I thought I knew this play (and the originating novel) well, but I spent large tracts of today wearing the expression of a man who has just set light to his trousers. There are so many layers of reality, and there are so many characters being disingenuous that it's often difficult to keep track. I mean, at one stage Dan Copeland's character - Nurse Gratin - steps into Roger's imagined scene in a Marseille hotel, takes on the character of a Moroccan concierge whilst Roger questions him about Renee (who is not present as far as Gratin is concerned but whom the concierge can see), and he then briefly morphs into a parallel version of the concierge who reminds Roger that Renee cannot be Madeleine because the latter is dead. Uh-huh.
Led by Karen, we picked the Gordian plot of Act I apart this afternoon as a prelude to putting it on it's feet tomorrow morning, and I feel a great deal more confident about that prospect now.
The creative team's plans for what it will look and sound like are beyond exciting, but more of that soon. Fantastically tired...
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Monday, 23 August 2010
Quiet Month
Hell's teeth, that was a really quiet month. One casting for a bank training film and a couple of film castings - I'm not going to get fat on that.
Which is just as well, because the hard copy of the script arrived a while ago and there's a moment in the action when Madeleine and Roger get absolutely sodden when he retrieves her from the Seine. Now, in the rosy tint of my mind's eye, a damp and breathless me equates exactly with Colin Firth's emergence from the lake in P&P, but the reality is very different. It's a great moment both in the novel and on screen, but the mind boggles at how it's to be staged. I can't wait to see the model at the read-through.
That's the moment when it all comes alive for me, to be honest. Those tiny, painstakingly created versions are at once amazing and terribly exciting. When Jeremy Daker unveiled the gorgeous model for "Pera Palas" I had a lump in my throat, and it managed to survive in the guys' dressing room for a couple of weeks before someone sat on it or something, and like everything else it went into the garbage on the final day. A minuscule memento mori.
Which is just as well, because the hard copy of the script arrived a while ago and there's a moment in the action when Madeleine and Roger get absolutely sodden when he retrieves her from the Seine. Now, in the rosy tint of my mind's eye, a damp and breathless me equates exactly with Colin Firth's emergence from the lake in P&P, but the reality is very different. It's a great moment both in the novel and on screen, but the mind boggles at how it's to be staged. I can't wait to see the model at the read-through.
That's the moment when it all comes alive for me, to be honest. Those tiny, painstakingly created versions are at once amazing and terribly exciting. When Jeremy Daker unveiled the gorgeous model for "Pera Palas" I had a lump in my throat, and it managed to survive in the guys' dressing room for a couple of weeks before someone sat on it or something, and like everything else it went into the garbage on the final day. A minuscule memento mori.
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