After a break of some four weeks, we are back in the rehearsal room for The Tempest. The show went well at The Carriageworks Theatre in Leeds back in March, and we have been re-rehearsing Blue Remembered Hills for our outdoor performance in the Lakes in June. But now we are back on Prospero's Island and running through the scenes.
In a momentary lapse of concentration someone spoke their lines in the Forest of Dean accent we use for BRH and we all fell about laughing. So now we have decided to do the whole run-through in the style of adults playing children!
This may seem like a frivolous waste of rehearsal time but, actually, it can be very useful as a way of hearing the lines in a fresh way. Changing the rhythm of delivery allows an actor to find new things in their lines, the others in the scene can react differently, and everyone 'lives' the text anew.
