Monday 21st: Promised Land Rehearsal

This was another rehearsal with just the sweatshop people. We played Chaos again, which felt easier this time. We are becoming more attuned to each other as a group.
We also did some vocal work, singing various phrases up and down the scale (cheese and biscuits, weetabix for breakfast, vinyl linoleum, various football players names, etc...) and then singing that 'I like the flowers, I like the daffodils' song and 'Blue Moon' in a round, walking around the space.

Unlike last time we were working on the riot scene which does actually contain the entire company, the idea being that's it's easier to work intensively with a small group, who can then help lead the scene next time making it easier for the rest of the company to pick up. It also helped us become more confident with the scene as every single person needs to be aware of cues and able to lead group moments rather than being reliant on one or two strong voices.

Rod was concerned that the scene wasn't threatening enough, and I have to agree it felt long and dull, just waiting for the next cue to start shouting abuse. This was again about finding ways to keep the stage 'alive'. We split into pairs and threes, and had to find each other across the space, muttering a constant, quiet, tirade of hate - about whatever we wanted (who needs a therapist when you can vent as much as you like in rehearsal!)- and then move into the mob, continuing this level of muttering throughout, giving us a sound to build on and fall back to when necessary, just adding in words from the main speeches being given to keep them sounding relevant. There is enough vitriol in the words written without needing to shout and scream everything, so bringing the whole scene down to a much quieter level actually made it far more insidious and creepy, and oddly helped keep the energy up.

One of the most difficult challenges with this scene is that the mob has to change between the 'local' people, looking for a fight, determined to reclaim 'their' city and kick the Jews out, and the Jewish immigrants in the sweatshop, hearing the mobs gather outside. We worked on Meyer and Rosa taking the power and using their speeches to rouse the immigrant mob up so we have two distinct mobs, both looking for a fight, but one negative - trying to get rid of people, and one positive- determined to stand up for themselves.

This scene has now become more interesting to be a part of, understanding the complexities of the situation and allowing for subtlety in what could easily just be a scene of 'LISTEN TO ME SHOUT AT YOU'. We talked a bit about how hard intervals make shows as you have to work from scratch to gain the audiences attention again, and I think these changes might just make that effort easier for us.