• 
• Director's Thoughts
• Newcastle
• New Space
• Another Week...
• Understudying
• Ipswich
• Gaffer Tape Moustaches
• Punts!
• Cambridge...
• I am Wolverine Boldwood
• After the stagger-through...
• ...if we all call it a box...
• 'The English Way of Death'
• Sitting in the Green Room on my own...
• Hysteria!
• Singing!
• Research!
• Stagger through...
• Seven hours of country dancing
• 3 weeks in...

After the stagger-through...

Thursday, 4 September 2008

We all felt daunted by the idea of running the whole play with an audience of invited dignitaries. Did we feel ready? Certainly not. But with reassurance from Kate that it was to be a 'stagger-through', we resigned ourselves to the inevitable.
Well, the play flew by, for me at least, and it was great to sit on the side and watch the scenes I'm not in. I thoroughly enjoyed the stuff with Bathsheba and her other men. My particular favourites: Oak proposes and the Epilogue: funny and moving. Plus the ensemble scenes are very engaging and at times exhilerating.
I, though, felt like I'd forgotten how to act and had that weird sensation of feeling hyper-aware and naked. My subsequent bout of despair was solved by Kate during the notes, apparently Boldwood's journey was becoming clear. Reminded me of something my old tutor Yat Malmgren used to say in his irresistably parodic Swedish accent: 'You can never judge a performance by the way that it feels'. (Stephen-Boldwood)