We started with minimal warmups as I wanted to start going through the scenes. We went round in a circle doing various exercises and then stretches. I was also concerned that during previous rehearsals, the performers were using cues from the narrator to advance the story instead of synchronising the actions with the words. So I asked the group to go round the circle, each telling the stories from the play in their own words one sentence at a time. I believed this helped them know the stories better and helped stop them viewing it as merely words on a page.
We then rehearsed all of Scene 1. Lewis has now learned most of his lines so it went fairly smoothly. Lewis is still deviating from his neutral character and I would like to work on that at a later date. The performers were still occasionally taking cues from the narrator which I pointed out after they had finished.
We then rehearsed Scene 2. Now Eleanor has memorised almost the whole story, I can see that she narrates the scene exceptionally well. The rest of the cast occasionally missed cues though. However, I believe that this will fix itself as they rehearse it more.
We then went onto Scene 3. Conor had tried to learn it all, but often stumbled on lines, missed lines or paraphrased too much. I have encouraged him to work on his lines more over the next week. I also felt that Chelsea and Lewis were being too over the top with their characters in a scene that I want to be calmer and more natural. I had a quick talk with them on this subject, but I believe I can do more with them over the following weeks.
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