December III
What I love about being in a rehearsal space not knowing exactly what to do next is that you have sudden revelations that come like cramps. I put in a CD that Marc has prepared for me, a blend of action movie sound effects taken from a Bourne movie, and I think, man, this is totally inappropriate. It’s so bad I have to laugh. Then Mark suggests that since he’s doing all the other tunes and sound bits anyway, why shouldn’t he do the sound effects for the action scene? He does it and it is hilariously funny and exactly right for what we’re trying to achieve.
Later, I tell Raphael, you know if you go out of this scene like that the only way to come in again, and don’t ask me why, that’s just how I feel, is to do a clown number. And he’s not sure what I mean. And I’m not sure either. Ok, he says and he starts an impro doing all kinds of totally weird stuff, with Marc doing the sound effects. It’s great. Now I see what I had in mind. And so we trim it down to a little action sequence with various superheroes doing their macho thing, and in the end it’s about Eddie telling us that’s what you have to do these days as a stunt man to keep in shape and avoid being replaced by a computer animation.
One time I tell Marc – who’s already doing a scene as Martin telling May that he’s late cause he had to water the football field – to roughly point to his guitar sitting there on the small stage where he left it. The football field. He smiles and does it. This causes all kinds of interesting side effects, as the three now start referring to other ‘meta levels’ of the play, and I have my hands full trying to curb their enthusiasm.
Boy, are we having fun. No, really, we do! After two and a half weeks we reach the end of the play only to realize that we can’t really rehearse it without me having edited the video stuff first. I’ve managed to edit some of the Old Man footage and it turned out ok, but there’s still a lot of work left in that department. So we part for a ten-day, rehearsal-free period and wish each other a merry x-mas. Right before new year’s eve we have two days to take a look at what we have so far. Everything is sketched out, which is good. More than I expected to get done with only rehearsing in the evenings. The structure seems to be holding, as do the little loops and imperfections and add-ons that we have ‘installed’. Now we have to sharpen it, file at it,
work on the rhythm (a lot) and re-examine the status games in every little scene. Katharina
and I take some time to about her long monologue at the end. She’s been working really hard
and her English has improved tremendously. Generally, I don’t focus so much on the little
flaws in pronunciation. If what they do on stage is great and full of life, nobody will bother
about a mistake. It is a foreign language production, but first and foremost it should be
experienced as any other play: with all senses available.
