Chris's Senior Project: John Proctor: Jan 23rd and 24th Rehearsals... and God's icy wind will blow...

Our Sunday rehearsal brought us near the end of Act 1 Scene 2. This rehearsal was a little more belabored than our previous rehearsals had been, but there was still a great deal of discovery and nice progress. In particular, Kayla and I got our first chance to really find the love between the two characters. Both of us commented to each other at the end of rehearsal how surprised we are by the success of our communication and mutual trust. I was also taken aback by the strength that Emily Perry found. It has been a really great experience working with these two very talented women. I'm still working on building my relationship with Hale; its a complicated one. In the interrogation bit Jason set the goal of building this seething disdain for him over the course of the questioning until it bubbles over. I'm still working to find it and embody it.

Tonights rehearsal concluded the blocking for 1.2, followed by a run of scene two, then a run of scene 1 that never reached completion due to time. In the process of blocking the final moments of scene 2, I continued to have even greater progress with Emily. She seemed to be really effected by our interaction, with really helped to facilitate my involvement with her and the scene. At the start I approached the scene with a resigned stoicism, which I think wasn't what Jason was quite expecting, but encouraged and helped me explore. I had a hard time verbalizing objectives with regards to Mary Warren. The lines in those two pages are pretty poetic and I approach them with a bit of apprehension for fear of over playing them. Jason encouraged me to "throw a boiling water in her face" with the lines, "My wife will not die for me". I love how physical the action ended up being. Jason continually seems to realize the impulses I had, but are either hesitant in acting out, or unaware of them on a conscious level.

We then moved to the first run of the entire scene 2. I was surprised at how nervous I was before running it; we had a little bit of an audience of company members waiting to rehearse scene 1. The run went well, though not as good as the scene had been throughout the rehearsals last week. Both Kayla and I felt it, as Emily Brooks and I felt it after the scene 1 run. Its to be expected. I was mostly concerned with remembering all the blocking and lines, but I had set the goal for myself of trying to live in the honest and subtle moments (as if on film) as well as noticing the shape of the scene in order to understand the arch of the first act. The tempo seemed to drag, which I blame on a lack of picking up cues, (duh).

Coming up is the blocking of 2.1 and moving into the courtroom scene. I'm approaching that wall of lines I haven't worked on yet and I'm getting a bit nervous the rehearsals won't go as smoothly or successfully for me as they have been. All and all i'm amazed at the progress I've made and that the company has made.