Excellent rehearsal tonight. Didn't run any scenes, but did some character work and accomplished some really wonderful stuff.
I sort of missed out on the first part, since I was off with Amy and Steven and my friend Felicia Cushing talking about how a woman moves, acts, and feels when pregnant. Discovered that in lieu of one of those "Empathy Belly" things, a stuffed backpack makes an okay pregnancy prosthesis. (You need a waist strap, though, or else it becomes somewhat detached from the torso when you sit down.) Meantime, though, Chepe led the actors through some breathing and voice exercises. At one point, I thought that the noises coming from the other end of the room sounded not unlike a record of ambient music that I had (god knows why) when I was a kid.
After we got finished with the pregnancy work and with those exercises, we started on the character work. The exercise we used starts out with the actors milling around, thinking in character. When they meet another actor, they are to think about how they think of that actor's character, how the characters interact, and so forth. Then they start to verbalize those thoughts: for example, when Paulina and Hermione met, the first thing Paulina said was, "So have you forgiven me for letting your baby daughter get cast out on the beach?"
Some really wonderful things happened in these interactions. Antigonus' first words to Camillo: "You better take care of [Paulina.]" They then had a long discussion on what the two of them loved and admired about Paulina. The conversation between Perdita and Leontes was very moving, as was that between Antigonus and Paulina. I spent a long time listening to Leontes and Hermione. The most interesting part of their conversation was their speculation on what happens after the end of the play. They thought, perhaps, that they may go back to being friends, but the damage may be too deep for them to be truly close again; as Peter said, "maybe they simply become two people who happen to live in the same castle." It was really a bit sad, and very moving. I missed the conversation between Florizel and Perdita, although when Chepe eavesdropped on them, he was informed that he had "just missed a really mushy conversation."
(Actors are encouraged to e-mail any of their own thoughts about this exercise, since I couldn't be everywhere at once, but I know some great stuff was going on.)
Then we got into some less serious stuff and played a game of Essence with the characters. It was truly hilarious to see the perceptions that many of the actors had about the characters. A couple of favourite responses: Paulina was described, variously, as an Apple IIe, a bright interrogation lamp, and Lear's Fool. Best, though, was when Vijay asked Jeff what kind of a Valentine Florizel would be. "Candy heart, roses, card, what?" Jeff thought a minute and said, "All of the above."
After that, Dema Solberg arrived to talk a little more about pregnancy issues. Her perspective was rather different from Felicia's, which was very interesting, and the input from both of them will prove very valuable to Amy as an actor and to Chepe and I when we start blocking.
A good evening, overall. Next stop: blocking.