Grit for pearls

An edgy night in some ways, but, I hope, a productive one.

It began with the lighting designer in a rather heated discussion with the stage manager about the problem of lighting those moments when actors will be in the auditorium rather than on the stage: this is something he will need to solve fairly quickly.

Then we found that the stocks for Kent was actually a pillory - so they will have to be re-done or several lines will make no sense.

Then I had something of an acting class from Brent, mostly about keep my gaze focussed, but also on gestures - good, helpful stuff which made me wish I had taken some acting classes rather than just learning the lines and speaking loudly.

Barry was there tonight, on pain-killers and using a stick, and there was some sense of tension between him and the director (I may be wrong in that reading), but all was dispelled when we came to the heath, and 'Blow winds...'. Barry wanted to start the speech off-stage, and that led Brent to do a voice exercise with all the lights off, and with hugely exaggerated vowels - Blooooow wiiiinds. It was absolutely electric, and Brent embellished the idea by having those of us not in the scene move our arms and bodies across the various blue safety lights in the aisles so that there was no fixed source of light at all. By the 10.00 break we were trying to find out whether health and safety regulations allowed the darkened theatre and whether the actors should or should not be speaking their lines onstage - oh, and what the rules were on acting in the aisles.

We ran out of time, which is something of a concern because we have a run tomorrow and some of the scenes are blocked only in the sketchiest fashion.

But there was a family of deer right outside the theatre as I left at 11 - happily passing through....

And I've seen the outline for the programme in which I'm listed in the Guest Artist section: I think that is very cool.....