Directing (5) - Scenes Seven, Eight and Nine

Today's lesson:   In today's lesson we decided that we would start from the end of the play and work backwards, so that we were doing our scenes in date order. Therefore we started with scene nine and worked backwards to scene seven. We did these scenes a couple of times each as we were workshopping them. We focussed on intentions and what each character knew at what point - so we kept referring back to the timeline we made.

Scene Nine:   In this scene, Jerry confesses his love for Emma. He is drunk and sitting in her bedroom waiting for her to come in so he can talk to her. We had done this scene before, but hadn't done the ending of it. The kissing section is supposed to be quite awkward, as it is not supposed to happen. Jerry is completely besotted with Emma and has built up enough confidence (through drinking) to try and kiss her. Emma does have feelings for Jerry and probably does want this to happen deep-down, but knows it must not because of her husband, so laughingly pushes Jerry away between his attempts. When Ollie comes in and Jerry tells him that he is way complementing Emma's looks, Ollie places his hand on my shoulder on the line "quite right" - as if to say that he agrees and he too loves his wife, but also to show that he is protective. We wanted to leave this scene in a way that the audience isn't sure if Robert spotted them together and suspected anything at this time or not.

Scene Eight:   In this scene, Emma and Jerry are in their flat and Emma reveals to him that she is pregnant, but says that it is with her husband's child. We hadn't done this scene before today so we discussed how they would both be feeling. We agreed that the affair started just three years prior to this (as in 1973 Emma confesses she's been having the affair for five years), so they may not have had the flat very long. We needed to see that they are very comfortable in each other's company and are clearly more than friends - the audience needs to see that they are really close - throughout the play we want the audience to be wanting them to last, though at times realising how wrong it is and hoping that they don't! We tried the beginning of the scene in a couple of ways to see how we would like to perform it. We saw two different meanings in Emma's line "I'm making this stew. It'll be hours". Our first thought was that she is implying that they have time to do whatever they like - therefore we tried the scene as quite flirtatious. However, with what happens at the end of the scene (Emma revealing that she is pregnant), we decided that we should perform the scene as if I am quite anxious throughout as I am working out how to tell Jerry. This worked better for the scene. On the second page of the scene I get quite panicky about the thought of Judith knowing about the affair, but Jerry is quite confident and a bit arrogant when saying that she doesn't and couldn't know. We brought out the comedy in Lewis's section about getting annoyed with the fact the Judith has an admirer and goes out for drinks with him. This is funny because it is so ironic and hypercritical - we got Lewis to be really irritated with this to make it funnier. I am a little flirtatious on the line "I have an admirer" as if I am attempting to calm Jerry down a bit. The other line we really focussed on was the line "I'm pregnant". We spent time on this line because we didn't want it to sound really cheesy so, for this reason, I didn't emphasise the word "pregnant", and instead jumped in with the part "it was when you were in America" - as I needed to quickly reassure Jerry that I was carrying my husband's child and not his.

Scene Seven:   Lewis and Ollie worked on the seventh scene. This scene is set in a restaurant in 1973, after Emma and Robert's trip to Venice, and after Emma has spoken to Jerry about her holiday. We worked on making Robert quite arrogant in this scene - we wanted him to come across as more cultured than Jerry (to appear more dominant and powerful), but also as arrogant and rude (so the audience almost worries for Jerry and wants him to be with Emma at this point). We presented Robert as rude by making him dismissive of the waiter and trying to get rid of him. When staging this scene, I reminded the boys that Robert knows about the affair at this point, but Jerry doesn't know that Robert knows. I wanted Ollie to really play about with Lewis's emotions during this scene - i.e. try and make him be on the edge of his seat, panicking, and also try to make him feel a bit guilty at times too. For example, when Ollie asks "how's Judith?", he really emphasises the "th" of this to emphasise that Jerry has a wife. Another section where Robert really toys with Jerry is the part where he talks about Emma and Jerry having a lot in common and also when he asks "don't you think it gives Emma a thrill?".