Week 4: Entry 3: Split focus

Last night's rehearsal was terrifying! It was 8pm. We'd just had a fairly intensive first faculty meeting of the quarter, and with scarcely a shift of gear, I was suddenly performing the show for four members of that faculty - the design team and the Artistic Director of Sideshow, Della Davidson. It was honestly like doing an MFA practical exam. I felt extremely vulnerable, and somewhat 'in my underwear'.

The props decided to play up. The costumes decided to be awkward. The puppets developed a life of their own. The 6-stringed lute suddenly felt like a 24-stringed zither. And my brain was taken up with the technical aspects of the show far more than with the actual living, breathing and listening to what I was saying as Tilly. Stanislavsky talks about 'dual consciousness': my consciousness was split in a hundred directions.

This last stage of rehearsals brings with it an inevitable, unavoidable fracturing of focus. Suddenly nothing is experimental or provisional any more: we're now in the terrain of saying to the world, 'Hey, we've made these choices. Waddya think?' No longer can you say to the visitor in rehearsals, 'Oh, we're just trying this...' You're now saying, 'This is my story. Can you follow it?' The psychological shift for the actor is huge: particularly when the play is new (as this one is), particularly when the rehearsal period has been very intimate and focused (as this one has). It's another big part of the creative process which - although the audience will never see or necessarily know about it - impacts significantly on the final steps towards offering up the creative goods to public display.

We're blessed with Tilly No-Body in that technically we're well ahead of the game. The Costume department and the Set department have been so fabulous about letting us use costumes, props and set in rehearsals, that we're actually making the kind of minute tweaks now that normally would be made in the venue during the technical rehearsals. I doubt anyone but an actor would understand how considerable the upheaval can be if suddenly the final prop you're given is a blue silk handkerchief, when all along you've been rehearsing with a white linen napkin. The door you've been used to using in rehearsal was 4 feet wide, and the one you now have in performance is 6 feet. These are huge psycho-physical changes that affect rhythm, delivery of text, physical choices for an actor. But hold on a sec, Bella...isn't acting just about learning the lines and not bumping into the furniture?? Deep breath...

Week 4: Entry 2: Amidst the pumpkins

Saturday October 1st. 6.45am. Farmers' Market. What a community!

My director, Miles, and I - dressed to the nines as Frank and Tilly Wedekind - set up a store at the Farmers' Market, Davis, to promote the show, as well as the Theatre and Dance department in general. I confess, I don't get to see too many 6.45ams on a Saturday. Yet, I was delighted by the sense of community among the stall holders - be they local farmers laying out pumpkins and peppers and potatoes, or local bakers luring us with chocolate croissants, or organic coffee makers supporting impoverished communities across the globe, or jewelry makers or school district campaigners.

By 8.10am, the market was already beginning to hum with shoppers and the grey-ish skies were brightening up. I was particularly endebted to the designer of the poster, Stephanie (who also set up this blog for me some months ago) as it caught the eye of many a passer-by in the course of the day. By 10am, Miles and I were joined by our indomitable Stage Management team, Reed and Sabba, who had also recruited her talented (and clearly devoted) boyfriend, Michael, and fellow thespian, Brendan. And now their acting abilities kicked into action impressively!

'Do you want to come and see Tilly No-Body?' invited Sabba, to anyone whose eye was caught by the poster. The majority stopped and enquired about the play. Very few scurried off in embarrassed silence.

'There's passion, laughter, tears, song, magic, broken hearts, romantic love...' Sabba declared.

'Ahh!' sighed many a Davis citizen. 'That sounds like the story of my life...'

'It's already in my diary,' chirrupped several people - which was terrific.

As Miles (in white tie and tails) and myself (in circus outfit) wandered up and down the market stalls, I truly had a sense of the hub of Davis that the market comprises. Fingers crossed, Theatre and Dance will be regular contributors to the early morning community. And heartfelt thanks go to the trusty team of Sabba, Reed, Brendan and Michael. And Miles is what you'd call in the UK a really 'good egg' - not many distinguished directors or leading actors (he's playing Salieri in Amadeus and Prospero in The Tempest at the Old Globe San Diego next summer!) would be so willing to pad among the pumpkins at dawn - unless, like Frank Wedekind, they'd been up all night drinking absinthe and were now on their way home to bed!

Week 4: Entry 1: Magic Moments

Last Friday, I walked into the rehearsal room to find almost all the pieces of the set in place and a little naked Tilly puppet sitting on a step. I was transported!

John Iacovelli's centre piece of a large, distorted doorway had been beautifully painted and 'gold-leafed' by staff and students in the shop. It was the perfect combination of circus, doorway, and castle. Wedekind's father had bought a castle in Lenzburg when the family were young, and this is where Wedekind had grown up. One of his plays is called Castle Wetterstein. And the door was a perfect resonance with this time and place. I was delighted.

The 'elephant podium' designed by Daniel Neeland in the shop was also perfect - a strange combination of levels and heights and circles and cut-offs. Divine.

And Byron in the shop had found a simple and effective way of securing the walking globe so that it no longer had a life of its own... But now, the Tilly puppet DID have a life of its own. 'Murph' had made the most wonderful head for Tilly, and although she still had no hair, clothes, painted features, I suddenly could relate to her absolutely as a little person.

There was a magical feeling in the rehearsal room, and I was excited by the innate collaboration of theatre. How everyone's unique and individual contribution forms part of the story-telling. Even those whose work is less evident - e.g. Eric, the production manager, keeping morale high - given invaluable contributions.

Week 3: Entry 3: Revving up

Next week, we start the technical rehearsals. So in many ways, this is the last week of 'comfort'. Not that there's been much 'comfort'! Our rehearsals in general have been pretty full-on. While we've continued to have the 'fun' advocated by our director on Day 1, we don't let up much. And yet the knowledge that the comfort zone of 'play' is nearing an end means that I, as an actor, am experiencing a different quality of energy.

And I don't think it's just me. The Publicity machine, under the auspices of Janice Bisgaard, has kicked into fast and furious action with a series of preview interviews, publicity blitzes at the Farmers' Market in Davis tomorrow morning starting at 6.45am (I hope this show will appeal to the early risers), and publicity campaigns. Budgets are being scrutinised; the painting on the set and floor cloth are under examination; the work on the puppets is finessing; the music is having various final tweaks; and details are under the microscope. Circus colours are appearing on the set pieces. Line notes are intense under the key eye of Sabba. And technical schedules are firming up.

The subtle ratcheting up of energies is exciting and energising. And the need for relaxation (the first tool in Stanislavsky's toolkit) is even more important... Maybe Sunday by a lake...

Week 3: Entry 2: Why, oh why, is acting so hard???

Last night's rehearsal included a run-through, with some of the actual pieces of the set and a few new props. I've been rehearsing the play now for nearly three working weeks, so I'm familiar with the mise-en-scene. (This is my preferred term for 'blocking' which, I'm afraid, is a word from which I flee. 'Blocking' does exactly what it says: it blocks the actor from any true flow, connection, dynamic listening. Added to which it comes from the practice of directors working out how they are going to stage a play by using blocks of wood to position the actors. To be honest, this was how the director of my first job after drama school stated that she directed. She used chess pieces to work everything out in advance, before she'd even seen the whole cast working together and connecting organically...)

However, I digress...

I'm familiar with the mise-en-scene for Tilly No-Body, I've been working with the costumes, most of the props have been in place, and yet just having a few new bits and pieces last night significantly affected my 'dual consciousness'.

This Stanislavskian term - dual consciousness - allows for the actor's utter engagement in the script's action whilst also acknowledging that there's an audience or a camera witnessing the events. Most actors are aware of the fine juggling of consciousness in performance - and how the slightest thing can tip the balance one way or another. Last night, a new set of steps, an adjustment of one of the props, a sound cue just a little too low for me to hear, and I found myself 'going through the motions'. The words were coming out of my mouth (most of the time), but I was finding it very hard to really hear and connect with what I was saying or with the given circumstances of each scene. The run was 2 minutes longer than usual, and I was totally bored with myself in certain places.

So, imagine my surprise, when at the end of the run, Miles, Reed and Sabba said how much improvement there was...

I sometimes don't get this acting business. I remember one of my Russian 'masters' - Albert Filozov - saying that it doesn't matter how little or how much the actor cries or laughs: their job is to make the audience cry or laugh. And the irony of the acting process is that, sometimes, our least 'felt' performances are the most effective as far as the audience is concerned. We don't have to 'experience' what the character is experiencing: we have to tell the story in the most appropriate manner to the style of the play, and take the audience on the right journey.

I understand why many actors are reluctant to talk about the art of acting and articulate what they're doing. There is a mystery to it. Of course there is a system and a technique as well: it's not pure intuition and inspiration. For me, the mystery is how little we understand sometimes the difference between what we experience on the stage and its reception by the audience. So don't tell me it's just about learning the lines and not bumping into the furniture...