David Copperfield Rehearsal Day Six
Today’s rehearsal of David Copperfield was rather relaxing. As yesterday was the last day of the first week of rehearsals, the company dynamic has started to get more comfortable. We, as an ensemble of actors, directors, stage managers and musicians, have much more of an understanding of where we want the play to go and how to get there.
Most of the cast (mainly ensemble) had the day off to rest and to learn lines, while some of the main characters with definite scenes came in to rehearse from 10:00 till 1:00. This may only be three hours and would normally take us up to about lunch time, however, this was a packed three hours full of lots of exciting and imaginative things. I, for example, worked with another company member on the choreography of a stylistic scene where a ship in the play sinks and two characters, including my own, drowns. We went off to the Gwen Watford and started to work on a sequence.
The idea behind this sequence/scene was that we were to be underwater and there would be a struggle between our characters. This scene is going to be performed in slow motion and with interesting blue lighting to make the scene atmospheric and captivating for the audience. We even started to look at the possibility of using the device of physical theatre lifts in this scene, inspired by the works of Frantic Assembly and Dv8 Physical Theatre Company. We thought that there is something so interesting and appealing when there are lots of bodies on stage that have a purpose. This will be carried out in Monday's rehearsal when we have the rest of the cast and the ensemble. Ensemble work and the use of imaginative physical theatre is a massive part of what the 1066 Youth Theatre is all about. The inclusion of actors, no matter what age or ability, is what makes this youth theatre so amazing.
After creating the structure of the sinking ship scene, I worked on a scene where my character (Steerforth) meets David Copperfield again. In this scene my character stumbles upon David confessing his love for the character of Dora. My character had just wondered out of town in search for some entertainment as he finds Oxford University terribly boring. I really like this scene as this is my character's first of two small scenes with older David Copperfield and I really like how my character has developed. As a whole, I would say that today’s rehearsal has been short but sweet and very productive. I’m really looking forward to what the next week entails.
Most of the cast (mainly ensemble) had the day off to rest and to learn lines, while some of the main characters with definite scenes came in to rehearse from 10:00 till 1:00. This may only be three hours and would normally take us up to about lunch time, however, this was a packed three hours full of lots of exciting and imaginative things. I, for example, worked with another company member on the choreography of a stylistic scene where a ship in the play sinks and two characters, including my own, drowns. We went off to the Gwen Watford and started to work on a sequence.
The idea behind this sequence/scene was that we were to be underwater and there would be a struggle between our characters. This scene is going to be performed in slow motion and with interesting blue lighting to make the scene atmospheric and captivating for the audience. We even started to look at the possibility of using the device of physical theatre lifts in this scene, inspired by the works of Frantic Assembly and Dv8 Physical Theatre Company. We thought that there is something so interesting and appealing when there are lots of bodies on stage that have a purpose. This will be carried out in Monday's rehearsal when we have the rest of the cast and the ensemble. Ensemble work and the use of imaginative physical theatre is a massive part of what the 1066 Youth Theatre is all about. The inclusion of actors, no matter what age or ability, is what makes this youth theatre so amazing.
After creating the structure of the sinking ship scene, I worked on a scene where my character (Steerforth) meets David Copperfield again. In this scene my character stumbles upon David confessing his love for the character of Dora. My character had just wondered out of town in search for some entertainment as he finds Oxford University terribly boring. I really like this scene as this is my character's first of two small scenes with older David Copperfield and I really like how my character has developed. As a whole, I would say that today’s rehearsal has been short but sweet and very productive. I’m really looking forward to what the next week entails.
Harry Leigh
(Steerforth in David Copperfield)
I agree,Harry, a productive week followed by a really useful morning! It might be cool if you could talk with the lighting designer as well as our directors about your ideas for that scene, it really helps to share ideas around.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to coming along on Monday morning to take photographs for the programme.
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