In March 1923, in an interview with The New York Times, the British mountaineer George Leigh Mallory was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, and replied, 'Because it's there'.
Without wishing to give too much away about this years show we have set ourselves a couple of very difficult tasks which at this, the mid-point of rehearsals, you start to question. The quote above I think goes some way to answering it.
I should stress that creating a play is nowhere near as strenuous as climbing a mountain and I am thoroughly enjoying the process but the challenge is valid as a comparison. The sense of setting a difficult task and then trying to achieve it is applicable to the mountains and the rehearsal room.
I am pleased to report that, to continue the mountain metaphor, we have established base camp and are well on the way to summiting on July 31st – The team is in good shape and extremely well supported by a very capable crew.
This (the mid-point of the rehearsal process) is always an interesting point in any show because you find yourself with a lot of work achieved and an awful lot more still to do – it genuinely is like being half way up a mountain – the thing that drags you to the top is the determination to get there winning over the desire to give up and go back down. Especially when you know that it potentially is going to get harder before it gets easier.
Anyway, back at sea level we are really making great strides with the show. We have some lovely moments already created as well as some very interesting characters. The scenes outside are going to be really effective I think. I will try to give you another update as we go.
We have been concentrating on developing each of the scenes to really allow us to tell the story of this particular version of Romeo and Juliet. As always with Shakespeare the trouble is that the more you work on it the more you find and so many options present themselves to you because of the genius of the language. Finding the right decision for the character, the actor and the story takes a lot of careful thought, and, really 8 weeks of rehearsal (like the Royal Shakespeare Company). We have only the 3, but I think we are making excellent progress. Onward and upwards…..
