November 1, 2007

Butter colored dawn. I’ve already exhausted myself with morning furies, coming upon me when my resistance was down and the recalcitrance of the universe was up.

The good thing in the news is that the Satan-worshipers at Westboro Baptist in Kansas will have to pay a little for a great wrong. One counts the little victories, which always seem futile, but the world keeps turning, so they must not wholly be.

Dress rehearsal last night. It actually went rather well, for our part, though on the production part nothing was ready, not the set, not the lights, not the sound cues, not the props; there was even notice that the production schedule had been wrong. HART is a fine facility, but it is run on a kind of home-grown American amateurism that in some ways is dear and in other ways not. The one problem we actors have left is that the play is long, very long, rambling, repetitious, the rehearsal period was short, and there has not been a night when we haven’t stopped dead because someone had no idea what the next non-sequitur was, and nobody else could help him. I asked for a prompter in the pit, just in case. The answer I got from our directorial duo, after they had the entire rehearsal to hatch it, was that our groping about for the path was endearing in some way, in some way attractively “in character,” and they would rather have that than the right line. I was too tired to be disgusted then. I am disgusted now. I do not, actually, have the sense of having been directed in this play. Mickey and I find our way about the stage, and it seems to be working. When S has an idea, we work it into the pattern, not because it is especially helpful, but because our director has had an idea, and that sort of thing should be encouraged. I am tired now. I shall no doubt feel better tonight. Providing we succeed.