Week 4 - Friday

I learned a bit of a lesson today. I'm someone who likes to retain a little bit of freedom and improvisation in the staging of scenes, as I'm sure a number of exasperated ex-colleagues would tell you... Because of this, in my first scene, where I have to handle a whole load of different props, I've tried not to have all the various picking-ups-and-putting-downs set in stone too much. The trouble was, I was finding myself having to think about those things instead of about the scene, when for the character these physical tasks would be second nature. So before today's run, I spent a bit of time working out exactly when and where I'd put my clipboard down, and when I'd pick up the boots etc etc. It really paid off. I felt much more comfortable in the scene because I wasn't tripping myself up with the props all the time. And ironically, I felt the scene actually had more freedom, because I wasn't constrained by physical uncertainty.

In fact, I found the whole run much more enjoyable than yesterday. I just felt like a play, instead of some scenes we'd chucked up in the air to see where they fell. Went into the weekend with a great deal of optimism.