This time we did a full scripted rehearsal with Bethany. 

So to start out, when my character walks onto stage Riley wanted to add some physical comedy of having me slam the door shut on him as if I hit him with the door. It adds to the scene and is perfectly in line with what my character would do at this part of the play. I liked Riley staging on having Bethany and I start on either side of the stage and slowly take a step closer to each other throughout the argument. It shows at how similar the characters are and the locking eyes face to face a tease to how their characters evolve throughout the play as next time they're face to face is when they're about to kiss at the end of the play. Also it adds more movement to the scene rather than having the two of us on either side of the stage standing there yelling at each other. 

To help me learn lines I assign a particular line to either a change in vocals or a stage direction. It helps me remember that I need to change my voice or posture and that triggers what the next line is. It's very useful when memorising large paragraphs or monologues. So throughout my large paragraphs you can see that I put on a voice for my accountant and my impression of the widow but this additionally adds more verbal comedy to my performance rather than me saying the lines normally.  Additionally I did a similar thing when hitting my head on the door when saying the line "Go around banging my head into a brick wall" and demonstrating me throwing someone out a window with the line "I almost threw him out the damn window". It adds more comedy to the act as well as helping me learn my lines through choreography. 

Riley wanted me to wear a long sleeved shirt for my costume because he wanted me to role up my sleaves when I say that I'm going to get nasty and no one's going to push me about. It was fine staging that works within the scene as it's him deciding not to be a push over anymore and the rolling of the sleeves shows his seriousness and frustration. 

While working on my monologues I had to determine what circles of attention I was going to use. I could be more Stanivlaski and make all of it an inner monolgue however we wanted a more Brect approaching, breaking the fourth wall and interacting directly to the audience. In fact, in many of Checkov's scripts there are lines that in the stage directions are directed towards the audience so he wasn't affraid of breaking the fourth wall himself. So I believed the line "What kind of logic is that" was an internal monologue, talking to himself about his previous line of "A glass of water or better yet, a beer". It was him confused about his own leap from a glass of water to a beer when he's thirsty and it's the hottest day of the year. A beer typically dehydrates you and increases your inner body temperature so why have a beer on a hot day? I think that was what the sentence was talking about. Most of his other dialogue is issued either towards the audience or to the characters on set. Whenever he's talking to a character that's obviously the second circle of attention but when he starts rambling on about his past relationship or how he hates woman or later on about how much he loves Popova, I believed that was directed towards the audience in the largest circle of attention. 

Moving on, Riley suggested to me that during my bit about how much of a mess I am, I should sit on the breakable chair. He wanted to fool the audience into believing that it was a normal chair to surprise them when it actually does break. It was a good idea but I had to make sure to lean forward on the chair to not touch the back otherwise it would fall off. Speaking of set, the door was much too stiff to open and close and needs sanding at the bottom in order to make the door hover above the frame rather than lean on it. That way it will be able to open and close much smoother. 

During my big monologue about how much I hate woman I decided to act out the list of things he did to add some additional physical comedy to my performance. It makes it alot more visually interesting than having me say them to the audience. Also, for the chair gag to work I needed to be on stage left, but I was on stage right. Bethany and I just kind of awkwardly switched sides for the chair gag to work but I feel like there should be a more natural way to make this happen. Something we need to work on in future rehearsals. 

When Riley's character was having a heart attack and begging for water, I made the joke for acting as if I was going to hand him the glass just to drink the water myself before giving him the empty glass. It doesn't distract from Bethany's dialogue but it's simple enough to catch people attention and laugh. It also feels like something my character would do in this situation as at this time he's still hates everyone here. During my bit about how I'm going to kill Bethany's character only to switch to falling in love with her, Riley told me to act as if I wasn't there, to completely ignore him. So I did and it was really funny, especially when he started hitting my with the pillow and I acted as if nothing was happening. It was a good comedic element. 

The ending is the same as it was in the previous performance only this time Riley asked me to fix the chair when I break it the second time. This was so when Riley's character came in with the shovel he would break it a third time. The rule of three in comedic is that a joke should be repeated three times with the third time being a subversion of the first two. So I accidently break it due to clumsiness the first two times then Riley purposely breaks it in anger in third time.

I think the staging works well but we do need to work on Bethany and I switching places for that one moment. I do feel like the performance are hindered due to our reliant on our scripts but as soon as we're off script we can start to properly explore our characters.

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