Today we moved The Wicked Lady into the auditorium. Normally this happens only for the final week of rehearsals, but the complexity of the aerial work involved in this production means that we’ve freed up the space for the best part of two whole weeks. Yesterday the set was fitted up, and today we can start working on it, getting used to the various levels and to the size of each of the five platforms. The entrances and exits at the Vic are peculiar, being a considerable journey from the stage, so it’s an opportunity for us to get used to this, too. Most of all, it’s a chance to incorporate the flying sequences into the scenes rather than treating them in isolation as we’ve done until now.
Photo by Andrew Billington
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An enjoyable day working on the final fight. Four actors hoisted in mid-air, and three directors down on stage all dressed in directorial black – lithe fight director Kate Waters; Amazonian aerial choreographer Vicki Amedume and yours truly, who’s equipped with no physical skills whatsoever. I can’t even drive, swim or dance.
It’s entirely new ground for all of us, but it’s impressive how quickly we develop a method of working together, speedily grasping an understanding of what each has to offer and how we can each enhance and develop moments set up by another.
Having other directors in the room is always a joy, mainly because it means I’m not leading the rehearsal constantly – I get time to stand back and think. On this occasion I could see that we needed a solution to the problem of the The Wicked Lady’s gun. Holstered it’s a heavy object that impedes punches and body grabs; set aside it becomes a potential hazard when people are thrown of tumble. The problem is that’s all the options exhausted, bar keeping it off stage which wouldn’t work as the fight is about the gun. If we were making a film, the gun would be very present in close ups and in the foreground of mid shots. Can we achieve this on stage, I wonder? First I muse on the idea of a follow spot for the gun, but that still doesn’t get round the safety issue of it being a potential hazard on stage. Then it comes to me: throughout the play we’re creating close-ups through the actor’s focus; and ‘Matrix’ moments where the stage picture goes into bullet time. This can be another of those moments, with the fighters slipping into slow motion whilst another actor manipulates the gun through the air.
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I’m a poor sleeper at the best of times, and being in rehearsal only makes the problem worse. Coming home tired means I don’t process the headful of discoveries and ideas and lists of things to remember until I wake up at 4am, when my head’s clear and I’ve had enough sleep to be able to think. After an hour or so of considering and compartmentalising I’ve tidied up the brainful and am ready to go to sleep – only to be confronted by another problem: excitement. I’m raring to go and ready for the next day, but have the tiresome problem of getting enough sleep to contend with.
The Wicked Lady has added yet another dimension to my sleeping issues. When I actually do nod off, I find myself involved in car chases and gun fights, sneaking through hotel corridors in the dead of night on espionage missions. It’s an adrenaline fuelled experience but an exhausting one! All the fault, no doubt, of the chases and gun fights we’re staging during rehearsals, though these are set in the eighteenth century whereas my action-packed dreams have a more modern setting. No doubt our wicked lady Barbara, were she alive to day would be seeking her thrills in a James Bond lifestyle like the one I’m living at night.
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Our first aerial session in the space. It was thrilling to see the red silks rising up with two people wrapped up in them; to see our prototype saddle, back from the metalworkers and the leatherworkers, hoisted high into the air with a fearless actor riding it. There were gasps from those watching, and I hope the audience will feel a similar shiver of fear and excitement. I must admit I spent the entire session with my heart in my mouth. The last production Bryony and I did involved pretty constant fear for me, with its thirty metres of flaming ropes surrounding the audience and a horse galloping on at the end to have burning torches waved in its face. Only when the actors took their final bows could I breathe. I have a feeling this show’s going to be in the same mould.
photo by Andrew Billington
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Rehearsals for The Wicked Lady began today. Actors are cast one by one, so the read through that’s customarily held on the first day of rehearsals is often the first time I’ll have heard and seen them all together. I always approach this event with trepidation, worried that I’ll have cast lots of actors who have a similar ‘look’ that will gel into a mush on stage; or that two people will have the same vocal qualities making their speaking voices indistinguishable from each other to the audience behind them. To my relief this team goes together well, and they bonded quickly too, creating a real atmosphere of warmth in the room.
photo by Andrew Billington
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