yelling
Author: Nathalia
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: Buttered Popcorn #05 - three rings
Flavor of the Day #249 - jamboree (a large gathering, as of a political party or the teams of a sporting league, often including a program of speeches and entertainment)
Extras / Toppings: peaches (you have better chances to make the progress you want to make under today's trine of the Sun and Pluto)
Word Count: 607
Story: Misfits
Summary: rehearsal for the Dracula play. The yelling part.
Notes: Maybe I haven’t read enough stage plays but something that I thought was unusual in Steven Dietz’ adaptation of Dracula was multiple scenes taking place at once.
After several days of focusing on individual scenes, yelling at Jack to be threatening because he was a fucking vampire and making sure the actors knew their dialogue which in some cases was trickier than Kev had expected, it was time to focus on a more complicated issue that had confused him a little ever since he had first gotten immersed in the script.
“Those of you who have bothered to read the script know that the scene transitions and the overlapping dialogue are very important to this play. More important than the rats or how much skin the ladies are going to show, the howls or even the aging and de-aging effects on Dracula and Van Helsing.” He paused for a second, realizing that the aspect of age was one of his favorite things in this. “Well, maybe not more important than that but certainly important. Anyway, there are scenes where people yell over each other and we have three things going on at the same time and those are tricky,” Kev told the kids that were sitting on the wooden floor of the stage in a half-circle, all looking at him.
“Isn’t it a bit dumb to have people talking over each other and three things going on at once? How are you supposed to keep track?” Gavin asked and Kev shrugged.
“Did I write this play?” Kev shot back, having by now gotten very comfortable around the kids. It helped that a few of them frequently hung out at his house for one reason or another and there seemed no way to prevent that. “Go ask Stephen Dietz what the fuck he was thinking when he came up with the idea and how they actually did it in the play. It’s a nice stylistic device but I think it might come to bite us in the ass. It’s only two really short scenes but we have to do them over and over and over again and figure out how to do it.”
“It’s all the yelling scenes, isn’t it? The one with the vixens assaulting Harker while Dracula gets into the coffin and Lucy and Renfield pretty much offering themselves up to Dracula?” Janna asked and Steph nodded right away. Sometimes, Kev thought that those two girls, Jack and Vincent were the only ones who knew the whole story instead of just their respective parts.
“That’s the more difficult overlapping bit. We’re going to start rehearing the end of the first act first because that’s easier. Less dialogue. The ones in the scenes, please get to your parts of the stage.”
The stage was cleverly set up in different parts with Renfield’s cell and Lucy and Mina’s bedroom being two of the more prominent ones. The last set they needed for the scene was Dracula’s castle that was to the side of the stage because it was less important.
Once the actors involved in the scenes -- everyone with a major part -- was in place, Kev started to give instructions.
“We’re going to start with Dracula announcing that he’s going to England and then the screaming match starts. Vixens, you just be quiet and be sexy and the rest of you know what to do.”
“We all just yell “no” and “oh my god” and “Master”?” Vincent asked.
“That’s pretty much it,” Kev nodded. “And hopefully, it won’t take that long to get those bits right so that we can do that bit where Dracula climbs into the wooden box, announced that he’s bound for England and closes the box. As soon as we have that worked out, you can all go home.”
