End of the first rehearsal week

Rehearsal week one done and dusted.

We covered: general discussion with the actors on the play, thrillers as a genre, the pine plantations as both place and myth.

We’ve all driven through/past the forests, and a surprising number of cast and crew have spent time there, or nearby. Family connections in Glass House Mountains, Caboolture, Beerwah. I spoke about the landscape as sixth character in the play: how I’d set the play there as the plantation had always struck me as a place in limbo – bother wild and ordered, man-made, yet made of nature. A place where the old rules seemed no longer to apply, but new rules had not yet been created.

Asked the actors what the play was about from their character’s point of view – Quin: escape; Bex: from self-destruction to self-belief; Lizard: appetite – finding the jewellery; Liminee: protecting Bex; Benny: having a win.

God, they’re a good cast.

Two of our sessions were with only Quin and Bex – scheduling issues. So we worked through the first 20 pages of the play, looking at units, pulses of action, the dance of sex the two of them are playing out; how drunk Bex gets; how experienced/inexperienced they both are. Quin’s internal ‘glitch’ moments: the “Run boy, get out, get out” mantra that he mutters.

Playing on the floor. Asking questions.