Week 1 - 17th to 19th January

This was our first rehearsal of Wuthering Heights, so we have begun table work. It’s important to do ample table work before heading straight into the play on its feet so you can get a proper understanding of plot, structure and character. Doing a cast read through is so important also as it’s the first time we all would’ve heard the play out loud properly. When doing a read through you usually notice elements within the text you didn’t originally notice when reading it in your head for the first time. The read through as a cast really helped me to understand character relationships, and my character’s true involvement in the play. Whilst doing the read through I noticed that Nelly isn’t as innocent as I thought she was and she has quite a judgmental attitude towards Cathy, particular in parts where she is invading Cathy’s personal life and Cathy has told her to stay out of it. Nelly is very much a shape-shifter of a character and changes quite a bit depending on who she is with. An overriding question that was in my mind throughout the read through was are Nelly’s actions a repercussion of the actions of others around her or vice versa? Also whilst reading it we had large posters where we kept track of all the locations and time settings of the play, as it can get confusing due to all the flashbacks throughout the play. We also had a facts and questions poster, which is one of Katie Mitchell’s techniques and as we were reading the play we would go up and write particular things that stood out to us about our character. This was beneficial as we could see everyone’s perspective on their character, and allowed us to start exploring the possibilities of our characters. But it was also helpful to write down simple things, such as Frances dies and we also put the page number so we could reference to it. On the next slide I have put photos of these posters and they will remain up in our rehearsal room and we can continue to add to it throughout the process.

After finishing the read through we began discussing what we want to get out of this rehearsal process and what we want it to be:

• Working close to a professional environment

• Having a brave environment

• Allowing each other to be vulnerable in the space and on stage

• Having patience

• Having trust among the cast

• Respecting people’s boundaries

• Intimacy training

• Having focus and connection as an ensemble

• Finding the detail

• Listening to each other and responding

• Allow relationships to grow and build

• Trust the process

• Leaving the personal problems at the door

• Being honest and open

• Be open to extra rehearsals outside of rehearsal time

Having this discussion was so important before starting the rehearsal process, as you establish almost a code of conduct that everyone can follow and everyone is on the same page. The first few rehearsals with a new company is all about establishing a safe environment where everyone’s opinions are considered, and this discussion implemented that.

This conversation then lead onto a discussion about professionalism and what it mean to you:

• Communication is key

• Catering to everyone’s needs

• Being respectful

• Mutual respect

• Don’t be late

• Punctuality

• Being present

• Having discipline

• Boundaries

• Giving 100%

• Laughing with each other not at each other

Discussing professionalism is really important, especially as this is a fully fledged production in collaboration with PA, so it was vital that we discussed what it actually means to be professional. This has all been written up and put up on our wall in the rehearsal room, that way we are constantly reminded of how we approach the rehearsal space and how we act in it. Similar to the discussion we had on how we want the rehearsal process to be, this allowed us to be on the same page and have a shared understanding.

After discussing professionalism and what we wanted the rehearsal process to be, we then started exploring themes in the play and making links between the themes and the lines in the play. This table work that we are currently doing is super important to do before we begin getting the play up on its feet. Based off the themes we discussed we created a physical theatre piece, we focused on the struggle of women and how inferior they were to men. We explored how women must be submissive and consider how they marry differently to men. Cathy decides to marry Edgar Linton, because Heathcliff financially wasn’t enough, women had to view marriage as a financial proposal rather than something based on emotion and love. It was also interesting to see how everyone else interpreted the different themes and how they presented it. After sharing the pieces we descended into a discussion of the themes and how it affects the characters in the play, we also began making links from the play to modern day, particularly mental health. Mental health is an overriding theme throughout the play particularly with Cathy and Heathcliff, we also discussed what might have caused them to have such different views on the world. We also discussed perspective and we always must consider the fact that this whole story is from nelly’s perspective so it has the possibility to be dramatised or twisted.

Today’s lesson goal was to work our way through the basic of intimacy training and practices that we are going to put in place during our rehearsal to make sure it is a safe environment. We to begin with discussed what the different roles there are in the intimacy training world. An intimacy director works for stage and theatre however an Intimacy Coordinator works in tv and film. As we are, obviously creating a play, we looked in the role of an intimacy director; they are almost the communicator between the director and actor and their job is to create a step by step choreographed scene. There is a famous intimacy coordinator, Ita O’brian who I will look into for further research in how she works and what her role in detail entails. We looked at phrases used by Christina, the intimacy director we will have a session with: ‘Better is Better’ and ‘passion fades but choreography is forever.’ These two phrases to essentially capture what intimacy training is and why we do it. We then went on trying out body mapping with the red, amber and green system. Pointing out which parts of our bodies were green (okay to touch, amber (okay to touch only in a scene) and red (please don’t touch me there at all.) This practice is a simple and effective way of making sure that everyone is aware of how comfortable they are and their boundaries.

We also today began exploring our character’s by creating large mind map character profiles. This was incredibly useful for me as it was great to just blurt out all the thoughts I had about Nelly onto paper and also focusing on small niche details I have found out about her, through the first read through and table work. I noticed there were many questions written on there about Nelly that I am yet to discover or never will discover. I also got to discuss with the two other actors playing Nelly and debate/discuss our opinions of her thus far.