Rehearsal

[ceebeegee]

Had a good rehearsal tonight. We stumbled-through the second half and then worked-through the first (I get there later than the others due to my work schedule). I am more off-book, and more comfortable, than I thought, which is a huge load off my mind. During the first-half work-through, I don't have much to do until the fourth scene or so, but I'm still on stage, so I was working different character poses. I was actually the one who suggested this--I assumed any time we were on stage, we should take that time to establish our character, so I was trying different poses, keeping in mind: my personality and interests, my profession (model) and my comfort (it'll hurt my back if I stand too long). Laura stopped a lot to work on stuff and at one point looked over to make a face of apology to me--I waved it off, saying "hey, I'm using the time to work on these poses." I also use my down time to increase my flexibility in these yoga poses, especially in my quads and hamstrings, which have always been extremely tight. I'm very flexible in other ways (decent arabesque, 180 turnout, although I will say it's not from my hips, okay releve) but very weird, specific areas of weakness. I think it's due to my years of soccer--I have fairly muscular legs, and the hamstrings have always been very inflexible. Trying to get them to loosen up has always been a painful process--when I was a sophomore on college, my roommate wanted to try out a massage technique on me and massaged a tight quad. The next day, I am not kidding, my thigh was literally black and blue. It looked as though I'd been beaten. It wasn't painful but it looked AWFUL, the coach refused to practice me. So since I started playing Tara, I've been doing research on yoga, and practicing the poses--and although it's still painful, I'm stunned to see my quads and hamstrings are actually getting more flexible. I can touch my toes, and am getting closer to doing a decent downward dog.

But back to rehearsal--during the first half work through, I was doing a bit that Laura had suggested to me, and I guess doing it well, because she, our SM and our dramaturg were dying of laughter. I have to credit Bart (my older brother), I was completely channeling him for the bit. And I had an idea about my final scene, something that would clarify a lot for me and for Laura too--something that changes significantly how we've been conceiving the end of Tara's journey. When I mentioned it to her and how to stage it, her face lit up. She said "that's lovely! Can we talk about this tomorrow?" I love proving myself to my director.