Tomboys and freezing rain: Angel rehearsals week one Ruth Cooper – Theatre Director We’re at the end of the first week of rehearsals for Angel.
On Monday the first day nerves gave way as we re-introduced ourselves to each other and to working at Theatre Hullabaloo.
On Tuesday we continued through the play, roughly putting the script on its feet. We spent the next two days working with Kevin, the writer, ironing out any final wrinkles in the rehearsal draft. And finally Friday was spent working with Ed, the sound designer, focussing upon what the sound design adds and where. One of the things that has become clearer to me this week is that the characters aren’t delicate girly girls. Bill is a tomboy and struggles to keep a lid on her emotions, needing to lash out. Miriam doesn’t care about her house, clothes or what people think. She too lashes out –anger possibly as a symptom of her dementia, certainly as she loses control.
Angel is not a soft conversation between two sweet women where nothing happens; it’s a story of two women in different stages of their lives clinging on as the world shifts and spins around them. (Luckily our fantastic Stage Manager and Designer spent Monday evening ensuring that the set can actually spin!) I often think a first week of rehearsals is about reassurance: reassuring everyone that it’s a good script; reassuring the actors they are the right cast and can bring valuable insight to their parts; reassuring ourselves the design elements work and are an integral part of the whole and reassuring everyone that we have enough time. This week we did all of the above and proved we can also survive freezing rain on the way to and from rehearsals. We’re now confident and ready for the more knotty, in-depth rehearsals to come.
We’ve drawn the starting line...
