And the show goes on....

Well... that went well.

Its 11pm. I'm exhausted. Let me tell you why.

We had our technical dress run this morning - at 7am for the first act, and for the second act from 10 - 12.30. Then the students had to disband so that they could move out of thier rooms into a dormitory style accomodation in the school next door ( in order to make room for incoming Theatre people from across the country who are coming to Ninasam for a Theatre Management Conference this week)

Then they had lunch, and worked with me from 3 for about an hour. Then I thought I'd make things easy for them, and just let them sit and do a line run of the whole play. Which took them 2 hours (not good, I thought to myself - we're now at 5.30. They needed to have tea, come back, prepare for the play and do a warm up and hit the stage for a 7.15 performance.

The play - it went well. They pretty much did everything I had asked them to as a director, and in some cases more, and in general it was a strong set of performances with moments that dwindled in and out, but it lasted 2 hours! (Its supposed to be 2 acts of 40 minutes each - maximum). I was sitting in the back watching the audience (who were not responsive) thinking - oh boy.

Personally, I was at a loss. I couldn't figure out what it was that was wrong, why was everything dragging. The scenes were clear, the actions were clear, the actors gave themselves to it. They were doing everything right.

I was hit with a silent little terror because when I thought to myself, what do I to make this work better, to have the scenes run with a flow, a sense of strong forward motion, yet with time for the audience - there was no balance to be found.
(remember me worrying earlier about the play not taking a moment to breath earlier, and just rushing to the end. Well in this case, it was like watching a patient on a very slow life support respirator.)

I was stumped. I had no answer. What do I do as a director to get the flow right? To get the overall pacing right? The answer was not in the small details, it had to be an over all directors note, or an exercise we could go through - to make it work better. I had no answer!

Terror. Have I reached my limit? Is this where I fail? At the last step, they were the ones who were going to ask me 'what can we do better?' and I had no answer.

So after the run (which was beautiful, and told a story - though it was utterly slow) we sat down in our circle, and I asked them, what were your observations...

And the actor playing Sarvavarman, someone who does it well, and has really risen to the challenges I have given him - said... I couldn't find 10 minutes of continuous energy or concentration in me.

And I thought to myself - Jehan, you're really the stupidest idiot on the planet. It is 9.50pm. They've been at it for 14 hours straight. Of course they're going to give all they have, but I'd already taken it all away from them before the run.

So, giving them solace in the fact that they have come a long way since we began, and being very proud of them for the fact that at the end of 14 hours they were all still THERE, standing, (sittting actually) and alive.

I told them while it was my fault that they had run 14 hours straight. It was a good thing. Cause they're all stronger for it.

Still think I was a jackass. Tomorrow, we start at 10am. Its going to be a light day, full of interesting learing exercises, and plenty of time for them to rest before the show.

And it'll be a good show. I can feel it in my bones.

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On another note, I just realised - today, that I've written my first play.

:-)

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