The Guinea Pig Club Blog Post 4

Mon 24 Sep 2012

Ball games

23.09.12

So, at the end of our usual all over body warm-up on Saturday morning, stretching out from our heads to our toes, Damian shouts out ‘Graeme, you’re it’. Luckily we were in the ballroom, so when everyone instinctively dashed as far from our Dr McIndoe as possible they had a lot of space to run into.  Of course it only took moments for me to be ‘it’, and the lovely Jack, playing Hugh, took pity on me as I panted around trying to catch a victim. After a few variations on the game, which I fast learned is not my specialty, we moved on to what has become a pre-rehearsal favourite.

And here’s how it goes:

There is a ball, in our case an oversized tennis ball, and, stood in a circle, we have to keep it in the air. Once you have touched it you have to go down on one knee and not touch it again until everyone else has. When everyone has touched the ball once we all get back on our feet (still keeping the ball in the air) and as a unit we have to keep it up while travelling to a box on the other side of the room, getting it in the box when possible. And let me tell you, the cast have become masters of this game. It is time to start adding new rules!

It’s a good job they can control a ball because, forget the glasses I was talking about last time, we have a ball scene. At one point in development there were going to be two balls being thrown between the actors, some of whom have ‘no’ fingers, many of them lying in bed, on a raked stage! We’ve been through it a many times, tracked the journey of the balls, and hopefully solved the initial problems. And as I’ve said before, the guys can catch – even Tim (playing Peter), who is blindfolded throughout most rehearsals, has accurately thrown to a cast members’ clapping hands. Gravity is still gravity though, let’s see what happens in tech week when we get it on the stage.

We ran the show from the top this week, which went brilliantly. This was not only for the actors, to see if they remember all of the blocking we’ve been through and get a feel for the piece as a whole, though this was a big part of it. We also had many of the creative team (lighting, design, music) watching to see how their elements will fit into it. It’s so exciting to see how the whole show might fit together, hearing their thoughts and seeing where some of their parts come in. One example of this is getting to see Sarah, playing Francis Day, singing some of the scene changes. Even without accompaniment, and often unsure of the exact blocking, her voice is stunning and brings a sexy and often humorous touch to the end of the scenes. Can’t wait to see this with the music on the big stage.

We’ve got just over a week now to tweak our way through the play before putting it onto the stage for tech’ing. Really looking forward to fine-tuning the scenes this week, getting it all flowing smoothly. Sure you’ll hear how I’m finding it soon,

Ruby Clarke

Assistant Director, Guinea Pig Club