Multitasking Like a PRO

Working the speech (there's more on the back)...

Spending all of today at work either finding inspiration for Marcus for my Pinterest board (we finally tried on costumes and it's looking like the Romans are getting Indian/Punjab inspired outfits--super fun!), or working on/writing out all my lines. I started out just working on my big speech ("Who is this? My niece that flies away so fast?") when I discover Lavinia after she's been raped and mangled, but then I figured I might as well try to do the whole show, so... I did. And besides some word fluctuations (and that stupid short speech toward the end where I show Lavinia how to write in the sand with her mouth and stumps. Stupid speech won't stay in my brain! Grrrr Argh), I pretty much nailed everything. w00t. It's all in there. Now I just need to practice saying it onstage in context. Or as the much more eloquent Antony Sher puts it in Year of the Fat Knight:

You have to know [your lines] alone in your room. 

You have to know them when you speak them aloud with the other actors. 

You have to know them when the ante is upped in the rehearsal room (such as a run through).

You have to know them in front of the first audience at the first preview. 

You have to know them in front of the critics. 

You have to know them on a wet Wednesday matinee three months later, when the house is thin and you're thinking about the shopping...

I am currently working on step two. I have a bit of a ways to go before performing anything in front of critics or an audience and, luckily, lots of rehearsal to get there...

But spending the day working on that, and on character inspiration is always a good thing. I'm so happy I'm feeling rejuvenated about this process, this show and this character. Nothing worse than struggling to get through a show you know is no good. The wonderful ladies in the cast are definitely helping. AND not having to travel to get to rehearsal on Tuesday helped, too.

Also, when I was writing out all my lines, I made a wonderful discovery. With all the cuts and additions and rearrangements in our version of the script, I realized that I only say Lavinia's name once. I refer to her often as "lovely niece", "gentle niece", "good niece", and once I even call her "cousin", but the ONLY time I say her name is when I'm talking to her about writing out the names of her attackers. I say, "Look here, Lavinia" before demonstrating how she can still communicate with us (yes, in that same speech I was complaining about earlier), and I think it's lovely. It's something only I will notice, but the tenderness of that moment, the connection between the two of them. It's so clear. Marcus has been waiting for her to feel comfortable enough to explain to the rest of her family exactly what happened to her (and by whom), and he gets her attention with her name. LOVE!