Rehearsal

In todays rehearsal after two runs of Coriolanus we were asked to write reviews on both performances as ever run of the play needs to be as good as, if not better than the final performance.

Theatre reviewer: "The first performance of Coriolanus was incredibly slow and awful, The lines were learnt poorly and the cast were clumpy as if they had no idea what they were doing. The transitions included conversations amongst the cast and they were slow and not very securely learnt. They stopped and started and you could read that they didn't know what they were doing or have any idea about their objective or character as they entered the space. Rather they relied on other, more oblivious cast members to recall what they were meant to be doing. Utter disaster."

"After much deliberation I decided to give the performers another chance. This performance improved immensely as it was a much faster and speedy performance, the Coriolanus brothers acting as a ticking time bomb for their destruction. The pace added to the performance as the transitions were swifter and made more sense in correlation to the story. Some of the cast members knew it well and were able to follow through with what their objectives were, and you could feel the stakes being raised as the play progressed. There were real moments of tension."

NOTES: We need more investment in the beginning for the first 10-15 minutes, it needs to be pushed with belief of the society and characters within. If you feel like it's filled with aggression, instead of character detail and your characters plight then we need to work on why that is and what your characters going through because no one stays on that level it needs to be allowed to undulate emotionally and have layers to your character. Don't forget 3 sides of the audience, open up physically to allow the sound and expression to travel and avoid speaking upstage. Bitchiness and aggression are the two easiest ways of creating character, don't play aggression. Got to get blocks in the right position because it will set the notes for the rest of the play and impede other performers as time goes on. Don't walk offstage in neutral ever, you're still going somewhere and you still have something on your mind as a character, it all means something to you and you need to pursue that objective to the end, even in the wings. You're in this world all the time, live breathe and research this world.