Rehearsal

I sat in on my first ever proper rehearsal for something I've written tonight. It was very exciting. There were proper actorly things going on about motivation, and backstories and all sorts. I felt a bit unsure of my role, to be honest. I mainly sat there, nodding wisely whenever the actors said anything about their characters, which was mostly what I had in mind, with occasional flights of fancy on their part. This is fine, to be fair. The important stuff is in the script. I'm quite happy for others to fill in the gaps. That kind of feels like the point.

Sometimes they asked me things about the setting, and I had to admit that I hadn't fully defined it. Afterwards I thought I should have said something clever about it being deliberately vague in order to represent the essential homogenity of modern workplace. I didn't think of it in the moment though, I just gibbered a bit and looked embarrassed. This is why I'm a writer, not an actor.

Actors intimidate me slightly, if truth be told. They're often very funny and entertaining and have big expressive personalities which I sort of envy and admire. I'd like to think that I retain an air of mystique or some such. In fact I often just feel awkward and uninteresting in comparison. The funny stuff goes in the scripts. (I hope).

This time next week it will all be over. I'm cautiously optimistic. I've had a few things put on now, so I'm less willing to judge from the first readthrough. It will depend on how things develop at rehearsals (I won't be going to them all). And it will depend on the venue and the audience on the night. This is what makes it scary. This is what makes it so flipping EXCITING...

Hurrah!

Not one, not two but three productions in the offing! By which I mean one fully staged, and two rehearsed readings of short scripts I have written...

'Tis amazing, and very gratifying, and exactly like that bus metaphor (simile?) which it would be embarrassingly cliched to use, thinking of myself as a writer as I do...

(I didn't experience the truth of the bus metaphor till I moved to London. In other parts of Britain, the scenario would be, 'you wait ages for a bus to come along, but it doesn't ever arrive, because of cuts to the service due to deregulation, privatisation etc)

Not sure how I've made this mainly about buses, but anyway, the Thailand opus and the scary attempt at writing something not a comedy are both getting outings and for this I am glad.

More soon, sleep beckons...