2.0
I've spoken with Hollinger (the chorus) before about my ideas about this particular "character." He is very clearly the only outside voice in this whole play. This gives him leave to speak his lines like a storyteller instead of making them up on the spot. However, my biggest idea is that the Chorus for this play really is Benvolio. We're not making them the same character, but I've always felt that Benvolio is really the only character left at the end of this play to pass the story on. He's been around for the whole of it, he's this plays Horatio. Mike is bringing just a touch of his Benvolio to the Chorus, but I don't want it over stated or the show will start to look very concept-y and I don't want that either. This is the only time where we specifically have time blocked off to work the Chorus alone and it was good to see it one its feet and see what Mike brings to it, but we certainly won't need to hit it again.
5.1
We only rehearsed the first part of this scene today because one of my actors read the schedule wrong. But, we did some decent work getting the relationship between Romeo and Balthazar established. Missing the one actor did give us a chance to work on the "Then I deny you stars" moment a little more than we might have otherwise, which was good. It's a tricky moment that most Romeos scream instead of really getting inside it to find a real way to play it. Johnny's initial instinct was to go more soft and rage than loud and angry. Since we've built a Romeo that has that blind rage streak in him, this seems like the right choice. Right now, the moment sounds like a lion roaring (but not quite that loud, just the same tone and pitch), which has a very different and interesting feel to it. We'll see how it plays in context, but for now, we're going to roll with it.
2.3 and 3.2
These are the two big Nurse (Wagoner) and Juliet (AJ) scenes. We've set up, again, a mirror between these scenes to create a contrast between the comedy part of this play and the tragedy part of this play. We've got almost the same beginning to the scene: the same entrances, the same starting dynamic. More and more I'm liking this idea of creating mirrors with staging, especially in a play that so clearly has a distinct break between comic and tragic. We're making those mirrors over that line right now, where a scene with certain characters on one side and that other of the comic/tragic break will start out looking the same and end very differently. As for these scenes, I am having piles of fun working with these two guys. They are a laugh a minute in rehearsals, but know how to clamp it down and get to work as well. The virtue of scheduling in more rehearsal time than we need on scenes is that we can get a little sidetracked and still come out on time. Wagoner and AJ have a really great dynamic not only as scene partners, but also as women. These two have latched onto the nuances of moving and interacting like women surprisingly fast. Every once in a while, they still stop to ask questions about how women physically interact when talking to one another, but they mostly just go for it and I stop them if something isn't right. Long story short, these scenes are looking really great.
1.3
This is the first scene in the show with all three of our ladies. Being such, I wanted to make sure we built some time into this rehearsal to go over walking and talking like women. We first blocked the scene so I could get Paul (Peter) out of there. This didn't take a whole lot of time. It's a fairly simple scene that's also fairly short. Once we had it blocked and I let Paul go, we started in with out "Walk like a woman" lessons. Katie (my assistant director) took a first crack at them, with learning how to walk with hips instead of shoulders and finding balance on the balls of their feet. We're not going to put them in heels, but it's important (even as a faux woman) to know how that affects you because it helps you understand how a woman's body moves. We also went over how women hug and interact in the touchy feely sort of way. We were about to work on it with Jeff (Lady Capulet) when he said this: "I don't think Lady Capulet's much of a hugger." Katie and I were forced to agree with him. So he's off the hook for most forms of touching. Beyond this, Carmel (my costume designer) came in and worked with them on some basic belly dance technique. She's a belly dance instructor and was able to go over some points of how the hips move that Katie and I weren't able to quite articulate. We then went over make-up basics and tested out some ideas on the boys. Sometime in the next few days, I'll post pictures of our first make-up attempts. They need some work, but as a start, they're very good.
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