Day 2:Lubed up with vaseline / A bit bonkers

Movement session - being forensic with the body

My body thanked me greatly for the two+ hours of stretching and feeling out of our joints and muscles. I've been underperforming in the gym recently and my trainer (@floydtransform) gave me a week off to focus solely on stretching and offloading some of the accumulated stress of my muscles. I noticed that my upper back and shoulders was carrying tension.

After the session I felt like my muscles and joints were all lubed up with vaseline from the inside and I couldn't stop doing the cha-cha in the following ball/focus exercises.

Mental warm-up / focus ensemble exercises (feat. BALLS)

One of my tendencies when following the journey of the balls round the room is to continually adjust my stance in a fluid rhythmic way, like a capoeira. My body finds it naturally quite pleasurable to do this, perhaps it's the martial artist in me, or maybe I'm quite a physical actor, or just a bit bonkers.

I suspect it's the dark and gloomy influence of hyper transactional city-life but after receiving a ball from someone, or after sending it, I noticed I'm very quick to move on to the next thing/person at the slightest acknowledgement of receipt. Food for thought.

101 Text work exercise

We tried to find 101 ways to say each line of text from Alsemero's opening speech. I'm a big believer in expansive preparation so this chimed with me a lot. If you've rehearsed a line 101 different ways, as opposed to just a few, you've now got muscle memory for 101 different responses (or tools) at your disposal. And for a LIVE artform, where anything can happen, it's nice to feel like you've covered all bases. For the audition, I remember driving my flatmates mad doing a similar thing as I didn't feel fully prepared to go into the room unless my body had formed a truly expansive relationship with Alsemero's words. A great movement teacher of mine (Lucien MacDougall) would say 'once you understand the periphery, then you can understand the centre.' What Ricky was saying about touching every possibility of each line before finding our way to the right way reminded me of this.

It's the weekend now and I'm in Dorset away with family; I look forward to walking on the fleet, shouting my lines in 101 different ways to the wind and the waves. At least my flatmates can get some rest (for now).

Mylo McDonald (Alsemero)

Day 2: Creative jam

Movement. Possibilities.

A lot of the work today focused on getting the mind, body, and voice in gear for the work. Building the foundations as an ensemble - one unit, with its unique, individual cogs.

I'm remembering when I was first doing these exercises in the rehearsal room of Lazarus' 2020 production of Macbeth. I feel that my physical stamina and awareness has improved since then. That's not to say that there isn't the potential to reach farther - because there absolutely is. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how much my concentration and focus has taken a toll due to the pandemic and my reliance on social media.

There was a moment during a listening and breathing exercise today that I felt was going on for too long. I felt myself getting fidgety. But as I honed in on the listening, I caught wind of the sound of my neighbors' breathing, to which I followed with my own conscious breathing. The rest of the time, I felt more relaxed. More focused.

When we inevitably do this play multiple times a week, there will be moments where I go through the motions. Hitting my marks. Saying my lines.

Autopilot.

How do I prevent this from happening? How can I stay conscious of my choices on stage - active in my communication of the text? What's the thing that I can hone in on when I lose all focus? Because if I lose it, so will the audience.

A weekend to mull things over. Belated birthday celebrations and more creative jams. And then we dig into Middleton and Rowley’s text. A realm of possibilities. But which ones will stick?

Mikko Juan (Ensemble)

Day 2: I have a lot of questions

We came together as an ensemble today, I've learnt a lot about my cast mates. Realising how we communicate will be massively helpful when it comes to performance. We also looked at the text again, and we have the task to start mining the text for evidence of who these characters are. I have a lot of questions, looking forward to finding the answers.

Alex Bird (Alonzo)