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!