to get out of rehearsal two hours early.

The last director I was working with never would have ended a rehearsal so early, especially not the one before second preview. Which may have been good, and may have been bad.

Our preview last night relaxed the entire group, if only because Moliere saved us. His unornamented speeches, unadorned by any production conceits, were what got the biggest reactions. Dorine talking about horny angry old women, Tartuffe’s pious lust and Jansenist seduction…”Hardly anything’s taboo…” were most successful.

So I guess I can’t blame us for ending early. With a play like this…
“With us, Madame, you can’t go wrong.”
you’re almost guaranteed success.

Notes session was much less acrimonious. Sense of relief.
Because a) the preview was good,
and b) we typed out the notes so people could glance at them as we went through them – so no one was surprised verbally and felt defensive.

This director gives everyone everybody’s notes. Interesting.

Actor: I fucked up my monologue.
Director: To your credit, we’ve never worked it in the hall – I think it’s time.

We are so underrehearsed from a text point of view.

Director: I don’t know if it makes a lot of sense from the inside, but from the outside it looks just fine.

Le scandale du monde est ce qui fait l’offense.
It’s scandal that creates the sin.
If there’s no scandal, there’s no sin.
If there’s no sandal, there’s no skin…

We end early, having again polished Tartuffe-Elmire to perfection, given short shrift to Valere-Mariane, and for my money there are still huge pace problems in the first act.

But the director is a more relaxed artist than I am, and I think he may have something to teach me. The actors were so happy to get out early. I wonder if I don’t trust plays enough. He certainly has a great degree of trust in this one.

The stage manager told me that pace problems would iron out over the first two weeks of the run. It’s so strange working here, when you feel like throwing away the first 2 weeks. Anywhere else, that’s half your run, if you’re lucky.