Tanya's back, and all's well. She was in South Africa because a bunch of her friends were getting married or engaged or having other events that she felt she had to be at. I would never value my friends over my creativity, but I guess I can understand why she would. Anyway, there's no grudge here. She's back, and the play's going to be great.
There's an actor Tanya knows who's willing to play Cornelius, but he's not available on Wednesdays and many of our rehearsals are on Wednesdays, so she's looking for other actors who might be easier to work with. She's going to watch the other production of The Matchmaker in a few days, and she said she might ask their Cornelius to join us if he's good. I hope she's joking about that one.
In order to keep the play under two hours, we were going to cut most of Act 4, and replace it with a short video clip of Act 4's plot played out in pantomime. (Tanya described the idea as "Charlie Chaplin-style".) It could have worked. Tanya was going to ask a film student to direct that bit. But now JEST's board of directors have told her to scrap that idea, because there's no room in the budget for it. So we're doing Act 4 as written, and the play will be long. I'm okay with this decision. On the one hand, it means what we're doing is less insane, and that's a shame. But on the other hand, it means I get more funny moments on stage. I was off-book, but it didn't take me too long to get there. I can learn another act quickly enough.
Not everyone showed up to this rehearsal, for whatever reason. The schedule said we'd be doing Act 1, but the actors who came were the actors for Act 2 (minus Cornelius). So we did Act 2. Ambrose isn't in that act, only Barnaby.
I tried to tone down my performance a tad, because in practicing at home it had been a bit too crazy for a stage. To try to figure out the mannerisms of Barnaby I was hopping around the house a lot, but on stage it just didn't feel right. Barnaby was in a strange area, he'd probably be a lot more restrained. So that's how I played hm. When we were done running the scene, Tanya told me to run around more. So we ran it again, and I ran around so much that I felt like I was playing a squirrel. (I have no problems with squirrels, I just didn't expect that.) And then when we were done Tanya told me to never stop running around, to just be totally hyperactive. So we ran it a third time, and I kept running around so much that I felt like I was repeating myself, and then when we were done she said it was great but I ought to move around more. Really hop up and down, when appropriate. This is going to be fun. I may need to exercise my legs regularly.
We still don't have an Ermengarde, and Tanya isn't too concerned because Ermengarde doesn't have many lines. She's considering Dena, which would just be weird. I saw her in Another Antigone, and that was a good show but Dena's acting was one of the things I didn't like about it. Plus, that would just be weird. I'm supposed to act like I'm in love with Dena? I hope Dena declines. Although... if I play it like I'm not really in love with Ermengarde, it could add a bit of the weirdness from my backstory for Ambrose, where Ermengarde is really just the rebound girl. Hmmm.
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