Diary: Dress Rehearsal

The dress rehearsal began at 2.30 with the first of the stories: Blue Beard. It began inauspiciously with a late entrance from Bill Nash (Bluebeard) and was followed by an afternoon in which it was soon apparent that the lighting and sound cues were still not firmly embedded and during the scene changes the actors sometimes forgot what they were supposed to be taking on and off the stage. This tended to throw their timing off, and by the end of the performance it seemed that they couldn't wait to get off stage. The overall effect was of a performance that needed more time to mature but time was the one thing they didn't have. The dress rehearsal ended more or less on schedule and without any major mishaps, however, the energy and focus necessary to drive the momentum of a successful performance was apparently lacking. Perhaps what was needed was an audience.

Less than three hours after the end of the dress rehearsal, that audience began to make its way into the theatre in readiness for the first public performance of Beasts and Beauties. When the house lights dimmed at 7.30 and the evening began with an actor at the rear of the stage painting the words 'Blue Beard' onto transparent plastic sheets acting as a semi-transparent front curtain, the actors almost literally tore into the opening text. Bill Nash was there, impressive in the piratical silhouette cast onto the curtain and magnified by the projection, whilst Howard Coggins and Kelly Williams buzzed with an energy that seemed to ignite their performances as the opening story's narrators, an energy that was handed on from actor to actor throughout the entire two hours of the performance. All eight plays were given total commitment and infused with a life that succeeded in reaching out to the audience and involving them in these extraordinary dramas. They were responsive throughout, laughing at the absurdity of the Emperor with no clothes, sinking back into their seats as they recoiled along with Beauty at the hideous spectacle of Beast, and marvelling at the extraordinarily mysterious tale of the Juniper Tree. Terje, now fully integrated into the ensemble, moved around the stage into and out of the action, his powerful music reverberating through the ancient auditorium and linking the stories in an unbroken dramatic sequence that ended with all the actors singing to the audience who in return signalled their manifest and loud appreciation of what, finally, had been a wonderful event.