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***’