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So, today was the third official day of rehearsals for the comedy series of exam plays. Some of them are as envigorated as they were when the assignments were handed out, others have already become old hat, and all in the course of the two days that we’ve been rehearsing.

The day started with Once A Catholic upstairs in room 52 (which is quite big for intimite little readings, indeed). While we did our third read, we felt freedom to get up and walk around this time — which allowed me to get in certain people’s faces whilst delivering my monologue. After I was done today, I realized that my “inner critic” had interjected far too much, and got in the way of my acting. Admittedly, I was being ridiculous — for I was really berating myself for not getting off book. In retrospect, I was doing amazing for only having two rehearsals… and I shouldn’t have gotten down on myself. My performance will increase tremendously when I stop getting in my own way.

For Catholic, I’ve discovered that one of my character quirks could be a hidden sexual relationship with Mother Thomas Aquainas. Perhaps the entire speech that I’m delivering to the children is just an attempt at flirting with her or turning her on. I could play with that. I could play with the fact that the Priest is really an insanely religious, pure, old man, who really does believe that a kiss between a girl and a boy is a mortal sin if they’re not married. I’ve certainly got possibilities… and I can’t wait to play more. I started playing around with the opening scene, sung entirely in Latin — which, surprisingly, has survived the first day of script cuts. The other scene actually was trimmed down a bit… but this one stays. I’m quite confused by that.

Anyhow, in between the rehearsals, I headed to Mrs. K’s for some form of caffeinated drink. I was elated when I found a can of Cherry Coke (very rare in New York City, nowadays). I took my time with it, knowing that T. Ryder Smith wouldn’t be there at rehearsal today… but still managed to finish it before rehearsal started.

I headed to the MM for Hound and put my stuff down, but before I even got to start my warm-up, T. Ryder Smith walked through the door. Luckily, we’ve got a great cast that is legitimately committed to the work, so everybody was there, ready to go. At the director’s request, we all spent some time walking around the MM, on the stage and through the house… to get an idea of the size and to know what everything looks like through different points of view. After spending some time doing that, we placed Birdboot and Moon. We tried placing them different places in the house, but there wasn’t a place where every other seat was guaranteed a good view of them that wasn’t of the back of their heads. Personally, I feel like having them in extra seats on the stage is kind of cheap, but, what’re we gonna do, really?

Afterwards, we practiced some stage combat — working on two different kinds of slaps, according to T, there’ll be a lot of slapping going on in this play. Excellent. We’re going to work on some punching next week. After “schlip, slapping,” we set up a quick representation of our set… and T explained that the first corpse will be hidden in the coushins of the couch (if we get one — I’ve got my fingers crossed). Should be pretty funny.

We started playing with different poses and vocal inflections to find something that seems proper and a mix between British and American, but not quite Good Speech. We were getting some interesting results. Then we worked on different physicalities for the characters, working with their entrances. Joel and Stephanie are going to enter through the back of the house… which should be fun (especially the phyiscality Joel has added to his entrance).

After working through physicalities, we read through the play-within-a-play, without interference from Birdboot and Moon, to get an idea of the story we’re trying to tell inside the overall story. It was absolutely hilarious the first time through, then T had suggestions for different vocal energies for everything. Cary wound up reading Hound by delivering each line as a question, Joel with a Rex Harrison-esque “sophisticated” lisp, etc. At first, I was supposed to draw out all of my consonant sounds, and ultimately I wound up saying everything through gritted teeth. Yet again, I let my internal censor get the best of me, and I need to cut that shit out. It doesn’t do any good.

After the read throughs, we sat around and talked some more about the play, with T moderating a discussion with Joel about Simon’s motives in the play. Through this, he also revealed that the character storyline of Albert losing his memory and returning in disguise to test his lover’s truth was, in a way, Tom Stoppard’s way of re-telling the story of Homer’s Odyssey… so we’ve added another fun layer to this play.

Pretty damn deep for a one-act.

And now, motivated as hell, I’m off to do some more character work. Yippie!

8 rehearsal days left for Once A Catholic
10 rehearsal days left for The Real Inspector Hound