Scene Six: We worked a lot more on subtext and intentions with this scene. For example, when Jerry asks Emma if she received his letter okay and she responds with "of course. Miss Me?". Ollie had directed for the line "miss me?" to sound slightly less flirtatious and a bit more cautious - as if Emma is desperately trying to change the subject away from the topic of Torcello. We have also added a bit set into our play - but thankfully this additional set doesn't move! We have decided that we shall use the two book flats positioned in front of the stage on the floor (one on either side). The purpose of these is to create our own wings: they provide places for the characters who are not on stage to go, provide hidden entrances and exits and enable us to put props on the stage behind them for ease of access.
Scene Seven: As this is one of the few scenes that follows chronologically from the scene before, I wanted the subtext to be really clear - at this point Robert knows about the affair, but Jerry doesn't know that he knows. I directed Ollie to be a bit bitter on the line "we haven't played for years", when he is referring to playing squash. My intention here was to show a deeper meaning to something that could sound quite friendly - the reason that they haven't been able to play squash for years is because Jerry has been spending his time with Emma for years. My directions were mainly to do with finding deeper meanings for Robert and showing Jerry's feelings. The movement is fine as it is supposed to be a very static scene (due to the restaurant setting).
Scene Eight: Our blocking changes slightly for this scene as we thought about our flat positioning. By having flats, we have avoided potentially using a dodgy split screen - our piece feels really naturalistic as we have imagined that my kitchen is behind the flat, so I say my lines from back there. The flats also enable me to put an apron on during the scene before and to then take it off again when I re-appear the second time in this scene.
Scene Nine: Our main focus of this scene was the very end with Robert comes in. We want to make Robert seem quite likeable at this point and Jerry seem horrible (contrasting to how we hope our audience feels about these characters at the beginning). We needed to work on the section of stage directions to ensure we get our timing right for Robert's entrance. To make Robert seem more likeable, we have decided that he shall almost laugh at Jerry and be completely understanding. He now puts his arm around me to show the audience that Robert does love Emma and that their marriage used to be idyllic until Jerry pursued a relationship with her. We worked on a position at the end - we knew that Robert had to go to leave first and then be followed by Emma, who could then be stopped by Jerry. We wanted this freeze frame to be symbolic so I suggested that I had my head toward Robert but my heart facing Jerry, to show Emma as being torn between the two men. I then developed this further by using a question we asked from the very start: did Robert know about the pair from the beginning? Therefore, I thought about using the mirror - Robert could go to look in it to sort his hair, so the audience is left questioning whether Robert saw them or not.
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