Saturday, 21 October 2006

'I mean to have you...'

by Tim Massey

I joined Sam and the cast for the afternoon's rehearsal in the Alma Tavern, which began with a run of the play. It was interesting to see progress since Tuesday when rehearsals were around a table, and I was impressed with some of the week's innovations: Simon and Paul huddle close together during the ceilidh scene, creating the impression of a crowded bar very nicely; the 'cheesy curtain call' episode, in which Paul (the character, not the actor) walks Emily, dressed only in a towel, through the previous night's controversial curtain call, is shaping up well (unsurprisingly, as Jo and Simon made a reasonable fist of it at audition); the late-night action on the Royal Mile with John and Paul distributing handbills for the show is a lot more animated than I thought it would be; and Paul (the actor, not the character) put a new spin on a line in the first scene when John (his character) says that he tripped on a cobblestone because he was distracted by a text message from Emily, managing to imply that he was distracted by Emily as well as by her text message. There were a few minor adjustments to the script, and 'carrot and coriander' is now 'chicken and sage'.

While I was pleased with the above, I was worried that a lot of the lines didn't come across as I'd hoped and wondered if the audience would be able to follow the action. I'm always keen to trust the audience and know that it's important not to spell everything out, but doubts about whether people will 'get it' always creep in when one of my plays is about to take the stage: Maybe I've had a brainstorm while writing and come up with something totally incomprehensible? Maybe the people who've decided independently that my play's worth doing have also suffered a judgmental blackout? Maybe the director and cast don't know what I'm driving at and are just humouring me by making the best of a bad job? With these demons muttering away, I reminded myself that rehearsals weren't yet half over and it was unreasonable to expect a fully polished performance.

There was clear evidence that my fears were unfounded in the rest of the afternoon's rehearsals. Sam gave the cast some notes on the initial run and, after a break, we worked on the opening scenes in more detail. This showed that the run had been little more than a walk-through as the actors layered nuances into the action and dialogue in more concentrated rehearsal. We focussed on the first two scenes, working through the accompanying stage business and finding that the scenes played much better once the actors had something to do while speaking their lines. In the second scene, John asks Paul if he can't be nicer to Emily after he forces her patronisingly to go over a lighting cue. Paul ignores him, preoccupied with the food he has bought for their lunch from a local deli (including the chicken and sage soup). Sam felt that the scene worked best if Simon (as Paul) focussed completely on the food and didn't react at all to Paul's (John) lines, and this definitely worked to emphasise the subtext. The lines cut across each other in this exchange, making for natural-sounding dialogue, but it complicates things for Simon who has to cue his lines from points within Paul's at the same time as doing the business with the food containers - this may take some practise!

It's hard to be sure of the etiquette for a playwright attending rehearsals. As I've said earlier in this blog, I feel it's a bad idea for a writer to direct his or her own work because it eliminates the ideas that a fresh take on a script can bring to its production. Because I'm not interested in directing, I find it quite easy to defer to the director at rehearsals and do my best to only chip in on writing issues and not directorial ones. In simple terms, what the lines are is a matter for the writer, but how they are put across is one for the director. I think I'm pretty easygoing about my script being changed unilaterally by the director and cast (although I insist on my carefully crafted laugh lines) and hope that I can expect similar tolerance. I did my best to avoid speaking to the actors directly on their interpretations of my script, and made suggestions in muttered asides to Sam, but it's hard not to get caught up in the cut and thrust of the rehearsal process. Maybe it's a bad idea creatively to pussyfoot about constantly wondering if you're on the director's territory? I don't think I left too many crushed toes behind me after this rehearsal, anyway.

Sam, Simon and I talked about the director's role over a drink after we finished for the day. We discussed the difference between the vision of the production in the writer or director's mind and the play as it appears on the stage. Inevitably, the two can be poles apart, not least because it's unlikely that you'll be able to cast actors who match your mind's-eye pictures of the characters. The cast might also be unable to put over the lines in the way originally imagined, and it's likely that it won't be possible or affordable to either construct or light the set as envisaged. I feel, though, that these 'limitations' are to be embraced rather than resisted, firstly because it's unrealistic to expect your imaginings to be brought entirely to life - in The Savage Mind, Claude Lévi-Strauss (1966:21) points out that, 'Once it materializes the project will [...] inevitably be at a remove from the initial aim (which was moreover a mere sketch), a phenomenon which the surrealists have felicitously called "objective hazard".' - and secondly because the problem-solving process involved in staging a play can result in a production that improves on what was first imagined. Because the director and cast bring their imaginations into play during rehearsals, the eventual production is a blend of imaginative contributions and this collaboration should result in a show that is an improvement on its author's original vision. An important lesson to learn as a playwright, I feel, is that the slippage between what you have in mind in the first place and the eventual outcome shouldn't be seen as dilution, but concentration.

Simon had been doing some research on the internet and found the line his character quotes from Withnail and I given as, 'I mean to have you, my boy, even if it must be burglary.' Back at home in Pedant's Corner, I checked the line in my 10th anniversary edition of the screenplay (1995:105), and it's definitely, 'I mean to have you... even if it must be burglary.' Best to be sure of these things, I feel...