First Impressions

First impressions count - even with a script.  I don't mean your basic mistakes like using the wrong format, using different colours for characters or writing in crayon - it can be a much smaller thing.  Like how you describe your play.
I have a little quandary - I'm debating with myself - I'm procrastinating... How should I, if I should, describe a play?  The play is a comedy.  This should be indicated by the content, in the sense that it is funny.  I know this because at a read through people laughed, a lot, so I'm not delusional.  (Unless I am delusional in that they all actually sat in silence and this is a false memory / dream.)  However, readers of the play have - in feedback - seemed to have missed this point.  One response went something like this: such and such a scene was deeply moving.  I'm not going to describe the scene, but imagine saying that an episode of The Two Ronnies was deeply moving and you'll get the idea of the absurdity of the response.  Somehow the fact that the situation and characters are in no way particularly normal, comic in fact, doesn't seem to have come across.  It's not even that readers don't like it or don't find it funny (hell, people have different funny bones) - it is the failure to identify that it was a comedy at all that terrifies me.  I know the play is partly satirical, but please - dear [insert deity] - don't tell me people think it's a document of truth - that it mirrors the readers lives so much that it might as well be verbatim.  Kill me now if this is so.
So, do I point out to readers that it is a comedy?  I've put this question up on facebook and twitter and (as usual with actual questions rather than silly jokes) no one has said a damn thing in response.  (I love my followers - they're so unresponsive.  They're probably all closet trolls who just can't quite summon the will to reply with something rude.  Can't even be bothered to unfollow me.  Lazy sods.)
The obvious reason not to add an epithet is it sets one up for a fall.  A comedy (once identified) has to be funny, and that might be setting myself up for failure.  It's not as bad as putting it down as 'an hilarious comedy', which is the code phrase for 'crock of shit'.  I toyed briefly with a description - 'a moral comedy, without morals' - which fits the play well.  And then I realised it was a.) wanky bollocks and b.) even more off putting than 'an hilarious comedy' - so that one bit the dust quite quickly.
Perhaps, as it does have serious themes hidden beneath the comedic surface, I should call it 'a dramatic comedy', 'a comedic drama' or 'a comedy drama' - but everyone knows 'comedy drama' is what you call comedies that both aren't funny or particularly dramatic.  Another code phrase for 'crock of shit' then.
It could be worse - there are some people who label their work 'a play' (no shit Sherlock) as an offering to the gods of the patently fucking obvious.
The case against calling it 'a comedy' is less that it's nature is failing to get across to readers (the phrase 'a comedy' is more about marketing for an actual production, clearly selling the goods to the public) but that in the eyes of a reader 'a comedy' lessens it's importance.  Comedy, though big business, is not regarded as important (especially in theatre) as tragedy and it's modern offspring.  I look up to tragedy, comedy knows it's place.  So, perhaps missing that the play is a comedy could be my biggest bonus.  I look forward to earnest German productions where the whole mess of silliness is treated with the utmost seriousness and there isn't a titter to be heard throughout.  Except for me, of course, sitting in the stalls and laughing my head off at how easily people miss the point.
So - on discussing it with myself - I'm not going to call it a comedy then.  Right, now that's decided, I can actually have a look at the actual play...

Endgame

We're into the last two weeks of rehearsals now - that is prior to the last tryouts.  That means everyday a full run of both The Natural History of Trolls and GhoStoryteller, plus other activity, like publicity work and eating.  Today, after the two runs, I explored one short speech, which I'm a little worried about.  It's mostly fine but there is a noise I have to make during it which is troublesome.  It's a complicated noise to make, technically, and I got really good at it for the Summer.  Unfortunately, at the New Wimbledon Studio, after the first night the sound would not come.  The cast all said to me on the second night: "what happened?"  I fear that it's a sound that only works when my voice isn't grounded.  After a few weeks rehearsal and performance the voice tends to drop a tad, to be properly warmed up for the duration - this is why over time old actors and vicars sound very fruity.  This year I have been performing far less than usual and so was able to find this sound - now that I'm back up to speed, it might not come out to play.  But I am working on it - I won't give up - because it sounds positively weird if I get it right.

Troll with Georgina Blackledge

This last week was spent with my lovely cast for Trolls, who've been fabulous in comparison with my own confused burblings.  During the rehearsals I took a few pictures - just compare the glamour between the others and myself.  I look a wreak because I spend most of the rehearsal time scratching my head, pulling my thinning hair and pulling at my face, in between taking my glasses on and off.  I also find that I don't sleep the night before a rehearsal, a kind of Christmas time excitement, and fear that I'll oversleep and turn up late to rehearsal.
I actually enjoy rehearsing with other people, but I can be a little indecisive at the first few rehearsals.  I'll make a whole list of ideas and then slowly dismiss them as we go along, till I have some idea where we're going.  And then I'll talk a lot about stuff that is almost to do with the piece, but not quite.  Like unfortunate subtexts.

Sophie Morris-Sheppard with Troll

Actors love subtext.  They love it so much that sometimes they forget the sub part of it.  They love to identify the subtext and then play it, over and above the text.  Directors sometimes do this as well - Jonathan Miller springs immediately to mind.  The thing about storytelling is that, though the piece will have a subtext (and boy have I found one or two interesting ones in Trolls) the performer usually doesn't - because they aren't a character, they aren't feeding off the traditional inner life.  Some actors can't cope with this very well and insist on hunting shadows that are not there - luckily my lovely cast do not do such things.
I, however, keep stopping rehearsals to point out a resonance in a line I hadn't noticed before.  It doesn't help because it's a resonance I want suppressed, but it does make me chuckle and I can't resist pointing out something amusing.  Along with any mistake in the text that I've only just noticed.
So, roughly speaking, I'm a rambling, shambling mess at present - but I don't think I'd do it any other way.  The work seems to be good, even if I'm not looking or sounding my best.  I get to spend many hours with lovely, professional people and so too, hopefully, will you - when you come and see the show, again and again and again...
In two weeks time the last tryouts will be over, it'll be eyes down for London.  We'll know once and for all what needs to change, what needs to remain the same.  Then the fun really begins.

Troll at Work

Milk Bottle Productions Presents...

STORYTELLER

The Natural History of Trolls

Written and Performed by Robert Crighton, plus Special Guests

SUFFOLK TRYOUT -

Sunday 20^th November at 7.30pm

Tickets £7 / £6 Friends of the Quay

The Quay Theatre, Quay Lane, Sudbury

Box Office: 01787 374 745

LONDON RUN - 
Tuesday 29^th November to Friday 23^rd December 2011

Tickets £12 / £10 concessions

Tuesday to Saturday starts at 7.30pm – doors open 7.15pm.  Sunday at 7pm, doors open 6.45pm.

Box Office: 020 8932 4747

Barons Court Theatre, “The Curtain’s Up”, 28A Comeragh Road W14

Nearest Tube:  Barons Court (Piccadilly/District Lines)