In the mood for love - Polish 2, March 18

Another disclaimer to begin: I walked into rehearsal running a relatively high fever and was not strictly speaking mentally competent. Also, when I left rehearsal, I was disoriented and spent several seconds trying to remotely unlock a car which was not mine. (True story - ask L or D, they were there!). But in between, the lovely wash of rehearsal focus took over. Isn't it somehow miraculous that devoting all your energy to the scenework can fade even the most phlegmy and painful virus attack? There were moments in the course of the evening where I swear my voice sounded stronger and I was completely absorbed in the emotional narrative. Then I would step back, wheeze, and inwardly collapse. Note to self: must place child in protective bubble, not for baby's sake, but for own health. Children and their social gathering places are virus circuses.

Back to the evening at hand: Producer B was in attendance to lend a very able hand to assist with getting off book. We are now working without scripts, but until the SM situation is completely resolved we need volunteers in house to provide line safety nets. This is very useful for everyone, me included, since I cannot read the text and watch the actors simultaneously. Oh, how I wish I could - I've been trying for fifteen years, no avail. Anyway, B was able to correct jumps and iron out the kinks of misremembered words.

As well, costume designer P was in the house for the first half, and was able to get measurements etc from 3/4 of the cast. Huzzah! I am working to get the rough draft of the costume running notes to him ASAP. One nice thing about email - you can hand people paper without handing them your germs.

Scenes 2 Studio and 11 Hotel were called. We spent roughly 2/3 of the night on Scene 2. In retrospect, I wish I had more time with 11, but I can't bring myself to begrudge the time we spent in Scene 2. This early scene is crucial to set the foundation for the initial sexual triangle of the piece, and it needs to be:

1. hot
2. spicy
3. turbulent

Put like that, it sounds like Mexican food. Oh, I am still sick, my brain is full of cold medicine sillyness. Jokes aside, all three of those points are valid - we introduce Anna, we establish the relationship dynamic of Dan/Alice, and the scene is packed to the teeth with exposition. At the same time, we need to care about the romantic entanglements, and we need to find something in each character's predicament to relate to. No mean feat. To get there, we did a fairly detailed stop start, and found some truly engaging points of connection (read: hotness) conflict (read: spicy) and disruption (read: turbulent). In all, the scene is starting to really swing.

In the scene 11 work time ran away from us, so I refocused on what was necessary to accomplish - set the fight. I want D and L to begin running it at every rehearsal, and so with that in mind I spent the time working on the narrative of the fight itself and then the mechanics of the stage violence. As a result, the slap is looking fine, and we will need to find more time (invent more time? develop a time machine?) to get the rest of Scene 11 under the microscope. T'will be done.

Now to rest and think up what horrible things we humans do to one another in the morbid name of love...