Nightly

Rehearsal almost every night this week. Last night we worked on Acts II and III. Monday, as you can probably guess, was dedicated to Act I.

Sadly, as seems to so often be the case with me this year,  some of my scene partner(s) are absent this week. I've not yet played the post-murder scene with the actress playing Donalbain. At all. And a shorter scene, wherein I play Murderer 3 also went incomplete last night, because of that actor's absence, along with his son's absence. (Both are in the scene.) It is what it is, and we've got plenty of time left, but I'm ready to start rehearsing with everyone. The post-murder scene is especially tricky for me...as I must be emotional but not too emotional. It's a crucial turning point for my character, for obvious reasons, and I can't slough it over or phone it in. Yet much of what I'll do in that scene will be based on interaction with Donalbain, I imagine. I can't fake my way through that, talking to an empty space.

Because of that, I can't comment much on how it went.

Not that we've been working so much on character this week. The goal for this week is to test out how well the blocking for each scene looks in conjunction with others in an act. See how well we remember it, and if anything needs changed. When this week was planned out, the director was under the impression that everyone would at last be available. They are not, as I've said.

So unavailable are some, that yet another actor has been replaced, after having neither attended rehearsals nor answered any of the director's emails since the start of this process. (Guess who this person has a scene with?)

Thankfully, those with whom I share my biggest scene are almost always there for rehearsal. Macduff and Ross and myself as Malcolm have worked the "England Scene" together a few times. That also comes up tonight. I look forward to working that again. I'm not off book for it yet, but I am very familiar with it.

I am mostly off book for the scene we worked on Monday and yesterday, though. I actually set my script aside for my first two scenes. Even though I'm not off book for the show as a whole, it always comes as a bit of a relief when I can do even a little bit without my script in my hand-the first step towards a full, free performance. We're supposed to be off book for the whole show on the 22nd, and that'll take some extra effort on my part, particularly with the scene I talked about with Macduff and Ross. But I'm working a bit on it every day, and I should be ready.

It's easier to get off book when it's time if you've been reading and reading the lines over and over on a regular basis, even if you've not been working on memorization. That's where I am now...having read through the lines more often perhaps than average since getting the part. I have the notion of what comes next in most cases, and need only a few small steps before the words fall into sequence.