All Hail the Sultan - March 8 Blocking 5

As of this writing, only four pages of the script have not been blocked. Wa-hoo! That is an earnest hoot of appreciation, not a whiff of snark to be found. The cast has made short work of this portion of the process. I would like to sound a particular bell of appreciation that everyone has made excellent progress with line memorization as well - I have no stats to back it up, but it is clear from the scenework that each actor is well down the path to off-book. High fives!

This Sunday I had some minor neurotics twitches - it was daylight savings, and we are back in Alumnae after a week "abroad" over at Dancemakers. So there were two perfectly reasonable possible reasons why we may have been missing an actor, or have someone saunter in late. I don't know why I feel I am anticipating trouble - perhaps it is somehow superstitious, the betrayals and other turmoils of the play's content put me on edge enough to be haunted by visions of abandonment. Or not. Anyway, the morning work was tinged by a hint of "no one will show up" and "they'll be late and we"ll get nothing accomplished". Crazy? Not really, just siphoning off nerves in a less than useful fashion. But I am happy, relieved and feeling silly to report that everyone was on time, we got everything done (early, again) and we are ready to put everything together for the stumble through on Monday. Phew!

The morning opened with the least active scene of the play, blocking-wise. The Internet scene (3) is at once hilarious and sad. For me, the scene skews sad, and I have to shake that impulse out and look for the shiny bits. We set the basic staging, and had several key runs at the sucker. The technical challenge of the internet slides will be considerable - not new information, but a fact that gets driven home when watching the scene without spoken dialogue. Timed, the scene runs at 11 minutes. I think it will clock closer to twenty with audience reaction and breathing space. But the choices are reading tight - during the last run I had my mind wander to a design question, realized I was out of the moment and threw my focus back to the stage - and was able to pick up where the action was after only a few moments. That speaks to a precision that can only get tighter as we do the next round of work-through.

The second morning session was a bit snugger, time-wise. We hadn't the opportunity to table work scene 7 (Club) so we were combining our initial text assault with a stab at physicalization. For some plays this is a great way to explore the script - but Closer is just too dense and structured. We do better with the time to unpack. And this Club scene is a big challenge for both characters, there is an element of danger and risk not present in many other scenes. We have a shape to it, but we will need to make this one a priority in the weeks ahead.

After break, we had a solid block of work with the remaining Larry and Anna scenes. These are both very fun to work/watch, and they are bound to get better and better as the actors get to play. The first scene was the Aquarium (4) - and it was nice to visit this one the same day as the Internet scene. It provides the argument for working this play sequentially. But we don't always have the opportunity to explore that way. So moments like this, it's good to appreciate the benefits. For me, it ensured I kept Larry's journey in mind, and stayed aware of the temptation to lampoon his humilition. The bigger payoff is in the long game, where Larry is concerned. I think we have that in the scene as set.

Last tidbit - the Anna/Larry sequence of the Museum. The notes of bitterness and longing are palpable. I think this segment is in excellent shape already.

Next move: the stumble bumble. Let the games begin!