Well, and last night’s brush-up rehearsal went just about like brush-up rehearsals usually go. I arrive late, just in time to make my entrance as Poor Alfie. We made it through the scene without disaster, but without putting in a whole lot of effort. When I got to the point in my monologue where I skipped on Saturday, I thought to myself Oh, that’s where I skipped! Better not skip this time. Now, where am I? but made it through all right. Jenny was conserving energy and pampering what I think was a muscle pull, so she didn’t waltz during the ball, and she didn’t fully wail her aw-oh-wah-oh-aws. Steve completely corpsed at one point, I’ve no idea why. And we all got home early.
Brush-up rehearsals are an odd thing. It’s useful to have them, so we don’t go into Friday’s performance cold. Many of us (ahem) don’t run lines during the week, because we are luxuriating in not having to go to rehearsals for a few days, so it’s a good idea to have some sort of compulsory line-through. Some groups just do a line-through (that’s done with the cast just sitting around saying their lines, often at double-speed to get home faster), and some do something closer to a full dress rehearsal, and some just do a travesty, screwing around and inserting dirty jokes. I think what we did is just about right, going through it at the right speed, with the blocking, with no wigs or beards or makeup or costumes (except hats, we must have our hats) reminding ourselves of the lines and of the broad contours of the play, and getting ready to do it properly tonight.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.