Natural Dialogue

I'm back.

Rehearsals are going well. The actors, in their core, seem to have these characters in their gut. Now they just have to get off book. I was running lines with Tracey the other day and realized what a pain in the ass my dialogue must be -- over the course of three lines she says, "What?" "Who?" and then I think "Jeremy" or maybe "What?" again. Yes, that is hard to remember precisely. Yikes!

Every time they finish running a scene that they don't completely have down, they have this deer in the headlights look in their face. . . I hope that's just part of the process because there really does seem to be a lot of great things happening. They are such smart and professional actors. It's a real pleasure. And when they are off book, things take off. Connecting to each other is so important in this play.

They'll get it. They'll probably get it pretty soon. I just hope they know that.

I should retract what I said in my first blog for rakemag.com. I don't know if the actors are having fun. I hope they are. It's really none of my business. They seem to ricochet back and forth between quiet happiness and confidence and utter terror. I suspect that's good but I feel bad that I am the torturer. Ah, but, we're not making pinwheels here. We're trying to do something more, something else. This play asks the actors to go deep. The characters refuse to deal with the big pile of shit they're dragging around which means that the actors have to understand that pile of shit then pretend to ignore it then get buried under it unexpectedly. That's a lot of layers of stuff underneath the way people normally behave. It requires a lot emotionally from an actor I think. and the complex rhythm of the dialogue probably doesn't help until they know it.

In fact, I think once they get all the pieces down, all the pieces will come together in a way that will make the play easier for them. The rhythm of the dialogue will help them. The structure, etc., etc. But until they see and feel all of that in place, it must be hellish to climb over that mountain.

I'm confident they'll start getting there in the next couple days. And anyway they don't really have to get there until Thursday or Friday of next week.

It's just their stunned faces in rehearsal freak me out. I'm worried about their health. I'm thinking of bringing in chicken soup or something.

I was going to write about how I believe that what we all think is naturalistic dialogue isn't and why. I have theories. of course I have theories. But I guess what I really wanted to do was confess. I have some anxiety. not about the strength of the actors or, surprisingly, the play, only about the energy with which it comes together. That is probably exactly where most people are at this point in a rehearsal process. In fact, not being anxious about the actors is a wonderful feeling (that sometimes I haven't always felt to be honest) and not being anxious about the play itself -- well, that just freaks me out. . . Maybe I'm mellowing in my old age. the play I wrote is the play they're doing. Whether or not it's good doesn't actually matter much (good as in people like it). This play, as written, will be done. And we'll see what that means when we do it. . . huh. . . I've been reading the Tao Te Ching again lately. Maybe that's the influence.

Enough. Video trailer of show at http://www.gremlin-theatre.org/video/signs.mp4