Regarding a Director's Encounter with the First Rehearsal (June 12th)

First rehearsal for Gruesome Playground Injuries is in the books. Cast and crew arrived. Beers and scripts were cracked. 56 minutes later we were done.

56 minutes.

Wow. It'll be nice to not have to worry about cutting the script down. I was surprised by how quickly the dialogue went by, but as always, it's a lot quicker to read a play than stage it. Pacing will slow, pauses will be held longer, and "stage business" will make this a nice and simple 80-90 minutes.

Learned lots of good things from the rehearsal:

Read the stage directions during the first read through. I tried to ignore them because I think we all know the action that's going on. Wrong. We needed to hear the stage directions describing the actions...it just didn't work without them. So after the first three scenes, I asked Devon, our stage manager to read them.

How and When you say something or give a note is crucial. I asked Devon to only read the important stage directions pertaining to the actor's actions. This wasn't clear enough and he ended up reading too many, then too few. Clear, concise directions are critical.

I got a bit ahead of myself trying to describe too much of what I wanted from the production. Based on what Peter Brook says in The Empty Space, this is a common mistake and a natural one to make. Tons of interesting things came up in his last chapter, the Immediate Theatre. This is his ideal theatre...the one we need.

He goes on to say many interesting things in the opening of that chapter about, specifically, the first rehearsal:

"No one is in a state to absorb what is said -the purpose of anything you do on the first day is to get you through to the second one."

"The first rehearsal is always to a degree the blind leading the blind."

Describing how during his first big production as a director, Love's Labour's Lost at Stratford in 1945, went on the first day. "I had already done enough work in smaller theatres to know that actors, and above all stage mangers,  had the greatest contempt for anyone who, as they always put it, 'did not know what he wanted.'" So the night before he panicked and fumbled around with his forty folded pieces of paper representing the actors all night, organizing their entrance for the first scene of the show. "Hesitation would soon be fatal." After he blocked them and gave them all their instructions, they entered and it wasn't at all how he his forty pieces of paper entered. Should he stop and drill them until they did it right? "One inner voice prompted me to do so, but the other pointed out that my pattern was much less interesting than this new patter that was unfolding in front of me." Everyone was doing things according to their individual character. 

"I think, looking back, that my whole future work hung in the balance. I stopped, and walked away from my book, in amongst the actors, and I have never looked at a written plan since. I recognized once and for all the presumption and the folly of thinking that an inanimate model can stand for a man."

I think it's still a good idea to pre-block. But you have to be aware of the individuals that you are working with. They WILL be more interesting than the two 9-volt batteries I used to pre-block with.

"However much homework (the director) does, he cannot fully understand a play by himself." I really like that point. Work MUST be done before the first rehearsal...read the play as much as you can...but then you must OPEN your senses to the other's around you. This isn't about being right or showing people you know more than them because you're the fucking direction. It's about everyone understanding the play as fully as possible and feeling like they had a hand in unlocking it's meaning. From my experience as an actor, I like to discover things for myself, not be told what something means or told what to do. THAT'S when I'm at my best.

I want everyone to feel like they are at their best.

This is going to be a fun process.