Dan Avery as Kit and Jennie Fox as Nina The Minack Theatre is built on a grand scale on the side of a cliff overlooking a huge expanse of sea, which means we will have to (a) keep our heads up and not look at the floor, otherwise the people in the ‘gods’ will not see our faces, and (b) we will really have to speak out. Our director not surprisingly kicked off Monday’s rehearsals with a call for diction, especially in the intimate scenes of which there are several. On Tuesday we had a briefing on the unusual sightlines: there is a place onstage which in a conventional theatre would be downstage centre – prime real estate as far as actors are concerned.From the audience’s point of view at the Minack it appears to be off to one side, as stage and auditorium are both asymmetrical. And you must avoid turning your back on the audience, as there’s nothing behind the performance area to reflect the sound back to them if you talk upstage. So why would anyone want to work in this space? Because it’s completely stunning.
We did a group exercise where the actors each had to list their character’s (not the actor’s own) likes and dislikes: colour, animal, flower, food, drink, TV programme, song and so on. It turned out that the characters who hang out with each other in the play shared the same tastes to a surprising degree. The people who get on with Kit, for example, all list the piano as their favourite instrument. Not surprising, really: he retreats to his study to play it whenever he’s upset, which is quite often. This type of affinity might be obvious in real life but I’ve never had it brought home so clearly in the preparation of a play. Very enlightening.
We did a group exercise where the actors each had to list their character’s (not the actor’s own) likes and dislikes: colour, animal, flower, food, drink, TV programme, song and so on. It turned out that the characters who hang out with each other in the play shared the same tastes to a surprising degree. The people who get on with Kit, for example, all list the piano as their favourite instrument. Not surprising, really: he retreats to his study to play it whenever he’s upset, which is quite often. This type of affinity might be obvious in real life but I’ve never had it brought home so clearly in the preparation of a play. Very enlightening.
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