After two days of no rehearsal the company reassembled again today for a run-through. Despite concerns that things would be forgotten or lost during those two days, the run though seemed new and fresh. Each character had their moment of absoulte desperation, where they find themselves naked, with nothing left, and all they can do is grasp agessivly for happiness in the direction of the first person they see. David C. is begining to earn the title “protagonist” of this play, by which I mean he really occupied the stage from begining to end, serving as a red thread, weaving the rest of the characters togther. Cleo serves this function also, and is making good steps in accomplishing that as well.

After the run through the company discussed what tommorow’s schedule would be like:

David M: What are we doing tommorow, an 8 hour day or a straight six?
Daniel: I don’t know. Would anyone like to ofer their input for that?
David M: I would like to do a four out of tweleve.

Tommorow we do another run through and work on selected scenes.

Fight choreography in rehearsal on Wednesday. Peter (fight choreographer) helped work out the moments of physical contact, including Belle slapping Stark in the face. To learn it, Peter first has Christina slap him in the face, which she does fine, and then practice it on David several times. Questions come up of precisely where to hit David on the face so it doesn’t hit his eye and also looks believable. Peter begins to slap himself on the face repeatedly to confirm the best way. At the same time, Alison, the stage manager wants to learn to choreography as well so she begins to slap herself in the face repeatedly. Daniel is interested as well and he slaps himself too. Pretty soon there are four people slapping themselves repeatedly in the face.

Funny moments aside, the slapping moment is one of my favorites thus far. Christina plays it completely dead pan–no expression of emotion at all, a perfectly relaxed face and body, but an explosion of anger through this one gesture. Its that highly contrasted mixture of hot and cold, rough and smooth, light and dark, that makes drama so compelling.

Rehearsal continues slowly but surly, as we broke ground on Act III yesterday. David Chandler continues to invent other characters in the world of the play not written by Odets, including Mrs. Grunwald, the old secretary before Cleo, who was probably in the office longer than Stark. It is so fun to watch them play and make up things, which sometimes help inform the character but sometimes are just for fun.

Henry Stram has run into a common snag, which I encounter often myself: the long speech. It is Frency’s speech about “love and the grace to use it” speech in Act III. I watch him struggle with it yesterday for the first time. “Its just such a SPEECH” he replies with some understandable frustration and his argument is valid, how does one communicate Odets’ ideas actively, to make them sound more than a newspaper editorial? Daniel encourages him to deliver the text very simply, not trying to force something just for the sake of entertainment. This seems to help; though time and hard work will make the scene really shine (which I know will happen)

Today we reviewed scenes previously visited in Acts I and II. The cast seems to be making improvements in leaps and bounds everyday, even the new actors. Its great seeing everyone learn from everyone else. Every single person seems to bring their own specific energy into the room. Kristina is quiet and focused like a magnifying glass, David Chandler serious but always with a bit of humor, (though never making light of a situation and always believable). Louisa with a youthful enthusiasm but also a sense of stillness that makes her impossible to ignore onstage. Daniel contributes as well, often sitting in the furniture, watching the scene unfold. “Excuse me Mr. Schlosser” says David Chandler to Daniel who is occupying the spot he is blocked to sit in.

I am beginning to see Daniel’s talent: his ability and desire to investigate every “mundane” detail, Every cross, every turn of the head, every gesture, in great detail and elevate every single moment to greatness. While maybe on the surface this might look like any other Odets’ play (forgetting the set of course) this is really going to be something magnetic to watch.

Some very interesting things coming up today in rehearsal as we continue to work on Act II. Andy Weems is required to make a very sudden shift in in enrergy. He begins the scene very restrained and internalized and ends up screaming at Cleo. THe difficulty for him is that he can’t not understand WHY he is coming into the room in the first place…and he says so. Daniel reminds him that Cooper is incredibly lonley and is coming into Stark’s office simply for human contact (even though he would never admit this). Really it has nothing to do with what Cooper actually says but the fact that he is desperate for human contact and is ashamed of this. Andy does a wonderful run through at the end of the day but is still unsatisfied with him self. Daniel reminds him that moments like this simley can not be over thought. David Chandler agrees and tells him him he shouldn’t be so har don himself. Louisa says nothing at this moment but you can tell she is also there to support her fellow actor in need. It is great to see such a supportive ensemble, looking out for each other.

Two funny theatre stories told the other day, both about The Birthday Party

1) Andy was watching a production of The Birthday Party sometime ago. During the end of the second act (i think?) when Goldberg and Mccain are roughing up Stanley, he hears just before the black out, a whisper from an elderly man in the front row to his wife: “I don’t know, maybe he stole some money”

2) Henry, (who is doing The Birthday Party and playing Stanley is at an audience talk back. One of the comments from the audience:

“I think Stanley got what he deseerved because he called Goldberg a dirty Jew!”

(For those of you who don’t know The Birthday Party there is no line remotley like this, and the person made this up completly.

This is my first post as assistant director for Rocket to the Moon. My name is Jake Stoebel and I’m also the Education Resident here at Long Wharf. I graduated from Pitzer College (Claremont, CA) majoring in theatre with an emphasis in directing. One day in May I got a call from Long Wharf offering me this job and a few months later…here I am, living on the East Coast for the first time in my life and thrilled about it.

My job entails a lot of exciting things, but I have spent a lot of my time in recent weeks working on a study guide for Rocket to the Moon which will be distributed to teachers so that they can better integrate the production into the classroom. I could not be more excited to be doing this; my academic skills are actually being put to a practical use! Who knew?…

I was excited to be offered this position as assistant director because I feel that I have grown so close to Odets and the world of this play that now I get to see it manifest itself.

We began rehearsals on Tuesday with a first reading around the table and following up with more table work on Wednesday and Thursday. You may or may not know this, but this production of Rocket to the Moon was first produced at Bard College with many of the same actors. Needless to say I was worried about being behind, but after a while I realized that the cast seems to be rethinking the production from the ground up, so I haven’t much to worry about.

Along with the two female actors being new to the production (Louisa as Cleo and Christina as Belle) there is one other major difference between this production and Bard’s: THE SET. Since the Long Wharf main stage is a three-quarter thrust stage and Bard’s production was staged on a proscenium (I think), the set has been rethought in a new and very interesting way. The entire office is placed on a turntable which at select times will turn very slowly. At this point, the director Daniel is not entirely certain when this will happen (he has a rough plan but this could change). He often sits in a rolling office chair and slowly “orbits” around the rehearsal room as the scene progresses, in an attempt to imagine what the revolve in actions would look like. Another major challenge is that actors entering from off stage have to enter from various points of the performance space which change depending on how the revolve is oriented in relation to everything else. It is all very confusing and I must applaud everyone for even having the guts to attempt it, especially since the actors won’t be able to work on the revolve until tech begins.

On another note the cast is amazing, and although I am not surprised of this, I still remain in awe. They are simply amazing to watch at work. All of them work differently. David Chandler (Stark) tells jokes and improves humor during a scene. When a carpenter was fixing a door during a run of a scene David acknowledged him, working him into the scene saying, “How are you Mr. Shauberger?” as if he was another character in the room. His comic skill isn’t an attempt to be distracting so much as the fact that his eyes and ears are open to EVERYTHING that is going on in the room. Nothing passes him by.

Another actor, Andrew Weems (Cooper) takes advantage of all opportunities as well. During his scene he accidentally spills some water on the floor. The PA (Anne) rushes to clean it up, but Andy shoos her away politely saying (”No, let me us it”) he removes a large handkerchief from his pocket (not a prop) and begins to wipe up the water and then using it to cool his face and neck. From that point on I see him working with this prop very effectively. What great things actors can discover if they simply keep their eyes open.