Rehearsal

 

April 30, 2024

Soft rain, though were are threatened with thunderstorms. Finished the main labor of the garden just in time. 

In Hendersonville last night for a run-through of A God in the Waters. A week before production it’s watchable as a production, the lines in some cases quite solid and in all cases thoughtfully delivered. I sat rapt, as though I’d never heard the words before. Learned something new from every speech as it was uttered. The time flew, as is not typically my experience while attending a rehearsal of one of my works. At some point I realized that with a script that interests me (here I’m being a little self-congratulatory) what I prize is interpretation that puts nothing between me and the words: a transparent voice, an intelligence modest enough and bold enough to learn as it speaks. Not an display in itself, but a conduit. All things depend on the clear delivery of a clear truth. I got that, as I never have this early in the rehearsal process. Sometimes it happens closing night. Always when I consider the sheer labor that goes into presenting one of my works, the hours of memorization and rehearsal, the gathering of props, the assembling of sets, the fussing, huge and minute, over every detail, I am speechless with gratitude.  That I have done this for other authors is all that tempers the mortification. 

Crisis in that our stage manager’s landlord had been cruel to her. Difficult to know what to do at this point. Wish I had an extra house. 

My anticipated entrance onto I-26 was closed, as was Hendersonville Road going north, so the only thing I could do was ride I-26 to the Bat Cave exit, turn around and retrace my steps west. I called down curses on the head of anyone having to do with that endless shit-show of a road.