From Rebecca Pearcy

Week 3

Woo week off! PARTY!

No, of course, much revision commenced in this week. Lines are nearly all learnt, wahoo!

As Arcadia is split into two different time periods; 1809-1812 and present day, the rehearsals have been divided accordingly. The two time periods come together in the last scene, of course they do not acknowledge one another, that would be weird, but the play ends in one big orgasmic dance. (Am I allowed to say that on here... orgasmic... Rick edit as you see fit.)

I spent the majority of this week engaged in a TV series that I found in the library entitled Regency. It was set in England and put five young men and five young women in the time of the regency and then there were five chaperones that looked after the women. By the end of the series the women were meant to be engaged to be married to their correct counterparts, in wealth and status. It was fabulous! It had a hermit and a hermitage with the sign ‘Et in Arcadia ego’ and displayed and described all the correct ways that men and women were meant to behave at this time. It was just fabulous.

Week 4

Time to put the last scene on its feet! This is the scene where both time periods interject and it becomes ever so confusing as there are half a dozen people on stage but you can not look at half of them as they are from a different time period. We started by rehearsing with just our time period.

This became slightly confusing as your cue is often from a modern aged character and they were not there at the beginning of the week and so you waited for a cue that never came. Not only that but the whole scene is underscored by a waltz and so when it came to waltz, it was a bit odd not to be waltzing to music.

Anyway, minus the confusion, the last scene is certainly one to get excited about. Not only does it explain the entire play and give all the answers to all the questions that occur throughout the production it contains moments of pure ecstasy and I get to beat Gareth with a book! I finally get to hit someone! See, I knew Thomasina was violent.

I noticed this week that I am not doing an RP accent at all. Well, slightly, but not to the limit that I could be. I suppose I had briefly forgotten how to do one. But then there was that moment of recognition and realisation when it hit me, that I was just doing a more refined version of my own accent and not the correct RP. Now I have the task to try and produce an RP accent in a higher pitched voice, something I find very difficult to accomplish as for some strange reason I always talk really low when imitating the queen’s language. You would think altering the pitch would not be a problem, obviously for my sharp mind it is.

It was ever so exciting to finally rehearse with the modern day cast. How sad am I? But it was! We had no idea what the other period were doing and how they were progressing, so it was fun to finally get to work together as one big group. I had presumed I would find it really amusing to have characters sitting next to me that I was not allowed to acknowledge. So amusing in fact that I would burst into fits of laughter throughout the rehearsal. But it was not as distracting as I first thought it was going to be. I suppose this was because I was concentrating so hard on where my cue line would come in that I had blocked out the strangeness of having Lisa Thomas sitting next to me and Shayne pounding on the table and screwing up my work, trying to find the heat exchange diagram I had drawn.

This is also the scene where Septimus (tutor) and Thomasina (pupil) get a little too close... wink wink nudge nudge. Oooo its going to get intense, romantic and oh so sad! I may just get carried away and cry over the extremely sad ending of my character. I won’t cry over the beauty of Stoppards’ writing but over my own selfish involvement with the character I play. I do not want to say what happens to her because then I give away a huge part of the story. Oh but it’s so sad!

Anyway, moving on. YAY!!! Things are beginning to feel good and everyone is making great progress. Septimus and I are starting to get somewhere and things are gradually improving. I must remember that I am thirteen not eight and that I am a lovely child and not a spoilt bitch. For some strange reason when I try too hard, I turn into a spoilt bitch on stage. So, my philosophy is, do not try, just say the lines.

I think one of my favourite scenes, has to be scene three. And it’s the part where I leave the stage, and, thank you Ave, I get too smack into Cody, ha! Violence, yes! The rest of scene three is just amusing and I think Adam, Kody and Mark do a great job here. I just sit in the back of the rehearsal room and chuckle to myself. I also have to admit I love my mummy, Mrs Croom, in real life. She is such a cool mum! But why is she so harsh in the play. I just want to be loved mummy, please take notice of me! How harsh is it that in the 19th Century, mothers and daughters had no connection or interaction.

I had a maths class with Dr Perry, a maths genius, this week. I thought that I understood everything but I began to doubt myself and so I needed to be showed exactly what an iterated algorithm is. Dr Perry assured my suspicions and even said that my theory of how Thomasina got the equation for how to draw a leaf by a mathematical equation maybe right! See, I am a genius. He is going to research and explore my theory and get back to me about whether I really am the genius of the play. I will not disclose my theory as I could be classified as a genius and so I am going to keep it secret just in case anyone tries to take credit for my discovery.

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