Not In A Million Years: In The Rehearsal Room Week 6
Week Six: Caroline Baum’s rehearsal room notes
Max has his head in his hands and is groaning.
‘I don’t have the seagulls or the overture yet.’
‘Don’t worry about fades or levels’ he says apologetically, cueing the partially scored soundscape for a run through. There’s a foghorn sequence, using a strong quartet and guitar. It has a powerful mystery and resonance. ‘I never knew a major chord could be so sad’ he says (its F major, in case you are wondering).
Kate checks her mobile phone repeatedly, which is unusual. Turns out her brother has had emergency heart surgery and is intensive care. Somehow she has to quarantine her concerns and try to focus. The music cues come thick and fast. Max gets stressed missing a few – ‘It’s like spaghetti to me at the moment’ he admits. There is no time for delays, because Sarah Jayne has to leave to pick up her son from childcare – another factor to juggle into the rehearsal schedule.
The scrim has been lost in transit from the cloth maker in Melbourne. For two days the courier service is unable to locate and deliver it – what is so hard about finding CarriageWorks for God’s sake?! This means the cast can’t rehearse with the text projected onto the set, which would save time, given that the bump into the theatre is so short and every minute will be crucial.
On the last day of the week , when it’s thirty three degrees outside, Kate, Roz and Erin turn up in summer frocks, looking as if they are ready for a festive tea party or picnic. Instead, it’s the first public viewing of the work by a handful of trusted friends and colleagues. Brendan Cowell comes along before getting ready for his performance in True West. Kate briefly explains what’s missing from the show.
‘Yeah, and disclaimer number four: the real performers couldn’t be here’ quips Sarah Jayne.
Half way through, there’s a technical hitch. Erin wades into the flakes to plug in a fan that hasn’t come on because the girls can’t see the connection has come loose in the dark, and the miners reprise their scene. There are some laughs in the right places for their banter. During a paraglider sequence, Sarah Jayne grazes her back. Kate and Roz wince, guessing she’s hurt herself and there’s palpable relief when it proves to be a superficial wound (I dare not even ask what happens if there’s a more serious injury, given that there are no understudies for the piece).
The lights come up and Kate goes out in to the sunlight for feedback then comes back into an intense huddle, having released the dancers, so that she, Roz, Max and Geoff can debrief. Now the discussion has to be constructive, practical and tangible, there’s no time for theorizing about what might be good to try or could be a good idea, it’s all about what can be achieved in the time that’s left. Kate wants more light and shade in sound, more mood changes in the transitions between scenes, and there’s much discussion about how to present the text – in blocks, or scrolling across the scrim. Story lines may be broken up to make them more episodic, creating a balance between what is naturalistic and what is theatrical – it’s the way she uses both styles that makes what Kate is trying to do so bold, and so tricky to pull of. She managed it in The Age I’m In, which means raised expectations now. But her subject matter here is more complex and subtle.
I’m not there, but during the next twenty four hours the team go back into rehearsal rather than run-through mode, and make some hard decisions: sequences are dropped, others are tightened, pace becomes the priority and the score is modulated to become less floaty and more energetic. The good thing is, they’ve spent so much time getting the work bedded down that they have room for this kind of pruning and shaping. That is not always the case.
Away from the team, I realise I have lost all judgment from being in the rehearsal room from day one. It’s as if my critical faculties have been blunted by proximity or I’ve been infected by a virus which means I feel such attachment that I have lost the ability to form an opinion. It’s the artistic version of Stockholm Syndrome, where kidnap victims start to bond with their captors.
Caroline Baum
Have you booked your tickets yet? Not in A Million Years is at CarriageWorks 17 – 27 November. Click here to book online.
forcemajeureblog 
Leave a comment