Habeas Corpus 2

Today was our last dress rehearsal before we go into the Palace Theatre tomorrow for our tech rehearsal. Then we open on Tuesday.

I made some interesting discoveries with my interpretation of Dennis Wicksteed today. You may remember from my previous entry that I was trying to work out how he should stand. Ironically I solved this issue when I was sitting down. I noticed that when I sit down I usually sweep my feet under my chair, resting the weight of my legs on my toes. I decided today that because Dennis is not very light on his feet, and always seems to have some kind of illness, his heels should always be in contact with the floor, unless there's an over-riding circumstance, such as walking.
As for his arms, i still like him to fidget with his clothes but when rehearsing the intro to the play, I found a nice comfy area for Dennis' arms down by his side, and slightly behind him. Where there end up on the night, i have no idea - I'm just going to see where the energy takes me. One of the other key elements to Dennis' awkwardness is that he is always adjusting his underwear, de-cracking himself, as it were.

Now then, as I also mentioned previously, today I was trying out some new spots I got from the fancy dress shop. They're yellow-heads and if you can imagine a nipple with a yellow centre, that's pretty much how these look. Problem is, the outer area which is "flesh coloured" is not "Dave flesh coloured" so i'm going to need to experiment with foundation to blend them in. They also do not have any red bits. My director insists they must have redness around them. So I shall also be experimenting with redness.
Something else I need to learn is where to put them so as my face moves throughout the show, they don't work loose and fall off. This happened twice today.

The rehearsal itself went quite well. Apart from a sound effect analogue shattering sending peppercorns all over the floor, and one of the actors who was supposed to jump over these chairs, decided inside that he would test his flying ability parallel to the chairs. Once he managed to peel his face off the floor he decided to return to the original plan.

One issue that we are all currently experiencing is that we have been rehearsing the show so much that we've stopped laughing at each other. As a result we've began to second-guess ourselves, changing things that were once hilariously funny, hoping that we can get a laugh. We're all ready for our audience now.

We had some bad news tonight aswell. The actress playing Muriel Wicksteed (Dennis' Mother) has been taken ill and may not be able to perform. If this happens the assistant director, who has acting experience will take over but obviously we hope that our actress is well enough. With the work she has put in, acting-wise and producer-wise, she desserves to have her moment in the spotlight. Also, at this late stage (2 days before we open) our assistant producer is unlikely to be able to learn all the lines aswell as "own" the character. Fortunately she has been at every rehearsal so knows the moves and having read in when people have been away, she is very familiar with the lines. It is likely, however, that there will be a script on stage when we come to perform which is bad for a whole shebang of reasons. Never the less, our assistant director is a diamond for stepping in at this late stage and we are all grateful to her for that.