Scriptwriter
The Goddess read the following aloud to me this morning:
Andre had recently written a superb drama in verse, in five acts of four scenes each, beginning with a chariot fight and ending with a procession of elephants, which he was most anxious to see upon the London stage…. The difficulty was to know how to get it there.
– Make-Believe (1949), Elizabeth Goudge.
Andre, bro – I feel you.
This is it.
Props and uniforms are at the theatre.
A focus and plot was completed in record time this afternoon. (I’ve only just learned what focus and plot means: it’s apprising the theatre’s audio-visual technician of when/where to change lights, play audio, etc.)
Tomorrow’s the technical and dress rehearsals, followed by —
— opening night.
How hard can it be?
INT. REHEARSAL SPACE – NIGHT
ANDY, one of the actors, approaches our WRITER:
ANDY
Is the play turning out like you imagined?
WRITER
No.
Andy straightens fractionally.
ANDY
Really?
WRITER
What you guys are doing is heaps better.
Final rehearsal tonight.
Two sleeps and one day before it’s show-time.
This – this – is the point where I finally let go.
Where did the time go?
Here’s some pics.
Nit-pickers might point out the differing shades of green in the uniforms. Our historical excuse is that it was war-time and uniform manufacture and dye availability was a bit ad hoc.
Just the one session this week, due to actor availability. Meanwhile, there’s been a bit of Facebooking, and notification of media outlets and networks.
I exchanged some emails with Jenni earlier in the week and, as if out of the blue, she asked how I was feeling with regard to the script.
I began typing something along the lines of, I have to let go of my baby, I suppose but I caught myself in the lie: I’m not letting go – I’m sharing the script with Chris and the boys.
It was a weirdly empowering moment.
We have a Choir Mistress: Maureen Fepulea’i, a playwright to look out for.
The Producer and Director have names, too: Jenni Heka and Chris Molloy, respectively – I salute you both. Their bios are here.
And the cast, of course. Shadon Meredith, who was one of the voice actors in O le Samaria. The young ‘n’ hungry Samson Chan-Boon. And Andy Sani and Leki Jackson Bourke, both hot off The Brave. Cast bios are here.
As for the rehearsals… what can I say? They’ve started. Four weeks to go.
Read-throughs can be fun to attend as a reader or gopher but when you’re the writer, you can only gird your loins and approach it as an instructive exercise.
One of the nice things about a closed read-through is that the atmosphere is collegial: it’s okay to say, This dialogue sucks because it’s understood that the speaker will then say why it sucks, and maybe even suggest how it can be made to suck less, all in a thick fug of We’re here about the work.
A public reading – well, that’s a different kettle of hedgehogs. There’s the possibility – no matter how remote in these ever-so-polite South Pacific isles – that someone in the crowd will say, That sucks! and hide in the mass of unfamiliar faces. And I suspect that stalking up and down the stage eye-fucking every suspicious-looking audience member and yelling WHO SAID THAT? is not really the look I want to promote.
Saturday’s public reading had no such impromptu drama – all the drama was scripted, there was polite applause, and at the end of each reading, there were questions and comments that forced the writers to think and consider.
Ah, humanity: how I love thee at times.
With just over four weeks to go (30 days, to be precise), the production exudes a quiet confidence while the writer goes through 250 grams of cocoa product a day and worries at the script, desperately trying not to think that any day now, he will have to let go of it and trust in the director and actors.
