1.6: Not Enough Bodies

A hard slog today, mostly because my own energy was low. I think I'm coming down with something.

Today we put Kent into the stocks. This was a difficult scene to block, because it features two big "bursts" of characters spilling onto the stage. Unfortunately, we were short several actors, including Cornwall, who is the highest-status character through most of the scene. Blocking a big scene without the right number of bodies is very hard for me; when I have, say, 10 bodies lined up in front of me, I can usually imagine how they will interact and balance one another once they start to move. But when I only have 8 out of 10 bodies in front of me, for some reason that extra imaginative step throws everything off.

My actors were very patient while I struggled to work things out; but I was not terribly happy with the final results. For one thing, I ended up blocking parts of the scene in lines. I hate lines. Especially on a stage like Walterdale (which is a "wedge" stage, shaped like a fat pizza slice, with its curved crust facing the audience), three dimensionality is the only way to go. But for some reason, in my desperation, everything kept collapsing into boring two-dimensional lines.

Ah, well. Next day will be better. And I'll probably have to revisit this scene sometime, to work the absent actors into it; so many I can make some adjustments then.