Understanding.
*WARNING* This blog post contains plot spoilers of Much Ado About Nothing. Please leave if you do not wish to ruin the experience of coming to watch us! ;)
Last week was a week of ups and downs. We started our last final push of rehearsals as we rapidly approach performances.
It started off very well. We began our week at one of our venues, Tofte Manor. It is absolutely stunning. Words can't explain how pretty it is, you'll have to take my word for it.
We had been working on various scenes, and once the afternoon rolled around, we set out to do a full run of the play. This is where outdoor performances get interesting. During rehearsals, you get used to rehearsing in a certain space, and then when you get to venues, everything changes. Every location has different exits and entrances, and everything has to be adapted to fit where you are. I'm going to be honest and say that I didn't know my cues for my entrances so I pretty much winged the whole thing, but on the whole, for a first go, it was pretty good! The location set itself up for some brilliant staging and we were all very happy indeed!
Thursday arrived, and we made our way to another venue, Castle Mound in Bedford. Again, everything had to be altered to fit the venue, but we did quite well to adapt. Hey, we're actors, all the world's a stage! Castle Mound is a public area, so anyone can walk up and have a nose around. We had one gentleman who stayed to watch for about half an hour, a couple of American tourists had a look, and then we were invaded by what I can only describe as a gang of youths! You know the sort, the ones that hang about playing music from their phones doing nothing. They had a few glances over at the folk who were talking in a strange language but didn't seem that interested. The boss of the company decided that she would go over and give them a flyer, I was slightly fearful for her life but they all immediately turned very polite and showed some interest after all!
Unfortunately we got rained away from the mound, but the rest of the day was still productive. The same happened on Friday, starting at the venue, but eventually being made to scurry away back to the safe haven of the theatre. Which is where it all went pear shaped for me. We worked on the ending of the play. Here come the plot spoilers. My character, Hero, has been shamed on her wedding day, with almost all of the men calling her a whore, and acusing her of infidelity. The are led to believe that Hero has died upon this happening to her, and it is agreed that as punishment, Claudio, her betrothed, should marry Hero's cousin, who he will not see before the wedding. Pretty much like blind date, but with wedding rings! Anyway, obviously, it turns out to be Hero under the veil, she takes him back and they get married. The ending of the play has always annoyed me, how she just accepts it, and we were trying to work out how it wouldn't be a ridiculous end. We came to the conclusion that she should be angry with Claudio. But I just couldn't do it! She is such a sad sap throughout the whole play, and to then try and turn and get angry at him was really hard.
I just couldn't understand her at all. It was incredibly frustrating, and despite eveyone's good intentions of giving me ideas to help me out, I was on the verge of tears with annoyance at myself. We eventually got something that was passable for the day, I just had to go home and think about it. The last thing we did on Friday was the first wedding scene, where Hero gets it in the neck.
And what a rollercoaster ride that scene is! Jacob, who plays Claudio was absolutely amazing in that scene. He just kept going for me, yelling right in my face and being really nasty that I was crying! I really enjoy that scene. Hero and Claudio are such dull fools, that when it all kicks off, it's really exciting!
However, the stress of rehearsing the previous scene, mixed with the crying in the wedding scene made me feel so drained. I hadn't slept well the past couple of nights either so I waas completely gone. Thankfully I had a dance rehearsal that night, and it cheered me up to see my girls and getting to be silly for a while. Especially when we dressed up as punks and ran around the town. But that's another story...
I was back in Bedford on Saturday morning, just the girls, and we worked on a scene that we had never been happy with, and managed to get something quite good involving peanuts!! You'll have to come and watch to find out what that's all about! It was a much better rehearsal, and it got me away from working my normal person job too, bonus!
I'm still struggling with the end of the play, but I'll get there. I've been playing the clown characters for so long, that to now be playing the 'pretty one' is proving to be much more difficult than I thought. Oh well, I've got three and a half days to the first performance, that's plenty of time... isn't it?!? Gulp!
Nxxx
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