort the problem of them ‘walking blind’ which one of the actors commented made him feel like a little old lady walking off the stage….!

Even at this stage there can still be changes made to the play. We have altered aspects of the blocking and there is always the possibility of trying new ideas during the technical rehearsal. During our runs of the play on stage I have had to make sure that I watch from different seats in the auditorium to check on the sightlines. As a result of checking, we have changed heights of tables and chairs and avoided putting large things on the desks that might block the view of the audience.

So we are now about to enter our photo call followed by our final dress rehearsal. We are looking forward to finally have an audience tonight and see what they make of it!

Practice, Practice, Practice……and a poke in the eye…

We are fast approaching the end of the fourth and final week in the rehearsal room. Next week it gets even more exciting when we move in to the theatre for the technical rehearsal and get to see the set in all its glory.

We are concentrating on doing runs of the play now and it feels like it’s in really good shape. I have been working on finding the right Jazz music for the start of both acts and during the scene changes. I have played music in the rehearsal room, experimenting with different tracks during the run through. It is much easier to try the music in the room when they are running the scenes so that you can feel if it works with the play, rather than playing it at home and therefore out of context.It is important to add layers of detail after having watched the run through of the play and to always keep an eye and ear out for whether the story of a particular scene, section, or even line is crystal clear for the audience. I have found that one of the most important things when directing is to be able to watch the same scene over and over again with fresh eyes.

One important detail that we have layered in to the work on the play is that the actors must always be aware of their environment. The first act is set in a public space whereas the second act is set in more of a private space. Sometimes the actors shout too loud in the first act or are not discreet enough and we will remind them of their ‘immediate circumstances’ in this case, that they are in a public place.The actors are really flying with the fast paced sections of the play, so much so that one actor got poked in the eye whilst they were moving manically around the stage…..! The difficulty is that if one beat or word is dropped it can actually destroy the rhythm of the scene. There is quite a lot of pressure in this respect and the cast have commented on how important it is that they are 100% alert when doing this play and how difficult it is to do when they are tired.

Plenty of drama….and dumplings

Time is flying and we are over half way through our rehearsal period now. The second act can be tricky and we are finding new details and having to solve new problems each time we work on it. It does require a lot of repetition to master what the actors call the ‘100 miles per hour’ dialogue.

This week we had our ‘press call’, which was held at The Yang Sin Chinese Restaurant in central Manchester. Chris Honer introduced the play and the themes that it explores, followed by a showing of sections of the first three scenes, which were filmed by Channel M. The actors were interviewed by various journalists and we all got a chance to have Chinese food for breakfast!…an interesting morning and nice break from the rehearsal room!This week our photographer Gerry came in to take rehearsal room pictures. They look really great, with some great action shots, particularly of Richard Dormer who plays Roma, attacking the furniture!
Our dialect coach Sally Hague has just been in to check how the Chicago accents are developing. Sally watches a run through of a section of the play and then reports back to the actors about particular words or phrases where they are slipping out of the accent. We have reached the point now where we are starting to run long sections of the play in full and we will be doing more full runs of the play next week, our final week in the rehearsal room!

Mastering Mamet's Music

We are now at the end of the second week of rehearsals and everything is looking quite promising. Most of the actors are off book now and scenes are becoming more fluid. When working on a Mamet play you soon realise how his writing can be likened to a musical score. There are so many pauses, italicised words, quick changes of thought and unfinished sentences which all need to be observed. For example, if an actor puts in too many pauses of his own whilst he is speaking, the pauses that Mamet has written simply won’t work. If the actor pays attention to the words that Mamet has put in italics, the sense of the line becomes clear. Mamet has such a precise way of writing and part of my role in rehearsal is a technical one, in helping to pick up where the actors are not being precise and therefore not hitting the notes of the score.

This week I got the chance to take rehearsal for a day whilst Chris was working away. It is always great for an assistant director to get the opportunity to have more responsibility and input. I looked at the last two scenes of the first act working with four out of the seven actors. Together we looked at a slightly different blocking for the end of Act 1 Scene 3, which is the only time the actors move as they are sat down the rest of the time. We showed Chris the next day and so far he seems happy with the change!

For the last couple of the days of this week, we have spent most of our time on the second act of the play. The second act is such a contrast to the first as there is a lot more movement but it is also frenetic and aggressive at times. It is imperative to get the pace and timing right and we have had to go back and repeat one section over and over again to master Mamet’s tricky dialogue.

This week we brought up the issue of smoking in the play. Three of the characters are described as smoking, however only one of the actors smokes in everyday life. Stage management brought in different options including electronic cigarettes which actually release smoke and might be convincing if they didn’t light up….bright blue….?! Smoking continues to be a difficult issue in the theatre…..

Chicago accents and trashing the set!

We are in to the second week of rehearsals of Glengarry Glen Ross and we have now seen the whole play on its feet at its earliest stage. We have been making sense of the blocking, creating a framework from which the actors and director can layer and add detail to. Some sections provide specific challenges, such as when characters speak in fragmented dialogue making it hard to follow their train of thought and work out who they are speaking to. This is a particular issue that arises when working on Mamet's plays and once the actor finds their way with the text, it becomes quick fire and incredibly dynamic.

All seven actors have the challenge of mastering the Chicago accent and our voice coach Sally Hague came in for their introductory session. Sally began with a group session which was interesting for me to watch as normally the actors have a one on one session with the voice coach. Some of the sounds for a Chicago accent sounded more like a New York accent which I didn't expect. The vowels and R's also needed more attention from the actors as they have more weight with this particular accent.

In the second act of the play the action takes place in the salesmen's office, in the aftermath of a robbery. The director, Chris Honer, asked me if I could 'create some mess' to make it look like someone had burgled the place. So I had the rather satisfying task of throwing and kicking things about and making a general mess. At first I got some weird looks, but then when the cast realised what I was doing, they all got involved. Needless to say the rehearsal room looks like a bomb has hit it now!

The show is on it's feet, expletives and all!

So we are coming to the end of the first week of rehearsals for Glengarry. Time has flown but we have achieved a lot in the last few days. On Monday we had our read through and model showing, where everyone gets to hear the play out loud and see what the set will be like (have a look at Judith Croft’s blog for all the information on her wonderful set design) It was great to hear the play for the first time, as it is such a powerful piece, with Mamet’s incredible signature use of language. It is always interesting to have the cast all together for the very first time and in this particular group there is so much positive energy and joking between everyone.

We proceeded to break down the play looking at what facts we could ascertain from it and what questions arose from the text. There are certain aspects of the play which Mamet does not necessarily make explicit, such as the time of day and when exactly events off stage occur etc. It’s important that we address all these issues to give everyone a good understanding and ownership of the play.

After reading through and examining a particular section, we get it ‘up on its feet’ and put it in the space. This is the very first time we look at ideas of how to stage it. There is a lot less movement in the first three scenes as they take place in booths in a Chinese restaurant. One might think that this makes the staging simpler, and in a way it might, however there is so much said in the way that the actors sit, the way they relate to each other and how much they look at each other across this table and so on.

For a play that is fairly unsettling at times, there has been quite a bit of laughter in the rehearsal room this week. Much of this comes from Mamet’s use of expletives which nearly every actor gets a chance to relish in. The way in which Mamet uses swearing in this play never comes across as lazy writing or unnecessary but instead truthful of how these salesmen would express themselves. No one can help laughing when each time we begin to read a new section the director will say something like ‘Can we go from the line…You stupid f****** c***’

It starts with preperation ... and eighties aggressive jazz music?

It has been quite a busy time here at the Library as I have gone straight from working on The Neil Simon play ‘I ought to be in pictures’ in to rehearsals for ‘Glengarry Glen Ross.’ I had to find time around working on ‘Pictures’ to do research on Glengarry. Chris Honer, the director, asked me to look in to different types of ‘eighties aggressive jazz music’ and also the writings of the Norwegian Economist Thorstein Veblen. Mamet was very influenced by Veblen’s work ‘The theory of the leisure class’ in particular his views on class systems, the shady and fraudulent practice in business and the dehumanizing effects of competition. Alongside researching these areas for Chris, I have also spent some time researching the play and Mamet as a writer. There is also of course the film version of Glengarry Glen Ross starring Al Pacino, and I think I must be the only person working on this show who has not seen it! ….I don’t think its imperative that I watch it for research purposes, but Chris is lending it to me so I can watch it for general interest.