Rehearsals

This diary was written by Benjamin Twist, director of the show, during the casting and rehearsals for the original 2001 production. It describes the stages of casting, conceptualising and creating the production. Most of the material is still relevant to the 2002 production, which is a revival of the earlier one.

Casting

From July 2000 to October 2000

I started casting the show early, as I knew I wanted good actors who would be skilled in a number of ways - some had to be musical, all had to have the ability to do East of Scotland accents. I was also clear that the show depended on a particular person to play Chris Guthrie, although it wasn't anyone I had in mind, and a strong ensemble feel. It was also some time since I had directed in Scotland and I wanted to meet some of the younger actors I hadn't met before. I met a few Scottish actors in London, but mostly I auditioned people based in Scotland.

I had to do a fair amount of work in tracking people down. There is an organisation called Spotlight that many actors pay to be in: they publish enormous books with photos of actors and their contact details, but more usefully they now produce CDRoms with the actors' details, photos, CVs and so on. Using this I could find many actors from the east of Scotland with good singing voices etc. However, many Scottish actors don't pay to be in Spotlight (foolishly, to my mind) and I had to do further research and contact agents to find the people I wanted. I also received suggestions from actors' agents about people I should meet.

My first meetings were with some people that I knew would be interesting and with a number of possible Chris Guthries. With more experienced actors, or those who I knew a bit, I would talk to them, or let them talk to me, about the play and their thoughts about it. I would then ask them to read a section of the play, often working on it with them for a few minutes. This way we both get to know how each other works and the audition process is much more pleasant on both sides. With newer actors I often asked them to prepare a piece of Shakespeare: about 20 lines of verse that they then perform for me. I find this very useful for sorting people out. It gives me a benchmark, as I know how Shakespeare should sound, and I can also work with them on it to see how quickly they pick up new ideas.

Two of the people I met in my first session were people I chose for the cast: Stewart Porter and Estrid Barton. These two seemed right for the parts (and rightness is as important as talent - I don't really expect to see actors who aren't good enough when I audition: I should have filtered them out when I saw their CVs or saw them in other shows. I am looking for their suitability for the part when I conduct the audition.) I also saw three people early on who could be Chris Guthrie. All three were interesting but very different and it was difficult to make a decision, particularly when it was so important a decision for the success of the show. So I met all three again and possibly a third time, until it became clear to me that Cora Bisset was the right choice. Her energy and her ideas appealed to me, but it was clear she wasn't a standard Chris Guthrie. In the second and third meetings, the discussion about the play was much more important than the reading of the text, although that was also part of the process. I was sorry to say no to the other two possibilities as they were both strong actors, but I was certain that Cora was the one. In the main I came down to the fact that she has a life force about her that is similar to Chris Guthrie's, and I am pleased that this shines through in the show.

I have learned that if I am in any doubt about an actor, I shouldn't cast them. So when I met other people over the course of the next few weeks I slowly assembled the cast that I wanted. With Dougal Lee we talked a great deal about music, as he would also be the musical director, but his acting style and his character were also very much what I wanted for Long Rob. I kept on looking until I found the right actors. I would rather have sleepless nights during the casting process than during rehearsals. It is often said that casting is 90% of the job of directing and there is some truth in this. It is always clear (I think to everyone) at the read through on day one of rehearsal whether the show is going to be OK, and that depends on whether the casting is right or not. For this reason I will also keep casting right up until the last minute if necessary. I would rather cast on the Friday before rehearsals begin than cast someone who I wasn't sure about.

I was very keen to avoid actors who come from the west of Scotland. During auditions I met a number of west coast actors and very often when they read the text it seemed to become less about hard working poor families in the country and more about urban poverty. I can't quite explain this but I think it is about the rhythm of the speech and the language. In the end Alan McHugh is the only west coast actor in the show, and his accent work was sufficiently good to make me confident that he could find the right voice. Similarly I was keen to find genuine Aberdeenshire actors where possible, and there are actually three: Estrid Barton, Tommy Mullins and Douglas Russell. I think they have helped us understand the nature of the world of the play as well as the language and the rhythm of it.

As ever, some of the cast kept me waiting after we offered them a job, but in the end I got exactly the cast I wanted - which is actually quite rare. That is not to say that a different cast would have been less good (although it is difficult to criticise this cast) but it would have been different and would have led to a different show. Casting is about the combination of the characters in the play with the characters of the actors. The company that I assembled has exactly the right ensemble feel, the warmth and goodwill, the sense of humour and the darkness that I wanted for the show.

Rehearsals

(These entries were written on the evening of the day in question.)

Monday 15 January

Pages 1-4.

A good day. We met at 10.30. Many of the actors knew each other already from previous jobs. We did a read through before lunch - the first time I've heard the play out loud. I always think you know after the read through how it is going to go, what work you will need to do for the next few weeks. After this one I felt confident - the cast were good and well suited to the roles, and they seemed keen on the show and the tour. We looked at the set model and talked about costumes after lunch and then started work on the play. Jackie measured the actors for costumes. Over lunch Neil (designer), Jackie (wardrobe) and I had discussed costumes, as Neil and I hadn't really talked about these before. The main issue is that everyone has to play so many parts, and you can't change for each one. So we decided to create a look for the actor's main part and actors would indicate other roles by props. Where they are Speak characters, they will have something easy to put on on top of their main outfit - generally a jacket or something.

At the end of the day I met with Stage Management, the producers and George Tarbuck (lighting designer) to discuss budgets. We worked out where overheads costs were going to come from, such as gaffer tape. George was worried his already small budget would have to cover that, but we were able to find it from the props budget, that Jools (company stage manager) thought was more than large enough. This is to be revisited on Wednesday at the Production Meeting.

Tuesday 16 January

Pages 5 - 11.

Today I had to attend a meeting in the afternoon, so I left rehearsals at 1pm. Dougal did some music work with the cast and I returned around 5pm.

Wednesday 17 January

Pages 12 - 23. Production meeting 9.30 - 10.30

In the production meeting we went through all the areas - rehearsals, sound, lights, set, props, wardrobe, stage management and administration. We agreed that George can have another £200 on top of the £200 he already has for LX hire and gels etc. This will come from the props budget as Jools thinks most of the props will be borrowed from RSAMD etc. She has lots of good contacts. We are getting a scythe from a friend of Martin's (the Producer), plus some other farm implements. Jackie wasn't there but she has discussed budgets with Martin and we will hire most of the costumes from a place in Bristol - they will give her a good price.

We went through the schedule for production week. Fit up set and rig, focus and plot lights on Monday. George wants more time for plotting but there isn't any so he is going to provide some students to help speed up his rigging. Tech rehearsal on Tuesday in three sessions maximum (a session is a morning, afternoon or evening). Dress rehearsals Wednesday afternoon and evening and then Thursday afternoon is a dress rehearsal/preview with a schools audience. The press night is that evening. It is all a bit tight, but do-able. Luckily we have the set in rehearsals, so that shouldn't give us any surprises. The tech will mainly be lighting, so perhaps we can do it quickly.

Thursday 18 January

Brian Morton wants to do an interview with Cora, me and Alastair (writer). I rang his production person and we have agreed just to do the interview with Cora and me as Alastair is in London. We'll do it on Monday week and they also want to record an excerpt from the play with two actors. I'll have to think of a good bit.

Friday 19 January

Ros Steen from the RSAMD came in today to talk about accents and do voice work. An interesting discussion ensued, in which we agreed that the accents should be broadly standard Scots, not north eastern, and that we should only drop into accent for occasional and particular words. This is much as in the book, which Lewis Grassic Gibbon has basically written in English, with a few Scots words thrown in where they are untranslatable or where they help to place the story in the Mearns. It is the music of the speech that is important - the rhythm and the cadence, as he puts it.

Saturday 20 January

Costume fittings this afternoon with the two actors from Glasgow. They looked good. Jackie and Neil surrounded by costumes of all sorts from a place in Bristol (four skips!) the Lyceum and Pitlochry Festival Theatre. Slowly we pieced together two outfits that work, and I think as we worked we were defining the wardrobe style of the show. It's an interesting process - you work with what you have and find what you want from that. But presumably if you had different stuff to choose from, you would end up with a different style and a different show.

Monday 22 January

Pages 51 - 57.

We finished the play this morning and I think it is in good shape. I think we have come up with a good image for the war. Instead of a scything, a harvest of men as suggested by the script, we have re-used the way the men work on the fields, only this time they are wearing great coats and helmets, and they are planting not corn but poppies. I tried first to have the men dying on the fields, but it proved stupid and impossible. Then we tried the idea of a straight line of men climbing through the fields, but that was impractical and looked odd. However, the random motion that we have used before came into someone's head and it was clear that it was a better idea.

Is it better to have Ewan on or off stage when Chris says goodbye to his ghost? I think offstage, because getting him off otherwise is difficult. Getting him offstage a bit earlier is fine, because he is alive when he is talking to Chae - in effect he leaves that scene when he walks to his death.

An idea came to me on the spur of the moment. In the last but one scene, the cast can be looking over the props we have used in the show as if they are at an auction. This should represent the end of the small farms they talk about - the tools and household goods are now rubbish, junk, sold for a song. I think this works and it is better than the other idea of planting the crosses on the field. The congregation can do that during Colquhoun's speech, and then when they leave the memorial will appear suddenly and surprisingly.

We did a run in the afternoon. It ran at about 1hour 10 for the first half, and 1 hour 5 for the second. I hope we can get this down to a maximum of two hours. It looked good and moved quickly. Too much narration, so I have to work on that. I think it sounds like narration when the actor doesn't have an attitude to others when he/she is speaking.

The other actors had costume fittings in the afternoon when I could spare them from rehearsal. I went in to see Cora's fitting later on. Her outfit looks good and seems practical - she has to take boots, stockings, skirt and shirt off for the washing scene and then get them back on quickly. She will change top in the second half, giving her a more womanly, less childlike figure. Then we discussed at length what she should wear for her wedding - not too smart, as they wouldn't have had much. A shawl in the end sufficed.

Tuesday 23 January

Pages 5 - 15.

This was a hard day, everything seemed slow. The difficulty with the first few scenes is that they provide information but there is little forward drive in the adaptation. You have to work to find the emotional action in the scenes, the objective and superobjective, as Stanislavski would have it (although that is never the way I think of it). Also the play is divided into scenes that don't necessarily reflect the main themes. For example the relationship between Guthrie and his wife is also expressed in the two Chrisses theme, where one part of her likes the school work (Guthrie's side of Chris) and the other prefers life on the farm (Jean's side). This is then explored by showing the history of Guthrie and Jean's marriage, and how the demand of Guthrie's that she continue to produce babies has soured their relationship. But to show this you have to show the audience how Guthrie feels remorse for his lust that forces Jean into pregnancy, and how this in turn gives Jean power over him that she uses ruthlessly when she argues with Chris that education is not everything. The train of thought is a long one that requires careful work in the staging to make clear.

Wednesday 24 January

Pages 16 - 23.

A very exciting day. Work was slow at times, but the drama became real, especially the work exploring the relationship between Chris and Will, Chris and her father and Will and Guthrie. We saw and showed how Chris feels betrayed by her mother's suicide, even though she may understand the reasons for it, and how Will blames his father for his mother's death. The course of the day charted the deteriorating relationships between Will and Guthrie, with the scene when Guthrie challenges Will about Molly Douglas proving the showdown between them - at that point Will becomes stronger than his father and Guthrie knows he is beginning to lose strength.

The sexual element of the play came across strongly, first as Chris is attracted to the tink in the barn, then as Guthrie and the tink almost fight over her, only giving up when Will returns from his late night meeting with Molly. It is clear too that everyone is watching everyone else - we were able to express this by eliding the scenes together, so that for example when Will comments on the harvest madness, he has just seen and heard Chris sing to herself about the tink.

We changed the series of harvest madness scenes totally - the work we had done last week was not right, and using more music and a completely different style, we created what should be a funny and fast-moving scene. We also solved the scything scene - much better than before, using the sound of sharpening the scythe and not too many people doing it - good thinking by the cast. It is now about the relationship between Will and Chris and their father, and how he grows strong and cruel with the ripening of the corn. Before it was just an image, because the script said we needed one. It wasn't showing anything.

Ros Steen came in to do some voice work, and says the accents sound good.

Thursday 26 January

Pages 27 -31.

This section contains a couple of difficult bits that you can't prepare for outside the rehearsal room - especially the Burning of Peesie's Knapp. How to represent a fire on stage without fire, water, sound effects or realistic lighting? I decided the main elements were the use of buckets in a chain - a very recognisable image - and the rescuing of as many items of furniture, tools etc as possible. (I was once in a house that burned to the ground, far from any fire brigade. As long as it was safe to do so, we threw things out of the house to save them, including furniture, clothes, bedclothes etc.) These worked reasonably well, then sound was added in the form of rhythms on two bodhrans to add urgency.

The other tricky bit was Guthrie's funeral. We had set up a scene last week that worked but didn't use the same visual or physical language as the rest of the show. I wanted to change it and I hit upon the idea of using just singing to represent the funeral, with speeches being given over the quiet singing by the rest of the cast. I think it now works well, although the pace of the singing needs to be just right and we haven't quite got it yet. It will come.

The rest of the day was spent doing music rehearsals. I also had a conversation with Neil about the set and props - all going fine, except that the lightbox for the sunset is probably too big for at least some of the venues. However, we will address that when it is finished. I also spoke to a journalist for a preview item about the show, discussing what I had been looking for when I cast Cora as Chris Guthrie.

Friday 27 January

Pages 31 - 40.

A difficult day in many ways, but we got a lot done. One of the tricky things was the wedding scene. This contains lots of music, a bit of dancing and some acting. All very well, but it turns out that each bit is in a different theatrical convention. So for example, the song Flouers O' the Forest is simply that: a song. The audience almost need to watch it as if at a concert, to enjoy the singing of it almost irrespective of the acting. Then there is another song, sung by Chae, which is similar, but has a particular job, to point out the oddness of Chris singing a lament at her wedding. Then there is dancing. This needs to be (in this production at least, where we don't have enough actors to do any real dance) representative of the boisterous dancing there would be at such a wedding rather than a real dance. But it also has to be good enough to be enjoyable to watch. Finally there is acting, when characters say important things to each other that forward the plot and develop the characters. This was underscored by more music, to give the idea of the wedding party continuing.

All of these are do-able and quite straightforward. But it mixes a certain amount of Brechtian cabaret style theatre (songs set into the play) with character based theatre (when the characters speak to each other) with non-naturalistic image based theatre. The audience have to be absolutely clear at each point what they are watching, to allow them to watch it in the right way. Making this clear is part of the job, and took some time.

Saturday 28 January

Pages 40 - 49

Another difficult day as everyone was very tired, it being the end of the week. But we did a lot. A good scene with Chris and Ewan, and I think we have worked out a good image for the work taking place on the fields. In a way I have approached this backwards - I know that for the planting of the poppies during the image of the war, I need the men to walk up and down the fields bending and pressing the posies into the ground with their hands. To make clear during this image that the reference is to the men working in the fields at home - so that the 'harvest' in this work that they are doing is poppies, just as the harvest in their work at home is corn - I need them to do the same action in the earlier work scenes. So now, when we have people working in the fields their work is not naturalistic but is the bending over and straightening up, while walking up and down the fields. So one simplifies the action, making it I hope clearer and more beautiful to watch.

It is interesting. Without my planning it (or at least realising that I had done so), it has turned out that the first half is all based around the table and chairs, as the young Chris spends most of her life in the kitchen or in the house. The second half, when she is an adult and a farmer's wife, the action is centred on the fields. I subscribe to the school of aesthetics that accommodates such fortuitous accidents - art is a matter of circumstances and luck as well as the idea in the artist's head. The way this was described in my philosophy lectures was that the sculptor who is an artist cannot create the whole work of art in his/her head. There will be flaws and patterns in the marble that affect the look of the final piece. So Michelangelo's David is as it is partly because of the circumstances of its creation - it is not the pure creation of the artist's mind. Art is practical, and theatre is a particularly practical art.

Monday 29 January

Pages 49 - 57 (end).

Good work today on the scene when Rob returns to the village. The relationship between him and Chris is more complex and goes on for longer than it might appear - in each scene there is increased feeling between them, so it comes as no surprise when she sleeps with him later.

In the scene when Chae tells Chris of Ewan's execution and the conversation before it, Ewan's part is fairly straightforward. What took the time was how Chae feels as he relates the story, how he feels about coming to tell Chris what happened. Does he always mean to tell her the truth, or does he decide to do so at the last minute?

We did a run of the first half, to prepare for a run of the play tomorrow. Chaos! There was lots of trying to remember stuff and this meant the actors couldn't act properly. But I expected as much, that is why I did it. It is a few days and a lot of work ago that we worked through the first half, and they have a lot to remember. The run tomorrow will be all the better for it, and it won't be because I said anything, just because they will have recalled lots of things and understood more by the doing of it. If in doubt, do a run.

Tuesday 30 January

Pages 1 - 12.

Did a run in the morning and as I predicted the first half was much better than yesterday. A good rhythm to the first few pages, which was what was missing before. It always fascinates me how actors improve their performances just by practicing, without doing specific work, but just by getting used to the piece. The second half was strong too. It ran at 1hour 3 minutes (first half) and 1 hour 8 minutes (second half). We should get that down to two hours plus interval. It feels like a two hour show, maximum.

In the afternoon I just went through pages 1 -12 quickly, tightening up here and there, improving moves, adding reactions and giving the actors a chance to work things out. We ran it at the end of the day and there were clear improvements. The rhythm of the first few pages had improved further - we re-allocated a few lines.

One thing I learned in the run is how important the birth of the twins is. Until that point, Chris has been quite keen on her father. And Jean and Will have been able to accept him, although they disagree with him about many things. But the fact that he impregnates Jean again and the difficulty she has in the birth change everything. They stop sleeping together as much and his sexual frustration makes him bitter; he takes that out on Will, who already hates him for what he has done to Jean; and Chris now finds his behaviour difficult. Jean is fearful and resentful of him. All this changes him and embitters him yet further, and relations throughout the family break down, with tragic consequences. I think we have made this clearer still in the work we did today.

BBC Scotland rang up - they want to do an item on Good Morning Scotland on the show for the day of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's centenary. I said we can fit them in at Cumbernauld, but it will be tight.

We bought the set of bagpipes for the end of the show. There was a crisis, as we had to get a cheque to the shop immediately and Martin wasn't able to get there. In the end we managed with someone's VISA card. Such are the problems of small theatre companies. Let us hope Dougal is able to learn them sufficiently well to play them. They seem harder than the practice pipes he has been using so far.

Wednesday 31 January

Pages 12 - 30.

We sped through a lot today, making some quite fundamental improvements, following through ideas that had come up during the run. For example, Tommy wasn't sure whether Will should have any idea that his father had sexual interest in Chris. We discussed how difficult this would be to acknowledge, and how thinking it would make it even harder for Will to leave for Argentina with Mollie Douglas, leaving Chris behind. But of course, this very dilemma makes the decision bigger and the drama more interesting. When I asked Tommy to play it that he did know, but he didn't know that Chris feared the same thing - so it could remain unacknowledged - the scene when he tells Chris he's going to leave became more interesting, and the following scenes between Will, Guthrie and Chris became more dramatic too.

The scenes when Will is first beaten by, then stands up to his father also proved interesting but quite delicate. In the last one, when Guthrie calls Mollie Douglas a tink, Will has to take control so that the status is quite opposite to the first, when he meekly follows his father out to the barn to be beaten. Working out the status of each character in each scene proved useful.

It is a delicate decision too how much we should see the musicians. Often when it is Chris singing, it feels as though the music is in her head and I don't want to see the players. At other times it is fine to see them - they are within the play. I am not yet sure why the conventions are different, and I hope it will come out in the wash in due course.

Thursday 1 February

Pages 31 - 49.

A difficult day today. We all seemed tired and the atmosphere in the rehearsal room was of hard work, not much fun. That is unusual for this rehearsal, which has been marked by fun, lots of laughter and a creative feeling in rehearsals. I think this is important, and today's hard work showed why - we did less work because it seemed like work.

However, we did approach a solution to a problem. From when Chris is pregnant to when Ewan goes off to war was woolly and didn't move forward. We struggled to find a way to show how Chris is feeling, what action is going on in the play during this period. In the end we realised that the movement is from her pleasure at being with Ewan to a concern about him going off to war. She concentrates more and more on building a home, being the wife and enjoying it, eventually planning a second child partly to hold him back from going off to war. Although she doesn't state it, she fears that he will leave. She is fully aware of what else is going on with Rob and with the rest of the village. To express this we are now keeping her on the stage during some of those episodes so that she can be seen to react to the developments outside the home she is trying to make.

Friday 2 February

Pages 49 - 57 (end).

After yesterday's hard day this seemed like heaven. We glided through to the end without effort. The poppies scene seems to work, although I don't know whether we will use poppies on stems, just the petals, or a combination of both. We will see next week and Neil will help make the decision. We tried the corn on the cornfield for the first time. It is going to cause problems, but they will be overcome.

In the afternoon a 'costume parade'! I wouldn't normally do one of these, but as all the extra costumes are not going to come to Cumbernauld for the tech, it seemed sensible to check the outfits for problems here, so that Jackie can just bring the necessary alternatives to the theatre. They look very good. A problem with Estrid's dress, which is very uncomfortable. Will looks a bit too young perhaps. But the concept, of the main character having a costume and then the Speak characters having the minimum to distinguish them, seems to work. We then did a run of the play in the afternoon, using the costumes. It really helped things along and the run was excellent. The first half was particularly strong. In the second half things fell apart a bit, but it is about memory and sorting one or two problems out. A good day.

Saturday 3 February

The last day in the rehearsal room and today also we moved from smaller Traverse 2 to the larger Traverse 2, for technical reasons. Suddenly the actors were in a larger space and a different one. We resolved the problems of act 2 from yesterday and then did a run. It was competent but flat. For the first time in a long time I wasn't moved by the story. I gave a few notes, then after lunch another run. This time it was powerful, moving, funny, with the actors taking risks and trying things out. Chris and Will worked well on the area when he wants to leave to go to Argentina, but is afraid for her. She and Ewan played the worry about going to war very well. They took 4 minutes off it in the afternoon run - now running at 2 hours 3 minutes plus interval.

We finished with a few quick notes. I find the fewer notes the better. It is easier to say the wrong thing than the right thing. If you are going in the right direction, the actors will know what to change, where to push things. Most of the notes I give are technical things - how to make an exit easier, how to keep a scene moving.

It feels as though it is going to be a good show. A good script, a good cast, a good design. I also had a meeting with George (LX designer). What he is suggesting sounds right, and we will see on Monday night. I get home exhausted but excited.

Monday 5 February

Rehearsing at Cumbernauld Theatre.

We rehearsed just for a couple of hours in the studio at Cumbernauld. Mainly music, then going through a few notes and sorting out small problems. It isn't ideal - I'd rather be able to do a run - but the space is too small, the Traverse couldn't fit us in and anyway, we wouldn't have had the set. Having worked with the set for two weeks, it would now be difficult to do a run without it. Also, this will be a long week and the actors could do with a rest, so today was a short day for them.

In the evening I stayed around to start the lighting session. But heavy snow had delayed the get in and George was still rigging (hanging) and focusing the lights. In the end I went home, as we wouldn't get started tonight. It all looks pretty good on stage.

Tuesday 6 February

Technical rehearsal.

We got in as early as possible and George and I started plotting lighting cues. We started the tech about 11.30, having plotted about half the play. They looked good. The tech moved quite quickly, as we have dealt with many of the problems in rehearsal. Moving about on the cornfield was difficult, especially for Cora with her skirt. But we have reduced the amount of corn and she is finding out how to do it. In breaks George and I continued to plot, so we didn't have any time off until 15 minutes at supper. We got to the within a few pages of the end, but we couldn't finish on time, so we will have to finish off tomorrow.

The good thing about a tech is that it all comes together. You need to make decisions quickly and firmly, but you can see and hear everything in the same place for the first time. There were few surprises today - I had worked most things out - but there were some things that worked more easily or more beautifully than I had expected. The play looks good. Although at first I wasn't sure how the grass covered hill was going to look, when it is backlit or with a bit of colour on it the purity of the green is nice - not realistic, but not like a bit of green carpet either. There is a clean and simple feel about the set that is pleasing and that suits the style of the production.

Wednesday 7 February

Tech and Dress rehearsals.

We finished the tech very easily in about 40 minutes. The poppies scene seems to work and the unfurrowed field section at the end is bleak and hard. Stewart delivers his last speech well and the image with the poppies and the cross looks good. We have decided to use only one cross at the top of the hill, not the four we had made. They are too hard to bring on and they never quite look right together on the hill, whereas one cross can be passed up to Stewart at the top quite unobtrusively and then it is a surprise image when he leaves after the speech. This was an easy decision to make. Neil and I work well together in this way. There is never any problem about cutting things or changing things - we seem to trust each other and want the same things. That is partly why he is so good to work with.

The first dress was fine. The photographer was there, which distracted the actors a bit, but not too much. It was smoother than many I have done, with fewer mistakes. The second was even better, a good performance. I always worry when this happens at a last dress rehearsal, because the next time through is in front of an audience. Normally I would do three dress rehearsals, but owing to the limited time there are only two on this occasion. There is a danger that the cast will relax a bit - I almost believe the adage about a bad dress rehearsal leading to a good first night. But we all went home satisfied.

Thursday 8 February

First performances.

In the afternoon a performance in front of 250 teenagers as a sort of preview matinee. It went very well. I was pleased as it seems to hold the audience, and young audiences in large numbers are very aware of their friends sitting next to them and can be afraid of showing their emotions. I felt this time they were attentive, engaged and moved by the show. Most of them probably know the book, so they knew what to expect. The cast felt the performance was solid, without being exciting. I think this is probably a fair account of it. It was good, but not thrilling.

In the evening, the press night. This went much better, but there were some rough edges. More errors and mistakes, but more emotion, especially from Chris. Less solid, more exciting. It felt as though the audience enjoyed it and I received good feedback from everyone I spoke to. The music is too long at the beginning, so I will cut that back. Other minor notes, but nothing enormous. I am looking forward to seeing it settle down now.