Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Home Sweet Hotel


And so begins our third and final week of rehearsals in sunny Moncton, New Brunswick.

It was a lovely long Thanksgiving weekend in Saint John. We had a great big family dinner on Sunday, a chance to see many family members i don't see very often -- some of whom apparently read this site (hi, uncles and aunts and cousins!). This weekend was largely about trying to spend as much time as possible with some of the most important people in my life, as it's now going to be a little while before i can see you again. You know who you are. I miss you already, again.

Yesterday my parents drove me back into Moncton again, and it was as nice a drive as it was last week. If they enjoyed the drive and the conversation as much as i did, we might have to make a habit of these road-trips.

Once we got into the city, we once again did dinner at the Pumphouse (did i mention they have beers?), before i headed back to the hotel and settled in for the night. My two male castmates (i'll call them Marlon, and, uh, Jack. I can use whatever silly fake names i want. It's my blog.) didn't get into town until this morning, so i had the room all to my lonely self last night, which was alright since it left me little excuse not to study my French lines.

Did i mention we're doing the show in both English and in French, at different schools? Yeah. We are.

Director seems satisfied that we're basically ready to go with the English version of the show, so rehearsals this week are going to be mostly about getting the French up to the same level. We were expecting to be joined today by Francophone Person, who will be listening to the French version of the show, in order to a) correct any translation errors in the script that we didn't catch, and b) help correct any errors we're making in our spoken French, so that we might not humiliate ourselves in front of french-speaking highschoolers. However, Francophone Person isn't getting in until tomorrow, so today we were left pretty much to our own devices to go over (and over and over) the French lines, correcting ourselves and each other as we went, which actually ended up being very helpful.

I had actually been just a teensy bit concerned that i wasn't as well-prepared with my French lines as i would have liked to have been, since the plan was for us to all be off-book in French today, and despite the hours - hours! - i spent studying those lines this weekend, i was still a little shaky. However, right off the bat today it was clear that the whole cast was in the same slightly wobbly boat, and a day of practicing together was just what we all needed. I can honestly say i feel just about as confident with this play in French as i do in English -- something i hadn't been sure would ever happen. Now, we'll see what Francophone Person thinks when she hears us, but i think we're in good shape.

And finally tonight, we've had an addition to our little group. Soundman arrived tonight. Soundman is a superhero of sorts; he will travel with us and during the show he will have the power to amplify our wee little voices so that they can be heard clearly no matter what venue we find ourselves performing in. He will also use his strange abilities to heighten the emotional responses of the audience through the use of music, between and during the scenes. At first glance he seems like a mild-mannered, agreeable sort, and i feel sure he will use his powers only for good.

It's looking like we'll be rehearsing on Saturday this week, and we set sail on Sunday for the first show, so the faint possibility of making it home this coming weekend is looking very faint indeed. Like, it's pretty much not going to happen. No more coming up for air until we reach the end -- one month from now.

One thing at a time, though. Tomorrow, we meet Francophone Person and do our best not to mangle her langue maternelle. Here's hoping we're doing as well as we think we are.

In six days, we will have already done our first performance.