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The Hothouse – Actor’s Blog, Week 2

The Hothouse has, for the most part, been built. Most lines are learnt, all the moves are known, all the motivations carefully planned. We know the shape of it, its peaks and troughs. We even have a sense that it could be quite entertaining. There have been flashes of brilliance, in amongst the various practical challenges of moving and talking simultaneously. A phrase suddenly cauterizes the air, seems both the most natural and the most extraordinary thing to say: the director purrs, the man playing your secretary looks alarmed. And then you suddenly realise that you’re in the wrong place, that you’re supposed to be pouring imaginary whiskey from a Diet Coke bottle, that you’ve no idea which line comes next. It’s frustrating, because you just have to shove the play down your throat, and it feels clumsy and amateurish. You’re shouting all the time, save for when you forget your lines. You notice this, and deliver the next scene entirely in a hoarse whisper. The rehearsal finishes, and the director reassures you that we’ve made a lot of progress, that it’s still very early in the process. He tells you not to worry, and to be honest, you don’t: you’re too busy working things out, and learning it all.

This bit of the process is necessary but frustrating. The Hothouse is just emerging from it. Act One is fixed, Act Two is nearly there. We approach our first full run of Act One for anticipation that we might get it locked down with more than a week to go. We do it, with the other actors as our audience. And suddenly the play seems leaden. It’s as though, by wrestling the text to the ground, by mastering it, we’ve made it quite dull. No-one laughs, except when someone stumbles over a line. There is a sense that we’re sleep-walking through the scenes. One of the watching actors gives up, and begins to read a textbook.

When it’s finished, the atmosphere is sombre. “A bit limp” mutters one. “Deeply undynamic” says another. The director politely agrees, but reassures us that now the structure is in place, we can play, and knock most of it down. Playing will bring it to life, he says. Agreements are muttered. We all trudge outside, for a cigarette or a shiver. Suddenly we seem to have realised that it is possible that the show won’t be any good. We remember we have an open rehearsal for the student press that evening. We all feel a bit shame-faced.

And then, that afternoon, we play. We’re given secret instructions: “You have to get out of that room”, “You must remain as close to his face as possible”, “She is now your 13-year-old daughter”. The results are frequently farcical, but always liberating and occasionally revelatory. The director then tells us to stick to our original motivations, but up their intensity ten-fold. Suddenly “I want to squash Lush” means that you’ve pushed him to the ground, and are spitting your lines into his ear. Everything expands: you’re obscenely drunk, ecstatic, devastated. The whole scope of the play is expanded. Most of it is dross, but it is always enlightening. You’re reminded of your sheer range of options. The constraints of all the play-building you’ve been doing are transformed into jumping-off points for a whole new set of performances. We do the open rehearsal, and it goes well. I’ve no idea what the journos thought, but it went swimmingly for us, still clowning and capering, pushing intensity and changing tack, dancing through the text.

My old man, Roote, is coming on nicely. He’s been assembled from a variety of corpses: half-faded memories of teachers from primary school, a friend’s grandfather, an author on Desert Island Disks. I’ve stitched them together, and he’s just beginning to twitch into life. On Monday, I will shave my head, and most of my beard off. My nose, running almost at the same angle as my forehead, should look brutish, transformed from shrewish to shark-like. Without sideburns and neck hair, my face will look shorter, and my brow will be more prominent. With a moustache, my chin, already weak, will look quite forlorn. Hopefully, this is what Roote looks like. Hopefully, it will jolt him into animation. If not, at least I’ll be bang on trend.

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