“OK,
let’s start blocking,” said the director of my play ‘According to Claudia’.
“Right,”
I said. As assistant director I was keen to get started. Problem was, I only
had a vague idea of what blocking a play meant. I knew it was one of the things
you did before rehearsals start. Working out where the actors move and stand when
they deliver their lines. That can’t be too hard, surely? Anyway, hadn’t I put
it all in the stage directions when I wrote the play?
Charlotte stands up and pours herself
a glass of sherry.
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| Plan of the set for 'According to Claudia' |
|
But
where was the chair she was sitting in – and where was the sherry?
The whole
set as I had envisioned it when writing had been flipped horizontally when the set designer created his plans. The
kitchen was now where I had imagined the door to the hallway and the rest of
the house. So, the dining table was in a different place as were the sofa and
armchair. The bay window had become French windows making another place for the
actors to enter and exit - something I didn't have in my original script.
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| Sketch of the set for 'According to Claudia' |
Luckily,
the play’s director (who also happens to be my wife, Caroline) has tons of
experience of directing and acting in plays at Newport’s 400-seat Dolman Theatre.
So, once we had a plan of the set we were able to sit down and go through the
script scene by scene, working out where the actors should be.
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| Toy figures stood in for the real cast! |
To
make life easier I used toy figures to represent each member of the cast.
Claudia herself would be played by Lara Croft, Micky the former gangster by a
Hamburglar figure I'd had with a MacDonald’s happy meal. Various items
represented the furniture the actors would be sitting on and walking around.
Things
I discovered:
It’s useful to remember which is upstage (the back) and which is downstage (the front)
Ditto stage left and stage right (it’s the actors’ left and right – the opposite of the audience’s)
It’s
useful to remember which is upstage (the back) and which is downstage (the
front)
Use the whole stage - it's your canvas!
- Think like a photographer when grouping actors together so that it makes a good composition for the audience to view.
- Don’t let one actor “mask” another from the audience by standing in front of them.
And,
as Caroline pointed out, it’s one thing to block the play by writing notes on a
script but when we go through these moves with real people in a rehearsal room
the chances are they’ll change.
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Group actors as if composing a photograph
(PHOTO: PHIL MANSELL) |
And
change they did. People felt – and looked - uncomfortable in certain places. So
we changed their position. Sometimes the actors had very good suggestions as to
when and where they should move. (Occasionally, even I came up with a good idea
for a move! )
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To sit in the chair or on the arm?
(PHOTO: PHIL MANSELL) |
Also,
little things like sitting on the arm of a chair rather than in the chair
itself can make a big difference to how an actor delivers their lines.
I
also discovered that people need a reason to go to a certain part of the set.
My script had:
Charlotte enters and goes to look at her
painting on the easel, before sitting at the breakfast table.
But
this looked totally unnatural - she was going out of her way to look at the painting. So we gave her a reason to go to the easel, which
was upstage, by giving her some paint brushes to take there. Then she could admire her
handiwork - and having done so, move across to have breakfast.
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Rehearsing 'According to Claudia'
(PHOTO: PHIL MANSELL) |
We’ve
now completed the blocking of the play with the actors who have all scribbled
their moves down in their copy of the script. On a certain line, for example,
they will pick up a glass of wine and move across the stage to sit in a chair. Props, I soon found out, are a great way for actors to remember lines. Picking up a book - or even a gun! - can act as a mental cue for the actor as to which line they have to deliver next.
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Sometimes the actors know best about where to be on stage.
(PHOTO: PHIL MANSELL) |
Although
I’ve assisted on one act plays I’ve written before, these have always been quite simple to stage. Working on a two act play
with a bigger cast is proving a more challenging and rewarding experience. One other thing I've learned - having a really good cast makes a big difference!
Read about how my play is being taken from page to stage: http://goo.gl/lAFGMc
