tech and patience

Last night we had our first tech in the theater.
That means full sets and dealing with everything that has previously been make-believe and according to a line of either red or yellow tape, depending on which act I'm in and whether I enter on the 2nd floor (my room and balcony) or through the first floor.

These rehearsals are always long, and almost always frustrating--for me, at least. Because I've worked so hard for x number of weeks to feel comfortable with every little move that I make, and then all of a sudden- BAM! The stairs are rickety, there are more of them (than the tape had indicated previously), they are set apart at bigger levels, there is more space here, less space there, that exit needs to be totally re-timed, that entrance was way too late because I had to get there by climbing up to the 2nd floor from offstage via wobbly ladder....ahhhh---it's just never the same. And after the initial shock of having to actually be very 'present' physically as opposed to just continuing to 'do my thing' in terms of character development, voice, comfort, I can get frustrated with it very easily.

I think I've written about this before. Whether it was the underground lift into Queen of the night that shot me up in the air, the huge heels and double-y large costume for Olympia, the sitting onstage for 20 minutes because there was no entrance once the act started...
surprises everywhere.

I have to learn to be more patient, I know..but these nights somehow feel like it's back to square one...like- what was the point of staging something if now it totally doesn't work (well, until we retime, re-set, re-spike, etc).

At any rate, last night I got annoyed to the point of comedy.
When a scene that has been completely 'staged/blocked/choreographed' (Bricconi, birbante...) just falls apart onstage with the new cape, the new shaving cream, the new sheetmusic, the new everything...that it becomes hilarious.
We all just stopped and said--uh, can we do this again?
So we stumble our way through the staging again--this time not choking the Bartolo (as much), and all of our nerves of 'crazy' seem to wane a bit, as we understand that everyone is going through the same thing.

Yes, we have to re-spike, stop so that everyone knows where they have to be standing while the set rotates from inside to outside and then back to inside during the storm scene, to readjust everything that we have been 'used' to doing in the rehearsal space that is now flat out just not going to work here.

Tonight is tech-take-2.
It will go more smoothly, I'm sure.
As will the rest of the week leading up to the performances--and at that point, this post will seem so so long ago and irrelevant.

g