Day 3

– We started the day with a discussion about how much time passes between each Act, as this will have an impact on the development of characters and their relationships with each other – in particular with Maddy and McShane’s relationship.
– There was some debate over the use of the word ‘Ballroom’ in Act 3. The original Chekhov play references there being a ballroom in the house, however the house in John Byrne’s version is less grand than in the original. The very word ‘ballroom’ comes with grand connotations so we thought about changing it to something else. We couldn’t settle on anything so we decided to stick with it for now and see how we could play it.
– We then went on to table read Acts 3 & 4 before John, Andy and Beth made some very minor cuts to feedback to the cast.
– After lunch we re-read Acts 3 and 4 but this time with some improvised movement, as we had done yesterday with Acts 1 and 2. This proved to be incredibly useful as we could begin to see the impact of the ending of the play already.
– Andy and Charlotte then pinned down the set, entrances and exits and what furniture we would need, along with where it should be placed on the set.
– Everything is now in place for us to start blocking the play tomorrow!

Day 4

– We talked the cast through the mark up and all the entrances and exits – where they lead in the world of the play.
– We then started to block the play from the very beginning of the text. (There will be some stylised atmospheric movement set to music to open the show but we will come back to this in later rehearsals.)
– The configuration of blocking of the 3 sisters was played with quite a lot when we began so that we could settle on the most appropriate and interesting opening ‘picture’ for the play. We’ll continue to play around with this as rehearsals go on.
– We added a line for Maloney to say on his first entrance. It was simply written that he enters the room but this looked strange. We went back to have a look how this was written in the original Chekhov version and adapted Soleni’s line there to fit our Maloney character.
– We played around with Carnalachie’s entrance with the Birthday cake in order to explore how it could make the biggest impact and interruption to the bubbling argument between the 3 sisters.
– It was decided that the record player won’t actually play anything, as is written in the script. Ross and Andy are keen not to have to place the time so explicitly and the Beatles song would pin the time down even to a year.
– We blocked up to page 8 today.

Day 5

– We picked up where we left off today and worked from page 8 in blocking the play. We also started to explore the moments where we could establish the stylised movements. As the play is written in quite a naturalistic way but we are wanting to stylise it, we have to find these moments and work on them in such a way to make everything work together and ‘look’ a particular way in order to create the atmosphere we want to achieve.
– There are moments in Act 1 where we are holding a moment (many times an awkward moment) in silence and stillness before then using the next line to break this and jolt the scene back into action again. This seems to be working really nicely in stylising the piece.
– We moved the chaise lounge more into the stage space and facing out to the audience, as opposed to laying across the stage left wall. The horseshoe formation of the furniture we had originally was looking quite contrived and forcing the actors to retreat to the edges of the set. By moving the chaise lounge more into the space we allow for more interesting blocking. This meant that we had to play with the configuration of the picture of the 3 sisters at the very top of the play some more with the new formation of furniture.
– The Beatles song playing on the record player that we cut yesterday remains cut but we are now thinking that it might be nice to have it play a nursery rhyme or something to show the Doctor still thinks of Renee as a little girl.
– We blocked to the end of Act 1.

It has been a very busy week in the rehearsal room this week but things are already looking great now that we have the play on its feet. Next week we’ll be continuing to block the rest of the play in this way and I’ll check in towards the end of the week to let you know how we’re getting on………..