Rehearsal 15.11.17

Today we were focusing on finishing blocking the play. We wanted to look at the senses scenes, and the last words scenes. These are both intricate scenes and require a lot of attention and detail.

As I don't take part in the senses scene, I was watching from the outside and the first few times it was ran, there a sense that the energy needed wasn't there. As more people got the hang of it then the scene definitely came together and had the pace and sensitivity needed to make it flow.
After the senses scene, I play "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" and the group sing it.

This song is about loving someone and following them even in death. The song uses both religious imagery and belief, and skepticism of religion, to a great combined effect: whatever waits, they’ll be together.  The chorus:

If Heaven and Hell decide that they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs
If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

A humorous and haunting visual: both Heaven and Hell have illuminated the NOs on their signs like cheap hotels, the writer and his love alone together as they “embark” into the great unknown of the world beyond. The meaning of the chorus revolves around the word “if” – if the afterlife isn’t as advertised by religion.
“Embarks” is a loaded word here, suggesting souls crossing the river Styx in Charon’s ferry. It helps juxtapose a classical, grayscale, ambiguous afterlife against the traditional Christian Heaven and Hell, neither of which will admit the writer and his love. The morality underpinning Catholicism’s teachings about God/love/death comes off as reductive.


After the song, there is a short conversation between Ev and God and then I come in as Death. In this scene, Death comes in to collect Everyman for the final reckoning and to finally kill him. He is so patronising and cocky in this scene which is such a huge contrast to the scene before as it Everyman reflecting on all the good things in his life. I really enjoyed the scene this week as I had a really productive time playing with the scene and playing with the other people in the scene.
I feel like I am really productively getting into my role and understanding my character.

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