| Performance details | Venue: The Guildhall, York Dates: 12th - 22nd July 2007 Tickets: £10 per production or £15 for two Box Office: York Theatre Royal on 01904 623568 or visit their website (link in top right of this page) |
Working through a flurry of second half scenes this week, sketching out moves and motivations.ÌýI still can't get over how big this thing is - it's a monster!Ìý We've been going for five weeks and we have still only looked at two thirds of the script.ÌýI cheer myself up by going back and looking at a first half scene in more detail.Ìý The scene is a confrontation between the Lord Protector, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and the Machiavellian Bishop of Winchester.ÌýIt's a great scene, set outside the Tower of London, as these two powerful men get into an undignified scrap, and it's nice to work it a bit.ÌýOften it's only when you take a second look at a scene that you really start to understand how it works.Ìý | "I don't know, these violent tendencies some actors have..." | |
The actors are more fluent on the lines, in some cases off script, and can put more into their performance.ÌýWe can start to look at the pacing of the scene, so that it isn't just three pages of shouting, but builds appropriately and has the requisite light and shade.ÌýRobin Sanger and Richard Easterbrook as the two protagonists are terrific in this scene. I also grant a favour to Jonathan who's playing Henry.ÌýHe is constantly complaining that he's virtually the only member of the cast that doesn't get to do an action scene, so I let him double up as a prison warder in this one, and he relishes the chance to act clubbing someone with a truncheon.ÌýI don't know, these violent tendencies some actors have... Thursday brings a first rehearsal in the Guildhall, which is both wonderful and terrifying.ÌýIt throws everything, so even when we look at a scene we have done quite a lot of work on, it is suddenly as though we are looking at it for the first time.ÌýIt is a beautiful, majestic space in which to perform though, and everyone is enormously excited about it. It also rams home to everyone the difficulties of performing in a site-specific venue rather than a theatre.ÌýAcoustic challenges and issues of visibility suddenly raise themselves.ÌýThere are pillars in the way at the sides of the stage, and actors need to make sure their voices can be heard loud and clear in an echoey space.ÌýIt is good they get a chance to experience this now as they can take this knowledge back into the rehearsal room with them. Mark | 
