Hamlet: more bitching
So. Rehearsal last night.
We do a scene that we’ve never blocked (because we’ve never had each cast member for the scene at at rehearsal). I know for a fact that we only read the scene, and never blocked it. But I was told by the director that we had.
What’s the big deal? Well, I am expected to be off book (we open in 2 weeks). But learning lines is made easier for me once the scene is blocked. Even worse, there are scenes that we haven’t even read over yet!
Just to put this into perspective, let me explain my own personal theories about “rehearsal”: First of all, ideally, you want 4 hours of rehearsal for every 4 minutes of stage time. And each scene must be rehearsed many times. You go over a scene, initially for the blocking, and then you have to revisit it frequently. The French call rehearsal “repetition”, and for me, I find that describes the way that works best for most actors. Repeat the scene frequently. This way, by the time you need your actors to be off book, they are able to do so without effort (because the scenes have all been repeated so frequently).
What you cannot do, is block the scene and then walk away from it for two weeks. What you shouldn’t do is under-rehearse the scene. When you block the scene, don’t block it through once or twice and then leave it. Go through it a couple of times for blocking, and then do it again. Let the actors play with the scene and the blocking. Do the scene as frequently as possible. And don’t complain that there’s not enough time to rehearse that frequently. If that’s the case, then you should have started rehearsing earlier, shouldn’t you?
That’s enough bitching for now.
