A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol is going very well. We are almost completely blocked now--just the finale and the last Cratchit/Scrooge scene in the office to do, and both of those are easy. My cast is an absolute dream this year--extremely capable and everyone really seems to be enjoying themselves. One girl in particular, Theresa, warmed to me after our bookwork rehearsal. I was talking about the food porn scene (when we first meet Xmas Present, there's a dense description of all the food that decorates the Spirit's throne,
turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch...
I was explaining what twelfth cakes were--similar to Mardi Gras king cakes, they are round with a bean or coin in the middle. Whoever gets the object is the King or Queen. (I actually have a "children's Twelfth Night party," as indicated in the text, during the Christmas montage, going into the Ignorance and Want sequence.) Theresa perked up and hung around me during the break, talking about food and Mardi Gras. She is so sweet--whenever we have a ten minute break, she always offers to go down to the cafeteria and get me coffee.
Another cast member I quite like is Caley who plays the Ghost of Christmas Present. She is AWESOME, I just love everything she does. Niki, who plays Mrs. Cratchit, is also terrific. I like how so many of them, when I give them their basic function in a scene, take that and run with it--I don't have to direct every little nuance and gesture, they inhabit the role fully, even if it's just a small function. Just a wonderful cast overall.
I've had a couple of emails from cast members expressing their excitement about the show, and thanking me for breaking down the blocking so clearly. With one of my big "spaghetti traffic pattern" scenes, I always tell them beforehand what the big picture is and where they fit into it, and I talk them through the technical transition. (I have very specific lighting and sound cues in my head--I like to layer the transition. Eg.: swirling mist sound and cyche image to indicate Scrooge and Xmas Past are going somewhere. Fade out mist and fade in sleigh bells, then slowly lights up while the cyche image transitions into a country snowscape.) And then I run it over and over again, working on the timing and the details. From what I can see (with no sets or techinical context), it's gonna look pretty good. Better than last year, more ambitious. Two scenes in particular are different and better--the Fezziwig party and the London Streets at Christmas. I've added children to the Fezziwig party which gives it dimension, and I've greatly expanded the scope of the London streets scene--a lot more is going on. In moving the Readers to the side, I have so much more room and scope. In all these traffic scenes, something specific is happening everywhere you look.
Another scene I'm loving is the Belle/Young Scrooge dis-engagement scene. The two actors are terrific--I honestly think it's the best performance of the piece I've ever seen. It's a difficult scene because Belle is speaking in this rather formal language, and she speaks so MUCH in the scene. It's easy to play as a set piece. But these two are great, they really find the energy and strong emotion in the exchange, cutting each other off and letting their impatience, frustration and love show through.
We blocked the first Future sequence yesterday, the one where Scrooge witnesses the First and Second Businessmen, and the First and Second Important Man talking about the death of some man they all knew (who of course is Scrooge). The first conversation is very jolly--I have Mark Dunn busting out laughing throughout it and taking snuff. The second conversation has a different dynamic--it's more stilted, "How are you?" and "Very good, Wentworth." Ross, one of my actors, was taking a LONG pause after meeting the other Important Man before he says "How are you?" and it started reading very differently to me, much more awkward. I told him to pick it up a bit--I said "that pause is adding all sorts of...uh, subtext to the scene" and then I started giggling, imagining all SORTS of homoerotic subtext. "So, I guess the other night meant nothing to you." "Well...you knew what the story was."
turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch...
I was explaining what twelfth cakes were--similar to Mardi Gras king cakes, they are round with a bean or coin in the middle. Whoever gets the object is the King or Queen. (I actually have a "children's Twelfth Night party," as indicated in the text, during the Christmas montage, going into the Ignorance and Want sequence.) Theresa perked up and hung around me during the break, talking about food and Mardi Gras. She is so sweet--whenever we have a ten minute break, she always offers to go down to the cafeteria and get me coffee.
Another cast member I quite like is Caley who plays the Ghost of Christmas Present. She is AWESOME, I just love everything she does. Niki, who plays Mrs. Cratchit, is also terrific. I like how so many of them, when I give them their basic function in a scene, take that and run with it--I don't have to direct every little nuance and gesture, they inhabit the role fully, even if it's just a small function. Just a wonderful cast overall.
I've had a couple of emails from cast members expressing their excitement about the show, and thanking me for breaking down the blocking so clearly. With one of my big "spaghetti traffic pattern" scenes, I always tell them beforehand what the big picture is and where they fit into it, and I talk them through the technical transition. (I have very specific lighting and sound cues in my head--I like to layer the transition. Eg.: swirling mist sound and cyche image to indicate Scrooge and Xmas Past are going somewhere. Fade out mist and fade in sleigh bells, then slowly lights up while the cyche image transitions into a country snowscape.) And then I run it over and over again, working on the timing and the details. From what I can see (with no sets or techinical context), it's gonna look pretty good. Better than last year, more ambitious. Two scenes in particular are different and better--the Fezziwig party and the London Streets at Christmas. I've added children to the Fezziwig party which gives it dimension, and I've greatly expanded the scope of the London streets scene--a lot more is going on. In moving the Readers to the side, I have so much more room and scope. In all these traffic scenes, something specific is happening everywhere you look.
Another scene I'm loving is the Belle/Young Scrooge dis-engagement scene. The two actors are terrific--I honestly think it's the best performance of the piece I've ever seen. It's a difficult scene because Belle is speaking in this rather formal language, and she speaks so MUCH in the scene. It's easy to play as a set piece. But these two are great, they really find the energy and strong emotion in the exchange, cutting each other off and letting their impatience, frustration and love show through.
We blocked the first Future sequence yesterday, the one where Scrooge witnesses the First and Second Businessmen, and the First and Second Important Man talking about the death of some man they all knew (who of course is Scrooge). The first conversation is very jolly--I have Mark Dunn busting out laughing throughout it and taking snuff. The second conversation has a different dynamic--it's more stilted, "How are you?" and "Very good, Wentworth." Ross, one of my actors, was taking a LONG pause after meeting the other Important Man before he says "How are you?" and it started reading very differently to me, much more awkward. I told him to pick it up a bit--I said "that pause is adding all sorts of...uh, subtext to the scene" and then I started giggling, imagining all SORTS of homoerotic subtext. "So, I guess the other night meant nothing to you." "Well...you knew what the story was."