On this Monday, due to a training day we were able to have a full day rehearsal. I was only able to attend the morning because I had lessons at my guest school in the afternoon. However, I was there from 9 till 12 and we were able to block the entirety of the final scene with me and The Boy and by the end of that rehearsal we were able to perform it without scripts and with a certain sense of realism.
The last scene is really quite violent and graphic, the stage directions of the script direct The Boy to drag the girl around the room by her hair and throws her onto the floor. Our director had decided to go against that and didn't think that it would work with our set and actors so we went for a different approach, one that could easily look believable, create the same tension and dangerous atmosphere and obviously be safe for both of us to act. So he decided that the boy would push me up against the door with his right hand, strangle me, throw me onto a chair, still holding me and strangling me whilst I'm on the chair he then throws me onto the floor (which will be covered in wires on the actual set) whilst he says 'you're a slut just like my mother'. Blocking this scene before making final adjustments to the set was really important because we had to have a specific position for the chair to be in so that when I got thrown from the door to the chair it wouldn't be of such a big distance that it would look clumsy and it wouldn't be too close so that if I went down with too much force it still wouldn't actually be painful.
Our director also had to make quite a few adjustments to the script in this section because there was so much repetition. Throughout the whole play there is a lot of repetition, due to Jon Fosse's extra realism style but in this final section it is particularly obvious and we were really struggling to make it sound realistic and meaningful. There is one section of mine in particular where I was supposed to repeat the words 'no' 'no don't' 'it hurts' about three times and I just found it so difficult to act those lines well and for it to sound believable, so we cut that bit down from about 12 lines to 3 so that I just say 'no it hurts, stop it, let me go' - which worked much better. I think it's more believable for my character to have fewer words at this moment because I think she would have been so shocked and stunned by whats happening - as everybody is because the boy is not an aggressive character, shown no signs of being aggressive at all throughout the whole play- I think the fewer words from the girl really fits the scene better than the long spiel that was in the script.
Another adjustment our director made to the script when we were blocking this scene was the ending. In the script it ends with her saying the 'even if you call me a slut you still love me' lines and the two exiting the space (which is the girl's objective so the play ends the way she wanted it to, even if it wasn't as though she imagined). Our director cut this final bit and ended it at the moment after I'd been thrown onto the floor and I say 'come here', he picks me up from the floor and we hug - that's going to be the final moment. He has said that if we have time we might expand this scene to the end and do the last little bit which I want to do because I think it circles the plot really nicely having the two enter the room at the beginning and leaving together at the end. I also feel like that last section of dialogue adds another dimension to my character, but I think if I take that section into consideration when I'm acting that dimension can still be there even without that bit of dialogue. But actually that final piece of contact to end the play is actually really nice compared to the horrific violent contact that has taken place. There is so little contact in the whole play, each touch is so important and powerful, that final image of the hug can represent the relationships and the contact made between all the different characters within that room.
The last scene is really quite violent and graphic, the stage directions of the script direct The Boy to drag the girl around the room by her hair and throws her onto the floor. Our director had decided to go against that and didn't think that it would work with our set and actors so we went for a different approach, one that could easily look believable, create the same tension and dangerous atmosphere and obviously be safe for both of us to act. So he decided that the boy would push me up against the door with his right hand, strangle me, throw me onto a chair, still holding me and strangling me whilst I'm on the chair he then throws me onto the floor (which will be covered in wires on the actual set) whilst he says 'you're a slut just like my mother'. Blocking this scene before making final adjustments to the set was really important because we had to have a specific position for the chair to be in so that when I got thrown from the door to the chair it wouldn't be of such a big distance that it would look clumsy and it wouldn't be too close so that if I went down with too much force it still wouldn't actually be painful.
Our director also had to make quite a few adjustments to the script in this section because there was so much repetition. Throughout the whole play there is a lot of repetition, due to Jon Fosse's extra realism style but in this final section it is particularly obvious and we were really struggling to make it sound realistic and meaningful. There is one section of mine in particular where I was supposed to repeat the words 'no' 'no don't' 'it hurts' about three times and I just found it so difficult to act those lines well and for it to sound believable, so we cut that bit down from about 12 lines to 3 so that I just say 'no it hurts, stop it, let me go' - which worked much better. I think it's more believable for my character to have fewer words at this moment because I think she would have been so shocked and stunned by whats happening - as everybody is because the boy is not an aggressive character, shown no signs of being aggressive at all throughout the whole play- I think the fewer words from the girl really fits the scene better than the long spiel that was in the script.
Another adjustment our director made to the script when we were blocking this scene was the ending. In the script it ends with her saying the 'even if you call me a slut you still love me' lines and the two exiting the space (which is the girl's objective so the play ends the way she wanted it to, even if it wasn't as though she imagined). Our director cut this final bit and ended it at the moment after I'd been thrown onto the floor and I say 'come here', he picks me up from the floor and we hug - that's going to be the final moment. He has said that if we have time we might expand this scene to the end and do the last little bit which I want to do because I think it circles the plot really nicely having the two enter the room at the beginning and leaving together at the end. I also feel like that last section of dialogue adds another dimension to my character, but I think if I take that section into consideration when I'm acting that dimension can still be there even without that bit of dialogue. But actually that final piece of contact to end the play is actually really nice compared to the horrific violent contact that has taken place. There is so little contact in the whole play, each touch is so important and powerful, that final image of the hug can represent the relationships and the contact made between all the different characters within that room.
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