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…..