Rehearsal 5: Emblem - EdFringe

5th Week of Rehearsals

With Anna flying back to Mexico, we were left locked out of Atrium for the time being and returned to Keith's house, which was very much appreciated. For this rehearsal we began by exploring some short form Improv, moving onto structured long form and ending the session with focus on exploring and defining our environments. Memborable moments arose from: Ian, as the Taxi driver who adopts and collates characteristics from each of his passengers; Amy beating us at our own wish to make her frustrated during the Conference game; a fiendishly long game of 'biberty bibert BOP', with underhanded tactics by all and an effective use of stomach rumblings by introducings characters who were, like us at 2 o'clock waiting for our lunch break, quite hungry.

Two instances stood out from the session as a whole: a wonderfully awkward moment between a father (Nathan) and son (Ian) when the father reveals that the reason his family has always referred to him as 'Uncle Bill' was because he was infact, Ian's uncle and not his father, resulting in Nathan fufilling the role of the dirty uncle with a disturbing attraction to his nepthew, and also the small details that engage an audience when establishing an environment. It was agreed that we would like to explore both of these areas in more detail as the more awkward and sinister situations hold more realism underneath; we were laughing because the only other alternative way to react is to accept the gruesome possibilities, as well as the awareness that the two actors may have to actually play the parts out which, in retrospect, we felt had been cut short to avoid this. The establishment and use of an environment was engaging as it allowed the audience to engage with our activities, the rinsing of a sponge as someone cleaned a window and the shuffling of a pack of cards were notably effective, as well as changing our previous pace and style. We felt this allowed more time for each character to form and for the story itself to progress from the group collective, instead of the inter-mingling of our individual ideas which seemed somewhat strained at times.



All in all a productive rehearsal with a realisation for the importance of discussing the events of the day at the end of the session in order to allow us to grow as a group. And, perhaps, the importance of being quiet and stealthy Ninjas instead of Karate Kids whilst in someone's house, due to shouts for us to 'shut up' from across the street.