Rehearsing War Hero

I've started a fourth book in the Grimhilderness series, but at the moment it's having to take a very definite second place to another project. I'm playing for the rehearsals of John Drummond's new opera, War Hero, about the period in the life of Archie Baxter when he was imprisoned for being a conscientious objector, during the First World War. Along with a dozen others her was taken to England, and then Flanders, where he was treated to considerable punishment - torture, in fact - by the British military establishment.

Andrew Glover

The rehearsals for this opera only began in late June, and have continued every day since, with - sometimes - three sessions a day. I thought this would be harder than it's been. Not every session has been a long one: the morning ones have sometimes only lasted an hour, and the afternoon and evening ones have varied between two and three hours. Still quite a long day, given that I'm playing the piano for a great deal of that time. But we get a reasonable amount of rest between the sessions, and that helps.

The tenor who plays Baxter, Andrew Glover, has had to be at almost every rehearsal as well, such is the extent of his part. He gets only a little time off stage. And the rest of the cast, around a dozen men (mostly young, and only just beginning their musical careers) play two or three roles apiece. So it's quite a complex rehearsal schedule.

Vincent Hardaker

I started work on the music a few months ago. I knew the music wouldn't be straightforward to read, so I couldn't get away with sightreading it on the spot at the first rehearsal. It isn't difficult music: it's what I call accessible music - in other words, people will enjoy it on first hearing because there are a number of themes that come and go regularly. These give the audience hooks to hang onto. But even though it's 'accessible' music it isn't always easy to play, and I've had to get my fingers used to playing certain chords they don't expect to play, and certain sounds which don't seem normal to them. They're coping. And I'm enjoying doing it.

We have a great young conductor, Vincent Hardaker. He's generous, patient and has a nice sense of humour. He's due to go off to Copenhagen shortly after the show finishes its season, to do a course. I'm sure he'll do well.

The season starts on the 22nd of this month (July) and there are four performances scattered over a week. I'm not sure what my fingers will do once the season ends (I'm playing one of four keyboards in the orchestra as well), but with singing and instrumental competitions coming up, I think we'll manage to keep them employed.

Digital pianos

Back in 2012 we bought a Casio digital piano.  It was worth getting not just for the production of Grimhilda! during which it was used as the rehearsal piano, and later the piano in the pit, but also because I've kept it set up next to my computer, and use it in the winter time for singers and instrumentalists who come here for practices. It's warmer in the winter in this room than in the lounge where the grand piano lives.

I suppose the digital piano we bought is already out of date by several editions, though it's hard to know when these various instruments were produced (without doing a great deal of searching online). I think the Casio PX-130 is probably a later model, but who would know just by going by the numbering system. It's not easy to tell. This model looks more solid in terms of its structure - our one is basically a keyboard that sits on top of a trestle, and surprisingly isn't attached to the trestle in any way except by gravity. (Once it slipped when I was putting it on the trestle because the screw holding the trestle wasn't secure, and there was a moment when it looked as though the whole keyboard was going to dash itself in pieces on the floor. As it was one of the top notes caught on my hand and came loose, to my horror. However it turned out it was a matter of moments to fit it comfortably back where it belonged.)

The PX-130 also has a stand, but the the base and the keyboard fit together all of a piece. You can detach the keyboard part from the base, and apparently it's light enough to shift around. It weighs 25 lbs, being an American keyboard. My keyboard, even though it came in two parts, was quite heavy. I know this for a fact because I had to hump it out of the car and into the rehearsal rooms on innumerable occasions: there were about thirty steps involved in the process. (By steps I mean ones in a stairway, not steps you take.)

Reading about the PX-130 makes me think it's probably a better digital piano than the one I've got; certainly the advertising gives that impression. However I don't think there'll be any new pianos in this house in the near future. We have other things (not necessarily more important things) to spend our money on.

Sitzprobe

Sitzprobe literally means a 'seated rehearsal' and it's a term used in opera and musical theatre to describe the time when the singers first get together with the orchestra, before a production is presented publicly.  The aim is for the two groups, the singers and the musicians, to put the music together. The equivalent Italian term is prova all'italiana, which sounds to me as though it should mean to test everything in Italian, but obviously doesn't. 


Tonight the cast and orchestra of Grimhilda! will hold their sitzprobe.  The use of the word has had most of the cast asking, What the heck is a sitzprobe? because I don't think it's a term usually used in amateur musical theatre circles.  Perhaps people doing amateur opera use it; I'm not sure. 


I'm familiar with it because in the days when I worked with opera singers, the term came up constantly, and the event itself was always interesting.  The singers would get all theatrical and start to show off, and the musicians would turn on their slightly superior looks and pretend that actors/singers and musicians should barely be allowed in the same room.  However, after the initial impact of having to sit down together and get the thing moving, they'd all become friendly and it would go swimmingly.  


Well, 'swimmingly' might be a bit optimistic: it would go fairly well, because the first meeting of the singers with the orchestra is always quite stressful for the singers.   They've been working for weeks with nothing but a piano, and suddenly all those sounds they've been used to have been transformed into sounds they aren't used to, and it's quite off-putting.   Nothing sounds right. 


Which is why we hold sitzprobes (I'm sure the German plural is something different, like sitzproben, or whatever, but I don't actually know).   Tonight is going to be interesting, to say the least!

mics and voices

One of the complications of putting on the musical, Grimhilda!, is how much use do we use mics?  Some of the cast will be fine without them, but we have two kids in the show each night, and sometimes they have to talk over music playing in the orchestra pit, and, of course, they'll be singing with the orchestra.   It seems logical to use mics for them.  But what about other members of the cast?  Mics are an expensive item in the budget and supplying them to everyone isn't going to be an option.  Which means that the man controlling the mics is going to have his work cut out balancing miked voices with unmiked ones.    It's going to be an interesting process.  

When you're rehearsing a show there always seem to be some members of the cast who are comfortable with using a stage voice even when in a smaller rehearsal room, and some people who find the size of the space inhibiting.  Once they're out in the theatre their voices bloom, and you can hear them easily wherever you are.  But in the rehearsal space you sometimes despair of hearing them at all anywhere else.

And it's easy for inexperienced cast members to forget that they're going to have to throw their voices further than a couple of metres once they go on stage.  I don't know why that should be, but it is the case.  I prefer to be using a stage voice (somewhat modified to the surroundings) from early on in the rehearsal process.  It makes the transition from rehearsal room to stage a much easier one.

Rehearsing The Mousetrap

Rehearsals for Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap continue apace...the two late additions to the cast (the young man who stepped in to take over the role of Sergeant Trotter - Sam Irwin - and myself - replacing an actor who fell ill) are making great strides at catching up with the rest of the actors, who've been rehearsing for five or six weeks. 

The cast have rehearsed in a variety of venues, and on Tuesday have their first night in the theatre for a technical rehearsal...the set is being built that day too, and painted, so it may be an interesting occasion for all concerned!

Today (Sunday) we had a photo shoot down at the Railway Station, using some of the ready-made 'sets', and wandered around in our costumes, which entertained - and bewildered - some of the tourists.  

Five more days to opening.   Phew!

Marley's Ghost

Rehearsing for The Christmas Carol has been a little odd: because I'm only in the first act, I've had no reason to go to the rehearsals for the last couple of weeks, and since the last rehearsal I attended I'd begun to feel rather disconnected from it all.

While I was on holiday, one of the cast (who's also doing props) texted me and said I could fill up the second and third acts by doing props. So that may be the case. Not sure what it entails as yet, but there are a number of props floating around the play, so no doubt there'll be something to do.

Anyway, even though I wasn't called for today, I went along to see how things were progressing. The whole play is underway now, and the second and third acts were being rehearsed this afternoon. It's starting to shape up, though obviously needs a lot more pace and energy than it's got just yet. No doubt it will gain those over the next couple of weeks when we work through the whole play each rehearsal.

I did my short scene as Marley's Ghost with the actor playing Scrooge at the end of the rehearsal. Boy, what a difference a couple of weeks makes. Where I'd been confident about the cues and lines a couple of weeks ago, I seemed to be grasping for words today. However, that'll pick up again, and Marley will make his nasty impression on things once more! (Marley's Ghost even gets his own Wikipedia entry - crikey, I'm famous!)

Pressure-Cooker

Well, we began Act 3 of the play this week - short of one rehearsal (on Tuesday) because the carpet-layers were laying new carpet round the theatre. It's a bit scary: we open on the 23rd and at this point we've done Act 3 about four times - and because of the directing style of the director, we don't often go back over a scene once it's done. She relies on our innate and excellent acting skills to get us through - along with a small amount of instruction about where to move if we've bumped into each other.
We've still got Sunday and next week to go as far as rehearsals are concerned, and then we're into the last stretch before the opening. At this point, most of us are still struggling with our lines in this third Act. Crikey. I'm used to long rehearsal periods, where you can 'learn' your way into the part. This is all a bit pressure-cooker (and not just for me; others in the cast are feeling the same pressure). Guess we'll get there, but it's a little nightmarish.
Simultaneously, I'm involved in the first of a series of short dramas that are going to be presented at church over the next couple of months. They'll be using the same group of actors fairly regularly, and....most of the dramas aren't even written yet.
The first of these goes on this Sunday, and isn't too much of a stretch because it consists of four monologues, so we don't have to learn cues or interact with the other three actors. We've all got speeches that last a couple of minutes, but you can take them at the pace that's right for the part, and since I'm playing a somewhat sceptical older person (it's not entirely based upon me!) I can go at an unrushed pace without it being out of character.
When I began to learn the lines for the first act of the Priestly play, I felt as though nothing was sticking. Somehow, since then, the lines are coming much more easily, and it hasn't been too drastic an effort to learn lines for two different plays at the same time (as it were). However, I'll be happier, once the Priestly is out of the way to be able to concentrate on just one play at a time. Think it'll be healthier!
Meanwhile, the essay for Varsity which I'm supposed to have got into tonight has taken a back seat to blogging. Not really good enough....

Just about there for the Dawn Treader

Well, we’ve now had two Narnia dress rehearsals, and virtually ironed out all the problems. The long Sunday rehearsal helped in this regard, but there are still a few issues. Shifting the poop deck is often a bit of a pain: like any heavy object it takes a bit of getting started, but glides smoothly once it’s going. And getting it in the right spot is another difficulty. However, that’s coming right.
And some of the scenes in front of the front tab are just a fraction too short for the backstage people to set up for the next scene. However, even that’s coming together. Hopefully by this tomorrow I’ll be able to say that it’s all gone smoothly. We play in front of one of our few school audiences tomorrow, and I imagine they’ll be very forgiving!
It’s interesting, now that we’ve been inside the play for so long, that it’s very hard to gauge how it’s really going to go across to an audience. But that’s often the case with this stage of a production. And it’s easy to lose confidence. Hopefully the first audience will restore things in this regard.
I had my makeup on again tonight. It’s a fair facial covering: grey undercoat with stipple on top, plus lots of detail. Took about half an hour to get it on tonight, but hopefully the artist will have it a bit more sussed tomorrow.

Long Narnia rehearsal

Yesterday I got into my Reepicheep costume at one p.m. and didn’t get out again till eight. Fortunately, even though it was a lovely day outside, it wasn’t hot in the theatre, so I wasn’t that uncomfortable – though I did pull the hood back off my head whenever there was a chance.
Rather than it being a rehearsal where we aimed for a straight run-through, we stopped at every scene change to make sure all the cast and crew knew what was happening with the scenery and such – and then often practised this again more than once. In several instances we made adjustments to the way things run, for expediency’s sake; it’s just too late to start adding bits to the script to cover scene changes.
It was rather frustrating in terms of keeping up the energy for the acting, but hopefully it’s solved all the problems we’ve had with the ship and the ‘triangles’ (as the large sets are called: they’re triangular-shaped constructions with a different piece of the scenery on each side; and this year they had additional flaps so that fewer of them have to be used. Complex!)
A lot of the cast were in their costumes, so that side of things was beginning to come together as well, and most of the props and additional bits for various scenes (such as the treasure cave) are starting to appear as required. It seems an enormously detailed show, now that we’re right in the thick of things. Obviously the acting side of it is the least complicated! My coracle is now virtually complete; instead of being a skeleton of a boat with troublesome wheel castors that won’t move easily, it’s got a ‘skin’ on it, and flows along with barely any effort on my part. Fortunately I’m not in it for long, as it’s quite wearing on the legs!
I was very tired at the beginning of the rehearsal, for some reason, and it took a long time to feel as though I was thoroughly ‘with it’, but it often seems that I have more energy in the midst of performing than I have when I finally stop. Suddenly I become an old man again! (Okay, 63 may not be super old, but it’s a time when the body’s starting to feel the strain of having been up and running for a good long time.)

Two rehearsals

On one hand Narnia is hotting up in terms of more rehearsals, and getting closer to the opening night, while on the other hand all the work on the acting side is struggling to survive against the necessities of sorting out all the technical logistics jobs. And being a Narnian production, the technical aspects are considerable: frequent lighting changes, music and sound effects and voice-overs. But over and above this is the complexity of the scene changes, which in this production are made more difficult by having to shift the Dawn Treader around the stage – constantly.
Often it’s the script in a production that gets cut; today it was some of the scenery. Parts of the boat are just so unwieldy at speed that they’re going to go. This will truncate it a bit, but better that than having people getting steamed up backstage because the thing is just so awkward.
Last night we had a straight tech rehearsal without lines; the problem with these is that the actors lose interest after a while and starting playing up. Not seriously, but concentration becomes an issue. Today we had a proper rehearsal, but with all the scene changes incorporated. Oh, dear. It’s the sort of rehearsal that makes you want to go out and refund the ticket money. Well, it would if you didn’t keep a positive attitude. Fortunately the backstage people are, for the most part, fairly equable characters. They don’t need to be temperamental like the actors (!). However, it must be said that the actors were pretty well behaved too, all things considered, and in spite of injuries…
Firstly Caspian tripped up the poop deck stairs and took some skin off his knee – enough to have him dropping blood all over the stage. Secondly, Eustace, who, you might remember, have a bit of his forehead skinned the other night with Caspian’s sword, twisted his foot while running below the stage from one side of the other. And then, right towards the end, as I was being lifted up out of the ‘water’ – after Reepicheep has inadvertently gone overboard – I gave my shin a sharp enough knock against the side of the boat to give it a nasty graze, something that shouldn’t happen again, as that part of the boat is due for removal.
So all in all, a tough rehearsal today. Another long one tomorrow, and then the dress rehearsal. Fortunately there’s a night between the dress and the first performance. That may give those who need it, time to sort out all the last minute details – the ones that seem to be accumulating by the hour!

Nearly Narnia

From today we don't leave Narnia until sometime in the week after next, when we have a couple of days' break from performances. We had a run-through for (most of) the principals on Wednesday; it was a bit chaotic, because we were back to not having the boat to perform on. (We were rehearsing in the Green Room at the Mayfair.) The young ones got a bit out of hand at times, including one moment when Caspian managed to hit Eustace on the head with his sword (purely accidental) and nick a piece of his forehead. No one noticed the blood for a half a minute.... Tonight we have a walk-through with the technical people; I imagine it'll go as these sort of rehearsals usually go: slowly and awkwardly and frustratingly. But it's a necessary process. The boat is starting to look more authentic, particularly the poop, which looked the outside deck of someone's house, as someone put it.

Narnia two in a row

Two solid Narnia rehearsals, one starting yesterday morning at 9.30 and going till 1 pm, and another today from 1 till 5.30, (which meant I missed my daughter’s birthday, which was attended by all but one of my kids and most of my grandchildren – boo hoo!). Real progress in both rehearsals; even more so today. We’re beginning to feel as though this might really go well. (The usual Kiwi understatement.)
Lots of technical things still to be tidied up, and lots of little details: for example, obviously no one in Narnia would wear zipped up boots, but one of the characters has to get his (modern) boots off in front of the audience at one point, and the only way to get out of them is to unzip them. What to do?
The music for the play has mostly been written, or ‘discovered’ but there are still moments when another few seconds of music wouldn’t go amiss. The young composer is going to be kept busy right up to the last minute. (He’s a very talented schoolboy using some wonderful midi orchestral sounds).
We were using two rehearsal spaces today: one with the ship in it, and the other with a ‘cleared stage.’ Consequently we spent the afternoon traipsing back and forth between the two rooms, dragging the CD player with us on its ultra-long extension cord, the only one the director could find at home. This meant we didn’t quite achieve the flow the completed performances will have, but at least it means we’re not trying to work around the ship in the scenes that don’t require it.
It’s still a tricky play to get your head around, in terms of what happens next. Because it’s episodic (as the book is), it’s not always easy to remember which scene comes after which. This can be a bit chaotic, especially if you’re supposed to on the poop deck when you’re actually somewhere else, or on one side of the stage when you should be on the other. Still, most of us are getting the hang of it now.
I wore my mouse costume the entire time yesterday, getting the feel of it. Can’t say it’s the most comfortable costume I’ve ever worn, with its heavy ‘bum’ at the back, and a sense of pulling on the hood, but at least it’s bearable even when it’s hot. The two people playing dragons have a much worse time: almost totally enclosed in their costumes in a way that could be claustrophobic.

Photo of one of the dragons being 'incarcerated' in her costume: her head is actually below the dragon's head.

Narnia Productions

I'd forgotten that there's a Narnia Productions site, and have just spent several minutes checking out the photos from the previous productions, and the backstage shots. It's a great collection, and well worth a visit. The various reviews from the media are on there too, for the most part, including the sequence of photos taken when I had my beard shaved off (rather publicly) for The Magician's Nephew.

We continue on with The Dawn Treader

Another Dawn Treader rehearsal today. I was tired when I arrived, and much more tired by the time we finished. It hadn’t helped that I’d stayed up watching The Red Shoes until 1.30 am, but even when I did go to bed I slept very fitfully, and felt as though I’d been more awake during the night than asleep.
I sometimes wonder if actors aren’t mostly introverts: they appear to be extroverts because they get up in front of people and perform, and they’re often quite noisy at social occasions. But in a rehearsal setting they swing widely from putting themselves on the line in terms of their part to looking like hurt children when the director chides them in some way. And as hurt children all that energy and life can fizzle away in a moment.
I said in an earlier post how each time you begin the rehearsal period for a play you have to overcome that feeling of inferiority in regard to the other actors (who are probably doing the same) and you have to build up a sufficient level of trust in each other to be able to do what can often be quite daft things – especially if your character is in any way ‘out there’.
Acting is a bit like a bloke wearing an engagement ring: being regarded as slightly odd goes with the territory.
Anyway, today at our rehearsal we used a different room. We’re rehearsing in the old King Edward Technical College building right in town (it’s now called King Edward Court) and have been using a large corner room in which the Dawn Treader ship fits (even if our heads virtually touch the ceiling when we’re standing on the poop deck, or where someone incautious can knock their head on a fluorescent lamp swinging from the ceiling). Today we worked in an even larger room, full of sunlight, some carpet around the perimeter (which reduced the level of echo - the other room is very echoey), and a general feeling of plenty of space. We were working on scenes that don’t require the ship, and discovered that nearly all these scenes were ones we’d done two to three weeks ago, and hadn’t really worked on since to the extent that we felt at home in them. So the afternoon was a series of disappointments not only for the director, as she saw all her hard work seeming to crumble, but for the actors, who probably mostly felt as dispirited as I did, because we seemed to be forgetting lines and moves left, right and centre. We came away feeling as though we’d all been sacked from the wine of the month club.
However, now that we’ve got ourselves back into these scenes, we’ll hopefully cement them into our psyches a bit more, and the next time we come back to them, things might be a bit more cheerful!

The photo is of the Stuart St frontage of KE Court; it's a vast building that extends over a good deal of the block.

Narnia again

Another long Narnia rehearsal today, with a lot of time at the end spent trying to get the movements of the ship right. Because we change the audience’s point of view of the ship from scene to scene, it has to be moved around the stage. At the moment it’s only the actors doing this, although in due course hopefully there’ll also be some stage hands.
There are a couple of issues: remembering which way it has to be turned, and what has to be moved out of the way, for one; and getting all the right bits and pieces picked up or shifted out of the way for another.
There are some twenty or more people involved at any time, some of whom have got to get to another part of the ship and some of whom have to move things. All in all it’s taking quite a bit of co-ordination. Without this complication, we’d probably have more time to rehearse everything else! However, it’s an essential part of the play, and has to be worked out thoroughly.
We’ve just about covered all the play – I think there’s only one or two small scenes right at the end that haven’t actually had any rehearsal time. But since they only involve the main characters rather than the people who play pirates, sailors, dufflepuds and ‘crowd’, it should be a bit easier to get them sorted in the next rehearsal. Once they’re done, we should be able to concentrate on getting everything really tight and tidy. We went back and did some of the earlier scenes again today, since they involved the ship, and it was a relief to find we still remembered what to do and say…!

Changing photo

I've changed the photo over to the side, but I'm wondering if it doesn't make me look more disreputable rather than less. Need a hair cut and beard trim, I think.

Things have been a bit quiet on the blog front this week: it's been fairly busy in other areas, such as rehearsing for the play, so sitting down to type posts hasn't been getting high priority. Plus I've been slightly side-tracked by Facebook, which I apparently joined some time ago but had forgotten about. Anyway, I've added a few friends, mostly rellies and people from church (who seem to be on it in droves) and a couple of my singing friends: Brent Read and Claire Barton. Also came across Nathan Reilly, who used to be in our church, but whom I first got to know when he was involved in the Opera Alive group. He's a great stage performer, sings and dances and is going to be in CATS up in Hamilton sometime soon, playing Rum Tum Tugger.
As I was saying to him, I find CATS an odd piece: no plot, virtually no story, just a host of characters who pop in and out at random, do their bit and then vanish for a while, or become part of the general ensemble. Surprisingly enough it's effective when performed, but you rather wonder why Lloyd Webber didn't look to bring a storyline into it.

Playing

Last year I took a small but important role in a full-length play for the first time in four decades. This year I landed myself a bigger part, that of Uncle Andrew in The Magician’s Nephew, the second of C S Lewis’ Narnia stories to be dramatised by our church.

It’s no surprise that we use the word ‘play’ for things associated with at least two of the arts: theatre and music. Being Uncle Andrew was like having the opportunity as a sixty-year-old to return to childhood, and to remember again how much fun it is to play – in what might be called a ‘controlled environment.’ Uncle Andrew’s a spoilt child, self-centred; a two-year old in adult’s clothing. I could put on his garb without suffering any consequences for his bad behaviour.
I loved performing for the audiences (physically exhausting, yet also energising), but I enjoyed the rehearsals even more. They were a return to that time of your life when you laugh without restraint.

At the rehearsals there wasn’t the pressure to get everything right. Certainly we did lots of serious hard work, making sure things went smoothly, fitting in with each other. But I don’t think I’ve laughed so much in ages as I did during the rehearsals themselves - and even more during the tea breaks. For some reason Lewis’ nonsense line, ‘Womfle pomy shompf’ (uttered by Uncle Andrew when his top hat is pushed down over his head) brought us all near to hysteria. (Though it never raised an out-loud laugh during the performances.)

There were the ‘deplorable’ words – or lack of them - and the attempts of the actress playing Jadis to find something explosive but incomprehensible that would do for a ‘spell’ to bring Aunt Letitia to her knees. And the same actress’ refusal to admit that in spite of her character saying she could see through walls and into the minds of men, she was not only singularly unsuccessful at this at any time, but remarkably dense about what the inept humans were up to.

Nor could she take her task seriously when she had to grasp Uncle Andrew’s chin, twisting it this way and that while she inspected his face for signs of a ‘real’ magician. Equally, as Uncle Andrew, I wasted long minutes of one rehearsal because I couldn’t burst in on Aunt Letitia and inquire ‘what on earth’ she was doing with the mattress, without collapsing in a heap. Those actors’ moments of madness you see at the end of movies don’t only happen to movie stars.

The boy playing Digory delighted in holding the fake guinea-pig (named Russell by the cast) like he was a wet sock, or giving him a goal kick into the stalls. Russell suffered much during the show, getting a nightly short sharp shift from Polly, who had to make sure he ‘vanished’ off the stage.

Digory also had a couple of ‘deplorable’ words. In one scene, the word ‘wondering’ always came out as ‘I should think a person would go on wandering all his life…’ It was rather like the mispronunciation of the TV3 sports newsreader (Clint Brown) who always calls the Warriors, the 'Worriers.' (And well he might!) Digory was equally unable to get his tongue around the line, ‘In an asylum, do you mean?’ Only the producer’s desire to keep to Lewis’ original text as far as possible kept her from substituting, ‘In a madhouse…’