Today we ran the first four scenes of the play. We had done a couple of them before, in date order, but we decided to run them in the order of the play.
Scene One: We decided to run this scene as if Emma and Jerry are very awkward. The only movement that was in the scene is when Jerry goes to the bar and returns again. However, although the fact that they were sitting fairly still throughout made it quite tense, we decided that we should add a little bit more movement in it to break it up a little bit. We decided that my character, specifically, should change positions quite a lot to show that she is uncomfortable and doesn't know where she stands - as she doesn't really know what she wants (though it is evident that they still have feelings for each other). For my line, "are you jealous?", I shall be a bit flirtatious as if to attempt to break the ice. I believe she wants Jerry to be jealous as she does miss him - she has lost her husband and as lost the man she had an affair with for seven years, and is now going out with Casey on the rebound.
Scene Two: This scene is set in Jerry's house, and shows an emotional meeting between Jerry and Robert. Pinter has written all of his dialogue in a very conversational way (by including fillers, false starts and disjointed constructions), thus suggesting he wants his plays to be performed very naturalistically. I directed this scene so it went on a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. I wanted the scene to be quite awkward and tense between them to start, to make Jerry feel more on-edge. I liked how Robert was quite angry at the beginning of this scene as it forms a contrast to the end of this scene. The first time Ollie said the line "don't call me a bastard Jerry", he said it as if he was really angry - he really raised his voice. I then re-directed this line and got him to say the line in quite a bitter way - I got him to say this line through his teeth, in a lower tone and quite quiet. The purpose of this is to show that Robert is warning him on what he says - Robert is probably suggesting that it's best off that Jerry doesn't call Robert a "bastard" for not telling him, when Jerry has had an affair with his wife for seven years. We discussed the line "we used to like each other" and who we thought "we" was. I suggested that they are both referring to other people. I believe Jerry is saying that line as if to try and justify his actions - he is trying to say to Robert that he didn't just get with Emma for the hell of it, and they did in fact have strong feelings for each other so he couldn't help it. I wanted Ollie to say the line as if he was calming Jerry down by stating that they are still friends. The line "I bumped into old Casey the other day. I think he's having an affair with my wife" is used to relieve the tension. I wanted Ollie to say the line in a way that breaks the tension, as I reminded them that despite everything that has gone on, Robert and Jerry are best friends - Robert continued seeing Jerry and didn't say anything about the affair.
Scene Three: When we first tried this scene, we were a bit tense and awkward with each other. I had played the scene before as I was reluctant to end the affair. However, Ollie gave us the direction to think as if we had had a massive argument just prior to this conversation. This made our scene really tense to begin with. We imagined what we would have been saying before this scene - as Jerry's first line is "what do you want to do then?", we agreed that Jerry had been giving lots of suggestions on what to do, but Emma kept disagreeing with everything he had said. We have agreed that at some point in the near future, we shall all agree where things are in the flat, so we can paint the scene for the audience.
Scene Four: We had already worked on this scene before but decided to run it so we ensured that we had remembered what we had directed.
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