Directing (9) - Scenes 1 & 2

Scene One:   Ollie directed scene one again today, as Lewis and I had just worked on it by ourselves previously. Below is what we established in this lesson for scene one:

• The opening of the scene:   Ollie directed us to have a longer pause between Lewis sitting down and his first line. This is to make the scene more awkward initially. 
• Movement:   Ollie wanted us both to move about a little bit during the scene. We didn't really move a lot the first time we did it, so it was a bit static, so we did the scene with more movement. Therefore we tried to use our props more. We put a table in between us so we could get our spacing right. The table altered how we sat and moved. We used our glasses more to fiddle with to show our awkwardness. 
• Emma's intentions:   We discussed Emma's intentions, and whether she should be flirty or not. I personally think she shouldn't be too flirty initially, as she doesn't really know what she wants and it is awkward between them. 
• "Darling":   We discussed the purpose of the "darling" line. Lewis didn't really see the relevance of this line, but we realised that Jerry and Emma call each other this on earlier in the play (in terms of years). We think that the purpose of this was to show that Jerry has almost slipped back in to old habits. 
• Casey:  Ollie got me to do a little laugh on the line "what" after "I hear you're seeing a bit of Casey". This was to show that my character doesn't really want to talk about Casey, which is true as she doesn't give any information away.

Scene Two:   I directed the second scene today as I am not in it. I had already directed this scene when Tom stood in for Lewis, so Ollie already knew how I wanted the scene to be portrayed - all I had to do was put Lewis into it and inform him on what we had worked on previously. For example, we went over the meaning of the line "we used to like each other" - that I feel Jerry is referring to himself and Emma, and is trying to justify his actions. I also felt that there should be a bit more movement in this scene, as I thought it was quite static for a heated discussion. Therefore, Lewis shifted around in his seat a lot to show how awkward and uncomfortable he felt, whilst Ollie simply followed the stage directions, and was quite bold with his moves to show that he is comfortable and confident in himself.

Questions:   We questioned whether Robert actually hit Emma or if he was just saying this. This was an important question to think of an answer to, as not only affect what the audience thinks of the characters and their situations, but it would also alter how we play our characters. We agreed that Robert was just saying this to try and get a reaction out of Jerry - either to get him to be angry so everything is then out in the open and they can resolve it all, or to make Jerry feel less bad about the affair. Another point we came up with was that Casey's name is mentioned a lot in the second scene. We felt that Robert brought him up not to make Jerry hurt more, but as if to say that they are both ex's of Emma's now, so they should both be annoyed at Casey and not each other.