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School
& Youth Theatre
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Rehearsals 2An awful lot of people see rehearsals as being nothing more than going over and over the play until it's smooth and slick. In the first part of this series, we saw that this is not the case. There are, in fact, four basic kinds of rehearsal: blocking, movement, exploratory and performance, and we have already looked at the first two. This month we'll look at exploratory and performance rehearsals. A lot of years ago, I had the privilege of sitting in on a rehearsal for Julius Caesar with the Tyne and Wear Theatre Company. It was directed by Bill Alexander and I have to say that I learned an awful lot about directing from that couple of hours. The scene they were working on was not a major scene by any means: it was Act V, Scene III, and I was there for a couple of hours while they dealt with the first 50 lines, between Cassius, Titinius and Pindarus. I was there, as I say, for a couple of hours, but an hour of that was spent sitting on the rehearsal room floor talking. But it wasn't idle chatter: director and actors tossed around ideas about motivation and emotions, referred back and forward, and explored alternative ideas and approaches. At the end of that hour, the scene was transformed. It came to life in a way which was intensely moving and very different from the first run-through. That taught me the value of what I call "talk" rehearsals. I had the opportunity to put what I had learned into action when, in a compilation show, I did the "three queens" scene from Richard III. We only had two rehearsals for this before the Dress, and one was taken up with just such a "talk" session. The difference was, of course, that I was working with three (fairly experienced for their age) 16 year old girls, not experienced and seasons pros. But it worked! I had to do a lot of leading, of course, much more than Bill Alexander had to do, but when we came to the actual putting the scene on the stage, I had little to do except "choreograph", for they had not only talked but thought. After that, such rehearsals became an integral part of my rehearsal schedule for every show, and the value of it became very apparent a few years later when, in another compilation show in which I was attempting the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, I found that the two actors, neither of whom had done a main part before, had already thought through the scene and little was needed in the way of discussion or guidance in motivation and feelings, for they'd already got it sussed! Of course, this kind of discussion is not the only type of exploratory rehearsal. There's also what I call the "Why?" game. At first my actors find this not only difficult but even a little annoying.It begins by my asking , "Why did you do (say) that?" and to every answer I get I ask "Why?" The idea, of course, is to strip away the layers of motivation and feeling and make the actor really think about what (s)he is doing. It works! Try it. Then there are the games and exercises which I devise for specific situations. For instance, in Godspell there is a scene in which the cast has to moan aloud as Jesus talks abut the destruction of Jerusalem. This is not easy for British people, let alone British kids. Mediterranean cultures handle this kind of thing much better, but not us reserved Brits! Frankly, the whole thing was a disaster: a few half-hearted moans followed by self-conscious giggles! So I knelt everyone down and told them to close their eyes and breath deeply, filling their lungs and breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. This was so like so many voice exercises that they slipped into it easily. I let this continue for a minute with me instructing them when to breath in and out. I then told them to keep the rhythm and just continue without any lead from me. I let this go on for two or three minutes, then told them to aspirate their breathing out. Next came saying "Ah" as they did so. Gradually I got them to increase the volume until it reached the point I wanted and I nudged "Jesus", who began the speech. The barrier was broken and I was able to get them to forget the unison and be a little more individual. No problems thereafter! If you're having problems with relating movement to speech - that is, making the movement reflect the underlying emotions - then the process known as "thought-tracking" can be very useful. The actors use their normal moves but speak what their characters are thinking rather than the words of the script. They very soon see where moves are wrong. As we get towards the final week of rehearsal, if words are proving a problem, I often use a "babble" rehearsal in which the actors simply stand there and babble their words as quickly as possible. If someone forgets, hesitates or otherwise holds the run up, the whole group goes back to the beginning and starts again. The pressure on the individual is enormous - but it works! >> Rehearsals 3
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