01 July 2005

EMMA WITH ROSIE & REUBEN   .   Yesterday afternoon we had our first Violent Delights rehearsal. From noon, we worked steadily through until 5.00. We began with an overview of the script. It starts with the opening sequence of Act III, Mercutio & Benvolio roaming the hot, languid streets of Verona. Benvolio is nervous lest they should run into prowling Capulets & Mercutio is restless & febrile, seeking an outlet for his edgy, goading humour.  It’s the only section in which I have retained the dialogue in full & it’s maintained up to Tybalt’s entrance. From the moment that the physical confrontation between Tybalt & Mercutio commences, we switch to a skeleton script containing only key lines from the speeches that lead up to & accompany the first few flurries of the combat that results.   The script session was encouraging. P (Mercutio) has learned her first lines already & she delivered them with spirit & a clear sense of having understood not just meaning but intention too. In fact, all six of them drove into the language with no hesitation or inhibition & where there were stumbles, each reader picked up, dusted down & carried on. This early accommodation of lines will accelerate the physical work greatly.   When we’d run through the lines, we took a short break & then I handed round the six broomsticks. Such was the gravity of each recipient, the slight absurdity of formally distributing black-painted broomsticks as if they were loaded rifles struck no one but me so I stifled my smile.  Each actor took his or her stick &, with the grim purpose of the defenders of the Alamo, they tested the heft & the balance, peered down the shaft & took a few practise swings. Then I paired them off & we began the genuinely serious work of using them combatively.   There’s no secret to the technique here.  Whilst there are many entirely safe set piece moves that can be established to suggest violent confrontation, only real attack & genuine defence will establish the authenticity of the process.  So a successful start to the activity at the core of Violent Delights – grudge-motivated combat choreographed like dance – depends upon two individuals trusting each other enough (& herein lies a central paradox of theatre) actually to attempt to assault the other with a 5’-long pole.  And from the start this counterpoint between the closest of cooperation in order to achieve a representation of the fiercest of competition was firmly established.  For three hours the cast went at it, building as instructed 3-part combat sequences, the central point of which had to be full-on attack.   We broke at 5.00, exhausted but exhilarated with the foundation work on the piece very positively started.   We have two brief rehearsals at the beginning of the week & then on Thursday the school will empty & we’ll be able to prepare, practise & rehearse from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm unhindered.   #   On a more sombre note, this afternoon we had the farewell gathering at which all those teaching staff that are leaving receive gifts & deliver their speeches.  At the beginning of term there were to be two of us retiring & one moving to another school. In the wake of the cutbacks & redundancies, there were seven & where there might have been a bittersweet sense of regret underpinned by an acceptance of that which must be, now there was an undertow simply of bitterness.   I delivered my valediction with no real apprehension of the circumstances I was describing: that, after 56 years of school attendance, I was finally about to leave & enter the adult world.  So I was able to bluster my way through, raising the odd laugh & accepting my gifts without shedding an unmanly tear. It will be later when the Theatre is empty & I’m clearing out my filing cabinets or taking down my pictures that it will become chillingly & inexorably clear that I am now a civilian in a large & drafty world   11:31:33 PM    Mmm? []

© Copyright 2005 Dick Jones. Last update: 01/08/2005; 23:34:16.