Somewhere...Beyond the Sea....

I posted some of Jason's beautiful pictures (his photography is what makes them so lovely) on the Holla Holla MySpace. I really love that setting--it's a tricky space but man, you just can't get a better, more beautiful setting for a play like Twelfth Night than right on the river like that. My lover stands on golden sands...and watches the ships that go sailing...

We had a pickup rehearsal tonight--it was supposed to be a cue-to-cue, finishing up what we'd had to curtail the day before because of the rain, but a lot fewer people were there than we'd planned, so we caught Myles up on his entrances, worked on a few itty bitty things here and there and worked on the ring speech and II, iv (the second Orsino/Viola scene). The lovely and hard-working Miss Elizabeth graciously stood in for Orsino--I'd mentioned to Ben via email Michael's theory that there should be three kisses in Twelfth Night. One between Sebastian and Antonio, one between Orsino and Cesario (in II, iv) and one between Olivia and Cesario (in III, i). I wrote

I don't know if I agree per se--I don't think S & A should kiss because I don't think S
truly loves A (or he wouldn't end up with Olivia). With Orsino and Cesario--I don't think they should kiss, but it could be pushed even further *toward* that, because there's a lot there already. The second half of II, iv, after the song is pretty intense already. I had an epiphany about Orsino--the reason he's able to love Viola at the end is because he already loves her--in the fuller, multi-dimensional way he loves a man, whereas Olivia was just up on a pedestal. It's kind of like Michael Dorsey in Tootsie--"I was a better man with you, as a woman, than I ever was with a woman, as a man." Orsino is a better man with C.--C. brings out the best part of him. If we almost kiss, say before Orsino's and my last lines (like right before "Sir, shall I to this lady?"), that would demonstrate that intense bond.

Ben explored that idea a bit tonight--he said (in his email response) he was more interested in almost-kisses than in kisses, at least until the end, with which I agree. So he added a lot of hoyay between Cesario and Orsino--during Feste's song (which is the big turning point in the scene for me--my mood changes completely after that) he had Elizabeth (as Orsino) take my hand, put her hand on my cheek. It's pretty homoerotic now, as it stands--I think we might want to moderate it a little. Maybe that could come from me--right now I've been isolating myself during "Come Away Death," playing that sadness as a very solitary thing. However Ben wanted me to acknowledge Orsino's gestures more, and take comfort in them which is something I hadn't considered but yes, is more interesting. It'll all come to pass when Kenneth and I play it.

I don't like my ring speech. It just feels mechanical right now. Ben doesn't like the way I'm doing How easy is it for the proper false/in women's waxen hearts to fix their forms/Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we/For such as we are made of, such we be. He thinks the whole sentiment is sexist and borderline misogynistic--Viola's saying "we women are so weak, we'll fall for any pretty face." I said I don't think it's sexist, I think she (I) am talking about the human condition--people fall for a pretty face. Only she's a woman, so she's talking from that perspective, she's being rueful. He disagreed. I said "it's pretty rare that I meet someone even more feminist than I am."

Elizabeth helped me run lines, and at one point she and I bent backwards over our chairs, doing lines and backbends together. A completely new perspective. Our faces turned purple.

I love parsing the minutae of acting, and words, and literature.

I love my cast and my show, and Saturday we are going to be...transcendent.