Psychosis. We wanted to stage the production quickly so then in the final four
weeks we could run it and add any other moments as we went.Both plays in the double bill are going to be staged in the ‘semi-round’, a kind of thrust stage with the audience on three sides so they will be very close to Becky as her one-woman show unfolds!
Becky straight away impressed as she was without script and 90%
knew the lines. She has always had the ability to learn lines quickly and this
saves so much time as the blocking is a lot quicker for me and Becky can then go away knowing the moves as well as the dialogue. So, where to start with a one-woman show? The key thing is to keep the audience guessing to what’s going to happen, to make the moods of the scenes different and try and show great variety.
Without giving away too much, we have added several ‘props’that
help tell the story whilst (we hope) having an originality and an unusual slant
on a play that has no doubt been staged in 101 different ways.Becky was showing a great deal of invention. If you’ve worked with an actor a lot you start to develop a ‘short hand’ between you where phrases and even gestures replace long directorial addresses or in-depth discussions. That’s not to say we haven’t ‘got under the skin’ of the piece but rather we have done a light sketch that just now needs to be developed into a full drawing.
Not helped by a very hot theatre, we started to drag a
little and as Becky lies down during the play I know she was getting ‘sleepy’.
So, best to call it a night and go away with the majority of the work done.
Becky just needs to work on her puppet skills…all will be revealed