August 10, 2011

Went to a rehearsal of Act 1 of Vance last night, dragging DJ along for a more objective eye. In his old concert hall at Mars Hill, he was deeply nostalgic. The first thing which must be related is relief that things are going as well as they are. Knots of anxiety released in my chest. R, playing Hattie, is in particular compelling and believable. One of the actors had several suggestions for dialogue changes. One of them was actually necessary, as the direction had gone in a direction which necessitated it. You don’t need to ask a character “Are you a ghost?” if the director decided to dress him as a ghost. The rest were. . . well, such things are problematic. One wishes for the actors to have a sense of ownership of a work, especially a new work, but most dialogue suggestions are based on the assumption that the playwright hasn’t quite thought things through. I accepted all of the suggestions in this case because they were thoughtful and did no harm, and one doesn’t want the reputation of being inflexible or “in love with one’s own words.” “He’s in love with his own words” is the response, I learned at NKU, of college freshmen to a playwright’s hesitancy to change dialogue to suit them. I try to forget the atrocity of Bailiwick at my back, where leniency with text contributed to disaster. Anyway, I was as happy last night that the actor was actively relating to the play as I was uncertain about the changes, so balance was struck. One wants to say one is in favor of changes which improve or don’t harm, but that is not really a public relations advancement, as nobody makes suggestions they believe will do harm. The hardest lines to justify are those which rely on rhythm– why it’s better to say “I woke today a common soldier” than “I woke today a soldier”– because actors are seldom– in between learning to bellow and to imitate pudding–given a sense of the rhythm of the language.

I covet Mars Hill’s clumps of gigantic hibiscus.